Hi there. In this Pokemon TCG post I cover more Japanese cards from the upcoming Team Rocket set. The Japanese cards release in mid April 2025 while the English & International cards release in the Destined Rivals set in May 2025.
This post is long. Read what you want.
I am going in a bit of a reverse order compared to the Pokebeach Source article.
Team Rocket's Great Ball
This Great Ball card for Team Rocket is a coin flip Pokemon search card. If you flip heads then you get a Team Rocket Evolution Pokemon. Tails gets you a Team Rocket Basic Pokemon. Team Rocket's Great Ball is very similar to Capturing Aroma from the previous F, G, H format.
Team Rocket's Venture Bomb
This Bomb card is a damage counter placement Item card. If you flip Heads then you place 2 damage counters to any one of your opponent's Pokemon in play. If you flip Tails your own Active Pokemon takes 2 damage counters.
In theory if you spam 4 of these in a deck you can knockout a weak 70HP Pokemon. That is a 1/16 chance of doing so as you would need all 4 Heads from 4 flips. Something more realistic would be getting 2 Heads to knockout a 30 HP Budew. This is a 25% chance of getting 2 Heads from 2 flips or a 37.5% chance of getting 2 Heads from 4 flips (4 copies of this card).
Dealing damage to yourself is not that bad as you have Munkidori with Dark Energy to transfer damage counters to the opponent. (Munkidori for a non-Pokemon ex card is popular and kind of broken in some ways.)
Team Rocket's Petrel
Team Rocket's Petrel allows you to search for any Trainer card. The Trainer card does not have to be a Team Rocket's card. You can search for an Item card, Stadium card, Pokemon Tool card or another Supporter card.
You can use this card outside of a Team Rocket deck. This feels likes one of those cards you have to try out and see if it works well or not for your deck.
Team Rocket's Proton
Team Rocket's Proton is a powerful Pokemon search Supporter card for Basic Team Rocket's Pokemon. You can also use this card during your first turn going first. (Under normal conditions you cannot play a Supporter during your first turn going first.)
This Proton Supporter card allows you search up to 3 Basic Team Rocket's Pokemon and put them into your hand. (Then shuffle deck) As you put the Team Rocket Pokemon into your hand you can choose whether to Bench them or not. The unwanted Pokemon can be used as discard fodder for Ultra Ball or Earthen Vessel.
Team Rocket's Koffing as an attacker is not great. The ability on it is interesting. When it gets attacked you can choose to spawn more Koffings (regular or Team Rocket's Koffing) from the deck to your Bench. This feels like one of those Special Summons from Yu-Gi-Oh or something.
Team Rocket's Weezing has only one attack. It is an interesting attack which is reliant on the number of Koffings and Weezings in play.
Exploding Mob does 40 damage times the number of Koffings and Weezings in play. This applies to both regular ones and Team Rocket's Koffings and Weezings. In theory you can do up to 320 damage (40 x 8). I think in practice it would be better to use this Team Rocket's Weezing and its Dark type advantage against Mew ex and Latias ex.
Team Rocket's Zubat is nothing too crazy. It is needed for evolving into Team Rocket's Golbat and then Crobat ex.
Team Rocket's Golbat is the Stage 1 evolution of Team Rocket's Zubat. Upon evolution from the hand the ability from Team Rocket's Golbat allows you to place 2 damage counters on any one of the opponent's Pokemon in play.
The attack on Team Rocket's Golbat is okay. For one Dark Energy you deal 30 damage plus Confusion. Confusion is pretty annoying in the video game and its also annoying in the TCG also.
Team Rocket's Crobat ex is the final evolution. Its ability is similar to Team Rocket's Golbat. Upon evolution from your hand you deal 2 damage counters to 2 of your opponent's Pokemon. It is a damage spread ability. In theory you can get the rare double knockout for up to 4 Prizes from this ability.
The Lethal Return attack requires 2 Dark Energy or one Team Rocket Energy for its attack cost. It does 120 damage with the option of putting the Crobat ex into your hand and discarding the attached cards. This is a hit and run attack.
Here is Team Rocket's Sneasel. Team Rocket tends to have Poison Pokemon and Dark Pokemon for their criminal operations. Sneasel makes sense.
The first attack is not good but the second attack is interesting. For 2 Dark Energy or one Team Rocket Energy the Backstab attack does 20 damage to 1 of your opponent's Pokemon (Active or Bench) for each damage counter already on that Pokemon.
Combine this Sneasel with the Team Rocket's Crobat evolution plus Munkidori to set up and spread damage counters before the Sneasel attack.
Team Rocket's Articuno is a Basic Water Pokemon with 120 HP and one retreat cost. The attack on this Articuno requires one Water Energy and two Colourless energy. In theory you can do 1 Water Energy and 1 Team Rocket Energy which results in 2 energy attachments.
The Resistant Veil ability is a good defensive ability for your Basic Team Rocket's Pokemon. You prevent all effects from your opponent's Pokemon attacks done to your Benched Basic Team Rocket's Pokemon. This prevents damage counter placements from opponent's attack and attacks like Sylveon's Angelite attack.
Team Rocket's Zapdos does not seem very good as an attacker. The second attack could be okay is you want to take advantage of the Lightning type against Water Pokemon even though the energy cost is high.
The first attack for 2 Colourless Energy does 30 damage plus moving 1 Energy from the opponent's Active Pokemon to an opponent's Benched Pokemon.
Team Rocket's Moltres ex. This has 220 HP, two retreat cost and Lightning weakness. Flame Screen requires one Fire Energy and two Colourless Energy to deal 110 damage. In addition to the damage, this Pokemon takes 50 less damage from attacks during your opponent's next turn.
The Evil Burn attack requires one Fire Energy and 3 Colourless Energy. It does zero damage but you have to discard a Team Rocket's Energy from this Team Rocket's Moltres ex to discard your opponent's Active Pokemon and all attached cards. Instad of discarding the opponent's Pokemon I would prefer a straight up Knockout like with Roaring Moon ex.
In theory you can play this Team Rocket's Moltres ex attacker outside of a Team Rocket deck. You can use Armarouge to somewhat accelerate Fire Energy. Maybe Armarouge, Professor Sada's Vitality plus Gouging Fire?
This upcoming Team Rocket set looks to be crazy for collectors and for players. Scalpers may go crazy too.
From a gameplay perspective the team Rocket archetypes look to be pretty strong. The Rocket's Mewtwo ex is the most obvious archetype but I can see other archetypes see play. Will they be competitive? Not sure.
The Team Rocket Trainer cards look to be pretty good. More to come.
Thank you for reading.
