Question about Basic Pokemon Card Gameplay

[Fuzzyfonzo]

Hi everyone,

I am getting back into playing and collecting Pokemon cards after about a 10 year break. I was recently battling a friend who mentioned that you can ONLY play a BASIC Pokemon the FIRST turn you have it. If you don't play it as soon as you draw the card you CANNOT use it again unless you either reshuffle your hand into your deck via trainer card/ ability, or retrieve it out of the discard pile using the same means. I do not remember a rule like that when I used to play. After reading through the entire rule book and looking on-line I have found nothing stating such rule. Anyway, I just wanted to see if anyone knows anything about this rule or if it is even true. Any information on the topic either way would be every helpful as I would like to be able to enter tournaments and play publicly as soon as the world opens back up. Thank you all in advance!

 

[donavannj]

Hi everyone,

I am getting back into playing and collecting Pokemon cards after about a 10 year break. I was recently battling a friend who mentioned that you can ONLY play a BASIC Pokemon the FIRST turn you have it. If you don't play it as soon as you draw the card you CANNOT use it again unless you either reshuffle your hand into your deck via trainer card/ ability, or retrieve it out of the discard pile using the same means. I do not remember a rule like that when I used to play. After reading through the entire rule book and looking on-line I have found nothing stating such rule. Anyway, I just wanted to see if anyone knows anything about this rule or if it is even true. Any information on the topic either way would be every helpful as I would like to be able to enter tournaments and play publicly as soon as the world opens back up. Thank you all in advance!

Your friend is mistaken. I think they misunderstood something they were told, which was probably the rule that you cannot evolve a Pokemon the first turn it is in play (with only a handful of cards and abilities giving exceptions to this rule).

You can play a Basic on whichever of your turns you like as long as there is room on your bench and a card in play does not have an active effect that would block you from doing so.

A rule about only being able to play Basics the turn you draw them would be impossible to enforce, anyway, as both players hands are not an area of public knowledge.

 

[Fuzzyfonzo]

That answer makes so much sense and has cleared a lot up for me. tThank you for your answer and insight!