The Pokemon TCG Pocket Flair and cosmetics system explained
The Flair and Shinedust system in Pokemon TCGP
The Pokemon TCG Pocket flair system is how you can spend duplicates and Shinedust to create cosmetic effects for your cards. A flair in TCGP is basically a sparkly or holographic effect that can be applied to a card, which will then add a little flourish to its appearance when you bring it into battle. However, it's not an especially well-explained system and the cost in duplicates can be a little hard to understand. Fortunately, we'll explain flair in Pokemon TCG Pocket below and how you can use it to make your Flareon fabulous.
How does Flair in Pokemon TCG Pocket work?
The Pokemon TCG Pocket flair system and mechanics for getting card cosmetics works in the following way:
- As you collect cards, you'll eventually start to get duplicates and multiple copies of the same card.
- Select a card you have duplicates of in the "My Cards" tab. There'll be a button underneath it that says "Obtain Flair"
- By removing a certain number of the duplicates from your collection, as well as spending some Shinedust, you can obtain a visual flair effect that can be applied to one of that card.
- The amount of duplicates you need to delete for Flair, as well as the cost in Shinedust, will depend on the rarity of the card.
- You cannot burn duplicates for flair effects if it would leave you with less than two duplicates total (the maximum amount that can be put in a deck).
- Each flair effect you unlock for a card unlocks another subsequent one that can be unlocked, a little progression tree for each card.
- You can apply flair effects to your cards in the decks you build, by pressing the little white box icon that appears on those cards that have cosmetics available now that you've purchased them.
Obtaining duplicates for cards is simply the same process as obtaining cards normally, and there'll be certain cards that come up a lot. Shinedust, on the other hand, is tied to opening packs, levelling up, and as special mission, challenge and quest rewards like those tied to the Pokemon TCG Pocket Lapras ex event.
It's likely that Shinedust isn't going to be an issue or bottleneck for most players - speaking personally, I have more of the stuff than I could possibly spend, and it's finding duplicates of the cards you want to add flair to that's far more of a challenge.
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Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and raconteur with a Masters from Sussex University, none of which has actually equipped him for anything in real life. As a result he chooses to spend most of his time playing video games, reading old books and ingesting chemically-risky levels of caffeine. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at USgamer, Gfinity, Eurogamer and more besides.