Low commitment, shiny holographic rewards

Pokémon TCG Pocket seems redundant next to 2023's Pokémon TCG Live. Both games offer collecting and battling mechanics. I spent a month with this new Pokémon game and can confirm it captures that classic feeling of collecting and playing games with Pokémon cards with your friends.

Plus, Pokemon TCG Pocket takes over the world, but is it any good? If you love this podcast, you can get more bonus podcasts from VGC on Patreon. You can find out more at Patreon.com/VideoGamesChronicle.

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket was released on Oct. 30, and already the game’s second in-game event is live. The event — which appeared on the author’s app around 1 a.m. EST Tuesday and which runs through Nov. 17 — allows collectors to add a powerful Lapras ex and a handful of other new cards to their digital binders.

We’ve already very carefully been over the grimly insidious nature of Pokémon TCG Pocket’s unpleasant free-to-play model, but an aspect of this peculiar and enormously successful mobile spin-off from the long-established card game is just how many in-game currencies it has you juggle.

Pokémon TCG Pocket is packed with over 200 cards to collect and use in battle. Not every card is a powerful heavy hitter, but most of them have some kind of utility, with almost every card in the game able to positively contribute to some of the best decks in TCG Pocket.

As the Pokemon TCG Pocket meta begins to take shape, players agree that this card needs immediate adjustments to make it less broken.

Pokemon TCG Pocket's rarest cards right now are special gold variants of already rare cards, meaning that those who get them won't necessarily be getting new abilities in battle: