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The Metal and Darkness types of Pokémon cards were also introduced, along with Light Pokémon and Dark Pokémon. With the release of Pokémon Gold and Silver video games, the Neo Series (the second series of expansions), started bringing several new Pokémon into play. In 2003, Wizards of the Coast's license was transferred to The Pokémon Company International.
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Three years later in 1999, Pokémon TCG was introduced in North America by Wizards of the Coast with the Base Set, and worldwide soon after. Soon new expansions began to release with many new artists contributing artwork. The first Pokémon TCG sets took inspiration from the then released Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue video games and initially featured illustrations by Ken Sugimori, Mitsuhiro Arita and Keiji Kinebuchi. While other series of collectable Pokémon cards existed in the past (such as the Pocket Monsters Carddass Trading Cards released in September 1996), this was the first card game based on the Pokémon series. The Pokémon Trading Card Game was originally published in Japan in October 1996 by Media Factory. The game is part of the Play! Pokémon organized play along with the video game series and is also used in the Pokémon Trading Card Game Online. As of the end of March 2021, over 34.1 billion Pokémon Trading Card Game cards have been produced worldwide in 13 languages, and being sold in 76 countries and regions. The Pokémon TCG is a popular and steady aspect of the Pokémon franchise and is played and enjoyed by many fans. The artwork for the cards is often created specifically for the TCG by numerous artists, though occasionally pre-existing art made for the core series is used. There are Pokémon cards for every species of Pokémon, as well as Trainer cards featuring characters, items and other themes of the franchise (each with a different use) and Energy cards to power attacks. It has its own set of rules but uses many motifs and ideas derived from the video games. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.The Pokémon Trading Card Game (Japanese: ポケモンカードゲーム, Pokémon Card Game), often abbreviated as Pokémon TCG or just PTCG, is a tabletop game that involves collecting, trading and playing with Pokémon-themed playing cards. This file contains bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below.
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