Read your Pokémon

Before choosing an action, name the information on the table. A Pokémon TCG game uses separate places for cards: your deck, hand, Prize cards, discard pile, Active Pokémon, and Bench. Those places are not interchangeable. You win by taking your own final Prize card, by leaving the opponent with no Pokémon in play, or when the opponent cannot draw at the beginning of their turn. Start by reading what the game state actually says; do not infer a card effect, a format, or a collection value from artwork or a card number. [Source: PKM-R1, p3 How to Win; p5 Parts of a Pokémon Card; p7 Zones of the Pokémon TCG.]

Given a text-only fixture, identify the relevant zone, a visible card field, a normal setup action, and the stated win condition without importing facts that are not in the fixture.

For this Foundations course, use the ordinary 60-card setup shown in the July 2026 rulebook:

1. Determine who goes first with a coin flip; the coin-flip winner decides.
2. Shuffle the 60-card deck and draw seven cards.
3. Check for a Basic Pokémon. Put one Basic Pokémon face down as the Active Pokémon, then put up to five more Basic Pokémon face down on the Bench.
4. If there is no Basic Pokémon, reveal the hand, shuffle it into the deck, and draw seven again. Repeat until the hand contains a Basic Pokémon, then place the Active and any optional Benched Basic Pokémon. Each time an opponent takes that mulligan, the other player may draw one extra card.
5. Put the top six cards of the deck aside face down as your Prize cards, then both players turn their Active and Benched Pokémon face up and begin.

This is an ordinary learning setup, not a claim about a named card, a tournament format, or a card's Standard legality. [Source: PKM-R1, p8 Setting Up to Play; p7 Prize Cards.]

Fixture (not a printed card): A player's Active Pokémon has 120 HP in its HP field and has six damage counters on it. Their Bench has one Pokémon. Their discard pile has three cards. Their deck has cards remaining. The fixture says each player began with six Prize cards and this player has taken five.

Read the state in layers:

1. The six damage counters represent 60 damage; they are not six remaining HP.
2. The player still has a Pokémon in play because the Active spot and Bench are occupied.
3. The player has one Prize card left to take under the fixture's ordinary six-Prize setup.
4. The discard pile is neither the hand nor the deck. Its three cards are not available merely because they are visible in the fixture.

This exercise deliberately does not ask what any named card can do. That requires its current official record. [Source: PKM-R1, Parts of a Pokémon Card; Zones of the Pokémon TCG; How to Win; PKM-C1.]