The theme deck originally came with a deck of 60 cards and the type cards depended on which deck was bought! And also in each deck of 60 their was 1 holo card! This theme deck is from the original 102 pokemon! I think the older cards are just for collecting serious pokemon players have newer up to date cards! But you can play with a friend! That's wat I do :) but to answer your main question u need no specific cards to play a mixture of different kinds works well Thankz for the questions I also have pokemon card auctions going on now feel free to take a look