Misty: The Most Hated Card in the Pokemon TCG Pocket Meta

As the current Pokemon TCG Pocket meta continues to shake out, players are quickly figuring out which decks, cards, and strategies are powerful, which are safe, and which are...wildly inconsistent. And there's one card that everyone seems to agree they hate, whether they're using it or facing an opponent with it: Misty.

Misty is a Supporter card, essentially a type of card that can be played once per turn to give yourself an advantageous effect. Coming with the following effect, Misty is explicitly designed for use in decks featuring water-type Pokemon: "Choose one of your water-type Pokemon, and flip a coin until you get tails. For each hads, take a water-type Energy from your Energy Zone and attach it to that Pokemon."

Pokemon need energy to use attacks on opponents, but typically you can only attach one energy to one Pokemon per turn. So the idea behind Misty is to quickly power up a single water-type Pokemon so it can use an Energy-intensive attack right away, rather than having to wait two, three, four, or more turns to blast away.

Unfortunately, Misty's efficacy depends entirely on coin flips, meaning she can either be completely useless (if you flip tails right away) or so overpowered as to be ridiculous (if you flip more heads than you need).

So of course, people who are using Misty in their decks are complaining about constantly flipping tails right away, and people who are facing Misty are posting...well, this:

The frustrations with Misty's luck-heavy potential are resulting in a lot of discussions as to whether or not the card design needs to be changed. Those discussions have only increased with the release of a special event in the game featuring water-type Pokemon, where players can battle an AI using a deck containing Misty and a few Pokemon that can absolutely destroy an opponent on turn one with lucky coin flips.

On the Pokemon TCG Pocket subreddit, a number of users have made suggestions for how she can be improved, such as limiting the total number of coin flips or placing restrictions on how energy is distributed. The biggest issue players are citing apart from her luck-heavy mechanic is that if a Misty-user gets luck and draws her turn one, they can then use her to potentially attack their opponent on turn one. Typically, players are not able to attack on the first turn due to the game prohibiting attaching an energy on turn one, a fairness mechanic intended to ensure going second isn't a massive disadvantage. But a lucky Misty draw, a lucky Misty flip, and an Articuno EX is a recipe for disaster.

The problem is so bad that some players are speculating her coin flips are rigged or bugged in some way. Others are just memeing their way through it, pointing out that often, Misty users will simply concede the game immediately after playing her and flipping a single tails first try.

It remains to be seen whether or not Misty will be nerfed, buffed, or adjusted in any other way in response to the player frustration with her mechanic. But if the devs do decide to tweak her, the subreddit is absolutely stuffed with ideas.

Meanwhile, players are filling up their decks not with Misty, but with Farfetch'd, and the two dominant meta decks right now are largely centered around Charizard and Mewtwo. But if you're trying to build a competitive deck that uses rare cards, don't be fooled by rumors you can influence what you pull from booster packs. Like Misty, it's all just dumb luck.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.