After aging a little too long for the month of release, Pocket Pokémon TCG has finally launched a fresh event in its rather loud halls – the Venusaur Drop Event. And oh, there’s a winning card included that will go straight to the top of your binder.
Just like before Lapras Drop Eventthe Venusaur version is a collection of player vs. CPU battles in which the game will play increasingly powerful deck builds based on the final evolution of the OG grass-type starter. Defeating them will net you a number of rewards and additional bonuses to unlock if you beat each stage again to complete certain missions.
And like the Lapras event, it’s bogged down by yet another crappy in-game currency that limits how much you can play it, in the form of “Event Stamina (Solo)” hourglasses. This time, however, it seems to be much more generous with the rewards it offers, throwing out handfuls of items that everyone really wants – Packaged Hourglasses – along with Miracle Stamina, Shining, Shop Tickets, and other Event Hourglasses that will allow you to play next. Oh, and best of all, it’s a lot more fun to give away packs of the fresh A Series Vol. 2 promo pack, where you can pull out a fresh set of stamped promo cards, including a gorgeous fresh full-length Venusaur art illustrated by Kuroimori.
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Completing your first playthrough of all four levels is quite straightforward. Unlike Lapras decks, Venusaur builds haven’t entered the meta for a reason, and are hopelessly frail compared to a half-decent Fire-type build. (If you have Charizard/Moltres deck builtyou’ll get through it in minutes.) But that’s not bad considering you’ll also get a total of 20 hourglasses with the pack, which means you can tear into at least one extra pack per day, AND four chances to open single-card promotional packages.
My son, who crashed this party, was dismally unlucky, although it works for him right after he got his first pack of Lapras in the previous drop. However, I infuriated him by pulling a fresh Venusaur not only from my first pack, but also from my second one! Haha, that’s it Thisten-year-old.
You can then replay levels by completing other tasks such as “Sleep your opponent’s Pokémon 1 time” or “Win this battle by turn 12”, which will reward you with Miracle Stamina and Event Hourglasses, and you will also get the “Win 20 or more battles” reward at the highest level, it will also give you a fresh grind until the event ends on December 13.
Five cards can be drawn from the promotional packs, each with artwork that has not been featured before Pocket before (though some are known from real-world cards). There’s Haunter, Jigglypuff, Onix, Greninja, and that awesome Venusaur. It’s just a shame that the latter is spoiled by a enormous, ugly blue box obscuring the image, madly overlapping Venusaur itself. Cholera.
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