The Pokémon TCG Live game client will be offline for maintenance from 15:00 ~ 23:00 (UTC) on July 15, 2025 while an update is being applied. Please see the Version 1.28.0 Patch Notes for more information on changes and content additions.
Letter to the Community - July 10, 2025
Greetings, Pokémon TCG Live Community!
It’s been a wild ride since the first Scarlet & Violet Series expansion released in March 2023, and we thank everybody for joining us on this journey alongside unforgettable Pokémon like Koraidon and Miraidon! In the final expansions of this series, Scarlet & Violet—Black Bolt and Scarlet & Violet—White Flare, we are celebrating the legendary power of Reshiram and Zekrom, with the duality of these two powerful Pokémon reflected in the release of two parallel expansions simultaneously.
This massive influx of new cards and new ways to play means that the next two months will be some of the most exciting months yet in Pokémon TCG Live! With this release, we celebrate the power of player choice—giving you more ways to choose how you play using both new expansions, providing additional generous grants of Trade Credits and Trainer Points, and offering our longest, most rewarding Battle Pass ever. We’re also celebrating our ties to the physical Pokémon Trading Card Game with updates that capture the feeling of collecting physical cards, which includes the release of 10-card booster packs and the introduction of a major new card-collection feature: the Card Dex!
Black & White Celebration
Players who log in at least once before August 14, 2025, will receive the following special gift to help exercise the power of choice and kick-start your Scarlet & Violet—Black Bolt and Scarlet & Violet—White Flare collections:
- 2,000 Trainer Points
- 2,000 Trade Credits
- Two special illustration rare cards featuring Reshiram ex and Zekrom ex
No matter how you choose to play, anyone who engages in a match before August 14, 2025, will be immersed in the full majesty of Reshiram and Zekrom, as their legendary power has finally cleared Team Rocket from our Battle Board.
Introducing the Card Dex
Beginning with this update, you’ll see a new addition to the menu bar of the home screen called Card Dex. The Card Dex is a one-stop shop for browsing, filtering, and reviewing your collection. Major changes to card collection introduced with the Card Dex include:
- An improved way to view your expansions, with visuals that make it easier for you to inspect individual cards in your collection as well as cards you still need.
- Newly obtained cards in your collection have a “New” tag that appears when viewing them for the first time in the Card Dex, making it easy to focus on your latest inventory.
- Being able to sort cards by date acquired, which offers an easier way to identify new cards that might not have made their way into a deck yet.
- Fun moments of celebration for completing expansions!
Please note that Black Star Promo cards and alternate-art cards are not currently supported in the Card Dex. Support for these is planned for a future release.
10-Card Boosters
Card Dex brings collecting to Pokémon TCG Live, but to capture the essence of collecting cards from physical Pokémon TCG booster packs, we needed to evolve our booster packs as well. Up until now, digital packs have been either 5- or 6-card boosters. Starting with this release, all physical booster packs containing 10 cards will also reward 10 cards in Pokémon TCG Live—this includes both boosters earned in-game and those redeemed from a physical card code. Build your collection faster than ever with 10-card boosters!
Rewards & Offers
- Battle Pass
- The Battle Pass for Scarlet & Violet—Black Bolt and Scarlet & Violet—White Flare is our most rewarding one yet. We’ve increased the number of tiers to 100, and each tier is chock full of rewards.
- We’ve received player feedback regarding the issue of awarding the same card at multiple tiers. For this Battle Pass, we’ve limited each card to a single tier (although we may reward multiple copies at a time) to ensure that reaching new tiers feels more engaging.
- We’ve made changes to the tuning of XP for completing both quests and matches so that the entire Battle Pass is accessible to as many people as possible.
- These changes should effectively make it easier to “catch up” and complete the Battle Pass, even if you miss a few days or hit a bumpy quest. We know Trainers have many obligations outside of the game, and we want the Pokémon TCG Live experience to be one that’s flexible and ready to meet you whenever you’re ready to get back into the game.
- Shop Offers
- As with every release, you’ll find a variety of offers that correspond to our physical products as well as some exclusive digital offers.
- We’re celebrating the end of the Scarlet & Violet era with some special limited-time offers that will help you complete your collection for a great value.
Competitive Updates
- Ranked Ladders
- Two back-to-back Ranked Ladders will celebrate the new expansions via their theming and rewards: July will feature Scarlet & Violet—Black Bolt, and August will feature Scarlet & Violet—White Flare. Each Ladder has exclusive cosmetic rewards to earn featuring Zekrom and Reshiram, respectively.
- Ranked Ladder Matchmaking Improvements
- Newer players should face similarly skilled opponents more often in their early matches, thanks to changes made in a previous release that stop the reset of progressive Elo ratings. As a reminder, Pokémon TCG Live uses two Elo ratings to match players together:
- Progressive Elo rating is used to match players who are between Nest League and Ultra League.
- Competitive Elo rating is used to match players within Master League.
- Newer players should face similarly skilled opponents more often in their early matches, thanks to changes made in a previous release that stop the reset of progressive Elo ratings. As a reminder, Pokémon TCG Live uses two Elo ratings to match players together:
We introduced a monthly reset of both Elo rating values back in December 2024. While this improved competitiveness for our elite players, it had unintended consequences for our novice players, as everyone—both experienced and novice players—started at the same baseline on each Ladder. Maintaining a consistent progressive Elo rating from Ladder to Ladder will ensure that highly competitive players still experience a good challenge while working back up the ranks and that new players don’t get overwhelmed by inequitable matches.
At this time, we are maintaining the monthly reset of competitive Elo ratings, but we will continue to monitor matchmaking performance for additional improvement opportunities for our competitive league as well.
- Trainer Trials
We have a variety of Trainer Trials challenges planned for players to compete in throughout the Scarlet & Violet—Black Bolt and Scarlet & Violet—White Flare expansions, starting with Singleton Showdown on July 17, 2025! For more information and detailed scheduling, visit the dedicated Trainer Trials Schedule announcement.
Upcoming Campaigns
- From August 14 to August 28, 2025, log in during the Pokémon World Championships campaign to get a limited-availability deck, deck accessories, and avatar cosmetics. Additionally, in the spirit of participating at Worlds, take part in our Worlds Battle Board takeover and special Worlds-inspired Trainer Trial— more information about this campaign will be coming soon!
Bolting into the Future
We hope you continue to enjoy playing Pokémon TCG Live and look forward to the changes ahead, as detailed in this letter. We're eager to hear your feedback as we grow and evolve, so please continue to share your thoughts here on the official Pokémon Forums.
In the meantime, prepare for a journey through Unova with Zekrom and Reshiram when Scarlet & Violet—Black Bolt and Scarlet & Violet—White Flare release in Pokémon TCG Live on July 17, 2025. We'll see you then, Trainers!
Thank you,
The Pokémon TCG Live Development Team