Learning how to play the Sports trading card game is not as hard as it might seem. But like any other game of strategy, it does require some time to get properly acquainted with the rules of the game.
To better understand the basics of the game you need to be aware that each player represents a trainer who can enhance his Sports’s abilities and environment in order to give their deck of cards an advantage, which will allow them to defeat the opposing Sports. Energy cards allow each trainer to boost his Sports power and other cards can even evolve a Sports into a stronger form. Lets quickly establish what each type of card does:
- Sports cards are basic cards which specify the abilities and evolution stages. Stage 1 and 2 are evolution cards which show an advanced form.
- Trainer cards have certain instructions in them which have to be followed. After using this type of card it has to be placed in the discard pile.
- Stadium Cards represent arenas which give an advantage to certain Sports types. Each one of these cards can stay around until another trainer replaces it by another stadium card.
- Energy cards provide enough power to execute an attack. Each attack requires a certain amount of energy.
- Supporter cards provide similar features compared to trainer cards but they can only be played once during each turn.
To start playing, each trainer must shuffle the deck of cards and draw seven cards from it. The drawn set of cards must have at least one Sports card, if a certain hand has more than one Sports card the trainer needs to choose which one will be active.
The active card will be placed in front of the trainer, facing down to stop the opposing trainer figuring out your strategy. Then each trainer sets aside six cards from the top of their decks. These will be considered as prize cards which can be added to your hand after knocking out one of your opponent’s Sports.
Now each trainer must reveal their active Sports card by turning it over and then flip a coin to select which trainer starts the game. The trainer who starts the game should not use any trainer, supporter or stadium cards on the first turn, so the basic move would be to either attack (if your card has the ability to attack without the need for an energy card) or to place an energy card beneath your active Sports card to enable or enhance an attack, only one energy card can be used during each trainer’s turn. If your hand has more than one Sports card, it can be set right below the active card facing upwards which will be considered a bench. After an attack the trainer’s turn is over.
Some attacks may have special conditions, for instance some attacks may “confuse” your Sports (other conditions are: burned, asleep, paralyzed and poisoned), if this were to happen you can either retreat the confused card from its active status and replace it with one on the bench or flip a coin to take it out of this state. If the coin lands head up, your card will not be “confused” anymore and can attack normally, if on the contrary the coin lands tails up your card cannot attack and it receives damage points.
After each attack the damage points must be logged to keep track of how many attacks are needed to knock out a Sports. Lets pretend that your opponent’s turn is over, you need to draw a card from your deck. If the right evolution card is drawn you can evolve your Sports from its basic form to the stage specified on such a card. You can use a special attack by placing the right amount and type of energy card right beneath your evolved card. Each evolution card will show you how many coins you should flip, then count the number of times a coin lands heads up and multiply it by the number of damage points shown on the evolution card.
Lets suppose that your opponent has one Sports card in play which has 60 HP and you have an evolution card in place which lets you multiply its attack power ( lets assume it has 30 damage points) by the number of times a coin lands heads up (lets assume it landed head 3 times) you will have:
3 X 30 = 90 damage points
which is more than enough to knock out of the competition your opponent’s Sports card which only has 60 HP. If your opponent doesn’t have a Sports card waiting in the bench you win!, if one is in the bench it will become active and ready for battle but don’t forget to take a card from the price cards and add it to your hand.
Remember that each active card has its weakness to a certain element attack so if you attack a fire type with a water type, the fire type card will be suffer more damage due to its weakness. If the active card had a resistance to a water type attack it would take less damage from it.
If you had a Sports card which had taken a lot of damage and it’s about to get knocked out you can retreat it by using an energy card if required. After retreating a card the one waiting on the bench will take it’s place.
To finalize, there are 3 ways to win the game, you can either:
- Knock out your opponents active card and if he/she has no Sports card on waiting on the bench you win!.
- Collect all 6 price cards after knocking out 6 of your opponent cards you win!,
- If the battle has gone for a long time and your opponent has no more cards on the deck to draw from, you win!
Know your opponent’s weaknesses, plan your attacks and evolve your Sports to be the winner. Now catch ’em all!
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