Pokemon TCG Pocket appears to be rocking the mobile world right now, but while folks are having a blast opening packs, collecting rare variants, and looking up the best decks to use, a significant number aren’t super keen on playing matches against other players.
The reason why is because there aren’t great rewards for doing so. You see, for ever PvP match you jump into, you get 15 account XP. This isn’t a huge amount by any means, and while it does technically build towards account levels – which in turn provide card packs – there’s little direct linking winning matches against other players and substantial rewards.
Even the most hardcore achievements in the game appear to suffer from a similar fate. It turns out, winning 10,000 PvP matches nets you… 100 Shinedust. This currency is used purely for cosmetic upgrades on cards, and 100 isn’t exactly a huge quanitity of it either. Add on top of this the lack of ranked matches or any real competitive angle to the game, and the drive for the subset of players keen on building the best deck and taking on the world appears diminished.
But let’s ask the big question: does this actually matter? Playing the game, you can tell so much love goes into collecting the cards, opening packs, making your favourite cards sparkle and showing off your collection rather than battling it out. It reminds me more of the early versions of Marvel Snap, where collecting and showing off your cards was pretty much the entire point of the game, as was building the best deck that you could with the cards you had.
Competitive games, in comparison, say Magic the Gathering Arena, present the cards themselves as tools you use to win matches. When you pull a mythic, it’s cool and all, but the vast amount of exitement for the targeted player is ‘oh wow, this will make my Black/Red Rakdos Aggro deck way better’ rather than ‘wow, I just got Rakdos, Lord of Riots. I can’t wait to show my friends!’ There are absolutely players in MTGA who do play the game that way, and god bless them, but with the continuous feed of new sets, new game drafts, etc the focus is clearly on getting new cards to fight, rather than colleciting new cards for the collection’s sake.
It’s a difference in goals, ultimately. Still, it would be nice if more modes and rewards come to the battling part of TCG Pocket. It’s no secret that once you finish up all the AI battles, there’s not actually much to use yoou cards for, other than PvP battles. So it needs some love, certainly. Even if it wasn’t the core focus of the game’s release.
Let us know below what you think! Also, give us your deck suggestions below, why not?