What The March 2025 Rotation Means for the Pokémon Trading Card Game

A few months into every year, the Pokémon Trading Card Game experiences rotation, as this process ensures that players will not have to deal with a bad format for too long and that new cards will help add intrigue to the game. The 2025 rotation is a few months away, as the first core set of the year, “Journey Together”, releases towards the end of March, leaving fans to expect that rotation will take place around this time. Rotation in the Pokémon Trading Card Game follows letter regulations, and any card with an F regulation on it will rotate out of the format in March. This means some powerful strategies will leave the format entirely and specific powerful staples will make fans search for alternatives to their powerful abilities.

Every V and VStar card is leaving the format in March, meaning that players will no longer have Lumineon V to search for a supporter once per game and Rotom V to draw three cards on the turns that they aren’t attacking. On top of this, every Radiant Pokémon is rotating as well, which means that players won’t be able to use Radiant Greninja for draw power or Radiant Charizard and Radiant Alakazam for utility damage. Trainer’s Pokémon return to the game in “Journey Together”, but fans will have to see what mechanic replaces the other lost mechanic at some point soon, and players are excited about the changes that 2025 will bring to the game.

Regidrago VStar and Lugia VStar Will Finally Leave The Standard Format

With the new rotation in March 2025, every card with an F regulation rotates out of the format, which removes many important cards in a plethora of strategies. Firstly, every Radiant Pokémon leaves the format, and this tech choice greatly changes how decks will be built in the future. While players were only allowed to include one Radiant Pokémon in their decks, this card was often a crucial tech choice that enabled some decks’ most important combos, and they will be sorely missed.

The three Radiant Pokémon that saw the most play were Radiant Greninja, Radiant Charizard and Radiant Alakazam, but Greninja stood out as it was playable in the most different decks. By discarding an energy card, players can draw two cards, which is great for maintaining hand advantage, but also setting up the discard pile for important plays with cards like Regidrago V and Palkia V. The Radiant Pokémon will be a sorely missed tech option, and players will have to figure out what card they will play in place of the Radiant Pokémon they have played for the past couple of years.

Alongside the Radiant Pokémon, every V and VStar Pokémon is leaving the format, and this will force many amazingly powerful strategies out of the format. The most notable of these strategies is Regidrago VStar, which is the most powerful deck in the format because of its ability to copy other Dragon-type Pokémon’s attacks while they are in the discard pile. The other most impactful V Pokémon that are leaving the format are both utility cards that are played in a plethora of Stage 2 evolution decks.

Lumineon V and Rotom V are crucial parts of the set-up for decks like Charizard ex and Dragapult ex. and those decks will have to pivot to slower options like T.M. Evolution to evolve their Pokémon consistently and not lose to faster decks like Gholdengo ex and Raging Bolt ex. Despite this, the format looks like it is going to be slower, so players can take their time setting up their board and not worry about their opponent breaking their set-up on their first turn.

A few crucial tech cards and stadiums will also be leaving the format, leaving fans to wonder what will replace them in the future. Temple of Sinnoh and Collapsed Stadium are leaving, so players will have to find out what stadiums to put in their place to remove the opponent’s stadium from the board. Bibarel is the most effective draw engine rotating out in March, but it has not seen much play over the past few months, so it will not be missed by many.

Finally, the most integral tech card in the format, Manaphy, is gone, so players will have a hard time protecting their benched Pokémon from their opponent’s attacks. Overall, many crucial cards will be leaving Standard format, and players will have to innovate to make up for the crucial pieces that they lost.

A New Format With Some Holdover Standouts

Charizard ex and Dragapult ex Will Stick Around in the Meta

Many decks are leaving the format because of the 2025 rotation, but a few very powerful decks are kept mostly intact except for a few tech cards that boosted their consistency. The most prominent of these decks are Charizard ex and Dragapult ex, as with a few changes to how these decks are built, they can still be consistent meta threats. Charizard ex loses the same Basic V tech cards as every other deck, but they can make up for this loss with Pidgeot ex, so their consistency is only slightly hindered by this change.

Dragapult ex has virtually no problem with these cards because its Stage 1 evolution, Drakloak, is its draw engine that can look at the top two cards of the deck and add one to your hand once per turn. Furthermore, a new variant of the deck that uses Iron Thorns has become the most popular version of the deck as players prepare for a slower format. Stage 2 decks are most unchanged except for the intriguing addition of T.M. Evolution, but one potent Stage 1 deck has a chance to reclaim a spot at the top of the meta depending on how the early days of the post-rotation format turn out.

Gholdengo ex was a very powerful deck in the early part of 2024, but cards like Raging Bolt ex and Teal Mask Ogerpon forced it out of the meta because they are more consistent strategies. With the arrival of Energy Search Pro, Goldengo ex received a massive buff to its damage potential, and it loses far fewer pieces in the rotation than Raging Bolt ex, making it a great choice going into the next format. The 2025 rotation will likely drastically shift the meta of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, but these few holdovers are the best choice for players who don’t want to build a brand-new deck for the upcoming format.

“Journey Together” Brings Trainer’s Pokémon Back to the Game

The First Core Set of 2025 Promises To Bring With It an Intriguing Format Shift

The first core set of 2025 to arrive with the rotation is “Journey Together”, a set that returns Trainer’s Pokémon to the Pokémon Trading Card Game after a lengthy absence. Included in this set are cards for iconic trainers like N and newcomers like Iono, but the early leaks show that the most powerful cards in the set belong to Hop.

Hop’s cards are focused on buffing the damage of his Pokémon through the use of tools, stadiums and the abilities of Basic Pokémon like Snorlax. The best card in his arsenal that has been revealed so far is Hop’s Cramorant, which can hit for 210 Damage and Costs 0 Energy if it has Hop’s Choice Band attached to it. This attack is massive to have on a 1-Prize Pokémon, and it shows that Hop’s strategy has potential in the post-rotation meta.

Overall, fans are thrilled at the upcoming rotation and the return of Trainer’s Pokémon to the game. The meta seems like it will shift in favor of slower decks in the future, which is a needed pace after how fast many of 2024’s best decks were. While the entirety of the year’s first core set has yet to be revealed, fans are excited to see what “Journey Together” brings to the table after the mixed bag that was 2024’s meta.