After a surprise reveal in February 2024, the end of this year gave us Pocket Pokémon TCGan all-new digital way to experience the Pokémon TCG from DeNA and The Pokémon Company. It’s shiny, elegant and full of stunning cards with fancy animations and engaging graphics. But about what? Pokémon TCG livea mobile game that came out just a few years ago? As a TCG player who often uses the older app, Pokémon TCG Pocket is everything I want my trading card game client to be, and that makes me irate.
From an outsider’s perspective, it’s challenging to tell the difference between Pokémon TCG Live and Pokémon TCG Pocket (henceforth Live and Pocket, respectively), so let me explain. At its core, Live is a Pokémon TCG simulation app aimed at novel and existing players of the physical card game. This is an updated version of the venerable Pokémon TCG Online PC client that allows you to battle on the go for the first time. On the other hand, while Pocket has a slimmed down combat system, it is aimed primarily at casual fans and collectors and functions as a card opening and collecting simulator.
Aside from the size difference between the target audience, there’s another reason why Pocket is immensely more popular than ever live – the gameplay of Pokémon TCG Live is terrible. It’s full of bugs, looks terrible, and the animations are downright nauseating. This has been happening since the beta release of the app and it doesn’t get any better. In my opinion, this is the main reason why TCG players were so furious when Pocket first burst onto the scene. We’re jealous that DeNA and Pokémon were able to launch a fully functional, slick Pokémon card app for the first time while our platform still looks like garbage.
Not only does the gameplay look great – the Pokémon TCG Pocket cards look phenomenal. The stunning and expressive art on trading cards has always been a highlight for players and collectors alike, so it’s a real treat to literally immerse yourself in some of these scenes. Of course, we TCG players love a bit of flash, and some people spend hundreds of dollars building their decks at maximum rarity just for the joy of shiny cardboard. But throwing your Pokémon TCG Live decks seems much less stimulating because they mostly look terrifying. Digital versions of our pretty secret rarities are vivid and pixelated, making them often impossible to read. It almost feels like an insult to the work of the original artists.
But what if you have too many of the same pretty cards? From the very beginning, the developers promised that Pokémon TCG Pocket trading would be a core part of the game, and it’s almost here. Pokémon TCG Online used to have player-side trading as well, but that was another integral part of the TCG experience that we lost when we moved to Live. Sure, it’s a lot easier to get the cards you need for your deck now than it used to be, but I still miss being able to trade. Now I can only do this with my real cards at my local card store.
As a dedicated Pokémon TCG player, I often go to my local Pokémon League and compete in tournaments, which means I have quite a few League-stamped cards in my collection. I love playing them on my decks in real life and wish I could apply them digitally too. These cards are from Play! Pokémon reward packs which, like any other booster pack, contain a redemption code for apply in Live. In the online days, these codes could be used to obtain digitally stamped cards that you could add to your deck and show your commitment to your local league, but these cards cannot currently be found in Live mode.
So you can understand my jealousy when just a few weeks into Pocket’s life, Pokémon introduced stamped promotional cards as part of the Lapras ex-drop event. The stamps on these cards even resemble Japanese gym promotional cards! There is a huge community of stamped card collectors, so bringing this additional form of exclusivity to Pocket makes sense, but I can’t aid but cry over the loss of stamped promotions in my game.
If you’ve made it this far without confusing the two games, congratulations, because one of the biggest concerns many gamers had when we heard about Pocket’s release was branding confusion. The two names are so similar that it’s extremely effortless to confuse them if you’re novel to the game. We even saw this in action a few weeks ago on social media. The official Pokémon TCG Twitter posted about some comments on corrections live and @paxDREAMS he replied asking for a nerf for the former Moltres, thinking the post was about Pocket. I imagine this is just the beginning of a PR nightmare for the various teams working on these games.
I’d be lying if I said the success of Pokémon TCG Pocket didn’t bring anything positive. In fact, it had a similar effect to Pokémon Go’s launch in 2016, drawing fans back to the series through nostalgia and casual gameplay. I’ve met some novel people in my local league who started playing the physical version of the TCG after joining Pocket, and ultimately as a player I just want to see more people enjoy the game, which makes me very content. If you tune in to the regional stream on Twitch right now, the chat is full of Pocket players asking about the game’s mechanics and how to play, which really warms my heart.
Overall, I’m not mad that Pocket is doing so well – rather, I’m disappointed with what Live could have been in the hands of DeNA and The Pokémon Company. I’m glad that people enjoy it, especially when that enjoyment means engaging in my favorite hobby. It’s just not for me and there’s nothing wrong with that.
If you’re looking to improve your fighting skills, check out our list of the best Pokémon TCG Pocket decks. We also have an extensive Pokémon TCG Pocket tier list for you to check out. After all, this is definitely one of the best Pokémon games available today.
