Does anyone have an eta on when cards from BW and XY will be implemented in TCG Live?
The initial reveal of TCG Live said that cards from BW and XY would be added in a later update. It has been nearly a year since release and we still have not gotten a single hint on when they will be implemented. A very large variety of cards from those sets were extremely fun to play and seemingly much easier to code in than any of the current upcoming sets, so why have we gotten zero news on this? I really hope that they don't plan to reprint all of the cards when Pokemon Z-A releases in 2025. I'm not sure about the rest of you but I am not made of money and would rather not repurchase cards I already previously owned. If anyone from the dev team could at least let us know that the cards are being coded that would be lovely (=
Answers
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Oh, no! I guess you'll have to keep buying and using the new cards and playing Standard rather than using the old cards. How terribly convenient for our business model.
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@TheJeffers This game doesn't have micro transactions. There's nothing nefarious going on here. The devs are just inexperienced and understaffed.
No, there's no ETA other than the fact that it won't be this year/season. Next April is the earliest it'll happen, but it'll probably be another 3-5 years at least.
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I would also like to know about when XY and Black and White cards will be into the game. I have a decent amount of code cards I collected that have not been claimed yet from those sets. It is kind of frustrating that it only has Sun and Moon and beyond for Expanded. I really want to play with the EX and Mega EX cards from the XY era into the game and make fun decks, but without support of the cards from the Devs themselves (or even some of the community), why say "We will add it in the future" when it has been a year since TCG Live was released, and no word about Black and White or XY cards will be available for Expanded. I'm hyped for what is to come for the newer sets, especially in 2025, but I just want to relive the past a little bit every now and then and play with cards I grew up collecting + playing with.
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@TechHog So they removed the feature to get cards from physical booster packs? We don't have them in Japanese booster packs, so I don't know.
If that is still a feature, though, how does that differ from micro transactions?
And if a person can only play Standard online, do you think that will affect the cards they buy and formats they play in the physical game?
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Hello Trainer, Thank you for asking. For up to date information on all things related to Pokémon TCG Live, please keep an eye out on our website at
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@TheJeffers They're still there, but people aren't buying booster packs just to get codes. That's silly. They're either buying them for the cards or buying the codes from third-party sellers.
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@TechHog I never claimed people bought paper packs just for digital codes. Statistically there probably are some who do, but that is a vanishingly small minority. And I accept there are other factors contributing to the delay.
What I am saying is that I think at least part of the motive is to encourage people to play Standard rather than languishing in Extended and playing with the old cards. At least, that is how I think TPC see it.
If people can play Extended, they will. For some, exclusively. No need to buy the new cards, unless they become competitive in that format.
But if you can't play Extended online or in paper, you will play Standard. And since you are playing Standard online anyway, if you want to play in paper, why not buy Standard cards, build a Standard deck and play the most popular format? You can even get packs for Live to build and strengthen your Standard decks you were already forced to play anyway.
It is a cycle that feeds itself and cuts Extended.
I genuinely believe that if the creators of card games with rotation could have their players throw their cards in the bin every year and run out to buy new decks, they would do that. One rotating format.
Collectors might be okay with that, but players want their cards to retain some value after rotation, financially and in some official version of the game, so developers begrudgingly implement non-rotating formats to keep those players happy.
But they tend not to support it extensively, and drag their feet when it comes to making banlists and enabling the formats in digital clients.
Japanese companies seem to be particularly wary about a digital client replacing their paper game. I think they see it as cannibalising their own sales. The Japanese Pokémon TCG has no client, and other games like Yugioh don't have a digital format that matches their paper format 1:1. If you want to play the "real" game, you have to play with physical cards and at officially sponsored stores.
MTG used to be quite good with supporting digital play in MTGO, though that was a rather unique business model in that you could buy and trade cards for real money, and it is a client from the 90s.
Arena is the client that gets real support these days, but oh look, they have been dragging out implementing Pioneer (the eternal format with the smallest card pool) for years while pushing their digital-only non-rotating formats that allows them to errata any virtual cards that prove too powerful or resilient to efforts to replace them, while also releasing new digital-only sets that power creep out the rest of the format.
I am rambling at this point. I have a lot of thoughts about a variety of card games and the way non-rotating formats are managed.
tl;dr Card game companies are financially incentivised not to support non-rotating formats in order to encourage their customers to play rotating formats exclusively and keep buying new cards.
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@TheJeffers I think you're pushing your frustrations on a completely unrelated situation just based on your preference for eternal formats.
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