The Complete Pokemon TCG Guide

Though many people love to just collect Pokemon cards, knowing how Pokemon card are played can push your enjoyment of it even further. Fortunately, it's one of the most accessible card games out there.

So how do you play Pokemon trading cards? Each player starts with seven cards in their hand, and six cards face-down on the table – these are your 'Prize Cards'. Then, each player can put up to six 'basic Pokemon' face-down into play: one as your 'active pokemon' in the middle, and the other five beneath it on your 'bench'.

After a coin flip to decide who goes first, each player turns all their cards face-up and the game begins. On their turn, players can attach an energy card to one of their Pokemon, play trainer cards, or evolve their Pokemon by playing the next form up on top of it.

What do energy cards do in Pokemon? They allow your Pokemon to use attacks – if a Pokemon's attack requires one fire energy, that fire energy must be attached to them before they can attack. Once your energy requirements have been met, your active Pokemon can attack and deal damage to your opponent's active Pokemon.

If an active Pokemon takes enough damage, it is knocked out and you take a prize card. This is the goal of the game: the first player to successfully knock out their opponents' team and take all six prize cards wins the game. With that in mind, keeping both your active and your benched Pokemon strong enough to swap in and out of battle is vital to victory – otherwise, your opponent can easily steamroll an unprepared table to victory.

Though this is an incredibly simple explanation of how Pokemon cards are played, it provides the basics. More advanced play includes attacks with effects of their own that could involve flipping cards, swapping with benched Pokemon, using mechanics like V, V-MAX, and V-STAR, and using special trainer cards to impact the game. Learning how to combine these effects and build a cohesive deck is part of why the Pokemon TCG is so popular!

Energy is the resource the Pokemon Trading Card Game runs on. While it is similar to Magic: The Gathering's lands in that they have numerous colours and are required to use abilities, they function very differently. Knowing what Pokemon energy cards are used for is an essential skill of playing the game – you simply can't win without energy.

In Pokemon, energy is attached directly to a Pokemon, and only that Pokemon can use it. Energy also isn't spent (though some abilities do discard it for particularly powerful attacks), so once it is attached to a Pokemon it can be used every turn.

Having enough energy cards to keep your deck running is vital to victory, and it's also important you have the correct types of energy. Just as how different Pokemon have different types, so do energy cards. What are the Pokemon energy types? There are nine basic types:

• Grass Energy
• Fire Energy
• Water Energy
• Lightning Energy
• Psychic Energy
• Fighting Energy
• Darkness Energy
• Metal Energy
• Fairy Energy (which was discontinued during the Sword & Shield era of the game).

There are also two kinds of special energy: colourless, which can be paid for using any other type of energy, and rainbow, which acts as every type at once. Keep in mind that, although Dragon is a type of Pokemon, it doesn't have its own basic energy type. Instead, its attacks tend to use the different types of Pokemon energy cards, requiring you to play with multiple types of energy to succeed.

While playing is a massive part of the Pokemon Trading Card Game, collecting them is just as valid and enjoyable. With their excellent art and cute characters, who wouldn't want to stuff a binder full of their favourite Pokemon?

Cards tend to be split into six different Pokemon rarities:

• Commons, which can be identified by the circle stamp in the bottom-left of the card next to the set number.
• Uncommons, which are identified by the diamond stamp in the same place.
• Rare, which have a star stamp in the bottom left.
• Holofoil Rare, which have both the star stamp and have shiny foiling on the art. Note that this is different to a reverse holofoil, where everything but the art is shiny and can be found at any of the three main rarities.
• Ultra Rares tend to be the 'special' form of card for that expansion, such as the V, VMAX, and VSTAR Pokemon in the Sword & Shield era. If it has fancy art and something before or after the name of the Pokemon, like Gengar VMAX or Shaymin VSTAR, it's likely an Ultra Rare.
• Secret Rares are the rarest of the rares. These come in lots of different forms, but most commonly in the rainbow and golden foil styles. To identify if a card is a secret rare, look at the set number in the bottom left of the card: if the first number is higher than the second (such as 102/100), then it is a Secret Rare!

One of the best ways to boost your Pokemon TCG collection is with an Elite Trainer Box. These are a step up from buying loose booster packs and can be slightly intimidating to new collectors, so what is a Pokemon Elite Trainer Box? It is a bundle, allowing you to buy multiple booster packs and accessories for cheaper than you would maybe buy them loose.

What is an Elite Trainer Box? Each box contains eight Pokemon TCG booster packs from the relevant expansion. They also include lots of accessories for your game, such as dice, sleeves, box dividers to organise your collection, counters to track status effects, and even a guide to playing the game. It's all kept in a very nice storage box, which can then be used to store your cards once you've cracked the packs.