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Following its late 2024 release, Pokémon TCG Pocket had a steady cadence. Monthly, the handheld card battler grows with fresh expansion sets, introducing many of latest additions that shake up the battle scene and provide players updated objectives. However for its one-year birthday, Pokémon TCG Pocket received an new set that mostly fails on both fronts.

Breaking the Established Rules

The Deluxe Pack: ex pack, released on Sept. 30, breaks nearly every the standard practices for a typical TCG Pocket release.

Normally, a regular TCG Pocket set features dozens of new cards in its set, released via one or two card packs. This latest set boasts a massive 353 cards in its single-booster pack, but the vast majority of them were available in previously released expansions. Importantly, when you acquire a card from Deluxe Pack: ex, it is tallied in your new set roster, but not toward the set from which it came.

Imagine you’re lacking a rare Pokémon from the Wisdom of Sea and Sky. Upon acquiring it from opening a new set pack, it’ll not count from your prior inventory.

Adjustments to Reward System

Additionally. Historically, unpacking a booster pack gives you several collectibles. Every Deluxe Pack: ex pull only offers a smaller set, though the trade-off here is that every purchase is guaranteed to have at least one item classified as high rarity or better — suggesting you have an essentially airtight chance of acquiring a premium artwork or a competitive asset.

But the primary concern is that the pack itself is time-limited and will expire as of the end of October. Releases have always been permanent throughout TCG Pocket’s first year, and while these cards won't be removed the game — the majority are present in other expansions — the looming expiration date sets a firm cutoff on collectors working to complete their new set roster.

Complications with Virtual Money

Adding to the confusion is the presence of in-game currency, an game resource obtained by acquiring expansions. Pack Points can be spent exclusively for expansions in the release you earned them from. The team mentioned in a statement that “Accumulated points won't expire even if the provision period for that set concludes,” but if the expansion is expiring, well, how are you expected to spend those resources after the cutoff date?

Community Outcry

All of this equals what the community perceive as a major insult — especially to those who focus solely for the collection aspect. For players who ignore fighting and purely tune into TCG Pocket for purposes of collecting cards, by doing your two free daily pulls, it is statistically unfeasible to collect every item in the Deluxe Pack: ex collection before it ends. Assuming you avoided getting the repeat, acquiring a handful of items per acquisition at a pace of two packs per day falls far short to the complete set. It requires use paid resources or mission-driven bonus tools to succeed. And again, that’s assuming you’re just obtaining fresh items; the true probabilities for certain items all but ensure the probability here are extremely low.

Free-to-play titles are infamous for favoring premium subscribers over those who don’t, but some free-to-play TCG Pocket users say the Deluxe Pack: ex expansion takes it to a whole new level — and they aren’t shy about sharing their frustration.

“This expansion is ruining the experience of trying to catch them all and could be an reason to leave out of the game for dedicated fans,” one admitted non-spending user commented in a notable discussion on the game’s dedicated subreddit.

Reacting, some players noted that the expansion is in fact a method to collect unowned items, but the general feeling is that items obtained through this expansion should be added to the sets they were first introduced in, rather than stay separated in a new but repetitive new inventory.

Deck-Building Issues

Other players have expressed frustration at how the new release has changed deck-building for the competitive mode. Even though most of the cards are repeats of older collectibles, TCG Pocket classifies them as latest acquisitions obtained through the most recent expansion. Upon trying to create a team, by automatically, TCG Pocket will show you items from the most recent update upfront. Therefore in light of the Deluxe Pack: ex expansion, this essentially means your latest acquisitions are probably a bunch you already have. This is more than a frustrating problem to the categorization of the system; it additionally makes it more challenging to understand, in a chronological sense, which items were popular during which eras.

“There are problem upon problem with the new pack,” one player stated in a online discussion highlighting the problem. The most popular reply? “This set is absolutely a disaster.”

Fan Criticism

Meanwhile, a Reddit post reposting the developer's statement about virtual points has led to a flood of ironic remarks. Several players teased that the creators will hand out a smattering of an in-game resource — an in-game currency commonly viewed as pointless among many users — as amends for the frustration, as has occurred before. Additional users quipped that “players should restart our premium subscription now.” Overall, the majority of users request the introduction of cross-expansion currency — that is, Pack Points you’d obtain from a particular release could work with <