Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Sleep
• Setting Up
• Sudden Death
• Retreating While Confused
• Evolving Under Effects
• KO Checks
• Energy Retrieval & Super Energy Retrieval
• PlusPower
• Mulligans
• Attacking Under Confusion
• Drawing Playing First
• Brock’s Ninetales
• Playing with the Original Rules
• Pre-Errata Decks
• Magneton/Mr. Mime/Electrode
• Wigglytuff/Scyther
• Brock’s Ninetales/Blastoise/Charizard
• Brock’s Ninetales/Haunter/Dark Vileplume
• Closing Thoughts

Introduction

The rules of today’s Pokémon TCG differ in many ways from the original rules that arrived with the game in the US in 1999. Back then, different rules existed for Confusion, for retreating, and for mulligans, just to name a few. But what if I told you that the original rules as we’ve come to know them weren’t really the game’s the original rules?

And it’s true. The game’s actual original rules underwent a series of changes in Japan before the game made its way overseas. In fact, the plans for the game to be released internationally was one of the driving forces behind Creatures (the company that designed the game in Japan) making some of these changes. And it wasn’t just rules that changed; some cards were changed as well!

In total, Creatures would change nine different rules and four different cards before the game’s US debut. While I provide a date that each of these rules was amended to what became the international rules, it’s important to point out these dates are often a murky area. Most of these rule changes were first tried experimentally in tournaments before they were made official. When they were changed, announcements would sometimes be made in magazines before the official rule books. To complicate things, rule books that debuted after these magazine announcements sometimes failed to contain the updated rule. Nonetheless, I did my best to produce the date that each of these changes appeared official in Japan.

Here are all of the original rules of the Pokémon TCG in Japan, in the order they were changed.

Sleep

(Amended November 30, 1996: Base Set Era in Japan)

The original Sleep condition was one of two rules amended barely a month after the game’s Japanese release. Under the original rules, a Pokémon that had stayed Asleep after two coin flips automatically woke up following the next turn. For example, no different than the rules of today, if Haunter used Hypnosis to place a Pokémon Asleep, that Pokémon would immediately get a chance to wake up. If the coin flip was Tails, it would try again to wake up again after it’s owner’s turn finished. However, if this second flip was also Tails, the sleeping Pokémon would automatically wake up at the place you’d usually perform the third Sleep flip.

The rule change to make Sleep stay on until the player flipped Heads, no matter how many turns had gone by, made Sleep slightly stronger since it allowed an unlucky player to have their Pokémon stay Asleep for several turns. However, it isn’t clear why this rule was changed with such a seeming sense of urgency.

Setting Up

(Amended November 30, 1996: Base Set Era in Japan)

Believe it or not, the original rules did not allow players to bench any Pokémon during setup! Each player would place an Active Pokémon face-down and the game would begin after the coin flip. Since there were no restrictions on attacking on the first turn, this inability to place a second Pokémon meant a lot more Turn 1 losses. Recognizing that no one enjoys losing before getting to play a single turn, this rule was quickly amended to allow players to bench one Pokémon during setup. It wasn’t until May 1999, in the middle of Japan’s Gym era, that the rule was again changed to allow players to bench up to 5 Pokémon during setup.

Sudden Death

(Amended November 21, 1997: Team Rocket Era in Japan)

No different than today, Sudden Death has always been used to determine a winner following a simultaneous win from both players. But under the original rules, instead of players starting a new 1-Prize game, the game would simply continue from that point until the next KO (or deck out). Even odder was a rule that if both players won at the same time, but either player had no Pokémon left in play, each player with no Pokémon would first be given a chance to place a Basic Pokémon from their hand into the Active spot, allowing the game to continue. In the event that neither player was left with a Pokémon in play, the player who was attacked would place theirs first. But if one player could produce a new Pokémon from their hand and the other couldn’t, the player that placed a Pokémon into play was declared the winner! Most interesting of all though is that if neither player could produce a replacement Pokémon, the game ended in a tie! This is the only time in the history of the Pokémon TCG that the possibility of a tie was mentioned in a rulebook.

It’s also worth mentioning that just like in 1999 all the way to today, a player who won in two ways compared to their opponent’s one would still be declared the winner. If you’re unfamiliar with this rule, it states that if you and your opponent each draw your final Prize card, but one player is also out of Pokémon, the player with Pokémon left in play is the winner. (The initial rules would not give a player the opportunity to play a replacement Pokémon from their hand in this spot since it wouldn’t be considered a simultaneous win.)

Retreating While Confused

(Amended November 21, 1997: Team Rocket Era in Japan)

While the Wizards era always had a coin flip requirement for retreating placed on Confused Pokémon (something that was lifted at EX Ruby & Sapphire), Japan’s original rules did not force the player to pay the retreat cost unless their attempt to retreat was successful. If the flip was Tails, no cost was paid, but the Pokémon was still limited to one attempt at escape per turn.

Evolving Under Effects

(Amended November 21, 1997: Team Rocket Era in Japan)

Until the Team Rocket set in Japan, all status effects remained on your Pokémon when you evolved or devolved it. (Just when you thought Devolution Spray couldn’t get any worse.)

KO Checks

(Amended November 21, 1997: Team Rocket Era in Japan)

One of the most trivial changes to the original rules relates to knockouts. Initially, knockouts from attacks weren’t processed until Pokémon Check, the in-between turns phase where flips for Sleep and also Poison damage took place. As an example, if your Active Pokémon had 10 HP left and was Poisoned, and you then attacked your opponent’s Active Pokémon to knock it out, both of these Pokémon would actually be knocked out at the same time (during Pokémon Check). This order of processing would rarely matter, but in some instances could create a Sudden Death scenario that wouldn’t have otherwise occurred.

The original rulebooks were clear to clarify, however, that KO checks did not happen only at Pokémon Check. They use a Gyarados with 30 damage as an example. If you used Devolution Spray to devolve Gyarados into Magikarp, you would not be able to Flail for 30 damage before Magikarp was knocked out. Instead, Magikarp would be knocked out immediately after playing Devolution Spray. After Team Rocket, rules were simplified to process all KOs immediately, not just ones like this.

Energy Retrieval & Super Energy Retrieval

(Amended June 1998: Gym Heroes Era in Japan)

All the way until the first Gym set in Japan could Energy Retrieval recover Special Energy cards. This meant you could recover not just Double Colorless Energy, but Rainbow Energy, Full Heal Energy & Potion Energy as well. Since Japan also had Super Energy Retrieval at this point, it too was around to recover Special Energy cards. (Imagine how much better that makes Wigglytuff!)

PlusPower

(Amended July 1998: Gym Heroes Era in Japan)

Some players are surprised when they learn that PlusPower was always intended to increase damage done to each Active Pokémon. (This meant self-damaging attacks, like Arcanine’s Take Down, would deal more damage to the Pokémon using them.) The real surprise, though, is that until it got a revised print in the Japanese Erika theme deck, PlusPower increased damage to the Bench as well! This meant you could equip Magneton with PlusPower to allow its Selfdestruct attack to hit each player’s Benched Pokémon for 30 damage instead of 20. Equip two and the Bench damage would become 40!

Mulligans

(Amended May 1999: Gym Heroes Era in Japan)

In the Wizards era, each time a player took a mulligan, their opponent could draw 2 additional cards. Under Japan’s original rules, though, there were no extra cards awarded to your opponent for mulligans. There was, however, a penalty for the player taking these mulligans. It didn’t occur if you took just one mulligan, or even two. But if you took three, you paid the ultimate price: you lost the game. (If both players each took three mulligans, you’d continue trying until either a game started or only one player took a mulligan and thus was declared the loser.) As crazy as this rule is, perhaps even crazier is the fact that it was one of the final rules Japan would change before the game debuted in North America.

Attacking Under Confusion

(Amended May 1999: Gym Heroes Era in Japan)

Instead of dealing 20 damage to themselves, Confused Pokémon originally performed their failed attack against themselves. As was the case for the 20 damage rule that replaced it, these failed attacks would also apply Weakness & Resistance. For example, if a Confused Mewtwo failed flipped Tails when trying to perform its Psyburn attack, it would deal itself 80 damage (40 x 2), knocking itself out.

However, things got a bit trickier when it came to the other parts of attacks that failed. Here’s how it worked:

1. Any damage a Pokémon usually dealt to itself was still applied. As an example, if a Confused Chansey flipped Tails when attempting to perform its Double-edge attack, the 80 damage usually done to the Defending Pokémon would be done to itself. But this didn’t mean the 80 self-damage was disregarded! This also applied, resulting in Chansey dealing a total of 160 damage to itself.
2. Any damage normally done to the opponent’s Benched Pokémon would be redirected to your own Bench. For example, if Raichu attempted to perform its Gigashock attack and flipped Tails, it would not just deal 30 damage to itself, but its owner would have to choose three of their own Benched Pokémon to deal 10 damage to as well.
3. Any damage normally done to your own benched Pokémon still applied. If Dugtrio failed to perform its Earthquake attack, it would not only attack itself for 70 damage, but also still deal 10 damage to each of your own Benched Pokémon. As a more complex example, if Magneton failed its 100-damage Selfdestruct attack, it would not just deal 200 damage to itself (100+100), but 40 damage to each of your own Benched Pokémon. That’s because the 20 damage done to your own Benched Pokémon would still apply, while the 20 damage done to the opponent’s Benched Pokémon was redirected to your Bench. (Ouch.)
4. Any effects that would usually be placed on the Defending Pokémon were placed on the attacking Pokémon instead. For example, if Golduck failed Hyper Beam, its owner would have to choose an Energy card on Golduck to discard. As a second example, if Weedle failed to use its Poison Sting attack, it would deal 10 damage to itself, and a second coin flip would then be performed. If that second coin flip was Heads, Weedle would become Poisoned.
5. Effects that target the opponent are redirected at the user. For example, a failed Headache from Psyduck would prevent its owner from playing Trainers on their next turn.
6. Effects other than damage that a Pokémon applies to itself are simply ignored. For example, if Onix failed its Harden attack, there would be no effect placed on either Active Pokémon.



7. Effects that target your opponent’s deck target your deck instead. For example, if Moltres discarded 1 Fire Energy for Wildfire, then flipped Tails (the proper order at the time), Wildfire would discard the top card of its owner’s deck.

Creatures, wanting simplified rules for their international audience, replaced these complex rules with a simple 20 damage, something that had been experimented with at Japanese tournaments in 1998.

Drawing Playing First

(Amended May 1999: Gym Heroes Era in Japan)

Early Pokémon is known for not placing any restrictions on the player playing first, but the original rules actually didn’t allow the player playing first to draw a card when starting their turn. This rule was designed to limit the advantage of playing first, but, like the changes to mulligans and Confusion, was removed as part of a goal to simplify the rules for an international audience. Ironically, this restriction was lifted during the Gym era in Japan, when playing first had become most advantageous.

Brock’s Ninetales

(Amended March 1, 2000: Neo Genesis Era in Japan)

The original Shapeshift on Brock’s Ninetales did not have the limitation of its English counterpart that prevented Ninetales using the Pokémon Powers of the Pokémon it Shapeshifted into. This allowed for some incredibly powerful (and fun) combos. For example, you could first Shapeshift into Blastoise to pile on Water Energy cards. Then, on the next turn, you discard Blastoise and Shapeshift into Charizard, whose Energy Burn could turn these Water Energy cards into Fire Energy to unleash a series of Fire Spin attacks.

Even stronger, though? You could Shapeshift into Dark Vileplume—as early as Turn 2, mind you—immediately blocking all Trainer cards. When you decided you wanted to play some Trainers yourself, all you had to do was discard Dark Vileplume! Before ending your turn, you could Shapeshift back into it, keeping this Trainer denial one-sided. Eventually recognizing how restrictive this strategy was, Japan issued an errata that prevented Brock’s Ninetales from using Pokémon Powers of the Pokémon it Shapeshifted into. By the time the card was released overseas, Shapeshift’s text reflected this change.

After the errata of Brock’s Ninetales during Japan’s Neo Genesis era, the rules of the game had been finalized for international play—at least in theory. With poor communication between US-based Wizards of the Coast and Creatures in Japan, Wizards was left guessing on many rulings. Most of the time they guessed right. Other times, far from it. Worse than some botched rulings, however, were some of the mistranslations that occurred at the hands of Wizards, including the infamous Mind Games mistranslation on Slowking. This mistranslation allowed Mind Games to work from the Bench (making it stackable as well), resulting in the card dominating competitive play for two years before it was finally banned.

Playing with the Original Rules

Let it be clear that I do not recommend replacing the rules we’ve known for nearly 25 years with the original Japanese rules. Not only were most of the rule revisions good for the game (who wants to lose because they took 3 mulligans?), but you’d also be hard-pressed to find other retro format players interested in doing this. That said, if you just can’t help but be curious what playing under these original rules was like, I’ve got everything you need to know to try it out below. There you’ll find a list for which of the original rules mentioned above existed in each of the game’s earliest formats. (Don’t forget you’ll still need to follow the other original rules of the Wizards era, too!) Since changes occurred at and in-between sets, I broke all the Base-on formats by each individual expansion set, helping highlight exactly where each rule change occurred.

Since you’ll be playing with Japanese rules, there’s no reason not to also include the Unreleased Japanese cards from the time period, as well as the promo cards Japan had access to before the rest of the world. Underneath each format, I list the most noteworthy of these so you know what additional cards you’ll have access to.

Base Only (Pre-Revision)

1. Player playing first does not draw a card to start their turn
2. Confused Pokémon perform their attacks against themselves on Tails
3. No mulligan cards awarded to opponent; 3 consecutive mulligans is a loss
4. No Sudden Death; play continues until the next KO
5. Effects stay on when evolving (or devolving)
6. KOs from attacks are processed only in-between turns
7. Confused Pokémon only pay their retreat cost after a successful retreat
8. No Pokémon can be benched during setup
9. Asleep Pokémon recover after the turn following two consecutive Tails
10. Energy Retrieval can recover Double Colorless Energy
11. PlusPower increases damage done all Pokémon

Base Only (Post-revision), Base & Jungle and Base–Fossil

1. Player playing first does not draw a card to start their turn
2. Confused Pokémon perform their attacks against themselves on Tails
3. No mulligan cards awarded to opponent; 3 consecutive mulligans is a loss
4. No Sudden Death; play continues until the next KO
5. Effects stay on when evolving (or devolving)
6. KOs from attacks are processed only in-between turns
7. Confused Pokémon only pay their retreat cost after a successful retreat
8. Players may only bench one Pokémon during setup
9. Energy Retrieval & Super Energy Retrieval can recover Double Colorless Energy
10. PlusPower increases damage done all Pokémon

Additional legal cards (beginning at Jungle): Super Energy Retrieval, Mew, Mewtwo

Base–Team Rocket

1. Player playing first does not draw a card to start their turn
2. Confused Pokémon perform their attacks against themselves on Tails
3. No mulligan cards awarded to opponent; 3 consecutive mulligans is a loss
4. Players may only bench one Pokémon during setup
5. Energy Retrieval & Super Energy Retrieval can recover Special Energy
6. PlusPower increases damage done all Pokémon

Additional legal cards: Super Energy Retrieval, Mew, Hungry Snorlax
Not legal in Japanese format: Dark Raichu

Base–Gym Heroes

1. Player playing first does not draw a card to start their turn
2. Confused Pokémon perform their attacks against themselves on Tails
3. No mulligan cards awarded to opponent; 3 consecutive mulligans is a loss
4. Players may only bench one Pokémon during setup

Additional legal cards: Super Energy Retrieval, Mew, Hungry Snorlax, Clefairy, Moon Stone, Mr. Mime, Bulbasaur
Not legal in Japanese format: Dark Raichu

Base–Gym Challenge

1. Brock’s Ninetales can use Pokémon Powers of Pokémon it Shapeshifts into

Additional legal cards: Super Energy Retrieval, Mew, Hungry Snorlax, Clefairy, Moon Stone, Mr. Mime, Bulbasaur, Gastly, Haunter, Hypno
Not legal in Japanese format: Dark Raichu

Pre-Errata Decks

Below are four decks that showcase the power of pre-errata cards under the original Japanese rules.

Magneton/Mr. Mime/Electrode
🇯🇵 Base–Fossil Japan 📋 Pre-Errata 🤡 Fun to Play

Pokémon (20)	Trainers (24)	Energy (16)
4x Voltorb 3x Electrode 4x Magnemite 3x Magneton 3x Mr. Mime 3x Chansey	4x Professor Oak 4x PlusPower 4x Energy Retrieval 2x Energy Removal 2x Scoop Up 2x Gust of Wind 2x Pokémon Trader 2x Pokémon Flute 2x Item Finder	6x Lightning Energy 6x Psychic Energy 4x Double Colorless Energy

Electrode’s Buzzap and Double Colorless Energy help you overcome Energy Removal and power up Magneton’s Selfdestruct. Before launching your attack, though, you’ll then want to pile on as many pre-Errata PlusPowers as you can find. While this boosted damage hits all of our Pokémon as well, this works in Mr. Mime’s favor, as it can now protect itself with Invisible Wall! Conveniently, the Pokémon on your opponent’s side that survive this Selfdestruct attack will now be full of damage, making them perfect targets for Mr. Mime’s Meditate attack. In the turns that follow, you can prepare Chansey’s Double-edge to deal with any fresh Pokémon your opponent puts into play.

Wigglytuff/Scyther
🇯🇵 Base–Rocket Japan 📋 Pre-Errata

Pokémon (17)	Trainers (27)	Energy (16)
4x Scyther 4x Jigglypuff 3x Wigglytuff 2x Grimer 2x Muk 2x Chansey	4x Professor Oak 4x Bill 4x Energy Retrieval 3x PlusPower 3x Energy Removal 2x Super Energy Removal 2x Gust of Wind 2x Item Finder 1x Computer Search 1x Pokémon Trader 1x Nightly Garbage Run	4x Grass Energy 4x Double Colorless Energy 4x Full Heal Energy 4x Potion Energy

This Wigglytuff deck has Scyther for early pressure, but it’s in no hurry to win! That’s because with pre-errata Energy Retrieval, it can repeatedly recover its best Energy cards in a drawn-out game. The deck also employs partner Pokémon to deal with the best cards in the Base–Rocket format: Muk for Dark Vileplume and Chansey to buy turns after you’ve been hit by Rocket’s Sneak Attack. You could call it a deck that has an answer for everything!

Brock’s Ninetales/Blastoise/Charizard
🇯🇵 Base–Gym Japan 📋 Pre-Errata 🤡 Fun to Play

Pokémon (18)	Trainers (30)	Energy (12)
4x Chansey 3x Brock’s Vulpix 3x Brock’s Ninetales 3x Blastoise 3x Charizard 2x Erika’s Dratini	1x Narrow Gym 4x Professor Oak 3x Computer Search 3x Brock’s Protection 3x Super Energy Removal 3x Super Energy Retrieval 2x Super Potion 2x Gust of Wind 2x Pokémon Trader 2x Misty’s Tears 2x Item Finder 2x Nightly Garbage Run 1x Lass	8x Water Energy 4x Double Colorless Energy

It’s hard to think of a single deck that has more ridiculous capabilities than this one. First, you Shapeshift into Blastoise, and with no errata yet on Brock’s Ninetales, you then get to use Rain Dance to flood it with Water Energy cards. These extra Water Energy cards allow you to easily unleash Super Energy Removal against your opponent, as well as use Super Potion to heal. When you’re in need of a bigger attack, this is where things get really fun: you discard Blastoise and Shapeshift into Charizard. Then, continuing to take advantage of the pre-errata Shapeshift, you can use Charizard’s Energy Burn to turn your Water and Double Colorless Energy into Fire Energy and unleash Fire Spin on your opponent. Super Energy Retrieval allows you to recover Water Energy cards (unfortunately not DCE at this point, though) and keep the big attacks coming.

Brock’s Ninetales/Haunter/Dark Vileplume
🇯🇵 Base–Gym Japan 📋 Pre-Errata 🤡 Fun to Play

Pokémon (17)	Trainers (38)	Energy (5)
4x Gastly 4x Haunter 3x Brock’s Vulpix 2x Brock’s Ninetales 3x Dark Vileplume 1x Mr. Mime	4x Computer Search 4x Bill 4x Erika 4x Lt. Surge’s Treaty 4x Blaine’s Quiz #2 4x Misty’s Wish 4x Item Finder 2x Sabrina’s Gaze 2x Switch 2x Nightly Garbage Run 1x Professor Oak 1x Gust of Wind 1x Energy Removal 1x Warp Point	5x Psychic Energy

Behold, the most broken Pokémon deck of all time. With nearly 50% of its deck space dedicated to card-drawing Trainers, your ideal Turn 1 is virtually guaranteed (as long as your hand hasn’t been disrupted). This ideal turn consists of a Frighten attack from Gastly while Brock’s Vulpix sits on the Bench ready to evolve and Shapeshift into Dark Vileplume. After that happens, you can evolve Gastly and deliver massive Poltergeist attacks that have been boosted by cards you offered—sometimes forced—your opponent to draw. At this point, your opponent’s only out is to get a Muk in play. But you’ve already got an answer ready for that, too. If you see a Grimer hit the Bench, you can discard Dark Vileplume to gain access to Gust of Wind, Shapeshifting back before knocking out Grimer.

Closing Thoughts

While the rules changes Creatures implemented before shipping the game overseas were almost certainly for the best, not all of the original rules were necessarily bad. Yes, declaring someone a loser for 3 mulligans would have proven unpopular, but a minor restriction on Turn 1 would have likely been well-received. And although the change to Energy Retrieval made sense, the change to PlusPower might not have been necessary. After all, the bench-damaging Pokémon that could best utilize it were among the weakest in the game.

Confusion certainly appeared a lot more fun under the original rules, but it was also, appropriately, a lot more confusing too. There’s no question that it was stronger before its revision, which explains why attacks that inflicted Confusion always seemed so overpriced in the first sets.

In the end, these rule changes give us a glimpse into the minds of the game’s designers. They wanted a game that was fair and fun, with rules simple enough so that the game could be easily learned and taught to friends. You can’t argue that they didn’t accomplish their goal.

Thanks to Tyler Moore for extensive research that helped produce this article!