Help Important Cards Rotating this September?

Duo

Duo

RIP Nessa 2023
Member
Hello all. Been somewhat out of touch with the Pokemon TCG as I was dealing with personal stuff but I plan on getting back into it again around rotation. As such, I'm no longer super versed on my cards per set as I used to be to know what's going to rotate.

I want to assume someone has already compiled a list, but what major items, supporters, and Pokemon are rotating? Would welcome links/redirects to other threads that have covered this.
 
Among the most important cards are the following:

Trainer:
Ultra Ball
Nest Ball
Choice Band
Wishful Baton
Exp. Share
Max Potion
Escape Rope
Counter Catcher

Supporter:
Guzma
Acerola

Pokémon:
Zoroark GX
Buzzwole GX
Lycanroc GX
Lapras GX
Tapu Koko GX
Tapu Lele GX
Marshadow
Gourgeist

The most notable losses are the standard Pokémon search items and switching cards such as Guzma and Escape Rope. However we will recieve Great Catcher to drag Pokémon GX from the bench into the active spot as an item card. Unfortunately this card will not be legal for Worlds since it will be released in SM11a which presumably part of the next American set after Miracle Twins.
 
mordacazir said:
Lol why did you include this and not DCE?
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Gourgeist combos well well with U-Turn Board. Granted it does use both Double Colorless Energy and Triple Acceleration Energy as the only energy type. Deck is real consistent and also did well in severl tournaments in Japan. Since Gourgeist will have rotated out when U-Turn Board will be released this combo is moved over to expanded.
 
A format with so many restrictions on search is gonna be weird, I hope it doesn't just make the types with dedicated search dominate. We'll have cherish ball, Elm's, and pokecomm at least but I've heard bad things from people who tested post-rotation.
 
birdboy2000 said:
A format with so many restrictions on search is gonna be weird, I hope it doesn't just make the types with dedicated search dominate. We'll have cherish ball, Elm's, and pokecomm at least but I've heard bad things from people who tested post-rotation.
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Right now my hunch is that strong decks that have type-specific search power are going to excel, so things like Electromagnetic Radar, Mysterious Treasure, and Net Ball.

Looking at all of our options right now, I'm thinking that Pikachu & Zekrom GX decks are going to excel the most immediately after rotation. Electromagnetic Radar is probably the best search power item in the game after rotation. It does a few things for the deck that no other deck can touch:

1. Lillie was one of the best supporter cards partially due to Ultra Ball -> Lele -> Lillie, and the discard 2 from Ultra Ball is great hand thinning to make Lillie dig deeper. This was something every deck could universally access, but now this isn't going to be a thing everyone can do.
2. The card is generally better than Ultra Ball for any electric GX-focused deck due to it being a search 2 GX instead of search 1.
3. Dedenne GX just so happens to work out brilliantly as the next best bench warmer Pokemon that can conveniently be grabbed by Radar as well. Between Zeraora GX, Pikachu & Zekrom GX, and Dedenne GX, you have a lot of selection from a single card.

On top of that, Electric decks have a lot going for them.

1. Fighting/Rock type basically doesn't exist immediately after rotation in a meta viable form, so there is no concern for weakness.
2. Zeraora GX offering free retreat means that even when Great Catcher comes out, people can't just move Pokemon up into the active to get you stuck on massive retreat costs.
3. With Choice Band gone, Charizard & Reshiram GX can't OHKO you with the first attack anymore. On the contrary, Electropower is now basically the only potent damage increasing source.
4. Thunder Mountain Prism Star is a thing.

So yeah, basically a long winded way of saying that I agree with you. But then again metas are usually predominated by 3-4 major decks anyway, so it's not like that fundamental concept is really changing. I'm only ever particularly concerned when "Tier 0" metas are generated.
 
On a personal level, an electric-dominated format sounds bad for me, especially if it's a narrow meta - I tend to play rogues, and most of my favorite pokemon are weak to lightning. :(

But I'll see what I can do.
 
Yeah we'll see. It just seems really hard to work around things with the loss of so many search options.

I almost feel like if you're playing a deck that doesn't have Pokemon searching options outside of Ultra Ball & Nest ball (like Reshizard), are you just forced to run 4 copies of all of your Pokemon so that you can actually see them now?

In general I feel like decks need to up their Pokemon counts now that Rescue Stretcher is gone too.
 
Pokémon Communication will be sufficient for most decks to not need 4 of each Pokémon, but you'll definitely need some way of searching for Pokémon. Cherish Ball or EM Radar or Mysterious Treasure or ... plenty of options, really, for any type, I think. Just a little more specific, so probably less able to play highly varied single prize decks (like Zapdos Ultra Beasts type decks).
 
Pokemon Communication is a card I definitely overlooked. It's definitely a solid option but as you mentioned also not a primary source of consistency.

I think right now Water, Fighting, Dark, Steel, and Fire don't really have any in theme Pokemon searching.

Unless I missed some cards, I believe we only have EM Radar, Mysterious Treasure, and Net Ball as type specific search options, Ultra Space only for UB decks, and Cherish Ball as our currently best general option.

I guess pretty much any deck that wants to run high value non-GX Pokemon needs to run a decent GX count so they can Cherish Ball for the GX and then Poke Comm for the non-GX. But having to run Pokemon Communication instead of anything else takes up deck space and will occasionally force you to make a choice between the Pokemon you're shuffling back into the deck and the Pokemon you want to grab and running GX Pokemon kind of defeats the purpose of being a 1 prize deck, especially with Great Catcher incoming.

Seems sketchy, but I guess it is what it is for now.
 
Duo said:
Pokemon Communication is a card I definitely overlooked. It's definitely a solid option but as you mentioned also not a primary source of consistency.

I think right now Water, Fighting, Dark, Steel, and Fire don't really have any in theme Pokemon searching.

Unless I missed some cards, I believe we only have EM Radar, Mysterious Treasure, and Net Ball as type specific search options, Ultra Space only for UB decks, and Cherish Ball as our currently best general option.

I guess pretty much any deck that wants to run high value non-GX Pokemon needs to run a decent GX count so they can Cherish Ball for the GX and then Poke Comm for the non-GX. But having to run Pokemon Communication instead of anything else takes up deck space and will occasionally force you to make a choice between the Pokemon you're shuffling back into the deck and the Pokemon you want to grab and running GX Pokemon kind of defeats the purpose of being a 1 prize deck, especially with Great Catcher incoming.

Seems sketchy, but I guess it is what it is for now.
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I would argue that steel has (situationally) one of the better Pokemon searching options with Jasmine. We'll see steel decks choosing to go second to search out 5 pokemon (most likely including Jirachi as another thinning/search option).

The downside is that steel still doesn't have any meta-defining decks so this will likely be neither here nor there, but we shall see when Unified Minds comes out (Mawile-GX could be spicy!).

Don't forget for non-gx options with HP over 60 there is always Pokemon Fan Club, which feels like a horrible waste of your supporter for turn I know, but I'm sure we'll see it used in decks unless better options arise.

The only other engine I can think of would be the Nuzzley Gathering + Poke Comm combo, but that's essentially 8 deck slots (and 1 bench space) for 4 max searches, so not great.
 
I forgot about Jasmine so thanks for bringing her up.

Pokemon Fan Club likely will make a comeback, and Professor Elm even more so for evolution decks. I still believe that decks that can utilize Turn 1 Lillie generally have an edge over Elm or Fan Club Turn 1 strategies, but that changes up a bit with the next format.

1. Turn 1 Lillie is harder to pull off because you can no longer Ultra Ball into Lele for Lillie. Pokegear 3.0 won't guarantee the Lillie, just increase the odds. No Ultra Ball also means you're generally drawing 2 less cards off of Lillie if you don't have another way of dropping your hand through other search cards like EM Radar or Mysterious Treasure.

2. Dedenne GX as ability based draw support means that evolution decks that use Fan Club or Elm for set up can play the supporter and then bench the Dedenne GX on the same turn to still get draw power during the set up turn.

For evolution decks, I think it might even be desireable to run 4 Elm and 2 to 4 Fan Club just so that you can maximize your odds of getting the basics out on the bench so you don't lose turns to missing evolutions.

Also when it does eventually reach us, the new Professor Oak supporter that benches 3 different types will really help decks that rely on several types to get the job done.

I think there is room for Stage 1s to make a strong appearance so long as they are effective.
 
Duo said:
I forgot about Jasmine so thanks for bringing her up.

Pokemon Fan Club likely will make a comeback, and Professor Elm even more so for evolution decks. I still believe that decks that can utilize Turn 1 Lillie generally have an edge over Elm or Fan Club Turn 1 strategies, but that changes up a bit with the next format.

1. Turn 1 Lillie is harder to pull off because you can no longer Ultra Ball into Lele for Lillie. Pokegear 3.0 won't guarantee the Lillie, just increase the odds. No Ultra Ball also means you're generally drawing 2 less cards off of Lillie if you don't have another way of dropping your hand through other search cards like EM Radar or Mysterious Treasure.

2. Dedenne GX as ability based draw support means that evolution decks that use Fan Club or Elm for set up can play the supporter and then bench the Dedenne GX on the same turn to still get draw power during the set up turn.

For evolution decks, I think it might even be desireable to run 4 Elm and 2 to 4 Fan Club just so that you can maximize your odds of getting the basics out on the bench so you don't lose turns to missing evolutions.

Also when it does eventually reach us, the new Professor Oak supporter that benches 3 different types will really help decks that rely on several types to get the job done.

I think there is room for Stage 1s to make a strong appearance so long as they are effective.
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Agreed, I think that with the loss of any reliable way to get stage 2's out, the format will be stuck with mostly basics/stage 1 decks for a while - tbh I think there aren't any seriously good stage 2 decks out there at the moment anyway so not a great loss. At the same time, no more Guzma or gusting means that setting up evolution Pokemon on the bench gets easier in a way as there is less of a chance of losing your basic before you can evolve.

I'm hoping to see a bit more of a type balance come into the game as currently, the outlook after rotation is that Fire + Lighting + Psychic are just going to dominate due to their options for search and their new buffs. I'd love for a Dark or a Steel deck to be truly viable... only time will tell.
 
Catastrophia said:
Agreed, I think that with the loss of any reliable way to get stage 2's out, the format will be stuck with mostly basics/stage 1 decks for a while - tbh I think there aren't any seriously good stage 2 decks out there at the moment anyway so not a great loss. At the same time, no more Guzma or gusting means that setting up evolution Pokemon on the bench gets easier in a way as there is less of a chance of losing your basic before you can evolve.

I'm hoping to see a bit more of a type balance come into the game as currently, the outlook after rotation is that Fire + Lighting + Psychic are just going to dominate due to their options for search and their new buffs. I'd love for a Dark or a Steel deck to be truly viable... only time will tell.
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Type variety is something I've been hoping for as well. Hopefully when Weak Guard Energy comes out, it'll help decks that have any amount of colorless energy cost be able to not be afraid of auto losing to their weakness. I feel like Weak Guard Energy will become fairly influential. Lots of decks easily search and accelerate basic energy (every deck has access to Viridian Forest), so saving the Weak Guard Energy for your attach for turn isn't going to detract from energy balance for a lot of decks.

Might be able to run some spicy combinations like Solgaleo GX (Promo 104), Alolan Ninetales GX, and Zeraora GX. Using the new Oak supporter coming out later, you could bench the Cosmog, Alolan Vulpix, and Zeraora GX all in the same go. Alolan Ninetales GX can find the rare candy and the cherish ball, and then running lightning energy will give you a good rotation with free retreat on your whole board.

Solgaleo GX will prevent your whole field from falling to weakness, then using the free retreat from Zeraora GX and the lightning energy, you can turbo drive with Solgaleo GX for 120, put that energy on Zeraora GX, then switch to Zeraora with free retreat next turn, attach for 3rd energy, and swing for 160. Rinse and repeat. That 280 damage is guaranteed to 2 hit KO everything viable in the format, and Solgaleo GX won't get OHKO'd by Reshizard/Blacephalon due to its own ability. GX attack for global heal if you need it.

I know none of that is relevant for worlds, but I'm mostly just thinking ahead since I won't be able to participate in worlds anyway.
 
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