How To Play Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG)?

Welcome to your latest dive into the Pokémon franchise. The Trading Card Game has captured the hearts of many since 1999, now it is your turn to fall in love with it and join in with the fun.

What you need:

1. A deck of 60 cards (it is advised to have 20 Pokémon cards, 20 supporter cards, and 20 energy cards – this based on the themed decks proportions).

2. A Pokémon coin

3. Damage counters or dice

4. Counters for poisoned, burned and GX move

5. An opponent to play with

Set up layout - image of playing mat from the Mewtwo theme deck Unbroken Bonds.

Instructions for the set up.

1. Shuffle your deck of cards and place face down in a pile to your right.

2. Flip a Pokémon coin, choose head or tails

3. The winner of the flip chooses if they will play their move first or second.

4. Next draw 7 cards from your deck, these will be your starting hand

5. You require to have at least one basic Pokémon within your starting hand if you do have a basic Pokémon place the card of the chosen basic Pokémon from your starting hand to the active Pokémon position face down.

6. If you do not have a basic Pokémon in your starting hand this is called a ‘Mulligan’, you must show your hand to your opponent, declare mulligan, then shuffle your hand back into your deck and draw 7 more cards, repeat this until you have a basic Pokémon to put in the active Pokémon position.

7. For each mulligan, the other person can choose to take 1 more card from their deck into their starting hand. This is not necessary to take a card and is fully up to the players choice.

8. Any extra basic Pokémon in your starting hand can now be placed on the bench faced down, the bench can hold up to 5 Pokémon. It is not necessary to place all your basic Pokémon on the bench, it is up to the players choice.

9. Next is to sort your prize cards, draw 6 cards but DO NOT look at what these cards are, place them in the prize card section face down.

10. Finally, both players flip over their active and benched Pokémon and you can begin playing.

Instruction and rules for playing

1. Draw a card from your deck at the start of your turn every turn into your hand.

2. If you are chosen to play the first move of the game by the winner of the coin flip, you have a couple of rules to follow, you can NOT attack and use supporter or stadium cards (item cards are fine to use) unless a Pokemon ability allows for it.

3. Each turn is limited to placing 1 energy card to a Pokémon unless the use of a trainer card or Pokémon’s ability allows for it.

4. You can use the attack more if the required amount and type of energies are met, you can identify how many and what type of energy are required for a move by the energy circles to the right of the move. It is not necessary to attack with every move. You can only use Pokémon moves from your active Pokémon. Your turn ends after attacking or declaring end of turn.

5. Use damage counters or dice to track how much damage has been inflicted on all of your in-play Pokémon’s Health Points (HP). Once a Pokemon is out of HP they are knocked out of play.

6. Use the condition counters for burned (has a plaster on the counter) and poisoned (has a skull on the counter), refer to the Conditions article for more information on the conditions.

7. If using a Pokemon GX card, turn over the GX card

8. You can evolve your Pokémon as long as you have the required basic or previous Pokémon already on the active or benched Pokémon positions and can only evolve one stage per Pokémon per turn unless a ability or trainer card allows it.

9. If a opponents Pokémon is knocked out you claim a single prize card, unless the Pokémon knocked out states for a specific number of prize cards to be claimed. If you knock your own Pokémon out of play, your opponent still claims a prize card. The only time a prize card is not to be used is if a Pokémon is discarded from play. Once the Pokémon in your active Pokémon position is knocked out move one of your benched Pokémon into the active Pokémon position, before the start of your next turn.

10. You can retreat Pokémon from the active Pokémon position by using the retreat cost identified on the Pokémon card, this is measures in energy amounts. You can swap out your active Pokémon with a benched Pokémon using Pokémon’s abilities, support cards or a playing field card.

11. For victory, you must claim all 6 of your prize cards, or knock all Pokémon from your opponent’s Pokémon from the active Pokémon position and bench, or your opponent runs out of deck cards to pull.

12. It is optional in casual battles if the players wish to apply the weaknesses and strengths affects, these affect the amount of damage your Pokemon and the opponents Pokemon receives. In professional competitions, these are applied by standard.

Tips for while playing

1. Read all Pokémon’s abilities and use these when conditions are met and to your advantage.

2. Use Pokémon's abilities and moves to co-operate for the best attack.

3. Use items

We hope this helps you start your journey into the world of the Pokémon TCG. If you have any queries comment below on the article.

Author: Sakuris

Advisor: GandalfTheLanky