It’s a varied world in the lands of Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket (PTCGP). While Pokémon come and go, it’s the Trainer cards that stay the same. We will be looking at the backbone of all Pokémon Pocket decks to give the people (cards) behind the spotlight their due.
As a side note, a lot of the Trainer cards in Pokémon Pocket can fill the same role. So this list will be more focused on what the cards have to offer the player rather than their individual ability. Here are the best Trainer Cards in Pokémon TCG Pocket.
4. Denial
First off the list are the Trainer cards that can deny the opponent in some form. Cards like Rocky Helmet, Giant Cape, Potion, and Mars make it difficult for the opponent to reach their goal easily.
For Rocky Helmet, the opponent would have to think very carefully if getting some early attacks would be worth putting their currently active Pokémon into one-hit knockout (OHKO) range, thus denying an easy way of just attacking your currently active Pokémon.
Given Pokémon Pocket's overall faster nature -with only needing three points to win a match-, the Rocky Helmet is a popular choice to consider since the concept of ‘sweeping’, using a single Pokémon to OHKO an entire enemy team, is prevalent.
As for Giant Cape and Potion, these denial options make it difficult for such a scenario from gaining momentum should it take place.
Having or healing an extra 20 health points, depending on the state of the board, can mean the difference between surviving a potentially lethal attack or seeing your opponent score game-winning point/s.
As for Mars, she’s more of a catch-up mechanic; her ability becomes more potent the more the opponent is winning.
Being able to nuke the opponent’s hand to deny them any potential resources for the following turn can be quite powerful given the right circumstances.
3. Damage Output
Next, we have added damage output. Cards like Giovanni and Red slip into this category.
If cards like the above-mentioned Giant Cape or Potion help deny the opponent from scoring their game-winning point(s), Giovanni and Red help make sure that the gap doesn’t exist in the first place.
While Giovanni is easily the more versatile tool, Red can be quite the tech choice as more and more Ex Pokémon take to the stage.
This is a pretty simplistic section compared to the rest of the Best Pokémon Pocket Trainer Cards list, but sometimes the best path is the shortest.
2. Utility
Probably the widest-reaching category on our best Pokémon TCG Pocket Trainer Cards list, cards sorted here offer a lot of paths to obtaining a better board state outside of just punching the enemy Pokémon into unconsciousness.
You have cards like Cyrus and Sabrina that force the opponent to switch out their active Pokémon with a softer target. This either buys you time or steals that game-winning point.
In the case of Leaf, you can lower the retreat cost of Pokémon to quickly get your team member out of harm’s way.
You also have energy ramping support cards like Misty and Dawn. Misty, with a little bit of luck, can allow any Water Pokémon focused deck to accelerate their plan of attack.
Dawn can easily turn any energy-generating Pokémon into a battery for the rest of the controlling player’s team -looking at you, Giratina ex-.
1. Consistency
Mirroring its physical cousin, PTCGP has its own fair share of cards that allow the player to reach their lines of play as soon as possible; in short, draw power and card search.
Without much fanfare, we have cards like Professor’s Research and Poké Ball falling into this category. Given how PTCGP has a maximum deck size of twenty cards and not more than two copies each, maxing out on both these cards essentially cuts your deck down to almost half.
Even Iono from the newly released Shinning Revelry expansion is a powerful consistency tool in its own right. Iono is slightly more random, and you are spending a card for what is essentially a worse mulligan.
But even when used in an opening hand of 5, cycling into 4 new cards is basically 1/5th of your total, that’s quite a lot given the circumstances.
Iono is also a little bit of backhanded sting to the opponent as it also forces them to shuffle their own hand, making it a pretty good 2-for-1 special depending on the circumstances.
Pokémon TCG Pocket is a very interesting take on the physical card game. It distils all the bells and whistles into something a lot more digestible -and arguably a lot more wallet-friendly- for its player.
But as the saying goes, “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. Despite Pokémon Pocket’s faster pace and more simplified gameplay, you can still see the same tools and card combinations used in the physical format being reflected in the digital realm.