How to Play Tetramon: TCG Card Shop Simulator Card Duels
The full rules of the playable Tetramon card game added in 1.0: deck size, elemental areas, evolution, Tamer Points and how to start your first duel.
Patch 1.0 made the cards on your shelves playable. Tetramon duels run three to five minutes, use fifty-card decks, and start from a workbench that unlocks at shop level 7.
How to start a duel
Wait until a customer sits down at one of your play tables. Walk over, then press right mouse button on PC or the right face button on a controller. Your shop keeps trading while the match runs.
The rulebook lives at the workbench, which is also where you build decks. If your shop level is below 7, you cannot access either.
The core rules
The official Xbox Wire guide lays the whole system out, and it is unusually complete for a feature this new.
| Rule | Detail |
|---|---|
| Deck size | 50 cards |
| Copy limit | 4 of any single named card |
| Opening hand | 5 cards, with one mulligan |
| Starting points | 500 Tamer Points each |
| Win condition | Reduce your opponent to 0 Tamer Points |
| Guardian Area | The top 4 cards of your deck, face down |
| Elemental Areas | Fire, Earth, Water and Wind |
A mulligan works the way you would expect: put your hand on the bottom of the deck, draw five fresh cards and reshuffle.
How a turn plays out
Each turn opens with a draw, then moves through a main phase and an attack phase. The very first turn of a duel skips the attack phase entirely.
In the main phase you play Tetramon into any of the four elemental areas. Its Play Effect fires the moment it lands. The official example is Burpig, a rare fire type that boosts its own elemental power by 15 for the turn when played.
Attack power is where placement matters. A Tetramon’s attack equals its own elemental power plus the power of the area it is standing in. The same card is stronger in the right slot.
Evolution chains in a single turn
Evolution cards stack directly on top of the Tetramon they evolve from.
Two rules shape how you use them. A freshly played basic Tetramon needs one turn to settle before it can evolve. After that, there is no limit on how many evolutions you can chain in the same turn if your hand supports it.
Each elemental area accepts only one new basic Tetramon per turn, and playing one clears out whatever was already sitting there.
The comeback mechanic
Losing Tamer Points is not purely bad. Crossing the 400,300,200 and 100 thresholds each pull the top card of your Guardian Area into your hand.
That means a player who is behind gets a resource injection at four separate points in the match. Do not assume a large early lead is safe.
Playing your own tournaments
Patch 1.0 lets you compete in the events you host. The bracket resolves by ranking and you keep the prizes if you win.
Two details from recorded play. Large brackets are possible if you own enough tables, and you should label your tables before the event begins or following the bracket becomes awkward. You also receive card packs when you finish a duel against a customer, and packs can include Ascension cards even at low shop levels.
Building a deck
Deck editing happens at the workbench. You pick a deck box and a playmat based on the licences you have unlocked, then fill fifty slots within the four-copy limit.
Sharing is manual but simple: copy the deck list the game produces and send it to a friend as text. If you want a showpiece, you can fill the entire deck with full-art foils.
What changed in 1.0, and what is unknown
Patch 1.0 adjusted Tetramon card values, updated the elemental icons and rewrote the Play Effect text. That means any card ranking published before September 2026 describes a different balance.
There is no published stat sheet for individual cards, no ranked ladder and no news about multiplayer. The developer’s FAQ is explicit that matches are against NPC customers only, with no multiplayer planned in the near future.