Pokemon TCG Pocket Is Getting Dangerously Close To Copying The Worst Thing About The Trading Card Game

By 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Eric Switzer

Published Apr 19, 2025

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I really liked 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Shining Revelry at first. The newest 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon TCG Pocket set is inspired by 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hidden Fates, one of the best Pokemon sets ever created, and the one that revitalized my love for collecting Pokemon cards six years ago. I love the idea of shiny hunting without having to deaꦐl with the stock⭕ issues and scalpers that have plagueܫd the physical card game since the start of the pandemic, and the Shiny Pokemon in this set represent a good mix of fan favorites alongside the unexpected. More rarities make opening packs more exciting, and it’s great to see Pocket evolving so quickly.

The Giratina ex card, from Shining Revelry, and the Darkrai ex card, from Space-Time Smackdown in Pokemon TCG Pocket.

Des🅘pite It’s Popularity, Giratina And Darkrai Decks Are Only ꧅Pokemon TCG Pocket’s Fifth Most Successful

Make way for Meowscarada.

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Now that I’ve had a few weeks (and around 100 packs) to digest Shining revelry, I’m not quite as high on it as I was at launch. As a big collector of main Pokemon TCG, I’m starting to see some familiar patterns emerge that give me some pause. A lot of what I like about Pocket is about how different it is from the physical game, but Shining Revelry makes it seem l✨ike Pocket is starting to give in to Pokemon TCGs’ worst features.

So Many Cards, So Few Good Pulls

At this point post-launch of the previous two themed booster sets my master sets were complete. It only took me a week to knock out Mythical Island’s collection (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a feat I came to regret), and while I took my time more with Triumphant Light, I still didn’t have much trouble locking down♕ every card. I like the way the smaller sets help fill in the gaps between the larඣger main sets by giving us more manageable collections to complete, and even though I’d love a full-sized shiny set some day, I was looking forward to a bite-sized shiny hunt too.

After three weeks with Shining Revelry, I’m still 3 cards and a whopping 1500 pack points away from completing the collection. Luck has clearly not been on m⛎y side this time, but if we break down the numbers, there’s a good explanation for why I’m struggling to finish this set.

Let’s do some math. Mythical Island is a 68-card set. It has 32 common cards, 23 uncommon cards, eight rares, and five ex. Triumphant Light is pretty similar. It has 75 cards, which breaks down to 31 common, 26 uncommon, 13 rare, and five ex. The rarest and most expensive cards are the ex cards, which represen♋t 7.3 percent and 6.6 percent of each set, respectively.

For Shining Revelry, the breakdown has changed. This 72-card set includes 32 common, 22 uncommon, nine rare, and nine ex cards. That means 12.5 percent of Shining Revelry is made up of 500-point ex cards - nearly double the share of the set compared to Mythical Island and Triumphant Light. When we’re talking about cards that cost 500 pack points, or 100 opened💎 packs to craft, those four extra ex cards make a huge difference.

A Little Bulk And A Lot Of Ultra Rares

A collage of Pokemon ex such as Charizard ex and Tinkaton ex from Pokemon TCG Pocket Shining Revelry.

The distributioꩵn of regular to ultra rare cards in the physical Pokemon TCG, along with similarly low pull rates, has made 🐻collecting Pokemon cards more and more costly (and frustrating) over the years. It’s great to see so many amazing full art and illustration rare cards in every set, but when it’s extremely unlikely to pull them, it doesn’t really matter how many cool cards there are.

It’s no longer feasible to be a completionist collector of Pokemon cards. The most recent set, Journey Together, features 46 cards of ex rarity or higher, representing 24 percent of t🌌he ♛190-card set. After opening over $200 worth of product from booster boxes, ETBs, and other loose packs, I’ve managed to only pull seven ex or rarer.

I could go buy singles of the rest of them if I had the money to do it, but y🎃ou can’t do that in Pokemon TCG Pocket. You have to open packs to get cards, there’s no way around it. Pack points are essentially a glorified pity timer when it takes 500 to acquire a single ex card. It’s worrying to see Pocket start to approach pulls the way the physical game does, considering Pocket is all ab💝out collecting.

I haven’t even factored in the secret rares in Shining Reve🐓lry, which is where all the Shiny Pokemon cards can be found. If we were comparing apples to apples with the physical TCG, then Shining Revelry is actually a 111-card with 48 cards that are ex or rarer, which is 43 percent of the whole set. While I’m hunting down the last three ex cards I need to “complete” the collection, I still have only pulled three of the 14 Shiny Pokemon cards.

If not for the pack art to remind me, I would have forgotten this was even a shiny-themed ♚set at this point.

Chase cards are good, but if you’re never going to pull them anyway, they may as well ܫnot even exist. I don’t mind spending money on Pocket, but I need to have a rea💯sonable chance of completing these collections if I’m going to dedicate time and money to collecting digital cards. If the rare cards are too far out of reach, I’m just not going to bother keeping up with each new set anymore.