If you picked up thePokemon Trading Cardgame after playing any of the video games, you might be a little surprised to find that some of your favorites have different classifications. Perhaps you can’t even main your favorite type because it just doesn’t seem to exist in the TCG.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can really do about that because some types don’t exist in the TCG for a variety of reasons — notably, to keep the TCG simpler and playable, because 11 Pokemon types are much easier to manage than 18 different ones that all demand different energies to play their movesets.
How Many Types Are Not In The TCG?
While the games normally have 18 different Pokemon types with some feeling a little redundant (really, what is the difference between Ground and Rock besides one possibly involving more dirt?),the TCG only has 11 different Pokemon types. This means thatseven different types are technically missingfrom the Pokemon TCG.
If you want to count the ones that had their names changed, then there are 11 that are missing, but they’re still there, just with different names. This means that the only types that are truly missing are Bug, Ghost, Ground, Flying, Ice, Poison, and Rock.
While both these types exist in the TCG, you technically won’t find them under their given name in the Pokemon games. Darkness, Electric, Steel, and Normal all exist in the Pokemon TCG, but their names were changed for whatever reason.
Instead of Normal Type, the TCG has Colorless; instead of Electric, there’s Lightning; instead of Darkness, there’s just Dark, and instead of Steel, there’s Metal. Some of these name changes make sense to keep things generalized, while others really don’t have much of an explanation besides possibly just being the way it was when the TCG first came out.
