The next rotation for the Pokémon Trading Card Game is just around the corner, with April 11. marking the removal of cards with the ‘F’ Regulation Mark from the Standard game format.
It’s set to be a busy few months for TCG players because of this, and while I was at EUIC 2025, I sat down with experienced Pokémon TCG player Rahul Reddy to ask him about the upcoming changes for the game.
Rahul competed in EUIC 2025 with a Gholdengo ex list, earning an impressive 28th place with the Coin Entity Pokémon.
From a viewer’s perspective, getting ready for an event like EUIC seems like a monumental task. Rahul shared how every player has their own process for preparing for tournaments and that it’s important to find a method that works for them personally. “I’m a statistics guy,” he noted, saying he prefers to keep an eye on the numbers and play lots of Pokémon TCG Live ladder matches to get a feel for the current meta. Online ladder matches are also a great way to figure out a counter for weird matchups or surprising decks.
He detailed what it’s like to work with a trusted testing group while prepping for a tournament and how planning alongside other players can be incredibly helpful. “When those guys are on Discord, you know, we jump on…late night games, just talking,” the player continued, describing how the group would sometimes focus on just one match altogether and at other times, several games would be going on at once, jokingly referring to this as “pandemonium.”
Rahul shared how the most important thing above everything else was to “trust the process, trust your friends, and mostly, just trust in yourself.”
With rotation on the horizon, it’s a period of change for the Pokémon TCG community. Cards with the ‘F’ Regulation Mark will be cycled out and barred from Standard format events, which reshuffles or functionally removes decks from the competitive meta. Gardevoir ex, for example, will be vastly different post-rotation, thanks to the loss of the Refinement Kirlia.
Thanks to this, many players end up having to say goodbye to their “faithful partner” decks—which is what Rahul dubbed Lugia after his slew of solid tournament placements with the Lugia Archeops list over the past few years.
Several format staples will be rotated out, too, like Lumineon V—beloved for its draw power—and the ever-present Radiant Pokémon. Fan-favorite and fresh decks will need to find their footing post-rotation, looking for new sources of Energy, draw, and power.
Rahul got to see the post-rotation format in advance thanks to a recent Champions League experience in Japan, noting, “It was weird not having some of these consistency cards that we’re so used to,” but describing both the trip and event as “amazing.”
The Champions League experience seems to have been an essential experience for players hoping to predict which decks will pop off post-rotation. Rahul picked out the Noctowl Tera Box deck as a heavy-hitter. “It has a pretty versatile engine,” the player explained, praising the Noctowl card in particular.
This deck features the Stellar Crown Noctowl with the Jewel Seeker Ability, along with Ogerpon. This iteration of Noctowl allows for perfect synergy with Tera Pokémon—of which there are plenty in the current competitive meta—dictating that if the user has a Tera ‘mon on the field and plays Noctowl from their hand to evolve, they can search for two Trainers, reveal, and then add them to their hand.
It’s a simple yet powerful slice of draw power that allows the player to quickly get key Trainers into their hand. The card is favored by Terapagos ex and Palkia players, but it’s popped up in everything from Redgidrago lists to Pidgeot Control decks.
It’s already been a busy start to the year for the Pokémon TCG scene, with explosively popular expansion set releases like Prismatic Evolutions and exceptional performances at EUIC 2025. With the exciting announcement from Pokémon Day about the Mega mechanic’s return and the next rotation coming up quickly, it’s not showing any signs of slowing down anytime soon.
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