How to Play Pokémon

Staff
Co-Authored

Pokémon has been around for over 20 years, and there are tons of different ways you can interact with the Pokéverse! From playing the Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG), to downloading apps on your phone, to exploring the dozens of video game versions of the game, there’s sure to be a way for you to become a Pokémon master.

1 Shuffle your deck and draw 7 cards to start the game. You and your opponent should each have your own deck made up of 60 cards. Don’t show anyone your cards after you draw them. Keep them in your hand, and set the rest of the deck facedown in a pile on your righthand side.^[1]
- Although you start with 7 cards, there’s no limit to how many cards you can keep in your hand at any time. You draw a new card at the beginning of each turn, and there are additional cards in the deck that let you pick more up.
- You can also play Pokémon TCG online for free and import any physical cards you own. All physical cards come with codes that you can input online to play with the cards and learn more about them. Visit http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-tcg/play-online. This is a great way to practice and learn the rules.
- Pokémon TCG is traditionally a two-player game, but you can search online for three-player variations.
2 Choose a basic, active Pokémon to play with. The top lefthand corner of your Pokémon cards will tell you if your card is “basic,” “stage 1,” or “stage 2.” Look through the 7 cards you drew, and place your active Pokémon in the middle of the playing area before doing anything else with the rest of your cards.
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- If you don’t get a basic Pokémon in your first 7 cards, you have to discard your hand back into your deck, shuffle the cards, and draw 7 new ones. If that happens, your opponent gets to draw 1 new card from their deck and add it to their hand.
- There are also EX and GX cards, which have more powers and special abilities.
- The active Pokémon in the middle of the table is the only one that can attack or be attacked.
- Read your cards thoroughly to understand each Pokémon’s ability, hit points (how much it takes to “knock them out”), and any weaknesses or resistances.
3 Bench up to 5 basic Pokémon by laying them facedown in front of you. Once the game play starts, turn your benched cards so they are face up. As the game continues, you can keep benching basic cards—just remember that if you have more than 5, you’ll need to keep the extras in your hand.^[3]
- Benched cards are important because you can grow them by giving them energy cards and can swap them out with your main card on any given turn. They also often have useful abilities that can be used from the bench.
4 Set 6 cards off to the side facedown to be your “prize cards.” Both you and your opponent will draw the top 6 cards from your shuffled deck and lay them facedown on your lefthand side. Choose one of these cards every time you knock out a Pokémon.^[4]
- You can pick up the prize cards in any order you like.
5 Flip a coin to see who goes first, and draw a card to start your turn. You can choose if heads or tails will go first. After the winner is decided, they will draw a card from the deck. From there, they can lay down basic cards on their bench, evolve Pokémon, play energy cards (only once per turn), trainer cards, use abilities, and remove and replace their active Pokémon (only once per turn). If you go first, you can’t attack on your first turn, but your opponent can.^[5]
- To evolve: a Pokémon has to be in play for a full turn before you can evolve it to the next level, and each Pokémon can only be evolved once per turn. You can, however, evolve multiple Pokémon in a turn.
- Break cards: give additional abilities or attacking powers while also allowing you to retain other card attributes.
- Energy cards: grass, lightning, darkness, fairy, fire, psychic, metal, dragon, water, fighting, and colorless. Match your energy cards to your Pokémon cards (they’ll have the same color and symbol on…