I know that a lot of people are still having some problems completing their own collections. To give you all a better idea of how you can complete your collection, I’ve written up a few tips on how you, too, can accomplish incredible feat. Some of them are common sense some of them you may have thought of before but by following the first four tips you can definitely get all the patterns you need. It’s how I did it!
1. Don’t Spend Too Much Time on GTS and Wonder Trade – But Don’t Discount Them Either!
The first place most people are inclined to check for their missing Vivillon patterns is the online GTS or Global Trading Station. There people with spare Vivillons can post their Pokemon in exchange for others. Unfortunately, the Vivillon trade on the GTS has become a very inaccessible place. There is no way for anyone to differentiate between the patterns when posting a Pokemon for trade so people with one rare pattern looking for another rare pattern can’t post an Ocean Vivillon and get only trades for a Savanna Pokemon. According to the Pokedex they are all the same. So someone who puts up a rare Sandstorm asking for Monsoon pattern in return will probably just wind up with an Elegant Vivillon in return. Which is kind of sad because they kind of get shafted.
Really, the only way to get those rare ones is to snipe one – and be the person sending them that Elegant Vivillon – or to give into the requests that people post asking for legendaries or other equally difficult to attain Pokemon. Scatterbugs are even worse because at least with Vivillon trades you know the pattern you are going to get. Several times I have traded Scatterbugs with people who put up Scatterbugs from regions other than their own and been duped out of a Lvl. 1 starter I’ve had for trade only to get an Elegant or High Plains pattern from someone from Hokkaido (which should be Tundra) or Okinawa (which should be Monsoon)!
BUT.
There are some benefits to using the GTS. You can pick up a lot of the more common patterns for straight Vivillon for Vivillon trades. If you need High Plains, Elegant, Modern, or Polar Vivillons those will be easy to get. Even Garden, Ocean, and Continental patterns show up fairly often.
Wonder Trade is a terrible way to get Vivillons (I rarely ever see them on there) but a fantastic way to get Scatterbugs. You never know what pattern your Scatterbug will evolve into and with the new Exp. Share it’s super easy to level them up and find out. I think it’s a pretty fun game. And with people on Tumblr trying to initiate ‘Scatterbug Saturdays’ where people flood the WT with their local Scatterbugs there’s the opportunity to pick up a large number of patterns you may not have or some extras for trade very easily.
Vivillons Aquired This Way:
Continental, Marine, Garden, Modern, Polar, Elegant, Meadow (GTS)
2. Trade With Random Passersby
One of my favorite ways to collect Vivillons has been to intiate random trades with the ‘Passersby’ on my online feed. These are random players from random countries that just happen across your game. I get a lot of people from all over the place – including Aruba, Taiwan, Brazil, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia. If those places aren’t somewhat significant to you then you  haven’t been in the Vivillon game for very long. Basically, they are some of the places you can get some of the rarer Vivillon patterns. So what do you do when these people show up?
Ask them to trade!
I got THREE of my rare patterns this way – Sun, Savanna, and Sandstorm. Now, it’s sometimes hard to let people know what you want from there. I usually start off by offering a Vivillon (a rarer one than my Native High Plains) and then if they make a non-Vivillon offer I’ll switch to another Vivillon to show that I have several patterns. Some people get the hint. Some people don’t. It just depends on the person. I randomly traded a girl in Saudi Arabia named Johara for a Sandstorm pattern and it took us two goes to really understand one another. I traded her a Vivillon for a starter she had (because I wanted to give her one of my local ones anyway) and ended the trade. But then she immediately asked me for a trade and gave me an awesome Lvl. 30 Sandstorm. The guy in Brazil who gave me his local pattern also took a couple tries to get across that I was interested in a Vivillon.
It’s a much easier way to get rare patterns than spending hours trying to snipe them from the GTS! (Which, let’s just all agree, is pretty bad form when people are specifically asking for one pattern or another.)
Vivillons Acquired This Way:
Sun, Savanna, my second Sandstorm, my Lvl. 67 Icy Snow
3. Check Websites and Pokemon Forums Regularly
It may seem super nerdy but you really should join different Pokemon Fansite Forums or just Video Game site forms in general. People post trades up all the time and they are really receptive to trading Friend Codes and working out deals. Reddit is also another great source with their /r/PokemonTrades or the much more specific /r/Vivillon and /r/VivillonExchange subreddits. I’ve had a lot of success setting up trades on Bulbapedia and Serebii as well as NeoSeeker. There are a lot of people out there who are also trying to complete their collections and some people with super rare patterns are missing the simplest of Vivillon. I saw someone with native Monsoon Vivillons trading for River and Marine which – while not super common – aren’t nearly as rare. Occasionally I even find people willing to just give away rarer patterns like Icy Snow, Sandstorm, and Monsoon!
Honestly, this will be the easiest way to bulk up your collection. The vast majority of my Vivillon trades were arranged this way. There’s no guess work, no surprises, and no random chance like there is on the GTS. You know what you are getting and you see it before you trade. And people are often willing to work out other trades, too!
Sometimes you’ll even find some really awesome people out there who are just willing to give away rare patterns. There have been people on Tumblr catching or breeding Archipelago and Ocean pattern Scatterbugs to give away en masse and I’ve see people giving away Icy Snow, Jungle, and Monsoon patterns as well. It’s all about finding the right forum post and getting in on it while the going is good!
Vivillons Acquired This Way:
Icy Snow, Tundra, Jungle, Ocean (fansites); Monsoon (Reddit)
4. Make Friends With Other Vivillon Collectors
When it comes to collecting Vivillon everyone is in more or less the same boat. Everyone has only one native pattern and while their pattern may be rarer than some they still have to go through the effort of setting up trades. It takes time. It takes patience. It also requires that you reach out to people in some way or another. Whether it’s anonymously via GTS/Wonder Trade or directly on forums, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, etc. you have to have some sort of contact with other people to make sure you get the Vivillons you need.
So why not take the opportunity to make friends?
Sure, you can post up offers on the various Pokemon websites or you can make posts on Tumblr or Twitter and just sort of get what you need and go but why? Take a chance to get to know people. Start up conversations. Fangirl/Fanboy the ## out of things. Not just Pokemon, either! Get all excited about the things you like. You’ll meet people with similar interests and maybe make some new friends. And it’s a lot easier to go it together, you know? If you find someone willing to trade for a rare pattern from their native locale you can always ask them for a second for a friend. Then if your new found friend manages to find another rare pattern they can do the same. Even if you can’t get a second pattern you can always point others in the right direction.
Basically, you can divide and conquer the Internet! But you have to make those connections first! I’ve met some pretty great people on different Pokemon boards and on Tumblr who have been more than willing to help me out with things. Not only Vivillon trades but other trades as well. There are really great people out there. You just need to take the time to get to know them.
Vivillons Acquired This Way:
My first Sandstorm, Archipelago, River, some spare Oceans for friends
5. Cheat
If all else fails, I guess you could cheat. In theory you can restart your game or – if you bought both X and Y – use one of the games to get other patterns. In theory you can reset the location on your 3DS and have your native location change as you do so. Scatterbugs are available in basically the very first area you can catch Pokemon so it wouldn’t take too long to get to that point. Plus afterward – especially if you decide to keep playing on that particular cartridge – you could use them as trading fodder.
But cheating is lame. It’s perfectly possible to get all the patterns on your own without needing to try to cheat the system. Just follow the other tips and you can do it!
So what are you waiting for?
You have the tools you need to complete your own epic quest to collect all the Vivillon. Get out there, get trading, and make friends! And if you feel like setting up trades in the comments go for it. Anything I can do to help you all reach the same sense of accomplishment I have in collecting all these pretty, pretty butterfly Pokemon!