Opening Ten Packs at Once in Pokémon TCG Pocket

I have been playing this virtual card game a lot and I have been doing consistent pulls day after day. However, I hadn’t pulled anything super crazy the first couple of weeks the game came out save for one two-star pull and a few one-star pulls. Everything else was pretty meh. Thankfully Wonder Pick helped out and got me more stuff to fill out my collection. However, I wanted to try to get at least one big pull so I spent a little over two weeks saving hourglasses from events, leveling up, and missions to try and open ten packs at once. Last Friday, I managed to save up a good amount and so I opened ten packs at once. I decided to open the Charizard packs because the immersive Charizard was the only one I hadn’t seen anyone I knew pull yet. I know plenty of people who have Mewtwos and a couple of Pikachus, but not that one. Also, I really wanted a Moltres EX for a fire-type deck and I wanted to try my luck. So I opened ten Charizard packs in the hopes I didn’t waste two weeks. Here’s what happened.

There are six pulls that I think are worth mentioning here. I did get some other new cards too, but I feel these are more important to talk about. First off, I got three basic EX cards, which are the four-diamond rarity. They were Machamp EX, Starmie EX, and Exeggutor EX. Not bad pulls, but only one of them was really exciting. This was my fourth Exeggutor EX, I did not need another except for flair. Machamp EX was better because I now have two for a deck, but I unfortunately am still missing a Machoke so I can’t use it yet. Starmie EX was my second as well, but thankfully I could use that in an actual deck. The best pull of the three for sure.

Next up is my first new special pull of the ten packs. I didn’t get many special new pulls, but I am glad I pulled some things. One of them was a special art card that I needed for the set. It was this Gloom card. I was quite happy when this showed up because now I knew I had at least one confirmed hit from these ten packs. However, I still have two more pulls to go and these ones are crazy.

Remember earlier how I said I was hoping for either the immersive Charizard card, a Moltres EX card, or both? I managed to get some luck in pack number 7. The last card in the pack was one of my two targets. I wasn’t able to get both, but getting the immersive Charizard is nothing but an absolute win. Funnily enough, this was my first Charizard EX of the set and it just so happened to be the second rarest rarity in the set The only Charizard EX rarer than this is the crown rarity gold Charizard. I was hoping for this to happen, but I didn’t think it would. This card alone made it all worth it.

Now, for the last crazy pull in the set. This one wasn’t a target, but I was still happy to see it regardless. It was a brand new card for me and it was once again an EX card that I didn’t have in any format. Now there are normally five EX cards you can get in a type of booster pack. The ones in Charizard packs are Exeggutor EX, Starmie EX, Machamp EX, Moltres EX, and of course Charizard EX. Now since I have already stated that I had at least one version of four of these, that would just leave Moltres right? Wrong. I got something even better. You see, one of the special things about the crown rarity cards is that any of them can be in any pack. For example: take a look at this.

My first ever Pikachu EX and it was a crown rarity. I couldn’t believe it. Do you know what is even crazier? This Pikachu was also in pack number 7. That’s right! It was in the same pack as the immersive Charizard. It wasn’t a God Pack or anything, but man was it a good pack.

So, I can safely say that it was totally worth it to try this out. I’ll probably do it again in the future, but I doubt I will get this lucky again. Away, wish you all luck and see you next time.

Some Tips For TCG Pocket

For our little makeup session, I wanted to talk about a few things that you may want to think about taking advantage of in TCG Pocket. There might be some things you already know about here, but there may be things you didn’t realize as well. Either way, I think this might be useful stuff to know. Let’s first talk about opening packs.

When you open packs, you can do so in one of two ways. You can either open packs individually or do ten at once from one of the three-pack types. In each pack type, you can get a select amount of special cards. Each pack has eight one-star cards, five full-art EX Pokémon cards, three full-art trainer cards (except Mewtwo which has two), two rainbow cards (one legendary bird for each pack and either Wigglytuff, Gengar, or Machamp), and the immersive rare of that set’s Pokémon. Gold cards can be found in any set. So typically to find every rare, you will need nineteen different cards, eighteen for Mewtwo packs. Now, there is no way to guarantee a good pull, but there are some tricks to let you know if you have something good. The first is peeking. If you hold your pack sideways after opening you can check to see if the cards in the deck have special borders on them. You will be able to tell the rarity based on the border alone. Typically, the crazier the border, the better the card. There are ways to tell even when you first open the pack. If the pack sparkles when you open it, you are guaranteed at least something. This can also occur if you hear a special sound when opening the pack as well. So try and pay attention to what you open so you don’t need to peek.

Now I want to talk a bit about Wonder Pick. This feature can be pretty useful because it can help you get the cards you need, but I think the odds aren’t usually in your favor there unless you find someone who opened a god pack on your list. However, it is a good way to level up early on as just doing Wonder Pick gives you extra experience. There isn’t a good way to guarantee getting something you need, but it is usually better to use pack points if you are desperate for a certain card so unless there is a high chance of a new card I would either use it for extra experience or try and save up in case you really want to try your luck. If you want to level up, do basic ones. If not, go nuts. Just remember to say thanks each time.

Also, make sure to do two things every day. First, you should claim your free daily gift. Second, you should do versus battles multiple times a day and create showcases for people to see. You should always say thanks for anything when you can since this is a way to get free shop tickets each day. You can get shop tickets by trading thanks five times each day. So with the daily gift and your other rewards each day you are guaranteed to get four purple hourglasses for checking in, one orange hourglass from the gift, and six shop tickets. The tickets add up really fast so take advantage of them. Remember that whether you win or lose the battle you can get a ticket as long as the other person sends a thanks. So if you don’t care about leveling up through battling, conceding immediately to farm tickets is a valid strategy. Do note that winning battles is the most consistent way to raise your level outside of pack openings. Also, remember that solo battles have special rewards if you meet special conditions that also give you plenty of shop tickets.

There is one last thing. If your luck is pretty bad, don’t link your account on your device immediately and you can just delete your data and try again with all the extra free packs they give at the beginning. It is an option, but I understand wanting to let things be as well. That should be a decent amount of tips if you decide to try and do this game. I’m still having a blast with it so I hope you can too. Although I feel like everyone I know is getting luckier than me… oh well. Have a good night everyone!

Another Batch of Sleepy Shinies

First off, yes I am aware that I didn’t do a post last week. No, it was intentional. I just forgot. So, I will post something else tomorrow. So stay tuned. Sorry about that. Now then, let’s move on and talk about how my luck exploded in Pokémon Sleep. Turns out we didn’t need to wait until the end of the year for one of these. These shiny Pokémon like to come in batches for some reason. Not that I’m complaining. Anyway, here are five more additions to the collection.

Truth be told, this Wynaut was actually the day after the Bayleef from the previous installment. It feels as though I am finding these shiny Pokémon pretty close together these days. Not sure what the reason is but it was a good way to end the week and a great shiny Pokémon for the collection.

A few weeks later I was cave diving and ended up coming across this sleepy golden nugget. I was hoping I would get this one eventually since it is such a clean shiny. How can anyone hate that golden shine? I certainly can’t.

This guy was the same week as the shiny Geodude. He was three days later just chilling on the cave floor. Shiny buddies seem to like sticking together it seems and that also holds true for our next pair.

Funnily enough, I got him during the Halloween event. Even funnier is that due to the lighting during the event period, I thought for a second it wasn’t shiny. Or maybe I was trying to gaslight myself. What’s great is that I can complete the line if I get one more. Here’s hoping!

The last guy here, and yes I do realize they were all guys this time, was once again on the day after another shiny Pokémon. This time it was the day after Charmeleon shined. Once again, I really thought I wasn’t looking at a shiny Pokémon until I saw the sparkles pop up. Thank goodness I managed to catch them otherwise, I might have failed this one.

Alright, now that’s all I have to show for today. I highly doubt there will be another one of these before the end of the year, but I guess you never know. Don’t forget there will be a makeup post tomorrow. Have a good night everyone and see you soon!

Talking About TCG Pocket

I have been playing Pokémon TCG Pocket so much since it came out. I’ll be honest. I’m hooked on opening cards. Has my luck been the best? It’s been okay. However, they do give you a lot of opportunities to get some good pulls. This is probably the best way to open Pokémon cards without needing to spend any money. As someone who recently got into collecting cards a while back, this was a great fit for me. I should talk a little bit about how certain things work. Let’s start off talking about opening packs.

First off, opening packs is pretty simple. You click on the type of booster pack you want to open. Then you select if you want to open just one or ten at once. If you just choose one then you can pick from a handful of packs to open. After opening them you can swipe to reveal your cards while you pray you got something cool. The cards can be broken up into three types of rarities. The first is the silver diamonds, which can range from one to four of each. One diamond represents a common pull, two diamonds represent an uncommon pull, three diamonds represent a rare pull and four diamonds represent a double rare EX pull. It is similar to the current TCG rates for some of the newer sets. After the diamonds, we have the stars. I should note that these cards are rare because of their special illustrations and artwork. They still function the same as normal cards. There are up to three gold stars with the first star indicating an illustration rare and the second indicating a full artwork or a special illustration rare. The third star is for super special illustration rares which has immersive artwork you can look into upon viewing it. There are only four as of the time of writing. The final rarity is the gold crown cards which are just full art cards with special golden backgrounds. So far the best I have pulled is a two-star, but here’s hoping I may see something even crazier soon.

I have also been doing a lot of battling in this game, which is surprising. The battle system is a lot more streamlined to make it more accessible for people to actually use their cards and while I am still a beginner, I’d like to think that I am doing alright. I have been lucky enough to get a decent amount of cards needed to build a useful deck. That being said, I am aware of certain flaws that I can’t fix without certain cards. However, that requires opening more packs and getting lucky. There is another function called Wonder Pick that can also help with that, but I would say my odds for it are around 30%. Granted that’s better than nothing, but it is all chance at the end of the day. Despite the struggles to get cards, I still have a decent win rate against beginners. Obviously, it is hard to beat the people who have gotten luckier or spent money for better cards, but I still put up a good fight. I’m just having a good time overall.

This is just a general overview for now, but next week I would like to show you what I’ve pulled and talk about each of my rarest cards. I have now decided on a system for how I am going to open packs for now and see if it brings me some luck so I have some cool things to show you for next time. Anyway, this is all I wanted to talk about and I hope you enjoyed my ramblings as usual. Have a good night and may the luck be with us all.

Let’s Talk About Dynamax in Pokémon Go

So this season of Pokémon GO has been the first time in the game that you can catch Pokémon that can Dynamax, a feature introduced in Generation 8 with a new battle system. Truth be told I didn’t really feel like talking about this when it first came out because it was fine, but there are a couple of things that have been steadily grinding my gears, so let’s get started. First off, none of your pre-existing Pokémon can Dynamax. It only happens to the ones that you catch from Dynamax raid battles. That issue in itself isn’t the worst thing, because I think they want to keep these things special since it is the first introduction of this mechanic. That’s fine. A little disheartening, but fine. However, with the new battles comes a new currency which is called Max Particles. Let me just say this I hate them. Well, not them specifically but more their implementation into the game. You get a certain amount for free per day, but only up to eight hundred. That sounds like a lot until you find out that participation in the lowest tier raid is two hundred fifty. So you are essentially getting only three lower-tiered raids or two medium-tiered ones per day. You can potentially go over the set of eight hundred if you do the math right and gain more bang for your buck, but the problem is that you have a limit of carrying 1,000 particles at a time. So once you go over 1,000, no more particles for you. And guess what is the only way to get more at that point: buy max particles in the shops with coins. Once you hit your limit this is your only way to gain more particles that day. I should also mention that powering up your Dynamax Pokémon requires max particles as well. Trust me, it isn’t cheap.

I wouldn’t mind it so much if they allowed us to increase the cap of max particles by buying something in the store, but nope. We are stuck with this garbage. The grind is bad enough with that, but then this past weekend they introduced Gigantamax raids, which are the new big raid and which also comes from the Gen 8 games. These Gigantamax raids cannot be beaten solo and require raids of around 10-40 people. By the way, 10 is if you are fully optimized so it is realistically 30-40 players. So, if you don’t live in a big community with lots of people organized for these events… too bad. You can’t get them. It should go without saying that there is no way to Gigantamax preexisting Pokémon either. And even if you somehow do get this to work in your favor, guess what? You can maybe do a couple of these at most because they each cost eight hundred particles for participation. Bro, I am not made of money! Who can afford that as a casual player? The only solace is that if you lose the raid you get to keep your particles I guess. Good luck getting those guys. Even if there was an item in the shop to help Pokémon Dynanax or Gigantamax that cost some coins then maybe I could give it a pass, but not right now. I understand this system is still relatively new, but come on and give us some alternatives at least. Heck, the rewards for these raids aren’t even that great. You get better rewards doing regular raids. What’s the point? Before anyone says anything, that was rhetorical.

Look, I’m not mad. I just think this system is flawed and could be better implemented. I get this game has some pay-to-win stuff, but this is just broken. Heck, things would be better if you could even remotely join certain raids by invite only or something. Use your Campfire app for it or something. I am just making a few points that I am sure plenty other of people have felt dearly. Good luck Niantic with the balance patch. Have a good night everyone.

My Five Favorite Echoes in Zelda

I don’t really have a lot for this week so I thought I would go over my five favorite echoes to use in the game. So without wasting time, let’s start at number five.

Five. Ignizol

This little guy has been a very useful early damage dealer in the game since I found him. He has been especially useful against any plant-type enemies and even in some of the late-game dungeons. This guy is also who I carried to brute force my way to the top of the snowy mountain before the plot kicked in. Really help keep me warm.

Four. Buzz Blob

This guy is how I consistently took down a lot of high-tier enemies. Getting electric attacks to stun lock enemies is so useful because you can keep piling on damage while they are stunned and attack them yourself to finish them off. I also really enjoy spamming them to death underwater to stun and kill enemies. It isn’t always efficient, but it is always funny.

Three. Zelda’s Bed

I have to give a shoutout to all of the beds here as they all make potions obsolete in this game. The way I rest in battle just to get up and do it again is so much fun. The reason I am going with Zelda’s Bed is because while it isn’t as great as a platform, it more than makes up for it with its healing prowess. Besides, this game has plenty of ways to get to where you need to go. Which brings us to the last two.

Two. Water Block

I’m pretty sure this is also on so many other people’s lists as well. This block is one of the most creative ways to move around vertically and even work as a shield against certain enemies. I’ll admit the Crawltula also has some good vertical climb, but it has less control and is easily distracted by enemies. It also costs more to use so by mid-game the water block reigns supreme. However, that isn’t my favorite way to get around. That is reserved for the one and only.

One. Flying Tile

In my opinion, this thing is just unmatched in versatility. It is great for getting distance, especially over big gaps. It can help give you a quick escape and a little extra height. It has honestly become my main mode of transportation. Out of all the echoes, it is my most used travel companion. There is just no better and faster way to travel in a straight line and sometimes, that is all you need.

That’s all folks. Let me know what your favorites are. I’m kind of curious since there are probably many different ways you might like to get around. I’m signing off. Have a good night. Also, yes I do enjoy wearing the cat suit. Goodnight!

Something Unexpected Happened

I know that title sounds ominous but hear me out. So you may be familiar with the fact that I play Pokémon. I tend to talk about it a fair bit. However, I haven’t talked about Pokémon Go in a while and something crazy happened to me recently so I thought I would bring it up. You might see where I am going with this, but bear with me to the end. Now Pokémon Go has recently done a bunch of events with a focus on Pokémon from the Galar region and recently that included adding some shiny legendary Pokémon to the game. The legendary Pokémon that can now be shiny in the game are Zacian, Zamazenta, and the Galarian bird trio. Zacian and Zamazenta were available in five-star raids for a couple weeks and the Galarian birds now have a chance to be shiny in the wild if you encounter them on the Daily Incense. For those of you who don’t know, as part of a special Research the Daily Incense allowed you to find certain unique Pokémon for fifteen minutes each day as you walk. If you are lucky you may encounter a Galarian Zapdos, Moltres, or Articuno. Currently, this is the only way to find the Galarian bird trio in the game.

Now, you may have guessed it, but the hardest of the new shiny legendaries to get your hands on is the Galarian bird trio. The reason is that unlike with five-star raids, you can’t guarantee encounters with the birds on the Daily Incense. You just have to hope you get lucky. There are some ways to increase your chances such as using Primal Dialga’s adventure effect Roar of Time to give you more time to use the incense or using it during certain weather conditions, but they are not guarantees. The shiny rate is the same as all legendary spawns at about one in twenty so even if you get lucky enough to see a bird there is about a 5% chance of it being shiny. Needless to say, this hunt is one of the biggest hunts in the game right now.

Now I have only ever caught two of the twenty or so Galarian birds I have found off of the Daily Incense. Both of them were Galarian Zapdos. So I never caught Galarian Moltres or Galarian Articuno. However, shiny legendary Pokémon encountered in the wild cannot run from you so this was a great time to try and go crazy with the Daily Incense. Of course, the odds of me finding any of them were low, but I figured I should give it a shot right? So each day I spent time popping it to see if I could at least find a bird, but no luck. Then two days ago, I decided to use it on my way to work. I had just gotten to my stop when I saw something spawning in. It was a Galarian bird! It was the first one I had seen in about a month and the first one I found since the shiny forms were added. I happily clicked on it and to my shock it was actually shiny. I nearly had a heart attack and after about thirty attempts I caught my prize. I managed to get myself a shiny Galarian Articuno! I did not expect to get this so soon after the shiny came out. I’m not complaining though. I know I said I was going to talk more about Zelda, but this was too good to not talk about.

Anyway, that is probably one of my luckiest moments in the game to date. I can indeed confirm by the way that they won’t run from you if you can still catch it. Good luck to those of you hunting for these guys and wish me luck on the others. Have a good night.