How to Play "Pokemon"

Nintendo's "Pokemon" franchise gave way to a collectible card game that has gained popularity, especially among youth. While trading card games were conceived at the turn of the 20th century, the face of modern collectible card games changed in the 1990s with the conception of "Magic: The Gathering." With similarly involved rules and a point-based system of weapon power and defense, the "Pokemon" trading card game also follows in "Magic's" inclusion of chance card and customizable decks. The "Pokemon" trading card game involves rules of its own and provides provocative, relatively short games of 10 to 30 minutes.

Things You'll Need

• Two decks of 60 "Pokemon" collectible trading cards
• Coin
• Counters
• Markers of your choosing

Instructions

1. Understand the three basic routes to winning the "Pokemon" trading card game. Players can win by moving all six of their prizes into their hands. Players can also win by default if their opponent runs out of "Pokemon" to fight with or runs out of cards at the beginning of a turn.

2. Assemble your "Pokemon" decks. Each player should have a deck of 60 collectible "Pokemon" cards of his or her choosing. Each "Pokemon" card will have a different function or value and players can choose which ones they wish to include in their deck, as long as they include 60 cards. As a general rule, players will want to include a distribution of various types of "Pokemon" cards -- basic cards for fighting, evolution cards to augment basic cards by imbuing them with specialized powers or attributes, energy cards which add points for attacking, and trainer cards that perform specialized, one-time actions and then are discarded.

3. 

   Learn the orientation of "Pokemon" cards during game play. Each player's Active Pokemon lies toward the center of the In Play Area, where it attacks, defends and receives actions such as sleep, confusion, paralysis or poisoning. Prizes lie to the lower left of each player's side of the play space. Each player's discard pile lies at the bottom right of his side of the play space, while the main deck (from which each player draws) is situated in the right center side of his space.

4. Shuffle the decks and have each player draw seven cards, setting the remainder of the deck face down in front of them. Check your hand to see if you have a Basic Pokemon card to play. Players without Basic cards (denoted in the upper left corner) may show their hands and shuffle them back into their respective decks. The player in question can redraw seven cards while the opponent moves two additional cards of his or her own from the deck to the hand. Each time a player must reshuffle, an opponent can draw two additional cards from the deck in this fashion.

5. Fill out Bench and Prize Pokemon spots, reveal cards and decide on player order. Select a Basic Pokemon card from each player's deck and place it face down in front of you on the Bench. Up to five Basic Pokemon may exist on the Bench at any one time until they are Active. Place the next six cards in your deck face down as Prizes to be added each time you knock an opponent's Pokemon out of the game, looking at a Prize only after it has been won. Next, toss a coin in the air and call it to see who takes the first turn. Finally, flip over all Active and Benched Pokemon cards that are in the playing space.

6. Begin your turn. Draw a card from the deck during your turn. Add a Basic Pokemon to your Bench area if there is a free slot. Decide whether you will evolve a Pokemon, retaining only its energy, evolutions and damage counters (applied to keep track of damage received by an Active Pokemon in a fight). Consider whether to apply an Energy card, to add Energy points to cards for greater use. Use trainer cards when applicable to affect your opponent's cards negatively and your cards positively before discarding them. Strategize as to whether or not to swap an Active Pokemon with a Benched Pokemon by discarding energy cards that are equal in value to the Retreat Value of the card in question.

7. Consider attacking your opponent with your Active Pokemon at the end of your turn, using one of the card's attacks. Simply state out loud which attack you intend to use, supposing you have adequate Energy of the type required (water, psychic, lightning, fighting or colorless) to do so. Use the counters to signify 10 damage points for easy battle scorekeeping as you go, remembering that Pokemon with damage points meeting or exceeding their hit points will be knocked out, sending the Basic Pokemon and attached cards to the Discard pile, and enabling the battle winner to cinch a Prize.

8. Learn the rules for special effects caused by attacks on Active Pokemon. Evolve an Active Pokemon under a given effect or return it to the Bench to remove an effect. Sleep prevents Pokemon from attacking or retreating. Rotate the card in question 90 degrees in order to signify sleep. Toss a coin once, resulting in the card waking (heads) or slumbering (tails). Orient confused Pokemon with the card's head toward its player to indicate confusion and use a similar coin toss to see whether it can attack or retreat (winning the right to do so with heads), remembering to pay any retreat costs with Energy cards. When confused Pokemons lose the coin toss for an attack, they end up attacking themselves at 20 damage points (although weaknesses and resistances still work, if applying to its own type). Turn paralyzed Pokemon sideways to indicate paralysis, meaning that the card can neither attack or retreat. Finally, poisoned Pokemon should receive a marker of your choosing, indicating it will take 10 damage points after each turn, without weakness or resistance rules applying.

9. Replenish any Active Pokemon that have been knocked out, which you can do during your opponent's turn.

Tips & Warnings

• Colorless Energy requirements may be met with a combination of any type of Energy. Remember that poison, paralysis, confusion or sleep spells from prior attacks disappear when Pokemon cards are moved to the Bench. Some Pokemon inherently have a unique "Pokemon Power," which will be labeled on the card. Remember that evolving Pokemon are no longer under the influence of effects like sleep, confusion, paralysis or poisoning. New negative conditions (sleep, confusion, paralysis or poison) do not "double" the effect on a Pokemon card. The latest negative condition of one type replaces the prior effect in that category.

• Remember that while a confused Pokemon can attempt to retreat, sleeping and paralyzed Pokemon never can retreat. Be cognizant of weaknesses and resistances, as weaknesses double the damage and resistances subtract damage for the defending Pokemon. Avoid getting put to sleep by your opponent as it removes your ability during the turn to retreat or attack.