Looking for a beginner-friendly guide that’ll teach you how to play Pokémon cards? The Pokémon TCG rules are super approachable, and there are plenty of pre-made decks that can make your first battles even easier. We can walk you through the basic rules, from finding a deck to declaring victory.
If you’d like to learn more about collecting and trading cards, we can show you all Pokémon sets in order, as well as the most expensive Pokémon cards to chase after. Or, if you’d like some more advanced deck-building tips, here’s our guide to the strongest Pokémon cards.
How to play Pokémon cards:
How many cards are in a Pokémon deck?
A Pokémon deck includes 60 cards. If you want to play a game, you’ll need 120 cards – enough to make one deck for two different players.
Pokémon card types
You can learn everything you need to know about a Pokémon card from all the symbols and information printed on it – here’s a handy map to the card layout, from an official online manual published by the Pokémon Company:
Just like in the Pokémon videogames, each ‘mon has an elemental ‘type’ that affects its strengths and weaknesses (Decidueye above is Grass-type, as per the little leaf symbol). If you want to learn more about those, we have a whole guide to Pokémon card types you should read after this one.
To begin with, though, we just need to learn about the four overall types of Pokémon cards in the game:
- Basic Pokémon
- Evolution Pokémon
- Trainer cards
- Energy cards
During the game, you’ll start by playing down Basic Pokémon, using Energy cards to power them up, and then using their attacks to try and knock out your opponent’s Pokémon.
You’ll then evolve them into Evolution Pokémon to make them stronger, using their more powerful attacks, defeating more enemy Pokémon, and eventually winning the game.
Trainer cards are used to support these efforts by giving you extra benefits or disadvantaging your opponent in some way. These cards represent the items, supporters, and stadiums a Trainer can use in battle.
They allow you to heal Pokémon, draw more cards. and do special actions (such as switch your active Pokémon with a benched Pokémon). Some are simple, one-time boosts, while others tweak the game in complex and subtle ways that will work really well for some strategies, but harm others.
Energy cards are attached to Pokémon to power up their attacks (or retreat if they’re starting to look hurt).
There are lots more sub-categories of cards you’ll encounter on your Pokémon TCG journey, from Supporter Trainers to special ex, V, VMAX, and VSTAR Pokémon cards – but you don’t need to worry about that stuff yet.
The ratio of card types in a Pokémon deck varies greatly depending on what cards you want to play with. As a baseline, we’d recommend including 10 to 20 Pokémon, 8 to 15 Energy cards, and as many Trainers as you can with the cards left over.
Best Pokémon starter deck
You can build a Pokémon deck yourself (and the linked guide can help you do so), but we recommend using a pre-built deck for your very first game. The top products to pick up are either a Battle Deck or the Battle Academy starter set.
Battle Decks
Battle Decks include not only a well-composed deck ready for you to play, but also a folded paper playmat to play on, some helpful game tokens, a deck box to store your cards, and a nifty plastic coin (some Pokémon cards require you to flip a coin, and it’s always better when you use a shiny Pokémon TCG coin instead of a regular penny).
These decks will not win you a tournament, and they will struggle against another player who has constructed their own deck. However, they are good for casual play, especially against other people who also bring a Battle Deck to the table. If you have a group of friends, buy a few different decks, shuffle up and start playing.
Battle Academy starter set
The Battle Academy starter set makes things even simpler: it’s a single $20 box that contains three very basic 60-card starter decks, all the supporting bits and bobs from the battle decks, and a proper folding cardstock playing board with space for both players’ cards.
The included decks won’t take you very far once you’ve learned the ropes – but it’s an excellent, cheap way to get started with no muss and no fuss.
How to set up a game
To set up a Pokémon card game, players shuffle their 60-card deck and draw a hand of seven cards. Each player then places a Basic Pokémon (identified in the top left-hand corner of a card), face down. This is their active Pokémon, which can battle and take damage.
If a player does not have a Basic-level Pokémon available, they must reveal their hand to their opponent, shuffle their cards back into their deck, and draw seven new cards. This is called a ‘mulligan’. Each time a mulligan is performed, the opposite player may elect to draw an extra card.
Players can then place up to five Basic-level Pokémon, face down, onto their bench area. Next, players draw another six cards from the top of their deck and place them face down to the side of the play area. These are your Prize Cards.
Finally, players flip a coin to determine who will go first, and then flip their active and benched Pokémon face up. It’s finally time to battle! The first player cannot attack on their first turn, and neither player can evolve a Pokémon on their first turn.
Pokémon TCG turn phases
The three Pokémon TCG turn phases that organize each turn are:
Phase one
Draw a card from the top of your deck.
Phase two
Perform any of the following, in any order:
- Place a Basic Pokémon card from your hand on your Bench face-up. Your bench can have a maximum of five Pokémon placed at once.
- Evolve a Pokémon by placing its evolution card from your hand on top of it. Stage 1 Pokémon evolve Basic Pokémon, and Stage 2 Pokémon evolve Stage 1 Pokémon. You can evolve as many Pokémon as you want in a turn, but you may only level up a Pokémon one stage per turn.
- Attach an Energy card from your hand to any Pokémon. Only one energy card may be attached to a Pokémon per turn.
- Play Trainer cards from your hand (you may only play one Supporter card and one Stadium card per turn).
- Swap your active Pokémon with a benched Pokémon. Each Pokémon must have the requisite number of energy attached to it (the retreat cost), in order to activate. The retreat cost can be found in the bottom right-hand corner of a creature card. You may only retreat one Pokémon per turn.
- Use any number of your Pokémon’s abilities (as listed in red on the card). You can use any number of abilities per turn.
Phase three
Attack, using one of your active Pokémon’s attacks. To use a Pokémon’s attack, you need to have enough Energy attached to meet the printed cost. Note that, unless otherwise specified, you don’t discard Energy after you make an attack.
Once your active Pokémon has made its attack, your turn ends. It’s now the other player’s go!
How to evolve Pokémon
To evolve a Pokémon in the Pokémon TCG, you simply place the card showing the evolved form of that Pokémon on top of it. You can do this whether the Pokémon you want to evolve is in the active zone or on your bench.
You can evolve any number of Pokémon during your turn, before you attack. However, you can only evolve each Pokémon once per turn (so no going from a basic to a stage 3 in one go) and you can’t evolve a Pokémon the same turn it is played to your bench.
Evolving a Pokémon doesn’t heal it from any damage, but it does remove any debilitating status conditions causing it problems, which can come in handy. Pokémon Tools or Energy cards attached to your Pokémon will stay attached when you evolve.
You’ll usually want to evolve Pokémon in every single game you play. That’s because evolved Pokémon cards are typically much stronger, with more HP and more powerful, damaging moves.
How to win Pokémon cards
There are three ways to win a game of Pokémon cards. The first involves the Prize cards you placed to one side during setup.
Each time you knock out an opposing player’s Pokémon, you draw one of your six Prize cards. The first player to take all of their Prize cards wins.
You can also win if your opponent has no active or benched Pokémon left in play. Another alternative way to win is if your opponent has no cards in their deck when they go to draw at the beginning of their turn.
How to play Pokémon cards online
Currently, there are two digital versions of Pokémon worth playing:
Pokémon TCG Live
Pokémon TCG Live is a digital recreation of the paper card game, with cards that work exactly the same as their cardboard counterparts. Everything you learned above still applies.
Sadly, your physical Pokémon card collection can’t be transferred directly into the digital game, card by card; they’re two separate things. However, all kinds of physical Pokémon TCG products, including booster packs, pre-built decks, and more, all come with a Pokémon TCG Live code card inside.
Use the Pokémon TCG Live app to scan the QR code on these cards, and you’ll unlock a parallel, digital version of the same product to open and add to your personal, online collection – be it a booster pack of random new cards, or an entire deck of listed cards.
If you’ve got some older physical Pokémon card packs that have Pokémon TCG Online codes instead of Pokémon TCG Live ones, don’t worry – they’ll still redeem fine on the new platform.
Pokémon TCG Pocket
Pokémon TCG Pocket is a streamlined version of the Pokémon TCG created specifically for mobile phones. A lot of the focus of the game is on opening virtual card packs, and the deck-building and battles are far simpler than the original. The upside of this is that it’s a great way for newbies to ease themselves into the rules – however, you should be prepared for a slight increase in complexity if you want to try the full game afterward.
If you want to get a headstart in Pokémon TCG Pocket, make sure you check out the Pokémon Pocket tier list that our sister site Pocket Tactics updates every time the meta changes.
Looking to expand your collection? Here are the best Pokémon packs to buy. We can also help you find all your favorite legendary Pokémon. Plus, our sister site Pocket Tactics are true Pokénuts, with a complete guide to all the Pokémon in the Pokédex.