Pokémon TCG Pocket Battles

Once you have collected the cards, in addition to displaying them and sharing your displays with your friends, you can participate in some battling. These battles run similar to the main Pokémon TCG but there are some considerable differences in how they run, as the battles here are designed for mobile devices.

If you do not have enough cards for a deck, you can use Rental Decks obtained through missions, but you can't keep the cards.

You can play these battles solo against the computer, or locally and online versus friends. There is no ranked battle system.

The decks in Pokémon TCG Pocket comprise of 20 cards, a third of the size of standard decks in the Pokémon TCG. There are other limits to the decks you can build as well. First, no Energy cards are included, instead it is just made up of Pokémon and Trainer cards

In a change to the main Pokémon TCG as well, rather than allowing for 4 cards with the same name in your deck, the limit here is 2. However, like the main Pokémon TCG, this does count certain cards separately so you can have a deck with 2 Pikachu and 2 Pikachu ex but not one with 3 Pikachu and 2 Pikachu ex.

Battles run a bit differently here compared to normal as well. The most notable difference is the lack of Energy cards. Instead, you have an Energy Zone where Energy is automatically generated once per turn. If an Energy is in the Energy Zone, you can attach it to a Pokémon and it will replenish next turn. If an Energy is not used and is in the Energy Zone during Pokémon Checkup (the time between turns), a new Energy won't be generated. If Energy get discarded through use of an attack, retreat cost, or a Trainer card, it is gone forever. Cards can accelerate energy through the effects of attacks, abilities and Trainer cards.

Next, rather than having Prize Cards, the battles have a point system based on the knock outs you achive. The first player to hit 3 points wins the match.

Finally, the ability to search your deck is not in the game. For cards which would normally have the effect, such as the Poké Ball trainer card, it instead pulls a random card out of your deck, or the effects are changed entirely.