Battle basics

A battle is one attacking Pal against one target, resolved in a fixed sequence. Both players get to act inside it.

Choosing a target#

To attack you need a Pal of yours that is standing, and a legal target. The legal targets are:

• the opposing player;

• one of the opponent's structures;

• one of the opponent's Pals that is resting.

That last restriction is the single most important rule in the game. You cannot attack a standing Pal. A Pal that has not attacked, blocked or worked is untouchable, and a Pal that has done any of those things is exposed. Attacking is therefore not free: every attack you make is a Pal you are offering to your opponent next turn.

The sequence#

1. Attack declaration. You pick the attacker and the target, and rest the attacker.

2. Block declaration. Your opponent may rest one of their standing Pals to make itself the new target of the attack. That is a block: it saves whatever was being attacked, at the cost of resting the blocker and putting it in a fight it may not survive.

3. Quick step. Your opponent — and only your opponent — may play event cards and abilities with the Quick icon. This is where an attack goes wrong: removal, a power pump on the blocker, or an effect that nullifies the attack outright.

4. Damage. Depends on the target, below.

5. End of battle. "At the end of the battle" abilities go off, temporary effects expire, and you are back in your main phase.

Damage#

• Attacking a Pal: both Pals deal damage equal to their power to each other, simultaneously. Anything that has taken damage equal to or greater than its power goes to the graveyard.

• Attacking a structure: your Pal deals its power to the structure; the structure deals nothing back. Structures die when damage reaches their durability.

• Attacking a player: your Pal deals damage equal to its strike, not its power.

Damage to a player, and the Lucky check#

Damage to a player is not simply subtracted from life. The defending player puts cards from the top of their own deck into the graveyard, one at a time:

• if a card with the Lucky icon shows up, they stop immediately and the damage is cancelled — no life is lost;

• otherwise, once they have flipped as many cards as the damage dealt (or run out of deck), that much life is gone.

So a strike of 3 means "flip three cards, and if none of them is Lucky, lose 3 life". This is why the deck limit is up to 8 Lucky cards: they are your defensive layer, and every one of them is also a card you burn through.

And then it resets#

At the end of the turn, all damage on all Pals and structures becomes 0. Trading blows across two turns does not accumulate. If you cannot finish something now, you are not softening it up — you are just resting your Pal.

Source: Comprehensive Rules ver. 1.00 (30 July 2026) §9 “Battle” and §11.2 “Player Damage Resolution”, and the Palworld OFFICIAL CARD GAME Play Guide.