Pokémon TCG Pocket Players Cower as Mythical Island Expansion Threatens to Make Misty Even Stronger

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket players are already having enough trouble with Misty but the incoming Mythical Island expansion could make her even more powerful.

The trailer for Mythical Island, which arrives tomorrow, December 17 as a smaller expansion for the digital trading card game, showed a new version of Eevee evolution Vaporeon that takes successful Misty coin flips to another level of powerful.

Pokémon TCG Pocket uses mana generation, similar to games such as Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone, at its core, with players able to attach one energy per turn to slowly but surely build up to more and more powerful attacks.

A handful of cards break this one per turn rule, however, by allowing for additional mana generation. Of the four best decks in Pokémon TCG Pocket — Mewtwo ex, Pikachu ex, Charizard ex, and Starmie ex — only one (Pikachu) doesn’t rely on these additional mana generation cards. They’re therefore very powerful.

Misty is one such card, as players can flip a coin until hitting tales, and add one energy to a single Pokémon for every heads. This obviously gives players a 50% chance of getting an additional energy, but Misty became Pokémon TCG Pocket’s most infamous cards for instances when players would get several heads in a row and add five, six, seven, or more energy to a single Pokémon.

There is a soft limit to how useful this is, as most cards don’t need more than three or four energy to use their most powerful attacks. but that’s all about to change. A handful of cards including Stage 1 Pokémon Vaporeon were revealed in the Mythical Island trailer, and it’s this card that could turn those several successful coin flip turns into practically an instant win.

Vaporeon has an Ability called Wash out, which lets players move around an unlimited number of water type energy between their Pokémon. This means the several energy created by successful Misty turns are no longer trapped on one Pokémon and can instead be spread around evenly.

At its most extreme, players on Turn 3, the opening player’s first chance to attack, could therefore play a Misty and have a board with Starmie ex and two Articuno ex all capable of unleashing their strongest attacks; players would have, say, eight energy at their disposal instead of the two provided to most.

This exact play will be the exception and not the rule, but it will almost certainly make those already annoyed by Misty even more frustrated.

Vaporeon could still be an incredibly strong card outside of these major Misty moves too, as being able to move around energy freely offers myriad new solutions to old problems.

If an Active Pokémon is near a knock out, for example, players could shift all its energy to another Pokémon so the replacement is immediately ready to fight next turn, or transfer energy the opposite way to allow it to retreat and not damage the player.

It therefore could be enough to bump the Starmie ex above the other meta leaders, though with more than 80 new cards coming to the game in Mythical Island, the entire player versus player scene could be due a mix up.

Pokémon TCG Pocket arrived October 30 and is a certified hit for Creatures Inc. and The Pokémon Company, having earned an estimated $200 million in its first month across more than 60 million downloads.

This huge amount of money comes as Pokémon TCG Pocket follows the standard mobile and free to play game model, flooding players with rewards in the first few days before soon drying up, with spending real world money the only real way to re-experience that early thrill.

Completing Genetic Apex, the first set of cards which totals 226 officially but also contains 60 rare alternate art cards, will take players not spending money around two years according to one estimate, while those looking to make it rain can wrap up the collection after dropping around $1,500.

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