The Community Are Mad at Pokémon TCG Pocket At the Moment.

After its late 2024 release, Pokémon TCG Pocket maintained a predictable schedule. Every few weeks, the mobile trading card game expands with new expansion sets, adding dozens of latest additions that disrupt the player strategies and offer users new collection goals. Yet for its one-year birthday, Pokémon TCG Pocket introduced an update that effectively achieves nothing.

Defying the Established Rules

The new booster, released on the last day of September, breaks most of the standard practices around a new TCG Pocket expansion.

Typically, a new TCG Pocket pack contains dozens of latest entries in its set, distributed via several booster packs. The new pack includes a massive over 350 collectibles in its exclusive release, but the vast majority of them were available in earlier booster packs. And critically, when you obtain a item from Deluxe Pack: ex, it is tallied in your latest inventory, but not toward the group from which it originated.

For example you’re lacking a particular card from the Wisdom of Sea and Sky. If you get it from unpacking a Deluxe Pack: ex booster pack, it’ll remain absent from your original set.

Adjustments to Reward System

Additionally. Historically, unpacking a expansion gives you several collectibles. Every Deluxe Pack: ex pull only contains four cards, though the compromise there is that each pack is guaranteed to contain at least one card rated at high rarity or better — suggesting you have an very high likelihood of getting a premium artwork or a strong battle card.

Yet the main issue is that the pack itself is limited-time and will expire as of the end of October. Sets have always been permanent throughout TCG Pocket’s yearlong history, and while these items remain available the platform — most are present in alternative packs — the looming expiration date sets a firm cutoff on users working to finish their latest inventory.

Complications with Virtual Money

Adding to the confusion is the presence of Pack Points, an virtual money obtained by acquiring expansions. The currency can be applied solely for packs in the set you obtained them in. Developers said in a announcement that “Points earned won't expire even if the provision period for that pack ends,” but if the set is going away, well, how are you supposed to spend those currency after the deadline?

Community Outcry

All of this equals what some fans perceive as a major insult — notably to those who only play for the whole “gotta catch ‘em all” thing. If you don’t engage with competitive play and only use TCG Pocket for purposes of collecting cards, by using the daily free packs, it is practically unlikely to obtain the full set in the latest set before it ends. Assuming you didn't obtain the repeat, getting four cards per opening at a frequency of several attempts per day is insufficient to the 353 mark. You’d have to lean on premium Poké Gold currency or mission-driven time-saving items to succeed. Additionally, that’s if you’re just obtaining unowned collectibles; the true probabilities for specific Pokémon make it likely the odds here are extremely low.

Live-service games are notorious for prioritizing paying users over those who avoid spending, but a number of non-paying TCG Pocket fans argue the new release escalates the issue — and they are vocal in voicing their complaints.

“The new pack is ruining the experience of chasing a complete collection and may become an off-ramp for quitting for players like me,” one avowed non-spending user said in a popular post on the game’s dedicated subreddit.

Replying, several commenters noted that the expansion is truly a way to obtain missing cards, but the prevailing opinion is that cards obtained through the latest release should count toward the collections they originally came from, rather than stay separated in a new but repetitive Deluxe Pack: ex collection.

Deck-Building Issues

Additional users have expressed frustration at how the new release has changed card selection for the competitive mode. Even though most of the cards are repeats of older collectibles, TCG Pocket recognizes them as new cards earned through the newest release. When you go to create a team, by default, TCG Pocket will display cards from the most recent update initially. Thus in considering the new set, this practically means your “new” cards are likely a group you own duplicates of. This isn’t just a frustrating problem to the sorting of the system; it further makes it trickier to understand, in a timeline view, which items were favored during which periods of the meta.

“It really is just issue after issue with the new pack,” one player said in a online discussion addressing the concern. The most popular reply? “This set truly is a disaster.”

Player Sarcasm

Meanwhile, a online thread highlighting the studio’s announcement about virtual points has generated a flood of mocking replies. Some have suggested that the team will hand out a small amount of a particular currency — an in-game currency widely regarded as ineffective among most players — as recompense for the frustration, as has occurred before. Some commenters snarked that “we can all resume our monthly plan immediately.” By and large, the majority of users openly demand the introduction of so-called “universal Pack Points” — that is, resources you’d obtain from a particular release could work with <