Glossary
Palworld TCG terms, defined
Every keyword, attribute and mechanic in plain language. Need the icons too? See the visual legend.
Structure
- Base
- Where your Pals, Structures and Gear sit in play. You may have at most 5 Pals in your base; any beyond that go to the graveyard.
- Exile
- Where cards removed from the game entirely are placed. Public, and unordered.
- Graveyard
- Face up and public. Used Events, dead Pals and cards milled by damage end up here.
- Hand
- Cards you hold. Hidden from your opponent, who may still count them.
- Life
- Starts at 10 and is public. At 0 or below you lose. It has no upper limit, so cards can take you above 10.
- Main deck
- Your primary deck of exactly 50 cards — Pals, Structures, Gear and Events. At most 4 cards may share a name, and at most 8 may carry the Lucky Pal icon.
- Resource
- A tracked quantity you hold — Material and Ingredient. Cards consume them. Resources are not how card costs are paid; souls are.
- Soul
- What you pay costs with. You gain 2 per turn from your soul deck, and you spend one by resting it; rested souls stand again in your next stand phase.
- Soul deck
- A separate deck of 10 Soul cards, built alongside the Main deck rather than out of it. Souls move into your soul area during the game and are what you spend.
- Stand / Rest
- A card is either standing (upright) or resting (sideways). Attacking, blocking, assigning and paying soul costs all rest a card; your stand phase stands everything you control.
- Turn player
- Whoever is taking the turn. Only the turn player starts battles; only the non-turn player may block or act in the quick step.
Attributes
- Colour
- Red, blue, green or purple, shown by the background behind the cost. Some cards are colourless, meaning they have no colour rather than a colour called colourless. Distinct from Element.
- Cost
- What you pay in souls to play a card.
- Durability
- A Structure's power, under its own name. A Structure never deals damage back to a Pal attacking it.
- Element
- Neutral, Fire, Water, Grass, Electric, Ground, Ice, Dark or Dragon. Neutral is an element, not the absence of one. Distinct from Colour — do not confuse the two.
- Lucky Pal
- A Pal subtype, marked with an icon. Its icon is checked when you take damage, not when you attack: turning one over cancels the damage outright. At most 8 in a deck.
- Parallel
- An alternate printing of a card with different art and number, marked ◆. A collector distinction, not a rules one, and a separate axis from Rarity.
- Power
- Damage this Pal deals to Pals and Structures, and how much damage it absorbs before dying. In a Pal-versus-Pal battle both deal their power to each other at once, so both can die.
- Rarity
- A card's scarcity tier: C, U, R, RR, SR, SP, SSP, OSR, trial-deck TD/TSR/TSP and promo, plus compound printings like RR/SSP. RR is holo; SR and above are foil. A printing fact, with no meaning in the rules.
- Reminder text
- Text in brackets explaining an ability. It is part of the card's text but has no effect on the game.
- Strike
- Damage this Pal deals to a player. Only used when attacking a player directly — against a Pal or Structure it deals its power instead.
- Work Suitability
- The kind of work a Pal is suited to. Card text refers to it by name in corner brackets.
Actions
- Assign
- To rest a standing Pal in order to put it to work on a Structure. A Pal already resting cannot be assigned.
- Block
- The defender resting one of their standing Pals to make it the target of an attack instead of the original target.
- Butcher
- To move one of your own Pals to your graveyard, usually as the cost of something.
- Deploy
- To move a Pal, Structure or Gear onto a base from anywhere that is not a base.
- Night
- A named state both players share. Cards can turn it on and cards care whether it is on — Nocturnal is built around it.
Keywords
- Assault
- This card may choose a standing Pal as its attack target, which no other card can do — ordinarily only resting Pals and Structures can be attacked.
- Brave
- Brave (number): on attack, this card's power increases by that number until end of turn.
- Breakthrough
- If this card is attacking and the Pal it fought is put into the graveyard, deal damage equal to this card's strike to that Pal's controller.
- Interrupt
- A quick ability that nullifies your opponent's attack, paid for by discarding this card — with a soul, or with another card from hand.
- Nocturnal
- While it is night, this card's power is 300 higher.
- On Assign
- Triggers when this card is assigned to a Structure.
- On Attack
- Triggers when this card attacks.
- On Deploy
- Triggers when this card is deployed.
- Quick
- Can be played during the quick step — the window inside a battle where the defender, and only the defender, may act.
- Retaliate
- If this Pal is put into the graveyard having battled, the Pal it was fighting goes to the graveyard too.
- Serious
- Serious (number): on assign, choose 1 Pal and its power increases by that number until end of turn.
- Stealth
- This card cannot be blocked.
- Taunt
- Your opponent must choose this card as their attack target if it is a legal one. If it cannot be targeted, they may choose freely.
- Vigilance
- Stands this card at the end of your turn. It still rests to attack; it is simply ready again before your opponent's turn.
Abilities
- ACT
- An activated ability you choose to play by paying the cost written in square brackets at the start of it.
- AUTO
- An automatic ability. It plays itself when its trigger condition is met — “when …”, “at the beginning of …”, “at the end of …”.
- CONT
- A continuous ability. It is never played; it is simply in effect for as long as it applies.
Nothing matches that.