Introduction

Welcome to masterball!

Welcome, Trainer! We’re glad you found your way here. On our platform, masterball, we want to bring you closer to the world of Pokémon—especially the TCG (Trading Card Game)—and its community. At the heart of the platform is the digital cataloging of your collected Pokémon cards. That way, you always know what’s in your collection and have all the important information at your fingertips, such as the value of your cards or how many you have in each category.

But this platform offers so much more, especially with what we're planning to deliver on day: By joining, you become part of a growing community, make friends with other Trainers, earn achievements and collect their rewards, gradually create and personalize your own Trainer profile with the rewards you’ve earned, collect Pokémon for your Pokédex, build digital decks and discover those created by other Trainers, and much more.

Since that’s quite a lot already, we offer you a comprehensive collection of useful information about being a Trainer on masterball—for both newcomers and veterans of the platform and the Pokémon universe in this wiki. If you have anything to add at any point, please let us know on Discord!

How does masterball work?

As mentioned in the introduction, masterball is a collection of features designed for Pokémon fans of all kinds.

Whether you’ve only played the video games so far, are mainly familiar with Pokémon from the earlier trading cards, or are just getting into Pokémon for the first time, we warmly welcome you as a Trainer!

A key part of masterball consists of two things: your very own personal Trainer profile and collecting cards—or, more specifically, digitally logging the cards you’ve collected. We strongly believe that collecting together is more fun than doing it alone.

Here’s how to start your journey on masterball:

1. First, create an account to officially register as a Trainer with us. During the process—and at any time afterward—you can customize your Trainer profile: avatar, display name, etc. And, you'll be able to pick your starter Pokémon! But keep in mind that you cannot change your starter Pokémon later on.
2. Once that’s done, you can start adding your existing cards to our database. To do this, click on the “Cards” tab, select the card language, the series, and the corresponding set. You’ll then see a list of all the cards from that set.
3. Did you find any cards you own? Great! By clicking the checkboxes below the artwork, you can select which variant of a card you own. More information about cards can be found on the “Card Collection” article.

Note: At this point in time, there is a waiting list for first-time registrations.

What happens next?

After you’ve added your first cards, you’ll find an overview of the cards you’ve collected on your profile.

You earn experience (XP) for each card, as well as for many other actions on the platform. As you collect XP, your Trainer profile levels up, and you’ll receive rewards for your actions.

Many of your activities are saved and tracked across the entire platform. You can see at any time in the “Activities” tab what achievements you and other Trainers are accomplishing. And we actively reward many of these! You can find more information on the “Gamification” page.

When you view public Trainer profiles, you’ll notice that you can also see their collected cards, decks, progress, activities, and more. This is where personalizing your Trainer profile comes into play. You can also add any user as a friend and continue collecting together—so you share your progress on completing your collection with others! As an open community, it’s crucial to us that you can decide for yourself at any time who can view your profile and activities, and who cannot. You can find out more about that in our “Activities” article.

What makes masterball unique?

At its core, masterball is defined by a few guiding principles that set us apart:

• Focus on the Pokémon TCG
• Open Community
• Gamification
• Personalization
• Pokémon knowledge

These principles are applied in nearly every aspect of masterball.