Hi there. I cover the latest Rotom and Zeraora Pokemon card reveals from Japan's Hot Wind Arena set for March 2025.
These cards are to be released in May along with the Team Rocket set in May 2025 in Destined Rivals.
In Bulbapedia they call it Hot Wind Arena while Pokebeach calls it Heat Wave Arena.
Rotom is a Basic Lightning Pokemon with 60 HP, one Retreat cost and Fighting weakness. The first attack of Astonish requires one Lightning Energy to do 20 damage. Astonish has the added effect of choosing a random card from the opponent's hand and the opponent reveals it and shuffles it back to their deck. One use case I see for this is trapping a non-attacking Pokemon and spam attack this Rotom's Astonish to annoy the opponent. Is it effective? I don't know. It would have to be tested.
The Gadget Show attack is somewhat of a unique attack. For two Colourless Energy this attack does 30 damage times the number of Pokemon Tools attached to your Pokemon. Having four Tools attached to your Pokemon would deal 120 damage. To hit a high number like 210 would require 7 Tool cards. I don't know if attaching 7 Tools to your Pokemon is realistic or likely. In theory you could use this Revavroom ex but I am not sure if this is viable competitively.
Rotom is Motor backwards.
This Rotom from Heat Wave Arena has an illustration rare version too. Rotom is seen hovering near a desktop computer and keyboard. This card is quite colourful and vibrant.
Zeraora
This Zeraora card is speculated to release sometime in May 2025 in the Destined Rivals set which has Team Rocket cards.
This Zeraora has the I regulation mark. It is for post rotation when Battle Partners is released in Japan and when Journey Together is legal for English and international crowd.
The Zeraora has 100 HP, one retreat cost, Fighting weakness and two attacks. The first attack of Scratch requires one Energy to do 20 damage. The second of Thunder Blitz is very interesting. It costs 3 Lightning Energy with the drawback of discarding all Energy from Zeraora for this attack. After discarding this Thunder Blitz attack can deal 210 damage to 1 of your opponent's Benched Pokemon ex. Notice the key wording in this attack. The target has to be on the opponent's Bench and it has to be a Pokemon ex target.
Tera Pokemon will still be around for a while. This Zeraora cannot target any Tera Pokemon as Tera Pokemon are protected from attacks that target the Bench. Targets like Teal Mask Ogerpon ex and Cornerstone Ogerpon ex are not possible for Zeraora.
Possible Targets
There are still popular support Pokemon ex cards out there that are used in most decks. These are Fezandipiti ex, Mew ex, Squawkabilly ex, Latias ex, and in a few decks Pecharunt ex.
For additional fire power I suppose you can combo the Zeraora with the switching ability from Iron Valiant ex. Iron Valiant ex adds 20 damage from its ability when it is switched in from the Bench to the Active Spot. I don't know if this combo is viable and easy to use though.
Miraidon Engine With Zerora
From the Japan decklists on Pokecabook in late February 2025, Miraidon ex decks are not seen very much. The loss of Raikou V, Raichu V makes it tougher to get attackers powered up.
Zeraora can be comboed with Electric Generator and Magnetons to take key knockouts. As Zeraora's attack requires 3 Lightning Energy you have to be selective in taking the knockouts on 1 of your opponent's Benched Pokemon ex.
They keep adding new Pokémon, how many do we have at this point?