3 January 2026

Pokemon TCG Pocket Players Aren’t Happy With Certain Battle Tasks

By newsgame

Some Pokemon TCG Pocket players are expressing frustration with one specific type of Battle Task that keeps its rewards locked behind a game mechanic that they find annoying and hard to keep up with. New solo battles are added to Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket a couple of times a month, but unlocking every reward has become more of a chore than it used to be in the eyes of some players.

For the start of 2026, a new Drop Event was added to Pokemon TCG Pocket, featuring four increasingly difficult solo battles against Electric-type Pokemon, with the Mareep evolutionary line as its centerpiece. While the event gives players the opportunity to obtain packs of newly released Promo Cards, including a special art card for Mareep, it’s also the second set of new solo battles in a row that requires players to add a bunch of newly released cards to their decks if they want to claim every reward being offered, and some players are speaking up against this new trend.

Pokemon TCG Pocket Roadmap (All Upcoming Cards & Events)

A complete list of everything that’s coming soon in Pokemon TCG Pocket, including new expansions, features, and events.

Pokemon TCG Pocket’s Crimson Blaze Tasks Cause Player Problems

Pokemon TCG Pocket Crimson Blaze cards revealed

Specifically, to gather all rewards in three of the four new solo battles, players must include cards from Pokemon TCG Pocket‘s Crimson Blaze expansion in their decks. Released on December 17, Crimson Blaze is the latest set of cards that has been dropped for the game’s twice-daily pack openings, featuring 69 new regular cards and 103 cards in total. The limited-time Drop Event includes Battle Tasks at the Intermediate, Advanced, and Expert levels that require players to include a minimum of two, six, and 12 Crimson Blaze cards in their decks. And it’s not the first set of challenges to include this type of task, as the five sets of Crimson Blaze Step-Up Battles released in December feature similar rules, including requiring a dozen or more Crimson Blaze cards at each of the five Expert levels.

For some players, this new trend has become an issue, requiring them to regularly build new winning Pokemon TCG Pocket decks, which can be a time-consuming process. With its release about 14 months ago, players have been able to accumulate a minimum of 10 cards per day, leading to a massive and sometimes hard-to-navigate library. And while the game features search tools and tags that make finding specific types of cards easier, not every player has the free time to invest in regularly building new decks. Additionally, the number of total decks is currently capped at 25, and with 10 different Pokemon types included, that leaves room for fewer than three decks per type.

Pokemon TCG Pocket Mareep Drop Event Promo Cards

Some players have been getting around this issue by using Pokemon TCG Pocket’s Rental Decks, limited-use rewards that players can unlock just by drawing one of their Highlight Cards from daily pulls or Wonder Picks. These decks tend to include a majority of cards from a single set, making the newest ones perfect for facing this type of challenge. For example, the Mega Lopunny EX deck includes 15 different Crimson Blaze cards, easily putting it past the requirements for the Expert-level rewards while providing a type advantage against the Electric-type opponent deck, as long as none of its Starly-line cards are needed. Still, some players say they are reluctant to pull out Rental Decks, since they can only be used 10 times apiece, and they may need them for future in-game events.

Pokemon TCG Pocket Mareep Drop Event banner

Other players seemed less bothered by the new type of Battle Task, with some even welcoming the challenge of building a deck of newly released cards that can put up a fight. Still more seem ambivalent regarding the issue, as the rewards of a handful of Wonder Hourglasses or Event Hourglasses aren’t particularly enticing, especially considering the number of free hourglasses Pokemon TCG Pocket gave away in December and the fact that players have a shot at getting new Promo Packs with every victory during the event, regardless of whether they complete any Battle Tasks.