Recruiting the right Pokémon in Pokémon Champions is half strategy, half luck. The Ranch lineup refreshes with ten random Pokémon, and if you need a specific type to complete your team, that randomness can feel punishing. Affinity Tickets exist precisely to fix that. They tilt the odds in your favor without removing the recruitment cost or guaranteeing a specific Pokémon, but they do make focused team building significantly more efficient.
What are Affinity Tickets and how do they work?
Affinity Tickets are type-specific items that modify your next Ranch lineup. There are 18 different Affinity Tickets in total, one for each elemental type in the game. When you apply one before generating a new lineup, the first three Pokémon in that pull will belong to your chosen type, with the remaining slots staying random.
The practical effect is meaningful. If you are hunting a Fire-type Pokémon like Arcanine, applying a Fire Affinity Ticket won't guarantee Arcanine specifically, but it will load the front of your lineup with Fire-types instead of giving you a spread of whatever the game feels like offering that day.
How to get Affinity Tickets in Pokémon Champions
Affinity Tickets come from Trainer Achievements, specifically the ones labeled Move Fiend. Every elemental type has its own Move Fiend achievement, and each one rewards tickets at two separate milestones based on how many times you use moves of that type in battle.
Move Fiend achievement rewards
The good news is that progress accumulates naturally through regular play. If you run a Water-type attacker in most of your battles, you will hit the 50-use threshold without trying. The 250-use tier takes longer but rewards more tickets per type.
Affinity Tickets also appear as rewards through the Battle Pass, daily missions, membership missions, and other milestone-based progression systems. This makes them a consistency reward rather than something you need to actively farm in a single session.
How to claim your Affinity Tickets
- Open the Submenu from the bottom of the screen
- Select the Achievements tab
- Press X on console (or tap the icon in the top-right corner on mobile) to view Trainer Achievements
- Scroll to the Move Fiend achievement for the type you want
- Claim your tickets once the milestone threshold is met
How to use Affinity Tickets in recruitment
Using an Affinity Ticket takes about five seconds once you know where the option appears. The key is applying it before the lineup generates, not after.
Step-by-step: applying a ticket
- Navigate to the Recruit section from the main menu
- Select "Recruit Pokémon" to begin a new lineup pull
- At the confirmation screen (before the lineup generates), press X on console or tap the "Use a ticket" option at the top of the screen
- Select the Affinity Ticket matching the type you are targeting
- Confirm the selection
Your new lineup will load with a higher concentration of that type. The first three slots will reflect your chosen type, while the remaining Pokémon in the ten-slot pool stay random. You still pay the standard recruitment cost in Victory Points or a Teammate Ticket regardless of whether you used an Affinity Ticket.
Apply ticket before confirming pull
When should you actually use Affinity Tickets?
Affinity Tickets are most valuable when you have a clear team composition in mind and need a specific type to fill a gap. Spending them randomly or on types you already have covered is wasteful given that the 250-use milestone is the only way to earn larger batches.
For players building toward a particular archetype, stacking tickets from the Move Fiend achievements for your primary attacking type and then spending them in focused recruitment sessions is the most efficient approach. If you want help understanding the broader recruitment system, the Pokémon Champions recruitment guide covers how rentals work and when spending Victory Points to own Pokémon permanently makes sense.
After testing recruitment across multiple type targets, the ticket system does meaningfully reduce the number of pulls needed to find a usable Pokémon of the right type. It does not eliminate variance, but it cuts through the frustration of seeing six Normal-types in a row when you need a Steel-type.
Affinity Tickets vs. standard recruitment: is the difference noticeable?
The short answer is yes, but with realistic expectations. The first three Pokémon in your pull are guaranteed to match your chosen type, which on its own is a significant improvement over a fully random ten-slot pool. The remaining seven slots stay random, so you are not getting a type-locked lineup.
For players who are not using Pokémon HOME transfers to bring in specific Pokémon directly, Affinity Tickets are one of the few tools available to steer recruitment toward a goal. Combined with earning Victory Points efficiently to fund more pulls, they can meaningfully speed up team construction.
Frequently asked questions
Do Affinity Tickets guarantee a specific Pokémon?
No. They increase the probability of seeing Pokémon of your chosen type in the lineup, but they do not lock in a specific species. A Fire Affinity Ticket gives you more Fire-types to choose from, not a guaranteed Charizard or Arcanine.
Can you use more than one Affinity Ticket per pull?
The sources do not confirm stacking multiple tickets on a single pull. Based on how the system is described, one ticket applies per recruitment session.
Where are Affinity Tickets stored?
They sit in a dedicated tab within the Recruitment menu. They do not appear in your standard item inventory.
For a broader look at everything available in the game, the full Pokémon Champions guides collection covers team slots, Training Tickets, unique Poké Balls, and more systems worth understanding before you spend your resources.