The Pokémon Company International invited a handful of content creators to attend a Preview Event in New York City, where we finally get more information about Pokémon TCG Pocket. Here is the full preview on what to expect once the game launches later this year.
Pokemon TCG Pocket launches first in New Zealand, and then to the rest of the world:
- Soft launch in New Zealand on September 26, 2024 at 6:00 AM PDT
- Global launch will start rolling out after that, including the United States
The game is developed by Creatures Inc., so we are expecting a high level of polish and first-party franchise content. There is a lot of information to unpack, let’s get started.
P.S. If you prefer a video format, Austin John Plays did a great video on the event, which we are sharing here as well:
Card rarity in Pokémon TCG Pocket
Card rarity in TCG Pocket is described by several systems, first starting with the Silver diamonds, which can be found in the bottom left of most cards. Silver diamonds range from 1 diamond to 4 diamonds, and the more diamonds you have, the rarity of the card is higher.
After that, you can get a 1-Star card, which are super rare, but don’t feature immersive art. 3-Star cards are even more rare, and they are the immersive art cards. These cards have an incredible in game effect.
There are some cards which have even higher rarity rank: crown rarity cards.
Pocket’s rarity system is easy to remember if you lay it out like this (sorted from rarest to least rare):
- Super rare cards
- 👑 – Crown rarity cards
- Rare cards
- ⭐⭐⭐ – 3-star cards (feature immersive art)
- ⭐ – 1-star cards
- Regular rarity
- ♦♦♦♦ – 4-diamond cards
- ♦♦♦ – 3-diamond cards
- ♦♦ – 2-diamond cards
- ♦ – 1-diamond cards
It is not clear if there will be more rarity levels later on, but these are confirmed for the initial launch.
Pull Rates in Pokémon TCG Pocket
The pull rates are wild in Pokémon TCG Pocket, with two different systems at play. Don’t be mistaken, this is a gacha game through and through, but the game does list every single chance to get every card, so you know what you are getting yourself into.
- Once you receive a pack, there is a fixed chance that the pack can be either a regular pack or a rare pack. There is a 99.95% chance to get a regular pack, and a 0.05% chance to get a rare pack.
- Crown rarity cards have a 0.013% pull chance, and 3-Star immersive Cards have a 0.22% chance. Getting Crown and Star cards is not easy.
- There is no “bad luck protection system” in place, so these rates will remain the same regardless of how many duplicates you have. The game will disclose all the pull rates at launch, given it is a legal requirement in the European Union.
- We do not know the odds for every type of card yet
Monetisation model
The game features a basic Free to Play model, with an optional monthly subscription, and an more advanced pay-to-open-packs model.
Free to Play model
You will get 2 free packs every day, 1 each 12 hours. You can only stack 2 time at a time with the free model, which forces you to sign in every day. If you don’t open the packs, you won’t receive new ones until you open your stacked packs.
Monthly Pass
Monthly pass will increase the number of packs you receive daily, giving you 3 packs (1 each 8 hours). You can also stack 3 unopened packs.
Poké Gold
You can also buy Poké Gold using real world currencies. You can spend Poké Gold to reduce the waiting time for a new pack, or to open up multiple packs at once. The estimated cost by using Poké Gold is 1 USD per 1 Pack, and it looks like you can spend up to $150 USD every day. At that point the app will stop you from spending more money in one day.
How does Pocket compare to normal Pokémon TCG?
For all intents and purposes, you should think about TCG Pocket as a completely separate format and game. Pocket is very different and inherently incompatible with TCG:
- Deck max size is 20 Cards and you can have 3 benched Pokémon and 1 active Pokémon
- There are no Energy Cards in TCG Pocket, you simply get energy from a pool of energy, similar to Marvel Snap
- The combat has simpler mechanics compared to usual TCG, including different handling of type weaknesses and resistances
- TCG Pocket will not follow the usual Pokémon TCG release cycle, and cards work differently
- TPCI shared that they are open for publishing more Pocket packs, but they will see how players react to the game, at what pace they are collecting cards and progressing through the set
More information that was shared
- The game has rental teams, allowing you to rent out a deck and play with it, but it depends on the cards you pulled. For example an Arcanine EX rental deck becomes available if you pulled an Arcanine EX card
- Pokémon TCG Pocket is its own standalone thing that has no integrations with anything at this moment, including physical TCG. The game does not connect to Home, nor Scarlet or Violet.
- Performance seems mediocre in the press builds
- How card trading will work has not been disclosed yet
