How to play Pokemon TCG

Released in Japan in 1996, the first two games in the franchise Pokémon, red and green, revolutionized role-playing games for the Nintendo Game Boy🇧🇷 Players were encouraged to hunt 151 different Pokémon, with creatures unique to each version, not to mention rare ones. Such success spawned a myriad of other products, such as an animation, which is still on the air today, in addition to dolls, clothes and a card game.

TCG Pokémon was also launched in 1996, by Media factory, and contained a total of 102 different types, including monsters and other cards. The drawings were on account of the trio Ken Sugimori, Mitsuhiro Arita and Keiji Kinebuchi🇧🇷 Years later, in 1999, it was the turn of the United States to receive the letters. Editing was done by the W, replaced by The Pokémon Company in 2003, while Media Factory only came out in 2013. Every new collection brought a new gameplay twist, usually mirroring something new that had been released in the mainline games of the franchise.

Such success made the Nintendo, one of the owners of the Pokémon franchise, began organizing regional, national and global tournaments, based in different cities around the world. Today we are going to present some of the main rules used in TCG Pokémon and also show some championship formats.

Tutorial on how to play Pokemon TCG

Before talking about rules and everything else, let's say what is needed to play TCG Pokémon🇧🇷 Each deck, or deck, must contain 60 cards. The player will be able to assemble it any way he wants, but except for the cards of Energy, there is a limit of 4 copies of each. In addition, there are the Pokémon, Trainer, Items, and the aforementioned Energy cards.

For the games, in addition to the cards, other items are needed, such as dice for marking damage or cards, a coin or a translucent dice for decisions of heads or tails and a battlefield with the necessary markings. Virtually all players protect their valuable cards using plastic sleeves, so-called Sleeves.

Types of letters

There are a large amount of card types available today, but not all of them are in use in active tournaments, as many belong to past collections that have fallen out of favor. Let's focus here on the most used ones in tournaments and briefly explain each one of them.

Pokémon Types and Energy

Pokémon TCG uses a series of types also used in video games, namely: Grass, Fire, Electric, Water, Psychic, Fighting, Dark, Metal, Fairy, Dragon and Colorless🇧🇷 All Pokémon are included in these nomenclatures, and only the Colorless and Dragon types don't have their own energy, as creatures that have that typing use those of the other types.

It is also possible to use Special Energies that can have varied effects, such as adding life points to whoever has it turned on and many others. However, only 4 of them are allowed per deck, while the others are free.

Generally, most Pokémon are divided into 3 categories: Basic Pokémon (which can be played straight onto the field), Stage 1, which can be replaced with a Stage 2 Pokémon, which can be replaced with a Stage 3 Pokémon. be checked in the upper left corner of the letter.

Identifying the cards

Now let's explain each of the information present in the letter. Let's start from left to right, rotating clockwise.

pokemon cards

1. In the upper left corner, you can see the stage of your Pokémon, if it is basic, from some stage, or from some special collection. On the side you can check the name of the letter.
2. In the upper right corner you can check the amount of Health Points on the card, and next to it there is its type, as shown above.
3. Below the image, if the card is common, there is some information about the Pokémon, such as weight, height, number and type.
4. Below we have the Type of Attack and how many energies are used to perform it, the name of the move and the amount of Damage done to the opposing Pokémon's Health. A little bit below may or may not contain a description if the card has any effect.
5. In the following range we have the weakness of the Pokémon, which shows the type and how much more damage is taken; Resistance, with the amount of damage that is subtracted; and the cost of recoil.
6. Finally, at the bottom of the card, we have the name of the illustrator, the drawing of the collection the card is part of and its description in the PokéDex.

Item Cards

Based on items found both in games and in animations and movies, Item Cards are very useful and have different effects in combat. There are those that heal the Pokémon that are on the field, others that allow us to search for a Pokémon in the deck and a huge variety of options. They can be used at the player's pleasure while it's your turn, that is, if you have them in your hand, you can use them all at once.

Pokémon Tool Cards

Pokémon Tools are cards attached to Pokémon on the field. They can assign a number of effects, such as increasing the amount of Health Points, or the amount of damage per attack. Just choose the ones you want to put in the deck and go to battle.

Trainer Cards

Finally, we have Trainer Cards. They can only be used once per turn, unlike Item Cards. They are usually based on characters found in games and anime, and have a large number of effects, such as buying and discarding cards, health points or energies.

Battle Conditions

Just like in games, in Pokémon TCG it is possible to transfer special conditions to Pokémon. They directly affect the pace of the match, being able to dictate who will or will not be the winner. These conditions can only be assigned to Pokémon that are active in battle, and those on the Bench are not affected. When evolving a Pokémon, it will lose any conditions assigned to it, in addition to the use of other cards. Check out each of them below.

Asleep

Well, as the name says, the Pokémon is sleeping. The card must be turned to the left, indicating its condition. The trainer will not be able to attack or retreat its active Pokémon. At the end of the turn, a coin must be rotated, if heads, the Pokémon wakes up and we place the card in the normal way, but if tails, it will continue sleeping for another turn.

Burnt

In this condition it will be necessary to assign a marker to show that the Pokémon is burned. Normally, you can only place a single marker, but there are moves that can amplify your damage. Each turn, the player must flip a coin, if heads, nothing happens, but if tails, it will be mandatory to place two damage counters until the Pokémon is removed from the battlefield or healed.

Poisoned

A poisoned Pokémon must have a poison counter on it and will receive a damage counter every end of the player's turn. There are special attacks that can increase this count to two of them per turn, but only when there is such a description.

Confused

All Confused Pokémon may or may not attack on their turn. The card must be inverted to indicate the condition, and at each attack turn, the trainer must rotate a coin. If heads, the move will be used normally, however, if tails, the Pokémon will receive 3 damage counters.

paralyzed

Last but not least, we have Paralysis. The trainer who has his Pokémon paralyzed must turn the card to the right, and cannot attack or retreat his card. Its effect lasts only one turn.

special situations

During a match, it is possible to cause multiple conditions at the same time on Pokémon in battle. If it is necessary to use a marker, such as Poisoned and Burned, just place it on the card, now, if you need to rotate the card, Confused, Asleep or Paralyzed, the last one caused is valid.

Healing Battle Conditions

As stated above, when evolving a Pokémon, it is possible to cure Battle Conditions. But there are other ways this can happen. It is possible to use the abilities of the cards, when available, or use specific cards, such as, for example, the Lady of the Pokémon Center, among others.

Skills

Some cards have fundamental skills for the course of the battle. With each new collection, new skills were introduced, and many also fell into disuse, making the decks always need to be updated, since, normally, decks are built with these skills as one of the central points in the operating strategy.

All tournaments regulated by The Pokémon Company generally use the latest collections released, making changes as needed. This makes it necessary to check from time to time. the company's official tournament website, and check which collections are valid.

The great thing about skills is to bring diversity to duels, whether it's making it easier to buy a card that can bring an advantage, or just looking for energy in the deck.

The new collection, Silver Storm, released on November 11th, brought the Lugia V-ASTRO as a highlight, which has the ability to allow the trainer to rescue two Pokémon from his discard pile. Of course, this is just one example of the many options that have been added.

Combat Time

With everything properly explained, it's time to finally talk about the most fun part of the Pokémon TCG: the combat. As explained above, the ideal is to have an appropriate battlefield, mainly for the maintenance of used cards, but it is possible to duel without using one.

Before starting the fight, players must prepare their deck with exactly 60 cards, which can vary from all the types presented above. Then it's time to shuffle the deck, and offer your opponent the chance to make a cut. From there, just draw 7 cards, used at the beginning of the duel. If the player does not get any basic type monsters, the mulligan🇧🇷 Then just show the hand to the opponent and repeat the process. However, each time this happens, the opponent can choose whether or not to draw a card from the deck.

After that it's time to separate the prize cards, a total of 6 of them. Whenever the opponent's Active Pokémon is knocked down, the trainer will be entitled to choose one of them. The first one to get all the cards will be the big winner.

In addition to the active Pokémon, it is necessary to leave room for up to 5 others that were left on the bench, which can enter when the player loses his active Pokémon, uses the recoil, or as a result of the effect of a card. Finally, we have the discard zone. Basically the graveyard of the match, that is, where the used cards are placed, or the Pokémon that were knocked down. With all that in mind, it's time to finally start the fight. Before that, it is necessary to decide who will make the first move. To do so, just decide who will start the duel by coin toss or tail.

Once the choice is made, the first player draws a card from his deck and plays a Basic-type Pokémon on the field as active and others in the reserve, places an energy card, uses an Item, in short, whatever he has in his hand. In addition, it is usually not possible to evolve a Pokémon in the first turn, with very few exceptions. Obviously, as the opponent still doesn't have any Pokémon on the field, it won't be possible to attack, and that's the end of the turn.

On the opponent's turn, he follows the same steps, sets a Pokémon down to be active and others on the bench, if he has them, performs the other processes and can decide whether or not to attack. When your turn is over, the turn goes back to the first player. The fight ends when one of them manages to get the 6 prize cards first.

Attacking and counting damage

During the fight we have to be aware of a number of things in the damage marker count. For example, if an Electric-type Pokémon uses a move of the same type that does 30 points of damage on a Water Pokémon that takes damage x2, we must calculate the damage as 60, considering its disadvantage. However, if a Grass-type move that would do 40 damage is used on Metal-type Pokémon, which have a -30 resistance against Grass-type moves, it will only take 10 damage. Just remembering that this information is present in the letters, so check the details.

Not to mention the cards that can be equipped on Pokémon, so understand these explanations well. If you don't understand anything your opponent used, ask politely to check the card used. If you are in a tournament, there will likely be a judge, who is there to mediate any kind of friction.

Also, don't forget to count the other conditions described here as well, such as Poisoned or Burned. They all happen once per turn, so don't forget about them.

Finally, have fun, make friends, and may the best, or luckiest, win.

Types of Tournaments

Scattered across the country there are several stores that hold Pokémon TCG tournaments practically every week. In some places, like Manaus, for example, there is an Organized League that holds tournaments constantly. In addition, there are also events that are approved by the The Pokémon Company.

These tournaments take place all over the world, and all with a single purpose: to give points that can lead players to participate in the World Cup, which happens once a year. Here in Brazil, the organization of events is up to Copag, also responsible for marketing the TCG Pokémon🇧🇷 Below we will list the 4 main events that give points for the Worlds:

pokemon special events

From time to time, without a fixed calendar, special events to distribute points to participants. The champion can take 200 points counted to enter the Ranking and guarantee a place in the world.

Regional Championships

One of the main tournaments that gives points for the World Cup is the Regional Championship🇧🇷 Participants participate in a large tournament with a prize pool that can reach 5 thousand dollars, depending on the number of participants, and 200 points. In addition, the best players receive several booster for its placement.

International Championships

Second only to the World Cup, the International Championship happens at the highest level. The best players from around the world compete for the most points, 500 in total, and a cash prize of up to $5. To encourage entrants from other parts of the world, The Pokémon Company pays a bonus to winners. Values ​​and more information can be checked on the official website of the event.

The next International Championship will take place here in Brazil, in the city of São Paulo, between November 25th and 27th, at Expo Center Norte. The tournament will be open to the public and will also be streamed on the official Twitch channel.

pokemon world championships

The big dream of all TCG players. Only the Elite are invited to participate in the tournament. For us, Latin America, you must have at least 250 points to be eligible. In addition to the TCG tournament, disputes are held in VGC (battle tournament on Nintendo Switch), Pokémon GO, Pokémon Unite and Pokkén.

We still don't have a date for the event, which will only take place in 2023, but will be in the city of Yokohama, Japan.

See also:

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Sources: Pokemon.com, dicebreaker, BBC