Gaming

Pokemon TCG Pocket Fans Share Conspiracy Theories to Beat the Gacha Mechanics

Pokemon TCG Pocket players are desperate to find glitches, hacks, and other ways of getting the best cards. 

Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket has some amazing cards to discover, and players have become obsessed with finding the best ones. The game’s gacha mechanics leave it all up to chance, but some players think they can find ways of beating the system. This has already led to plenty of conspiracy theories across social media, where players are convincing themselves (and others) that there are ways of getting top tier cards with skill and knowledge, as opposed to just plain luck. Some of these theories have centered around pack opening, while others center on the Wonder Pick mechanic, but all of them seem like wishful thinking.

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One Wonder Pick theory that has gotten attention on X/Twitter is that players can rig the mechanic by skipping the shuffle cut scene. According to user @hawaiinguy808, players will get the card they want “90% of the time” if they use the skip option in the right hand corner of the screen and click the spot where the card already was. While trying out this theory for myself, I was able to get the card I wanted one out of three times; it’s probably easier to chalk that one up to luck, rather than some kind of successful hack. Judging by many of the replies to the user’s posts, it seems no one else is finding a 90% success rate, so this one seems pretty bogus.

Another conspiracy theory that has taken root in the Pokemon TCG Pocket community is the “bent corner trick.” When players open an in-game card pack, they can choose a wheel of several different packs. The packs can be rotated around, and you can even open them from the back so you see the card logo first each time. Some players are convinced that if you see a bent corner on the pack itself when turned sideways, or a crinkle, this is indicative that the pack has something rare inside, such as an EX card. X/Twitter user @SteeloAndKri shared their luck with the bent corner packs, with a Mewtwo EX as the example. However, the user quickly shared an update saying that “it’s not every time” but they do believe that it “does seem to drastically increase hit rates.”

These types of theories aren’t new to the Pokemon community. I still press and hold buttons when throwing a Poke Ball in main series games in the vain hopes that it will somehow improve my odds. I know that this has been long debunked, but the placebo effect had an impact on me in the early days of the series, and it’s hard to shake that. Players are free to do these kinds of things if they think it might help, but we’ve yet to see any method that actually guarantees a good card pull. As such, Pokemon TCG Pocket fans shouldn’t put too much stock into these theories.

Have you tried any of these theories in Pokemon TCG Pocket? Do you have a method you swear by? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter atย @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky atย @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram atย @Dachampgaming!