What Do You Need to Play?
Well, you and your opponent each need your own deck of 60 cards, a coin to flip, and some counters to mark damage to your Pokémon. You can use pennies or whatever else you want if you run out of counters.

What's the Pokémon Game Like?
You and your opponent are Pokémon trainers, battling it out to see who's the greatest Pokémon trainer of all time! You and your deck of cards (those are your Pokémon and the abilities you have as trainer) will fight against your opponent and his or her deck.

You'll have one Pokémon, called your "Active Pokémon", fighting for you. You can have other Pokémon waiting behind the Active Pokémon on your "Bench". If your Active Pokémon loses the fight by getting Knocked Out, then you pick one of those Pokémon on your Bench to be your new Active Pokémon.

Object of the Game
You win the game if any one or more of these things occur:

• You win if you collect all of your Prize cards. When you begin the game, each player sets aside six Prize cards. Each time you Knock Out one of your opponent's Pokémon, you take one of your own Prizes (not your opponent's!) and put it into your hand. You win when you take your final Prize card.
• You win if your opponent's deck is out of cards at the beginning of his or her turn.
• You win if your opponent has no Pokémon on the Bench to replace his or her Active Pokémon, and his or her Active Pokémon gets Knocked Out. That means there's no one for your Pokémon to fight against, so you win!

Starting the Game

1. Shake hands with your opponent.
2. Shuffle your 60-card deck and draw 7 cards, putting the rest of the deck face-down in front of you.
3. Check to see if you have any Basic Pokémon in your hand. (If you don't have any, show your hand to your opponent, shuffle your hand back into your deck, and draw a new hand of 7 cards. If you still don't have any Basic Pokémon in your new hand, repeat this process until you do. Your opponent continues to set-up his or her cards in the steps below. After your opponent has finished setting aside Prize cards, he or she may draw an extra card for each time you didn't have a Basic Pokémon and drew a new hand.)
4. Each player puts a Basic Pokémon from his or her hand face-down in front of him or her. These are the starting Active Pokémon for each player.
5. Each player may, if he or she wishes, choose up to 5 Basic Pokémon from his or her hand and put them face-down on his or her Bench. (This is where Pokémon wait when they're not the Active Pokémon.)
6. Each player sets aside 6 cards from the top of his or her deck, face-down to one side—these are that player's Prize cards. (If the other player still needs a Basic Pokémon, wait for him or her to catch up before continuing.)
7. Flip a coin to see who goes first. (The player who wins the flip goes first.)
8. All players now play with their Active and Benched Pokémon face-up.

Energy Symbol Key

	G - Grass
	L - Lightning
	C - Colorless
	Fr - Fire
	P - Psychic
	D - Darkness
	W - Water
	Ft - Fighting
	M - Metal

Playing the Game
Playing the Pokémon-e Trading Card Game is easy! Here's how it's done:

DRAW a card.
You begin your turn by drawing a card. (If your deck is empty at the beginning of your turn so you can't draw a card, the game is over, and your opponent wins.)

When you start a new game, the player who goes first skips drawing his or her first card.

Now DO ANY of these you want in whatever order you want:

PUT Basic Pokémon cards on the Bench (as many as you want).
Choose a Basic Pokémon card from your hand and put it face up on your Bench. You can have no more than five Pokémon on your Bench at any time, so you can put a new Basic Pokémon card there only if your Bench has four or fewer Pokémon on it. If your Active Pokémon gets Knocked Out (or leaves play for any other reason), you have to replace it with a Pokémon from your Bench right away (or you lose the game).

EVOLVE Pokémon (as many as you want).
If you have a card in your hand that says "Evolves from so-and-so" and so-and-so is the name of a Pokémon you already have in play, you may play that card in your hand on top of the Pokémon so-and-so. This is called "evolving" a Pokémon.

Example: Jake has a card called Grovyle that says "Evolves from Treecko," and he has a Treecko card in play. He may play the Grovyle card on top of the Treecko card.

You may evolve a Basic Pokémon to a Stage 1 Pokémon, or a Stage 1 Pokémon to a Stage 2 Pokémon. When a Pokémon evolves, it keeps all cards attached to it (Energy cards, Evolution cards, etc.) and any damage it might already have, but the old attacks and Poké-Powers and Poké-Bodies of the Pokémon it evolved from go away. All other things about the Pokémon go away, such as Special Conditions or anything else that might be the result of an attack some Pokémon made earlier.

Note: You can't evolve a Pokémon that you just played or evolved on that turn. Also, neither player can evolve a Pokémon on the first turn. And finally, yes, you can evolve a Pokémon on your Bench - that counts as "in play"!

ATTACH 1 Energy to one of your Pokémon (only once per turn).
Take an Energy card from your hand and attach it to one of your Pokémon in play, either your Active Pokémon or one of your Benched ones, but NOT both (put it under the Pokémon card).

Unlike most of the other things you can do during your turn, you may do this only once during your turn. Also, remember that you can attach an Energy card to a Pokémon on your Bench. After all, that's "in play," too!

PLAY Trainer cards (as many as you want).
When you want to play a Trainer card, do what it says, then put it in the discard pile. You may play only one Supporter card and only one Stadium card per turn.

RETREAT your Active Pokémon (only once per turn).
If your Active Pokémon has lots of damage counters on it, you might want to retreat it and bring in one of the Pokémon on your Bench to fight instead. But on most turns, you probably won't retreat.

To retreat your Active Pokémon, you must discard one Energy from it for each listed for its Retreat Cost. If there aren't any for its Retreat Cost, it retreats for free. (You'll read more about costs in the "ATTACK!" section.) Then you can switch it with a Pokémon from your Bench. Keep damage counters, Evolution cards, and Energy cards (other than the ones you had to discard) with the two Pokémon when they switch.

A Pokémon that is Asleep or Paralyzed can't retreat.

When your Active Pokémon goes to your Bench (whether it retreated or got there some other way), some things about it

What Happens after Each Player's Turn?
After each player's turn, if either player's Active Pokémon is Poisoned, it takes damage, if it's Burned, it might take damage, and if it's Asleep or Paralyzed, it might recover. Then the next player's turn begins.

Why Are There So Many Different Cards?
One of the things that makes the Pokémon game different from other card games is that it's a trading card game. This means that there are lots of different cards that you can collect and trade with your friends. Also, you aren't limited to just playing the preconstructed decks you buy - you can use all of the different cards you have to create totally new decks! A lot of the fun of a trading card game comes from making different decks that use different strategies.