Key Takeaways
- A Pokemon TCG Pocket player built a “pack-opening, set-completing simulator” to find out how long it takes to collect every card in the game.
- After 10,000 simulations, it was determined that you’d need to spend 655 hours of continuous play time to collect them all, or 437 with the Premium Pass.
- That’s not counting any added cards during that time either, so it may actually be impossible to collect everything. Maybe you don’t gotta catch ’em all this time.
Pokemon TCG Pocket has managed to ignite a little bit of the obsessive collector in pretty much everyone that’s taken the time to play it. That’s not too surprising, since the proper Pokemon TCG has managed to instill that mindset in fans on its own, as well as the overall franchise’s “gotta catch ’em all” motto, but you may want to reconsider your plans if you want to try and get every single card that Pokemon TCG Pocket has to offer.
That’s because one diligent Pokemon fan has actually figured out exactly how long it would take if that was your main goal (thanks Kotaku), and all it took was math, graphs, and “a pack-opening, set-completing simulator”. It was the rather aptly named Reddit user TCGPCollector who put in the hard yards to figure out this number, having built this card counting machine on a Sunday afternoon.
Pokemon TCG Pocket Player Figures Out How Long It Takes To Collect Every Card
TCGPCollector crunched some numbers with this simulator, letting it open two packs a day just like a regular player, purchasing them with pack points, and boosting their collection with wonder picks. After running a whopping 10,000 simulations, TCGPCollector came out with a number that will make anyone out there think twice about trying to “complete” the game. In order to do that, you’d need to waste a whopping 655 days of continuous play time.
Of course, there are ways to narrow that play time. Pokemon TCG Pocket has a Premium Pass that players can buy for certain benefits, allowing you to open three packs instead of two. Doing that still requires you to spend 437 days of play time, while excluding secret cards gets you down to 130 days or 87 with Premium. Can you really say you have every card if you exclude the secret ones though?
Related
PSA: Don’t Grind Pokemon TCG Pocket Too Hard
Card collecting gets boring if you use up all your bonuses too soon.
All of this isn’t even mentioning the fact that more cards will likely be added to the game during that amount of time, meaning that play time will naturally keep extending, possibly forever. There’s a good chance that it may be impossible to collect every single card the game has to offer at one given moment. It all just depends on how often the game is updated with more cards.
For a bit of fun, TCGP Collector also figured out how long it would take if players didn’t want to interact with any of the game’s features at all, besides just opening booster packs. You’ll have to spend about 1,843 days of just opening booster packs if you want every available card at the moment, which is just over 5 years, and 44,232 hours. No wonder it’s making bank.
Experience the fun of collecting Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) cards with Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, an upcoming game for iOS and Android devices from Creatures Inc., the original developers of the Pokémon TCG, and DeNA Co., Ltd.
In this game, you will be able to open two booster packs every day at no cost. You can collect digital cards featuring nostalgic artwork from the past as well as brand-new cards that are exclusive to Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket.
Be on the lookout for new “immersive cards,” which will make you feel as though you’ve leapt into the world of the card’s illustration.