How to Play Pokemon TCG Live

What’s poppin’ PTCGO Store readers? Have you tried playing PTCG Live yet? If you haven’t heard yet, PTCGO is going to sunset soon, and PTCG Live will be the ONLY way to digitally play Pokemon Trading Card Game! I’ve had access to PTCG Live for about a year since the Canadian Beta Release, and I have picked up a few tips to share with our community! In this article, I’ll help walk you through getting started up, and how to use the app on whichever device you choose! As an added bonus, if you wanna enhance your collection, you can use code zlesage5 to save 5% off at ptcgostore.com! The codes get instantly sent to your email so you can redeem them for in-game packs right away! Let’s get it!

Pokemon company has finally developed PTCG Live for all devices. Now you can play it on iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, and Mac and allows you to play Pokemon TCG digitally! It aims to be a 1-to-1 replica of the real-life Pokemon TCG, so there aren’t any special rules, and it is the same game that many love to play around the world. In order to start, you’ll need to download the game on whichever device you own:

iPhone / iPad: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1557962344

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pokemon.pokemontcgl&pli=1

Windows: https://installer.studio-prod.pokemon.com/installer/PokemonTCGLiveInstaller.msi

Mac: https://installer.studio-prod.pokemon.com/installer/PokemonTCGLiveInstaller_Mac.dmg

Make sure that your device meets the system requirements here: https://tcg.pokemon.com/en-us/tcgl/#system-requirements

Once you download, you’ll want to load up the app. You’ll be greeted with a loading screen that might vary depending if you have migrated from PTCGO or not yet! If that’s an option, you can choose to move on to Pokemon TCG Live solely or you can choose “don’t migrate” if you want to keep both. At the time of this writing, I am not migrating fully until PTCGO becomes obsolete. I still use PTCGO for Play Limitless tournaments, coach other players, and more! If you have no use of the Pokemon TCG Online account, migrating is a fine option! There are some things like having a specific amount of packs and maximizing your account before you migrate, but I plan on sharing that in a future article! Once you get to the loading screen, you’ll see that there are many different areas of this app to explore! Let’s do just that!

Near the top of the screen, you’ll see a slider that you can use to explore different areas of the application. The Home portion will take you to your home page that features different ways to play, decks, your profile, shop, battle pass, access to settings, and more! You can choose between ranked or casual to play against other players in the app! Ranked is usually where you’ll face more competitive players, competitive decks, and you can rank up! Casual might be a great place for beginners to dip their feet in the world of Pokemon TCG! After selecting which mode you wanna play, click on Play to start a game! If you click on the Pokemon avatar it will show you how far you’ve progressed in the monthly reward ladder and you can see the Poke Legaue and Ladder End Rewards. Key Tip: be sure to set the deck you want to use as your Active Deck to use that specific deck - I’ll explain that in a little bit!

If you wanna start crafting your own decks in PTCGL, you’ll wanna click on the Deck tab! The game has graciously started each player with a healthy collection of playable decks and you can start playing with those right away! However, if you’ve acquired some cards through the Battle Pass, redeeming codes, or migrating from PTCGO, you might want to start your own creation. Click on Create a Deck and you can either freely make a new deck or import a deck from your clipboard. A great place to grab a tournament successful deck would be from a completed Late Night Event that you can find here: https://play.limitlesstcg.com/organizer/194. Once you start building a deck you can sort the cards how you want, but it is often a great tip to click on the filters button and under “show cards” select “all”. This will allow you to see the cards you own and the cards you don’t - your deck might require a mix of both! Once you do that, you can search the card library for cards and add your desired art. Let’s talk about crafting Cards.

Let’s say we want to build an Eternatus VMAX [Darkness Ablaze] deck, we might not own all of the Eternatus VMAX cards we need to complete the deck. Once you search for Eternatus VMAX in the Card Library (remember to filter your cards to all so that you can see all owned and unowned cards), it should pop up to see if you own any. You might own different variations of the art, and you can expand your options by clicking “available”. Once you select the desired art you can add however many you want into your deck and see if there are any missing (the missing copies will be grayed out). If you wanna spend your credits, you can exchange for the cards you are missing by clicking the exchange button and it will show you how much each art goes for. Depending on the rarity, some versions of cards might be more or less expensive, be sure to check them all out to spend your credits wisely. If you don’t know how PTCG Live currency works, let’s look at it quickly!

PTCG Live has its own currency that is different from what we used to have on PTCGO. We have Coins, Gems, and Credits!

Coins are acquired by redeeming codes in the “shop” tab and going over the amount that PTCG Live can hold. As of right now, you can redeem 4 of each promo code, 4 of each deck code, 20 of each Build and Battle kit, and 400 of each Pokemon TCG set. You’ll get a varying amount of Coins from the above method, and you can also unlock them from the Battle Pass and Daily Quests. Coins are used to unlock Deck Boxes, Deck Sleeves, Flipping Coins, and Aesthetics for your Character.

Gems are acquired by migrating your PTCGO account to PTCG Live and having a certain amount of packs transform into gems in the process. You’ll get a varying amount of Gems from the above method, and you can also unlock them from the Battle Pass and Daily Quests. Gems are used to unlock the Battle Pass, the Premium Battle Pass, Packs, Bundles, and other high value items.

Credits are acquired by redeeming codes in the shop and having more than the max copy of each card/item in the game. You’ll get a varying amount of Coins from the above method, and you can use these to craft any available cards in the game!

This is a great area if you wanna customize your character! You can quickly change your face shape, hairstyle, add glasses, add a hat, change your top, change your bottom, change your shows, find a fun catchphrase, and even pose! You can view your stats here which show the amount of games played, your win / loss record, and even your win streak! If you click on the friends tab, you can add a friend into PTCG Live by typing in their username! Once you have successfully added your friend, you can challenge them directly to a game here, and track their level on PTCG Live.

If you’ve acquired some Gems, you can see what the shop has to offer. Remember, Gems are acquired by migrating your PTCGO account to PTCG Live and having a certain amount of packs transform into gems in the process. You’ll get a varying amount of Gems from the above method and you can also unlock them from the Battle Pass and Daily Quests. If you don’t have enough Credits to acquire your desired cards, you can always pick up a bundle, booster pack, or anything else! I really like the pre-made deck options because they can allow you to jump into a game really quickly with a competitive deck!

If you wanna see how your PTCG Live collection is doing, you can click on the most current set to see how many cards you’ve collected out of each set. You can also click on “view card gallery” to see the cards you have and the cards you haven’t collected yet! With crafting cards being super easy, you can complete sets quicker than ever! Considering you can only input 400 code cards from each set, I would definitely make that the new number of codes to pick up from PTCGOStore.com for each new set release! And you can use the code zlesage5 to save 5% too!

If you wanna buy coins, you can do so with Gems! This section might get expanded upon later, but we’ll see how the game grows once it's out of the beta release.

This is the place where you can redeem all of your real-life code cards and the ones you buy from PTCGOStore.com! You are limited to redeem only 10 codes at once and you can either copy and paste the typed out codes, type them out yourself, or scan them via your camera. There is also a link that will share the drop rates for each set and explain how the system for opening packs works on PTCG Live.

The Battle Pass is the best way to grow your collection for free while getting your competitive gameplay reps in! The basic Battle Pass is free for everyone and resets every few months (be sure to check when the premium pass ends). You’ll have a few daily quests that refresh once you complete them and those can earn you Coins, Battle Pass XP, and Gems. As you fill your XP bar to level up on the Battle Pass, you can earn Packs, Credits, Bundles, and more! The Premium Battle Pass does cost Gems, but you can usually replenish those Gems with the rewards you receive (as long as you unlock enough tiers in Battle Pass). The rewards are usually better than the normal Battle Pass and you can unlock Bundles, Credits, Coins, Accessories, Packs, and more! Start playing right away!

This is where you can Migrate your PTCGO account to PTCG Live, adjust the sound volume, some battle options, and change the language.

Now that you know everything that you need to know about PTCG Live, be sure to jump into a few games! The reviews on the game have been mixed, but I can’t stress enough that we are still in the beta global release! As with any other Pokemon game, it will get better through updates and it is a quick way to jump into the Pokemon TCG on any device! And don’t forget to use code zlesage5 at ptcgostore.com to save 5% off of your PTCG Live codes! Be sure to stay tuned for more articles from me in the future to quickly start your collection through migration and earning more credits, decklists, and more! I’ll catch up with all of y’all later! Cheers, Zach Lesage!

Zach Lesage is a contributing writer for PTCGOStore.com. As a Toronto local, he has been playing the Pokemon Trading Card Game since 2005 and creates Pokemon content as his full time career. With multiple prestigious accomplishments in the game, such as 2020 Players Cup 2 Champion and 2020 Oceania International Championships Finalist, he has proven his success in the game. Outside of the game, he travels the world, enjoys the culture of designer streetwear, and is a professionally trained chef. You can catch him at most Pokemon events and follow him on Twitter @ZachLesagePTCG