Welcome, Trainer! This guide walks you through a whole game from shuffle to victory. Keep the Rules Cheat Sheet open in another tab as you read.

What you need

  • A 60-card deck (a theme deck or League Battle Deck is perfect)
  • A coin (or the coin from your deck box)
  • Damage counters and markers for Poisoned and Burned

How you win

You win the game when any one of these happens:

  1. You take your last Prize card.
  2. Your opponent has no Pokémon in play (nothing on the Bench to replace a Knocked Out Active Pokémon).
  3. Your opponent has no cards left to draw at the start of their turn.

Setting up

  1. Shake hands and flip a coin. The winner decides who goes first.
  2. Shuffle your deck and draw 7 cards.
  3. Put one Basic Pokémon face down as your Active Pokémon. You can also put up to 5 more Basic Pokémon face down on your Bench.
  4. No Basic Pokémon in your hand? That's a mulligan: show your hand, shuffle it back in, and draw 7 again. Your opponent may draw 1 extra card for each mulligan you take.
  5. Put the top 6 cards of your deck face down to the side. These are your Prize cards.
  6. Flip your Pokémon face up and begin!

Taking a turn

Every turn starts by drawing a card. Then you may do any of these, in any order:

  • Put Basic Pokémon from your hand onto your Bench (max 5 on the Bench)
  • Evolve your Pokémon (not on your first turn, and not a Pokémon that came into play this turn)
  • Attach one Energy card from your hand to one of your Pokémon, once per turn
  • Play Item cards (as many as you like)
  • Play one Supporter card
  • Play one Stadium card
  • Retreat your Active Pokémon once, by discarding Energy equal to its Retreat Cost
  • Use Abilities

Finally, you can attack. Attacking ends your turn.

The player who goes first cannot attack or play a Supporter on their very first turn.

Attacking and damage

To attack, your Active Pokémon needs the Energy shown next to the attack. Deal the damage to your opponent's Active Pokémon, then check:

  • Weakness (usually ×2): if the defender is weak to your Pokémon's type, double the damage.
  • Resistance (usually −30): subtract it if the defender resists your type.

Place damage counters (each counter is 10 damage). When the damage equals or exceeds the Pokémon's HP, it's Knocked Out.

Knock Outs and Prizes

When you Knock Out an opponent's Pokémon, you take Prize cards and put them into your hand. Most Pokémon give 1 Prize, while Pokémon ex and V give 2, and some (like VMAX) give 3. Your opponent then promotes a new Active Pokémon from their Bench.

Your next steps