Pokémon TCG Live Reviews

by HiSeas_

Compared to Master Duel and MTG Arena, this game looks and feels 10 years behind. When watching a video on the history of PTCGO, Live reminds me of their browser game stage. It is clunky. It is slow. It is unattractive to the eye. It is full of game altering/breaking bugs. Matchmaking? Seems nonexistent half the time when I’m waiting 20+ minutes to be paired. What are your devs doing? Who even are they? Have they not played a digital card game client in the current market? It’s embarrassing. If it’s not the devs, who is it making the final decisions? Do they have any idea what a digital card game client needs?

You want more people to play the game. You want content creators to push this client. You want competitive players to be able to test for upcoming (overpriced) events. No one wants to play it, content creators are legitimately concerned for their future, and competitive players are considering just going to webcam games to practice. Is this 2008 or something? Get a grip on reality and PLEASE understand that your entire community is begging for this to be MUCH MORE than what it is. There is no excuse for this besides you just don’t care enough. Figure it out before you lose the faith of your community.

by Sirpokechu

The original Pokémon TCG online had way more going for it. It had a well developed fan base and following, every single card ever used in a TCG tournament, friends list, cosmetic options along with just making your character more customizable, pack opening was way better, why do I only get 5 or 6 cards from a booster pack? We were also able to trade and buy cards we don’t already own which alone is a huge turn off (i’ve opened over 80 packs trying to get a single card to finish a deck) There is a cap to how many packs you can open per set, why is it so hard to log in, why can’t we scan codes via the official site instead of using a whole different website for it? In my opinion, the original tcg live was way better and should’ve just gotten some more touch ups to it can fit with their new 3D art style which Game Freak ever loves, it’s going to take a very long time for this game to even get close to the point the original was at, they definitely should’ve put way more thought into this, my favorite version of TCG to play is unlimited which they have yet to be able to implement since they haven’t been able to add all the sets. PokémonTCGLive removes the creativity of tcg and places cards behind a large paywall (which is all gambling you can’t even buy specific cards) PokémonTCGLive has a long way to go if it ever wants to get close to reaching the legacy of the original.

by Chindki

So now since the update I try to play it tells me I need to update so I click the update now button and it brings me to PokémonTCGLive Store without giving me the option to actually updated and with less then 2 days left on the ladder prizes and I’m at 43 if this screws mr out of getting to level 50 and I loose out on the prizes I’m done with this game for good sooooo many bugs have led to a game loss especially the power tablets not registering when you use them out you play a Elisa sparkle and it only lets you take 1 fusion strike energy even tho it say you have 3-4 in your deck this game just screws you out of so much and one more thing if you use the mew deck and mulligan you will 1000% get a genesect for you starting Pokémon it’s like the game just automatically give you your worst Pokémon to start with….it’s awesom I’m gonna get screwd out of level 50 ladder prize because you idiots update the game to fix bugs but case another bug that die allow you to update the game which then doesn’t let you play and I bet a million you won’t compensate anyone for the prizes they miss out on because of you guys can’t get your crap together……once again I lost a game because the power tablet I played didn’t register so I only did 190 instead of 220 that’s 5 battles now lost because you guys still after months haven’t fixed the power tablet bug great job

by Bluepillow 10,000

This game over heats my phone like crazy. I also don’t understand the purpose of this game, ptcgo looked and ran way better than this. I’m surprised y’all didn’t just do a big update for that game, it would’ve saved you and all of us a lot of trouble. People are frustrated this client isn’t living up at all and now you’re going to take away the good one. What’s the point? To just make more money? Is that the goal? Problems i have noticed thus far: - overheating problem with phone - graphical glitches - cards are banned when they aren’t implemented into the software properly - you only get 6 cards in booster packs now instead of the standard ten. - there’s no trading in a trading card game - a problem i have heard from people is that without migrating from ptcgo it’s really hard to get the credits you need to build decent decks I really wish we didn’t have to switch to live, I’m not ready to let ptcgo go, it worked, why change something that worked just fine for something that barely works at all?!
Also the old client was very beginner friendly, how do you expect to introduce new people (mainly kids, your main audience) to this game? No theme deck mode either just kinda shuts down the kids who want to play this. Or people who just like to play theme!

by Hihylive

Tcgo didn’t have all these issues with the ui why can’t I see the pokemon’s attack when I tap on a card and it has an ability just zoom in on the whole card regardless and the connectivity issues are ridiculous just freezes and you literally can’t do anything other than concede and that happens about every 1/4 battles it doesn’t refresh it has so much potential but it’s actually unplayable sometimes you had a working system already with tcgo why didn’t you just start with that as a base and make alterations to the cards it had then implement your new systems still could have cycled out the old cards and had a working game and who was going to sue you over copying it ? You yourselves? What was the purpose of this? Seriously did gamefreak get together as a whole and say “if it features gen 9 Pokémon it has to have horrible connectivity issues”? But more importantly you guys have updated this game multiple time and haven’t fixed the obvious glaring issue where it’s just unplayable sometimes. How has nobody thought to deal with that yet? Like that should be the first thing that gets checked “it works? Ok does it work consistently? No? Then fix that.” How I feel like anyone else would deal with this.

by MOBA Enjoyer

Definitely allows you to get the Pokémon TCG experience, except for one massive problem. It’s bugged. Not one bug, not small bugs, no it has several massive bugs. You want to climb ranked? Well guess what, you’re going to randomly be frozen out of your own turns, cards will randomly do things that they’re not supposed to, and the game will randomly prevent you from using cards or abilities that you can 100% use! Here’s an example I just experienced!!! I was playing an Urshifu V deck into a Garde ex deck, and what happened? On one of my most important turns the game completely froze me out of being able to do anything except hit end turn - so I was unable to evolve my Urshifu, attach my Single Strike Energy, or ANYTHING ELSE. I lost by 1 prize - which I would’ve claimed had I been able to evolve my Urshifu & attach an energy that turn. However, that’s not the end of it! No, this game is so poorly coded that the bugs didn’t stop there!!!! Yes, my next turn I activated professor’s research and it discard my benched Pokémon. YES, MY BENCHED POKÉMON. Do yourself a favor, avoid PokémonTCGLive like the plague & DO NOT spend money if you choose to play. It’s a waste given how terrible this product is.

by Decxtra

So as a Pokémon fan of 20 Years I was super excited to see that TCG was finally coming to the phone as my PC just broke. Unfortunately though there has been one very upsetting bug and seems like for whatever reason with certain decks, cards and/or moves the game pretty much freezes… my opponents timer just goes down but theres never a switch of turns (usually after a minute of stalling, turns will auto switch). This is very annoying as it usually happens just about every other game and the only way to get out of this bug is to close app and by doing so the game registers you quitting in the middle of a ranked match and you loose points. Sometimes I can go maybe two games without this bug occurring but it seems like all major meta decks have this issue. With that being said this bug occurs a lot sometimes it will be back to back games sometimes its every other game and its very irritating when all you want to do is relax and play this game but you have a bug that forces you to close app every 20 minutes. I hope they fully fix this bug as people in the TCG community and people in my TCG groups are all slowly hating this game and its starting to push away from the game we all love to play.

by _Mali_~

At the start when you have to either log in or make a new account takes at least 30 mins to get through and I couldn’t get through logging in didn’t work the button taps are too unresponsive same with creating a new account. I tried to make a new account because I couldn’t login but then that didn’t work just unresponsive taps in the right location the page moving around all the time and when I thought I made a new account it sent me to a google privacy page had me login there and then nothing happened it just kept me at the google profile privacy screen so I closed app and tried to login thinking I made a new account and it didn’t work so I have no choice to delete the game it does work and destroys the percentage on the phone and makes it very hot. Very very disappointing I had high hopes as a Pokémon fan I wanted to see if there was a good card game on the phone and I was wrong. Fix the unresponsive taps and fix the battery draining aspect and I’ll redownload it but as is it’s unplayable and unenjoyable. I would happily redownload if I can play but until then. If i could rate lower based on my experience I would but one star will do.

by CrystalCrusader711

Stay far away from this game. It’s the definition of style over substance. It looks much nicer then the original, but don’t be fooled, it’s a far worse app. The cards are low res and hard to read. Everything is squished together needlessly for some reason. The Pokémon on your bench only show their pictures, so there’s no way to get a sense of their attacks, weaknesses, resistances, and retreat costs without clicking on them. You have to scroll to look at your hand which is inefficient. You can’t read any of the item cards or buffs that a Pokémon has unless you tap on them and swipe to the appropriate card. The game melts your battery, you can’t easily assess your collection or read the attacks or stats, and it sets your device on fire. Above all, it’s unbalanced towards new players or those that simply don’t know how to build decks. In the original app, you could play in a promo deck latter that allowed players to fight on even footing for the same prizes as everyone else. Here you get no such thing. And now that I’ve migrated my account, I can no longer play on the original. It’s terrible. Do not make the same mistake.

by Going_cold_turkey

If anything I’m surprised this game has any positive reviews. I’m a big fan of TCGO, loved it, but I can’t emphasize how much I hate TCG Live. I play on my iPad Pro, it’s absolutely idiotic that they won’t let you play in landscape mode and instead cram everything into portrait mode. The graphics are horrible and have a headache 5 min into a game trying to read the cards. Every deck I bought, that I submitted the card for to use on TCGO, are now missing in the game. Also missing every deck I purchased in Online. The positive reviews are all the same, “it’s in beta, give them time, they’ll fix it”. It’s been in beta since February, all the problems should’ve been smoothed out by now. After seeing how buggy Scarlet and Violet are too looks like Pokémon the company just doesn’t care anymore and they’re just continuing to destroy what we’ve come to know and love. Also, DO NOT MIGRATE YOUR DATA OVER FROM TCGO!!!!! I made that mistake, thinking the game was going to be better, now I have no way of going back to the superior TCGO without starting over from scratch with a new acct. which after playing Live I’m very tempted to do

by Casual Emailer

PokémonTCGLive is painfully slow to open, and frequently needs closed and reopened. Online matches often freeze causing you to disconnect and then demotes you every time if you were in a ranked match. Trade-in value for extra cards in the collection yield so little in game currency that it’s laughable, which makes pulling a rare card for a 2nd time a complete waste of a pull. The game for whatever reason makes my phone run extremely hot and drains the battery worse than anything I’ve ever done on my phone. (I’ve played on iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPhone 13)

Altogether it’s just disappointing because they shut down the other version of TCG online for this and it is missing a ton of features. No trading cards. No social components like chat whatsoever. You can add friends but it’s almost pointless because you just have a few cringy emotes like it’s clash Royale or something. The game crashes so much that there is actually a warning when you open PokémonTCGLive that hasn’t gone away and I’ve played for almost a month now. Classic Nintendo move by making an underdeveloped mess of a game and then force-feeding its player base.

The gameplay itself and flow along with visuals (when it actually works right) has potential to be one of the best online TCG’s but these problems are totally ruining it.

by RealKevDoy

So this is what we’ve been waiting for all of this time? An app stuck in portrait mode on iPads that looks pixelated?

Migrating to this beta would wipe out my existing account, so until I know this is the only option and it’s actually stable I will not be moving here. Not to mention, this is really going to split the player base.

Dear Pokémon. I love your game, but please please please fix this.

by Random_golfer

Just from playing this game for a short while, it’s easy to see why some people have been upset with it. I’ve played 16 games and 3/5 losses are already based on disconnects. The packs and general availability of ease in getting them seems pretty steep. They only have 6 Pokémon and cost a large amount, enough that the only really usable cards are the ones you start out with. This given, it makes playing and starting out in this version of TCG more one dimensional especially since you know a lot of people will just start out with a deck and find out which ones need set ups and just ruin the process. This was pretty easily done, I swapped everything out of the charizard deck except the charmander, charizard ex, and radiant charizard. The rest aren’t really super helpful. I replaced them with arceus V and Vstar, and some extra energy. This did afford me 7 wins in a row until I disconnected. In the previous TCG, there were multiple different styles you could use to beat other players, which had some fun aspects to it. But generally, the previous TCG was better. One idea I did have would be to transfer cards of Pokémon caught in other games like Pokemon Go to an account in TCG which could kind’ve connect the video game to it’s Trading card game counterpart.

by MrSoFrustrated

This game is rigged and I can prove it. All of the coin flips are not random. They should theoretically be 50-50 but change depending on what deck you use. Played over 250 rounds with a meta Charizard deck. Coin flips were ~56-44 my way. Fairly close to 50% odds. I switched to a Wugtrio deck mill setup which heavily relies on coin flips to remove the cards from the top of my opponent’s deck. This breaks up the monotony of meta decks AND makes games exciting for me. Guess the numbers for coin flips after switching my deck? I have lost 97 of my last 104 beginning coin flips. This is statistically almost impossible. But it gets even worse when it comes to in match coin flips. I flip three times and every head removes 3 cards. In ~250 matches I have flipped heads exactly 27 times out of 150 coin flips. I switch back to a meta deck and I magically win coin tosses about 50% of the time. I constantly get three tails in a row with wugtrio and feel lucky if I get one heads out of three. Try it for yourself and see.

Update: still broken and this game is cheating users. Confirmed via big name YouTubers experiencing the same thing along with forums.

In ONE game I flipped 5 times (3 coins at a time). Guess how many heads I got? Literally two. I also got 3 tails THREE TIMES IN A ROW out of 5 attempts.

by Commonplacent

I’ve played card games since I was 9, playing back in cities and locals during the base set format of this game. I’ve played online simulators for TCGs and then official clients when companies figured out how to monetize their games digitally. PokémonTCGLive and it’s desktop equivalent are shockingly poor when compared to the earliest online tcg clients, let alone its modern contemporaries.
After years of optimization it still melts batteries, runs slow, crashes often, and has awful ui decisions on mobile and desktop. If it’s not an aggressive deck mirror taking 35 minutes to play a best of 1 due to animations then it’s the game crashing when you go to accelerate energy, or the act of dragging up an energy causing you to tab out of PokémonTCGLive and then attaching that energy randomly to your bench.

PokémonTCGLive experience is a quit moment for so many people i know wanting to try out this game as a tcg. In an age where you have so many wonderful and diverse gameplay experiences in the online tcg space, please don’t waste your time with this one, try marvel snap, try ascension, try the tabletop version of this if you like, it’s delightful! But don’t expect this client to get better, because it simply hasn’t and won’t.

by Brud3r05

I was so stoked when I saw Pokémon had come out with a new client for the online trading card game, and that it would be accessible on my phone. Quickly came to realize how horrible this client truly feels. Everything is so slow and jittery, it really struggles with quick movements. On PC it runs better, but it’s really poorly made for the iPhone and iPad. On top of that, the servers themselves are horribly managed it seems, because if I ever, EVER step away from my game for even 2 seconds to check a text or anything, the whole thing freezes and doesn’t know that it’s supposed to do. It’s literally impossible to reconnect to a game you have stepped away from for even a couple seconds. And, since games take 20-30 minutes sometimes, I am locked into a match on my phone for that long, incapable of replying to a quick text message or anything like that. Also if for whatever reason service or WiFi craps out at all, good luck recovering that game. Even when you reconnect, it’ll either kick you from your match, or take forever for the game to reload, and then your turn has ended and your opponent got a free turn basically.

I think this version has a lot of potential, but it really just feels like it was super poorly made. I’m sure the developers worked hard on it, but you can’t deny bad performance. It’s just the way it is.

by Do Idbdoendock

Everytime I try to get my rewards from pass or daily quest just loads for a while then says error.

by WolfEXE57

Game is filled with hackers already, watched someone win the game before i could even play a move was crazy.

by Hairy Pairatestes

I transferred my data over from PTCGO and it didn’t give me my credits for my 125 unopened packs! Fix this now!

by Mctoasty126

Runs terribly and lots of cards that they promised would be migrated from my account aren’t here.

by Kaidifjdnejdif

It keeps freezing when I try to login, it will not let me login

by Roxas A

I played through the tutorial skipping most of the practice battles. By that point I knew this game was not for me. Even tho I played and enjoyed the previous TCG app. Why, you might ask, do I hate PokémonTCGLive? For one reason and one reason only. My device is a base model iPhone 13 with plenty of space on it. Out of approximately 4 times I have opened PokémonTCGLive it overheated my device every time. So hot in fact I had to change how I was holding the device. Its not over time or anything either. It started to get noticeably warm on the games main menu.
If you look past the heating issue then the game is fine. Lacking a solo mode the previous TCG app had is a big missed opportunity tho. Plus they only let you import so many of each card from the previous tcg app. Witch I assume was for balance and system/menu/app changes. It might just be me but, I could not find a way to just look at my digital collection. On the plus side the had and cards are ez to read when you select them. Creating a deck was fine as well. What I expect from a long term tcg. They even have a competitive and casual play style to select before matching up with others.
Tho with all that said I would never recommend or praise this tcg to any one with it heat issues.

by Gunner 3:16

Tutorial will crash midway and you have to refresh PokémonTCGLive see potiental but needs cleaned up

by BaronCool86

So I’ve played this game for a good while now. I do love the fact that you cannot buy your way to a super filled deck like other games. I do enjoy the simple fact that you can also play ranked games and casual games. As far as the negative aspects go, the drawing ratio is off. If you have 16 Pokémon and 15 energy cards, that’s more than half the deck…and in two or three turns you get no energy cards; or Pokémon to play. Many games ended too quickly because I couldn't get enough Pokémon to put down to play. A lot of times I had enough Pokémon but no energy cards to put on them to properly battle.

The mechanics of the game need vast improving, any time you play four games in a row and the other person beats you because you have no back up Pokémon to go to is a problem. They also make it unfair, in regards to at least making sure that a game is played on equal grounds and made more fair. I’m not saying an individual is cheating, but what I am saying is that the mechanics of the game do not make game play fair enough. So much so that I have deleted the game from playing it until it gets better.

I also believe they should include a story mode to get you use to playing the game, and a better tutorial in how to play the game as well. Outside of that it is an okay game, but it does need vast improvements to be a much better game; and before I will consider downloading it and playing again.

by °BlueFlareBlitz°

I used to be able to read my cards without having to tap to zoom in (as opposed to seeing blurred, tiny text that REQUIRES you to zoom in order to read it). And the side-scroll for the cards in your hand doesn’t work with this “fast-paced” style. The tap and then confirming it for things like prize cards just made battles slower (as it was just tapping to pick a prize card in the older app). You also added “dragging” for discarding energy… which wasn’t in the older app and also makes the games annoyingly slow too. And as the cherry on top, I can’t tell who’s turn it is half the time (older game visually showed who’s turn it was in the middle of the screen in large text) and the UI for collecting pass rewards (or whatever it is) is so small on the lower left that it took me a bit to find it. This was just from playing one casual game, which felt like it was longer than it needed to be, and struggling to navigate with some of the tiny visual selections. Please, for the life of me, make things readable and noticeable for your fast-paced game! Take out unnecessary dragging interactions during live gameplay! Just doing those 2 things might increase your ratings and make the gameplay less frustrating.

by Hajfjfjdnjddjdbbdhd

I was really excited for Pokémon TCGO to move to a mobile app, but PokémonTCGLive seems to be getting worse, not better since it’s release. The bugs are a constant problem; seems like a new one every time I play. Certain moves or abilities don’t work, supporter cards don’t work, just so many things. The matches also have a strange timing system that seems both too long for the opponent but too short for me. I will sit and wait for several minutes watching the opponent do nothing, but when it comes to my turn if I don’t respond within seconds, my turn is auto ended. This often just ends in me conceding because I don’t want to sit and watch a screen while nothing is happening. For all o know though, it’s just another bug affecting my opponent. Please fix i the issues so we can actually enjoy the game

Edit: the developers are definitely moving in the right direction. Still not perfect by any means but it isn’t nearly as bad as it was before

by Courtneylaneee

I have been a player of Pokémon TCGO for a while now and was excited to hear about the switch to TCG live. For the most part I have been enjoying the game as I always have. However there are a few things that I think TCGO got right that the new platform did wrong. As others have said the rewards system for progressing through levels, ranking, or battle pass are miserable. It takes a long time to move up a notch and the payout for that is so low. It used to be fairly easy to obtain coins for purchasing booster packs or deck boxes on TCGO. Another thing I’m disappointed about is the removal of premade deck boxes for purchase. I enjoyed playing quite a few of those. The switch to the new currency types is a bit confusing to me also. If there was even an option to purchase extra credits with Apple Pay, I’d consider that. Now I have to make a stop at the store and buy actual packs lol. The last criticism I have is that the cards during gameplay are often hard to read, cannot view whole card or affects, etc. I think there is a better way to arrange this.

All in all it needs improvement and I understand it is still very new, the game is still enjoyable and I will continue playing but would love to see some changes.

by Bedridden Grim Reaper

its really fun but it’s pretty clear that this was not made to account for new players. when someone plays a card that you don’t know the effects of, you have to tap on it, which doesent sound too bad, but the time window can be kinda tight, and it will also cause you to miss out on other cards being played while you are reading the effects of that first card, and before you know it, its your turn now, and your opponent set up all their stuff, and you dont know what half of it does, and on top of all that, you have a timer restricting how long you can stay in your own turn without expending or using anything. some of the bugs are pretty frustrating too. one time, i was playing on the pc version, and my pc lost connection to the servers (while connected to my router via ethernet cable?) which caused a certain animation to begin, where all the cards go back into the decks, and if connection is restored, they are put back exactly as before. at least, its supposed to do that. but for me, in that moment in time, that card return animation never played. i wound up forfeiting that match because i couldn’t interact with my own cards! pokemon plz fix

It’s a great game, but seriously held back in quite a few regards.

by 5.56 Vs. 7.62x39

This is exactly what you’d expect from an online version of the playing card game. It’s very similar to TCG online. The issue is, however, that this game give you the option to transfer the account info from your TCG account over to this game, with the caveat that you the TCG account will be deactivated. This does not transfer any of your decks, cards, currency, etc, and start from square one on this game. Essentially you transfer the account and wipe all hard earned progress on the TCG just so you can use the same user name and the password for this platform instead. The second issue is that there are a whole host of banned cards and series. Don’t get me wrong, this balances the gameplay out a bit. But this sparks two other issues. Issue A: is that there are cards that are banned in the standard version and okay in the beta (and vis versa), B: there is no skill based matchmaking negating the balanced element of these bans, and C: this encourages meta gaming as I constantly play against similar decks. The final but easily improved issue is the less than random coin flip, but that can be patched.

Overall it is a Pokémon card game and helps me get my fix for strategy based card games. I wholeheartedly recommend for people who are new to playing the card game online.

by Kinglyph

First the positives: I like the new, clean UI look. It’s received a modern update and is just more fun to look at than Online. I also like that the trading system has been dumped in exchange for crafting your own cards as well as the introduction of multiple currencies to “purchase” booster packs. HOWEVER, I’m afraid that this game is going to kill my iPad’s battery. Even when I put it into low power mode, my battery still got really hot and drained about 6% from two quick battles. The game is not optimized for Apple products at all. On top of that, all the cards are blurry. So if you’re not used to playing and you don’t have certain card’s moves/abilities memorized, you have to constantly tap on the cards to make them bigger/readable. I would really like to transfer my data over to Live but until these two issues are addressed (or I’m forced to migrate), I won’t be using it that much. I mainly use my iPad for drawing and I don’t want to compromise my battery for the Pokémon Company, who has consistently let me down over the past few years. This game could really be something great and I know development doesn’t happen over night. Just please fix these major issues before the impeding migration process.

by Spangeob

There are ZERO in-app purchases! Everything you need can be acquired by playing the game reasonably. It’s so refreshing to see that in this day and age, and because of it the crafting system is much better in my opinion than other online TCGs like MTG Arena where you have to pay money for stuff like rare wildcards.
Unfortunately the game is super buggy in all other areas and lacks a lot of content. The game overall feels like it has an overwhelmed, understaffed development team. Which is a shame because I think it has potential to be great!

Feedback: Please give us the ability to mute emotes and have the game either auto-win before you take your last prize cards or prevent conceding as you are winning. Too many trolls take advantage of the ability to deny XP by conceding as you are picking your last prize card. I would also like to be able to block people who intentionally slow play and/or are generally jerks. I do not think this will affect matchmaking on any significant level except for players who go out of their way to be toxic.

by M31an

I like this game. Compared to some tcg games it’s kind of laid back. You can test out your deck before playing actual matches which is helpful since i bought a physical Gardevoir v deck and I want to test the changes I made. Not happy about the regulations because that deck was good enough to get far in the ladder but it keeps you thinking so I won’t complain about it. The things I have problems with though are the many bugs. First time starting up the game it crashes. Every. Time. Sometimes it crashes 3-4 times before I can play. Then after awhile of either deck editing or playing a few rounds it crashes. sometimes in the middle of a match. Then there’s that time I tried to retreat a Pokemon and it wouldn’t let me choose the energy to discard so I was stuck and couldn’t do anything except close the game. Finally PokémonTCGLive drains your battery really quick. Would really like all of that to be fixed but especially the battery thing.

by Miguel Baltizar

Alright so first this game is fun if you like card games or any TCG. I’ve only been playing this for a month but being an avid master duel player I picked it up pretty quickly it’s fun and strategic. So my issues aren’t really with the gameplay more so connectivity. Idk if it’s the newest update but I’ve had matches that take so long for the other person to get ready or it says waiting for so and so and then they’d never appear. Another thing is when I leave PokémonTCGLive to check a notification or message someone real quick it’ll completely freeze on me or I can’t do anything and have to close and reopen PokémonTCGLive . I get it if you’re trying to prevent inactivity but man it might be a little too quick sometimes. Like I’ll sometimes be in a rush to message someone and reply with single word messages 😂 and return and the game freezes and it’s really a shame because like I said this game is really fun and a joy to get used to the game but if you could fix these issues that’d be nice

by Nl5902

I’ve been playing this game a lot over the past few days and have really enjoyed it. I like almost everything about it but there are a few pretty big issues to me. First and foremost, there is no way the coin flips are as random as they should be. Almost every time I play, there are streaks of it landing both head and tails, for multiple games in a row. The next biggest thing to me is the card shuffles. It has to be one of the most annoying things in the game because they are some of the worst shuffles I’ve ever seen. There will be many times, where all I pull is energy for a few rounds. There will be a few times where all you pull are tools/supports for a few rounds. There will also be rounds where you don’t pull a single Pokémon in your first hand, even though there are almost 20 in the whole deck and there’s no way you should at least pull one. These, to me, are the worst things about this game however there’s a few more smaller issues I have. The game has a few bugs. I have lost quite a few rank points now because the game wouldn’t load completely, I couldn’t choose the card I intend to choose, and from games lagging a bit too long and I waste all my play time. Overall, love the game and I feel like it has a lot of potential but I really need these issues fixed before playing much more.

by Jazz516

Literally the one reason I wanted PTCG on mobile was to be able to scan codes directly from my phone. Instead, it links me to the website for me to have to manually type codes? Something needs to change here.

by BrTmKl

As others have said, battery is probably the biggest issue here. There is no reason it should drain it that quickly (and I’m on a 14 pro Max) Suggestions for better battery performance - Toggle on/off for animations - Resolution Adjustment option Also, if I switch from Wi-Fi to LTE or if I’m out of PokémonTCGLive for more than about 10 seconds, I may as well restart the whole app as it never recovers. Please enable - Session control server-side - ability to rejoin (even if it comes with a “turn” penalty) after 10 seconds (like CoD) Gameplay wise, really really solid BUT, as others have noted progress is definitely a grind, not a thrill or challenge. However, my biggest gripe comes in 2 forms 1. No ability to copy decks of friends made in PokémonTCGLive 2. No search function fo find friends or history of players battled 3. No option for real-money in-app purchases Love playing again but these roadblocks are keeping it from being a truly perfect game

by Angry Pokémon Lover

I will give credit to Pokémon for making this look much better than PTCGO, the layout is much easier to understand. But, it is very laggy and it takes like 5 minutes to load up. I wish they added trading back because it’s SO hard to build a deck now especially since all good decks have a lot of rare cards, they shouldn’t have a time refresh for quests and should also allow you to have friends that you can play with. If you live in a country that is not supported you have to get a VPN and change it to the US, I spent a month thinking it was just a glitch because I couldn’t log in and then I finally figured it out. The “It will get better it’s still in BETA” thing is over now, it’s out of BETA and it’s still garbage. It’s good for new players and that’s it.

by JediAutumn

Currently writing this during the the open beta so things are subject to change later.
Positives
1) Overhauls to the custom avatar system (wow. I’m impressed)
2) The fact I can just download this to my phone for more portability rather than just a computer and tablets
3) The fact that once you own a card, you generate more of it (takes a lot out of the RNG of packs but in a good way for deck building purposes)
Negatives
1) My whole collection didn’t transfer over from TCG Online (Tons of decks ruined because they used really good cards from previous expansions)
2) Wow this game makes my phone burn up a bit (The heat up is powerful. I think my phone can handle only 2 battles before the heat gets strong)
3) I like the fact that there’s new currencies to get packs but why are we just restricted to ranked?
4) Why are we just restricted to standard decks for ranked

Overall this game has a lot of revisions to make. It isn’t bad but it’s not in a fully enjoyable state. My advice is to make challenges that everyone can complete for more rewards, daily challenges that reward pack currencies, make the casual playlists much more rewarding, and finally give us the rest of our collection from TCG Online so players can truly deck build with no limits.
Note to developers: A lot of these changes you can literally just take from the TCG Online. I think some of the Online reward systems would be wonderful for Live.

by SenpaiKush

Personally id give this game a 3.5/3.8 score for the time being. I feel like a lot of feedback you guys have received seems to picky. This is my first one ever playing a Pokémon card battle and I love how simple it was to dive in, it makes me want to give playing locally a try. Only criticism I could agree with is if somebody has lost all of they’re previous decks from transferring over from computer and also the fact that this game is grind heavy. All it’s missing for me is just having some additional ways to make gems and other recourses. I appreciate the fact that it’s not so easy to just buy the stuff with micro transactions. Also I love the fact that I kept my QR codes for all these years it makes me want to go update my collection. Other than that, I’m pretty much addicted to playing this lol

by Ggahdlwv13558

Ok i love pokemon and my fav is ash greninja and i had him before and i migrated my stuff now hes not in the game im tired of getting the pokemon i want then to just lose them started with my Nintendo 3ds someone stole it had every pokemon you could get but yea theres other pokemon cards i no longer had that i def had before i did play it though and like i read someone said made there battery die fast and really hot it did my phone as well so im stop playing it to till get fixed i was having fun playing it till made the new game i also was happy with having ash greninja so till fix the game and would also like my pokemon back yes you have greninja but i liked ash greninja card that i had would appreciate it oh i keep having to re-send my review sorry but i also kinda dont like the new look but its not bad def like the old look better i may try it on my laptop im watch pokemon xy my fav season on it now but yea probably be adding more to my review in few if it looks better on there then i take back that i dont like new look but till then i dont like it yea im not trying it on my laptop yet till fix the problems i havent had it long and ever since i got it the screen has flashed when i watch tv on it but sometimes it does not flash idk but it for sure has

by Dark Flare Knight 175

Clicking between cards is a little bit clunky, in a match, you have to click on a separate drop down window under the card to view detailed stats, and it doesn’t list the initial retreat cost of said card.. for that you have to just look at the actual card image on the screen, which is already small.. I would get rid of the drop down window and make the text that is on the card in active or in bench smaller so that you would be able to list all of the stats as well as initial retreat cost on the close-up image instead of having to click on a drop-down window ;) also in my opinion, the tutorials don’t really give the best examples of the newer tactics to Pokémon TCG or maybe I just read something wrong lol.. and one more thing, if it is possible try to enable the game to have a landscape mode so that players can easier see their hands in game without having to scroll ;) that’s it, everything else is great to me!! awesome app

by Mr.human Man.

Been itching for a new iOS Pokémon card game ever since I got back into ptcgo during 2020 and this is a pretty decent card game on iOS, however shifting from ptcgo is somewhat difficult for a few reasons, one major one being the UI works against you sometimes. Wanna see the retreat cost when you don’t have energy on the card? Nope you gotta press the info button after pressing on it. Wanna tap to select a card to play for an ability? Nope you gotta swipe it into place. Lotta weird things that a basic game like this should already have down.
Now for some things I actually like: absolutely love the master dual like start where you actually have stuff to use on things, you get a free battle pass right off the bat. Love that they’re bringing back the “micro transactions” of the old game where you really couldn’t get a decent collection or trade without getting real world Pokémon cards or if you where crafty: buying codes off of a website. Probably should mention trading, there is none, not yet at least but I don’t know if they are adding it at all but it really is going to make it difficult to get good cards without putting them up on a trading market.
Overall, going to love playing Pokémon on my phone, and Pokémon, please get some good updates, also maybe make the characters not horrifying. Otherwise keep up the good work.

by Ant Polise

I enjoy the game a lot and I’m happy they finally have a playable version for iPhone. The core game is fun but there’s a lot of missing features. The battle pass takes a long time to level up and the rewards aren’t nearly as good as the old online system was. There’s only 2 daily challenges also with minimal rewards. More packs in the battle pass and more challenges to complete are necessary. Players don’t receive nearly enough currency to purchase packs or deals unless you save up for weeks of playing everyday. There’s no way to purchase packs without this special currency and no way to continually earn the currency either. There’s not enough ways to earn new cards and the game gets stale playing the same thing every time. The ranking system is really underwhelming, the reward increase very minimally as you progress, the tiers don’t have a big affect if any at all on your rewards, and I’m usually matched with someone over/under 2-300 points from me. There’s no contests or tournaments or special challenges to compete in. There’s also no “unlimited” deck battles just standard and expanded. I like the game but I will get bored and stop playing in a week.

by TheRealDumuzi

Bug in question is it keeps changing my red clear lenses glasses to a pair of teal glasses randomly. I have to keep fixing it back. Leave my glasses alone game, I need them to see! Also a recommendation is you know that card exchange system where you use the credits to get extra cards you already own? Maybe add onto that where you can also grab cards you don’t own but only regular cards and not anything over powerful like V star or something. Like for example I need Smoliv card line, like allow me to grab one Smoliv and one of the final evolution as I already have the midstage? I am currently using a psychic and grass themed deck. So yeah, just a neat suggestion. Cause I definitely need to save up gems or whatever you call the currency used for packs and such for premium stuff. You could make it so a little more credits are used to get the first card that the players don’t have but not over done.

Also fix them bugs too. That’s always important.

by Weebzzzie

Hey devs, I love the game. Here are a couple things that would make me call this the GOAT:

- When opening packs the screen should be dominated by the card that was recently opened. It should take up the whole screen or at the least a majority of it. Aiding reading and looking at the marvelous graphics and making the hype of getting a new card that much more rewarding.
- The transition between horizontal and vertical modes is broken. If I start a game horizontally then switch to vertical then the game seems zoomed in and cut off at a quadrant. Almost like the switching between modes isn’t changing the resolution and is just filling up the viewport with what it can.
- Have a more clearly labeled button called “View Collection”. Right now it’s a bit unintuitive how we do that. Unintuitive but not impossible.
- In general I’d asked for the graphics and text to be bigger in general across the board. I don’t care about the mat underneath or if there is not empty middle part. I want to be able to see the cards clearly and select them without issue.
- On iPhone especially in horizontal mode it’s incredibly hard to select and play a card because it triggers the switch application functionality built into the OS. Maybe making the cards bigger and taller would effectively make this go away?

Hope y’all are listening and actively trying to make this better. I love this card game.

by RonnieTech M

The game is a really good game and I enjoy it very much. But I have a few issues with the game. First of all I think they’re should be a way to buy the card you want with the in game currency then buying it with real money. I think this be useful for many deck builders and casual players so they can build the decks they want instead of gambling on a pack and hope they get it. Another is the level up system. The battle pass is great and I think nothing should be done more to it. But when you level up your account I think there should be better awards you get when you level up because there has to be so much xp put in to you leveling up your account just to get 50 coins. Another is the shuffling and the randomness of the game. I’ve pulled two of the same card in a pack of cards. The coin flip and shuffling of the deck is no much better. The coin has gotten the same side multiple times in a row in 1 game and carriers forward over to another game. The deck pulls aren’t that good either. I get no Pokemon when you draw cards at the beginning of game either tho there’s 20 in the deck. But when these things are fixed I think this game will be 5 stars.

by Optimus Penguin

Overall: This game has a wild amount of potential. Very excited to be able to play Pokémon TCG on my mobile.

Positives: game is currently entirely free to play. The game gives you a decent selection of starter decks (10?), so you have lots of exploring to do. Generally speaking the interface is fairly intuitive. Art is great. Good visual information design.

Negatives: random crashes (assuming this will be resolved over time). There is no play history, so if you look away and then look back you will miss everything that your opp did. The game will not remain active in the background, so if you switch apps you generally need to restart the PTCGLive app, which means no switching apps during a game. Tapping on a card to take a closer look at it could be improved (it’s currently clunky during certain actions, and it will omit certain card information, like attacks, if you can’t perform that action).

by DJ Loughner

I’ve been playing for a little bit now, and I really enjoy the game. It plays and looks really well, maybe not the best on mobile but runs amazingly on my computer, and overall is a really good game that gets people to get into Pokemon cards and learn how to actually play the card game. However, there are some issues that people complaining about are right to be mad at. The coin flips in the game are really ridiculous. The RNG (at least for me) always felt like it was out to get me and anyone that used a Snorlax card. I would almost never win the starting coin flip, and any time people flipped two coins with Snorlax’s asleep effect I thought they might as well use cards to discard the card or something. Plus, with people reporting that they seem to have crazy streaks of coin flips being either the same side or pattern, its definitely not just nonsense. Also, I had an experience where I just couldn’t attack someone for a turn? Not like just can’t attack on the first turn or unable to attack a Mimikyu with an EX card, just randomly couldn’t use a card’s attack that turn but could the next with basically nothing that could stop me being present. The game has some issues but it’s definitely not too noticeable or problematic unless you’re some hardcore Pokemon card game enjoyer, but if you are that person then you probably already know about this game. It’s definitely worth a shot to play this game.

by AJ40_40

I love the gameplay and have only had slight bug issues but nothing game breaking or broken. I wish they would update these bugs a little quicker as it’s been a whole season and I have not seen some pretty minor but glaring issues fixed with retreating and not being able to select an energy type I want to discard to retreat. The one thing I miss from the old game is the tournament play. If they implemented more Pokémon League play, actually being able to host online tournaments or join online tournaments or the old tournaments they had in PTCG online where you would win a pack if you won 4 in a row that would be awesome. I think it would create at least 10x more engagement as well as a consistent player base. I find myself every season hovering at the top of the league but there’s no actual ranking compared to games like Hearthstone. I like online a lot more than physical cards because it allows for easier play more often but I miss the tournament and ranking aspect. Also adding old expansion tournaments or variants of tournaments (single prize card, specific expansion decks, etc) would be cool as well. Matchmaking time for me is almost always instant, I hope this wouldn’t affect if a tournament style was adapted.

by Coloader

I’ve been looking for a digital Pokemon online TCG for a while now, and I’m so glad I found this. This game deserves way better than the 2.9 rating (at time of this review). Now I never played the original, and to be fair some things the original players are saying I could understand. But as a new player I have a lot more positive notes than negative ones. iPhone 13 mini -

Cons - to be honest, the only con I can list, is the one thing I agree with the original Pokemon card gamer players. The packs giving 6 cards, of course would be better if you get more cards per pack. Otherwise that’s about it. I’ve had maybe one or two crashes, but no losses due to disconnects.

Pros - The really cool thing I like is the battle pass is actually really easy to unlock. The daily tasks give a good amount of exp and you can get enough crystals early on to unlock the premium pass. So you can actually get a decent amount of free packs pretty early. I’m ok with the game not giving you a ton of cards early on, I like it better when it’s earned. At least it’s an even playing field, minus the kids that steal their parents wallets. Gameplay runs pretty smooth, I’ve really had no issues with bugs except sometimes a card or ability should be highlighted to show that it’s available, but sometimes it doesn’t. Or sometimes a purple energy will be white instead of purple. That’s about the extent of the bugs.

In short, like the title says, it deserves a much better rating.

by HYPERTEARS

Most people criticizing this game not taking into consideration that it was released as a mobile BETA. Which usually entails a smaller selection and is generally just a soft opening for the game at large. For those who are upset about having to start from scratch, that is generally the point of most games, if everyone was able to bring in their decks after years of collecting it wouldnt be fair for players that are just starting. I understand that most of pokemon allows for you to continue your journey with the same team, but given the ranking system and the fact that its still beta it makes more sense not to overwhelm new players with a bunch of assets. One person was mad they cant bring in their old cards and felt slighted in that their old collection now feels meaningless, but you still have the physical cards which is the actual point… right?

I like that this game isnt really pay to play and there are opportunities to build really interesting decks with just the starter decks and opening some boosters. As a new tcg player i can confirm its kind of annoying running into someone run some nuianced 2019 strategy with all their old cards that you cant really get in game without grinding or purchasing old boosters. But its just as fun taking them out with my Clefairy deck…

With that said this game rocks, stop complaining and get to playing.

by Ludwigvankoopa

When I got an email saying that Tcgo was going offline and a new version was released and was put into mobile, I immediately downloaded it. And my expectations were completely blown out of the water. First they allowed to migrate my tcgo account along with my collection. I had no hiccups with the process at all. Then I was greeted by a free battle pass. Don’t mind if I do, the rewards are absolutely worth it, unlike other games the battle pass is actually rewarding. Then I discovered you could craft cards with credits. Holy crap that was incredibly well done! Finally, no clunky internet problems! This is a fantastic beta. Just a couple suggestions: first bring back trading, second if you can craft cards than you should recycle them manually, thirdly be able to fight npcs like in tcgo. Other than that I have no problems with this beta, if you have tcgo and haven’t migrated yet, do it already it’s incredibly worth it.

by Sixty-card Pickup

I have played around a thousand matches this year, and had a whole entire ton of fun [around two pounds per match]. I started playing the TCG at leagues around ten years ago, and don’t go nearly as often now. I don’t know how many matches I played before this year, but I’m guessing it doesn’t come close to a thousand.
The Pokémon Trading Card Game is a great game, and the current rotation has so many delightful and interesting cards. Art is great. I’ve always loved deck building so the speed at which I can modify the decks in this game is wonderful. I love being able to play the TCG so easily when in transit or anywhere else that it’s not convenient to set up a table. I enjoy the new credits system.
I think the game looks excellent but is definitely slow/choppy at times [likely technology limitation, and I wouldn’t know to what level that can be optimized] and last few sets crashes at game start maybe 1/13 games; crashes sometimes when deck building and building past 60 cards (both crashes happen obviously more often than I’d like). It is possible the crashing issues were fixed in today’s update, I do not know.
I can ignore the crashing when giving the game five stars, because I’m having about two pounds of fun every single match.

by Shadowball1998

There is nothing to complain about as far as the quality of this game or the format. It’s set up well and user friendly. The only thing I have a problem with is when you distribute damage counters on an I phone it’s REALLY easy to close PokémonTCGLive accidentally, but that’s not pokemons fault. I keep seeing Many people complaining about things like coin flips and shuffles….it happens. It’s not the games fault you have bad luck. Yes it is possible to get heads 5 times in a row, yes it is possible to get no energy in your hand even if there’s 20 in your deck. Tell me you’ve never played a trading card game without telling me you’ve never played a trading card game. Yes they do patch the game when they have to fix something every couple weeks(it’s so you can keep playing😉) and when a new set is released they’ll do another one(that’s to add the new cards). Another complaint people commonly have is that a lot of people use the same decks, Ill explain how METAS work. I ask you this… If you see 3 knights fighting with normal full sized swords, are you going to rush in with a steak knife? No you won’t. You either grab a similar sword to what they’re using (this is META) or you attack from a distance. Pokemon can’t and won’t control what people do in thier game. This is and online version of a trading card game and plays well. That’s all

by Iolipop Polonium

Good

by Cherrymonster68

It’s Pokémon, I don’t have to say much else!