This article was produced in collaboration with our partners Pokémon Organized Play.

The Pokémon Trading Card Game is one of the friendliest tabletop games to start playing, thanks to a simple turn structure and a set of rules that haven’t changed much over the years. That being said, there’s still quite a bit of nuance to the game, and if you’re new to the game, there are some key rules and actions you need to be aware of to prevent making mistakes in real game situations.

These are mistakes that are easily made if you’re not familiar with the game, and while your opponents will be sure to kindly flag any mistakes, it's best to go into each game with that little bit of awareness to have things go as smoothly as possible.

One of the big rules that new players forget is that once combat has taken place, your turn is over. More often than not, you’re going to want to slowly move through your turns to make sure you aren’t making any misplays, but in the heat of battle, it can be tempting to try and jump on an opportunity to knock out one of your opponent's Pokémon and move to combat too quickly.

Once you attack with your active Pokémon, you are surrendering the remainder of your turn, and you cannot undertake any additional actions such as attaching an energy or playing an item or Trainer card.

An easy way to avoid making this mistake is just to view your attack as the final flourish at the end of your turn.

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