Back in April, The Pokemon Company announced a Pokemon Go TCG expansion. This expansion would include a number of cards based on the company's wildly successful augmented reality mobile game, Pokemon Go, to their competitive card game. Now, even more cards are being shown off from this expansion, one of which is a novel take on one of the franchise's shapeshifters, Ditto.
This Pokemon Go TCG expansion preview comes from an official post on The Pokemon Company's website. The first card shown off was a brand new VMAX Melmetal. This psuedo-legendary pokemon is the evolved form of Meltan and could only be caught in Pokemon Go. As fitting a VMAX pokemon, Melmetal has some nasty attacks. The biggest hitter is the G-Max Juggernaut attack which deals 160 damage plus an additional 60 for each additional Metal Energy card attached. This bonus damage does cap off at 120 for a whopping 280 damage total.
In addition, the Pokemon Go TCG expansion does feature new versions of the Gen 1's legendary birds. This is important since Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres are used as symbols for Pokemon Go's three different factions, Teams Mystic, Instinct, and Valor respectively.
But the biggest surprise to come in this sneak peak of the Pokemon Go TCG expansion is a new printing of Ditto. In the world of Pokemon, Ditto can perfectly transform into any other pokemon it sees. In Pokemon Go, there's a chance every time you catch a pokemon in the wild, it will reveal itself to be a Ditto in disguise. This newest card expansion plans to replicate this surprise. Certain cards will have a false layer on them, basically the adhesive sticker which is printed on the card. Peel off the layer and you'll find out that pokemon was actually a Ditto. While this does mean that the actual pokemon on the layer can't be used in a competitive game, it is novel way to express the mobile game in card game form.
The Pokemon Go TCG expansion is set to release July 1.
