I returned to Pokémon TCG Pocket. 68 packs later, Team Rocket had me again

Returning to Pokémon TCG Pocket after almost two years felt more intimidating than opening a pack. The game had kept growing without me, yet it did not greet me with an endless recap or a list of overdue chores. It put five Team Rocket packs on the screen, showed me Giovanni and let muscle memory handle the familiar swipe.

I had started in November 2024 and even subscribed to the premium pass. I wanted to stay, but first I missed a day, then a week and eventually enough months for returning to feel like work, not because I had fallen out with the game or decided to quit, but because Pokémon TCG Pocket had gradually slipped out of my routine.

Returning to a live game that carried on without you presents a particular obstacle. The buttons come back quickly, but unfamiliar features, new abilities and a competitive scene that moved ahead can send you straight back out. Team Rocket's Ambition avoids that problem by offering something more inviting than another tutorial, a villain you recognise and a theme worth following.

Sixty-eight packs later, I had 340 new cards, 68 of the set's 72 numbered cards and a rough Moltres ex deck. The session ended with a win and one thumb up: recommended, not because 68 packs can explain the whole of Pokémon TCG Pocket, but because they made the next match sound more appealing than closing the app.

Giovanni has taken over the game

Giovanni appears to have used my absence to seize Pokémon TCG Pocket. The Pokémon Company's launch announcement fills the menus with Grunts, puts Kanto's legendary birds beside them and gives familiar Pokémon Team Rocket names. For a few hours, the entire game feels as though it belongs to the organisation.

Every illustration joins the takeover. Hypno holds its pendulum with the smile of someone who knows you are already listening, Kecleon crosses a laboratory with a confidential envelope stuck to its tongue, and Tinkaton carries a hammer that barely fits in the frame while two Grunts cover its back. Moltres ex arrives wrapped in fire before a gigantic red R and needs no further introduction.

Such a clear identity helps after almost two years away. You may not know the latest abilities or which decks now dominate, but the set makes sense at a glance. Recognising the villain lets you connect one card to another and imagine a deck before worrying about pull rates or the competitive meta.

Even the event shop hides behind a Team Rocket button and fills its shelves with coins, playmats, sleeves, backgrounds and binders marked by the red R. None of those cosmetics changes a match, but together they sell the fantasy that Giovanni occupied the shop while nobody was looking.

Those 68 packs produced 340 cards and 68 of the 72 numbered entries, a total that sounds close to completion until the 38 rare-art variants raise the full set to 110. I was nowhere near finished, yet I could see its main ideas, follow several evolution lines and build around what I had pulled. That was exactly enough for a cold return.

The cards cheat because they are Team Rocket

Team Rocket's personality does not end with the artwork. Its cards interfere, rearrange the board and exploit any gap in an opponent's plan, as though the whole expansion takes pleasure in ruining an orderly turn. This is more than a black uniform pasted onto familiar Pokémon because the same idea reaches the table.

Hypno drags a Benched Pokémon into the Active Spot and attacks the newcomer. Weezing ex can Poison and Burn the Active Pokémon as soon as it evolves, while Raticate ex enters play and steals one of its Energy. The effects differ, but they all chase the moment when you thought the match was under control until Team Rocket reached across the table.

Slowking ex was the easiest way back into the rhythm. While Active, it draws an extra card each turn and then uses Handokinesis to deal 20 damage for every card left in your hand. Draw, hold, hit harder. The idea is simple, but every turn tempts you to save one more card.

The set's chaos peaks with Team Rocket Research. You flip coins until the first tails and add a random Pokémon with Team Rocket in its name for every heads. The run can die immediately or bring half the organisation into your hand. For a few seconds, Giovanni's empire depends on one coin.

I built a deck from those pulls and entered a match. I won, although calling it a team effort would be generous because Moltres ex did nearly everything. Heat Charge flips three coins and attaches one Fire Energy for every heads, while Cavern Wing deals 130 damage and discards one Energy. Within a few turns I was charging, attacking and refuelling to repeat the move. I had arrived to open packs and, almost without noticing, started playing again.

The match after the pack

When the last pack opened, the album read 68 out of 72 and four numbered cards were still missing, but I had not returned to fill every grey square. I wanted to know whether Pokémon TCG Pocket could keep me after the pleasure of opening packs had faded.

That is where Team Rocket's Ambition earns its recommendation. The cards did not disappear into the album, but made me wonder what I could build, how far Slowking ex could stretch a hand and whether Moltres ex could carry a rushed deck. Every pack opened a possibility and, this time, those possibilities ended at the battle table.

Sixty-eight packs and a handful of matches cannot judge the competitive environment or show whether the expansion will hold up for months. They can answer the simpler question of whether this is a good way back. For anyone who left Pokémon TCG Pocket during its opening months, Team Rocket offers a theme that reads at a glance, cards with clear ideas and enough room to experiment before catching up with everything else.

Team Rocket left my album incomplete, but it had me closing the app thinking about the next match rather than the next pack.

The Pokémon Company supplied INSERT FUTURE with 300 Poké Gold. The company did not review the article or influence its conclusions.