Without going into too much detail, the Poke'mon Card game is where you must use a deck of 60 cards made up of energies, trainers and of course, Poke'mon. You must use your cards to knock out your opponent's Poke'mon to draw 6 prizes, though there are many other ways to win. Click Here to go to the Wizards of the Coast website where you can find the official rules.
Right now there have been 10 sets reeased (Base, Base 2, Jungle, Fossil, Team Rocket, Gym Heroes, Gym Challenge, Neo: Genesis, Neo: Discovery, Neo: Revelation) with an 11th (Neo: Destiny) to be released sometime in February. There is also a gift set (Southern Islands). The Japanese version of the game is almost always 2-3 sets ahead of the American version.
The cards are given out in 11 card 'Booster Packs'. Each pack has 11 cards, 1 Rare, 3 Uncommon, 5 Common and 2 Energies (may vary slightly for each set, ie. the main sets have 2 or one energy cards in a pack, the other sets usually don't, increasing the number of commons). Japanese packs only have 10 cards.
One out of three American packs of cards have a premium 'shiny' card in them. These are called Holographics/Holofoils, and are higher in price then other cards.
Sometimes, for special events, Wizards of the Coast (WoTC), the translator of cards from their Japanese counterparts, and Poke'mon Card producer in the US, will put out a special limited edition card. These are called Promos, and can be told from other cards by a Black Star with the word Promo going across it. These are very rare, and usually aren't available for more than a month.
For more information on the TCG, go to www.wizards.com/pokemon. |
