There are signs that Pokémon TCG Pocket’s competitive scene is shrinking rapidly, judging by the attendance for the game’s largest and most prominent tournament series, Ursiiday’s Pocket Weekly. At its peak in January the online tournament raked in almost 2,000 players from around the world, but numbers have fallen steadily, with the most recent tournament featuring fewer than 700 participants.
Pokémon TCG Pocket’s appeal for collectors and casual players has never been in doubt. As a platform for opening virtual packs and showing off the best Pokémon cards in virtual binders, and as a game to while away some time during your commute, it’s a slam dunk. What we didn’t count on was how strong the competitive scene would be when the game launched.
Ursiiday’s Pocket Weekly is the largest regular tournament series reported in the listings on Limitless TCG. Offering a $400 USD prize, the tournament hit a peak of 1995 players on January 4. Fans were no doubt fired up by New Year’s resolutions to become the very best, like no one ever was.
Ursiiday hasn’t matched that number since, and the player count has been on a downward trend. The most recent tournament, on April 19, only drew in 685 players.
A stale meta must be partly to blame. Six of the top eight decks at the most recent Pocket Weekly were built around Darkrai Ex and Giratina Ex. PTCGPocket.gg provides deck data for the preceding tournament on April 12, revealing that 38% of all decks ran Giratina Ex and 27% ran Darkrai Ex. The next most popular set of cards were Sprigatito, Floragato, and Meowscarada, anti-Pokémon Ex tech.
Compared to the rate at which paper Pokémon sets are released, Pokémon Pocket gets fairly rapid releases, and it’s possible that all that’s needed to reinvigorate the competitive scene is another big set. The release of Space Time Smackdown at the end of January boosted attendance at Ursiiday throughout February.
But perhaps Pokémon Pocket is showing the weakness of its simplistic design. It’s one of the simplest trading card games out there, even with the extra abilities and synergies added in more recent sets, and it just might not have the complexity to support a diverse meta.
If you got back into Pokémon via Pokémon Pocket, and want to collect the paper game, you may be horrified by how expensive Pokémon cards are at the moment – there’s a global rush. Our contributor Callum Self has a great article about why you should consider collecting Japanese Pokémon cards instead.
Want to talk about your favorite ‘Mons, or challenge someone to a game of Pokémon Pocket? Come and join us in the official Wargamer Discord server!
Source: Wargamer
