Standard format (TCG)

The Standard format of the Pokémon Trading Card Game is one of two formats used for officially-sanctioned Play! Pokémon events along with TCG Expanded format. It was called the Modified format prior to the TCG 2013-14 Modified format (2013-2014 season). It is also used in the Pokémon Trading Card Game Online.

The Standard format (then referred to as the Modified format) was introduced in 2001. Tournaments in the 2001-2002 season were played in a format that only allowed cards from the TCG Team Rocket expansion on up through TCG Neo Genesis (with the exception of, which was banned). Since then, Play! Pokémon has continued to rotate out expansions once per year, usually after the World Championships, to keep the game fresh and, some speculate, to keep players buying cards. The 2009-2010 tournament season did not feature a rotation, and the rotation for the 2010-2011 season rotated out only four expansions, keeping roughly two years' worth of cards in the pool. Additional expansions are added to the current TCG Rotation three weeks after they are released in the United States. Starting from 2016, they were added to the current Rotation on the third Friday in the month of release.

If a card in a Standard-legal expansion is a reprint of an older card, all prints of the card can be played in a Standard-legal expansion-legal deck (e.g. TCG Base Set, recently reprinted in TCG Black & White). However, some cards significantly differ in wording between older prints and newer prints (e.g. from the TCG Base Set compared to its TCG Stormfront iteration); those cards require a reference outside the deck in order to use the older prints in a Standard-legal deck. A reference must be either a new version of the card or a printout of the card's entry from the official Card-Dex. The TCG Yellow A Alternate cards were introduced in 2017 which were reprints of cards from previous expansions with an alternate artwork. These cards are only allowed in the same formats as the original print. 