Tell me about Pokemon cards

[birdmom]

DS came home from school yesterday and asked me if he could get some Pokemon cards.  Apparently he played them in after school care with a few kids.  I know they've been around for a while, but it was just never my thing.  Can someone please school me on them?

[readyin07]

Good luck lol. Ds has them and I don't think even he gets it!

[SpartanGirl]

DS loves them. Mostly he and his friends just put them in a binder and trade their duplicate cards, but occasionally they attempt to play the game. We bought DS a trainer set like this which walks you through how to play step by step: www.amazon.com/Pokemon-TCG-Kit-Pikachu-Learn---play/dp/B01AAUSDVM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1471628558&sr=8-1&keywords=pokemon+trainer

[jinkies]

Aug 19, 2016 12:41:58 GMT -5 readyin07 said:

Good luck lol. Ds has them and I don't think even he gets it!

Same. My kid and his friend developed their own game (which I don't understand) but the "real" way to play is pretty intensely complicated.

They mostly like to collect and compare the cards. The cards are cheap and are good "currency" if I need to bribe my kid to do something.

[definitelyO]

DS had them for a few years and like SpartanGirl, had them in a binder and would trade with friends.

I will say that when he tried to play pokemon -(or tried to explain it to me) it was kind of like war... Their HP (health points) at the top tells which one is stronger and then you can do a "move" that's listed on the bottom of the card. I know it's much more complicated than that - but that's what DS and I did when he was about 6 or 7.... If your card has more HP then you "win" - but honestly I have NO idea if that's the real way to play or not.

[readyin07]

Aug 19, 2016 12:45:13 GMT -5 jinkies said:

Aug 19, 2016 12:41:58 GMT -5 readyin07 said:

Good luck lol. Ds has them and I don't think even he gets it!

Same. My kid and his friend developed their own game (which I don't understand) but the "real" way to play is pretty intensely complicated.

They mostly like to collect and compare the cards. The cards are cheap and are good "currency" if I need to bribe my kid to do something.

Over the summer DS was like play Pokemon with me. Which somehow involves one of us winning a card (usually him) by some metric I fail to understand that he has entirely made up. I sat down and was like let's try to actually play, looked at the rules, was like WTF and said let's go swimming lol.

One of my fellow PTA moms has older kids that play in Pokemon tournaments. I should pay them to teach me!

[cjcouple]

I would just start with one of those $15-20 kits. Get a binder or storage hit.

The game definitely has something to do with a cards damage and health. I don't get it myself. Haha

[jeaniebueller]

My DS has them and loves them, but I know very little about them. It keeps him busy, so I don't ask questions.

[lindyanne]

They can get (really) expensive. You can get a set of cards on Amazon pretty cheap (I think I paid around $11 for 120) but it won't have any of the special ones in it.

[mel]

I have no idea. All I know is DS lost an EX card of some character and completely lost his shit over it. He still mutters "I wish I still had the xxx EX card because he was cool" as he flips through his binder of 100s of other mediocre cards.

[stephm0188]

They're popular and my kid plays with friends, but I won't let him take them to school. They cause a lot of drama there.

[devonpow]

DS1 loves them and they have been huge at summer camp this year...but I don't think he really gets how to play lol - it makes zero sense to me. A friend watched a bunch of YouTube videos on it and figured out the rules, but I'm not wiling to put that much effort it.

[lilybug]

Declan is 6 and he while he has probably over 150 cards, he has no idea how to play the game. And I have zero interest in trying to understand and teach him. He likes to just dig through the shoebox of cards and look at them.

He snuck some to school last year and was trying to trade with people but it was causing problems. I had to start checking his backpack every morning.

[hocus2]

The cards can be assembled in to decks. Then 2 or more players can play against each other. The way in which they play has to has to do with the powers on the card.

[lilmissladybug]

UGH I hate those things. DS tried to trade a couple cards for a neighbor kids razor scooter. I had to explain to him that while it sounds like a good idea to him, it wasn't a fair trade and to only stick to trading the cards not other items for cards.

[Deleted]

Aug 19, 2016 12:43:11 GMT -5 chilerellanos said:

@supergreen maybe?

Thanks for the tag chilerellanos! While I'm LOVING Pokemon Go, and loved the classic Gameboy games back in the day, I never played the trading card game. Sorry!

[TrickyBob]

I love the card game and have put my own deck together. Lol.

You can play the actual card game online as well, if you need help figuring out how to actually play. Tcg online.

For a kid, it is easy. The cards are fairly cheap, they have fun opening the packs, and each pack includes code cards to use for the online game as well.

[nsl]

My 5 year old is obsessed with the card game. He sat me down last week and tried to teach me, and ... ?

Maybe he's playing it wrong, but it made no sense at all. There's some addition and subtraction involved, which makes sense, but beyond that I was totally lost. He and DS 1 are playing pretty much constantly, though, which I guess is helping them both with summer math loss?

[darkling_glory]

It's like Magic the Gathering if you remember that game.

Each person puts together a deck. There are rules on how many of each type of card can go in the deck as well as how many cards total.

Then you battle the other person, deck vs deck. It's actually a great game for learning strategy, reading, math, etc... The cards each have an ability and a point total. You can use the ability to fight against the other player.

If you want to play in officially sanctioned tournaments there are lots more rules, but casual play is just that, casual.

YouTube is a great place to learn.

[boxertdog]

Aug 19, 2016 12:41:58 GMT -5 readyin07 said:

Good luck lol. Ds has them and I don't think even he gets it!

This. My 6 year old has them and he just reads them and looks at them. Makes it easy to buy them, he doesn't know whether they are the good ones or anything.