The part that doesn't change.
The Journal follows the Japanese cards week by week, as they land over there. These pages don't move. They answer the questions that come round every month: what that little symbol at the bottom of your card means, what the three letters on a decklist stand for, which Japanese set became which set here. All of it is counted off the cards themselves. When the game moves, the page moves.
Rarity symbols, counted
The symbol at the bottom of your card tells you which pile it came out of. Everyone shows you the symbols. We counted how many cards carry each one, set by set, so you can tell at a glance whether the card in your hand is one in three or one in eight hundred.
Read→Japanese cards: reading them, and what they really are
They come out first, they come in smaller sets, and the numbers on them read without any translation at all. Here is the card field by field, the words that come back on every one of them, and the measured gap between a Japanese release and ours.
Read→Set symbols and codes
Three capital letters on a decklist, a small symbol at the bottom of a card. Here is every set with its printed code, its release date, how many cards it holds — and the Japanese set it was built from, which is the column nobody else publishes.
Read→Pokémon TCG Live: the format and your battle log
Ranked play is Standard, which means the cards in the client are the cards in a tournament hall — and a chunk of them expires at the next rotation. Here is what you are allowed to play, what is about to leave, and where the app keeps the record of every game you lose.
Read→Upcoming sets and release dates
The next expansion already exists — it has been on sale in Japan for weeks. Here is what is in it, and the window our measured Japan-to-here gap puts it in. Plus every past release with its real date on both sides.
Read→Standard rotation and regulation marks
One letter at the bottom of your card decides whether you are allowed to play it. Here is what it means, how many cards go at the next rotation, and — the part nobody counts — how many of them have no replacement waiting.
Read→What to buy, counted
Booster box, Elite Trainer Box, League Battle Deck: every shelf wants your money and none of them tells you what the decks people actually play are made of. We count that, off real tournament lists, and we tell you which product can even contain what you need.
Read→Deck costs, counted
Every deck page on this site counts which cards a deck really needs. This page adds the part everyone asks next: what that core costs — priced off real marketplace readings when we have them, never invented — and where players actually buy the cards.
Read→Reading a deck list
What "the core of a deck" means, why a card sits at 62 %, what the copies column is telling you, and where every number on a deck page comes from. Read this once and the other fifty-seven pages read themselves.
Read→- How to play the Pokémon TCG: the rules, in plain wordsFrom attaching Energy to taking Prize cards, counted on the cards that are actually legal
- Every Pokémon TCG set in orderThe whole list, with the Japanese set each one came from and the date it landed
These ones aren't written yet. They will be, the day we've got enough to stand behind every line. A page that's half right is the one that loses you a tournament, and you'd never work out why.