POKEMON TCG: Battle Academy 2024

I'm pretty middle-aged, enough so that when Pokemon came out for Game Boy, I was a teen and thought it was for babies - who knew it would become a mega franchise? As a result, I know about the franchise and that the game exists but never really played any of it and had no idea how the card game worked.My 8 year old son has been showing a lot of interest in Pokemon lately, but it wasn't clear whether he wanted shiny cards with cool monsters, or wanted to be able to trade cards, or wanted to actually play the game. I thought this Battle Academy would be a good intro based on reviews and recommendations of some coworkers. It comes with a game board, three decks, and a guide. The brilliant thing about this set is that the decks are balanced, so you don't need to know how to do deck building to start playing, and the guide is actually a walkthrough based on the decks being ordered a certain way. Each player has a copy and it tells you draw a card, you'll get an energy, now play this creature, etc. It's brief but demonstrates pretty much all the features of the game including drawing, energy cards, attacks, trainer cards, leveling up, combat/damage, and kills.There's a bit to remember but it's not overwhelming, and if you do the walkthrough once or twice you're ready to play for real. Then you just shuffle up the decks and go for it. My son and I had fun playing matches after that, and I appreciate that you can reuse the decks or buy more cards and use the board for your own decks. The price isn't bad for what you get, and each deck does get a shiny special card which is a cool touch. Definitely recommend if you're a noob to the TCG, if you've already got cards and know how to play, you can probably skip this one.

My 7-year-old was so excited to get this Pokémon TCG learning kit. It taught us the basics while letting us play, and it encouraged him to explore the game's world. The board game pieces are high quality. Not bad value for all the pieces you receive, though of course he'll need to invest in better cards to compete with his friends. My main word of caution is that you need excellent eyesight to read the tiny print on the cards. Parents, bring your reading glasses. I also wish it included some advice on improving the decks with other cards, since these starter-decks are very underpowered. But that's an advanced topic for follow-up to this "academy". This serves it's purpose as a beginner tutorial very well.

Everything arrived perfectly! The Pokémon Academy set came well-sealed and in excellent condition. My daughter loves it — the instructions are super easy to follow, and now she doesn’t stop playing with her friends. A fantastic way to learn the game. Totally recommended!

Easy way to learn how to play the game and great starting decks.

According to my kid the cards are good ones. Each deck has a holographic card. We have fun playing with it.

It's overall a good introduction to the game. I've taught a number of friends the game using this tool, and they felt it was a good first step, but also noted that it didn't fully prepare them for play with an actually competitive deck. There's no beating around the bush: the three included decks absolutely SUCK. They are simple, which is good for cutting down on elements to learn, but I fear that it presents a subpar experience of what the actual game is like. Much more than with normal decks, these are extremely dependent on whether you get a good shuffle or not.The Darkrai EX alone is worth the price though

While the decks in this set will certainly not win any tournaments, they are outstanding for learning the game. The absence of complications such as status effects, resistances, and abilities makes this set extremely accessible for young children (and their inexperienced parents). In my opinion, this represents a superior entry point compared to 'My First Battle' decks as it more closely resembles the complete game, has much more replayability, and is more engaging.

Great place to start your Pokemon journey yo learn how to play, which cards are needed how many do you need and how to arrange your cards and even comes with a cardboard mat!! My son loves Pokemon and wanted to know how to play so this was our solution and a good one!!