Pokemon Duel: What Are Ingots & Cubes, and How Do You Use Them?

I’ve only recently started playing Pokemon Duel, but it is rapidly becoming one of my favorite mobile games currently on the market. If you’re just getting started out with the game, you’ll want to check out our beginner’s guide for Duel so you can get going on the right foot. 

Aside from being able to collect Pokemon figures, there are ingots and two types of cubes — green cubes and blue cubes (which are also called rare metal). Each of these 3 items serves a different purpose, and it can be a bit confusing for the beginner. But that’s why you’re here — so I can help you use them to their maximum effectiveness! 

Item Rarity

This is an important concept, so much so that I’m going to give it its own section. Every item has a level of rarity — common, uncommon, rare, and extra rare. These levels will determine how effective the item is, as well as the type of Pokemon figure it is best suited for use on. As a general rule of thumb, item rarity levels need to match that of the Pokemon you’re planning to use it on. 

For example, Pikachu is a rare Pokemon, so matching rare level cubes will yield the best results. With that said, let’s take a look at the actual items and how they’re used. 

Ingots

Ingots are the simplest of the 3 items to explain. Ingots are gold cubes and really only serve one useful purpose — to be exchanged for coins in the game’s Shop. Their value is based on their rarity level, as you can tell in the picture to the right. Trading in these ingots for coins is very important, seeing how coins are required when you go to level up your Pokemon via the fusion tab.

Don’t use your ingots for fusions, as they are only worth a single EXP point. It is a huge waste of your ingot, but the game will allow you to do it. 

Blue Cubes

Blue Cubes, or rare metal as they’re also called, is generally going to be the best way to level up your Pokemon figures — they are basically EXP cubes. This is really the only purpose that they serve other than trading them in for coins as well, but they are not even close to the trade value of ingots.

Green Cubes

Green Cubes are a bit more involved. One of the things you might have noticed if you used the fusion tab during the tutorial is that there is a stat called Chain Level. Green cubes are used to raise this stat, which maxes out at Chain Level 10. This is used to increase the damage of one of your attacks. 

For example, let’s say that your Bulbasaur knows Tackle and it does 40 attack damage. If you raise his Chain Level to 1 and spend the point on Tackle, his Tackle will now do 41 damage. And it will overcome another enemy’s attack with a lower damage.

So, how do you use green cubes?

Well, this is where the rarity comes into play. The chart looks something like this:

• Common – 30 green cubes
• Uncommon – 9 green cubes
• Rare – 3 green cubes
• Extra Rare – 1 green cube

Those numbers mean that it would take you 30 common green cubes to gain 1 level of Chain Level on a common Pokemon. Also, you can’t mix rarity levels — so you can’t use a common cube on a rare Pokemon. As I mentioned earlier, you’ll want to make sure that the item rarity matches the rarity of the Pokemon you’re suing it on. 

So How Do You Get More Cubes and Ingots?

The only real way to do that is to play matches so that you get containers to unlock. You don’t even have to win the matches, but it does help to speed the process along. Alternatively, you could purchase chests — but the cool thing that I’ve noticed about Pokemon Duel is that it’s not necessary, or really possible to “pay-to-win”, as they have limits to the cash shop to help keep things more balanced. 

Hopefully, these tips help you to play this great game at a higher level. I look forward to possibly dueling you in the future and, as always, if you have some tips to share please drop them in the comments section below!