Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Perfect Order comes out on March 27 2026, and with it, the 2026 rotation for the Pokémon Trading Card Game. To that extent, Pokémon TCG Live created a special tutorial for set rotation concerning the 2026-27 season and what it means, explained by their original character, Professor Fir.
On the bottom left corner of every card released since Sun and Moon is a letter in a white rectangle. This is a regulation mark, and set rotation concerns which letters are allowed in the Standard format. For each rotation, one letter gets rotated out, and this time, it’s “G” (meaning cards of regulation marks “A” through “G” are now rotated out). This consists of most cards from the early Scarlet & Violet era: Scarlet & Violet, Paldea Evolved, 151, Obsidian Flames, Paradox Rift, and Paldean Fates. I say “most” because there are some exceptions: Basic Energy cards are not rotated out unless they announce it (none this time), and Trainer and Special Energy cards can stay if a later printing of that card with the same name turns up with a current regulation mark. An example I use is Switch: most recently printed in Mega Evolution with the “I” regulation mark, I use the Evolutions Switch from Generation VI, before there were even any regulation marks.
Inversely, cards released after that may be rotated out too. For example, Prismatic Evolutions contains mostly regulation “H” cards, but Techno Radar in it has a “G” mark, so it’s rotated out too. An example I mentioned earlier is Professor’s Research, which all has a “G” mark regardless of which set it’s in, and the one featuring Professor Juniper in the Black Bolt set, most of which is regulation “I,” so for now, we will not have Professor’s Research for the 26-27 season despite it being recently printed.
The Pokémon Trading Card Game did not always have set rotation. Instead, it had a disastrous competitive game state: the earliest Trainer cards were out-of-control powerful. Energy Removal discarded an Energy from your opponent’s Pokémon. Professor Oak was like Professor’s Research, except you could play as many of them as you wanted per turn. Same with Gust of Wind and Boss’s Orders. After various attempts to release more cards to stop all of this, like No Removal Gym and Recycle Energy to combat Energy Removal, Balloon Berry to bestow free Retreat and lift the effects of Gust of Wind, the solution was to start over and just have everyone start from Team Rocket. (The reason they didn’t do select, targeted bans was because Wizards of the Coast was denied every request to ban specific cards. In Japan, no cards were banned either.)
Rotation means some old decks will see their end and some new ones will pop up. Gardevoir ex will be gone from the Standard format as of this rotation, for instance, because Gardevoir ex is a “G” mark card. Without Gardevoir ex around, Mega Lucario ex is predicted to become a top tournament deck, because Mega Lucario ex’s Psychic weakness will not be quite a hindrance. Raging Bolt ex is not rotating out, but Professor Sada’s Vitality is, and as the key part to making a Raging Bolt deck work, her goodbye will also mean Raging Bolt ex will be gone from the tournament scene.
While Pokémon TCG Live provides you with a Mega Lucario ex deck both to demonstrate what will be big post-rotation and how to respond to rotation, the choices they provide are kind of unusual: Squawkabilly ex, who is rotating out, does not have a counterpart in the H-I-J format, and Ascended Heroes Okidogi does not fit in too well into the deck’s strategy and theming. Hilda and Salvatore, while not bad cards in their own right, do not replace the functions of Professor’s Research or Iono (Lillie’s Determination appears to be the replacement hand refresh card), while Nest Ball getting rotated out may be a deliberate decision to curb “Big Basics” play by making it far harder to get Basic Pokémon ex out. In addition, Hilda and Salvatore both get out evolved Pokémon, making them somewhat redundant in a Mega Lucario ex deck (and Salvatore is limited to getting out Mega Lucario ex, meaning you might as well use Mega Signal for that).
Since this Mega Lucario ex deck will no longer have any Basic Pokémon ex, Poké Pad is suitable a replacement for Nest Ball. Instead of Okidogi, who, besides being Fighting-type and a recipient of Aura Jab’s Energy attachments, doesn’t fit into the deck’s purposes, how about Temporal Forces Drilbur, who can be searched out with Pal Pad and whose Ability, “Dig Dig Dig,” puts 3 Fighting Energy into the discard pile to help accelerate Energy? This will not make the best Mega Lucario ex deck (that’s best done by assembling the deck from the ground up with the rotation in mind, which is why my plan is to start anew with all new decks starting with Journey Together Metagross), but it would be more cohesive than what they suggest. It’s odd because TCG Live’s people are usually very good at making these decks.
Perfect Order comes out on March 27 2026, and with it, the 2026 rotation for the Pokémon Trading Card Game. To that extent, Pokémon TCG Live created a special tutorial for set rotation concerning the 2026-27 season and what it means, explained by their original character, Professor Fir.
On the bottom left corner of every card released since Sun and Moon is a letter in a white rectangle. This is a regulation mark, and set rotation concerns which letters are allowed in the Standard format. For each rotation, one letter gets rotated out, and this time, it’s “G” (meaning cards of regulation marks “A” through “G” are now rotated out). This consists of most cards from the early Scarlet & Violet era: Scarlet & Violet, Paldea Evolved, 151, Obsidian Flames, Paradox Rift, and Paldean Fates. I say “most” because there are some exceptions: Basic Energy cards are not rotated out unless they announce it (none this time), and Trainer and Special Energy cards can stay if a later printing of that card with the same name turns up with a current regulation mark. An example I use is Switch: most recently printed in Mega Evolution with the “I” regulation mark, I use the Evolutions Switch from Generation VI, before there were even any regulation marks.
Inversely, cards released after that may be rotated out too. For example, Prismatic Evolutions contains mostly regulation “H” cards, but Techno Radar in it has a “G” mark, so it’s rotated out too. An example I mentioned earlier is Professor’s Research, which all has a “G” mark regardless of which set it’s in, and the one featuring Professor Juniper in the Black Bolt set, most of which is regulation “I,” so for now, we will not have Professor’s Research for the 26-27 season despite it being recently printed.
The Pokémon Trading Card Game did not always have set rotation. Instead, it had a disastrous competitive game state: the earliest Trainer cards were out-of-control powerful. Energy Removal discarded an Energy from your opponent’s Pokémon. Professor Oak was like Professor’s Research, except you could play as many of them as you wanted per turn. Same with Gust of Wind and Boss’s Orders. After various attempts to release more cards to stop all of this, like No Removal Gym and Recycle Energy to combat Energy Removal, Balloon Berry to bestow free Retreat and lift the effects of Gust of Wind, the solution was to start over and just have everyone start from Team Rocket. (The reason they didn’t do select, targeted bans was because Wizards of the Coast was denied every request to ban specific cards. In Japan, no cards were banned either.)
Rotation means some old decks will see their end and some new ones will pop up. Gardevoir ex will be gone from the Standard format as of this rotation, for instance, because Gardevoir ex is a “G” mark card. Without Gardevoir ex around, Mega Lucario ex is predicted to become a top tournament deck, because Mega Lucario ex’s Psychic weakness will not be quite a hindrance. Raging Bolt ex is not rotating out, but Professor Sada’s Vitality is, and as the key part to making a Raging Bolt deck work, her goodbye will also mean Raging Bolt ex will be gone from the tournament scene.
While Pokémon TCG Live provides you with a Mega Lucario ex deck both to demonstrate what will be big post-rotation and how to respond to rotation, the choices they provide are kind of unusual: Squawkabilly ex, who is rotating out, does not have a counterpart in the H-I-J format, and Ascended Heroes Okidogi does not fit in too well into the deck’s strategy and theming. Hilda and Salvatore, while not bad cards in their own right, do not replace the functions of Professor’s Research or Iono (Lillie’s Determination appears to be the replacement hand refresh card), while Nest Ball getting rotated out may be a deliberate decision to curb “Big Basics” play by making it far harder to get Basic Pokémon ex out. In addition, Hilda and Salvatore both get out evolved Pokémon, making them somewhat redundant in a Mega Lucario ex deck (and Salvatore is limited to getting out Mega Lucario ex, meaning you might as well use Mega Signal for that).
Since this Mega Lucario ex deck will no longer have any Basic Pokémon ex, Poké Pad is suitable a replacement for Nest Ball. Instead of Okidogi, who, besides being Fighting-type and a recipient of Aura Jab’s Energy attachments, doesn’t fit into the deck’s purposes, how about Temporal Forces Drilbur, who can be searched out with Pal Pad and whose Ability, “Dig Dig Dig,” puts 3 Fighting Energy into the discard pile to help accelerate Energy? This will not make the best Mega Lucario ex deck (that’s best done by assembling the deck from the ground up with the rotation in mind, which is why my plan is to start anew with all new decks starting with Journey Together Metagross), but it would be more cohesive than what they suggest. It’s odd because TCG Live’s people are usually very good at making these decks.
