Collecting Pokemon in TCG Pocket is simple. Each day, on a timer, you can open two packs of Pokemon cards for free. Each pack contains 5 cards, and there are multiple types of packs to choose from such as the Mewtwo, Pikachu, or Charizard packs. Every hour, you get one "pack stamina" and it takes 12 stamina to open one pack of Pokemon cards.

In addition to the daily free packs, players can also earn "Pack Hourglass" to reduce the time needed before opening the next pack. Pack Hourglasses can be earned by participating in battles, doing daily missions, and other ways. Each Pack Hourglass reduces the time needed to open the next pack by 1 hour, meaning 12 Pack Hourglasses will let you open one additional pack.

Packs can also be opened sooner by using Poke Gold, which is awarded as the player levels up or can be purchased in the shop with real money. If you save up enough Hour Glasses or Poke Gold, you can open 10 packs at a time!

Once you have collected enough cards, you can put together a deck and battle with your Pokemon collection. There are two types of battles in TCG Pocket: Verses and Solo. Verses battles are against other players and Solo battles are against pre-made NPC decks.

While the game has a pretty good walkthrough for battling mechanics, there is a lot to be learned through experience and study. For example, there are different strategies for winning based on if you go first or second in each battle.

Once you are ready, we recommend heading over to our Battle Guides to learn more about strategy and battling in Pokemon TCG Pocket.

Currently trading cards with other players is not available in TCGP - which is ironic considered it is called "Trading Card Game: Pocket"

Trading will likely be available in a later update, and will cause quite a stir . . . best start collecting as many duplicates as you can to take advnatnage of trading when it goes live!

And in the meantime, you can always go purchase phsycial packs of Pokemon Cards and trade those.

Poke Gold is the "premium" currency of Pokemon TCGP. You get a little bit of Pokemon Gold simply by leveling up (one gold per level, with an extra gold every five levels), or you can spend real money to get bundles of paid Poke Gold.

Paid Poke Gold is not necessary to play - I have yet to spend any real money on the game and feel like I can open plenty of packs and easily compete in battles. However if you want to collect faster, here are the rough conversion rates for Poke Gold to cards.

There are 5 cards per pack, and 1 pack requires 12 "stamina to open. Each Poke Gold reduces the stamina needed by 2.5 hours, or in other words, it would take 5 Poke Gold to open a single pack (with a bit of left over time after it is opened). At the lowest tier, you can get 5 Poke Gold for $0.99, or $1 per pack essentially. As you buy larger quantities, there are bulk "bonuses". At the highest level, you can purchase 500 Poke Gold for $99.99 and receive a bonus of 190 extra Poke Gold. This lets you open an extra 39 packages, bringing the cost per pack down to just under $0.70

Shinedust is currently only used for purchasing "flairs" for your pokemon collection. A flair is a special visual indicator for a specific card you choose to upgrade.

In order to purchase a flair, you must have both enough Shinedust and enough duplicates of the same card.

Click here to read our full Shinedust flair guide.

Shop tickets can be used to purchase a variety of beginner cards, Pack Hourglasses, Wonder Hourglasses, and a few other things.

Shop tickets can be obtained by completing missions, leveling up, and receiving "gifts" from players after battle or who liked your card displays (don't worry, we will go over all of these things later in the guide).

Shop tickets are generally used to buy Pack Hourglasses in order to quickly open new packs of Pokemon cards. Three tickets can be exchanged for one Pack Hourglass, making 8 Shop tickets worth roughly 1 Poke Gold.

The Special Shop Ticket lets you make purchases from the Special Shop. You can save up 300 Shop Tickets to purchase a single Special Shop Ticket.

Currently, the selection in the Special Shop is quite limited to a few accessories.

I expect over time that premium cards make their way into the Special Shop.

Premium Tickets are special tickets for those who subscribe to the "Premium Pass" (discussed later). The Premium Pass has a free 14 day trial, and after that costs $10/mo.

If you have a Premium Pass, there are extra "premium" missions you can do each month that reward you with Premium Shop Tickets.

Premium Shop Tickets in Pokemon TCGP can be used to purchase special accessories and cards which occassionally refresh.

Pack Hourglasses are one of the most common rewards for missions and are used to reduce the time required to open your next pack of Pokemon Cards in TCG Pocket.

One Pack Hourglass reduces the time needed to open a pack by 1 hour. Since 12 hours are needed to open each pack of Pokemon cards, 12 Pack Hourglasses = 1 Pack of Pokemon Cards.

One of the things I really enjoy about Pokemon TCG Pocket is that there is no "waste" for using your Hourglasses. For example, if I need 15 minutes to open my next pack and use a Pack Hourglass, it will give me a full "hour" of time and I will get to open my pack, and my next stamina will arrive in 15 minutes instead of 60 minutes.

Wonder Hourglasses are just like Pack Hourglasses but for Wonder Picks.

We haven't talkd about Wonder Picks yet. Simply put, Wonder Picks are a way for you to get a chance at picking something in someone elses pack, without them losing a card.

You can read more about our Wonder Pick guide here.

Right now, nobody knows! Speculation says it could be used to participate in a special tournament, or perhaps to optain a special card.

Emblem Tickets are used to buy, well, emblems. Emblems don't do much - they just add a personal flair to your style.

Some emblems also show certain accomplishments players have earned in game through battling and other means.

It's a fun way to customize your profile in Pokemon TCG Pocket.

Remember those Wonder Picks we were talking about? They come with an expiration date. If you miss a Wonder Pick that had a REALLY good card you want a chance at, you can use a Rewind Watch to bring it back.

But just because you bring back the Wonder Pick, it doesn't guarantee you get the card you want - you have a 20% chance to choose the card you are looking for in each Wonder Pick.

Right now, it looks like the only way to get more Rewind Watches is to level up - so use these sparingly!

Daily Missions are quick and simple activities you can do each day to earn an extra 4 Pack Hourglasses. For every three days you do Daily Missions, you can open an extra pack of cards.

The first daily mission is simple: log in. After that, you can finish daily missions by opening a booster back, doing a wonder pick, or participating in a battle (you don't have to win the battle).

Even though there are five daily missions, you only need to complete three of them in order to claim the prize. The easiest way to do this is log in, open a booster, and do a wonder pick. Or, you can also just do a bot battle and then concede.

Dex missions are collection based tasks that reward you as you reach certain milestones of unique cards collected. Each milestone, in increments of 20, awards you with special emblem tickets that can be used to purchase emblems.

In order to complete deck missions, you must gather a required number of unique cards. This will happen naturally and automatically as you open boosters, use your wonder picks, and obtain new cards.

There isn't any strategy required here, it is a just a fun way to get rewarded for doing what you are already doing.

Deck Missions are special missions you can do to earn "rental decks". A Rental Deck in Pokemon TCG Pocket is a temporary trial deck you can use in NPC battles. Each deck comes with a limited number of uses, so use them wisely!

In order to complete Dex missions, you must gather certain cards that are required for the mission. Usually this happens automatically as you open new booster packs and wonder picks.

You can click on each mission to get more details about what cards are required to complete the mission.

Premium missions are only available if you are on the 2 week free trial of premium or are a premium member ($10/mo). These missions give extra rewards such as premium tickets, pack hourglasses, and sometimes special cards.

This is one of the only current benefits of holding a premium pass in Pokemon TCGP.

These missions are one of the more fun "collecting" missions in TCGP. They allow you to assemble groups of Pokemon based on different criteria, such as "Veridian Forest."

Each mission has 3-5 pokemon that you need to obtain in order to complete the mission. Rewards range from emblem tickets to pack hourglasses and wonder hourglasses.

In order to see the cards required for the mission, simply tap on the mission. If you aren't sure how to obtain the card, tap on the card and then you will see a screen that shows you where you can obtain it.

The Community Showcase is a fun place where you can go to check out other players "binders" and highlight cards. It is a great way to see some of the best, most rare cards available in Pokemon TCGP.

As you explore, you can "like" another players binder or card, and doing so will send them a free shop ticket at no cost to you!

If you create your own public binders and display cards, you can also recieve likes and get up to five free shop tickets per day from these likes.

As of the most recent update, trading is not available in Pokemon TCGP.

While this will certainly become a highlight feature in future updates, it is important to be ready to trade for cards you need, and know what cards you have that are valuable and rare.

Stay tuned for our guides on the rarest and most sought after cards in Pokemon TGCP.

The friends list is a place you can keep track of your friends in Pokemon TCGP.

Currently, there isn't much you can do socially. You can organize private battles against your friends, choose your friends wonder picks (which gives them a free shop ticket), and like your friends showcase items (for more free shop tickets).

Binders are ways for you to organize your favorite Pokemon TCG Pocket cards into groups to display for yourself or for the public. Each binder can have up to 15 cards in it, and you can also choose special binder types.

If you set your binders to public, people can "like" your binders, giving you up to five free shop tickets per day.

Binders are a fun way to show off your favorite collection.

Display boards are similar to binders, but for a single card. Think of it like a graded pokemon slab. Each display board can have a different background, and can be set to public to receive likes for free shop tickets.

Decks are what you actually battle with. Each player can build up to 15 unique decks. There is an "auto build" feature which is quite nice for new players to get an idea of how to build a deck.

As you progress through the different battles, it is important to modify your deck in order to meet certain requirements for all of the bonus missions. Stay tuned for our deck guides that will teach you how to build the best decks for each mission..

When building your decks, it is important to have an appropriate ballance between Pokemon, Trainer Cards, and Item Cards.

Once you have built your decks, it is time to battle! There are two types of Versus battles: Private Match and Random Match.

In a Pokemon TCG Pocket Private Match, you can set up a battle against one of your friends to challenge each others decks. This is a great way to craft theoretical decks and try to find new ways to beat meta decks.

The other type of battle is Random Match. Currently, there is no true "matchmaking" in Pokemon TCGP - everyone just battles people around their same "level" - but just because you are high level, doesn't necessarily mean you are good at battling. Stay tuned for our battle guides..

Solo battles are the best place to obtain early rewards in Pokemon TCGP. Each solo battle gives rewards upon completeion, and additional rewards for "bonus" missions within the solo battle.

When you complete all of the solo battles and their bonus missions, you should have enough shop tickets and hourglasses saved up to build a formidable collection of cards (around 500-600).

This is the first thing any new Pokemon TCGP Player should work to complete. It does not take a lot of time and the rewards are quite high.

The Premium Pass is the only way to spend real money in the game other than purhcasing Poke Gold. The pass costs $10/mo and comes with two basic rewards.

The first reward is getting to open one extra booster pack per day. This increases your daily boosters by 50%, which is pretty significant. Remember, each time you open a booster you get exp, so this will also help you level up faster.

The second reward is access to premium missions. Overall, this can be a great value for those who have an extra $10/mo to spend and don't mind all of the rewards being "digital" rewards.

The Premium Pass in Pokmeon TCGP costs $10 each month. The basic feature of hte premium pass is you get to open one extra pack of cards each day. That means you get ~30 new booster packs each month at an average price of $0.33 each.

This is by far the best paid value in the game for booster packs, as with purchasing Poke Gold, you can only get the average cost per pack to around $0.70 per booster pack.

In addition, you get access to the Premium Missions, which give additional rewards such as occassional cards, and some cosmetics.

The Tickets Shop is the place you get to spend your Shop Tickets in Pokemon TCG Pocket. You can get a daily "free" reward from the shop, and purchase a few other things.

The primary benefit of the shop is purchasing Pack Hourglasses to reduce the time required to open your next booster pack, however the number you can purchases is limited each month.

There are also some basic trainer and item cards you can purchase from the shop for a reasonable 2 shop tickets each (shop ticekts are very easy to obtain).

The emblems shop currently only has three emblems to purchase: Pikachu, MewTwo, and Charizard.

This shop will likely update over time as more types of booster packs are released.

The special shop is currently host to cosmetic only items. You can exchange 500 shop tickets for a single (1) special shop ticket.

At such a high price, you would expect there to be more in the special shop but it is currently a bit lacking.

I wouldn't be surprised if later on exclusive cards are added to the special shop.

The other shop is completely empty at the moment.

This shop features limited time event items that will only be available for set periods of time. It is not yet clear if these items will rotate in and out of the shop, or be gone forever once the shop changes..

Gifts are a quick way to say "thanks" to people you interact with in Pokemon TCGP. Each "thanks" you give, sends one shop ticket to the player as a gift. These do not cost you anything to send. You can get to the "gifts" by clicking on the gift icon in the top right of the home page.

Gifts can be sent by sending a thanks after battle, sending a thanks after a wonder pick, or liking someones showcase item.

Additionally, there are a few other gifts you can obtain through other events in Pokemon TCGP - such as the special "pack" gifts from the Venosaur event that contain one promo card each.

Getting gifts happens when people send you thanks after battling, wonder picking from you, or liking your showcase items.

It's a good idea to get a few Pokemon TCGP showcase items up as soon as possible so people can see them and start liking them.

There are three ways to give gifts: thanks after battle, thanks after wonder picking, and liking someones showcase item. In the future, there may be more types of gifts available, but that is it for now.