The Pokemon Trading Card Game has been going for decades and remains one of the most successful aspects of the franchise. It boomed in the wake of Pokemon Go as it helped reignite the Pokemania craze before ascending to even greater heights during the pandemic as people relied on its comforting nostalgia to stay afloat. Product flies off the shelves as quickly as it can be restocked and, for better or worse, its secondary market is doing incredibly well. To say the Pokemon TCG is doing well would be the understatement of the century.
So with it being a cultural megalith and lynchpin of the franchise, how come the Pokemon TCG hasn't been able to unveil any new Pokemon to the world yet?
Imagine if Sword & Shield: Battle Styles was used to introduce Urshifu to the masses, or Chilling Reign was able to reveal Calyrex, Spectrier and Glastrier? Or if, way back when the TCG was exploring its own region, Holon, we were given new Holon variants like the Alolan, Galarian, and Hisuian ones we love so much today?
It's not like new Pokemon haven't been revealed outside of the core games and anime before. In 2018, Pokemon Go was used to reveal Meltan and Melmetal, showcasing the game’s integration with Let’s Go! Pikachu and Eevee. While nobody these days cares about either of those blobs of sentient metal, at the time it was a big deal. Pokemon Go, the plucky mobile app that became the cultural cornerstone of 2016, was deemed important enough to introduce brand new Pokemon.
This isn't just a case of the big, popular game getting more recognition and prestige than the game I actually like, either. Creating original Pokemon would solve one of the biggest problems the Pokemon TCG has compared to its competitors: it's inherently limited by its source material. Whereas Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh! have entire multiverses full of infinite potential to play in, Pokemon has 905 Pokemon and an assortment of random trainers to use.
It makes talking about each card confusing. When you say "Porygon", are you talking about the Chilling Reign Porygon with the Sharpen attack that does 10 damage? Or the Ancient Origins Porygon with Sharpen and Data Check? Or the Porygon from Delta Species with the Sharpen that does 10 more damage than the other Sharpens? The problem with having an endless supply of cards based on a limited set of Pokemon is that you're going to get ones that are very difficult for casual players to tell apart.
More than that, it makes each new expansion a bit less exciting than it could've been. Take Magic, for instance; at the time of writing, we're in the middle of the preview season for its cyberpunk set Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. We've had cards with evocative names like Reality Heist, Guardians of Oboro, Satsuki the Living Lore, and Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant. They paint a picture of a whole world and invite you to imagine what's going on just out of frame.
Pokemon, on the other hand, just relies on its characters. What's the card? Braviary. What's on it? A Braviary. What does it do? Oh, you know, Braviary things. As much as I love Braviary, there's a limited amount of hype even a perfect Pokemon like it can generate. The entire franchise's health relies on pumping out new monsters every few years and hoping every piece of media associated with it is able and willing to keep up.
Of course, the TCG tries to work around this by adding lots of variants. Delta species, star, light, dark, Gym Leader's Pokemon, V, VMAX, V-UNION, VSTAR, every new era of the game introduces a new way to twist the existing Pokemon and make each expansion special. And it works! VSTAR looks like a really cool mechanic, and people adore the VMAX Pokemon… but there's a much easier answer: make new Pokemon.
People have seen Slaking a billion times, but what if they open a pack and find a brand new regional variant for it? Or they find a whole new evolution line for Smeargle. They're something novel, and thanks to the way the TCG clumps some types together (fighting, rock, and ground are all fighting-type in the TCG, for instance), they invite curiosity for what they'll be in the video games.
With the upcoming launch of Pokemon TCG Live, the new digital adaptation of the game meant to compete with games like Magic the Gathering Arena and Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel, there is a perfect chance for something really special. Throw a new Pokemon in there for digital users, with the physical release coming a bit later. It'd point eyes at the TCG that normally gloss over it in favour of the video games, and it would give the TCG fans something new to get excited over.
It doesn't even need to be a good Pokemon. After all, nobody's thought about Melmetal since 2018. Just give the TCG fans something to recognise the pillar of the franchise the cards have always been, please.
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