As 2024 winds down, let’s reflect on the Pokémon TCG Pocket mobile game. It’s done quite well for itself, attaining the very top of the charts for card game apps on the iPhone and Android app stores. It has a very respectable 4.5 out of 5 stars on the Google Play store out of over a million reviews. Furthermore, PTCGP boasts an even higher score of 4.8 out of 5 stars on the Apple App Store. To top it off, Pokémon TCG Pocket came out this past October, meaning it’s only been three months since it got to this point!
As such, we wish to give the game a bit of analysis. It’s surely fluctuated over these three months; at times it’s gone through a very rapid series of shifts. Is the game healthy, with gameplay meeting player expectations? And what about microtransactions? Are these worth the grind of opening digital packs in this game? How about PTCGP‘s promotions and events? Let’s discuss all of these aspects!
The State of the Pokémon TCG Pocket Metagame
Though it’s only been three months since the debut of the mobile game, Pokémon TCG Pocket has changed a ton in those three months alone. From the inception and release of Genetic Apex, we saw three major deck archetypes enter the upper echelons of the metagame. These decks revolved around Pikachu ex, Charizard ex, and Mewtwo ex. In the hands of a capable player, none of these decks could be stopped by fringe-meta builds except in the case of extreme deviations in variance and random probability outliers.
After all, PTCGP is at its heart a game built on the backs of random number generation. In addition to the randomness of building a shuffled deck of 20 cards, many cards have a major coin-flip mechanic. In many ways, this is meant as a means of balancing skill with luck. Furthermore, it helps the game’s key demographic (kids) better grasp the game and even win from time to time. As a result, you’ll see the concept of coin flipping recur across sets – not just this year, but in years to come.
Along Came Mythical Island
We covered a couple of these decks before the release of the A1a mini-set, Mythical Island. This expansion shook the meta up heavily, and that is meant with no exaggeration. Mythical Island was released earlier in December and, with it, Mew ex, Celebi ex, and Gyarados ex. All of these new chase cards either shored up many strategies or paved the way for their own. Fortunately for the health of the metagame, these new decks also largely shook up the viability of the previous top three decks of Genetic Apex. Right now, Charizard ex is not doing so hot, if you’ll pardon the expression, and Pikachu ex is also losing ground in viability.
I believe we can all expect the metagame to be shaken in similar ways with the release of each new full expansion and each mini-set expansion. It’s unclear what 2025 will bring to the mobile app, but we can expect that the game will remain fresh, since The Pokémon Company has nearly 30 years to look back on for card inspirations.
Beyond the metagame, plenty of fringe formats are cropping up from seemingly out of nowhere. There are formats of play that don’t use ex Pokémon cards, formats that only use cards of a low rarity, and formats where players simply concede to gain “Thanks” from opponents to redeem Shop Tickets. The Pokémon TCG Pocket player community seems more than willing to help each other grow, flourish, and foster good will together. That, to me, says the game is extremely healthy right now.
Collecting in Pokémon TCG Pocket
So far, we’ve gone over the meta’s propensity for maintaining a healthy gameplay environment. But what about collecting cards? This is currently not something the players can do collaboratively beyond providing tips for what to collect and from where. Trading doesn’t exist in-game yet, so players can’t directly assist others in cultivating their collections, unfortunately. However, data miners and content creators speculate that the trading feature will debut this coming January in a limited capacity.
For now, however, the game’s collectability is very dependent on microtransactions. Packs only provide five cards apiece with rarities varying fairly wildly. Players can only open packs freely twice a day if they don’t have a Premium Pass for Pokémon TCG Pocket. If you do have the Premium Pass, you can open three packs instead. That only affords players 15 cards per day. As such, players aren’t guaranteed rare cards, even within three packs.
Currency and Microtransactions in Pokémon TCG Pocket
The saving grace to this is the concept of the Pack Hourglass system. If you’ve just opened a free pack in a day, it will take twelve hours for you to be able to open another one. However, Pack Hourglasses mitigate this wait time by one Hourglass per hour. You can also spend real money to get an in-game “Poké Gold” currency with which to spend on two hours of wait time per Gold unit.
If you think about it enough, it’s a shrewd business model to offer these currencies. However, this often leaves free-to-play players far behind. Players with a disposable income will often come out ahead, with plenty more cards in their collections than free players. Does this make Pokémon TCG Pocket a pay-to-win game? In some ways, yes, but we could say this of many mobile games and even many collectible card games as well. And in the end, the cards are all just pretty art and text on a screen rendering merely representing cards. Make of that what you will; I’ll still happily play the game.
The microtransactions will continue; they have to, after all, or the game pulls no profit. That’s the cold truth of the collecting side of PTCGP, and players will need to keep coming to terms with this. Thankfully, there are some times where the Poké Gold is more inexpensive and worth players’ time to purchase, if they want to purchase it at all.
Promotions and Events
Like most live games nowadays, Pokémon TCG Pocket has no drought of promotional events and giveaways. In fact, at the time of writing, a promotion is currently going on where just logging in gets players free Mythical Island packs and Pack Hourglasses. The promotions are all extremely plentiful (and extremely varied) for the time being, and they’re honestly pretty cool.
Furthermore, events in PTCGP don’t seem to show any signs of letting up. The Emblem event, a casual set of Versus Battles with ribbon Emblems as prizes, is also going on right now. If you win 45 Versus Battles in the event, you get a full suite of ribbons in a pretty emerald-green color. But maybe more importantly for some, you get bragging rights and can say you bested 45 decks (and 45 players) to get those ribbons. It’s a really cool event, namely because losing doesn’t mean you have to start over again.
The Futility of “Five Consecutive Wins”
This brings us to a harder truth. There are some Battle Events in Pokémon TCG Pocket that downright stink to grind for most. In 2025 we’ll see an Emblem Event that asks players to win five consecutive games to get their ribbon Emblems. I managed to win the first Emblem Event of this type on my first try with no losses whatsoever. It felt great to do well, and I plan to compete in the next one. However, in no way am I looking forward to grinding this ladder for this coming event. I’ve seen many players online complaining about this event; I can’t necessarily empathize with them – yet – but I surely agree. The only saving grace for many is that they’re optional. Even still, completionists will lament getting to four wins before losing suddenly.
2025 Will Seal the Deal for Pokémon TCG Pocket
In this new year, Pokémon TCG Pocket will need to make good on rectifying certain things to make the game as good as it can be. The Pokémon Company still needs to implement trading. The more hardcore Emblem Events need to lessen in frequency just a bit as well. This could even be to just one per main set release and not every mini-set. Some players also complain about the coin flips randomizing less than advertised, and so The Pokémon Company might want to either make a change, or a statement, about that.
Other than those details, as minor as they are, the game feels extremely healthy. Players are actively helping each other online and in the mobile app in any way they can, and that’s a wonderful thing to see. Will it continue? Time will tell, but The Pokémon Company and DeNA need to do their part to further cultivate this thriving community. Only then will the game be as good as it can get.
