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Pokémon TCG Live app free-to-play with no in-app purchases

Meowth didn’t need to use Pay Day.

Pokémon Trading Card Game Live App screenshot cards
Image credit: The Pokémon Company

The upcoming Pokémon Trading Card Game Live app will be entirely free-to-play and will not feature any in-app purchases.

A PR representative for the digital app confirmed that Pokémon TCG Live will not cost its players any real currency to play, including acquiring new booster sets, cards and in-game currency. In the trading card game app, players will gain a selection of cards as soon as they join and can earn booster packs as rewards for completing content featured within the video game.

Update: This article previously stated that the Ladder League was a single-player mode, when it is actually a multiplayer feature. This has since been corrected.

Currently in beta in Canada only, the Pokémon TCG Live app enables players to collect currency by taking part in its daily Battle Pass quests, as well as quests from the Premium Battle Pass – which can be accessed by players who pay in-game currency. Players can also gain rewards by advancing in the Ladder League, which reflects your performance against other players during each season. With each new opponent defeated, players will be able to view what rewards they’ll gain by beating them.

Pokémon Trading Card Game Live App screenshot gameplay
Image credit: The Pokémon Company

The different levels of currency in the Pokémon TCG Live app include coins – which can be used to purchase accessories for a player’s avatar, as well as their deck box and card sleeves – credits, a currency that unlocks individual cards, and finally crystals, which can be used to purchase bundles and booster sets, alongside the aforementioned accessories.

If players have an account for Pokémon Trading Card Game Online, the original digital version of the trading card game, then they will be able to migrate their collection over to Pokémon TCG Live. However, if players do migrate their collection during the Pokémon TCG Live beta, then they will not be able to access it on their Pokémon TCG Online account. Any unopened products players have stored in their Pokémon TCG Online accounts can be converted into currency to be used in Pokémon TCG Live.

Should players have any physical booster packs with card codes, then they’ll be able to enter those codes into Pokémon TCG Live once it fully launches. This feature will be limited to recent releases, such as the upcoming Pokémon: Sword & Shield – Brilliant Stars set, with the app set to support Black & White sets sometime in the future.

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Pokémon Trading Card Game Live is a follow-up app to Pokémon TCG Online, which enables players to experience the trading card game in a digital format. Players can build decks, compete against AI opponents and challenge other players online in both a ranked and casual mode. As well as random opponents around their skill level, players can also challenge their friends to Pokémon TCG matches on the video game.

In the Pokémon TCG, two players use their respective decks in order to defeat six of their opponents’ Pokémon cards or leave them with no active Pokémon card or Pokémon cards on their bench. Players take turns to play Pokémon cards, as well as energy, trainer and item cards. Pokémon cards require energy to initiate attacks and abilities, with players winning prize cards whenever they manage to defeat an opponent’s Pokémon card.

The Pokémon Trading Card Game Live beta will not be available in the UK, with The Pokémon Company – the studio behind the trading card game app – yet to confirm other beta locations. The release date for the Pokémon TCG Live app launch is set for sometime this year.

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About the Author
Alex Meehan avatar

Alex Meehan

Senior Staff Writer

After writing for Kotaku UK, Waypoint and Official Xbox Magazine, Alex became a member of the Dicebreaker editorial family. Having been producing news, features, previews and opinion pieces for Dicebreaker for the past three years, Alex has had plenty of opportunity to indulge in her love of meaty strategy board games and gothic RPGS. Besides writing, Alex appears in Dicebreaker’s D&D actual play series Storybreakers and haunts the occasional stream on the Dicebreaker YouTube channel.

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