Hall of Fame Format

Last Updated 12 December 2020

Also known as the Palace format, the Hall of Fame format is an official format in Japan. The text below intends to reflect the official description of the format on the official Japanese Pokémon Trading Card Game website. The wording and formatting may differ, but the format remains the same.

The Hall of Fame format consists of cards from Diamond & Pearl base set onward, including promo cards from each legal series.

General Deck Building Rules

  • As in the Standard and Expanded formats, cards printed prior to Diamond & Pearl base set that have the same name and effect as their newest counterparts in a Hall of Fame format-legal set are also legal in the Hall of Fame format. This means that because Switch SSH 183 is legal in the format, Switch BS 95 is also legal in the format.

    • Computer Search BS 71 and Computer Search B2 101 may not be used in place of Computer Search BCR 137.

  • For each of the following sets of cards, only one of each may be in any given Hall of Fame format deck. For example, if a deck includes Professor’s Research, it may not include either Professor Juniper or Professor Sycamore—no matter the counts of the cards involved.

    • Professor Juniper, Professor Sycamore, Professor’s Research

    • Lysandre, Boss’s Orders

  • Flavor text does not distinguish a card as being different in name from another with different flavor text. For example, Boss’s Orders featuring Giovanni and Boss’s Orders featuring Lysandre have the same name.

  • Cards which specifically state they cannot be used in tournaments also may not be used in the Hall of Fame format.

  • A Hall of Fame format deck must contain exactly 60 cards and, per the point system described below, may not contain more than four points.

Hall of Fame Format Point System

Certain powerful cards have been assigned a point value. A Hall of Fame format deck may not exceed 4 total points. Each copy of a card in a deck that is worth points contributes to the total point value of a deck. So, for example, a deck running one copy of Azelf LA 19 and no other cards worth points has a total point value of 1. If that deck instead contains two copies of Azelf LA 19 and no other cards worth points, the deck has a total point value of 2.

For cards like Shaymin-EX ROS 77 that have alternate prints (same card name, HP, attacks, and abilities), all versions of the card are worth the same point value.

For an alternate point Hall of Fame point system proposed by Charlie Lockyer, read his article on PokéBeach. The official point system follows below.

1-Point Cards

Shaymin-EX ROS 77

Seeker TM 88

Unown R LA 77

Azelf LA 19

Stark Mountain LA 135

Poké Drawer + SF 89

Crobat G PL 47

Weavile UD 25

Hypnotoxic Laser PLS 123

 

2-Point Cards

Claydol GE 15

Forest of Giant Plants AOR 74

Time-Space Distortion MT 124

Cyrus’s Initiative SV 137

Junk Arm TM 87

Mew TM 97

Archeops NVI 67

 

3-Point Cards

Shiftry NXD 72

Forretress LA 28

Porygon2 GE 49

Uxie LA 43

Broken Space-Time PL 104

Shuckle HGSS15

Ban List

The cards below are banned in the Hall of Fame format. Note that Japanese-only cards are also included in this list to maintain parity with the Japanese ban list. If you intend to play in a Japanese Hall of Fame tournament, always double check the official ban list and card point values.