While the Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) is arguably the simplest of the big franchises to play when compared to Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh, it can still be difficult for the youngest of players and there’s always going to be cards in your collection you can’t use.

Solving both of those issues is a new way to play called Poké Catch.

At its core Poké Catch is a colour matching game which means that kids who are below the reading age can play too. It’s focused on catching three Pokémon of different types by matching these types to energy cards.

Because of this simplicity any Pokémon cards can be used. Like with most TCGs only a small handful of cards are actually competitive and are useful in organised play, which means even casual fans will have hundreds if not thousands of unused copies sitting around.

This is usually referred to as “bulk” cards which sit in cupboards and never see the light of day.

Using these cards is one of the points of Poké Catch, as pointed out by this Pokémon designer on Twitter.

Below you can find a video showing off how this all works in just over four minutes. A PDF of the rules is also available here for those who want them.

The PDF rules include extra instructions which aren’t present in the video, such as recommendations for the deck sizes and advanced rules intended for players aged six or older.

This is nice to see from Pokémon as it encourages players to use products they already own instead of running out and buying new stuff.

For those thinking this is an anomaly, it isn’t as an alternate gameplay mode called Raid Battle was introduced back in 2020 and could also be played with whatever cards you already had. It was even introduced with special cards that players were encouraged to print at home and make use of.