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Following its October 2024 debut, Pokémon TCG Pocket maintained a steady rhythm. Each month, the handheld trading card game expands with new expansion sets, introducing many of fresh collectibles that disrupt the player strategies and offer players updated objectives. Yet for its 12-month milestone, Pokémon TCG Pocket introduced an expansion pack that mostly does neither.

Defying the Established Rules

The new booster, launched on the last day of September, disregards nearly every the common guidelines for a new TCG Pocket update.

Usually, a new TCG Pocket pack contains 100 to 200 new cards in its collection, distributed via a couple of card packs. This latest set boasts a massive hundreds of entries in its single-booster pack, but almost every of them appeared in past booster packs. And critically, when you acquire a item from the new pack, it is tallied in your new set roster, but not toward the collection from which it derived.

Imagine you’re haven't obtained a particular card from the previous set. If you get it from opening a latest release, it’ll still be missing from your prior inventory.

Adjustments to Card Distribution

That’s not all. In the past, unpacking a card pack provides a handful of items. Every Deluxe Pack: ex pull only offers a smaller set, though the balance here is that every purchase is assured to include at least one item classified as high rarity or better — suggesting you have an almost certain chance of getting a premium artwork or a competitive asset.

However the primary concern is that the set is temporary and will expire as of late next month. Releases have always been permanent throughout TCG Pocket’s first year, and while these collectibles remain available the platform — most are still obtainable in alternative packs — the looming expiration date creates pressure on players striving to finish their new set roster.

Complications with Virtual Money

Adding to the confusion is the existence of Pack Points, an game resource earned by acquiring expansions. The currency can be applied solely for sets in the release you collected them through. The team said in a announcement that “Points earned stay available even if the provision period for that expansion concludes,” but if the expansion is going away, well, how are you meant to spend those resources after the deadline?

Player Backlash

These changes equals what some fans perceive as a major insult — particularly to those who engage primarily for the whole “gotta catch ‘em all” thing. For players who avoid fighting and purely tune into TCG Pocket for building a collection, by doing your two free daily pulls, it is mathematically impossible to obtain every item in the latest set before it ends. Even if you never pulled the same card twice, acquiring several collectibles per pack at a frequency of a couple of openings per day falls far short to the full collection. Players must rely on paid resources or challenge-based Hourglasses to succeed. Additionally, that’s if you’re only pulling unowned collectibles; the real odds for some cards make it likely the chances in this case are extremely low.

Ongoing apps are infamous for benefiting premium subscribers over those who are free, but a number of budget TCG Pocket players say the latest set takes it to a whole new level — and they freely express sharing their frustration.

“The Deluxe ex set is ruining the experience of trying to catch them all and might be an exit point from playing for players like me,” one admitted budget gamer said in a notable discussion on the game’s dedicated subreddit.

Reacting, some players noted that the expansion is truly a way to obtain needed entries, but the prevailing opinion is that items earned through this expansion should count toward the sets they originally came from, rather than stay separated in a separate but duplicative new inventory.

Menu Problems

Additional users have been annoyed by how the latest set has impacted card selection for the competitive mode. Although most of the cards are repeats of previously released cards, TCG Pocket recognizes them as fresh additions earned through the newest release. If you attempt to build a new deck, by automatically, TCG Pocket will prioritize items from the latest set first. Therefore in light of the new set, this practically means your “new” cards are likely a bunch you previously obtained. This is more than a annoying issue to the sorting of the game’s deck-building menus; it also makes it harder to see, in a timeline view, which collectibles were popular during which periods of the meta.

“It really is just problem upon problem with this set,” one user said in a online discussion pointing this particular issue out. The leading comment? “The new pack is absolutely a complete mess.”

Community Mockery

Additionally, a online thread resharing the developer's statement about virtual points has generated a string of sarcastic comments. Some have teased that the creators will provide a smattering of an in-game resource — an in-game currency widely regarded as useless among the community — as recompense for the confusion, as has been done previously. Some commenters quipped that “we can all restart our paid membership now.” Generally, the majority of users openly demand the introduction of so-called “universal Pack Points” — that is, currency you’d earn from one expansion could work with <