The latest expansion of Pokémon TCG Pocket, titled “Temporal Clash”, premiered a few days ago, bringing with it several surprises in addition to the new card sets. In our previous article, we previewed all the updates in this release, including the highly anticipated trading system. However, this system has sparked far more complaints than expected, and for good reasons.
How Does the Pokémon TCG Pocket Card Trading System Work?
Card trades can only be made between friends, one card at a time, both of the same rarity level, and are limited to cards ranging from ♦ to ♦♦♦♦ and ★. To facilitate this, a new currency called trade tokens has been introduced, which are consumed during trades. Additionally, the number of tokens required depends on the rarity of the card, with higher rarity cards demanding more tokens. And here lies the controversy.
The most basic cards do not consume trade tokens, just the general token. Cards of ♦♦♦ rarity will cost 120 trade tokens, ♦♦♦♦ cards cost 500, and ★ cards cost 400. The problem is that, currently, the only way to acquire tokens is by dismantling duplicate cards of ♦♦♦, ♦♦♦♦, and ★ rarity. Dismantling ♦♦♦ cards grants 25 tokens, ♦♦♦♦ cards give 125, and ★ cards provide 100 tokens. This means that to trade with a friend for a ♦♦♦♦ rarity card, you’d first need to destroy 4 cards of the same rarity or 5 ★ rarity cards, which is excessive.
According to its developers, this system was implemented to prevent abuse of the trading feature by both bots and players. However, this is a weak excuse, especially considering that each trade requires a general token that regenerates every 24 hours. Essentially, under normal circumstances where you’ve already used up your 5 tokens, you’d have to wait 24 hours and still be limited to trading only one card per day. Even if you saved your tokens, you’d be restricted to a maximum of 5 trades in one day, after which you’d need to wait another 24 hours for the next. These time constraints clearly undermine the developers’ justification.
Official Pokémon TCG Pocket Statement on Trading
The community wasted no time, and social media quickly filled with complaints and memes criticizing the overly predatory nature of this trading system. For this reason, the game’s official accounts promptly issued a statement:
— Pokémon TCG Pocket (@PokemonTCGP) January 31, 2025
In summary, the statement explained that the restrictions were implemented to prevent the abusive use of the system. The goal was to balance the game and maintain a fair environment for all players while preserving the joy of card collecting, which is the core of the Pokémon TCG Pocket experience. However, they stated that they are exploring ways to improve this feature and plan to introduce multiple methods for obtaining trade tokens in the future, including their distribution through events.
A Clear Takeaway
From this, we can draw a clear conclusion: trade tokens are here to stay (unfortunately), and the options being considered will likely prove insufficient. The most reasonable solution would be to completely eliminate the token system and keep only the general trading tokens. Alternatively, at the very least, they should allow players to earn tokens by dismantling lower-rarity cards. These lower-rarity cards, once all their visual effects have been unlocked, currently serve no purpose and become entirely useless.
