A little under two months ago, the Pokemon Company has announced that it would be shutting down the Pokemon Trading Card Game Online (PTCGO) and replacing it with Pokemon TCG Live. This is still the plan but there has been an update - the rollout of Pokemon TCG Live is being delayed.

Originally, the release of Pokemon TCG Live was slated for "later this year" but it looks like the Pokemon Company won't be hitting their targets. We can expect to see them in 2022 with a mobile soft launch in Canada and a global open beta for desktop. No further details have been provided outside of the usual "we'll let you know when we have more info to share".

If you have purchased any physical Pokemon products recently and received codes for Pokemon TCG Live, you can still redeem these inside of Pokemon TCG Online. Any cards redeemed in PTCGO will carry over into Pokemon TCG Live so you won't have to worry about losing them - though there are some cases in which you may not see things carry over:

  • Players from Pokemon TCG Online will not lose any of their cards.
    • Most cards only transfer over with a cap of 4 - extra copies over this are lost.
      • Energies cap at 59.
      • V-UNION cards cap at 1.
      • ACE SPEC or Prism Star cap at 1.
    • Some cards, although transferred, will not be playable immediately. This includes the following sets:
      • Everything from XY Series.
      • Everything from the Black & White series.
      • Sun & Moon through Dragon Majesty in the Sun & Moon Series.
  • Unopened packs in PTCGO will be transferred as Crystals.
    • 1 to 9 unopened items in the Pokémon TCG Online = 250 Crystals awarded in Pokémon TCG Live
    • 10 to 24 unopened items = 550 Crystals
    • 25 to 49 unopened items = 1,125 Crystals
    • 50 to 124 unopened items = 2,350 Crystals
    • 125+ unopened items = 6,200 Crystals
  • Some items will not be transferred:
    • Pokémon TCG cards from the HeartGold & SoulSilver Series
    • Avatar items
    • Unopened products and bundles
    • Certain coins, card sleeves, and deck boxes
    • In-game currency
    • Friends list
    • Saved deck lists

It should be noted that there won't be any trading in Pokemon TCG Live, so you can use this as an opportunity to get your digital collection in order before the launch of the new game next year. How do you feel about the delay? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Quote From Pokemon

To provide Trainers with a more polished experience, the Pokémon TCG Live mobile soft launch in Canada, and global open beta for desktop, have been shifted to 2022. We’ll have more to share soon on timing for both this testing period and the full launch of Pokémon TCG Live.

Additionally, some of you may have recently received code cards with Pokémon TCG Live branding as part of some Pokémon TCG products. Though Pokémon TCG Live is not available at this time, please know these cards are still redeemable in Pokémon TCG Online.