Team Rocket's Ambition hits Pokémon TCG Pocket on 27 August

There is a card in the next Pokémon TCG Pocket pack whose job is to put Pokémon onto your opponent's side of the table. Your opponent's side, yes. It is called Team Rocket's Boss, it is the rarest of the four cards shown today, and at first glance it looks like a gift to the other player.

First things first. The Pokémon Company announced on 20 August that the Team Rocket's Ambition themed booster pack lands in Pokémon TCG Pocket on 27 August, with the code B4a printed on the wrapper itself and artwork that crams Giovanni, two Rocket Grunts and Kanto's three legendary birds into the same frame, which is already a fair warning about where the month is heading.

There is a stop before that: a special video goes up on 21 August on the official Pokémon YouTube channel. Do not expect it to answer everything, though, because at this point nobody has said how many cards the pack contains, which new rarities are coming, or whether this is a one-month campaign or the start of something longer.

The four cards you can already read

Three of the four are Pokémon and one is a Supporter. Team Rocket's Lapras has 90 HP and a single attack, Relentless Whirlpool, which deals 40 damage and climbs to 80 as long as the Lapras itself has more Energy attached than the opponent's Active Pokémon, a condition that looks easy on paper and then, mid-turn, has you counting somebody else's Energy. Team Rocket's Houndour settles for 60 HP and 20 damage off one Fire Energy: this is the filler, the one you will pull every single time.

The headliner is Team Rocket's Articuno ex, 130 HP, with a Polar Storm that hits for 130. That said, the attack charges you at home, because it also deals 20 damage to each of your own Benched Pokémon. And being an ex card, when it goes down it hands your rival two points in one go.

Every card is signed and the names are worth a look: Mékayu on Lapras, Mina Nakai on Houndour, Atsushi Furusawa on the Boss, PLANETA CG Works on Articuno. In a mobile game where the thing you are buying is literally a picture, knowing who drew it is not a small detail. If you want the mechanics behind why this format grips people, we pulled it apart in how gacha works and why it hooks you.

The calendar

Every time in the press release is given in UTC, which is a very elegant way of making sure nobody knows when anything opens. In plain terms: Team Rocket Special Missions start on 28 August and run until 29 September, a full month that is by some distance the most generous window of the four and, though it does not look it, the only one you can finish without rushing.

That is where it gets odd. Those missions hand out "Team Rocket dubious coupons", and the release itself says players will have to "try to find where they can be used". So you get a voucher and it is your job to work out which shop takes it. A cheeky bit of design, though it is also the one hook this month that you cannot solve by paying.

The rest is more predictable: profile emblems for winning games against other players, promo packs from series B volume 12 in the Lapras drop event, and Fennekin and Meowstic cards in the Wonder Pick at the end of the month. Note the dates down, but carefully, because "the event dates are subject to change", according to The Pokémon Company.

Why the Boss is the card to watch

Back to where we started. Team Rocket's Boss lets you look at your opponent's hand and put as many Basic Pokémon from it onto their Bench as you fancy. It reads like charity until you remember that a Bench in Pocket holds three, and not one more.

Filling it yourself leaves them no room for whatever they were actually building towards, and plants targets for anything that hits the Bench. I think it is the most entertaining card of the four, and also the easiest to misplay, since if you pull out exactly the Basic they wanted on the field, you have done yourself the favour backwards.

One limit nobody gets around, and it is printed on the card itself: you may only play one Supporter per turn. The Boss does not stack with what you already run. It competes for the slot.

What they still have not said

The big questions are wide open, and there are plenty of them: how many cards go into the pack, which new rarities show up, whether the full-art illustrations the game has leaned on since launch carry over here, and whether Team Rocket sticks around for a whole season or clears out in four weeks the way other themed sets have. The wrapper art shows Zapdos, Moltres and Articuno side by side, and of those three we have only seen one turned into a card. The other two are sitting right there in the illustration, watching, which in a booster campaign is never an accident.

Tomorrow's video clears up part of it and 27 August clears up the rest. In the meantime, if your Pokémon tastes run quieter, September also moves the Pokopia expansion pass.