By Samuel P.

You might collect Pokémon cards, but do you play the actual card game? It’s very complicated but I can teach you some basic rules. To make a deck you need 60 cards of trainers, energy, and Pokémon. It works best with about 20 each. Each player needs their own deck. To start you put 6 cards overlapping to your left which are your prize cards, 7 cards for your hand, and the rest to your right in a pile as the deck. Below the deck will be your discard pile. In between the discard pile and prize cards is your bench. Your bench is 5 cards wide. Above your bench is your active Pokémon card slot.

To play, you and your opponent each put one basic pokemon (it will say “basic” in the top left corner) face down in the “active” Pokémon slot from your hand. Decide who goes first. At the same time, flip over your active pokemon card. Whoever goes first begins their turn by drawing the top card from their deck and putting it there hand.

Then they can do any (but don’t have to do all, or any) of the following in any order: play items and/or stadium cards (it will say “item” or “stadium” in the top right corner), put basic Pokémon from their hand onto their bench, and add one energy per turn to a Pokémon (active or on their bench).

Players then continue to take turns, and during all turns (after the first turn) they are also able to evolve Pokemon (which is putting a Stage 1 or 2 Pokémon onto a matching Basic Pokémon, it will say in the top left corner of the card), and play one supporter card per turn (it will say “supporter” in the top right corner). They can also attack at the end of their turn, if their Pokémon is charged with enough energy (indicated before the attack name on the card). The “damage” (indicated in the attack) is added to the opponent’s active Pokémon using damage counters.

If a Pokémon’s damage exceeds its health (“HP”, indicated top right of the card), it is knocked out and goes to the discard pile. The player then moves one Pokémon from the bench to the active slot.

How to WIN:

• When you knock out an opponent’s Pokémon you get to take a prize card. The first one to collect all 6 prize cards wins.
• If you knock out an opponent’s Pokémon and they have none left on their bench, you win.
• If your opponent runs out of cards in their deck, you win.

For more information and rules check the back of the Pokémon playing mat that comes with a pre-made deck (called theme decks). (For beginners I recommend a sun and moon deck).