There’s really only one, at least for me, way to describe this shift: YECCH!
I watched the trailer and it honestly feels like TPCi wants a piece of the same pie that MTG Arena, YGO Duel Links, and Hearthstone already have the lion’s share of (not that the untogglable attack graphics used in the current TCGO app aren’t an indication of that). The new avatars, while better than the Flash-styled ones we’ve had since the TCGO’s inception, look like they’re rip-offs of those animated emojis that are plaguing mobile networks today. And I really, really, REALLY don‘t like the emotes, I actually prefer the current TCGO’s canned chat over ‘em. My only hope is that those Zog-awful emotes can be turned off, if they can’t then I hope they suffer the same tragic fate as The TCGO’s old in-game chat.
The way the three in-game currencies were explained in the news reel is extremely lackluster and raises a LOT of alarm bells for me. Credits aren’t explained in-depth: What do individual cards cost in Credits? How many credits do you get from a card when you go over four and what’s the exchange rate in regards to rarity? What cards CAN’T you get with credits (if you even believe for a second you’ll be able to get Tropical Beach at ALL then I have a bridge in the Mojave I’d like to sell to you)? How many Crystals does it cost to buy a pack/promo/bundle? And most importantly, will there be micro-transactions?
The lack of trading is something I‘m not happy with but the new spare-cards-to-credits machine renders the thing kind of a moot point, IIRC MTG Arena did something similar to this and it wasn’t that well received. Why can’t both systems exist?
The lack of HGSS-CoL cards is definitely sad but I can see whey they‘re leaving the game. Legacy, while somewhat fun, was a compromise between keeping Unlimited and getting rid of it completely and it REALLY showed. If TPCi gave Dire Wolf Digital the means to bring Japan’s Palace/Hall of Fame format to international audiences then I could’ve seen it surviving. I’m definitely going to miss using my HS-era PokeGear 3.0s instead of the ones from SWSH.
Transferring over your TCGO collection to TCGL is something that I’m happy to see, but I‘m disappointed in them not clarifying if the transfer allows locked cards to be transferred.
All in all, I need more convincing and assurances for TCGL to win me over and it’s already stumbling out of the door in that regard.