Pokémon TCG Pocket has gone full villain. Team Rocket's Ambition, the game's twenty-first expansion and its thirteenth themed set, went live on August 26, 2026 at 6:00 p.m. PDT - and it is the first time the mobile card game has handed an entire booster to the organisation whose whole business model is stealing other people's Pokémon.
The set, internally coded B4a, carries 110 cards: 72 in the main set and 38 secret rares. That secret-rare count is unusually heavy for a Pocket expansion, and it is the number that will define how the next few weeks of pack-opening feel.
The legendary birds, stolen
The headline pulls are the three legendary birds reissued under Team Rocket's banner: Team Rocket's Articuno ex, Team Rocket's Zapdos ex and Team Rocket's Moltres ex. Pocket has leaned on Kanto's birds before, but reprinting all three simultaneously as Rocket-owned ex cards is a deliberate event - it is the set's identity condensed into three slots.
Beyond the birds, the ex roster includes Team Rocket's Slowking ex, Weezing ex and Raticate ex - a lineup that reads as a deliberately awkward mix of control, chip damage and aggression rather than three variations on the same strategy.
The grunt roster is the real draw
The non-ex cards are where the set's personality lives. Ekans and Arbok, Grimer and Muk, Koffing and Weezing, Meowth and Persian - the full Saturday-morning-cartoon lineup is present, alongside Team Rocket's Magmar, Houndour and Houndoom, Lapras, and Voltorb and Electrode. Tinkatink and its evolution line show up as the modern-generation representation, which is a slightly odd fit thematically but gives the set a card pool that is not purely Kanto.
The art direction is the sell. Cards across the set feature the Rocket logo and grunts visibly running schemes in the background of their own Pokémon's card art - the kind of illustrated storytelling the physical TCG does well and that Pocket has historically been more restrained about.
The Trainer cards that will decide the meta
Six support cards ship with the set, and they are the reason players who do not care about the birds should still pay attention:
- Team Rocket's Boss
- Team Rocket's Researcher
- Team Rocket's Master Plan
- Team Rocket's Thieving Machine
- Team Rocket's Goo-zooka
- Arcade (stadium)
Pocket's format is small enough that a single well-costed supporter can reshape the ladder within a week, and a stadium card entering a set built around a single faction is the kind of addition that tends to create a deck rather than slot into one.
Events running now through September
The Pokémon Company has stacked a full month of activity around the launch rather than letting the packs carry it alone:
- The Great Puzzle Challenge (August 27 - September 30): solve puzzles on a dedicated website to earn codes redeemable in-game for pack hourglasses. An out-of-app puzzle hunt is an unusual move for Pocket and worth doing early, before solutions get scraped.
- Emblem event (late August - mid September): battle-based missions rewarding Shinedust.
- Special missions (late August - late September): awarding Team Rocket's shady tickets.
- Solo battles (early - late September): earning B series v12 promo packs containing Team Rocket's Lapras.
- Wonder Pick event (mid - late September): featuring Fennekin and Meowstic promo cards.
- Cosmetics (August 31): covers and backdrops featuring Team Rocket's Boss and his Persian.
Worth opening?
The honest read is that Team Rocket's Ambition is a cosmetic and collector set first and a competitive one second - but that is not a criticism in a game where the collection screen is half the point. Three legendary birds in Rocket colours, 38 secret rares, and a supporter suite that gives the faction its own identity is a strong package for anyone who has been sitting on hourglasses.
The Great Puzzle Challenge is the piece with a hard deadline attached. Everything else runs into late September; that one closes on September 30, and the reward is the currency you need to open the set in the first place.
