Professor Willow Goes to the TCG

After five years, Pokémon Go can be said to have become an established part of the realm of the Pokémon franchise. That would make it a prime target for inter-franchise collaborations, one of which is with the main series games, which has already been realized with the main series games through links with the Let's Go games and Pokémon Home. Now, there's another collaboration, which would be with the Trading Card Game or TCG. One element of Pokémon Go has appeared in the TCG, and that would be Professor Willow, becoming part of a special card, titled "Professor's Research".

The card is a Supporter card, which is a kind of card that can be played once during a player's turn, if present in the hand. While most Supporter cards take the name of the character present in such a role as the title, this card has a title different from the character, with the character name given as a subtitle instead. When this card is played, the player discards their entire hand and then draws 7 cards to replace the discarded hand. With this in mind, one would be wise to use it if one has 7 or less cards and/or a majority of the cards in the hand are unhelpful, assuming that one hasn't used another Supporter card. It's indeed a helpful card when the circumstances encourage its use.

It's also helpful in another way, for those playing Pokémon Go this time. Each Professor Willow card is emblazoned with a code, which if entered by offer redemption, will provide a Trainer with a Special Research that will allow the earning of a lot of neat items plus another Meltan encounter, as well as a commemorative medal for having obtained the card (proven, of course, by redeeming the code). The code is unique to each card, so one will have to obtain a card authentically in order to be able to get a redeemable code. A particularly well-known Pokémon Go Trainer has demonstrated that the Trainer had indeed obtained a card and has redeemed the card's code for the Special Research and the medal. For other Trainers in other parts of the world, the opportunity to do so may possibly come at a later time.

Collaboration between Pokémon Go and the Pokémon TCG could be described as something that would only take a matter of time to happen, and the current time (more or less) couldn't be more fitting with the big anniversary of Pokémon and the fledgling anniversary of its popular mobile installment. It's also fitting that the first thing chosen for that collaboration is the Pokémon professor who's in charge of it all. With benefits for both sides, this ought to be the mark for a great mutual relationship between the two.

One year ago: More on Remote Raids

Two years ago: The Switch Lite

Three years ago: Mew @ Everywhere

Four years ago: What Kind of Pokémon Are You?