Pokemon Club
Sundays, 11am – 12:30pm
The perfect place for young players to be introduced to the Pokemon Trading Card Game! Collect new cards, trade with friends*, and play the card game with us every Sunday. No booking required, just turn up on the day!
New players will have the chance to learn the game with our starter decks on their first day. After this, players will need to bring their own deck with them. If you don’t have a deck, check to see what ready-built decks we have available to purchase in store!
Proxy and fake cards are not allowed; please ensure all Pokemon cards brought in store are genuine and played as intended.
Entry: £2 per week
Please note our minimum for card payments is £3; you may wish to bring cash with you!
* We have trading rules in store, see below for more details!
Pokemon League
Sundays, 1pm – 4pm*
A session for trainers who want to improve their Pokemon TCG skills! This session is for adults and confident younger players to build decks and play in a casual weekly tournament.
Weekly tournaments start at 2pm, and include a promo card for top placing players. Rounds are 30 minutes, with best-of-one game matches each round. No booking is required, just turn up on the day!
Proxy and fake cards are not allowed; please ensure all Pokemon cards brought in store are genuine and played as intended.
Entry: £5 per week (includes one booster pack)
* League sessions are sometimes replaced by special events: Prerelease (twice every 2-3 months), League Challenge (once a month), and League Cup (once every 3 months). These events require booking to participate. Keep reading below for more information on these events, and check our event calendar to see when these are coming up!
Card Trading Rules
Only genuine Pokemon cards are allowed to be traded in store. Buying/selling cards is not allowed.
Players under 13 years old must have all trades approved by a League Leader.
All trades must be made in good faith. Anyone found to be taking advantage of another player will not be allowed to trade in store.
How Pokemon Works In Store
Focus on play
Our main focus with Pokemon is to play the official card game! We do allow trading (with some rules in place to protect all those involved), but all participants in our events are encouraged to play.
If you’re new to playing the card game, we recommend starting with a session of Pokemon Club. This will give you a chance to learn how to play with our in-store learning decks, and get comfortable with the rules. You don’t need to bring any cards with you on your first day, but after this, you’ll need to bring a deck with you, or pick up a new ready-built deck in store!
When bringing your own cards or decks to play in store, please ensure that all cards played and traded in store are genuine Pokemon cards – proxies and/or fake cards are not allowed.
Adults and children welcome
Our players range from 6 years old to adults and parents, and everything in between. Parents/guardians are welcome to stay and learn with their kids (provided we have enough space). We do ask parents/guardians to review our child responsibility policy before leaving children in store.
Skill building
All players have the opportunity to improve their Pokemon and gaming skills. In particular, we encourage players to understand key parts of playing in an official Pokemon environment, including:
- Trading – Understanding what makes a fair card trade.
- Protecting cards – Identifying fake cards to make sure every card being used is a genuine card, as well as keeping cards safe and well cared for.
- Building decks – Learning how to create playable decks, and what cards are allowed to be used in events.
- Competitive play – Understanding the structure of tournaments in a casual-competitive atmosphere.
About Special Events
Prerelease
Play with brand new Pokemon cards up to two weeks early! You don’t need to have played in a prerelease before to take part, but you do need to know the rules of how to play the game before arriving. (You can always come along to Pokemon Club to get the basics if you need some help!)
In this event, players receive a Build & Battle Box. This box includes a 40-card deck to play with, as well as four booster packs to rebuild their deck if they wish to. After some time to review their deck, players will be paired against other players for three rounds to play a game with their deck. At the end of these rounds, players are welcome to keep playing with anyone they like until the event time is up. After the event is completed, every player gets additional booster packs for taking part!
Prerelease events typically occur once every few months, with tickets available to purchase online or in store 3-4 weeks in advance. A Prerelease will usually take about 2-3 hours.
League Challenge / League Cup
Challenge your deck building and playing skills by competing with local players! Participants for these events will need to know how to play the Pokemon card game, and will need to have a Standard format deck to play with (as well as tokens, dice, or any other play materials they need). Players are also required to write a deck list and bring a physical copy to the event.
These events include 3-4 rounds of age-modified pairings, where players will take part in a best-of-three-games match against their opponent each round. At the end of the event, all players will receive one prize for taking part. Additional prizes will be given to high-ranking players for each age category! (The number of ranked prizes will depend on the number of players in that age category.)
League Challenges take place once a month. League Cups take place once every three months. Tickets are available to purchase in store up to four weeks in advance, and online a week or two in advance. These events usually run for 3-4 hours.