What to expect in A2a?

This is almost a given if we believe that Giratina will be the face of this expansion. Additionally, it is the only member of the Creation Trio missing an EX-variant.

Giratina's regular card did not have a particularly remarkable attack, so I’m unsure what to expect from its EX-variant. Perhaps it will be the first Dragon-type EX card?

Another strong pattern observed is that, with the Kanto Starters, the EX-variant of the final evolution had a stronger version of the attack found on the regular card. This would mean that Torterra EX's attack could deal 200 damage but cannot be used consecutively (similar to Charizard and Charizard EX, both of which require discarding 2 Energy—the regular card deals 150 damage, while the EX deals 200).

Empoleon cards in the original TCG often feature an attack that damages the bench, like STS Empoleon’s Aqua Jet attack, which deals 80 damage to the active Pokémon and 30 to one on the bench (a parallel can be drawn with GA Venusaur, whose EX-variant deals 20 more damage but heals the same amount as the regular card).

Other Possible EX Cards

Considering that Mythical Island also introduced a secondary main Pokémon in Celebi (which instantly terrorized the metagame), we can infer that there will be another EX Legendary Pokémon.

The first candidate is Shaymin, whose “Sky Form” was revealed in Pokémon Platinum (the video game whose cover Pokémon was none other than Giratina).

Trivia: Shaymin EX Sky Form’s TCG card (Roaring Skies, 2015) was one of the most meta-defining cards of its time due to its drawing power!

Some candidates are:

• The Salamence evolutionary line
• The Flygon line
• Altaria and Swablu
• Kingdra

This last one would be my guess as we already have its pre-evolutions, Seadra and Horsea in game. Altaria would be a fun pick as it uses the energy types of Palkia and Dialga.

Following the idea that every EX-card also has a regular variant up until now–with the notable exception of Celebi, we could expect the following regular cards: Infernape, Pachirisu, Mismagius, Weavile, Lickilicky, Yanmega, Gallade, Palkia, Dialga.

Infernape (Diamond & Pearl, 2007), was the inspiration for Infernape EX in PTCG, with a strong 2 energy attack that makes you discard all fire energies, also having no retreat cost. It always comes handy to look back on previous TCG cards to have an idea of what is coming next.

Gallade had some interesting cards along the time, with its most relevant iteration being in 2017 Masters World Champion Diego Cassiraga´s deck. Both his ability and attack can have a space in TCG Pocket, the idea of having extra damage when using a Supporter is an interesting approach, however these should have to be nerfed considerably to follow the pace of the current game.

“But you are missing the god of all Pokémon: Arceus.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that the likelihood of Arceus appearing in the next set is very slim. This is mainly because the two other major Pokémon mobile games, Pokémon Go and Pokémon Masters EX, have been around for years (since 2016 and 2019, respectively) and have not released the Pokémon God in any form. I doubt we will get it just a few months after TCG Pocket’s release.

There is a rumor that the next expansion will be called “Origin Temple” and will focus on Arceus, however it really goes against the treatment the God Pokémon has got until now on mobile games.

(I hope I get this right or my predicting career is over :P)

Pokémon Platinum is almost identical to the main story in Gen 4 Pokémon Diamond and Pearl (whose protagonist were Palkia and Dialga) but it focuses, as previously mentioned, on Giratina.

PLA takes the story to ancient time, where the Sinnoh region (standard name for Gen 4 region) is called Hisui. In this game, Hisuian Forms were introduced, as well as Origin Form Palkia and Origin Form Dialga.

Looker was introduced in Pokémon Platinum as an International Police officer investigating Team Galactic (a team we’ve already seen represented by Mars and Cyrus).

Let’s look at one of his TCG cards. Similar to what Professor's Research does in TCG Pocket, Looker could allow players to draw cards from the bottom of the deck. This could pair well with the Mythical Slab Item from A1a, however, being able to put in your 20 cards deck 2 more supporter cards with drawing power might prove too OP, so there will definitely be some fine tuning if Looker comes to PTCG.

Other relevant characters introduced in Platinum include Charon (the latest Team Galactic Commander) and the Frontier Brains of the Battle Frontier, with the most notable being Tower Tycoon Palmer (who happens to be Barry’s father).

If A2a were to include references to Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the first character that comes to mind is Volo, whose ability to discard one of your own Pokémon to avoid awarding your opponent a point could prove useful in a Cyrus and bench-damage-focused metagame.

One of my biggest hopes is that Rare Candy will be introduced in TCG Pocket. However, its TCG effect might prove too overwhelming for this game: skipping a Stage 1 Pokémon entirely would be too overpowered for decks like Charizard, Garchomp, or Togekiss.

A fair nerf might be to allow players to use it to evolve a Pokémon in play with a card straight from the deck, it comes in the form of Wally in the original TCG game.