How to Play Pokémon Cards

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If you are a fan of Pokémon movies, TV shows or video games, you should not miss the Pokémon strategy card game (Pokémon Trading Card Game or Pokémon TCG). This is a great way to have fun with your friends and experience a real-life Pokémon battle. Please read the article below to learn how to play Pokémon TCG.

Table of Contents

Preparation

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Shuffle. Your deck must have more than 25 cards and be thoroughly shuffled. 1/4-1/3 deck must be Energy cards.

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Draw 7 cards. Take 7 cards from the top of the deck and place them face down.

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Draw 6 more cards without looking at them and then turn them face down again. These are your bonus cards.

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Set the rest of the deck aside. Usually the deck should be on your right hand side, facing the stack of bonus cards. The discard pile will be next to the deck.

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Find your base Pokémon. Find a base Pokémon card from the 7 cards you draw. If you don’t have one in your hand, you must enter 7 cards back into the deck and shuffle, then draw another 7 cards. Each time you do this, your opponent will draw one more card.

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Choose your battle Pokémon. If you have at least one basic Pokémon in your hand, place the card you want to use to fight first on the field, 5-7 centimeters ahead of you. If you have more base Pokémon cards, you can place them face down in the battle zone, which is reserved for reserve Pokémon. Each game, players can place up to 5 Pokémon in this queue.

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Draw 6 bonus cards. Set the stack of cards aside, face down without looking at them. Each time you eliminate an opponent’s Pokémon, get a bonus card. Whoever gets all the bonus cards first is the winner. The fewer bonus cards, the faster the game goes.

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Decide who will go first. Toss a coin to see who will start. The first player cannot attack.

Playing card

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At the beginning of the turn, draw a card.

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Prep basic Pokémon. If you have a base Pokémon in your hand, you can place that Pokémon in the waiting queue. You can do this move as many times as you want. There are up to five Pokémon in the queue.

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Use Energy cards. Each turn, you can use an Energy card by placing it below one of your Pokémon, in all its unevolved form.

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Use the Item card. These cards have easy-to-understand rules of use and you can do many useful things with them. The different types of Item cards are Trainer, Supporter, and Stadium. Each turn, you can activate as many Trainer cards as you like, but only one Supporter card can be used. Once used, they will go to the discard stack. Pokémon Top is a tool card, used to attach to one of the opponent’s untagged Pokémon. The tool card will remain nearby until the Pokémon is defeated, at which point the Pokémon and all tools applied with it will be eliminated. When you use a field card, it is placed horizontally between the player’s two fields. The Stadium card remains in the match until another card discards it. There are also special Energy cards that are used to provide energy and do something special stated on the card.

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Pokémon Evolution. If you have evolution cards for your active or reserve Pokémon, you can evolve them by placing that card on top of the Pokémon. Basic Pokémon will evolve to Level 1 (Stage 1), while Level 1 Pokémon will evolve to Level 2 (Stage 2). You cannot evolve a new Pokémon brought into battle by substituting them or evolving them, unless you use an effect. You also cannot evolve a Pokémon on your first turn.

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Use an ability. Some Pokémon have special abilities. You can see these abilities on their cards.

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Summon your Pokémon. Summoning a Pokémon is to replace it with another Pokémon from the queue. Normally, you will have to trade a summoning loss by discarding the Energy cards attached to that Pokémon. The recall cost is stated at the bottom of the card. You can only summon once per turn.

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Attack the opponent. The last move you can make during your turn is to use your combat Pokémon to attack your opponent’s combat Pokémon. After attacking, your turn will end. You cannot attack on the first turn if you are ahead. This action will be further explained in the next section.

Attack the opponent

Dealing with special conditions

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Special conditions are detrimental effects that players can apply to each other’s Pokémon in battle. Includes: Burned, Poisoned, Asleep, Confused and Paralyzed. Poison, Fire, Doze, and Paralyze will affect in between turns, respectively.

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Deal with Poisoned Pokémon. Place a Poison marker on the Poisoned Pokémon. It takes 1 damage between each turn.

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Deal with Burned Pokémon. Place a Fire marker on the Burned Pokémon. Toss a coin in the middle of each turn. If the coin is face up, the Pokémon will not take damage. If the coin is tails, place 2 damage marks on the Burned Pokémon.

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Dealing with Doze Pokémon. For Pokémon that hit the Doze condition, the cards will be rotated clockwise. Toss a coin between each turn; If the coin turns up, the Pokémon will wake up. If the coin is tails, the Pokémon continues to sleep. A Dozing Pokémon cannot attack or be summoned.

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Dealing with Paralyzed Pokémon. The Paralyzed Pokémon is rotated clockwise and cannot attack or be summoned. This special condition is removed at the turn of the turn if your Pokémon has been Paralyzed since the start of your last turn.

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Dealing with Disordered Pokémon. Cards of the Disordered Pokémon will be flipped upside down. Toss a coin before the attack of the Disordered Pokémon; If the coin is tails, the Pokémon is hit with three damage marks and the attack is negated. If the coin turns up, your Pokémon will successfully attack.

If the attack includes a coin toss, toss the coin to untangle first.

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Heals the affected Pokémon. The easiest way to heal an affected Pokémon is to summon it to the bench. Cannot be summoned if the Pokémon is Dozed or Paralyzed, but it can still be transformed using effects. You can also use Trainer cards that have the ability to remove the effect condition. For a Pokémon affected by multiple card rotation conditions, the one that occurs last will be the one that survives on the Pokémon.

Advice

If you have a strong Pokémon to combine with cards, send out a weak Pokémon first so that the strong one doesn’t take damage during the necessary mana gain.
Always be aware of the types of advantages/disadvantages to turn them to your advantage.
Use items to restore health.
You should try to collect at least 10-18 Trainer cards. They can help you remove damage marks, take less damage, and much more!
If you lose a Pokémon, don’t get angry. That only makes you more distracted in the game.
Join an organization like Play! Pokémon to learn more about Pokémon TCG and play with new friends!

Warning

If playing against each other is too difficult or makes you nervous, you can still just collect and trade cards, no need to actually play.
Play with the spirit of exchange and learning. Always shake hands before as well as after the match, not “win to be king, lose to be enemy”. Remember, playing is supposed to be fun, not angry or sad.

Steps