Key Takeaways
- Pokemon TCG Pocket needs something better to do with your duplicates.
- What am I going to do with 18 Psyduck?
- I’m not going to craft 7 Psyduck flairs.
As the first member of TheGamer team to get my hands on that beautiful immersive rare Mew card, that makes me officially the best Pokemon collector on the team. Or the one who has spent the most time grinding dull PvP battles in Pokemon TCG Pocket, you decide.
My collection currently sits at an impressive 221/226, with just five cards left to complete Genetic Apex. I’ve given myself a time limit of until the next set drops to finish this one, and it seems doable. On top of this, I’ve got 30 cards of a star rarity or higher, which don’t count towards your total for completing the set. I think that’s exactly halfway through the full art and alternate art collection, but I’m under no impression that I’ll collect the rest of these before the next set drops; I don’t want to bankrupt myself on digital trading cards.
Despite owning 251 different cards, the actual number of cards I own, including dupes, is 1,521. On average, I have six of every card. In reality, I have just one or two of the rarest cards and dozens of the commons. If this was a physical collection, I’d give them to my daughter or a charity shop. But in Pokemon TCG Pocket, you can’t do that. I could screenshot them and send the picture to a friend via WhatsApp like some blockchainless NFT, but it wouldn’t reduce my inventory. Therefore, why would I do that with Petilil when I could do it with Mew?
What’s The Point Of Flairs In Pokemon TCG Pocket?
Pokemon TCG Pocket’s mechanical answer to this is flairs. I have 23 Petilil, 23 Swoobat, 21 Clobbopus, 20 Slowpoke, and 18 Psyduck. I can reduce this by half by crafting flairs. These cost shinedust, a currency that I’m flush with because I never make flairs, and a couple of copies of the card in question.
There are two types of flair: cosmetic and battle. Cosmetic flairs are little sparkles, hearts, or type-adjacent animations that can be applied to cards in binders to show off. Psyduck, for example, has three cosmetic flair options.
Battle flairs are an impact cosmetic, sparks or clouds of dust that fly off the card as it’s played in a battle, for instance. Psyduck has one battle flair. The problem is, I don’t want any flairs on Psyduck.
Mew, a functionally useless card that looks great in a binder but is terrible on the battlefield, has four battle flairs and no cosmetic flairs. Make it make sense.
How To Use Flairs In Pokemon TCG Pocket
A little tip for you folks: after buying the flairs in your collection, you need to head to either your binder or your deck (depending on whether you’re applying a cosmetic or battle flair respectively) to actually apply the flair to your card.
I’d love to get the little puff of smoke battle flair for my alt art Weezing in my Team Rocket themed deck. I’ll save up my duplicates to craft flairs instead of trading them for currency. But for common cards, anything diamond or below? Not only do you have to unlock the better flairs by crafting each one in turn, I have no use for a flaired-up Psyduck.
I don’t run Water-type decks on principle (I love Lightning-types, if you didn’t know), so all my duplicates linger. I’m not going to spend currency on upgrading pointless cards, especially when rare cards like Mew cost as much as 18,000 shinedust to get a flair for. I can afford that, but not for long if I fritter away my currency on Psyduck and Slowpoke.
Some of the flairs look great. If I find a third immersive rare Charizard ex, I’ll probably spend 18,000 shinedust on that boss fiery flair and build a deck around it to show off. I’ll hoard duplicates of cards I like and use in battle in order to apply flairs to them.
But the commons? Why would I bother? They’re just artificially inflating the number of cards I own, stark reminders of how many packs I’ve opened, and a waste of resources to upgrade when I’ll never see the boons of those unlocked flairs. I don’t know why I’ve picked on Psyduck for this particular rant, but it’s indicative of the problem. I never use the card, its flairs are generic, and I’ve got more important cards to spend my shinedust on. I don’t need a meaningful grind for my 18 Psyduck, just let me discard the 16 I can’t use.
Next
Pokemon Pocket Desperately Needs A Report Button
Unmoderated player names are ruining the Pokemon TCG Pocket experience.