Trainer FAQ · April 2026

Will I get banned?

Honest answer from the engineer who runs the bot fleet. No marketing, no hand-waving — just what we actually see.

This is the most common question we receive, and it deserves a direct answer. Across every year we've been running this fleet, no member has reported account action from receiving a properly-built Pokemon out of our bots. The trades that cause real problems are the ones with invalid construction — a move the species cannot legally learn, an encounter location that doesn't exist for that game, or a ribbon that doesn't match the Pokemon's history. Catching those failures before any trade leaves the fleet is where the majority of our engineering effort goes.

— Quilava156, founder · April 29, 2026

Two questions, not one

When people ask "is this safe," they're usually mashing two separate questions together:

Question A: Will Nintendo ban my Switch or my account? Realistically, no — provided the Pokemon you receive is internally consistent. Game cartridges and Nintendo's online service are looking for cheating during competitive play, account hijacking, and obviously broken data. A legal-by-PKHeX-standards Pokemon doesn't trip any of those alarms.

Question B: Will the Pokemon I receive actually work in-game? This is the harder one, and where most of the actual pain happens. A traded Pokemon can be technically "valid" but still fail to transfer to Pokemon HOME, or fail an in-game Trainer Card check, or refuse to participate in Tera Raids. Different games run different validators, and validators get tighter every patch.

Where we put our energy. Question A is mostly a non-issue if you're not requesting absurd things. Question B is where 99% of "is this safe" really lives — and it's the question we actually solve at our end with PKHeX-driven validation.

Per-game reality check

Some games are more forgiving than others. Here's how we'd grade each one based on hands-on operation across our fleet:

Pokemon Legends: Z-A

Newest game in our lineup. We deploy PKHeX patches the day they ship — the Sec shiny Volcanion patch went live across all four Z-A bots within an hour of release.

A · Clean

Scarlet · Violet

Forgiving online play, robust PKHeX support for Tera Types and Marks. Paradox forms and DLC encounters all validate cleanly.

A · Clean

Brilliant Diamond · Shining Pearl

Permissive validators. Underground encounters, Manaphy egg, and HOME-imported Pokemon all flow smoothly through the trade pipeline.

A · Clean

Sword · Shield

Strictest validation we work with. Gigantamax flag, Hidden Ability checks, and Mark eligibility get rejected fast — but our system catches all of these before the trade fires.

B · Strict

Legends: Arceus

Short-lived online window meant fewer documented issues. Alpha tags and Hisuian forms validate when generated with proper Grit Values and met data.

A · Clean

Let's Go Pikachu · Eevee

Older, narrower validation logic. We've seen accounts catch flags historically, but only on extreme illegality — clean traded Pokemon out of our fleet have shown no problems.

B+ · Watch

What our pipeline actually does

This is the part that makes the difference. Most other trade hubs assemble a Pokemon and hope it passes. We assume it'll fail and engineer around that:

Parse the request, reject if obviously broken

Showdown set arrives. We immediately check it against PKHeX's encounter database. Impossible combinations (shiny Arceus, Mew with Premier Ribbon, etc.) are rejected at the request stage — before we waste a queue slot.

Locate a real-world encounter source

For every species we identify a legitimate origin path: a wild encounter, a static event, a gift, a Mystery Gift wondercard, a HOME-simulated wondercard. The Pokemon's data is built to match that path exactly — same met-location, same met-level, same encounter type.

Construct, then re-validate

Once the data is built, it goes back through PKHeX's validator. Anything marked Invalid gets rejected before it touches the Switch. Members never see a known-illegal Pokemon — period.

Stay current with PKHeX patches

Whenever the Pokemon community publishes a PKHeX update — including patches from contributors like Sec — we ship it across the fleet within hours. Tuesday's shiny Volcanion drop went live within 60 minutes of release.

HOME-aware routing for cross-game species

Pokemon that travel through HOME (GO transfers, cross-gen legendaries, mythicals) need HOME-format wondercards — not just in-game encounter data. We build to HOME's schema specifically so the Pokemon survives the trip back into HOME after trade.

Things that trip a validator

If you build your own Pokemon at home and want to know what to avoid: these are the categories of mistake that get flagged. Our pipeline catches all of these — but if you're DIY-ing, watch for them.

Move set

Untouchable moves

A move the species can't legally know in this game — wrong tutor, wrong egg parent chain, or post-evolution moves on an egg-hatched Pokemon.

Origin

Met-data inconsistency

Met-location that doesn't exist in the destination game, met-level that's impossible for the encounter type, or game-of-origin that contradicts the species.

RNG

PID / EC / IV math

The Personal ID, Encryption Constant, and IVs are mathematically related. Bad construction breaks the relationship — a fingerprint validators check.

Decoration

Ribbon / Mark mismatch

Event-only ribbons paired with non-event Pokemon. Marks from a generation the species was never available in. Easy way to fail a check.

Shiny

Shiny-locked species

Some species are coded to never appear shiny in their game. A "shiny" version with no event distribution history fails immediately. Magearna, Pecharunt, Arceus, etc.

Bounds

Stat / level overflows

EV total over 510, single IV over 31, level over 100, friendship outside 0–255. Boundary checks are the first thing every validator runs.

Your trainer checklist

Whether you're trading with us or anywhere else, these habits keep you out of trouble:

1
Don't request impossible things.A "shiny Arceus" or "Master Ball Mythical with no event history" is going to fail no matter who builds it. Ask for what's legitimately possible — there's a lot of room there.
2
Keep a clean recipient account.If your boxes are full of obviously-broken Pokemon, fix that first. Account-level health matters more than any single trade.
3
Test in HOME early.HOME has the strictest validators in the entire ecosystem. If a traded Pokemon won't transfer to HOME, that's the issue to chase — not a ban risk.
4
Match your Discord across services.If your subscriber Discord and your trade-in Discord are different accounts, your tier perks won't apply. Unrelated to ban risk but ruins the experience.
5
If something feels weird, ask.We'd rather fix a bad trade than have you guess. Ping us in #support and we'll re-build with corrected data.

What people actually ask

Has anyone ever been banned from receiving a Pokemon out of your bots?

No reports we're aware of, across tens of thousands of trades and six games. We can't make a future-proof guarantee — Nintendo's policy could shift any time — but our track record is clean and we react to validator changes within hours, not weeks.

Why do you sometimes reject my requests?

PKHeX flagged the set as illegal. Common causes: move the species can't learn in that game, met-location that doesn't fit the species, shiny on a shiny-locked species, EV total over 510. The rejection message tells you the exact reason — fix that, re-submit, you're back in queue.

Can I trade Pokemon I got from your bots to other players?

Absolutely. Once it's in your boxes it's yours. Trade it, transfer it to HOME, use it competitively, breed off it, release it. We don't watermark, lock, or track post-trade.

What if a Pokemon won't transfer to Pokemon HOME?

Open a ticket in #support. Either we re-build it with corrected data and re-trade for free, or we credit the trade back against your daily allowance. HOME validator drift is the single most common issue we deal with — we patch it as soon as we identify it.

Is there a "safest" game to trade in?

All six are within normal risk if the data is legal. SV and BDSP are the most permissive, SwSh is the strictest, the rest fall in between. Our pipeline normalizes those differences — you don't really need to worry about which game is "safer."

What data do you keep about my trades?

Bare minimum: your Discord ID, the species, the timestamp, and whether the trade succeeded. We never see your save file, your IP address, or your payment information. See the privacy policy for the formal version.

If Nintendo changes policy, what happens?

If they tighten validation, our community surfaces it within days through normal Pokemon HOME / save-data testing. We update the fleet, post on this page, and notify members in Discord. We don't take chances with member accounts.

Can I see a legality report on a Pokemon you sent me?

Yes. Drop the Pokemon (or its .pkX file) in the #legality-checker channel and the bot replies with PKHeX's full report — line by line, what passes and what doesn't.

Test it yourself before paying anything

Cyndaquil tier is free — five trades per day, no card required. Run a few, verify the legality reports yourself, decide later.

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