Prize cards in the Pokémon TCG: how many, how you take them, and the prize trade

Each player starts the game with 6 Prize cards, set aside face down from the top of their deck during setup, and the first player to take all 6 wins. You take 1 Prize card when you Knock Out a regular Pokémon, 2 when you Knock Out a Pokémon ex, and 3 when you Knock Out a Mega Evolution Pokémon ex.

So the Prizes you need and the Knock Outs you need are rarely the same number: 6 Prizes can take 6 Knock Outs, or 2. Competitive players count that difference early, and call it the prize trade. If you're new to the game, how to play the Pokémon TCG covers the whole turn first.

What are Prize cards?

Prize cards are the 6 cards each player places face down, without looking at them, after drawing an opening hand and putting their Basic Pokémon (Pokémon that don't evolve from anything) into play. Each time you Knock Out one of your opponent's Pokémon, you take Prize cards into your hand, where they're ordinary cards you can play.

A Pokémon is Knocked Out when the damage on it equals or exceeds its HP. Its owner discards it with every card attached, then moves a Pokémon from the Bench (up to 5 waiting Pokémon) into the Active Spot. The Active Pokémon is the one that attacks, and usually the one being attacked.

Any card can end up in your Prize cards. If your only copy does, you can't use it until you take that Prize. Play Hands in DeckSequence works this out for your own list: when you ask for the odds of a specific opening hand, it also shows how likely one of those cards is to be prized if you miss it.

How many Prize cards does each Pokémon give up?

It depends on the kind of Pokémon you Knock Out:

Pokémon Knocked Out	Prize cards you take
A regular Pokémon (Basic, Stage 1 or Stage 2)	1
A Pokémon ex, including Tera Pokémon ex	2
A Mega Evolution Pokémon ex	3

Mega Evolution Pokémon ex count as Pokémon ex for anything a card says about Pokémon ex, but they give up 3 Prizes, not 2. A Mega can be a Basic, a Stage 1 or a Stage 2: Mega Kangaskhan ex is a Basic, and Mega Lucario ex evolves straight from Riolu.

How do you win with Prize cards?

You win the moment you take your last Prize card. You also win if your opponent has no Benched Pokémon to move into the Active Spot after a Knock Out, or has no cards to draw at the start of their turn, even with Prizes still left.

If both players meet a win condition at the same moment, they play a tiebreaker game with a normal setup, and the first player to take a Prize card wins. The exception: if you win two ways at once and your opponent wins one, you win.

What is the prize trade?

The prize trade is how many Knock Outs you need to take 6 Prizes, compared with how many your opponent needs. Against single-Prize Pokémon you need 6. Against Mega Evolution Pokémon ex you need 2. Most matchups sit in between.

A worked prize trade: Mega Lucario ex against Hariyama

Take two Fighting decks from the current Mega Evolution sets. One attacks with Mega Lucario ex (340 HP): Mega Brave does 270 damage but can't be used again on your next turn, and Aura Jab does 130. The other attacks with Hariyama, a single-Prize Stage 1 with 150 HP whose Wild Press does 210 damage and 70 to itself. Both are weak to Psychic, so Weakness doesn't come into it.

The Hariyama player needs 2 Knock Outs, since each Mega Lucario ex is worth 3 Prizes. One Wild Press leaves Mega Lucario ex with 130 HP (340 − 210) and the second finishes it, so that's 4 attacks for all 6 Prizes.

The Mega Lucario ex player needs 6 Knock Outs, one per Hariyama. Mega Brave Knocks Out a Hariyama in one attack (270 against 150 HP). On the turns Mega Brave is locked, Aura Jab's 130 still Knocks Out any Hariyama that has used Wild Press, since its own 70 left it at 80 HP. That's 6 attacks for all 6 Prizes.

	Hariyama deck	Mega Lucario ex deck
Prizes per Knock Out it takes	3	1
Knock Outs for 6 Prizes	2	6
Attacks for 6 Prizes	4	6

Mega Lucario ex Knocks Out a Hariyama every turn and still needs two more attacks than its opponent. The counts ignore healing and extra damage from other cards.

The Mega Lucario ex player's way back is to change the count. If the Hariyama deck runs a Pokémon ex such as Fezandipiti ex (210 HP, weak to Fighting) and it ever sits in the Active Spot, even Aura Jab Knocks it Out: 130 doubled for Weakness is 260. That's 2 Prizes from one attack, and 6 Knock Outs become 5. Late in the game, single-Prize Pokémon like Riolu in the Active Spot can stretch the opponent's last 3 Prizes from one Knock Out to three. That only holds while no Mega Lucario ex sits on the Bench: Hariyama's Heave-Ho Catcher Ability, on the turn it evolves from Makuhita, can pull a Benched Mega Lucario ex into the Active Spot. The Hariyama player does the opposite and benches no 2-Prize Pokémon it can do without.

How do you get better at counting Prizes?

Count both sides at the start of every game: the Knock Outs you need off your opponent's board, and the ones they need off yours. Count again whenever a Pokémon ex or a Mega comes into play.

Then check the counts against your own matches. Every match logged in DeckSequence carries the Prizes each player had left at the end, and a PTCG Live battle log pasted with it becomes a turn-by-turn replay, where the Knock Out that put you behind is easy to find. Log a PTCG Live match walks through it. Create a DeckSequence account and log your next few matches with the Prizes in.

Next in this series: Special Conditions and what each one does during Pokémon Checkup.