Dialga on a phone with many broken pillars in the background in the Pokemon TCG Pocket Space-Time Smackdown expansion, which is coming next week alongside the trading update

Pokemon TCG Pocket Trading Update and New Expansion Coming Next Week

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Published: January 23, 2025 8:55 AM

The long-awaited Pokemon TCG Pocket trading update finally has a release date, and it's coming just a day before the game's next major expansion set arrives.

Per a press release, the trading update, which will allow you to trade cards with your friends (albeit with some pretty hefty caveats), will arrive on January 29th, which is next Wednesday at time of writing.

As a reminder, the trading update will only let you trade with friends, and only certain cards will be supported to begin with. Additionally, you'll only be able to trade cards of certain rarity levels, and new items will need to be used in order to facilitate trades.

The new Palkia EX card in the Pokemon TCG Pocket Space-Time Smackdown expansion, which arrives alongside the trading update
The new Space-Time Smackdown expansion will bring plenty of new cards for you to collect.

At first, you'll only be able to trade cards from the first two sets as well, those being Genetic Apex and Mythical Island. Plans are in place to introduce trading for other sets at a later date, apparently.

As for the new expansion, it's called Space-Time Smackdown, and as the name suggests, it'll largely revolve around two of the Sinnoh region's pivotal legendary Pokemon, namely Dialga and Palkia. The new booster packs will be themed around those Pokemon as well.

You can also look forward to new Pokemon from Sinnoh that haven't appeared in Pokemon TCG Pocket before; The Pokemon Company is teasing Lucario and the three Sinnoh starters (Turtwig, Chimchar, and Piplup), but there will likely be others, too.

The trailer for the new set also teases a Pachirisu ex card that includes attack text referring to Pokemon Tools, a mechanic from the main Pokemon TCG game that can augment certain 'mon attacks. Sounds like they'll be making their debut with this set as well.

The Pokemon TCG Pocket trading update launches on January 29th, and the Space-Time Smackdown expansion set launches a day later on January 30th. Make sure you're ready for both!

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Joe has been writing for TechRaptor for several years, and in those years has learned a lot about the gaming industry and its foibles. He’s originally an… More about Joseph