Pokemon TCG Pocket censorship stops players from using actual Pokemon names

Pokemon TCG Pocket prominently features Pokemon ex cards, but the game’s word filter censorship prevents decks from being named after them.

The mainline Pokemon games have word filters to prevent profanities and slurs from being used. These are pointless, as players can easily bypass them by replacing letters with similar ones. This meant it was risky doing Wonder Trades during the Nintendo 3DS era, as you could easily get a ‘Mon with an offensive name.

While Pokemon Pocket doesn’t let players rename cards in the same way that the mainline games let you rename Pokemon, it does let you change the name of decks. Users on the PTCGP Reddit have discovered that certain Pokemon names can’t be used for decks.

Some Pokemon ex with an s can’t be used with deck names

In Pokemon Pocket, if an ex Pokemon’s name ends with the letter s, it will hit the filter. This is due to the game ignoring the space between the letter s and the ex.

Due to this issue, players can’t name their deck after Gyarados ex or Zapdos ex. This is a big shame, considering Gyarados ex is one of the most dominant decks in the current meta, meaning players have a good chance of running into this censorship.

The issue facing certain decks is similar to a funny incident involving Pokemon Masters. When the game rebranded to Pokemon Masters ex, the Twitter/X name mushed all three parts of the name together, giving the game promotion that isn’t safe for work.

It’s strange that this censorship exists, when it would be easy for the developers to just disable the opponent’s feature to see your deck’s name. That way, it wouldn’t matter what you called the deck, as only you would see it.

Players can easily create offensive names in Pokemon Pocket with careful letter substitution and spacing, so the Gyarados ex decks of the world should be allowed to exist.