Well, I wanted to make a little pokemon seminar that anyone could come to, at my house. My Mom edited it a little, but I wanted help from people that new pokemon.
So, what do you think?
Introduction
Thank you for coming today, and I hope we can have some fun; you'll learn how to play the game, learn about the card game in general, and play against an opponent or two. Lets get started.
About The Card Game
Pokemon started in 1996 in Japan as a game boy game. A year later, the card game came out. In 1998 the Pokemon game was first released in America, and a year later the card game was released in America. In 2006 Pokemon celebrated its tenth anniversary and is still going strong.
There are 9 sets in modified format. Modified format is the cards that are allowed in organized sanctioned tournaments. These sets are noted on the piece of paper I handed out to you:
EX Deoxys- a set that will soon be out of format, but it mostly has cards that are from the Hoen region.
EX Emerald- like EX Deoxys, this set will soon be out of format. This set uses Pokemon from the Pokemon Emerald version game.
EX Unseen Forces- A set with Pokemon from the Johto region.
EX Delta Species- This set first introduced delta species Pokemon. Delta Species Pokemon are Pokemon that are not the type they are supposed to be. We'll go into Delta Species later.
EX Legend Maker- A set that introduced react energies, and uses mostly a mix of Pokemon from Hoen and Kanto.
EX Holon Phantoms- This is the set that Delta Species Pokemon start appearing more.
EX Cristal Guardians- Delta Species Pokemon are still here, and introduced a Delta Species EX. We'll go into EX's later.
EX Dragon Frontiers- A set that has only Delta Species Pokemon.
EX Power Keepers- This set reprinted a lot of cards that went out of format a while ago, so you can still use some of the older cards.
Pokemon are separated into types:
Water, Electric, Fire, Grass, Fighting, Psychic, Metal, Dark and Colorless.
There is no poison, flying, or dragon type as in the gameboy games. Instead, poison types are grass types, flying types are colorless, dragon types are colorless, ground types are fighting, and rock types are fighting types.
A Pokemon deck has exactly 60 cards. You can't have more than 4 of each card (except energy cards) in a deck.
At the beginning of the game, each player shuffles their deck and places their deck face down. Draw 7 cards from the top of your deck – this will be your hand. Now, draw six more cards, and place them face down next to your deck. – these are your prize cards. You pick one prize card each time you knock out an opponent's Pokemon. Once you draw all 6 of your prize cards, you win.
The Active Pokemon is the Pokemon that is fighting for you—that you are playing right now against your opponent.
The Defending Pokemon is your opponent's active Pokemon—the one he is battling against you.
Place a basic Pokemon from your hand into the active position face down so your opponent doesn't know what it is.
Once you and your opponent both have your basic Pokemon face down in the Active Position, flip the card over.
You can also choose up to 5 benched Pokemon on your bench, also face down at the beginning of the game. You can continue to put basic Pokemon down on your bench through out the game, but you can only have up to 5 Pokemon on your bench. On the bench, Pokemon can't attack, but they can have energies attached to them and be evolved (which we will go into later). Pokemon on the bench are like Pokemon in reserve.
There are some special conditions
.
They are the following:
Paralyzed: which makes you unable to retreat or attack
Sleep: which means you can't attack or retreat. To cure sleep, you need to flip a coin, and your Pokemon will wake up if you get a heads, but if you get a tails you stay asleep.
Poison: puts one damage counter on a Pokemon.
Burn: you flip a coin in between turns. If you get a tails, you have two damage put on your Pokemon. If you get a heads, you’re safe.
Confused, you flip a coin when you attack. If tails, put three damage counters on your Pokemon. If you get a heads, the attack goes on normally.
Playing the Game
Energies-
Energies are the cards that allow Pokemon to attack.
There are psychic, water, fire, electric, fighting, and grass energies as normal energy cards. These energies are the only exceptions for having more than 4 of in your deck.
There are also special energies. The most commons ones are dark and metal energies. You can only have 4 of these special energies. But special energies have added effects. For example, if a dark energy is attached to a dark type Pokemon it increases any damage done by that Pokemon by 10.
If a metal energy is attached to a metal type Pokemon any damage done to that Pokemon is reduced by 10. When you attach an energy to a Pokemon, you put it behind (actually, below) the Pokemon like this.
Pokemon-
After your set up, flip a coin and call it either heads or tails. If you called it right, you get to go first.
If you are going first, you will want to attack. Since you can't play any supporter cards, your only options are to attach an energy and attack, or play a trainer card other than a supporter card.
Attach an energy, and then you can attack, that is, if you have the energy for it. You see on Houndour, from Unseen Forces, requires a fire energy to attack, so if you don't have one on Houndour you can't attack. On the other hand, Maril from Delta Species can use any energy to attack with tackle. Look at Lotad from Crystal Guardians, who needs at least one water type energy and one other energy type to attack, so if you start out with him you won't be able to attack on your first turn.
If you go second, you can play a supporter card.
Some Pokemon have special abilities, called poke-bodies or poke-powers. Venusaur from crystal guardians has a poke-body called "chlorophyll" that turns colorless energies attached to Venusaur into grass type energies. Unknown from unseen forces has a poke-body that allows you to shuffle that Unknown into your deck and replace it with another Unknown. The best things about poke-powers and poke-bodies aren’t attacks, so you can use them and still attack. Each card can only use a poke-body or poke-power once during each turn.
Evolving-
When a Pokemon evolves, it advances from one stage to the next.
For example, Squirtle, as a basic Pokemon, would evolve into Wartortle, as a stage 1. Wartortle would then evolve into Blastoice, as a stage 2.
A Pokemon has to be in play at least one turn to evolve. To evolve a Pokemon you place the stage 1 Pokemon on top of the basic Pokemon, or the stage 2 Pokemon on top of the stage 1 Pokemon. For example, if you put a Squirtle on the bench you couldn't evolve it this turn, but would have to wait until your next turn. But to speed this process, you can use the trainer card "rare candy" to bypass this wait, and even skip the stage 1 Pokemon! For example, you could place a Squirtle down on the bench, and then play rare candy and not only bypass the wait of the next turn, but evolve straight to Blastoice.
Knocking Out and Being Knocked Out-
Look at the top hand corner of a Pokemon card. That is it's HP, or Hit Points. An attack will do a certain amount of damage, and if you accumulate more damage on a Pokemon than HP it has, it is knocked out and you pick a prize card. For example, if Totodile from unseen forces has 50 HP and is attacked with an attack that does 50 damage, Totodile is then knocked out, and placed in the discard pile.
Special Types of Pokemon-
There are certain kinds of Pokemon that aren’t the same as other cards. Pokemon EX are Pokemon that are "EX-tra", though there are some debates on what EX really means, but I'm pretty sure its Extra. Anyway, Pokemon EX are Pokemon that have more HP than normal Pokemon, and have stronger attacks. For example, Feraligatr EX from Unseen Forces has 150HP, while the normal Feraligatr from the set has only 120. Feraligatr EX also has stronger attacks than Feraligatr. There is a down side to EX's though. If a Pokemon EX is knocked out, you pick 2 prize cards instead of 1.
Pokemon star, or Pokemon shining, are really rare. Most of them have strange energy costs. For example, Mewtwo star from Holon Phantoms uses a fire energy, electric energy, and a psychic energy to attack. Or they can have big attacks with a chance of a big fall back if you are winning. For example, Entie star from Unseen Forces uses three fire energies to do 70 damage. But, if your opponent has more prize cards than you (meaning you are winning), you have to discard the top 10 cards of your deck. Instead of taking two prize cards when a Pokemon is knocked out, you can only have one Pokemon star in your entire deck.
Delta Species are Pokemon that are not the type they are normally. For example, Golduck from Holon Phantoms is an electric type, but he is normally a water type. It doesn’t mean that Golduck is an electric type and a water type though, just an electric type. Flygon from Holon Phantoms is a metal and grass type, but normally he is a colorless type.
There are also baby Pokemon. For example, Pichu is the baby of Pikachu, though baby Pokemon are treated like basic Pokemon.
Trainers-
Trainer cards are cards that can help you in the game. There are 4 kinds of trainers: Normal Trainer, Pokemon Tools, Supporters, and Stadium Cards. You can only have 4 of each trainer in your deck.
Normal Trainers-
You can use as many normal trainer cards as you want during your turn. Some of the common Normal Trainer cards are Potion, Dual Ball, Energy Removal 2, Pokeball, Masterball, Switch, Rare Candy, and Warp Point. Once you play a normal trainer card discard it in the discard pile.
Supporter Trainers-
You can only use 1 supporter card per turn. Play the supporter card next to your active Pokemon, and don't discard the card until the end of your turn. In a Sanctioned tournament if you discard your supporter card before the end of your turn, you forfeit your turn. There are some cards that have "Holon" in their name. These are special supporter cards. You have to discard a card from your hand before you can use it. To see if a card is a supporter, look at the top right hand corner of the trainer card, and it will say "supporter".
Pokemon Tools-
Pokemon Tools are tools that your Pokemon can use. For example, Oran berry from Emerald is attached to a Pokemon, and at any time during your turn you may remove two damage counters from the Pokemon Oran berry is attached to. But, after you use a Pokemon tool you have to discard it. There are some Pokemon tools that aren’t discard though, such as fluffy berry from unseen forces that is not discarded.
Stadiums-
Stadium Cards are cards that are put into play and aren’t discarded until another one comes into play. Power Tree from legend maker for example, lets each player (regardless of who put the stadium in play) take an energy from there discard pile and put it into there hand if there aren’t any special energy cards in your discard pile.
Building a Deck
Pokemon-
You can only have 4 of each Pokemon in a deck. I recommend having about 15 to 20 Pokemon in your deck. There are other trainers that correspond well with Pokemon, but we'll go into that later. To start out, just pick a type or two that your want your deck to be. Then pick a Pokemon that you want the deck based on. Lets take Venusaur from Cristal Guardians. Let’s look at his Poke-body first. He can turn all colorless energies on a Pokemon into grass energies if they are on grass Pokemon. So we would want to only have grass types, and want to use colorless type energies, such as boost energy that provides three colorless energies for one turn, than has to be discarded. Now let’s look at his first attack, Green Blast. Green Blast does 10 damage, plus 10 more for each grass energy in play. A good Pokemon to play with Venusaur is Sunflora from unseen forces, which has the same attack. Venusaur’s second attack, poison sleep, puts the defending Pokemon to sleep and makes them poisoned. But, you do need three energies, which might take a while to get set up. Snorlax from dragon frontiers is a great Pokemon to stall with, since he doesn’t need energies to attack, and can still do damage, Snorlax could stall while you powered up Venusaur. Now you would want to think of good trainers for the deck. Because there are no EX Pokemon in the deck, Celio's network would work well since it searches for a Pokemon, but not ex's. Holon Mentor would also work well, because there are a lot of basic Pokemon in the deck. You would then want to decide how many of each Pokemon you'd want in your deck. You would want to use more of the Venusaur evolutions, since that is the main Pokemon used. A 3-2-3 line (meaning three Bulbasuar, two Ivysaur, and three Venusaur) of Venusaur would be best, and a 2-2 line of Sunflora would go well, and 3 Snorlax would help. That is the best way to build a deck. Just take your main Pokemon and find cards that work well.
Energies-
Your deck should have about 10-12 energies in it. If you have one type of Pokemon in, just use all of that energy. If you have two types, find out which type you the most of, and then use more of that type. If you have the same amount just use half of each type.
Trainers-
There are some ways to "speed" your deck up with trainers. Some of the best trainer cards to beef up your deck with are “drawing cards” such as; bill's maintenance, field worker, TV Reporter, and Mary's request. You should use about 6-8 drawing cards or draw power cards. Then there are set up cards, such as Holon Mentor that searches for three basic Pokemon, Holon Lass that helps get energies, Scott that gets a basic Pokemon, a supporter, and a stadium, or Castaway that gets a tool, a supporter, and a stadium. You should have about 5-6 set up cards. You should have 2-3 stadium's in your deck. Some times you'll want to have some tools, but if you don't fill the rest of the spaces with normal trainer cards like switch, warp point, or master ball. In total, you should have about 23-27 trainers in your deck.
Lets Play!
Conclusion
Thank you for coming today, and I hoped you enjoyed you time here. If anyone enjoyed playing today, let’s work out a time when we can all meet to play again. I have printouts of the seminar I just gave if you want to take one home with you.
Thanks
Thanks to the awesome Pokemon website www.pokebeach.com and its' members for helping with this and for the pictures. Check there for Pokemon updates, and if you want there are forums
So, what do you think?
Introduction
Thank you for coming today, and I hope we can have some fun; you'll learn how to play the game, learn about the card game in general, and play against an opponent or two. Lets get started.
About The Card Game
Pokemon started in 1996 in Japan as a game boy game. A year later, the card game came out. In 1998 the Pokemon game was first released in America, and a year later the card game was released in America. In 2006 Pokemon celebrated its tenth anniversary and is still going strong.
There are 9 sets in modified format. Modified format is the cards that are allowed in organized sanctioned tournaments. These sets are noted on the piece of paper I handed out to you:
EX Deoxys- a set that will soon be out of format, but it mostly has cards that are from the Hoen region.
EX Emerald- like EX Deoxys, this set will soon be out of format. This set uses Pokemon from the Pokemon Emerald version game.
EX Unseen Forces- A set with Pokemon from the Johto region.
EX Delta Species- This set first introduced delta species Pokemon. Delta Species Pokemon are Pokemon that are not the type they are supposed to be. We'll go into Delta Species later.
EX Legend Maker- A set that introduced react energies, and uses mostly a mix of Pokemon from Hoen and Kanto.
EX Holon Phantoms- This is the set that Delta Species Pokemon start appearing more.
EX Cristal Guardians- Delta Species Pokemon are still here, and introduced a Delta Species EX. We'll go into EX's later.
EX Dragon Frontiers- A set that has only Delta Species Pokemon.
EX Power Keepers- This set reprinted a lot of cards that went out of format a while ago, so you can still use some of the older cards.
Pokemon are separated into types:
Water, Electric, Fire, Grass, Fighting, Psychic, Metal, Dark and Colorless.
There is no poison, flying, or dragon type as in the gameboy games. Instead, poison types are grass types, flying types are colorless, dragon types are colorless, ground types are fighting, and rock types are fighting types.
A Pokemon deck has exactly 60 cards. You can't have more than 4 of each card (except energy cards) in a deck.
At the beginning of the game, each player shuffles their deck and places their deck face down. Draw 7 cards from the top of your deck – this will be your hand. Now, draw six more cards, and place them face down next to your deck. – these are your prize cards. You pick one prize card each time you knock out an opponent's Pokemon. Once you draw all 6 of your prize cards, you win.
The Active Pokemon is the Pokemon that is fighting for you—that you are playing right now against your opponent.
The Defending Pokemon is your opponent's active Pokemon—the one he is battling against you.
Place a basic Pokemon from your hand into the active position face down so your opponent doesn't know what it is.
Once you and your opponent both have your basic Pokemon face down in the Active Position, flip the card over.
You can also choose up to 5 benched Pokemon on your bench, also face down at the beginning of the game. You can continue to put basic Pokemon down on your bench through out the game, but you can only have up to 5 Pokemon on your bench. On the bench, Pokemon can't attack, but they can have energies attached to them and be evolved (which we will go into later). Pokemon on the bench are like Pokemon in reserve.
There are some special conditions
.
They are the following:
Paralyzed: which makes you unable to retreat or attack
Sleep: which means you can't attack or retreat. To cure sleep, you need to flip a coin, and your Pokemon will wake up if you get a heads, but if you get a tails you stay asleep.
Poison: puts one damage counter on a Pokemon.
Burn: you flip a coin in between turns. If you get a tails, you have two damage put on your Pokemon. If you get a heads, you’re safe.
Confused, you flip a coin when you attack. If tails, put three damage counters on your Pokemon. If you get a heads, the attack goes on normally.
Playing the Game
Energies-
Energies are the cards that allow Pokemon to attack.
There are psychic, water, fire, electric, fighting, and grass energies as normal energy cards. These energies are the only exceptions for having more than 4 of in your deck.
There are also special energies. The most commons ones are dark and metal energies. You can only have 4 of these special energies. But special energies have added effects. For example, if a dark energy is attached to a dark type Pokemon it increases any damage done by that Pokemon by 10.
If a metal energy is attached to a metal type Pokemon any damage done to that Pokemon is reduced by 10. When you attach an energy to a Pokemon, you put it behind (actually, below) the Pokemon like this.
Pokemon-
After your set up, flip a coin and call it either heads or tails. If you called it right, you get to go first.
If you are going first, you will want to attack. Since you can't play any supporter cards, your only options are to attach an energy and attack, or play a trainer card other than a supporter card.
Attach an energy, and then you can attack, that is, if you have the energy for it. You see on Houndour, from Unseen Forces, requires a fire energy to attack, so if you don't have one on Houndour you can't attack. On the other hand, Maril from Delta Species can use any energy to attack with tackle. Look at Lotad from Crystal Guardians, who needs at least one water type energy and one other energy type to attack, so if you start out with him you won't be able to attack on your first turn.
If you go second, you can play a supporter card.
Some Pokemon have special abilities, called poke-bodies or poke-powers. Venusaur from crystal guardians has a poke-body called "chlorophyll" that turns colorless energies attached to Venusaur into grass type energies. Unknown from unseen forces has a poke-body that allows you to shuffle that Unknown into your deck and replace it with another Unknown. The best things about poke-powers and poke-bodies aren’t attacks, so you can use them and still attack. Each card can only use a poke-body or poke-power once during each turn.
Evolving-
When a Pokemon evolves, it advances from one stage to the next.
For example, Squirtle, as a basic Pokemon, would evolve into Wartortle, as a stage 1. Wartortle would then evolve into Blastoice, as a stage 2.
A Pokemon has to be in play at least one turn to evolve. To evolve a Pokemon you place the stage 1 Pokemon on top of the basic Pokemon, or the stage 2 Pokemon on top of the stage 1 Pokemon. For example, if you put a Squirtle on the bench you couldn't evolve it this turn, but would have to wait until your next turn. But to speed this process, you can use the trainer card "rare candy" to bypass this wait, and even skip the stage 1 Pokemon! For example, you could place a Squirtle down on the bench, and then play rare candy and not only bypass the wait of the next turn, but evolve straight to Blastoice.
Knocking Out and Being Knocked Out-
Look at the top hand corner of a Pokemon card. That is it's HP, or Hit Points. An attack will do a certain amount of damage, and if you accumulate more damage on a Pokemon than HP it has, it is knocked out and you pick a prize card. For example, if Totodile from unseen forces has 50 HP and is attacked with an attack that does 50 damage, Totodile is then knocked out, and placed in the discard pile.
Special Types of Pokemon-
There are certain kinds of Pokemon that aren’t the same as other cards. Pokemon EX are Pokemon that are "EX-tra", though there are some debates on what EX really means, but I'm pretty sure its Extra. Anyway, Pokemon EX are Pokemon that have more HP than normal Pokemon, and have stronger attacks. For example, Feraligatr EX from Unseen Forces has 150HP, while the normal Feraligatr from the set has only 120. Feraligatr EX also has stronger attacks than Feraligatr. There is a down side to EX's though. If a Pokemon EX is knocked out, you pick 2 prize cards instead of 1.
Pokemon star, or Pokemon shining, are really rare. Most of them have strange energy costs. For example, Mewtwo star from Holon Phantoms uses a fire energy, electric energy, and a psychic energy to attack. Or they can have big attacks with a chance of a big fall back if you are winning. For example, Entie star from Unseen Forces uses three fire energies to do 70 damage. But, if your opponent has more prize cards than you (meaning you are winning), you have to discard the top 10 cards of your deck. Instead of taking two prize cards when a Pokemon is knocked out, you can only have one Pokemon star in your entire deck.
Delta Species are Pokemon that are not the type they are normally. For example, Golduck from Holon Phantoms is an electric type, but he is normally a water type. It doesn’t mean that Golduck is an electric type and a water type though, just an electric type. Flygon from Holon Phantoms is a metal and grass type, but normally he is a colorless type.
There are also baby Pokemon. For example, Pichu is the baby of Pikachu, though baby Pokemon are treated like basic Pokemon.
Trainers-
Trainer cards are cards that can help you in the game. There are 4 kinds of trainers: Normal Trainer, Pokemon Tools, Supporters, and Stadium Cards. You can only have 4 of each trainer in your deck.
Normal Trainers-
You can use as many normal trainer cards as you want during your turn. Some of the common Normal Trainer cards are Potion, Dual Ball, Energy Removal 2, Pokeball, Masterball, Switch, Rare Candy, and Warp Point. Once you play a normal trainer card discard it in the discard pile.
Supporter Trainers-
You can only use 1 supporter card per turn. Play the supporter card next to your active Pokemon, and don't discard the card until the end of your turn. In a Sanctioned tournament if you discard your supporter card before the end of your turn, you forfeit your turn. There are some cards that have "Holon" in their name. These are special supporter cards. You have to discard a card from your hand before you can use it. To see if a card is a supporter, look at the top right hand corner of the trainer card, and it will say "supporter".
Pokemon Tools-
Pokemon Tools are tools that your Pokemon can use. For example, Oran berry from Emerald is attached to a Pokemon, and at any time during your turn you may remove two damage counters from the Pokemon Oran berry is attached to. But, after you use a Pokemon tool you have to discard it. There are some Pokemon tools that aren’t discard though, such as fluffy berry from unseen forces that is not discarded.
Stadiums-
Stadium Cards are cards that are put into play and aren’t discarded until another one comes into play. Power Tree from legend maker for example, lets each player (regardless of who put the stadium in play) take an energy from there discard pile and put it into there hand if there aren’t any special energy cards in your discard pile.
Building a Deck
Pokemon-
You can only have 4 of each Pokemon in a deck. I recommend having about 15 to 20 Pokemon in your deck. There are other trainers that correspond well with Pokemon, but we'll go into that later. To start out, just pick a type or two that your want your deck to be. Then pick a Pokemon that you want the deck based on. Lets take Venusaur from Cristal Guardians. Let’s look at his Poke-body first. He can turn all colorless energies on a Pokemon into grass energies if they are on grass Pokemon. So we would want to only have grass types, and want to use colorless type energies, such as boost energy that provides three colorless energies for one turn, than has to be discarded. Now let’s look at his first attack, Green Blast. Green Blast does 10 damage, plus 10 more for each grass energy in play. A good Pokemon to play with Venusaur is Sunflora from unseen forces, which has the same attack. Venusaur’s second attack, poison sleep, puts the defending Pokemon to sleep and makes them poisoned. But, you do need three energies, which might take a while to get set up. Snorlax from dragon frontiers is a great Pokemon to stall with, since he doesn’t need energies to attack, and can still do damage, Snorlax could stall while you powered up Venusaur. Now you would want to think of good trainers for the deck. Because there are no EX Pokemon in the deck, Celio's network would work well since it searches for a Pokemon, but not ex's. Holon Mentor would also work well, because there are a lot of basic Pokemon in the deck. You would then want to decide how many of each Pokemon you'd want in your deck. You would want to use more of the Venusaur evolutions, since that is the main Pokemon used. A 3-2-3 line (meaning three Bulbasuar, two Ivysaur, and three Venusaur) of Venusaur would be best, and a 2-2 line of Sunflora would go well, and 3 Snorlax would help. That is the best way to build a deck. Just take your main Pokemon and find cards that work well.
Energies-
Your deck should have about 10-12 energies in it. If you have one type of Pokemon in, just use all of that energy. If you have two types, find out which type you the most of, and then use more of that type. If you have the same amount just use half of each type.
Trainers-
There are some ways to "speed" your deck up with trainers. Some of the best trainer cards to beef up your deck with are “drawing cards” such as; bill's maintenance, field worker, TV Reporter, and Mary's request. You should use about 6-8 drawing cards or draw power cards. Then there are set up cards, such as Holon Mentor that searches for three basic Pokemon, Holon Lass that helps get energies, Scott that gets a basic Pokemon, a supporter, and a stadium, or Castaway that gets a tool, a supporter, and a stadium. You should have about 5-6 set up cards. You should have 2-3 stadium's in your deck. Some times you'll want to have some tools, but if you don't fill the rest of the spaces with normal trainer cards like switch, warp point, or master ball. In total, you should have about 23-27 trainers in your deck.
Lets Play!
Conclusion
Thank you for coming today, and I hoped you enjoyed you time here. If anyone enjoyed playing today, let’s work out a time when we can all meet to play again. I have printouts of the seminar I just gave if you want to take one home with you.
Thanks
Thanks to the awesome Pokemon website www.pokebeach.com and its' members for helping with this and for the pictures. Check there for Pokemon updates, and if you want there are forums