Some of the most important resources in Pokémon Sword & Shield are Bottle Caps, an incredibly rare item that you can spend in the Battle Tower lobby for Hyper Training. This will allow your Pokémon’s stats to reach their highest potential, something you can only do otherwise through luck and breeding.
These were exceptionally tedious to find when they were introduced in Pokémon Sun & Moon, and while they’re still quite rare in Pokémon Sword & Shield, there are many more consistent ways to get them than ever before. Here are all the locations you can find Bottle Caps throughout the massive region of Galar.
7 Battle Tower
The simplest way to get Bottle Caps is by simply buying them from the Battle Item seller in the lobby of the Battle Tower, who will part with them for 25 Battle Points each. This can be a difficult cost to pay, but it’s plenty easy to get them by fighting in the Battle Tower, playing in online Ranked Battles, and completing Restricted Sparring challenges in the Isle of Armor DLC.
However, the Battle Tower itself will also occasionally give you Bottle Caps as a reward for increasing your win streak in the Battle Tower, alongside other rare items like Vitamins and Nature Mints. If you’ve got some battle-ready Pokémon on hand, you’re sure to get tons of Bottle Caps just by grinding for this currency.
6 Max Raid Battles
Most of the other ways to get Bottle Caps are much more dependent on luck, but one of the most convenient ways to get a chance at them is through the already-lucrative Max Raid Battles. For most four and five star battles, though, there’s a very slim chance that a Bottle Cap will end up in the list of items you receive.
There’s no specific battles or Pokémon that specifically provide a Bottle Cap, but Max Raid Battles are already worth doing for Experience Candies and Technical Records. Getting Bottle Caps this way isn’t guaranteed, but can be a nice little surprise.
5 Digging Duo
Just near the Daycare in the Wild Area are two miners that proudly describe themselves as the Digging Duo, and will excavate tons of rare items for you. including fossils, evolutionary stones, and even some battle items. The number and variety of items will be unpredictable each time, but each will give at least one item for just 500 of the Wild Area’s currency, Watts.
To get a Bottle Cap from them, you’ll have to go to the brother who has more focus and less stamina, as he’ll typically find rarer items than his brother. Getting a Bottle Cap isn’t guaranteed, but if you have a lot of Watts to burn, you’re sure to get one eventually.
4 Pickup
A particularly odd ability in the Pokémon series is Pickup, which will allows Pokémon like Lillipup and the original Meowth to randomly find items as you wander so long as it isn’t holding one. There’s far from any consistency in what they find, but higher-level Pokémon with this ability will more often find rare items, including Bottle Caps.
For a Pokémon with Pickup to find one, it has to be at least level 70 or higher, and much like the Digging Duo, it’s incredibly rare and dependent on luck. Nonetheless, you can also obtain rare and sellable items like PP Ups and Nuggets, so you’re unlikely to end up empty-handed looking for a Bottle Cap this way.
3 Potbottom Desert
There are tons of items to find each day in the Wild Areas of Pokémon Sword & Shield, but many of them are potions and treasures to sell. This is not as much the case in the Isle of Armor DLC, which holds many stronger and rarer hidden items. This even includes a Bottle Cap, which should be hiding in a sparkle on a dune in Potbottom Desert.
Unfortunately, this item is one of the random hidden items that can vary significantly, so there isn’t a consistent spot that it’ll spawn or certainty whether it’ll respawn each day like most Wild Area items. If you need a quick extra Bottle Cap, though, this is one you can get without as much difficulty.
2 Cram-O-Matic
Another new way to obtain Bottle Caps on the Isle of Armor is through the Cram-O-Matic, a device that allows you to combine various items to create new ones. Bottle Caps themselves are incredibly hard to make and don’t have a single specific recipe, but can be made using enough high-value items.
The most important use for the Cram-O-Matic is that it’s the easiest way to turn your Bottle Caps into Golden Bottle Caps, which will maximize all six of your Pokémon’s stats at once in Hyper Training. Simply put one Bottle Cap in the Cram-O-Matic’s first slot, any item into the second slot, and then two Bottle Caps in the third and fourth slot, and it’ll replace them with this rarer and more efficient item.
1 Mystery Gifts
Pokémon Sword & Shield have had significantly more Mystery Gifts than previous games, and it’s important to check for online gifts every month or so to see what items or Pokémon might be available. Occasionally, Bottle Caps can be in these packages, and as with all Mystery Gifts, there aren’t often requirements to receive them.
Rather than random free gifts, though, the easiest way to get plenty of Bottle Caps is through the regular Battle Stadium Rewards at the end of each Ranked Battle season. Depending on how high your ranking is, you’ll get free Bottle Caps and a chunk of Battle Points every few months, so it’s important to keep up online play if you want an easy stream of items.
NEXT: Pokémon: 10 Unanswered Questions We Still Have About Items
