How to Play the Palworld Official Card Game

What you need to play Palworld

Each player brings two piles of cards and two counters.

• A main deck of exactly 50 cards: Pals, Structures, Gear and Events.
• A Soul Deck of 10 Soul cards. It's a separate pile and never gets shuffled into the 50. Any Soul art works.
• A life counter starting at 10, and a Material and Ingredient counter starting at 0. A dice and some tokens will do.
• A playmat, which is optional. The official one labels every zone and prints the turn order down the side, which helps a lot in your first games.

Sleeves are only required at official events.

The easy way to get everything is a trial deck. There are two, Red-Blue (TD01) and Green-Purple (TD02). Each has the 50-card deck, 10 Souls, a paper playmat, a play guide, both counters and a Dawn of Palpagos booster pack. People search for "Palworld starter deck", but the box says Trial Deck. Same thing.

How you win (and why Lucky Pals matter)

You both start on 10 life. Each hit that lands on your opponent takes off life equal to the attacking Pal's Strike. Get them to 0 and you've won.

There's a second way to lose: running out of cards. If your deck is empty when the game next checks, you lose. Fifty cards sounds like plenty, but every hit you take mills cards off the top, so it creeps up on people.

The twist is the damage check, and it's the best idea in the game. When a player takes damage, they flip cards off the top of their deck into the graveyard, one at a time, up to the amount of damage. If any of them has the Lucky icon, the damage becomes 0. If none do, they lose the full amount in one go.

So a Strike 4 Grizzbolt connecting means four flips. Four blanks and you're down to 6. A Lucky card on flip one, or flip four, and nothing happens. It's also why the deck rules cap you at eight Lucky cards.

The five card types, and how to read a Pal

There are five types of card. Only Pals can attack, block or work, which makes the rest easy to sort out.

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Gear doesn't attach to a Pal. It goes into your base as a separate card. Every Gear so far can be rested to give a Pal extra Power until end of turn, and a few (Single-Shot Rifle is one) also deal damage when they arrive.

Reading a Pal card

Chillet is a good one to learn on, because every part of the layout is on show.

1. Cost: how many Souls you rest to play it. The diamond's colour is the card's colour.
2. Lucky icon: the gold sparkle that cancels damage in a damage check.
3. Card type: Pal, Structure, Gear, Event or Soul.
4. Name: the part before the subtitle ("Chillet") is the name other cards refer to.
5. Element icons: Ice and Dragon here. No built-in effect.
6. Type: Normal Pal or Lucky Pal.
7. Work Suitability: Harvesting and Cooling. Only matters when card text mentions it.
8. Card text: what it does, led by its ability icons.
9. Power: damage it deals to Pals and Structures, and how much destroys it.
10. Strike: damage it deals to a player.

Power and Strike are the numbers that decide games, and they're very different sizes. Chillet has 900 Power but Strike 2. Jormuntide Ignis, the big red dragon, has 1700 Power and Strike 4. Power is for fighting Pals. Strike is how many cards your opponent flips.

Elements aren't like Pokémon types. Fire, Water, Grass, Electric, Ground, Ice, Dark, Dragon and Neutral have no weaknesses or resistances. They only matter when a card says so, like Chillet's text digging for a Dragon Pal. Work Suitability is the same. There are eight: Kindling, Electricity, Cooling, Harvesting, Crafting, Collecting, Farming and Transporting.

In the text box, ACT means an ability you choose to use, AUTO fires by itself when something happens, and CONT is always on. Anything in square brackets, like [Assign 1 Pal] or [Rest this card], is the cost. Round brackets are just reminder text.

The Palworld playmat, zone by zone

The official mat has six zones and the turn order printed down the left.

Base

Your deployed Pals, Structures and Gear. Up to 5 Pals. If a sixth arrives, you put Pals into the graveyard until you're back to five. No limit on Structures or Gear. Cards only work here, unless their text names another zone.

Soul Area

Souls in play. You turn them sideways to pay costs.

Soul Deck

Souls that aren't in play yet. Two come out on each of your turns.

Deck

Your 50-card main deck, face down.

Graveyard

Face up: used Events, destroyed cards, and every card flipped in a damage check.

Exile Zone

Cards removed by effects such as Hanging Trap.

Your hand isn't on the mat, and there's no maximum hand size.

Souls: how you pay for everything

Pokémon players attach energy and Magic players hope to draw lands. Here, Souls just turn up: two on each of your turns, standing and ready to use.

To play a card, you rest (turn sideways) standing Souls equal to its cost. They aren't discarded. At the start of your next turn they all stand back up, so your budget refills every turn and grows by two until it reaches the cap of 10. There's no upkeep either.

That table is the whole economy. Without a card that adds Souls (Feed Box, say), an 8-cost Jormuntide Ignis can't come down before your fourth turn if you went first. A deck stuffed with 7s and 8s does very little for three turns while a deck of 2s and 3s is already swinging.

Colour doesn't matter when paying. Any Soul pays for any card. And once per turn in your Main Phase you can rest 3 Souls to draw a card. It's a good home for spare Souls late on, but it still costs 3 and pulls you a card closer to decking out.

How to set up a game of Palworld TCG

1. Show and shuffle Show your main deck to your opponent, then shuffle it into your deck zone. At events, let your opponent shuffle it too.
2. Decide who goes first Pick a player at random (rock, paper, scissors is fine). The winner chooses first or second.
3. Set out your Souls Put your 10 Souls in the Soul Deck zone. The player going second moves 1 Soul into their Soul Area, standing.
4. Draw five Each player draws 5 cards.
5. Redraw if you want to Starting with the first player, each of you may put your whole hand back, shuffle and draw 5 new cards. Once per game, all or nothing.
6. Set your counters Life to 10, Material and Ingredients to 0. The first player starts, and skips the Draw Phase on their first turn.

How a turn works

Five phases, always in this order. There's no separate battle phase. Attacks happen inside the Main Phase.

1. StandStand every card in your base and your Soul Area.
2. DrawDraw 1 card. It isn't optional. The player going first skips this on their very first turn.
3. SoulMove 2 Souls from your Soul Deck to your Soul Area, standing.
4. MainPlay cards, use abilities and attack, in any order, as often as you can pay. You can also buy one extra draw with Souls.
5. EndEnd-of-turn effects happen, all damage on every Pal and Structure resets to 0, and "until end of turn" boosts stop.

What you can do in the Main Phase

• Play a card by resting Souls equal to its cost. Pals, Structures and Gear go into your base. Events resolve and go to the graveyard.
• Use an ACT ability on a card in your base.
• Start a battle with any standing Pal, including one you played this turn. No waiting.
• Once per turn, rest 3 Souls to draw a card.

Your opponent's turn

Mostly, you watch. The exception is the Quick Step during their battles, where you can play Quick cards and abilities. Your AUTO and CONT abilities keep working too.

This catches people out. Your cards stand in your Stand Phase, not at the end of your turn. Any Pal you rested to attack or to work stays rested through your opponent's whole turn (unless it has Vigilance), and rested Pals can be attacked. So before you swing with everything, count what your opponent could hit back with.

Putting Pals to work at Structures

This is the bit that feels most like the video game. Most Structures have an ability with the cost [Assign 1 Pal]. To pay it, you rest one of your standing Pals and it's assigned to that Structure.

Stone Pit from the Red-Blue deck costs 1, and once per turn it trades a worker for 3 Material and a card. Primitive Furnace and Ranch from the booster do much the same. Material and Ingredients are counters that other cards spend with the word Consume. Mossanda Lux, for instance, consumes 2 Material for +500 Power. You can't spend more than you have.

Three rules people get wrong:

• Any standing Pal can work anywhere. Work Suitability only matters when a card says so, such as Beegarde getting a boost if you have a Farming Structure.
• A rested Pal can't be assigned. If it attacked this turn, it can't work.
• Destroying a Structure doesn't free its worker. The Pal stays rested until its owner's next Stand Phase.

That's the real decision every turn. A 200-Power Lamball is a poor fighter, but resting it for a card and 3 Material is a great trade. Resting your 1600-Power Grizzbolt to draw a card usually isn't.

How battles work in the Palworld card game

Pick a standing Pal and a target. You can attack your opponent, one of their Structures, or one of their rested Pals. Standing Pals are safe unless your attacker has Assault. And if your opponent has a Pal or Structure with Taunt that you're able to target, you have to attack that one.

The five steps of a battle

1. Attack Choose your attacker and target, then rest the attacker. On Attack and Brave effects happen here.
2. Block The defender may rest one of their standing Pals to block, and it becomes the new target. That works whether the attack was on the player, a Structure or a rested Pal. A Pal with Stealth can't be blocked.
3. Quick Step Only the defending player gets this. They can play as many Quick Events and abilities as they can pay for, including Interrupt.
4. Damage Pal against Pal: each deals its Power to the other at the same time. Pal against Structure: the Pal deals its Power and takes nothing back. Pal against player: the Pal deals its Strike, and the player does a damage check.
5. End of battle "Until end of battle" effects stop and you're back in your Main Phase, free to attack with another standing Pal.

A Pal or Structure is destroyed when the damage on it is equal to or greater than its Power (or Durability). Damage that doesn't destroy something is wiped in that turn's End Phase.

The damage check, step by step

Notice Grizzbolt stays rested all through Ben's turn, so any of his Pals could have attacked it, and one with 1600 Power or more would have destroyed it. That's the price of swinging.

Palworld TCG keywords explained

The rulebook defines fourteen keywords, and here they all are. The numbers after Brave and Serious change from card to card.

• QuickCan be played in the Quick Step, which only the defender gets. Quick Events also work in your own Main Phase, just not during your own battles.
• On DeployHappens when the card is deployed, wherever it came from.
• On AttackHappens when this Pal attacks.
• On AssignHappens when this Pal is assigned to a Structure.
• Brave 300When it attacks, it gets +300 Power until end of turn.
• Serious 400When it's assigned, give a Pal +400 Power until end of turn.
• InterruptQuick, from your hand only. Pay 1 Soul and discard this card, or discard it plus another card, to cancel an attack. No battle damage happens.
• VigilanceStands up again at the end of your turn.
• TauntIf this card can be targeted, your opponent has to attack it.
• StealthCan't be blocked.
• RetaliateIf this card goes to the graveyard after battling, the Pal it fought goes too.
• Nocturnal+300 Power while it's night.
• BreakthroughIf the Pal it's battling goes to the graveyard while this card is attacking, it also deals its Strike to that Pal's player.
• AssaultCan attack standing Pals as well as rested ones.

Palworld TCG deck building rules

One card breaks the copy limit: Beegarde, Knight of the Flower Garden lets you run as many of itself as you like. Any mix of card types is fine, and trial deck and booster cards go together.

Colourless cards (the "My First Pal" cards like Lamball and Cattiva) fit in any deck, but they don't count as any colour, so an effect that boosts "your red Pals" won't touch them.

Building your first deck

Don't start from nothing. Play five or six games with a trial deck, then change about ten cards. We'd check three things first.

• The cost curve. Souls come two a turn, so you want plenty of 2 to 4 cost plays. Cheap Pals are your workers and blockers.
• A work engine. A cheap Structure that draws (Stone Pit, Berry Plantation, Primitive Furnace, Ranch) plus a few 2-cost Pals to rest on it keeps your hand full.
• Your Lucky count. Every Lucky Pal is also a shield, so eight is tempting. But plenty cost 7 or 8 (Broncherry, Felbat, Blazamut, Jormuntide Ignis), and a hand of those does nothing on turn two.

Going by the card lists, Red-Blue has more direct damage (Single-Shot Rifle deals 1500 when it arrives, Blazamut 1000), while Green-Purple has Taunt walls, Stealth attackers and a removal Event in Strike from the Darkness. Both are proper decks, so pick the Pals you like. For tuning, browse our Dawn of Palpagos singles.

Mistakes everyone makes once

• Thinking damage carries over. Every End Phase, damage on every Pal and Structure resets to 0, both sides.
• Attacking a standing Pal. Only with Assault.
• Playing Quick cards in your own battles. The Quick Step is the defender's.
• Using Interrupt from the base. It only works from your hand.
• Expecting type weaknesses. A Water Pal gets nothing extra against a Fire Pal unless a card says so.
• Keeping part of your opening hand. The redraw is all five cards, once.
• Skipping things you don't fancy. The Draw Phase draw and AUTO abilities are mandatory. Only "up to" and "you may" let you pick nothing.

Your first few games will be slow while you look things up. That's normal. Somewhere around game three you stop checking the turn order and start worrying about which Pals to leave standing.

Formats, sets and what's legal

As of 24 September 2026 there's one way to play. Every English card released so far is legal, with no rotation and no banned or restricted list. Events use the Bushiroad TCG Floor Rules, and the rulebook is ver. 1.00 of the official rules PDF.

The game launched worldwide on 30 July 2026 with the Dawn of Palpagos booster (BP01) and the two trial decks. Announced so far:

A second edition of Dawn of Palpagos is due in late October, marked with a small Roman numeral II in the bottom-right corner. Organised play so far has been shop tournaments and the Grand Challengers Cup, with the Masters League starting in November 2026. If the rulebook gets an update, Legends Awaken on 30 October is the likeliest time, so check the official rules page then.

Questions people ask

How many cards are in a Palworld TCG deck?

Your main deck is exactly 50 cards. On top of that you have a Soul Deck of 10 Soul cards, which sits in its own pile and is never shuffled in with the 50.

How many Lucky Pals can you have in a Palworld deck?

Up to 8 cards with the Lucky icon. That limit sits alongside the normal cap of 4 copies of any one card name, so you could run two Lucky Pals at 4 copies each, or eight different ones.

Can a Pal attack on the turn it's played?

Yes. Any standing Pal can start a battle, including one you deployed that same turn. The only first-turn limit is that the player going first skips their draw.

Is there a limit on Structures or Gear in play?

No. The only limit in your base is 5 Pals. You can have as many Structures and Gear out as you can pay for.

Is there a maximum hand size in the Palworld card game?

No. You never have to discard down at the end of your turn.

Can you have more than 10 Souls?

No. Ten is the cap, even with cards like Feed Box that add extra Souls. Once you're there, spare Souls are best spent on the once-per-turn draw (rest 3 Souls, draw 1 card).

Which Palworld starter deck should I buy first?

The starter decks are called trial decks: Red-Blue (TD01) and Green-Purple (TD02). Each is a complete deck with Souls, a paper playmat, counters and a booster pack. If two of you are learning, get one of each. Red-Blue has more direct damage; Green-Purple has Taunt and Stealth Pals. Two more, Eternal Ascent Red-Green and Blue-Purple, are due on 18 December 2026.

Where can I find the official Palworld TCG rules PDF?

Bushiroad publishes a one-page Quick Manual, a printable playmat and the full Comprehensive Rules (ver. 1.00 at the time of writing) on the official site's rules page, alongside a searchable rules Q&A. The links are in the sources below.

What does night do in the Palworld card game?

Night does nothing by itself. Some cards switch it on (Shadowbeak, for example, makes it night while it's rested), and while it lasts, both players' "if it is night" abilities work, such as Nocturnal giving +300 Power.

Is the Palworld card game like the Pokémon TCG?

Both are about collecting creatures, but they play quite differently. There's no energy to attach: your Souls refresh every turn and grow by two a turn. Elements have no weaknesses or resistances. Several Pals can attack each turn, and the Lucky damage check means a hit can be cancelled completely.

Where to start

The easiest ways in. Prices and stock on this list are live.

• Palworld - Dawn of Palpagos - Jormuntide Ignis - Savage Lava Dragon - EBP01-001 - Foil Sold out
• Palworld - Dawn of Palpagos - Grizzbolt - Rumbling Tank - ETD01-001 - Standard Sold out
• Palworld - Dawn of Palpagos - Chillet - Dragon Whisperer - EBP01-025 - Foil Sold out
• Palworld - Dawn of Palpagos - Foxparks - Light of Courage - EBP01-006 - Standard Sold out

All Palworld singles, card by card

See everything for Palworld Official Card Game

Where these rules come from

Checked against Bushiroad's Comprehensive Rules ver. 1.00 (last updated 30 July 2026), the official Quick Manual and the official rules Q&A, on 24 September 2026.

• Palworld OFFICIAL CARD GAME Comprehensive Rules ver. 1.00 (Bushiroad, last updated 30 July 2026)
• Quick Manual play guide (Bushiroad)
• Official printable playmat (Bushiroad)
• Official rules page and errata
• Official rules Q&A
• Official card list
• Official product list and release dates