History TabletopGame / Pokemon

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[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_cardback.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Gotta collect them all!]]
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A CollectibleCardGame based on the popular ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' franchise. Recursively, the card game ''itself'' became [[VideoGame/PokemonTradingCardGame a pair of video games]], [[NoExportForYou of which only one left Japan]]. Really likes making people flip coins.

The starting game play is simple: the players draw their hands, and then set aside 6 cards to be "Prize Cards" of which the player can take one whenever they Knock Out an opponent's Pokémon, winning when they claim all six. The players then play any Pokémon they have (redrawing if they don't have any) and the game officially begins. In a given turn, the players can add Pokémon to their bench (up to 5), evolve their Pokémon (although they can only evolve one stage per turn), play Trainer cards that have various benefits, add an Energy card to one of their Pokémon, retreat their active Pokémon for one in the bench, or attack with their active Pokémon.

The game relies heavily on "Energy Cards", 9 (initially 6, later 8) cards representing the different Pokémon types (though there is an 11th Dragon-type with no Energy equivalent outside of Roaring Skies' Double Dragon Energy card, and the much earlier Colorless energy which has no Basic energy card, but serves as a "Wild Card", being fulfilled with the other energy types, as well as having the oft-reprinted Double Colorless Energy card), and the only cards the player is allowed to have more than four copies of in a deck. In general, a Pokémon of a specific type will have attacks that require Energy of that type, although some do have "Colorless" energy requirements, which can be fulfilled by any of the 11 types. Because the player is limited to only playing one Energy Card per turn, it's important for them to manage their energy distribution wisely, as a benched Pokémon that already has energy on it will be able to start fighting much quicker than one that doesn't. Stronger attacks will require more energy, with the strongest attacks requiring the player to remove one or all of the Pokémon's attached energy, limiting their use. Pokémon also have retreat costs, the number of energy cards that must be removed in order to switch out for a Pokémon in the bench, which is also (usually) proportional to the Pokémon's power.

[[https://tcg.pokemon.com/en-us/tcgl/ Can also be played online, though there's software to download first.]] Physical booster packs and decks now come with a digital code that allows players to redeem them in the online version.

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!!This series provides examples of:

* AdaptationalBadass: Certain Pokémon are much more powerful as cards than they are in the contemporary games.
** Scyther and Hitmonchan in the generation I games were both terrible Pokémon — Scyther suffered from a lack of any powerful Bug- or Flying-type moves to properly use its high attack and speed, while Hitmonchan was a slow, frail Fighting-type in a game where Psychic was one of the best types. Meanwhile, in the TCG, both of them were an integral part of the [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Haymaker_(TCG) Haymaker]] deck. Scyther's free retreat cost and Fighting resistance made it flexible to use, while it could deal consistent damage with Slash; meanwhile, Hitmonchan could hit for 20 damage from turn 1 with its Jab, hit harder with Special Punch later on, and take out Lightning and Colorless Pokémon.
** Sneasel, when it was first introduced in generation II, was a fairly weak Pokémon due to there being no physical Dark- or Ice-type attacks, forcing it to go without STAB. In the TCG, however, Sneasel was so overwhelmingly powerful as part of the [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Beat_Up_(TCG) Beat Up]] archetype that it became the first Pokémon card to get banned outright.
** Delcatty was an integral part of the [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Infercatty_(TCG) Infercatty]] deck archetype, which achieved good success in competitive play until its counters became more prevalent. Its regular form was able to quickly gain the energy needed to power Infernape's Flare Blitz, while its ex form was able to recycle that energy and discard cards to fuel Infernape LV.X's Flare Up FinishingMove. Contrast this to the video games, where Delcatty is one of the weakest fully-evolved Pokémon out there and isn't even functional as a SupportPartyMember.
** Wailord has been a fairly weak Pokémon since its inception, since its other stats are quite low to balance out its gigantic HP stat. In the TCG, though, defensive stats aren't a thing and bulk is purely decided by HP, so most Wailord cards take serious effort to knock out. Some decks even rely on Wailord cards with the highest HP stats, such as [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Wailord-EX_(Primal_Clash_38) Wailord EX]] or [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Magikarp_%26_Wailord-GX_(SM_Promo_166) Magikarp & Wailord GX]], to soak up damage and [[StoneWall stall out the opponent.]]
** {{Zigzagged}} by Regigigas. Some of its cards, like its initial [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Regigigas_(Legends_Awakened_15) Legends Awakened print]], attempt to recreate its crippling Slow Start ability. Others, however, such as [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Regigigas_V_(Crown_Zenith_113) Regigigas V]], give the Colossal Pokémon a break and allow it to use its legendary-level power without any drawbacks, or with different caveats that are easier to play around.
* AdaptationalWimp:
** Charizard is an odd mixture of this trope and AdaptationalBadass, especially in older sets. While Charizard is fairly strong in the video games, most Charizard cards have been hard to use due to having some form of crippling drawback such as Fire Spin from Base Set requiring four Fire Energy cards and having the player discard two every time they attack, despite their high HP and powerful attacks. Charizard cards that have been released starting in the late [=SM=] era have less restrictive costs and effects, with many of them finding notable competitive success.
** [[OlympusMons Legendary Pokémon]] cards [[DownplayedTrope are often still powerful]], but because they’re basic Pokémon, they often have inferior HP and damage to evolved Pokémon they could easily crush in the video games. This is most prevalent in the early sets, with Mewtwo being a good example — it’s the most powerful Pokémon in Red and Blue, with incredible power, speed, and bulk, but its Base Set incarnation had only 60 HP and was mostly used to stall with its Barrier attack.
* AntiFrustrationFeatures: The online game gives players an unlimited amount of Basic Energy so that players won't be barred from using their favorite cards by a lack of Energy.
* TheArtifact: Pokémon Powers, due to pre-dating abilities, maintained their original name for ''years'' before being split into Poké-Powers and Poké-Bodies in Generation III and finally being renamed to a consistent "abilities" in the first ''Black and White'' set, almost nine years after their introduction!
* AscendedMeme: PTCGO gave players six free copies of Ancient Origins Magikarp, despite the game only letting you have four copies of any card in your deck other than basic Energy, likely as a nod to the Fishermen with teams of six Magikarp in the main series games.
* AloneAmongFamilies: Card art of the Pokémon Cubone often showcases the Pokémon's orphaned state, such as [[https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-tcg/pokemon-cards/xy-series/xy8/77/ an image]] of one alone on a bench while, in the background, several happy human families are shown enjoying their time together.
* ArmoredButFrail:
** [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Mr._Mime_(Jungle_6) Jungle Mr. Mime]] has only 40 HP, less than even some first-stage basic Pokémon at the time, but its Invisible Wall Pokémon Power makes it impervious to attacks that deal more than 20 damage.
** [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Kabuto_(Fossil_50) Fossil Kabuto]] has a Pokémon Power which lets it take half damage from attacks, stretching out its mere 30 HP. Strangely, its evolved form Kabutops has only 60 HP and lacks this power, so it's even frailer than its basic form.
** Shedinja cards tend to exemplify this trope. [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Shedinja_(EX_Dragon_11) EX Dragon Shedinja]] is a good example — it's shielded from attacks performed by evolved Pokémon, but with only 30 HP, basic Pokémon will have no trouble quickly taking it out.
* AwesomeButImpractical:
** There are several "huge" cards that are as big as a book, or are made of 4 regular cards. You cannot play these cards, but often, their stats are so awesome you wish you could.
** Cards with large numbers printed on it tend to fetch high prices among collectors, even though most of these cards have large downsides due to CompetitiveBalance. Chansey from the Base Set is like this (though at least it had some value as a DamageSponge for stall decks), sharing Charizard's [[PowerCreep then-high]] HP, as well as most Wailord cards.
** Charizard has traditionally been like this, with high HP and attacks that cause enormous damage (in the 100-300 range) but are way too slow to set up and usually have crippling drawbacks. However, Charizard cards tend to fetch high prices (despite their low competitive value) due to the big lizard's popularity combined with the "wow" factor of its damage output. A running joke in the community is that any new Charizard card is bound to be an unplayable "collector card" rather than one that can be used to good effect in battle. This is subverted with Charizard released after Generation VII as some have seen a degree of tournament success.
** The ''Pokémon Trading Card Game Fossil Expansion Player's Guide'' has a deck called [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Ferocious_Commons_(TCG) Ferocious Commons]], which tosses Base Set Rattata, Staryu and Machop into a deck for a ZergRush strategy. Running a deck with all common Pokémon that can hold its own is undeniably cool, but the Pokémon TCG is ''not'' the right sort of trading card game for this strategy to be effective, since only one Pokémon on each side can attack at a time. All three cards also have ''very low'' health points and attacks that only deal 20 damage — and the two most popular decks at the time, Haymaker and Rain Dance, had Pokémon with high HP and damage, leading to very fast knockouts. The deck tries to get around this with a variety of Trainer cards like Bill and Gust of Wind, but it still doesn't make up for the very weak Pokémon.
** Another deck from that guide is [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Monster_Swap_(TCG) Monster Swap]] with the strategy of using Mr. Mime and Onix to block against high and low-damage attacks (with the aid of Dodrio's Retreat Aid) and not realizing that the opponent could swap out their own Pokémon or use Gust of Wind to take down Mr. Mime and Onix with the opposite Pokémon (low-damage for Mr. Mime, high-damage for Onix).
** Some cards have the effect of healing all of your Pokémon, but each of them has a drawback. Undaunted Togekiss is a Stage 2 (which means the player has to have evolved it twice from Basic Pokémon and then a Stage 1) and requires the player to shuffle the Pokémon and all cards attached to it into your deck. Dragon Majesty's Altaria-GX is a Stage 1 evolution and uses your possible GX Attack for the game. Quad Stone, finally, requires you to play 4 copies at once. Needless to say, it's easier to use cards like Max Potion or Rough Seas if you're in need of lots of healing.
** EX Mega Evolutions were this in general; they have high HP and strong attacks, but the player's turn ends when they evolve and some have difficult Energy requirements for their attacks, sometimes paired with insane drawbacks. [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Both of Charizard's Mega Evolutions are textbook examples.]] Because they (unsurprisingly) have attacks that deal 300 damage, [[http://pojo.com/COTD/2014/Jun/6.shtml some have noted]] that their unplayability prevents their price from shooting through the roof on the secondary market. ''The Pokémon Company'' seemed to have noticed that last one, hence why as of Phantom Forces, they started to print Tools called Spirit Links which allow EX to Mega Evolve without needing to skip a turn. The only drawback is the inability to put a different Tool on the Pokémon (unless you remove the Link afterwards, or have Theta Double like Mega Tyranitar EX). On top of that, Mega Pokémon started to receive more efficient attacks in terms of energy costs, and thus they skyrocketed to competitive relevance almost immediately.
** Rayquaza VMAX. When set up properly, you have a very powerful and consistent all-in-one draw engine and beatstick with no weakness... emphasis on ''when''. The Pokémon is ultimately too slow and inconsistent to set up properly, requiring the Dragon-type standard of two different Energy types as well as multiple evolutions (for both itself and the Flaaffy used for energy acceleration), and the speed of the format it's in means the player needs to get ''very'' lucky and set up quickly or else they lose the game. Additionally, some Basic Pokémon V[[note]]meaning they don't need to evolve to reach their full potential[[/note]] released in subsequent sets [[OvershadowedByAwesome do Rayquaza's beatstick job but better]], such as Raichu V and Garchomp V[[note]]both deal slightly less damage, but are more versatile overall[[/note]].
* BackbenchhittingAttack: Some moves are able to deal damage to Pokémon that are on the Bench, which sometimes affect multiple Pokémon at once. Dealing damage to a Pokémon on the Bench that exceeds its max HP causes them to be Knocked Out and allows the Attacking Pokémon's player to take 1-3 Prize cards the same way Knocking Out an Active Pokémon would.
* BeatThemAtTheirOwnElement: Many older Psychic Pokémon have Psychic as a type weakness. As a result, whichever Active Pokemon gets Knocked Out first essentially boils down to who manages to do more damage with their attacks.
* BilingualBonus: Of the accidental variety: some English-language error packs of the ''Vivid Voltage'' expansion contained unreleased cards from the 2021 [=McDonald's=] Happy Meal promotion... in French.
* BlindIdiotTranslation: The ''Pokémon Trading Card Game Fossil Expansion Player's Guide'' translates cards from the ''Gym Heroes'', ''Gym Challenge'' and ''Team Rocket'' based off the artwork rather than the names. For instance [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Blaine%27s_Quiz_3_(Gym_Challenge_112) Blaine's Quiz 3]] is called ''Blaine's Stare'' and [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Misty%27s_Duel_(Gym_Heroes_123) Misty's Duel is translated as Misty's Peace]] due to the author thinking that Misty was giving the peace sign instead of doing the Scissors sign. [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Misty%27s_Wish_(Gym_Challenge_108) Misty's Wish]] also doesn't have its effect listed.
* BoringButPractical:
** Base Set Ninetales could put out 50% more damage per turn, took one evolution instead of two, still had respectable HP, ''didn't'' have a ridiculous retreat cost, fit into the same types of decks, and... wasn't a flying, fire-breathing dragon like the most infamous card from the set.
** In general, Colorless Pokémon qualify. They often lack flashy effects and usually are a bit lacking in power, but can use any kind of Energy for their attacks, allowing you to splash them into any deck if needed. Of note is Rayquaza's cards in particular; while it often gets very powerful Dragon-type cards as a selling point for expansions it's in, the most successful Rayquaza card of all time (within its format) is the Colorless-type Mega Rayquaza-EX.
* {{Bowdlerize}}:
** Some of the attack names are Bowdlerized; for example, God Blast was changed to Supreme Blast, Death Sentence was changed to Fainting Spell, and, rather cleverly, [[ObligatorySwearing Goddamn]] [[GratuitousEnglish Punch]] was changed to [[StealthPun Profane]] Punch.
** "Misty's Tears" was completely redesigned outside of Japan because the original, "Kasumi's Tears", featured Misty nude (and the fact the artwork didn't have her crying).
** "Sabrina's Gaze" was also redesigned, as the original illustration featured her doing a gesture that could be easily misinterpreted as flipping the bird.
* TheBusCameBack: The Dragon type was absent throughout some of the Sword and Shield era. Given that the Fairy-type was merged into Psychic, many assumed that it would be merged back into Colorless. However, it was revealed that the type would return in the ''Evolving Skies'' set, this time with no Weakness or Resistance.
* CanonImmigrant:
** Flail, Destiny Bond, Rain Dance, and Nightmare started out in the TCG before appearing in the second generation. However, TCG Nightmare is only similar in an "affects sleeping targets only" clause with game Nightmare. Focus Blast is another move from the TCG which later appeared in the games, though not until the fourth generation.
** After items gained actual appearances in ''[=FireRed and LeafGreen=]'', they all (bar [=TMs=]) appear as they did in the TCG.
** The crazy useful "dash" on the overworld debuted in the GBC game before it appeared in generation 3.
** The "Pokémon Power" mechanic, which was around since the card game started, is extremely similar to the Ability mechanic the games introduced in their ''third'' generation.
** And in a case of reversal, starting with the Black and White expansion, [=PokéPowers=] and [=PokéBodies=] were thrown out and replaced with Abilities.
* CardCycling: Playing "[[https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-tcg/pokemon-cards/ss-series/swsh1/178/ Professor's Research]]" makes its player discard their entire hand and draw seven new cards as a replacement.
* CloudCuckoolander:
** Imakuni? is an extremely weird guy — best illustated by the Game Boy Color game, where he dances around the clubs at random, asks kids whether he or Pikachu is cuter, and threatens to make you dance with him if you lose. And yes, the question mark is part of his name.
** As well as some card illustrations. Search "Pokémon Picasso Touch," and you'll be confused... Very, very confused.
* ColorCodedElements: The game simplifies the elemental types from the game series from 18 to 11 by lumping them together by color; [[NonElemental Normal/Colorless]] (including [[BlowYouAway Flying]]) is white, [[PlayingWithFire Fire]] is red, [[MakingASplash Water]] (including {{Ice|MagicIsWater}}) is [[WaterIsBlue blue]], [[GreenThumb Grass]] (including [[BigCreepyCrawlies Bug]]) is green, [[ShockAndAwe Electric/Lightning]] is yellow, [[BareFistedMonk Fighting]] (including [[DishingOutDirt Ground and Rock]]) is [[YellowEarthGreenEarth brown]],[[note]]one of the weirder groupings, which was apparently made with the logic that "Fighting is brown, Ground is brown, and Rock is similar to Ground"[[/note]] [[PsychicPowers Psychic]] (including [[SoulPower Ghost]]) [[TechnicolorMagic is purple]], [[CastingAShadow Dark/Darkness]] is black, [[ExtraOreDinary Steel/Metal]] is gray, [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Dragon]] is gold, and [[TheFairFolk Fairy]] is pink.
** [[PoisonousPerson Poison types]] were previously grouped in with Grass types (which made some amount of sense, due to how many Grass/Bug types are also Poison). As of Diamond and Pearl, they were moved into the Psychic category, seemingly under the logic of "Poison and Psychic are both purple." As of Sword and Shield, they are grouped under Darkness (likely due to associating Poison's subterfuge-based nature with the CombatPragmatism of Dark/Darkness). Fairy also got lumped into Psychic, presumably because there are only 51 Fairy-type Pokémon as of Gen VIII.
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: At first glance, code cards are practically useless outside of the online games. However, [=BREAKpoint=] gave them a hidden secondary purpose: they denote what type of Rare card is in the pack. A code card with a green background means that the pack has a Regular Rare, or at best, a Secret Rare if the set has one. A white code card means that the pack is guaranteed to have either a Holofoil Rare or an Ultra Rare.
* ComebackMechanic: Several cards, such as Reversal Energy and Counter Catcher, can only be used or become more effective if the opponent has less prize cards; i.e., closer to winning the game.
** Some Pokémon cards deal more damage and/or has an additional effect if the opponent has less prize cards. Most notably of them are Ultra Beast cards, since all of them has an ability that affects or be affected by Prize cards (though only several fulfills the Comeback part of this trope).
** The N and Reset Stamp makes the opponent (and in the former's case, the user as well) shuffle their hand into their deck and draw cards for each prize card they have remaining, which can cripple the opponent's hand if they are close to winning.
* ContinuityNod:
** PTCGO let you give Lance's hairstyle to male avatars and Misty's hairstyle to female ones.
** There's a few cards [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Narrative_illustration_(TCG) that reference others through their illustrations]].
* CopyProtection: As with the industry standard, real cards will not be translucent if held up against a light. This is due to a black layer of paper put in-between the sides of the cards. It's more expensive to produce, which is why fake manufacturers don't bother doing it.
* CuteClumsyGirl: [[VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet Miriam's]] Special Illustration Rare card depicts her tripping and dropping a stack of books.
* DarkerAndEdgier: Compared to other cards, Pokémon Prime makes heavier use of shadows, and gives closeups of Pokémon with them generally looking very serious, or sometimes downright evil.
* DarkIsEvil: The Dark Pokémon cards (introduced in the Team Rocket expansion) have a darker character window, evolution box, and Pokédex box compared to a normal card, and generally look much more intimidating in the art box. Each have different justifications based on the sets they are in:
** ''Team Rocket'' is corrupt and this in turn corrupts the Pokémon they train.
** ''Neo Destiny'' revolves around the potential path a Pokémon can follow depending how they're brought up, in contrast to the [[LightIsGood Light Pokémon introduced in that set.]]
* DigitalTabletopGameAdaptation: The game can be played online on ''Pokémon TCG Live'' and formely on ''Pokémon Trading Card Game Online''. Some physical products come with codes that can be redeemed for digital cards.
* DistractedByTheShiny: Collectors put a premium on the "holo" cards, allowing the competitive players to easily trade one valuable card with little game utility for multiple (much more useful) Trainer cards.
* DraftingMechanic: The "Build & Battle Draft format" where four players look at their 23-card Evolution packs (which are kept), and then do a "pick a card and pass it on" closed draft with the booster packs they received.
* DrawExtraCards: Multiple cards can draw more cards, and their precise effects on card advantage has changed through the lifetime of the game, due to rules and card type changes. Bill for example started as a Trainer Card that allowed the player to draw two cards with no cost, and Trainer Cards don't use up the turn, so if a player had all four allowed copies at once, they could end up drawing 8 cards from Bills alone.
* EarlyBirdCameo: Great Tusk and Iron Treads first appeared in the first ''Scarlet and Violet'' set as Pokémon ex, three sets before the Paradox Pokémon officially debuted in the ''Paradox Rift'' set with the latter being labeled as Ancient Pokémon or Future Pokémon on their cards.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** The Base Set had the card [=PlusPower=], which was attached to a Pokémon, before Pokémon Tool cards were created. Since it was a Trainer card and not a Pokémon Tool, this created a [[LoopholeAbuse loophole]] where [=PlusPower=] was not bound by the same rules as a Pokémon Tool card, such as being able to equip more than one of them to the same Pokémon or combining [=PlusPower=]'s effect with a Pokémon Tool's. [=PlusPower=] would [[AscendedGlitch continue to be reprinted again and again]], making it nearly always relevant in tournament play.
** Early sets were full of cards that could outright discard Energy cards from the opponent's Pokémon, most notably Poliwrath and Energy Removal. This was found to be such a GameBreaker that Energy destruction in sets from [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Generation II]] and onwards either had drawbacks or relied on chance. On top of that, more Energy accelerators were introduced, which allowed easy access and rapid attachment of Energy cards.
** Initially, Trainer cards in the western-language versions came in every rarity, but over time, most of them would be classified as Uncommon, with a few Commons out of tradition (though these were sometimes Uncommon anyway) and a few Holo-Rares as collectors' cards.
** Originally, Pokémon that were considered Poison type in the video games were grouped under Grass type for the TCG (This was represented by the Science Club in the ''VideoGame/PokemonTradingCardGame'' for Game Boy); beginning with the ''Diamond & Pearl'' set they would instead be grouped under Psychic, while the ''Sword & Shield'' set moved them into Darkness. Also, before Dragon was its own type, Dragon-type Pokémon were considered Colorless, though they still frequently used the type's gimmick of relying on multiple Energy types to attack. Fairy type was introduced as its own type in the ''XY'' sets before being folded into Psychic in ''Sword & Shield''.
** When the Darkness and Metal Energy types were first introduced, they were only printed as Special Energy cards. Thus, a player could only have four of them in a deck, limiting the ability of players to use Pokémon that used those energy types. Later sets, starting with ''Diamond & Pearl'', would include basic energy versions of those types with the ''XY'' sets introducing Basic Fairy-type energy straight away.
** During Generations I-IV, many Water-type Pokémon had "Water Gun", "Hydro Pump" or "Hyper Pump" which allowed you to attach more energy cards to the Pokémon to power the attack up, but only up to 2 extra energy cards could be attached this way. Starting in Generation V, this was dropped and the player can attach as many extra energy cards as they like.
* ExtraTurn:
** In the Generation I era, this is what playing Bill amounted to. You drew 2 cards upon playing him, essentially turning your one draw for the turn into two and giving you twice as many cards to work with. As such, this eventually led to most cards with this effect being labeled as Supporters, so you can only play one per turn.
** Both Dialga-GX and Togepi & Cleffa & Igglybuff-GX have Time Walk's effect from [[TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering Magic: The Gathering]] for that GX attacks in that you skip your opponent's next turn (with the text even saying "Take another turn after this one. (Skip the between-turns step)".
* EyeDentityGiveaway: One of the expansions includes cards of Ditto mimicking various Pokémon. They all have in common Ditto's wide mouth and dotty eyes, being based off the anime where Duplica's Ditto in its first appearance could not fully set its face to the correct one when Transforming.
* FakeUltimateMook: There are several cards that have intimidating art, huge HP, and powerful attacks, but are AwesomeButImpractical due to high energy costs and steep drawbacks to using them. The textbook example is the iconic [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Charizard_(Base_Set_4) Base Set Charizard]] — it has the highest stats of ''any'' card in the Base Set, with 120 HP and an attack that can OneHitKO many lesser Pokémon, but its attack costs a whopping 4 energy to use, and 2 of those energy cards have to be discarded after each hit. Later Charizard cards aren't immune to this either, even with heavy PowerCreep in play.
* FirstPlayerAdvantageMitigation: The player who goes first is not allowed to attack or play Supporter cards on their first turn. This helps compensate for their tempo advantage.
* GratuitousEnglish: The Japanese versions of the Mega Evolution cards in the XY series set has the Pokémon's attack name written across the card art in English. Likewise, the [[OneHitKill Single]] and [[DeathOfAThousandCuts Rapid]] Strike labels have the names rendered in both English and hiragana as ICHIGEKI and RENGEKI, respectively. [[TeamSpirit Fusion]] Strike is listed as just FUSION in both English and Katakana instead.
* GratuitousJapanese: Meanwhile, the English (and subsequent non-English western) versions of the same Mega Evolution cards have the attack name written out in katakana. While the Japanese cards' English attack names are a bit Engrish-y, the English cards' Japanese attack names are lifted right from the Japanese versions' attack text.
* HeadsOrTails: Each player has a coin of his or her own. Players flip to see who decides the starting turn order. Then there are several cards where the player flips his or her coin to determine the number of cards they draw from their deck, the amount of damage a move will do, and so on.
* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: Anything that doesn't do anything but discard cards won't be useful outside of some potent decks that focus around it.
** [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Battle_Compressor_(Phantom_Forces_92) Battle Compressor]], from the Phantom Forces expansion, which lets you search through your deck for three cards... and put them in the discard. Sounds useless on paper, but if used alongside cards that draw from, attach energy from, or otherwise rely on the discard pile to work, it suddenly becomes a very effective item to use.
* HighlySpecificCounterplay: The game tends to introduce counters to dominant cards instead of banning them:
** The [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Heatmor_%28Dark_Explorers_19%29 Heatmor]] from the ''Dark Explorers'' expansion has an attack that does 60 damage if the opposing Pokémon is Durant, and 10 damage otherwise. It was introduced to counter [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Durant_Mill_(TCG) Durant Mill]] decks, but it does have the justification that Heatmor is a predator of Durant.
** [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/No_Removal_Gym_(Gym_Heroes_103) No Removal Gym]] from the Gym Heroes expansion makes it so that a player must discard 2 cards from their hand to play [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Energy_Removal_(Base_Set_92) Energy Removal]] or [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Super_Energy_Removal_(Base_Set_79) Super Energy Removal]]. It was introduced because these cards were considered overpowered.
* IceMagicIsWater: For its ColorCodedElements, [[MakingASplash Water]] includes what were originally Ice moves in the video games.
* InconsistentDub:
** Several attack names are translated differently from the video game series. This could be argued as {{Woolseyism}} in some cases — for example, a move called Confusion in the games causes confusion, but was renamed Psyshock in the card game, where it causes paralysis ([[DubInducedPlothole it was called Willpower in both cases in the Japanese games]]). However, others are just different for no discernible reason, such as a move called "Teeter Dance" in the video games and "The Hula-la" in the card game.
** It also doesn't help that the fifth generation games added a separate attack named Psyshock, a MindOverMatter shockwave that runs off of Special Attack and physical Defense.
* InfinityPlusOneElement: While the Dragon type was intended to be this from the beginning, it was fully reworked into this in the ''Sword and Shield'' era, having no weaknesses and no resistances while retaining the type's powerful mixed-Energy attacks.
* InformedAttribute: The ''Pokémon Trading Card Game Fossil Expansion Player's Guide'' classifies "Ferocious Commons" as a "tournament-winning" deck that should earn its player "plenty of respect". Said deck tosses 3 weak Basic Pokémon (Rattata, Staryu, Machop) and multiple Trainer cards into a deck with no strategy beyond "Deal 20 damage and try and use the Trainer cards to mess with your opponent". With their low health, all three can be easily knocked out, and it would have zero chance of competing in a tournament even then. "Monster Swap" is also classified as a "tournament-winning" deck that has no strategy outside of "Use Dodrio's Retreat Aid to swap Mr. Mime and Onix to stall out your opponent" even though the opponent can pretty obviously swap out their own Pokémon to take care of Onix and Mr. Mime (such as the fact that the duo are still vulnerable to status conditions).
* InformedFlaw: The ''Pokémon Trading Card Game Fossil Expansion Player's Guide'' claims that expending all the time and effort to get Omastar (Mysterious Fossil, Omanyte) for a weak Water Gun will result in your opponent feeling sorry for you. However, the attack starts at 20 damage and deals 40 damage with two more Water Energy cards attached which was a lot of damage at the time, particularly if hitting a Fire-type.
* ItemAmplifier:
** [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Magnezone_(Plasma_Gale_25) Magnezone]] has the effect "Double Brain" that lets the player use 2 Supporter cards per turn instead of the usual 1.
** Some Pokémon, such as the [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Venusaur_(Shining_Legends_3) Shining Legends Venusaur]], have abilities that make energies of a certain type count as two energy instead of one.
* JokeCharacter: Imakuni? is an incredibly weird guy. He has his own rap group to promote the series, specifically the card game, called Suzukisan, which consists of him, an enka singer named Sachiko Kobayashi, and an American guy named Raymond Johnson (who also had TheDanza as a minor character in the Japanese versions of ''Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie'' and ''Anime/MewtwoStrikesBackEvolution'') who speaks English well. He also makes some joke cards and does illustrations for serious cards. He has a blog at imakuni.com. Whenever he shows up in the game itself, whether it's on a promotional card or as an opponent in the video games, you can count on him to be useless at best and actively harmful to his own player at worst.
* JokeItem:
** The ''[[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Imakuni%3F_(CoroCoro_promo) Imakuni?]]'' card, which just confuses your own Pokémon... There's even [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Imakuni%3F%27s_Corner_(Vending_S3) a card]] just to tell you that it's useless!
** The ''[[https://twitter.com/abarerukun/status/1071206166196146176 Abareru-kun]]'' card, featuring a person who appears on Pokémon TV shows in Japan. It lets you draw 3 cards, making it similar to the already-existing Hau and Cheren... but, for the effect to take place, you have to tell a joke your opponent laughs at, making it a ''literal'' joke card.
* KungFuProofMook: Certain Pokémon have Abilities that make them completely immune to attacks from certain kinds of opponents, such as Alolan Ninetales from Burning Shadows being impervious to the attacks of Pokémon-GX or Xurkitree-GX taking no damage from opponents with Special Energy attached.
* LethalJokeCharacter:
** The original Baby Pokémon from the Neo and e-Card sets, especially the ones from the Neo sets. At first glance, they look pretty bad, especially due to their horrific HP and the fact that you don't necessarily have to use them in order to use their "evolved" forms. However, they often proved to be nasty annoyances due to their Baby Pokémon Powers, which caused every single attack — even those that don't inflict any damage — to have only a 50% chance of succeeding (if the attacker flipped heads). Combine the original Baby Pokémon Power with Focus Band, and one would have a whopping ''seventy-five'' percent chance of having to deal with the Baby Pokémon again the next turn. To make matters even crazier, the Babies usually had troublesome attacks that only cost one Colorless Energy and they had free retreat. After Ruby and Sapphire were released, all new Baby Pokémon no longer had to be attacked on a coin flip. However, especially destructive Babies like Cleffa (which was like a Professor Oak that DIDN'T discard your hand that you could re-use, potentially multiple times thanks to the Baby Pokémon rule) were so influential on the game that they were "reprinted" 10 years later in the [=HeartGold/SoulSilver=] sets; however, these new versions weren't anywhere near as chaotic as their G/S/C era counterparts, as they were only impervious to damage if they were asleep.
** Exeggcute from Plasma Freeze also looks pretty terrible with only 30 HP and one attack that is bad, even for a Basic Pokémon. However, its ability, Propagation, allows it to come back from the discard pile if it is ever discarded, which makes Exeggcute extremely manipulable in combos that involve discarding cards to deal extra or reduce damage or draw extra cards.
** Joltik cards are generally jokes, being 30 HP basics. But one Joltik has an attack called Night March that does 20 damage times the amount of Pokémon with Night March in the discard pile, allowing it to [[GlassCannon hit absurd damage totals]] when combined with the other Pokémon that have Night March. Night March was arguably the best deck in many formats where it was and is legal until PowerCreep set in during the Generation VII era.
* LethalJokeItem:
** ''[[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Flute_(Base_Set_86) Pokémon Flute]]'', a Trainer card where you choose one of your opponent's discarded Pokémon and put it on their bench. It seems like it would only help your opponent, until you realize that it actually has several uses: You can combine it with Gust of Wind, using the former to revive a Pokémon with very low HP and using the latter to force the opponent to switch to it. Then you could effortlessly kill the poor Pokémon AGAIN and score another prize. You can also use Pokémon Flute to fill your opponent's bench with low level "junk" to prevent them from playing their intended Pokémon.
** There are some extreme examples from Team Rocket Returns, a set with crazy-sounding names such as "Pow! Hand Extension", "Surprise! Time Machine", and "Swoop! Teleporter" — all cards that would break every format they were legal in.
** The Imakuni? card, which confuses your own Pokémon, can be combined with the Pokémon like Machamp EX that actually benefit from being confused.
** [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Surprise_Box_(Unbroken_Bonds_187) Surprise Box]], from Unbroken Bonds, adds a card from the opponent's discard pile to their hand. This is especially unhelpful to the player, as the opponent can use the card they got back in a future turn, but can be comboed with other cards that rely on an opponent's hand cards, like Gengar & Mimikyu GX's Poltergeist attack.
* LightningBruiser: Donphan Prime from "[=HeartGold and SoulSilver=]" became popular for this reason. It had 120 HP (a very large amount for a Stage 1 at the time) and an ability that made it take 20 less damage from every attack, and could also attack for 60 damage for just one energy (again, a very large amount for the time).
** Some of the Stage 1 Pokémon GX in [=SM=] sets certainly qualify. Golisopod GX can hit for 120 damage for a single energy (though it has to have just came into the active position that turn) and has 210 HP, and the damage output of Zoroark GX (also 210 HP) is based on the amount of Pokémon in play, meaning that in the Expanded format where Sky Field (which allow you to have up to 8 Pokémon on your bench) or [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Eternatus_VMAX_(Darkness_Ablaze_117) Eternatus V-Max]] is legal, it can hit for up to 200 damage for one Double Colorless Energy.
** [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Reshiram_%26_Charizard-GX_(Unbroken_Bonds_20) Reshiram & Charizard GX]], from Unbroken Bonds also qualifies. Despite having a hard-hitting, but expensive attack in Flare Strike, it has plenty of Fire-type support, like [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Welder_(Unbroken_Bonds_189) Welder]], which attaches 2 Fire energy from the player's hand to one of their Pokémon in addition to drawing 3 more cards. Thus, decks built around this Tag Team aim to draw through most of their deck while accelerating energy at a fast rate.
* LimitBreak: GX Attacks and VSTAR Powers. You're only allowed one of each per game and only certain Pokémon can use them, but they're all rather powerful. TAG TEAM GX Pokémon took this to a whole new level; their GX moves had an optional additional energy or specific card usage requirement that, if fulfilled, enabled an even stronger effect when used.
* LoopholeAbuse: Each time someone tries it and is caught by a judge (or the opponent calls a judge over), it's recorded and a ruling given in case it happens again. As of date, there are over 300 cases of this. There haven't been any cases nearly as extreme as Chaos Orb in ''[[TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering Magic]]'', though.
** A specific example that led to a general rules change in organised play was people deliberately ''breaking'' the rules, in order to award the other player Prize Cards and thus satisfy the activation conditions of cards such as Counter Catcher and Counter Energy.
* LuckBasedMission: There's a lot of factors that rely on coin flips and nothing else. While tournament standard requires all coins to have an even 50/50 chance of landing on either side, outcomes can still be stacked against players. Just ask anyone who's flipped two tails on a [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Timer_Ball_(Sun_%26_Moon_134) Timer Ball]], for example.
* LuckManipulationMechanic:
** [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Sabrina%27s_ESP_(Gym_Heroes_117) Sabrina's ESP]] lets you re-flip coins for the Pokémon it's attached to once. Trick Coin does the same thing, except it can be attached to any Pokémon, can be done once per turn, and will remain on that Pokémon on subsequent turns.
** One Victini's Victory Star Ability allows a player to take a do-over on coin flips related to their Pokémon's attacks once per turn (and it actually means "once" — multiple Victory Star Abilities don't stack).
** Shiftry from the set "Rising Rivals" had a Poké-body that made the opponent's coin flips always tails.
** Sableye from "Stormfront" and the item First Ticket both allow you to bypass the opening coin flip and always go first.
** Will from the Dream League/Cosmic Eclipse set allows you to flat-out choose the result of a coin flip.
** [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Misdreavus_(EX_Legend_Maker_40) Misdreavus]] from "Legend Maker" could put the opposing Pokémon to sleep, but that sleep requires the opponent flip a coin twice and both land as heads to wake it up instead of just one.
* MagikarpPower: Most Pokémon that are meant to be evolved tend to be pretty bad by Basic Pokémon standards, with low Energy and attacks that do ScratchDamage at the best of times but whose evolved forms become much more formidable than your ordinary Basic Pokémon. (And yes, this includes Magikarp itself, whose cards rarely go above 30 damage and can often count themselves lucky to even have an attack that does something.) This goes double for three-stage evolution lines, where the Basic is awful, the Stage 1 is almost passable but still well below par, and the Stage 2 is very strong.
* {{Mana}}: Energy cards. Most attacks will require at least one. Unlike traditional Mana, though, it isn't consumed unless the attack you use says otherwise.
* ManipulatingTheOpponentsDeck:
** Judge allows you to force your opponent to shuffle their hand into their deck and draw four new cards (which is usually less than they'd have before).
** Peeking Red Card not only makes your opponent shuffle their hand into their deck and draw a new one, but makes them show you what their original hand was first.
** Jessie and James makes you and your opponent discard two cards from your hands.
** Reset Stamp forces your opponent to discard their hand and draw as many new cards as they have prize cards remaining, making it much more punishing for someone close to winning.
** Giratina from the United Minds set allows you to discard a special energy card attacked to your opponent's active Pokémon when you first place it onto your bench.
** Milling is a common strategy - or the act of forcing the opponent to send cards directly to their discard pile until they no longer have cards to draw.
* MassCardRemoval: Togepi & Cleffa & Igglybuff-GX's Supreme Puff-GX clears the opponent's bench back into their deck if there's 16 Fairy Energy on the group when the attack goes off.
* MightyGlacier:
** Most Charizard cards are an AwesomeButImpractical exaggeration of this archetype. They have high HP and attacks that deal inordinate amounts of damage (often in the rarely-seen 200-300 range), but have high energy costs and are very slow to set up.
** Primal Groudon decks rely on this trope, using cards to stall the opponent while they set up Primal Groudon with the 4 energy needed to attack, which can then proceed to hit for 200+ damage and be nearly impossible to KO in one hit itself.
** Magikarp & Wailord GX has a whopping 300 HP on a Basic — most Stage 2 Pokémon don't even breach 200 HP — but, as a tradeoff, it's ridiculously slow to use its very strong attacks. 5 Water energy to use its normal attack for 180 damage, and ''8'' to use its GX attack[[note]]Well, technically, one. But, without the seven extra energy, it'll only deal 10 damage without any other effects[[/note]].
* MiniGame: At the tail-end of Generation II, cards (including the ''Expedition'', ''Aquapolis'', and ''Skyridge'' sets) had dot codes that allowed minigames to be played on the Game Boy Advance e-Reader peripheral, as well as giving card game strategies. After that, while dot codes remained on the cards until the ''EX Team Magma vs. Team Aqua'' set, they consisted only of Pokédex information rather than including minigames and strategy tips.
* MythologyGag: Though mainly based on the games, the cards sometimes take influence from the [[Anime/PokemonTheSeries anime]], such as an Erika card showing that she's involved with perfume making.
* NonStandardGameOver:
** The stadium card Lost World lets a player whose opponent has 6 Pokémon in the Lost Zone (like the discard pile, but impossible to get cards back from it) win the game on the spot.
** Slowbro from "Breakpoint"'s attack Walk-Off Homer automatically wins the game if you only have one prize card left to take.
** The three Unown cards from Lost Thunder all let their user instantly win if their (rather awkward) ability conditions are met. Unown DAMAGE has the condition of requiring a total of [[NumberOfTheBeast 66]] damage counters across all your Pokemon, Unown HAND has the condition of needing 35 cards (which is just over half your whole deck) in your hand at once, and Unown MISSING requires 12 Supporter cards to be in the Lost Zone.
** The Three Strikes attack from the Unbroken Bonds Slowbro causes the player to automatically lose the game if all three of its coin flips are tails.
* ObviousRulePatch:
** You're only allowed four of any card, but the exception is Basic Energy (Special Energy is still restricted). A deck that runs only four energy — unless it has some major other gimmick to make up for it — would be ridiculously slow and overly reliant on finding that energy.
** The XY expansion features Professor Sycamore, whose effects (discard your hand then draw 7) were functionally identical to Professor Juniper of the Black and White expansion. Keeping in line with the aforementioned "maximum four copies of a card in one deck" rule, decks aren't allowed to run Juniper and Sycamore at the same time.
*** Starting from Sword & Shield expansion, all professor cards with that effect are named "Professor's Research." Likewise, Lysandre of the Flashfire expansion[[note]]Switch the opponent's active Pokémon with one of their benched ones.[[/note]] was succeeded by "Boss's Orders" in future expansions.
** After the addition of {{Comeback Mechanic}}s involving having more prize cards than the opponent, penalty rewards in organised play were changed from picking up prize cards to only needing to take less prize cards than normal to win the game.
** To prevent players from auto-losing due to failing to draw any basic Pokémon in their opening hand, they are permitted to "mulligan" — reveal their hand, shuffle it into their deck, and draw a new one. As a penalty, the opponent is allowed to draw a card for each mulligan. That "allowed" is very important — the original mulligan rule ''required'' the opponent to draw two cards, which led to the Mewtwo Mulligan deck: 59 Psychic Energy and one Mewtwo, mulligan repeatedly hoping your opponent decks out before the game even starts, and if that fails, spam Barrier to stall them the rest of the way.
** When a Pokémon's attacks have an effect applied onto itself, it used to refer to that Pokémon by name. It was eventually changed to the phrase "this Pokémon" due to issues with Pokémon with PowerCopying skills, as players were confused if that effect should apply to the Pokémon that copied the power, as should be logical; or the original owner of the attack, in a case of ExactWords.
** Some cards are banned, due to either balance issues or other obvious reasons:
*** "_____'s Pikachu" (more commonly known as "Birthday Pikachu") cards are banned due to them having an attack which is more effective on the player's birthday. Of course, nobody wants to have to go through the issue of having to verify whether or not it's someone's birthday for tournament legality.
*** "Ancient Mew" is banned due to the card being written in Runic (and even if the card is deciphered, the card is all but unviable anyway).
*** Jumbo Cards are banned due to their sheer size, being easily-identifiable within a deck of normal cards. That said, a deck consisting ''entirely'' of jumbo cards was allowed, and one 2022 player brought an entirely-jumbo deck into a tournament.
*** Most Imakuni? cards are straight up banned due to their outlandish nature; Imakuni?'s Whismur, for example, prevents the players from speaking when its on the field, and Imakuni?'s PC has an "effect" that's just a weird anecdone about him. Most of the cards straight up tell you that they're banned.
*** In the ''Phantom Forces'' expansion, there was a card called "Lysandre's Trump Card" which has each player shuffle every card in their discard pile except for the "Lysandre's Trump Card" back into their deck. In June 2015, due to this card being ruled to create an unbalanced playing environment, this card ended up being banned.
* OneHitKO: Some Pokémon like [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Yveltal_(Shining_Fates_46) Shining Fates Yveltal]] have attacks that knock out the opponent's Pokémon if they're able to connect, regardless of how much HP it has, but require big energy costs and/or specific requirements like coin flips.
* PinballScoring: All Pokémon have HP that is a multiple of 10, and damage is always done in multiples of 10 as well, making the extra 0 at the end of damage or HP totals effectively irrelevant.
* PinkGirlBlueBoy: The Beginning set for the Japanese ''Black and White'' expansion is split into a "boys" set and a "girls" set. The boy set is black and contains cool-looking Pokémon; the girl set is bright pink and contains cute-looking Pokémon. Obviously, though, there's nothing stopping you from buying a set of the opposite gender.
* {{Portmanteau}}: Approximately three quarters of all competitive deck themes are the names of the central Pokémon of the deck put together. The remaining quarter either involve too many important Pokémon to avoid a confusing portmanteau or becomes associated with something among tournament players before a portmanteau name is formed.
* PowerCreep:
** The bar is raised with each generation. It's gotten to the point where the best decks when the TCG started some 15 years ago (like Haymaker, for example) would be absolutely unplayable against ANY legal deck today that has seen any play. A good comparison would be [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Sneasel_(Celestial_Storm_86) [=7th=]-gen Celestial Storm Sneasel]] to its original [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Sneasel_(Neo_Genesis_25) [=2nd=]-gen Neo Genesis version]]; the original Neo Genesis version was incredibly strong since it needed only two energy to deal an average of 90 damage in a time when 150 HP was a lot, but the Celestial Storm version — which is a very slightly nerfed version of the Neo Genesis one — didn't make nearly as much of a splash, since 90 damage was to be expected of a heavy hitter that ''didn't'' rely on RNG, and was only really good for evolving into stronger cards.
** Trainer cards initially ''inverted'' this, as Trainer cards from the first few sets were so incredibly powerful that you could dig through half your deck in a single turn and freely switch your opponent's Pokémon around, leading to incredibly restrictive rules on the number of Trainer cards allowed in decks and the introduction of Supporter cards in the Expedition base set, of which only one could be played in a turn, as well as a massive downswing in the effective power of Trainer cards. In more recent years, Trainer cards have slowly crept back up in power; while never ''quite'' reaching the same levels of power that the original Base Set did[[labelnote:*]]Many Base Set cards had effects reprinted in a more limited format, such as 'Bill' having the same 'Draw 2 cards' as the Supporters Cheren, Tierno, and Hau, Professor Oak sharing effects with Supporters Professor Sycamore and Professor Juniper, Gust of Wind's effect going to Supporter Lysandre, and Computer Search being reprinted as an Ace Spec (you may have a single Ace Spec card in your deck — not one copy of, one ''Ace Spec card'') with the same name[[/labelnote]] but often improving in other ways from the ''Expedition Base Set'' onward; such as cards with a near-identical effect simply being more effective[[labelnote:*]][=HeartGold & SoulSilver's=] Moomoo Milk card heals 10 more damage per heads than the otherwise-identical Neo Genesis Moo Moo-Milk, [=BREAKthrough=]'s Brigitte being better than the Holon Mentor card, Professor Kukui outclassing Buck's Training, etc.[[/labelnote]], having effects previously on Supporter cards become Item cards[[labelnote:*]]Professor Elm's Training Method compared to Timer Ball, Pokémon Nurse, and Max Potion[[/labelnote]] or ''both'' [[labelnote:*]]XY's Evosoda is a strictly superior version of the Wally's Training Supporter card[[/labelnote]].
* PromotedToPlayable: Eternatus's [[OneWingedAngel Eternamax forme]] is uncatchable in ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'', but [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Eternatus_VMAX_(Darkness_Ablaze_117) appears as a Pokémon VMAX]] in the card game.
* PromotionalPowerlessPieceOfGarbage:
** ''_____'s Pikachu'', where you are supposed to write in your name and birthday, and if it's your birthday, then you can flip a coin to potentially do more damage. Banned pretty much from the start to avoid complications such as actually having to verify the birthdate is correct. In actuality, this card was only a non-playable promotional piece back in Japan. The most common theory is that they simply didn't catch on when bringing it overseas and hastily banned it to fix the mistake.
** ''Ancient Mew'', which came with movie tickets to ''[[Anime/Pokemon2000 Pokémon: The Movie 2000]]'', doesn't even look like a proper Pokémon card on the front or back (and once deciphered, has rather poor stats, anyways), and thus can't be used.
** Some of the promo cards you win in the game from the Cups, such as Farfetch'd and Mankey, have the EXACT SAME STATS as their alternate (and easier to get) cards. Only real difference is their art and level descriptions. Unless you're going for full completion, you really like the artwork, or you want a BraggingRightsReward, you should probably skip any Cups giving them as prizes.
** The promotional cards received by participating in pre-release tournaments are identical to the card in the set except for a shiny stamp reading "Pre-Release" indented into the lower-right corner of the illustration (or a shinier stamp reading "Staff", if you were one of the people helping run said tournament). In EX series sets and the most recent sets, the stamp is replaced with the set's logo.
** {{Averted}} with some of the ''Film/PokemonDetectivePikachu'' cards; Mewtwo, Charizard, and Greninja were mildly useful, and their GX versions are about on par with normal GX cards.
* RecurringElement: Certain Pokémon species and evolution lines have traits in common as more cards for them are released.
** Hoppip, Skiploom, and Jumpluff almost all run on just one Energy for their attacks and never more than two. In return, they have low damage output and low HP. Gossifleur and Eldegoss, being {{Spiritual Successor}}s to the Hoppip line, also have this trait.
** Unown will always have a Pokémon Power, Poké-Body, Poké-Power, or Ability that pertains to the letter(s) depicted in the illustration.
** Every Magikarp card has 30 HP except for [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Magikarp_%26_Wailord-GX_(SM_Promo_166) Magikarp & Wailord GX]] due to being accompanied by a high-HP Pokémon.
** Consequently, Wailmer and Wailord will always have very high HP and expensive attacks, requiring three Energy to even start attacking and asking for 8 or more to bring them to their fullest potential, but these attacks have immense power. In a way, this makes Wailord a {{Foil}} to Jumpluff and Eldegoss.
** Most Blastoise released from "Platinum" and onwards either has the capacity to move large quantities of Water Energy around or has a different form that has that capacity,[[note]]For instance, Blastoise V does not have Water Energy manipulation, but it can upgrade to Blastoise V-Max, which does[[/note]] a call-back to Base Set Blastoise's Rain Dance.
** Most of Delcatty's cards are based around Energy cards in some fashion, such as recycling, searching or moving Energy cards around, giving it a defining niche that its video game incarnation lacks.
** Early Exploud cards tended to have much more text on the card than usual, either through having a large amount of different attacks and/or abilities (with the Exploud from [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Exploud_(EX_Hidden_Legends_6) EX Hidden Legends]] and [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Exploud_(EX_Emerald_3) EX Emerald]] both having ''four'' attacks), or attacks with a large amount of rules text, such as [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Exploud_(Great_Encounters_17) Great Encounters Exploud]]. Later on, it lost this trait, with Exploud cards printed from Plasma Storm onwards having about the same amount of text as other cards.
* {{Retraux}}:
** Along with the reprints of Base Set, ''Evolutions'' also includes brand new cards that are [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pidgeot_Spirit_Link_(Evolutions_81) deliberately]] [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Venusaur_Spirit_Link_(Evolutions_89) designed]] [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Charizard_Spirit_Link_(Evolutions_75) after]] [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Slowbro_Spirit_Link_(Evolutions_86) Base Set's]] [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Fairy_Energy_(TCG)#Gallery art]] [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Metal_Energy_(Basic)#Gallery style]].
** [[http://web.archive.org/web/20161031233247/http://xy12.pokemontcgxy.com/en-us/home.php The official page]] for the set was deliberately designed to resemble 90s webpage design, down to an UsefulNotes/{{Amiga}} style song playing in the background and unfinished "Under Construction" subsections and the ability to watch ''Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie''.
** There are several cards that are redesigns of old cards featuring newer art.
** ''Celebrations'' goes several steps beyond ''Evolutions'', featuring cards not only stylized after Base Set, but also various other out-of-print sets.
* RockPaperScissors:
** The Trainer cards "Misty's Duel" and "Team Galactic's Wager" make the players do this. [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-Zagged]] on Misty's Duel, where players have the option to flip coins in case of the very unlikely chance the opponent "''[[DevelopersForesight does not know how to play Rock-Paper-Scissors]]''".
** A [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Xatu_(Legendary_Treasures_56) Xatu]] card from the Legendary Treasures set has an attack involving this.
* RuleOfCool: One card — ''Flashfire'' Mega Charizard X — seems to have been designed with this in mind, as it's a Dragon-type version of BreakoutCharacter Charizard with one of the strongest attacks in the game, to the point of being AwesomeButImpractical. Mega Charizard Y, Charizard-GX, and the Dragon-type Mega Rayquaza aren't too far off, having equally damaging attacks but lacking the whole "fan-requested typing" vibe.
* RunningGag: A recurring trend with Cleffa cards is that they all have only one attack named "Eek", with various amounts of "E"s.
* TheScreamParody: The TCG once did a collaboration with the Tokyo Art Museum to create an exhibition of cards that were inspired by the painting. Characters exhibiting the Scream included Psyduck, Eevee, Mimikyu, Pikachu, and Rowlet, whilst the other backgrounders in the painting are replaced by Pokémon (such as the Gastly family and Mimikyu) as well.
* SelfDamagingAttackBackfire: Many cards require coin flips, and you sometimes get a negative effect on a tails. An example is Platinum Vigoroth's Reckless Charge, which inflicts 10 recoil damage on a failure (though the enemy still takes 30 damage).
* SeriousBusiness: Valid in the real world with tournaments, but taken to near-Anime/YuGiOh levels of extremes in the video game adaptations.
* ShoutOut: The former online simulator let you give [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Aerith]]'s hairstyle to female avatars.
* SpotlightStealingSquad: Charizard, Mewtwo, Gardevoir, Rayquaza, and Darkrai have been noted to receive an inordinate amount of high-rarity cards. For starters, all of them boast 2-5 different Pokémon-EX cards and two Mega Evolution cards if applicable, each with several prints, and all of them received Pokémon-GX cards as well. Darkrai also received a Prism Star card treatment.
* StatusEffects: Akin to the games, Pokémon can be put to sleep, confused, paralyzed, poisoned, or burned. Unlike the games, status effects can be cured when the afflicted Pokémon retreats or moves to the bench by a card effect, and the specific effects are changed. The [[OneCurseLimit one-status limit]] has also been loosened (Sleep, Paralysis, and Confusion are mutually exclusive, but no others), so you can stack several of these on a single Pokémon if you can set it up.
** Sleep: The Pokémon can't act or retreat. Between turns, you flip a coin, and if it lands on heads, the Pokémon wakes up.
** Confusion: When the Pokémon attacks, flip a coin. If it lands on tails, the Pokémon deals 30 damage to itself instead of attacking.
** Paralysis: The Pokémon can't attack or retreat for one turn.
** Poison: Deals 10 damage to the afflicted Pokémon between turns.
** Burn: Deals 20 damage to the afflicted Pokémon between turns and forces a coin flip afterwards; if the coin lands on heads, the burn is healed.
* StoneWall: [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Chansey_(Base_Set_3) Base Set Chansey]] has 120 HP, a very large amount for a Basic Pokémon [[PowerCreep at the time.]] However, its only means of dealing damage is the AwesomeButImpractical Double-Edge — which, while powerful, requires 4 energy to use and [[CastFromHitPoints deals 80 damage to both Chansey and its opponent.]] Instead, Chansey is used to soak up damage with its damage-negating Scrunch attack, or in conjunction with [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Alakazam_(Base_Set_1) Alakazam's]] Damage Swap power and [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Scoop_Up_(Base_Set_78) Scoop Up]] to continuously move damage over to it and heal your other Pokémon.
* SymmetricEffect:
** Stadium cards tend to affect both players. However, quite a few of them only do anything for certain decks, or only shut down specific cards.
** [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/N_(Noble_Victories_92) N]] has both players shuffle their hands into their decks, then draw a card for each prize card they have yet to claim.
* TakesOneToKillOne: Psychic-type Pokémon not based on Ghost-types used to be weak to other Psychic types in the card game. This is because Pokémon that are normally Poison[[note]]from Diamond/Pearl until Sword/Shield, at least[[/note]], Psychic, and Ghost type are all classified under Psychic type, and those three types are all weak against each other.[[note]]Poison is weak to Psychic, Psychic to Ghost, and Ghost to itself.[[/note]]
* TechnicolorMagic: The Psychic type is represented by the color purple.
* UniquenessRule:
** The AwesomeButImpractical Shining Pokémon, as well as their successors Pokémon Star, could only be used at one copy per deck.
** Prism Star cards are powerful cards with the restriction that you can only have one of each Prism Star card in your deck, and if it would normally go into the discard pile, it goes into the Lost Zone instead, ensuring that you won't get to use it again. They also come with the risk of your sole copy ending up among your Prize Cards, which makes accessing it awkward at best.
** Ace Spec cards are so powerful that you can only have a single copy of one of them in your deck. You have to both pick a card carefully and use it wisely.
** GX attacks are powerful attacks with the special rule that you can only use one of them in a game, so you have to make it count. VSTAR Powers have a similar restriction.
** There can only be one Stadium card in play at a time. An existing Stadium card is discarded when a new one comes into play.
** Players can only play one Supporter card per turn. This rule was introduced to {{Nerf}} powerful Trainer cards by keeping players from playing multiple powerful ones per turn.
* UselessItem: Named [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Orphaned_card "orphaned cards"]] by the fandom, they're cards that were intended to have some sort of useful effect, but due to bans or changes to the game's ruleset, they end up being unplayable or completely useless. For example, the [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/First_Ticket_(Dragon_Vault_19) First Ticket]] lets you [[ActionInitiative skip the opening coin flip to always go first if you have it in your opening hand...]] but a later rule change caused the coin flip to happen ''before'' the players draw their cards, so the card no longer has an opportunity to take effect. In most cases though, these cards can still be used just fine in casual games if the players don't care about the official set rotations.
* VanillaUnit:
** Most attacks have some sort of secondary effect, or at least something like conditional extra damage, but there are also a few simple ones that just deal a flat sum of damage. Some Pokémon even have no abilities other than vanilla attacks.
** Basic energy cards are the vanillas of energy cards. They provide one energy of one type, and have no further bonuses or drawbacks. In contrast, Special Energy cards tend to have drawbacks like restrictions on what you can attach them to, or additional costs to attach them. There are also Special Energy cards that provide utility (e.g. drawing you a card) at the cost of only providing colorless energy.
* VictoryByEndurance: Stonewalling the opponent until they run out of cards causes them to lose the match. See also WinsByDoingAbsolutelyNothing.
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** Flail, Destiny Bond, Rain Dance, and Nightmare started out in the TCG before appearing in the second generation. However, TCG Nightmare is only similar in an "affects sleeping targets only" clause with game Nightmare.

** Early Exploud cards tended to have either a large amount of different attacks and/or abilities (with the Exploud from [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Exploud_(EX_Hidden_Legends_6) EX Hidden Legends]] and [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Exploud_(EX_Emerald_3) EX Emerald]] both having ''four'' attacks), or attacks with a large amount of rules text, such as [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Exploud_(Great_Encounters_17) Great Encounters Exploud]]. Later on, it lost this trait, with Exploud cards printed from Plasma Storm onwards having fewer attacks.

* EyeDentityGiveaway: One of the expansions includes cards of Ditto mimicking various Pokémon. They all have in common Ditto's wide mouth and dotty eyes.

* BeatThemAtTheirOwnElement: Many older Psychic Pokemon have Psychic as a type weakness. As a result, whichever Active Pokemon gets Knocked Out first essentially boils down to who manages to do more damage with their attacks.

* BackbenchhittingAttack: Some moves are able to deal damage to Pokemon that are on the Bench, which sometimes affect multiple Pokemon at once. Dealing damage to a Pokemon on the Bench that exceeds its max HP causes them to be Knocked Out and allows the Attacking Pokemon's player to take 1-3 Prize cards the same way Knocking Out an Active Pokemon would.

* ComebackMechanic:
** Most of the Pokémon-star cards had one attack that had pitiful strength but became overwhelming if the player is about to lose the game. Same with the additional attacks granted by the Mystery Plates in "Skyridge." A few attacks that have popped up here and there deal more damage the more Prize cards the opponent has taken, most notably Shaymin EX from "Next Destinies."
** The N supporter card makes both players shuffle their hands into their deck and draw cards for each prize card they have remaining. Being on the verge of victory just before being N-ed down to 1 card is crippling and can cost the game. The Reset Stamp item does the same thing, but only applies its effects to your opponent.
** A distinct type of cards[[note]]Counter Energy, Counter Catcher, Counter Gain, etc.[[/note]] will only function if your opponent has less prize cards than you; i.e., they're closer to winning.
** The Ultra Beast cards, introduced in Crimson Invasion, have at least one attack or ability that revolve around the remaining prize cards in play.

*** Starting from ''Sword & Shield'', all professor cards with that effect are named "Professor's Research" with the depicted professor's name being written on the top-right corner.
** Likewise, the "Boss's Orders" which allows the player to switch their opponent's Pokémon with another is also changed to depict various evil team leaders and has the name of the leader written on the top-right corner as well.
** Due to the activation conditions of certain cards, such as [[ComebackMechanic Counter Catcher and Counter Energy]], the penalty rules for organised play were changed; instead of picking up two (or four) prize cards when awarded a prize by a judge (thus allowing the offender to use Counter cards), you are given a 'prize slip' that means you only need to take two less prize cards (or four less, for particularly severe penalties) to win the game.

* JokeCharacter: Imakuni? is an incredibly weird guy. He has his own rap group to promote the series, specifically the card game, called Suzukisan, which consists of him, an enka singer named Sachiko Kobayashi, and an American guy named Raymond Johnson (who also had TheDanza as a minor character in TheMovie of the anime) who speaks English well. He also makes some joke cards and does illustrations for serious cards. He has a blog at imakuni.com. Whenever he shows up in the game itself, whether it's on a promotional card or as an opponent in the video games, you can count on him to be useless at best and actively harmful to his own player at worst.