This morning when I woke up I, like every other well-adjusted individual, immediately silenced my alarm and started Pokémon TCG Pocket to open my morning pack. Lo and behold, I discovered that a brand new event had been introduced to the game overnight. It's a "Fire Pokémon Mass Outbreak Event." And it's. Fine.
This fire-type event seemingly came out of nowhere as a pleasant surprise today, and it includes a few different elements. There's a new set of Missions to complete with various rewards, all largely revolving around collecting certain fire-type Pokémon. There are new event-based Wonder Picks, including one that will let you select from five desirable fire-type cards and another that rewards either a fire-type card or currency. And there's a limited-time flair you can purchase for certain cards that gives them a fiery effect. Neat!
As fun as it was to wake up to a surprise event, the reaction from the community so far is… lukewarm, to say the least. This is not the most exciting event! The mission rewards aren't amazing for one, and they require players to complete them with cards obtained during the event. So, for instance, one of the missions is to obtain an Arcanine ex card. I already have one of those. But that doesn't count, because I had it before the event started. So I have to obtain a second one during the event in order to finish the achievement.
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Obtaining those cards is supposed to be easier due to the Wonder Pick options, but the hourly free Wonder Pick only has a smaller chance of actually getting a card instead of currency, and the other Wonder Pick that includes five different cards costs a whopping three stamina. For those who don't play Pocket: this means players either need to wait for very long periods of time to get a chance of obtaining the card they want, or they have to spend real money to roll the dice more frequently.
And finally, there's the event flair. It works how all other flairs work – you need to exchange a currency called Shinedust as well as an unusable duplicate of the card you want the flair on to obtain it. That means, for instance, if you want to obtain the event flair for an Arcanine ex, you need not one, not two, but three Arcanine exes sitting around, and then you can exchange the spare one for the flair. Sure, your chances of getting that Arcanine ex are higher thanks to the event Wonder Pick… but, oh, did I mention that the event only lasts five days?
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It's admittedly hard to complain here, given that this was a totally unexpected event that really only gives players a few extra chances at some fire-type cards they might want. But in recent days, the Pokémon TCG Pocket community has been getting restless. Community members have been increasingly complaining that there's just not a lot to do after a certain point beyond waiting to open new packs twice a day. Some players are inventing their own battle formats to pass the time, but at the moment, event activities are the main form of entertainment in Pocket. The previous water-type event included a bunch of PvE battles with cards to earn from them, so the fire-type event not including something similar is a bit perplexing.
Ultimately, this seems more like a stopgap between the water-type event and the upcoming expected new booster pack releases. For now, we'll just have to keep opening packs while we wait for something new to happen.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
