The Pokémon card Medicham V has been banned in Japan, axed from the game's expanded format. This card, released in the August 2021 Pokémon TCG set Evolving Skies, will no longer be playable from February 20, when the banlist goes into effect.
This ban was announced on January 16, in an update on the Japanese Pokémon TCG website. No explanation has been given, so we're left to speculate why this card, which was essentially a non-entity on the competitive scene, got the chop.
It can only really be related to Medicham V's Yoga Loop attack, which allows its user to take an extra turn, if the two damage counters it placed triggered a knockout. The thing is, you can't use this attack if any of your Pokémon used Yoga Loop last turn, so it's not as though you can chain together multiple extra turns and pull off a win that way.
The thing that's a little dangerous about Medicham V though is that it can come out of nowhere. It's a basic Pokémon, and a Rapid Strike Pokémon (so you can play it with Rapid Strike energy) and its attack only costs two colorless energy. So with the right set-up, you can easily go from no Medicham on board to Yoga Loop-ing right away.
That still doesn't explain what happened here, however, because - as I've mentioned - Medicham V wasn't a highly competitive card. Let's look at the latest big Expanded tournament in Japan, which admittedly was a while ago on May 4, 2025. Back then, the meta was absolutely dominated by Regidrago VSTAR decks, using the Apex Dragon moves with a half-dozen dragon types in the discard to clone some super busted attacks.
So in that case, perhaps there's danger lurking on the path? Maybe Medicham V was banned now because of some busted interaction with an unreleased card in the Ninja Spinner release coming up in March? If another card coming out in this set had the same effect under a different name, for instance, that'd be a pretty gnarly infinite combo.
On the other hand, there is a new deck using Medicham V which recently popped up. It's possible the card was banned in response to this win in the 132nd PKC trainer's league game. Here, a player used Medicham V in combination with Koffings and Dusknoir to pull off a win.
While Medicham hasn't been officially banned in the wider world just yet, TPCi tends to follow Japan's example, so it's probably only a matter of time. It also usually gives a reason, so this mystery should be cleared up before long.
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