Pokémon TCG Pocket Just Changed Everything With New Mew Set

It’s Mewsday! That could be a thing, right? Let’s all say it until it’s a thing? No? Oh. Well fine, but you should still open Pokémon TCG Pocket this morning, because it’s just added its first new cards since launch. And they’re going to mess up everything.

The other reason you should make this a priority is because—again, for the first time since launch—Pocket is being generous with those Pack Hourglasses. You’ll find 12 free in your Gifts tab “from the development team,” which is enough for a whole pack. Then, while completely unannounced and hidden by the game (a repeated issue), there are also a bunch of new Solo Step-Up Battle challenges to complete, offering five more hourglasses for each stage.

So, what do we have here? Primarily, it’s those Mythical Island packs we were told about last week. This is what the physical Pokémon TCG would call a “special set,” but here it’s a “Themed Booster Pack,” a smaller, 86-card set (68 new cards, with 18 secret rare versions), released between full sets. It’s themed around Mew, but introduces a bunch of new cards that seem very deliberately designed to screw with the current meta. And thank goodness.

Expect to see a lot of Vaporeon and Misty decks springing up, but also a whole bunch of people disrupting what previously worked with Pigeot ex and Tauros. I’m most excited, however, to mess around with the huge range of new possibilities for the Grass decks, combining Serperior and Exeggutor. We have a full guide for these new cards.

Image: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

Those 18 secret rares offer some stunning art to find, too. My son somehow already hit the alt-art Marshadow and Salandit, although we’re both primarily chasing the astonishing Serperior. There are also lovely alts for Mew ex, Celebi ex, and the most stunning lithograph-style rendering of Aerodactyl ex. It is, yet again, agony that these are not real-world cards to add to a binder.

You’ll also want to dig into the offline challenges, since—as mentioned—there’s hourglasses in them there hills. Hit Battle, Solo, and then the Step-Up Battle at Advanced level, and then the tiny “Expansions” button top-right, and you’ll be able to select a series of unlocking new challenges to pit yourself against decks designed around the newer cards. The same goes for the Expert Solo Battles. Why is it hidden like this? Why isn’t it mentioned in the news updates? I wish I knew. But still, this’ll allow you to open a few more packs when completed.

Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

It does seem like the new set might have not only been a surprise for players, but also the app’s designers, since the UI has somehow become even more abysmal as a result. If you want to see your Mythical Island collection, you have no choice but to scroll down through your Genetic Apex cards to find where they’ve been peculiarly inserted between GA’s secret rares and Promo-A cards. And if you don’t toggle the switch at the top to show missing card spaces, they’re not even given their own delineated section! It’s as if the developers set out to do the precise opposite of what anyone playing would expect or desire.

Things are slightly more sensible on the Home screen, although only after you’ve fiddled. When you open up the app for the first time today, you’ll see just a Mythical Island pack as an option, and might fear Genetic Apex has suddenly gone away. Not so, but you’ll need to tap on the pack (because god forbid this app put options to do things that are nothing to do with opening a pack anywhere other than on the screen for opening a pack), and then the faint button bottom-right that says “Select other booster packs.” Do this, pick a GA pack, and when you return to the Home screen you’ll now have the option to pick from either. Great work, everyone!

As poorly implemented as so much of this may be, it’s still a real pleasure to see Mythical Island added, especially given how many Pack Hourglasses are up for grabs in the (buried) new challenges. It’s fun to tear a bunch of packs open in a day, especially when gathering even the Basics makes for some major updates to your decks.

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