How to Play the Palworld TCG
The Palworld OFFICIAL CARD GAME is a two-player game where you lead a team of Pals and reduce your opponent to zero life. Everything below comes from Bushiroad’s Comprehensive Rules ver. 1.00 and the official Quick Manual.
What you need to play
Each player brings two decks. The main deck is exactly 50 cards, and the soul deck is exactly 10 cards. Deck construction has three more limits: a maximum of 4 cards sharing the same name, a maximum of 8 cards carrying the Lucky Icon, and a maximum of 2 colors across the deck. Colorless cards do not count toward the colour limit and can go in any deck.
Setting up
Shuffle, then decide who goes first. The player going second places 1 card from their soul deck into their soul area as compensation. Both players draw 5 cards and may redraw that opening hand once, starting with the player going first. Both players then set life to 10.
The five phases of a turn
- Stand Phase: stand every card in your base and soul area.
- Draw Phase: draw 1 card. The player going first skips this on their very first turn.
- Soul Phase: move 2 cards from your soul deck into your soul area.
- Main Phase: play cards, use abilities, and battle, in any order and any number of times.
- End Phase: all damage on Pals and structures resets to 0.
Souls are your resource, and they come back
You pay for cards by resting souls, and every soul stands again in your Stand Phase, so souls are a refreshing pool rather than a spent currency. You gain 2 a turn up to your 10-card soul deck. Once per turn you may also rest 3 standing souls to draw a card, which is a base rule of the game rather than a card ability.
Battles
A Pal can attack the turn it is deployed. You may attack the opposing player, an opposing structure, or an opposing Pal that is resting; Pals in the stand state cannot normally be attacked. Attacking rests your Pal. The defender may block by resting one standing Pal, which redirects the attack to it. Two Pals in combat deal damage equal to their power to each other, and anything whose damage reaches its power or durability goes to the graveyard. Your base holds up to 5 Pals, with no limit on structures or gears.
Power versus strike, and the damage check
Pals carry two separate numbers. Power is the damage dealt to other Pals and structures. Strike is the damage dealt to a player, and it drives the mechanic that decides most games. When a player takes damage, they flip cards off the top of their own deck one at a time, equal to the strike. If any flipped card shows the Lucky Icon, the flipping stops and the damage is cancelled entirely. Otherwise they lose that much life.
Where to read the full rules
Bushiroad publishes the complete Comprehensive Rules, a one-page Quick Manual and a printable playmat in English on the official rules page. This guide covers the core loop; the Comprehensive Rules cover keywords such as Taunt, Stealth, Vigilance and Assault, plus the Material and Ingredient resources.