Knockouts and how you win

There are exactly three ways to win. Nearly every game ends by the first, but the other two are real and knowing them changes how you play.

1. Take all six of your Prize cards

Knock out an opponent's Pokémon, take a Prize card. Take all six, win.

Not every Knock Out pays the same:

| Knocked Out | Prizes taken | |---|---| | A normal Pokémon | 1 | | A Pokémon ex | 2 | | A Mega Pokémon | 3 |

So one Knock Out on an ex is worth two on anything else. That arithmetic is the game.

2. Your opponent has no Pokémon in play

If their Active is Knocked Out and their Bench is empty, the game ends instantly — there's nothing to promote.

It's rare in long games, but it's a genuine early-game angle. An opponent who opened with a single Basic and hasn't drawn another is one Knock Out from losing, whatever the Prize count says.

3. Your opponent can't draw a card

Drawing is the first thing you do on a turn. If a player's deck is empty when their turn begins, they lose immediately.

Most decks flirt with this in long games. A few are built around it deliberately, forcing the opponent to burn through cards until there are none left.

You're racing, not clearing the board

The most important idea in this lesson: you're racing to six Prizes, not trying to knock out everything they have. You never need to clear their board. You need six well-chosen Knock Outs before they get six.

Which makes target selection the highest-leverage skill in the game.

Picking the right target

Once your attacker is ready, the question isn't "can I Knock this Out?" — it's "which Knock Out actually moves me closer to winning?" Five things to weigh:

1. Your Prize count

Your remaining Prizes are the clock. At 2 Prizes, taking out one Mega wins on the spot. At 6, the same attack is just a start. Read both Prize stacks every turn — the right play at 6 is often the wrong play at 2.

2. What's on their Bench

If their Active is all they have, Knocking it out wins the game. Even with a Bench, what's on it matters: a benched ex is 2 Prizes you can chase later, and a benched setup Pokémon might be the engine keeping their whole hand working.

3. Energy and Tools on the Active

A loaded Active — three Energy and a Tool — is turns of investment. Knock it out and all of it hits the discard. Knock out an empty support Pokémon instead and you've traded a Prize for none of their resources.

4. Abilities on the board

Some Pokémon are dangerous without ever attacking. Abilities only work while the Pokémon is in play, so removing a 1-Prize support piece can switch off their entire engine — worth far more than the single Prize card suggests.

5. What you give back

Your attacker is a target too. Spending a 3-Prize Mega to take a 1-Prize Knock Out is a losing trade: they swing back at something worth three times what you took. Save the big hitters for big targets.

Single-prize decks

This is why decks built entirely from non-ex attackers stay competitive even when ex Pokémon hit harder card-for-card.

If every Pokémon you put down is worth 1 Prize, your opponent needs six Knock Outs to win. Meanwhile you're taking their ex for 2 and their Megas for 3. You can lose the damage race comfortably and still win the Prize race.

Where this goes next

You're not just picking strong cards — you're picking attackers whose Prize math works against the decks you'll actually face.

That's the bridge from rules to deckbuilding, and it's where Dexter starts earning its keep: the archetype match on every deck profile tells you what the field is running, which tells you which Knock Outs you'll be chasing and which of yours they'll be after.