How to play the Pokemon TCG in 2024

there's never been a better time to start playing Pokémon cards I mean think about it regionals and Internationals are awarding $220,000 to first place and the World Championships $50,000 plus one of the rarest Pokémon cards in the world yeah I can't blame you for wanting to learn more and I can teach you everything you need to know all the way from the basics to the advanced strategies used by Pros to help you win more than anybody else whether you've only ever collected and just decided to start playing maybe you've watched a regional stream downloaded ptcg live only to get completely beaten or you're already Trav to Regionals and ic's but not getting the wins that you feel you should whichever the case I've got the plan for you because I was all those things myself once too see last year I made it my goal to get to worlds in Japan but because I started playing so late I only had about 6 months to do it which meant I needed a strategy to get good Elite even as quickly as possible so I devised the plan a formulaic approach to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible and within a month I saw results finishing top 128 at OIC I won a League Cup in Italy of all places until finally I made it to world where after a grueling day one I fought into day two of the event where only the best 150 players in the world compete finishing in the top 64 to cap off the season I've practiced with some of the best players in the world former world champion Henry bran Brent thonis Matthew bis James Cox and along the way I've competed against and beat worldclass players too now beating a pro doesn't make you a pro but it does mean that my plan worked and over time I think you can become a pro too so here are the strategies I've used to get this far and what I've learned from all these great players along the way too how do we create a strong foundation so that every game we play We Are gaining something we are taking something away from it well naturally you need to start with the rules how does the game work what can and can't I do on certain terms how do cards interact with each other then what I call the must knows beyond the rules the absolute non-negotiables of playing the Pokémon TCG something that every player needs to know before they go out into battle as silly as it sounds then we have the unknowns and how we as players can know what we don't know in the Pokémon TCG and then finally Ascension how do we put everything that we've learned along the way together you see playing the Pokémon TCG it's a little bit like writing down all your notes in a language that you don't understand and only until you get to the end of your journey are you finally able to read and put everything that you've learned together in this video we're going to focus on Parts one two and a little of three the fundamentals of the game so you know how to play understanding the current meta decks so you know what you'll be up against and how to truly understand your deck Synergy so you know how to drive the thing and then as this series progresses we'll jump into the more advanced topics so let's start with the rules which yeah seems like a pretty obvious starting point to play any game you need to understand the rules but is especially important in the Pokémon TCG because the game is evolved so much in the last year or so that many decks and their strategies revolve around what you can and can't do at certain points of the game so to start a game of Pokémon TCG you got to flip a coin and decide who is going to go first we usually do this with a dice these days we call heads or tails depending on the deck you play will dictate whether you want to go first or second but we'll talk a little bit about that later now if you haven't shuffled yet make sure you've shuffled before you draw seven cards so both players draw seven cards and this is what we call your opening hand to actually start a game you have to have a basic Pokémon in your hand so an evolution Pokémon isn't going to cut it here need to say basic you start that baby face down and once both players have placed a basic Pokemon face down they then lay out their six prize cards now don't look at these cards you need to claim these cards to win the game so put six prize cards bed down on the side of your board in order to win a game of Pokémon you need to claim all six of these prize cards through the course of the match and this is done by koing your opponent's Pokemon you can also win a game of Pokemon if your opponent has no more Pokémon left on the field and alternatively you can claim victory via deck out that's where your opponent is unable to draw any cards which is a pretty prominent strategy install and control decks which that's the kind of deck you like to play that's the kind of play you are you know what I respect it now once you fulfilled all of these requirements the game can begin on your first turn going first so if you're going first and it's your first turn of the game you cannot play a supporter card and you are able to attack so you're able to do practically everything else that the game allows you to do but you can't play a supporter card down and you cannot declare an attack if you are going second and it's your first turn things are a little bit different you can play a supporter card down and you can also attack at the end of your turn which is a big deal a lot of decks in the Pokémon TCG revolve their strategy around this component of the game and often will left to go second so remember if it's your first turn of the game and you are going second supporters they're okay okay and attacking you definitely want to do it if you can or not the game's a little bit funny like that as for the supporters you can only play one per turn so don't make the mistake that I did at a couple of regionals where I played two in the same turn and got a double prize penalty that's no good if you're going to play a supporter remember that and make sure it's the exact supporter you want to be playing that turn because you can only play one supporter per turn you know what else you can only do once per turn attach an energy card from your hand to a Pokemon and that's very very specific wording for a very specific reason you can only attach from your hand to a Pokemon once per turn but some Pokemon abilities and supporters and even items let you accelerate energy around the board as part of their game plan so beyond that one energy per turn from your hand you can actually attach multiple energy to different Pokemon faster depending on if you have an item card an ability that lets you do it or a supporter card that let you do it in Pokémon we also have Stadium cards and you can only play one Stadium per turn you also can't play the same stadium that's already in play so if your opponent has played down an artisan you can't play an artisan down that turn but if you have any other stadium in your hand you're able to play it down but remember that's the only stadium that turn that you're allowed to play so Choose Wisely in Pokémon we also have tools which you can attach to your Pokémon to give them extra functions or abilities or maybe let them take a little bit more damage from certain attacks however a Pokémon can only ever have one tool on it at a time unless it's something like honc V which has an ability that lets you put multiple tools on it but don't worry too much about that right now the main thing you got to remember is that one Pokémon can only ever have one tool on it at a time unless noted otherwise however if you've got multiple Tools in your hand on that turn and you want to attach them to different Pokémon you're allowed to do that you can attach multiple Tools in your turn you just can't put more than one tool on a Pokémon I'm sure you're Gathering a little bit of a trend here on Pokémon there's a lot of once per turn things you can and can't do another one of those is Retreat so if the Pokémon you've got in the active spot you want to remove it and maybe promote something else that's ready to attack or a Pokémon that you want to sacrifice as a KO on that turn you can only Retreat it by its Retreat cost once per turn however if you've got an item like switch or Escape rope that will move your Pokemon from the active to the bench provided you got that item in your hand you can play it and move them around multiple times per turn but that Retreat is very specific that can only happen once per turn and it wouldn't be Pokémon unless we had Evolution however Pokémon evolution has very very specific rules the first is that evolution is permitted once per turn per Pokémon so if in the previous turn you play down three Rs on the next turn provided you have got the clier in your hand you're able to evolve each of them however you cannot evolve a Pokémon in the same turn that you play it down so if you've got both the rols and and the curlier in your hand and you play the rols down onto your bench that specific rols is not allowed to evolve into a cier however if there's a different RS next to it that's from the previous term that one's okay and in the same way you can speed up leveling in the game you can speed up evolution in the tcg2 provided that You' got the item in your hand which is more often than not rare candy you can skip a part of the evolution process so a Ral can skip curlier and go straight to gardav war you can go from a basic skip stage one and go straight to stage two you've just got to play the rare candy and the evolution Pokemon has got to be in your hand too but don't forget that you can't do that in the same turn that you play down that basic the basic has got to be in play from the turn prior that's pretty important stuff to remember because a lot of the decks right now focus on Evolution whether it's gardav War Charizard or chm power you need to make sure you fully understand the rules of evolution and you don't violate them because it can be costly so there are a couple things that end your turn in the TCG the first is is when you pass so you've got no more actions to make and you just hand it over to your opponent you say I pass the other is when you declare an attack now this is really really important because the moment you declare an attack your turn is over if you've got any actions you want to make anything else you wanted to do you're un aable to do that once you declare an attack so make sure when you're fully done that is the moment you declare an attack cuz there's no takeback IRL at a regional or an IC it can get di I've seen too many players declare that attack before they were actually ready to it cost them games so to quickly recap make sure your deck of 60 cards is fully shuffled usually about seven shuffles does the trick hand it over to your opponent to cut if you're playing in real life it's always recommended to cut your opponent's deck roll the dice to decide who goes first then each player draws seven cards and that's your opening hand to start a game both players need to have a basic Pokémon in the active so if you've got one in your hand place it face down next you've got to place your prize card so take six cards from the top of your deck do not look at these cards but instead place them face down along the side of your board as you take Knockouts throughout the course of the game you will be able to claim these prize cards and add them to your hand with both players set up you're ready to start the game give your opponent a fist bump and if you're going first draw a card at the start of your turn you meant to draw a card of some reason I didn't show that here so don't forget that one now if during setup you don't have a basic Pokémon in your starting hand is what we call a mulligan you've got to show your opponent your hand to prove that you've Mulligan shuffle your deck again and then draw another seven cards until you get a basic every Mulligan that occurs your opponent is able to draw one extra card it's up to them whether they want to do that or not but when you do eventually get a basic place it face down then put your prize cards down and if you're drawing that Mulligan make sure that you do that after you have placed your prize cards down so as I was explaining a little earlier one of the main ways to win a game of Pokémon is by taking all of your prize cards before your opponent and you do this by koing your opponent's Pokémon now different Pokémon in the game have different prize values V-Max Pokémon for example are worth three prizes and that's because they're usually a bit bulkier it's a bit harder to knock them out and their attacks do a little bit more damage too V V Star and EX Pokémon are worth two prizes when you knock them out and that's because they're a little bit bulky but not as bulky as the V-Max their attacks do a little bit more damage but not as much damage as the V-Max so they're only worth two prizes and then finally you've got what we call single prize Pokemon these look like the traditional Pokémon card the illustration it's a little bit smaller you've got a yellow or a silver border it's a basic it's a stage one or it's a stage two Pokémon it's a little bit squishier so it HP is lower the attacks don't do as much damage so it's not worth as much when you knock it out but in the Pokemon TCG there's some really really good single prize Pokemon that can do a lot of damage and we're going to see them in a little bit I don't want to jump too deep into prizing prize mapping when and when not to take KO because there's a couple of things we need to learn prior but for now just be aware the different Pokémon are worth a different amount of prize C cards knowing the rules is integral to being able to play the game and once you know the rules you're going to want to start playing the game however I feel like this is where most players get tripped up because the game is pretty complex and there's a lot of different cards out there there's a lot of Pokémon there's a lot of items trainers supporters it can be a little bit overwhelming which is why before you jump online before you put 60 cars together I strongly recommend understanding The Meta now these are the strongest decks these are the most established decks out there and whether you're going to play a meta deck or not it's very very important to understand what decks you're potentially going to face and how they operate whether we like it or not some decks are just better than others and in the Pokémon TCG The Meta is a little bit like rock paper scissors however no deck outright beats everything in Pokémon and occasionally scissors can beat rock as silly as that sounds in the Pokémon TCG we've got what are called archetypes now archetypes they're kind of like cores gavor ex is an archetype but the cards that you put around it can vary so there are multiple variants of gavor EX decks out there and you can put whatever card you want in your deck too though I wouldn't really recommend it when you're starting out and just trying to understand get a feel for the ropes cuz it could be a bit confusing but that's the beauty of the game as you get better you can start experimenting and find specific texts for different matchups and the different meta decks out there you keep saying that word Jay love Meta Meta Meta when are you going to show me this fabled meta well as it stands this is the current Pokémon TCG meta it's a bit of a hard and fast list because the meta beautiful thing it's constantly evolving depending on player Trends online or recent results at tournaments certain decks can fall in and out of favor very very quickly but if you sign on the game these are the decks you're most likely going to see online and if you're trying to pick it up the Decks that I really recommend you start out with and I think you're going to really quickly see why understanding the rules is integral to the deck you pick and its strategy take for example gavor ex this is an evolution Focus deck that utilizes gavor ex's ability psychic Embrace to move energy around the field really quickly and circumvent that one energy attach per turn from hand rule so in gav ex decks a lot of what you're doing is evolving your rol into cuier so that you can use ca's ability refinement discard a card and draw two cards in order to see more cards and do more things and the cards you want to be discarding it's those psychic energies because psychic Embrace shifts psychic energy from your discard to any psychic Pokemon on the field granted you got to put a couple of damage counters on it but that's integral to the deck's function and how it interacts with the Pokémon and attackers in it so godav all lik to focus on buildup play it's okay with going behind a little bit because a lot of the cards in it have comeback potential and activate from when you are behind and that Evolution can be paced so going from Ralts into CLIA into gavor or it can be accelerated going straight from RS into gav war ex to rapidly bring attackers onto the board in even your second turn or for the TR traditionalist out there we've got chariz RX which is a hard-hitting tank which is super effective into a bunch of different types like C boy x that dark type doing two times damage to guard ofo X decks now Charizard X likes to utilize that Evolution mechanic as well except it focuses on accelerating past more than that gradual buildup so you're going to see a lot of rare candies in Charizard decks you're going to want to go from Charmander straight to Charizard X and that's because when you evolve into Charizard X you're able to accelerate energy from your deck onto your Pokémon so you're able to put three fire energy onto any of your Pokémon in any way you like so again this circumvents that attaching one energy from your hand per turn rule by rapidly bursting it onto the board and Charizard as it falls behind does more damage so even if it looks like the game is mostly over if your opponent has taken a number of price cards Charizard ex's attack does more damage then there's decks like maridon ex which you may have heard online are beginner friendly decks which is true they are beginner friendly decks but that doesn't mean they are beginner decks or they're any worse than any other deck in The Meta right now a lot of maridon strategy focuses on using a supporter as quickly as you can and as we know on your first turn going first you can't play a supporter however on your first turn going second you can so you're going to see this deck elect to go second a lot another thing we can't do on our first turn going first is attack but going second on our first turn yeah we're allowed to do that so Mar on the XX focus on attacking on the first turn of the game which can be devastating and often times can end a game before it even starts so if you like to go really fast you like to take a strangle hold on the game before your opponent can even set up right on EX potentially the deck for you then we've got me Vmax which actually won the World Championships in 2023 this is a deck that just won't seem to go away it's very consistent and it's very very explosive its engine is very very straightforward it likes to put Genesect V's down and use its ability Fusion strike system to see more cards so it focuses on drawing Bing and seeing as many cards in the deck as quickly as it can and it's also able to attack very very quickly with its main attack only requiring one energy attachment with that double turbo energy which functions as two energies so not only is it able to set up very quickly it's able to attack in the very very early stages of the game and being a V-Max Pokémon makes it very difficult to knock out however on the other side of the coin you've got Decks that outright delete and one hit KO Pokémon like gutina V this is a deck that focuses on Pace and flexibility so your decisions throughout the course of the game will branch and vary and dictate what you can and can't do as the game draws to a close its greatest strength is the varar ability of gutina varar star recum which is an attack that outright deletes your opponent Pokemon so at one hit KO it so big Pokemon like Charizard X or M Vmax just get completely removed from the board this deck has plenty of options and a bunch of different attackers in it too which is why we say it's flexible it's able to to adjust its game plan depending on the course of the game which is kind of similar to Lost Zone box this is my personal favorite deck and the deck that I played for the majority of 2023 this is kind of what we call a toolbox deck so the archetype is comy Greninja Sabai karant but the other Pokémon that you surround it that's what makes the deck really spicy it's got a strong element of surprise so in the early stages of the game your opponent seeing the traditional l zone Pokémon and isn't able really to decide or work out what they're playing against but when those big Pokémon come out towards the end of the game and start doing some serious damage that's when the fun really starts I'd say lost Zone box is a hard deck to drive and almost impossible to master it's a very very difficult starting point but I respect you if you're going to pick it up and learn to play the game in the way that I did because it does force you to learn as much as you possibly can and get really good at decision- making very early which is really important in Pokémon then you got decks like U intellion which completely decimate decks like l zone box and this is where that rock paper scissors element of the game comes into action so Rapid Strike U intellion Vmax Focus heavily on the abilities of Pokemon like intellion Vmax which is able to snipe and place damage around the board when you discard an energy which is really frustrating if you've got a lot of small basic Pokemon on your bench and then it maximizes that damage placement with the use of a really fun card meta Cham V it's attack yoga Loop lets you take another turn if you take a KO with it so you actually get to have two turns in a row before it's your opponent's turn and what almost always follows after that is an attack with Rapid Strike U Vmax which hits two Pokémon at once so this deck likes to snipe Place damage around the board and then pick off and then finish the game by sweeping your bench which is kind of annoying but nowhere near as annoying as Snorlax stall now respect to you if you like playing stall control decks where you dictate what happens in the match it's not for everybody but it is an option in the Pokémon TCG snorlax's ability stops STS your opponent from retreating so it likes to trap Pokémon in the active and give you no way of removing them and taking knockout so it stalls you it tries to force you to deck out or make misplays until eventually the Snorlax players win it's what we call a control D you don't need to know everything about these decks in order to play the game but at the very least you should be aware of the general meta share that way you kind of know what you're facing when you go to play and of course metad decks aren't the only decks out there there are what we like to call Rogue decks these are Decks that stray away from the traditional meta from what everyone has established are the best decks and they focus on that element of surprise so if you can make yourself aware of Rogue decks you going to reduce that likelihood of you being taken by surprise and losing purely because you just didn't know what was going on or maybe you want to play these decks instead of the meta decks cuz you reckon they're a bit more fun and that's totally cool too I respect it but beyond just knowing the meta and the deck that you pick you need to understand every card inside of that deck to maximize its potential when you look at your deck you got to ask yourself what does this thing do and how does it do it the Pokémon that are inside what are their individual purposes the supporter cards that you're playing which ones and how many of them the search cards that you go and get Pokémon and bring them into play how many of them the switch outs in case you get stuck in the active are you playing any seems overwhelming but it's pretty straightforward you just got to look at lists and dig into them a little bit take for example this Charizard X list utilizing the bibal engine yes I just said a lot of words which might not mean anything and yes there are a lot of cards on the screen right now and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense what makes even less sense is this Charizard X Deck with a Pidgeot engine and why is this Charizard X deck different to this deck it's what we're going to jump into easiest way to get to the bottom of that is to just lay the deck out in front of you and then analyze why each card is there and why you're playing certain counts or amounts of them we're playing four Charmander because you can only play four of one Pokémon in your deck so to maximize your chance of getting a Charizard EX into play you play Four Charmander heat tackle for one fire energy and 30 damage is pretty decent decent at fixing M and blazing Destruction for one fire is good for getting rid of part of the peak we've got one Charmeleon in the deck because it's good to build up a chariz RDX over time between turns rather than relying on rare candy the entire game we play three Charizard X because this is our primary attacker and while it would be nice to play for we can't fit everything we want into this deck so three is the right number with certain other item cards in the deck there's two Pidgey here because we want to build up the Pidgeot ex it's a big part of our Dex engine and we play this Pidgey in particular because the attack call for family is great for building up your bench on your first turn going second there's two Pidgeot ex because the deck relies very heavily on the ability quick search which lets you go and grab any card from your deck once during your turn this is extremely powerful and the way the deck functions relies very heavily on quick search the decks also got a couple of v Pokemon They Don't Really attack rather they help set you up so rod and V ability is really good for building your hand in the early turns of the game and luminan and the ability luminous sign is great for finding a supporter in the turn that you need one there's a few basic Pokémon in this this deck that don't attack but rather support the deck so Mew and the ability mysterious taale is great for finding items in the early stages of the game and it's also a bit of a sacrificial Pokémon so you're okay with this getting knocked out in the first couple of turns manif is there to protect your bench with the ability wave veille and ger is here to protect you from Sabal ey in the guira and lost box matchup and against Cresselia when you're facing off against Gore we've got a couple of tool cards in here and we're going to see why very shortly TM Devolution is great into Evolution decks which there are a lot of in the format fatality band gives us an extra 10 Dam Dage which is very helpful for Math and because we're playing rodm V and luminium V Forest seal stone is a great addition too there's four battle VIP passs in the deck because we want to maximize our chance of setting up our bench on our first turn and because this deck likes to find items early this is a great addition too Ultra Balls are very important card for finding Charizard EX Pidgeot EX at any point of the game so it's very important that we have that in our hands so we play Four this deck relies very heavily on rare candy and because we're skipping Evolution for Charizard and Pidgeot we're playing four of those two we play a couple of L vacuum because sometimes you've got to get rid of tools and other times you got to get rid of stadiums like parts of the peak the deck also has a few oneoff item cards which are very precious resources super rod helps us put energy and Pokémon back into the deck from our discard lever ball is fantastic for finding those low HP Pokémon and our deck has a lot of low HP Pokémon in it so it's a great addition and switch is critical in case we get stuck in the active and can't move the Pokemon there's two counter catcher in the deck and that's because it's a very easy card to find because of Pidgeot and one of our supporters and that supporter is Arin who basically makes the whole deck tick Arin lets you go and find an item card and a tool card from your deck which is why we're playing multiple tool cards as well as all the items because Ain can go and find those for you at any point of the game there's three boss's orders in the deck because targeting down specific Pokémon at different turns is pretty important to your game plan there's three Iona which are important for disrupting your opponent's hand in the later parts of games and there's one professor's research which is great for maximizing your chances of finding rare candy Ultra Ball chariz RDX in those critical turns of the game and then we've got three Stadium cards not only because their functions are very powerful but also because we need to make sure we can bump path to the peak which blocks the ability of Charizard and Pidgeot lost city so that our opponent's Pokémon goes to the loss Zone when it's knocked out meaning they can't retrieve it with super road collapse Stadium to remove liabilities from our board in the latter parts of games and Artisan to assist with setup and building up Pidgey and charmanders very early on and then finally seven energy cards because this is what we need to attack with Charizard X you could run this deck with six energy and two super rod but we'll dive into those topics a little later on so now instead of just picking up a chariz RDX list and playing it because you were told it's the optimal version of the deck now you understand what each card is doing and you got to feel for the Synergy of the deck deck Synergy is what makes decks tick and the Decks that maximize all 60 cards in the list function all together holistically those are the best kind of decks and the most fun decks to play now you very well may know all of these things but does knowing really make you ready does knowing mean you've solved whether you grab two RS of a VIP pass facing off against maridon in your first turn or whether you grab a RS and a radiant Greninja and then try and see more cards with concealed cards in the hopes of setting up that extra bit more does it help you work out whether you attach an energy to your Pokémon on your first turn or whether you hold that energy in your hand and attach it on the next one if we know the rules does that mean we've solved whether to play Artisan to replenish our rals or to play the collapse Stadium to avoid losing these are what I like to call the 1centers and in the Pokémon TCG there's probably a good 20 of them so if you can get close to perfecting or mastering those 21 percenters you can improve your game by 20% over time I'm going to help you solidify your game by knowing all the things that are within our control for those of you that want to jump ahead you can check out the full presentation stream in the link below in the meantime you can hit subscribe and join the TCG live streams to get a feel for my thought process but for now you should have a pretty solid understanding of the Pokémon TCG how far you want to take it depends entirely on you thanks so much for watching I'll see you guys in the next one

Channel: okJLUV

Views: 28,327

Keywords: pokemon cards, japanese pokemon cards, pokemon center, japanese booster box, invest in japanese pokemon cards, japanese display, which japanese pokemon cards to buy, pokemon pack opening, scarlet and violet pokemon cards, where to buy pokemon 151, pokemon tcg, pokemon tcg live, ptcgl, pokemon card tournament, pokemon regionals, how to play pokemon, how to play pokemon cards, pokemon tcg guide, pokemon tcg meta, where to start pokemon cards, how to learn pokemon cards

Id: EFTOCNCuQME

Length: 27min 0sec (1620 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2024