Pokémon Trading Card Game
The Pokémon Trading Card Game. Deck guides and archetypes, set reviews, Standard and Expanded rotation, pull rates and collecting, grading, and competitive play.
November 2026
2 posts
Pokémon TCG Regional Results: Season Winners and Meta
Seven Regionals into the 2027 Pokémon TCG season, Dragapult ex has won three, Basic Box two, and two events went to decks under 1% of the field. This hub keeps the running table: who won, what filled the Top 8, and which decks are gaining or losing share between events.
Pokémon TCG Mega Excadrill Deck Guide: Lists and Matchups
Mega Excadrill ex has been in 713 Regional decklists since Pitch Black, and it has made Day 2 at 11.8% against a field rate of 18.0%. We pulled every one of those lists and every match they played to show what the deck is, which counts moved results, and why it beats Crustle three times in four while losing to the Alakazam decks.
October 2026
6 posts
Pokémon TCG Slowking Deck Guide: Builds and Matchups
Slowking was the second-most-registered deck at the Nice Regional and the fourth-most across the 2027 season's first six, and it has not won any of them. We pulled all 815 Slowking decklists and every match they played to show how Seek Inspiration turns Kyurem and Metagross into attacks, which card counts came with better results, and which decks it loses to.
Pokémon TCG Basic Box Deck Guide: Builds and Matchups
Luc Gantner won the Nice Regional on October 18 with Basic Box, the all-Basic Mega Kangaskhan deck that also won Baltimore. Two wins in six Regionals ties pure Dragapult ex for the most this season. We pulled all 830 Basic Box decklists and every match they played to find what the deck agrees on, what changed between Baltimore and Nice, and which opponents it still loses to.
Pokémon TCG Louisville Regional 2026: Results and Top 9
Riley McKay won the Louisville Regional Championships without losing a match, on a Dragapult ex list two cards away from the one that won Worlds. Behind him, three decks that had not reached a Regional top cut all season got there at once: Sharpedo/Toxtricity, Dhelmise and Mew Box.
Pokémon TCG N's Zoroark ex Deck Guide: Builds and Matchups
N's Zoroark has been the second-most-registered deck at three of the 2027 season's first four Regionals, and it reaches Day 2 more often than the field. Then it stalls: 2 of 42 top-cut seats. We pulled all 564 lists and every match those players finished to find which build works, which cards came with worse results, and where the losses come from.
Pokémon TCG Recife Regional 2026: Results and Winning Deck
The fourth Regional of the 2027 season, and the first in Latin America, went to a deck only two of 1,074 Masters registered. Victor Carreira's Ogerpon/Meganium/Arboliva list beat three Dragapult ex players in the top cut, in a field where Dragapult builds were a bigger share than at any Regional so far this season.
Pokémon TCG ACE SPEC Cards: All 29 Legal, Ranked by Play
You get one ACE SPEC per deck, and Standard currently offers 29 of them. We pulled all 6,728 Masters decklists from the first three Regionals of the 2027 season to see which one players actually spend that slot on, archetype by archetype, and which ACE SPECs nobody registered at all.
September 2026
8 posts
Pokémon TCG Delta Reign: Dates, Legendary Stadiums, Cards
Mega Evolution—Delta Reign is days away, and The Pokémon Company has now published enough to plan around: the dates, the card count, eighteen English card faces with all four Megas among them, and a new two-card Stadium. Its Japanese counterpart, Storm Emeralda, is already out, with official rulings. Here is what is confirmed, what is still Japanese-only, and why November 20 matters.
Pokémon TCG Frankfurt & Brisbane Regionals 2026 Results
Two Regionals ran on September 26-27, 2026, and they told opposite stories. In Frankfurt, a deck only 26 of 2,793 Masters registered played itself in the final. In Brisbane, Dragapult ex took the top three places. Both were the first Regionals with 30th Celebration legal, so this is also the first real data on where Mew ex actually landed.
Pokémon TCG Dragapult ex Deck Guide: The Worlds-Winning 60
Dragapult ex is Standard's most-played deck by a clear margin, and it has been since Andrew Hedrick took it to the 2026 World Championship. Here is the exact 60 cards that won Worlds, the three variants the format has split into since, what the first Regionals of the season say about its matchups, and how Mew ex has actually shown up since 30th Celebration became legal.
Pokémon TCG Baltimore Regional 2026: Basic Box Wins
The 2027 Championship Series opened in Baltimore with the biggest Masters field a single Regional has drawn in months, and Dragapult ex — Standard's most-played deck — made up nearly a third of it. It did not win. Here is who did, the exact 60 cards that beat the format, and the Stadium card hiding in that list that quietly stretches the five-slot Bench limit.
Pokémon TCG 30th Celebration: Cards, Products, Prices
Pokémon TCG: 30th Celebration went on sale worldwide today, the game's first simultaneous global launch in three decades. Here is what actually shipped: the full numbered checklist, what each of the thirteen products costs and contains, the two Futuristic Rare chase cards, and the date the new cards became tournament-legal: September 25, 2026, not release day.
Pokémon TCG Bench Rules: Can You Attack the Bench?
The Bench looks like a safe zone. It is not. The 2026 Web Rulebook gives each player five Bench slots and says only the Active Pokémon can attack — but 90 card names in the Standard-legal pool have an attack that reaches past it, Weakness and Resistance are switched off when they land, and the format's blanket Bench immunity has a hole in it big enough for five specific cards to walk through.
Pokémon TCG Pocket Rules vs the Pokémon TCG, Explained
Pokémon TCG Pocket looks like the Pokémon TCG and uses the same cards, but it is not the same game with a phone screen bolted on. Half the deck is gone, Energy cards do not exist, mulligans cannot happen, and the player who goes first gets the opposite restriction from the paper game. Here are the confirmed core rule differences Pocket made, sourced against Bulbapedia's maintained differences list and The Pokémon Company's own deck-building guide.
Pokémon TCG Prize Cards Explained: 1, 2, and 3-Prizers
The Prize count is the only score the Pokémon TCG keeps. Here is what each Pokémon actually costs you when it goes down — one, two or three — measured across all 2,947 Standard-legal printings, plus the 44 Standard-legal card names whose text reads the Prize count or changes what a Knock Out pays.
August 2026
11 posts
Pokémon TCG Prerelease: Build & Battle Box, 40-Card Decks
A Prerelease is the one Pokémon TCG event where the entry fee is the deck. It is also a different game to the one on the Championship Series circuit: 40 cards, no copy limit, four Prize cards. Here is what the Tournament Handbook and the Play! Pokémon organizer guide actually say about Limited play, and what the maths does when you cut two Prizes out of the game.
Pokémon TCG Live: Code Cards, Credits, and Free Packs
Pokémon TCG Live is free, runs the paper ruleset, and hands you a collection you then have to grow. The redemption limits are published — 400 booster codes per expansion, 25 Build & Battle codes, four per preconstructed deck. So is the rule that turns your fifth copy of a card into currency. Here is the whole acquisition economy, from The Pokémon Company's own documentation.
Pokémon TCG Championship Points: How to Qualify for Worlds
The Pokémon TCG stopped publishing a Championship Point number you have to hit. The 2027 season hands each rating zone a fixed count of World Championships invitations and lets the leaderboard sort it out — 140 Masters seats for USA and Canada, 20 for Oceania. Here is what every event tier pays, the Best Finish Limits that cap how much of it counts, and the direct invites that ignore the leaderboard completely.
Pokémon TCG Formats Explained: Standard, Expanded, Unlimited
Play! Pokémon sanctions three Constructed formats, and Standard is the one the circuit runs on. Here is what the other two actually are: the Expanded card pool the Tournament Handbook enumerates set by set, the 27-card ban list that trims it, the Unlimited format with no bans at all, and the awkward truth about where you can still sit down and play any of it.
Pokémon TCG Tournament Rules: Decks, the Clock, Penalties
The rules that decide your first League Cup are not in the rulebook. They are in three separate Play! Pokémon documents, revised regularly, and they cover sleeve colour, how a die has to be numbered, what happens to your match when the clock hits zero, and the two penalties that exist in the Pokémon TCG and nowhere else in the program.
Pokémon TCG Abilities Explained: Triggers, Ability Lock, and Damage Math
An Ability is not an attack, and almost every rules argument about Abilities comes from someone forgetting that one line. Here is what the 2026 Web Rulebook says about when Abilities fire, where they work from, why a Paralyzed Pokémon still uses them, and what the parenthetical at the end of a damage-reduction Ability is really telling you.
Pokémon TCG Evolution Explained: Stages, Rare Candy, Mega
Evolving looks like the simplest action in the Pokémon TCG until you count the restrictions — there are three, plus two more that get treated as restrictions and are not. Here is what the rulebook actually says about stages, timing, and what survives an evolution, plus how the 2025-26 Mega Evolution era quietly rewrote the whole mechanic for the second time.
Pokémon TCG Energy Explained: Basic vs Special, Attack Costs, and the One-Per-Turn Rule
Attacking never spends your Energy. Retreating does. There are exactly nine basic Energy cards in the game's history and two Pokemon types that never got one. Here is how Energy actually works, straight from the rulebook and the card database — attack costs, the one-per-turn attachment rule, every legal way around it, and why Special Energy is a target painted on your attacker.
Pokémon TCG Trainer Cards Explained: Every Subtype
You can play seven Items in a turn and nobody blinks, but a second Supporter gets you stopped mid-motion. Every Trainer subtype carries its own play rule, printed right on the card, and the differences decide how modern decks are built. Here is what the official rulebook actually says about Items, Supporters, Stadiums, Pokémon Tools, and the one-per-deck ACE SPEC rule.
Pokemon TCG at Gen Con 2026: All 168 Events, Decoded
Gen Con's catalog says Pokemon TCG has 168 events this weekend, which sounds like The Pokemon Company brought a Regional to Indianapolis. It didn't. Here's what all 168 listings actually are, who runs them, and why the biggest tabletop show in North America contains exactly one real Pokemon tournament.
Pokemon TCG Sets at Gen Con 2026: What Was Legal, What Ships Next
While 70,000 people were walking the Indianapolis halls, the Pokemon TCG quietly flipped a switch: Pitch Black crossed into tournament legality on day two of Gen Con, and Japan got Mega Rayquaza's new set the same day. Here is the full set landscape the show ran on - and everything The Pokemon Company has actually announced for fall.
July 2026
4 posts
Pokémon TCG Special Conditions Explained: Poison, Burn, Sleep, Paralysis, and Confusion
Poison never stops ticking. Sleep does nothing half the time. Paralysis steals exactly one turn, no more. Here is what the official rulebook actually says about all five Special Conditions, the Checkup order they resolve in, which ones overwrite each other, and every legal way to clear them.
How to Play the Pokémon TCG — Full Rules and Turn Structure (2026)
Two players, 60 cards each, six face-down Prize cards, and a coin flip. That is the whole skeleton of the Pokémon TCG. Here is every rule that actually matters on turn one, from setup through the three ways to win.
Pokémon TCG Deck Building Basics: Ratios, Consistency, and the Draw Engine
Sixty cards, four copies max, one Supporter per turn. Here is the structure that stops a Pokemon TCG deck from bricking: the real card-type ratios, how thick the draw engine has to be, how to build an evolution line that arrives on time, and the prize math behind your attackers.
Pokémon TCG Card Rarities Explained: Symbols, Secret Rares, and What Holds Value
You pulled something gold and you have no idea if it matters. Here is the whole Pokémon TCG rarity ladder - the three base symbols, the modern tiers above them, secret rares numbered past the set total, and what actually drives value.