Setting up a game

The table#

Each player has their own set of zones. The official playmat prints them, but any table works once you know what goes where:

• Base — the play area in front of you. Pals, structures and gear are deployed here, face up, and can be standing or resting.

• Deck zone — your 50-card main deck, face down.

• Hand — hidden from your opponent.

• Graveyard — used and destroyed cards, face up, in no particular order.

• Soul deck — your 10 soul cards, off to one side.

• Soul area — where souls go once they are in play. They stand and rest, exactly like Pals.

• Exile zone — cards removed from the game entirely, face up.

• Resolution zone — a shared space in the middle where a card or ability sits while it is being resolved.

The opening sequence#

1. Show your main deck to your opponent, put it in your deck zone and shuffle it.

2. Randomly decide one player — a die roll, rock-paper-scissors, whatever — and that player chooses who goes first.

3. Both players put their soul cards into the soul deck.

4. The player going second puts one soul into their soul area, standing. This is the compensation for the turn disadvantage, and it is easy to forget.

5. Both players draw 5 cards.

6. Starting with the player going first, each player may redraw once: shuffle the whole hand back in and draw five new cards. Once per player, per game, and you must decide before seeing what the redraw gives you.

7. Both players set life to 10, damage taken to 0, and both resources to 0.

8. The player going first takes the first turn.

What to keep#

A five-card hand with nothing under three cost is a redraw in most decks — the first two turns of the game only give you two and four souls, and a hand you cannot start playing until turn three usually loses the board. Conversely, a hand of nothing but one-cost Pals runs out of steam fast. Two cheap plays and something to do on turn three is the shape you want.

Remember that the redraw is a whole-hand mulligan with no penalty. Keeping a hand you do not like because "the next five might be worse" is the most common beginner mistake in this game.

Source: Comprehensive Rules ver. 1.00 (30 July 2026) §6.2 “Preparing for the Game”, the Palworld OFFICIAL CARD GAME Play Guide and the official playmat.