Type (TCG): Difference between revisions

TCG type Game type Grass Grass Poison* Bug Fire Fire Water Water Ice Lightning Electric Fighting Fighting Rock Ground Psychic Psychic Ghost Poison* Colorless Normal Flying Dragon Darkness Dark Metal Steel

Elemental types play as large a part in the Pokémon TCG as they do in the video games. Both Pokémon and Energy cards can be one or more of these types. Similarly, a Pokémon can and probably will have a Weakness and Resistance to other types.

Unlike in the games, there are only 9 types.

Also, unlike the games, when a Pokémon attacks, the type of damage it does is based on the Pokémon's own elemental type and not the type of Energy the attack requires. For example, although Dark Golduck uses Psychic energy to power both of its attacks, the attacks do double damage against a Pokémon weak to Water because Dark Golduck's TCG type is Water in this instance.

Because of the limited number of types, many of the 17 types found in the games have been combined into one of the TCG types. For example, Poison-, Bug-, and Template:Type2s in the games are instead combined into the Grass-type in the TCG (until Diamond & Pearl, when Poison Pokémon were moved to the Psychic-type). However, in keeping with Pokémon tradition, the Weakness and Resistance of certain Pokémon are similar to their weaknesses in the games. For example, even though Glalie is a Water-type in the TCG, it is weak to Metal, much like how in the main series, Glalie, as an Template:Type2, is weak to Steel.

Another difference between the games and the TCG is how damage is calculated according to Weakness and Resistance. Prior to Diamond & Pearl, if a Pokémon had a weakness to another Pokémon's type, the damage done was doubled, and if a Pokémon had a resistance to another Pokémon's type, that damage was reduced by 30 damage points, rather than being halved. In Diamond & Pearl and later, weakness and resistance are typically fixed amount increases and decreases, though some Pokémon still use the original doubling weakness.

Sometimes, special Pokémon, such as Pokémon-ex and the like, will have more than one weakness or more than one resistance. Likewise, other special Pokémon may have more than one type, a feature introduced in the EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua expansion, with Pokémon that were part Darkness and part their normal type. Eventually, the EX Holon subseries would introduce Pokémon with another secondary type, this time Metal.

Despite this standard categorization, however, some Pokémon may be featured as a different elemental type.