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- ↓ 0.69
- ꩜ 1.69
- ↑ 999.99
{L} → Plasma : 20
If there are any {L} Energy cards in your discard pile, attach 1 of them to Rocket’s Zapdos.
{L}{L}{L}{C} → Electroburn : 70
Rocket’s Zapdos does damage to itself equal to 10 times the number of {L} Energy cards attached to it.
illus. Shin-ichi Yoshida · LV.34
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Warnock 2022
When it came to representing the Gen 1 “owner’s Pokemon” cards from Gym Heroes/Gym Challenge, I wonder if they chose Rocket instead of one of the gym leaders because it made localization more consistent?
If, for instance, they had picked Lt. Surge’s Jolteon to represent this era, the Japanese, French, German, etc. translations would’ve all been different. Not so with Team Rocket!
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Team_Rocket#Names
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Lt._Surge#Names
Ambassador
It was a good card that saw a lot of play, like almost every other card in the Celebrations reprint collection. Erika’s Jigglypuff, Chaos Gym, and the The Rocket’s Trap would’ve been your other good options to represent the Gym sets.
SPIRE_FAN
Something important to note is that for every Generation to have the Evil Team own Pokemon (1 to 5), they always have Legendary Pokemon to show a kind of apocalyptic “what-if” in card marketing.
DaneeBound
Technically the Gen VI mini set Double Crisis’ Team Aqua’s Kyogre EX and Team Magma’s Groudon EX also count towards that. But these two cards are so bad in the actual game, that I attribute them for single-handedly killing the concept.
(That, and subsequent generations do not feature any villainous teams in the vein of Team Rocket, anyways.)