Pokémon Trading Card Game
The Pokémon Trading Card Game (or Pokémon TCG) is one of the most popular and steady aspects of the Pokémon franchise (next to the video game and animated television series). The Pokémon TCG revolves around buying, collecting, and trading playing cards with various likenesses of Pokémon on them. To play, a person must build a deck of sixty cards using a combination of various "Pokémon" cards (creatures that do battle), "Trainer" cards (which have special effects on them) and "Energy" cards (a method of cost). To win, a player must "knock out" six of their opponent's Pokémon creatures. A player can also win if their opponent no longer has any Pokémon creatures left to battle with, or if their opponent runs out of cards in their deck.
Unlike classic card games which uses a single deck of 52 cards, a trading card game (TCG) is constantly and continuously growing. New cards with new game abilities are released at a steady interval in order to keep the game fresh and alive. The only cost of TCG's, however, is that it forces a player to constantly keep in touch with the game, as well as having to purchase new cards from newly released sets. Players who don't keep up run the risk of falling behind other players.
As of July 2006, over 14 billion cards have been sold.
Card types
Wizards of the Coast (English) sets
- Original releases
- Gym series
- Neo series
- Legendary Collection
- e-Card series
- Southern Islands
- Wizards Black Star Promos
- Best of Game Cards
Wizards of the Coast (English) unreleased sets
Nintendo (English) sets
Sets
- EX series
- δ Delta Species series
- Diamond & Pearl series
Other Merchandise
- EX Battle Stadium
- EX Series Value Pack
- World Championships 2004
- World Championships 2005
- World Championships 2006
- World Championships 2007
- Nintendo Black Star Promos
- DP Black Star Promos
Media Factory/The Pokémon Company (Japanese) sets
- Vending Machine Cards
- Pokémon VS
- Pokémon Web
- 5th Movie Half Deck
- 6th Movie Half Deck
- 7th Movie Half Deck
- 8th Movie Half Deck
- 9th Movie Half Deck
- Japanese promotional cards
- Unreleased cards
History of the Pokémon TCG
The Pokémon TCG was created by Media Factory in Japan. It was first released in Japan in 1997. Wizards of the Coast, seeing a great opportunity to ride the new Pokémon wave, was licensed the game and introduced Pokémon TCG to North America in 1999. In 2003, Nintendo of America took over the game from Wizards of the Coast, and is currently releasing new sets for it. During the early part of its run, two Game Boy Color games were also released, Pokémon Trading Card Game and Pokémon Card GB 2, though only the first was released outside of Japan.
