How to Play the Palworld TCG: Beginner's Guide to Your First Game

The Palworld TCG is quick to learn: two players, 50 card decks, and a race to knock your opponent's life from 10 to 0. This guide walks you through a full game. When you are done reading, you can play a real game free in your browser, solo, against a bot, or online, no cards needed.

What you need

• A 50 card main deck (up to two colors, max 4 copies per card name)
• A 10 card soul deck
• An opponent (or our simulator's bot)

If you do not own cards yet, the two trial decks are the cheapest start. Here is which trial deck to buy.

The goal

Both players start with 10 life. Attack with your Pals to force Damage Checks that burn through your opponent's life. First player to drop their opponent to 0 wins. You also win if your opponent must draw from an empty deck.

Setup

1. Shuffle your main deck and draw an opening hand of 5.
2. Not happy with the hand? You may mulligan once: shuffle it back and redraw 5.
3. The player going first skips their first draw. The player going second starts with 1 extra Soul as compensation.

The turn, phase by phase

1. Stand Phase. All your rested (sideways) cards stand back up.
2. Draw Phase. Draw 1 card.
3. Soul Phase. Add 2 Souls from your soul deck to your Soul Area. Souls are your energy, and they stay between turns. Read Souls explained if this part is new to you.
4. Main Phase. The fun part. In any order you can:
   • Deploy Pals, Structures, and Gear by resting Souls equal to their cost (your Base holds at most 5 cards in front).
   • Attack with standing Pals. Each attack rests the attacker.
   • Activate card abilities.
5. End Phase. Battle damage on Pals heals, and "until end of turn" effects wear off. Pass the turn.

Attacking and Damage Check

When your Pal attacks the enemy player, the defender reveals cards from the top of their deck equal to your Pal's Strike. Each revealed card costs them 1 life. If they reveal a Lucky Pal, the check stops there and the remaining damage is cancelled.

The defender is not helpless. They can block with a standing Pal (turning your attack into Pal vs Pal combat) or play an Interrupt card from hand to cancel the attack outright. Our combat guide covers battles, blocking, and Damage Check in detail.

Attacking Pals

You can also attack an enemy Pal instead of the player. Pal vs Pal combat is mutual: both Pals deal their Power to each other at the same time, and any Pal that takes damage equal to or above its own Power is destroyed. Attack their Pals when you win the trade, attack the player when you want life damage.

Your first game in 60 seconds

The fastest way to actually learn is to play. Our free browser simulator automates every rule in this guide (Souls, attacks, Damage Check, blocking) and has a built-in trainer that suggests your next move. Load a ready-made deck, fight the Easy bot, and you will have the flow down in one game.

Want to go deeper? The full rules glossary covers every keyword (Assault, Taunt, Stealth, Quick, Assign), and the card database has every revealed card with full effect text.