Victory conditions

There are three different ways to win a game:

• The first type of win condition is to retrieve a set of "prize cards." A number of cards (six cards for normal play and tournament status, and three cards for "speedy" play) are set aside from the top of each player's deck at the beginning of each game. Each time a player knocks out an opponent's Pokémon, he or she adds a prize card to his or her hand. Pokémon-ex cards, introduced in EX Ruby and Sapphire, are more powerful than their non-ex counterparts, but allow a player who knocks them out to take two prize cards instead of one or if a Pokémon has a card called 'Expert Belt' attached to it, the opponent also takes 2 prize cards when the Pokémon expert belt is attached to is knocked out.
• Second, a player loses if his or her active Pokémon (the one currently conducting battle) is knocked out and he or she has no other Pokémon in play.
• Third, a player must draw a card from the top of the deck at the beginning of his or her turn, and therefore loses if there are no cards remaining in the deck at the beginning of the turn. This is a trend common to most trading card games.