noob question

[muppetman]

hi all
i'm very new to pokemon and i have a little question about the card game.
I was playing my friend the other day (i dont think he knows how to play it) and he had X4 of the same basic pokemon, now he had one card as his active pokemon and another two on his bench.

This did not look right to me, my thinking is the pokemon are individual and the only reason you put x4 in your deck is to make them easy to catch?

my friend tells me this is fine and i had to take his word for it, could some kind soul please clear this up for me?
thanks

 

[spastman]

What your friend say is right, you can play maximum 4 times the same pokemon in a deck. Also, you may have more than 1 of the same card in play.

 

[Rocket_Executive]

That's right, you may have as many of the same pokemon in play as you want, as long as you limit yourself to up to 4 of the same card in your deck. That means only 4 Combee in your whole deck, for example, even if they are all from different sets, because they all share the same name of "Combee". You can have all the Combees in play at the same time if you want, meaning some or all on your bench or one active, as long as there aren't more than 4 in your entire deck. This rule applies to every card out there, except basic energy's, of which you can have as many as you want in your deck.

 

[spastman]

This rule applies to every card out there, except basic energy's, of which you can have as many as you want in your deck.

It count also for arceus, but that's writhen on the cards.