First Expansion for Pokémon TCG Pocket Announced, Out December 17th

By Elijah Gonzalez | December 12, 2024 | 11:35am

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First Expansion for Pokémon TCG Pocket Announced, Out December 17th

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Today, The Pokémon Company announced the first expansion for Pokémon TCG Pocket, their popular new mobile trading card game. When it launches next Tuesday, the Mythical Island booster pack will feature over 80 cards, including five ex Pokémon, five additional Trainers, and more. For context, Genetic Apex, the original trio of booster packs that launched with the game, included 226 base cards alongside 60 alternative art variants.

In the announcement trailer for Mythical Island, we got a glimpse at a few of the new cards, and theory crafters are already speculating about how these additions will shake up the current meta. For starters, we saw Mew ex, which has a three colorless energy ability called Genome Hacking that lets you copy an attack from an opponent’s Active Pokémon. This could be deadly against meta-defining foes like Mewtwo ex and Charizard ex, who rely on damaging attacks that Mew could replicate for less energy. We also saw Aerodactyl ex, which has a seemingly powerful ability, Primeval Law, that makes it so that your opponent can’t play cards to evolve their Active Pokémon. When combined with its very solid two energy 80 damage attack, it seems like a good addition to fighting type decks.

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Plenty of other cards were shown, too, like a new Tauros that deals 40 damage with an additional 80 damage against ex cards for three colorless energy, as well as Leaf, a new trainer that reduces the Retreat Cost of your Active Pokémon by two. While Mythical Island isn’t a full three booster pack set, it’s encouraging to see that many of these additions will potentially introduce more variety into the competitive scene, which is currently dominated by Pikachu ex and Mewtwo ex. According to data mining, the first major three pack expansion for the game will potentially be available on January 30th, although this has not been officially confirmed.

Pokémon TCG Pocket launched worldwide on October 30th, 2024, and has already passed 60 million downloads. While it undeniably offers egregiously priced micro-transactions to boost progress, at least for now, it feels relatively achievable to build competitive decks as a free-to-play user, which is more than can be said about many other mobile games. The main factor that will determine if it remains free-to-play friendly is the pace of new releases, as if additional cards come out too fast, it may be difficult to keep up with those spending money to expedite progress. This first booster pack and also the launch of the next major set next year will be the first tests of this situation.

You can view the full trailer for the Mythical Island expansion below: