Welcome to Vol. 3, issue 48 of Johto Times! This week, we are excited to share our interview with Carol Rogalski, Communications and Marketing Director at Wizards of the Coast between 1997 and 2002. Carol shares her memories of working at Wizards of the Coast on numerous games, which included the Pokémon Trading Card Game. We hope you enjoy it!

Please note that the Johto Times team will be taking a well-earned rest throughout December, which means the five issues which follow this newsletter will be written and scheduled in advance. Like previous years, this means we will not be updating on the latest Pokémon news, but will recap everything when we return in January 2026. Any important news announcements will be made on our Bluesky account and on our Discord server. You are welcome to join us on the Johto Times forum too!

We would like to announce some major changes to the Johto Times newsletter, starting in 2026. We previously announced that we will be moving away from our original home on Substack and publishing all future issues of Johto Times on our website instead. Subscribers will still receive emails, and you can also stay up-to-date by bookmarking us!

Additionally, we will be reducing the rate of newsletters that we publish from once per week to at least once per month. When this project started, it was a reasonable target, and I'm proud that we have been able to stick with this consistently for 150 weeks (almost three full years!). However, to maintain our editorial schedule, a monthly publication makes more sense at this time. By stepping back a little, it gives us the space to continue delivering great interviews, memories, collections, and more! We plan to provide extras for our readers when we can, and hope to get back to a weekly schedule as soon as possible.

Thank you for your understanding, and for your continued support of Johto Times!

A new Pokémon TCG expansion "Ascended Heroes" will release on January 30th, 2026

POKÉMON LEGENDS: Z-A

• Season 3 of Pokémon Legends: Z-A's Ranked Battles will begin on Thursday, November 27th, 2025, and run until Thursday, December 18th, 2025. During Season 3, players can earn the exclusive Chesnaughtite—which allows Chesnaught to Mega Evolve into Mega Chesnaught—by achieving Rank S in Online Ranked Battles. The Mega Stone rewards from Season 1 and 2, Greninjite and Delphoxite, will also return as a prize for players who reach Rank Y and Rank V, respectively, in Online Ranked Battles. Other rewards for ranking up include Safari Balls, Bottle Caps, Gold Bottle Caps, Seeds of Mastery, and Big Nuggets. Players will be limited to only using one "special Pokémon" (consisting of Xerneas, Yveltal, Zygarde, or Diancie) per team in Season 3.

Source: Pokémon

POKÉMON TCG

• The release date for the third Mega Evolution expansion, the special set Ascended Heroes, will release on January 30th, 2026. Ascended Heroes includes over 290 cards and will consist of cards from the Japanese High Class Set MEGA Dream ex and the Japanese Start Deck 100 Battle Collection releases. Cards revealed include Mega Charizard Y ex, Entei, N's Vanilluxe, and a special illustration rare of Mega Gengar ex. As a special set, booster boxes will not be produced for the set, and booster packs can only be obtained from products such as Elite Trainer Boxes.

Source: Pokémon

POKÉMON GO

• The Tales of Transformation season concludes with the Final Justice event, running from Tuesday, November 25th, 2025 through Sunday, November 30th, 2025. This event adds Resolute Form Keldeo to the game, allowing players to use 50 Keldeo Candy to change forms. Resolute Keldeo learns its exclusive Charged Attack, Secret Sword. Shiny Keldeo is also available through a paid Masterwork Research ticket available only throughout the Final Justice event.

Source: Final Justice event

• Details about the next season, named Precious Paths and launching on December 2nd, 2025, were also revealed. Precious Paths will see the debuts of Gigantamax Meowth, Clobbopus, and Grapploct, as well as Charjabug and Sudowoodo wearing holiday costumes. Seasonal refreshes to wild spawns, egg pools, and Research Breakthroughs will occur, as well as rebalances to several moves for both Go Battle League and against Team GO Rocket.

Source: Precious Paths announcement

POKÉMON TCG POCKET

• Part 2 of the First Anniversary Special Missions launched on November 22nd, 2025, and will be available until December 17th, 2025. These Missions, based on a variety of objectives such as player logins, participating in battles, obtaining flairs, sending thanks to other players, and modifying deck components, award a variety of booster packs of the sets that were released within the first year of Pocket's launch.

Source: In-game news

GENERAL

• Until November 30th, 2025, players can redeem the code LA1C26TA1LW1ND in the Mystery Gift feature of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet to receive a Whimsicott based on the Pokémon used by 2025 North American International Champion Federico Camporesi. Whimsicott comes with the moves Moonblast, Tailwind, Light Screen and Encore. Additional redemption events based on NAIC in Pokémon GO, Pokémon TCG Live, and Pokémon UNITE are also running through this week.

Source: Pokémon

Feature: Interview with Carol Rogalski

Carol Rogalski was employed at Wizards of the Coast between 1997 and 2002 where she was Director of Corporate Communications and Marketing Director. Naturally, we had lots of questions for her about her time at the company working on the Pokémon Trading Card Game!

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A photograph of Carol Rogalski

Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview with us! Could you please introduce yourself to our readers, and tell us about your role(s) at Wizards of the Coast?

Carol:

Absolutely! My name is Carol Rogalski and I had the pleasure of wearing many hats during my time at Wizards of the Coast. My primary responsibilities were centered around public relations, branding, and marketing, where I worked closely with nearly all teams to shape the company’s authentic story and connect with our audiences.

When I first joined WotC I was the Director of Corporate Communications under one of my favorite bosses of all time, Charlotte Stuyvenberg. After several years, I became Marketing Director of numerous games, most notably Harry Potter and Pokémon.

At the beginning of my time at WotC, before Pokémon came along, Magic: The Gathering as well as Dungeons & Dragons were our highest priorities of course, although we had high hopes for the NFL and MLB sports trading card games, among others. [Crisis] mitigation was about 10% of my job with pundits declaring games like ours caused violence. I remember calling one analyst after he was quoted saying D&D caused teens to be violent. I asked him where he got his information and where his proof was. His only answer was that he’d read about it in other news posts and blogs. I gave him an earful about integrity and checking the facts. Of course, the target audience for D&D already knew that the game inspires creativity, not violence, but our job was to keep unknowledgeable dissenters from ruining the game’s reputation--and therefore the reputation of our biggest fans. Later when we prepared for the launch of Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition, we focused even more on the players by inviting them to help us update the game. It took a lot of research, preparation, back-and-forth with players and internal debates, but the launch at Gen Con was successful because players felt included. Once Pokémon was upon us, we had many debates about workflow, but we were able to focus on all top priorities thanks to a large hiring growth.

I’m still in public relations/branding/marketing. All three disciplines intersect nicely. Much of my career has been in games, but it’s been a long one, so I’ve also spent many years in tech, consumer, B2B and other entertainment companies while at PR agencies and in-house.

My family and I have lived on Lake Sammamish since I worked at WotC and I can’t imagine not having water and a big sky in my life. The “Pokémon bonus” helped us remodel our little fishing cabana to our dream home. The only downside is that we’re near sea level and our neighbors up in the Highlands get more snow in the winter… something my kids lamented about for years until they were old enough to realize that lake life – no matter the lake – is unique. It and nature have become a part of our souls after 20 plus years. That includes cleaning up blue heron poop. I swear those majestic birds must be eating well-fed cows instead of wild fish when we’re not looking.

You were hired by WotC in August 1997 and spent five years there. How did you first get involved with the company?

Carol:

The company had a good reputation, and I was looking for a growing company with creative people. Little did I know that there was so much brain power there. I wasn’t a hard-core gamer, but I grew up with games and the entertainment landscape was evolving. Some of my best work experiences were at WotC because of the blend of gaming talent and job specific talent.

On August 27th, 1998, it was announced that WotC had licensed the rights to publish and manufacture the Pokémon Trading Card Game for the North American and Canadian markets. What do you remember about how they secured that opportunity?

Carol:

WotC’s reputation as a trading card game expert was one of the reasons we secured the opportunity. I’m sure the sales and business teams recall more details. I do remember the hand wringing. It was a game that already existed and who was it for? Kids? Was it going to be a lasting franchise? And how do the PR and marketing teams modify WotC’s overall messaging to incorporate a game that is so different from Magic: The Gathering and D&D? Creating the right path for WotC required a lot of creativity and brainpower. It was an exciting time that brought out the best in us in terms of strategic planning, audience focus and tactical debates.

The popularity of the TCG is well documented, with stores selling out of products quickly. For WotC, it was the overall best seller for the company and they had a huge success on their hands! What was the mood like at the company during this time?

Carol:

It was exciting and frantic in a professional way. We all knew the stakes, and creating solutions despite the crazy atmosphere was imperative. We added more production facilities, [and] tried to be as transparent as possible with players and store operators. While we were focusing on supply, we also tackled the perceived issue that the big box chains were getting better cards than our tried-and-true friends at local comic and game stores, by creating a brand new program that rewarded the smaller mom and pop stores with unique cards along with support for their game play tournaments.

At the time of interview, one of the big talking points when it comes to the Pokémon TCG is that the supply is being outstripped by demand, worsened by resellers buying up product and selling it for an inflated price (scalping). How did WotC deal with this during their time with the license?

Carol:

The sales and operations team can speak to this more specifically, but once we realized the popularity, we set up processes to ensure retailers received fair distribution. In marketing and PR, we focused on game play stories, personal interest stories and upcoming expansions.

Carol worked on several projects during her time at Wizards of the Coast, including the Pokémon Trading Card Game (Photo by Johto Times)

As the spokesperson for the company during this time, what were some of your experiences dealing with the press and the public?

Carol:

Ah, at the beginning, we needed to ensure our key messages about the game were conveyed--and that included influencing children vs. their moms. We were up against Nintendo after all. Video games were cool… and we didn’t know if our TCG would be. We couldn’t be seen as something parents forced upon their kids as an educational version of the franchise. So even though we loved top tier media outlets such as USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and BBC News covering us, we had to focus on the kids… thus the mall tours and getting local coverage/photos that parents would share with their kids.

I recall taking some top players to Japan for a tournament and press conference, and the Tokyo-based organization we worked with stressed that Pokémon celebrities should dress casually, yet smartly… AKA no short shorts. Despite all my preparation one famous player insisted on wearing short shorts while his long legs walked around the streets of Tokyo with us. Despite the surprised looks of passersby, we were fine. I learned not to stress the small stuff that just doesn’t matter!

As a side note, I received calls from great musical artists (who appealed to moms and dads at the time) offering their namesakes for sponsors. As fun as that was, we all stayed focused on what would make us cool. Kids generally aspire up (and we did create Pokémon TCG commercials with kids just barely older than our target age range) but kids do not aspire to be like their parents, so we swallowed our “star-struckness” with musicians we liked at our old ages, and focused on influencers that appealed to our target audience.

WotC regularly hosted events across the United States to promote the Pokémon TCG, such as mall tours, official tournaments, and the Pokémon World Championships in 2002. What are your memories of the planning and preparation that went into them?

Carol:

We had a very experienced events team, but we all got involved with how to manage crowds and lines, how to manage card distribution, how to promote the events, how to protect kids and where to put parents. Partnering with mall-based retailers was important so kids had a place to purchase cards, but the truth is that the events themselves became the highlights. They just wanted to play and collect cards and their frenzy was fun. In every case we invited local press, had spokespeople lined up, good visuals prepared and made sure the events were on brand. We did have one event shut down by the fire department due to too many people attending, so we tried to take care of the attendees as best as we could. And as all good PR people know, no job is beneath us, so grabbing up empty coke cans, candy wrappers and booster packs before the TV news showed up was a relevant job description!

I believe I read something about this during my research! Was this a Mall Tour in New Jersey, which got overwhelmed by like, 13,000 people? I'd love to hear the story behind this one!

Carol:

The mall tour was in New Jersey, and I believe your numbers are right. I wasn't at that tour, but I had previously built a crisis communications plan for the company, so my colleagues followed those guidelines -- which meant calling PR, product leads, marketing and leadership for a solution, as well as taking care of customers first and foremost.

The truth is, there were too many people for the mall at that entrance--and subsequent exit! The fire department had every right to shut it down. We didn't like it, of course. We were concerned about our reputation; but we were more concerned about our players. Afterward, we immediately worked with the event company--which was supporting us at some events--to understand the problem and ensure it never happened again.

We let the press know we were reconfiguring our mall tours so we could allay any parent fears of letting their children be in the mall for hours on end at our Pokémon events! We changed the physical line configuration for fans and parents waiting to get into the events, we offered gifts to those in line at future events and kept people entertained while they were waiting. No fire department or any other agency shut us down again since we took it so seriously.

A photograph of Carol's Wizards of the Coast sign which were hung inside the offices during the time she was at the company. It now resides in her home office

Hosting events gave the team an opportunity to meet the players and fans of the Pokémon TCG face-to-face. What were those experiences like?

Carol:

Our creators and related players were always a hit with everyday fans and so were some of the creatives at WotC ([such as] Richard Garfield) but I think we got more out of the experiences than the fans. They were like mini-focus groups for us to learn what fans liked and what they didn’t, so WotC employees from all departments were encouraged to attend local events. The knowledge we got from face-to-face interactions cannot be oversold!

On January 18th, 2001, The PokéGym, one of the original online Pokémon TCG websites, was shut down by new owners. This left their community without a home, and WotC agreed to take over the forums, which were renamed The Wizards' PokéGym. Can you share more information about WotC’s decision to take over and save the community?

Carol:

I don’t recall a lot of details other than to say our commitment to the community was absolute. WotC knew the importance of the fan community, so with the Customer Service team, we modified roles to ensure we could handle the forums.

What were some of the challenges you personally faced while working at WotC on the Pokémon TCG, and how were you able to overcome them?

Carol:

Our primary challenge was supporting small game companies around the world, while still selling to the big box retailers. Our new programs to support them with special cards and competition support worked well. Sean Vanderdasson and Rich Henry were key to us creating this balance. For me personally, as the boss of the Customer Service Department, dealing with passionate players was extremely valuable but took a lot of time as all relationships should. We decided to create customer service game experts who focused on particular games. They were able to address questions accurately and with transparency.

What was the working environment like for you during your time working at WotC?

Carol:

It was casual and highly collaborative. When you’re a PR or marketing person working for an agency vs. in-house, you’re not on-site, pop in and out for meetings and never know the full extent of the decision making processes inside a company. Working in-house with all teams was invigorating.

We did, however, have two separate generalized groups at that time. They were game experts and job-based subject-matter folks. Some of us including me didn’t come from the gaming world but had the right skill sets and a quickly found passion for the company. It was a nice mix.

I am curious to understand how the partnership between Nintendo and WotC fared during the time you were at the company. What can you share?

Carol:

As we prepared for the launch, we were seriously concerned about competing against Nintendo even though we were partnering with them as well. After all, we were introducing a paper-based game when digital games were enthralling gamers of all ages. Would people even want something tangible? Our PR and marketing plans had to focus both on the cooperation between the two companies, but also the distinct differences between the [video] game and the tangible card games. We leaned into collectability and the in-person gameplay with friends. With those two key messages at the heart of every PR strategy and marketing plan, we were able to tell a cohesive and compelling story about the TCG. Once we started the mall tours to demonstrate the fun, the game took off even more. We partnered with Nintendo at many of those events, so players could experience both, but the tangible cards were always the hero. And you could hear sighs of relief from every department in our company. For sure we knew what we were doing, but especially in PR, one needs to be aware of the competition’s strengths and how we can overcome them.

Which Pokémon TCG projects were particularly memorable to you?

Carol:

After game stores shared worries that the big box stores were getting better access to the Pokemon TCG, we created a new program to reward them for being such good partners for so many years. We set up a way for them to get special and new releases and supported them with Pokemon game events in their stores. The big box stores were too “big” to care, so it was a win-win for both categories of partners.

Are there any Pokémon related items that you have from your time working at Wizards which you have kept hold of?

Carol:

Definitely. I have cards, booster boxes and booster packs as well as fun marketing posters from events. What’s weird is that I’ve kept the bound books of press clipping reports. Why do I still have them? I couldn’t tell you… other than WotC was one of my favorite places and I’ve been keeping them for sentimental value.

Carol provided a photo of her books of press clippings from her time working at Wizards of the Coast on Pokémon and Harry Potter

How does Pokémon compare to some of the other properties you worked on?

Carol:

D&D Third Edition had to involve the players to gain their trust and interest in playing the game. The launch won us the Silver Anvil, the highest public relations award in the US. To say we were shocked to win is an understatement, since we were up against mainstream brands that had nothing to do with games, much less the niche market of role-playing games.

What were your proudest achievements during your tenure at WotC?

Carol:

Retaining Pokémon TCG players and growing the brand was my proudest achievement. Winning the top PR award for D&D and launching the Harry Potter TCG are close seconds. While the Harry Potter TCG game didn’t become a lasting hit, it was the company’s highest revenue earner at launch. The team (including product, design, leadership, marketing, sales and PR) all focused on how we could stand out among all of the Harry Potter-licensed products in the works prior to the first movie. We worked closely with Warner Brothers. And of course, JK Rowling was super involved in all of the products. Artwork went through umpteen revisions as did gameplay. All the while we were pushing to be one of the first licensed products available to consumers, and thanks to making it a company priority, we were.

We launched the game in London in a Harry Potter-themed hall with costumed guests and a satellite media tour (which means the event “could” be broadcast all over the world if the news media wanted the story). Our launch became a massive story worldwide since we touted that the game was a way to further immerse oneself into the property. Sure, Harry Potter fans knew that there were more wands, capes and hats coming to stores near them before the holidays, but this was a JK Rowling-approved game that allowed for family and friend interaction. The TCG was an immediate way to interact with friends.

I’m sure there were many personal stories you could share about your time at WotC that would fill a second interview. Do you have any memorable anecdotes you can share with us?

Carol:

When I first started, many people walked around barefoot. It was funny when we enacted a new rule that shoes must be worn in the bathrooms. It was a little inconvenient for bare-foot people running to their next meeting, but overall I suppose it was more sanitary.

Peter Adkison was the CEO and he too was amazing. His ability to speak directly to gamer press as well as the business and pop culture press came naturally to him. In my first few years there, he lived and breathed everything WotC and games in general. Then he went through a transition of sorts. He started rock climbing and wearing designer clothes. We had to change out his profile pictures to match his new look. He remained the same brilliant leader… only even more fit and smartly dressed. I swear he even started a few fashion trends.

Looking back and reflecting on your time at WotC, what other highlights of working there would you like to share with us?

Carol:

Working with the product team was among my favorite things. We in the PR and Customer Service teams provided customer feedback on the gameplay, collectability and the art, but the product team and artists were always the real heroes. It is one of my biggest honors to have worked with that group of people. And don’t get me started on Richard Garfield. His genius is legendary—as were his humbleness and mismatched socks.

Carol, thank you so much for taking the time to answer our questions! Do you have any closing remarks you would like to make?

Carol:

There are so many anecdotes I could share, including when one of my colleagues got a first class seat upgrade after offering a good Pokémon card as a secret trade with the airline desk agent. I'll admit that I tried it on my next flight, and the agent just stared at me like I was stupid. I suppose I wasn't as suave or persuasive as my colleague! Plus, I worried that I was breaking some rule or law. :)

As I mentioned, working for WotC was one of the highlights of my career. So many passionate people worked together for the opportunity to evolve the company from a somewhat niche brand to a pop culture phenomenon. Don't get me wrong. Being niche is not a negative in any way. If you watch brands today, you'll see that niche is quite positive as long as you're one of the best in that category. And we were. :) It was an incredible experience.

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Our sincere thanks to Carol for taking the time to answer our questions and sharing some insight into what it was like to work at Wizards of the Coast with the Pokémon TCG. We wish her the best of luck in all her future endeavours.