Pokémon TCG Pocket Player Reveals Exactly How Long It Takes to Complete the First Set… After Spending $1,500

One Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket player has definitively answered the question of how long it takes to get every card and thus complete Genetic Apex after spending $1,500 on the otherwise free to play game.

Reddit user Weens4Life has provided valuable insight into just how difficult it is to complete the first of many sets coming to Pokémon TCG Pocket, revealing they opened a whopping 1,741 booster packs on their way to pulling every card in Genetic Apex.

Previous estimates that it would take close to two years to complete the set appear accurate, though this does count the 60 incredibly rare alternate art cards and not just the base 226 cards in Genetic Apex. Weens4Life collected this smaller number after spending about $200, they said, but spent between $500 and $700 collecting just the final three cards from the alternate art pool.

Those going the full free to play route will be waiting a while, however. Pokémon TCG Pocket, with its traditional mobile game model, floods players with packs in the opening days but dries up soon after, granting access to just two packs a day during event lulls.

Genetic Apex will not remain the only set for long either, as developer Creatures Inc. has already confirmed an additional, smaller card drop is coming in December and a datamine has suggested the next full set, presumably with another 200 plus cards of its own, will arrive in January.

Weens4Life used the Wonder Pick feature to gain additional cards towards their collection but, as this only presents a 20% chance of pulling the intended one, it’s not particularly reliable. They finished the collection of 286 total cards after amassing 8,582 in total, a pile which included 129 Slowpoke and nine of the super special rare immersive Mewtwo. Not a single god pack was pulled.

This gargantuan effort didn’t cause any regret for Weens4Life, who said spending this amount was worth it. They made clear they wouldn’t be doing so again in the future, however, and will only focus on the base set of cards without alternates.

Efforts such as these make it unsurprising that Pokémon TCG Pocket is estimated to have made $120 million in just three weeks. A total of 30 million players had downloaded the game after just nine days too.

Creatures Inc. has looked to keep interest high by releasing myriad events catered to different playstyles, though only one focused on player versus player battles is ongoing currently. In this realm, the two usual suspects of Charizard ex and Mewtwo ex are currently dominating the meta, though Pikachu ex isn’t far behind.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.