Pokemon Masters is here and trainers all over the world are tapping their screens until their fingers break trying to level their team up to be the best trainer in the world. Part of climbing that ladder is evolving your Pokemon, which proves to be a very different task from the rest of the series.
As you probably know, you cannot change the Pokemon in a sync pair, but you may not know that some of them can evolve. Knowing how to evolve your Pokemon in Pokemon Masters is a critical step to making sure your team has what it takes to reach the top.
The newest and most unique mechanic in Pokemon Masters is the sync pair. This pair is a combo of a trainer from a previous main Pokemon series game and a Pokemon they are known to have used. For example, Brock has Onyx, Misty has Starmie, and Barry has Piplup.
Each sync pairs has different rating, which are denoted by stars. The higher the stars, the more potential the sync pair has to become… the very best.
Three star sync pairs are the lowest while five stars are the highest, and each rating a hard level cap:
- Three star pairs have a level cap of 90
- Four star pairs have a level cap of 95
- Five star pairs have a level cap of 100
What this boils down to is that three and four star sync pairs will eventually be useless in the face of five stars, as five star pairs will eventually eclipse even four stars in most meaningful ways.
How to Evolve in Pokemon Masters
As with any RPG, you will level up to become more powerful. You level up in Pokemon Masters by battling and using level up manuals.
In the main series of games, different Pokemon level up at different levels – some evolve early in their teen levels whereas others need to be over level 30.
In this game, a Pokemon’s first evolution happens at level 30 and the second evolution happens at level 45 if they have one.
In Barry and Piplup’s case, the Pokemon in this sync pair will level up at 30 despite leveling up at 16 in the main series.
Evolving your Pokemon doesn’t just require leveling them up, you are going to need resources from the in-game shop.
To purchase these items, see Tricia and go to the Item Exchange menu. There you will be able to buy the two types of evolution items used: Evolution Shards and Evolution Crystals.
Your first purchase of Evolution Shards, used for first stage evolutions, is only going to be 1,000 for 5. After you purchase the shards for 1,000 twice, you will have to pay 10,000 for a set of five of them.
Your first purchase of Evolution Crystals, used for second stage evolutions, is 5,000 for 3. Afterwards, it shoots up to 300,000 for just 1.
Due to the cost prohibitive nature of evolution in Pokemon Masters, you will want to plan who you want to evolve first ahead of time. Do not squander your resources on a Pokemon you don’t see yourself using — aka keep it to five stars.
After you have reached level 30 or 45 and acquired a sufficient amount of Evolution Shards or Crystals, you are ready to battle for evolution. You can access the evolution battle by going to Explore then finding it under the Sync Pair Story section for the duo you want to evolve.
Evolution battles are one-on-one instead of the normal three-on-three. The battles, especially for the second stage of evolution, are incredibly difficult. You are likely going to need to over level in order to defeat your opponent and evolve.
When I want to evolve Barry’s Piplup twice, these will be the steps:
- The pair would need to be level 30 in order to become Prinplup
- I would need to spend 1,000 coins in the Pokemon Masters shop to get Evolution Shards x 5.
- Defeat trainer Cheryl and her Blissey using Barry and Piplup
- After defeating her, Piplup would become Prinplup
- Repeat the process at level 45 in order to become Empoleon.
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That does it for the process of evolution in Pokemon Masters. Who will you be evolving or have already evolved first in your playthrough? I obviously went with Piplup! Let us know your choice in the comments.
