League events are usually casual get-togethers held in a local game store and they're open to players of all skill levels, so it's a great place to learn more about the game and get some practice in. If you want to find out where your nearest Pokemon League events take place, the Pokemon Store Finder is the best place to start. One of the best ways to get started with Pokemon TCG is to pick up a starter deck and head down to your local Pokemon League. Players can build decks with cards from the most recently released sets in the game's standard format while cards from decades gone by can be used in the expanded format. Cards are occasionally banned from being legal to play due to how powerful they are or how they interact with newer cards that get released, but it rarely happens. Trainer cards are used to help players advance their chosen strategy while energy cards power up their Pokemon's attacks. Using a deck of 60 cards, both players send their Pokemon into battle and each time they knock out an opponent's Pokemon, they earn a prize card - the first player to earn six prize cards wins the game.

The game is based on the Pokemon anime series and sees two players battling it out to become a Pokemon master. The Pokemon TCG launched way back in 1996 and since then, more than 30 billion cards have been sold in more than 75 different countries. That makes it one of the best-selling games in history, and an annual world championship prize pool of more than $500,000 also makes it one of the most hotly contested!

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