By TokoyamiTheDark
The short word ‘TCG’ stands for ‘Trading Card Game’. Since 1998, the series has grown widely popular and features many things. There are many kinds of cards, and this small text will explain every aspect of them.
First, we begin with the most important aspect of them ; Basic Cards. You CANNOT have a deck without Basic Cards and they feature both un-evolved Pokemon or Pokemon that doesn’t evolve. Most Basic cards are very common and easy to obtain via Pokemon Theme Decks and Booster Packs. Another kind of card that is a MUST in any deck are Energies. These allow the Pokemon to attack, and there are 9 kinds of Energies ; Grass, Fire, Water, Lightning, Psychic, Fighting, Darkness, Steel and Colorless. There are no basic Colorless Energies at all, as any other Energy can be used for a Colorless mark. Unless the card tells you to discard an Energy card, don’t discard them after attacking!
Evolution cards are rarer, and can only be played if you have the pre-evolved form (for example, to play a Donphan card, you must have a Phanpy in play). When evolving, the Pokemon loses all of its previous attacks, regain HP and get rid of any Special Conditions. There are a few exeption where Evolved cards evolves from Trainer Cards, and not from Basic Pokemon. These Trainer cards are also called Fossil cards, and act like a Basic Pokemon, which means if they’re KOed, your foe takes a Prize card.
Trainer cards often helps you in the TCG, each of them has a variety of effects. There are Pokemon Tools, Stadiums and Supporters. Pokemon Tools are attached to your Active Pokemon and are discarded once it is KOed. Stadium cards stays in play, unless an attack or card effect says something like “Discard any Stadium card in play.” Supporters can only be played once each turn, before you attack the opponent.
Level X cards are power-ups that must be put on the Pokemon in order to play it. X cards can use any attacks, Poke-Powers, Poke-Bodies and anything else from its previous level. The Pokemon’s Weakness, however, is doubled rather than added damage (like +20). X cards do not affect the number of Prize cards taken when defeated.
PRIME cards are like X cards, but you do not require the Pokemon in which the X card has. For example, to play Gengar X (Arceus), you must have a Gengar in play, but you only need a Haunter for a Gengar PRIME (Triumphant). Unlike X cards, you may not use attacks of the previous card and counts as an evolution.
To conclude this, there are many kinds of other cards, such as Owner’s cards (Team Galactic, Elite Four etc…), Shiny cards, LEGEND cards etc… Have fun now playing the Pokemon TCG!!!
Text @2011 by TokoyamiTheDark
Tags: Card Collecting