Updated Partner rules to make Stage 2 Partners more viable, and slow down both Basic and Stage 1 Partners:
Partners are now benched directly from the Partner Zone bypassing normal evolution.
A number of rules were no longer needed due to this change, and were removed (e.g. “Solgaleo Rule”).
Updated the card uniqueness rule to the suggested modification from several years ago. We were unable to find any reason to keep it so restricted.
Added additional info to the Banned, Restricted, and Watchlisted Cards section.
Added reasoning for ruling.
Watchlisted cards are banned from tournaments.
Cleaned up some grammar and formatting.
2.06->2.07 (07 Aug 2020)
Removed donk rule because it was suggested by players that it was not needed, and cut too deep into the fundamental rules of the Pokémon TCG by altering one of the basic win conditions.
Removed the rule allowing players to use oversized cards in the Partner Zone because it was pointless and dumb (and nobody ever actually used an oversized card, not even the guy who pushed for this rule who no longer plays this format).
Declined to add the “win the game” fix because it was determined that it undermined the “play cards as written” philosophy. If the card says you win the game, you should win the game. This means we can probably expect to see a few Unown cards banned in the near future.
Added a bit of text to the Partner KO rule to allow effects of Partners’ attacks to also result in the extra prize card.
2.05->2.06 (05 Apr 2020)
Added a Watchlist to the Banned and Restricted section.
Added descriptions to the Banned Cards, Restricted Cards, and Watchlist sections.
Added Espeon (AQ 11) to the Watchlist.
2.04->2.05 (09 Nov 2019)
Removed unnecessary clarifications from type-identity rules.
Added exception to type-identity rules to allow partners with mismatched evolution lines.
Modified rules governing the partner zone making the partner zone part of your hand, and added rules to prevent effects on cards in the partner zone.
Moving the partner to the partner zone is no longer optional.
Modified the wording regarding taking a prize for a partner pokemon to include any effect that sends it back to the partner zone, rather than only KO.
Added rule to bypass the old compendium ruling which declares poke-powers, poke-bodies, and pokemon-powers to be the same thing.
2.03->2.04 (04 Oct 2018)
Updated rules allowing Partner played from the Partner Zone to trigger “from hand” effects.
Minor formatting edits
2.02->2.03 (12 Dec 2017)
Combined the 2 separate rules which allowed multiple copies of a card into a single (more concise?) rule.
Changed some document formatting.
Revised the face down prize card rule (again). Players can once again look at their face down prize cards at any time, but must shuffle all of their face down prize cards afterwards (including any which have been viewed with an effect like “peek”). The intent of the original rule was to minimise the time consumed by deck searches, but allowed players to choose the cards they took as prizes, which was considered too powerful. Hopefully this new rule reaches a happy median. Shout out to Gladion for the inspiration.
2.01->2.02 (06 Sep 2017)
Modified deck construction rules to allow a deck to contain multiple copies of certain cards which function differently when you play more than one at a time (e.g. Puzzle Of Time).
2.0->2.01 (27 Aug 2017)
Modified the “uniqueness rule” to include attack cost in determining if a pokemon is unique.
Revised the partner rule to allow any pokemon card as a partner (so you can have a break or legend half as a partner now).
Clarified rule regarding extra prizes to clearly state that no matter how many pokemon your partner knocks out in 1 turn, you only take 1 extra prize, rather than 1 extra prize for each KO’d pokemon.
1.6b->2.0 (23 Jul 2017)
Removed basic energy restriction. All non-pokemon cards are colorless for the purposes of deckbuilding. Colorless partners are now more easily playable.
Clarified use of oversize cards as partner.
Players can no longer review prize cards at any time, nor look at face down prize cards when taking a prize. Players are only allowed to review the prize cards during setup before placing them in the prize zone.
Clarified rule for when a player may return a Partner to a partner zone.
Removed rule which merged pokemon powers, poke-powers, poke-bodies, and abilities. Each of these is now considered distinct, and is only affected by effects which specifically target them.
Removed rule in which trainers with the trainer subtype and trainers with no subtype were treated as trainers with the item subtype.
Replaced all references to “trainer card” with “non-pokemon card” to avoid possible confusion with regard to cards which are not pokemon, but do not have the trainer supertype (e.g. cards with the supporter or stadium supertype).
Added e-reader specific errata rules.
Adequate testing has been done with the current ruleset to move out of beta. Also, because of several major rules changes in this update, we are moving to milestone 2.0.
Changed the rule for taking an extra prize when getting a KO with a partner (3 Aug 2017)
1.5b->1.6b (4 Jun 2017)
Added clarification that only standard sized pokemon cards are legal (Just in case anyone wanted to try to play Shadow Lugia).
1.4b->1.5b (22 Jan 2017)
Revised special energy rules to make colorless partners more playable.
Added rule preventing partners from being put into prize cards.
Clarified that the English language version of the card text is used.
Added provision to allow use of non-English cards.
Reworded a few things to make them less wordy.
1.3b->1.4b (06 Jan 2017)
Added rule which treats trainers with no other subtype as item cards.
Players may now look at their prize cards at anytime.
1.2b->1.3b (07 Nov 2016)
Removed the rule which declared pokemon-ex and pokemon-EX to be the same thing as it goes against “play cards as printed” rule (and because the addition of pokemon-GX to the format will make this rule more unwieldy to maintain).
Removed the “partner tax” rule as it was deemed unnecessary.
Added the “no donk” rule which prevents the removal of a player’s last pokemon in play by an effect.
Reorganized the errata rules for clarity.
Added minor clarifications and examples to other rules.
1.1b->1.2b (28 Oct 2016)
Removed the rule regarding taking prizes while your partner is in the partner zone.
Added rule allowing players to look at prize cards.
Added rule which increases a partner’s attack cost when it is returned to the partner zone.
Added rule regarding errata text being used for cards with text that doesn’t make sense due to misprints.
Added minor clarifications and examples to other rules.
1.0b->1.1b (07 Jun 2016)
Removed Errata Rules which went against the principle “Play the card as printed”.
Removed ban on misprinted cards.
Adjusted the rule regarding taking prizes while your partner is in the partner zone.
Added Pokémon-ex/EX rule.
Added minor clarifications and examples to other rules.
0.4a->1.0b (26 May 2016)
No changes. Increased version number to commemorate the first game of this format having been played on this date at North Valley Games in Phoenix, AZ. (Tony Mundell’s Pikachu-EX beat Daniel Doronin’s Aegislash-EX, making Tony the first Pokemon Partner Battle World Champion 😛 )
0.3a->0.4a (22 May 2016)
Removed Fossil fixes as they were deemed unneeded, and they go against the general principle of “play the card as printed”.
Moved multiplayer rules to separate document.
Rearranged Type Identity rules and examples for clarity.
Clarified use of “Once during your turn” abilities.
0.2a->0.3a (9 May 2016)
Fixed typos.
Added examples for clarity.
Changed cards allowed from “Unlimited Legal” to “All cards”.
0.1a->0.2a (5 May 2016)
Updated fossil fixes to limit the number of mysterious fossil cards allowed in the deck.
Clarified partner rules.
0.0a->0.1a (3 May 2016)
Updated banlist to disallow certain misprinted cards.
Updated fossil fixes to include the rest of the fossil pokemon.
