So I say, "Hey John! When is Team Rocket coming out?!" "Hunh?!", says John. I say "You know Pokémon! …. The Team Rocket expansion! When does it hit the streets?!" John – "Uhh…. I don’t know what you are talking about?" "Then what the heck are you doing here?!" … Geez … for the money WOTC paid the guy, you figure he’d be better informed on what the mass public visiting the showroom really wants to know.

So then I dig up Ms. Jenny Bendel, the Public Relations Manager. Ahh … finally someone to talk to that has a clue about WotC stuff. Jenny walks me over to the Pokémon Base Set 2 display. This is coming out on February 28, 2000. I get to see all the new packaging and theme decks. (I sneak in a quick picture for PoJo Readers ;)

The starter box will again contain that same Machamp holofoil. Bummer … I was kinda hoping for something cooler. Theme decks are: Lightning Bug, Grass Chopper, Hot Water, and Psych Out.

You will be able to get the starter two ways … with the CD-Rom (we discussed in detail yesterday), or with the Cd-Rom and a Video. The video is very much like the Japanese Learning Video (if you’ve seen it??) .. and not a bad way to learn the game. This set has 130 cards.

Ahh … Team Rocket … this is what has us all salivating.  Left is the display that WotC had up for this.  Interesting that they decided to use Team Rocket's Little Sister for the backdrop. Unfortunately we have to wait until April to get our hands on these cards! Here’s some poop for you though: Team Rocket will be 82 new cards. The "Evil" Pokémon will not be called "Evil" … they will be called "Dark" Pokémon & "Mischievous" Pokemon. There will be a total of 30 Dark Pokémon in Team Rocket. The Two New Team Rocket Theme Decks will be "Trouble" and "Devastation".

Jenny then gives me a quick tour of the rest of the games WOTC has planned for this year. Including:

• A Harry Potter Collectible Card Game … due out for the Christmas Holidays.
• A World Championship Wrestling Collectible Card Game – "WCW NITRO" … due out in June 2000.
• An X-MEN collectible card game (July), 
• And a Looney Toons Collectible Card Game that was due out this summer called "Looney Town".

Jenny Bendel, and the Wizards of the Coast people were extremely nice to us, and again thanks to them for the Wonderful Tour!  

PoJo

P.S. - They were not handing out any promo cards.  I know a lot of people thought there might be something like an E3 Pikachu card ... but there wasn't.  Though they did give me a nice NY Toy Fair Survival Kit.  ;-)