Contest January 2021 CaC: New Year, New Type (Results Up!)

I already smell that I'll have less points for this.


This Talonflame has the same Ability as Darkrai GX,but with the addition to switch with your Active Pokèmon,so it can be already used.
Lighting Gale does more damage for each card in your discard pile,but if we leave your opponent's Active Pokèmon paralyzed,we'll discard Talonflame.
Yes,discarded.Not KOed.
It's basically a cycle,discard a Talonflame,put another Talonflame,discard that Talonflame,put the other Talonflame previously discard.
In poor words:it's an infinite cycle of Talonflame.
Dedenne GX is the perfect match with Talonflame,but there's also Rose,or even Pikachu VMAX who discards free Energies for Talonflame.

I know,I know,I still use Paint,I totally forgot to use other programs to make cards.
I just wanted to make cards again,I haven't done one since last summer.
 
My first entry for a Create-a-Card contest ever!

Here's Pikachu Libre!

pikachu_libre.png

Here are also some notes about my process.
 
Arctozolt [D] 120 HP
Stage 1- Evolves from Rare Fossil

Ability: Resentment
Whenever your opponent takes a Prize Card, attach a [D] Energy from your discard pile to this Pokémon.

[D][D][D] Stitchy Situation
Choose 1 of your opponent’s Basic Pokémon that has at least 4 damage counters on it. Remove all damage counters and Special Conditions from it, and discard all cards attached to it. Then, play it onto 1 of your opponent’s other Basic Pokémon as an Evolution. This Pokémon can’t attack during your next turn.

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
No Resistance
Retreat: [C] [C] [C]
This Pokémon was stitched together from unrelated prehistoric fossils. It resents all other living creatures and seeks to merge them together as well.

Behold the Darctozolt! I always felt bad for this big guy and their fossil brethren. Nobody deserves that fate, but they still try to make the most of it. But if one of them was resentful, and wanted to do unto others what had been done to it? This Arctozolt uses dark powers to accomplish just that.

The Resentment ability is straightforward. It provides some helpful acceleration to Arctozolt when KOs occur, making the challenge of using this Pokémon the secondary effect of Stitchy Situation.

I feel like Evolution is a mechanic that isn’t played around with and explored enough in the TCG. In fact, the designers seem to want to make a rare occurrence in higher play, with the sheer power of many Basic Pokémon and Stage 2 deck’s reliance on Rare Candy. Stitchy Situation toys with the rules of evolution as Darctozolt deals its pent-up anger on two unlucky Pokémon. It can only target Basics, encouraging the opponent to evolve their Pokémon, and for the owner to target an unfortunate Crobat V or Eldegoss V on the bench.

A few damage counters are required on the Pokémon first, which can easily be accomplished with the help of Galarian Zigzagoon from Sword & Shield, or a fellow Arctozolt from Darkness Ablaze.



Good luck to all the contestants!
 
Finally, I have completed my first ever CAC Contest card!

LINK:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16ZD3vWzSDGxUeukgNNeyCETKXm7loUoE/view?usp=sharing

Inspiration:
Ability: Scatterbug (Forbidden Light 5/131)
Attack: Couldn't find a similar card.

Special Thanks:
CardPone - Omnium Template
mariosonic500 - 3D Art
Matteo Di Iorio (Unsplash) - Desert Background
icycatelf - Foil
Jabberwock, bbninjas, aschefield101, CardPone - Being super helpful, welcoming, and funny.
bbninjas - Introducing me to this community!
 
ded9e4c-967ce597-00af-4dc2-b118-260b3f42cd98.png

I've been really enjoying mucking around with Blender as of late and I think I've got the hang of it! For this month's theme, I was inspired by PMJ and his Rocket-themed High Stakes set to create a mythical Rocket's Pokemon card of my own. Celebi was my initial pick, but considering Dark Celebi already existed in that era, I thought Victini would be a reasonable next pick. I felt the Rocket's engine in the ex-era was quite lacking, so I've added an Ability that I would provide some much needed Energy acceleration - but since the acceleration can only activate through taking Prize cards, it's not something you'll have access to early in the game. Energy Overload then lets you move that Energy around the board.

This blank has been edited from Metagross101's ex-era EX blanks (@AwesomeEevee) to include a Rocket symbol and spikey art border.

I don't have the references on me (rip), but an ex-era Slowking and Jirachi Prism Star were referenced. I borrowed DPPt era wording for the "Bench isn't full" part. I decided to go with a "instead into your hand" wording instead of the one used on Jirachi Prism Star since I felt it was more appropriate for an ex-era, which had a similar sort of wording on Balloon Berry.

Placements, spoilers, edits, art by @bbninjas
Resources by Metagross101 and @aschefield101
 
So I decided to come back to CaC cos it's super fun, but I may or may not have forgotten to submit it earlier. Like last time, I did this in the first week and sat on it until right before the deadline, so I'm sorry judges! With that said, here's the card.
hypno.png
Hypno 70HP [D]
[Poké-Power] Longer-Distance Hypnosis
Once during your turn (before your attack), if Hypno is in your hand, you may show it to your opponent. If you do, flip a coin. If heads, the Defending Pokémon is now Asleep. Then, discard Hypno.
[D][C][C] Night Amnesia 30
Choose 1 of the Defending Pokémon’s attacks. That Pokémon can’t use that attack during your opponent’s next turn. If the Defending Pokémon isn’t Asleep, this attack does nothing.
W/R/RC: F/P/1
Basically, I was vibing one night, watching the Mandolorian, drawing some Pokémon stuff. I usually keep my stuff in a roughly 3:5 aspect ratio or something, to potentially use as a card art, and this one struck me as very Wizards of the Coast era. E-cards are and have always been my favourite blank, so I decided to go with that for my design. I will admit that there isn't a huge amount of creativity going on with the card idea, but I like the gimmick. The idea for the type stemmed from Hypno's not-so-nice reputation, feasting on the dreams of its sleeping prey and kidnapping children on occasion. That's why I went for the more devilish aspects of Hypno for this card design.

The Attacks:
=========
While these both look fairly vanilla for a sleep-based Pokémon, they both have definite inspirations. I'll start with Night Amnesia. I wanted to use a Dream Eater-esque move, as it's pretty much signature to the Hypno line, but I'm not a huge fan of the way it functions as is. I decided to use the idea that one whose dream is eaten can't remember it, so I combined Dream Eater's restrictions with Amnesia's effect for a truly evil attack. Next, we have Longer-Distance Hypnosis; I'm particularly proud of this one. I love the ability Long-Distance Hypnosis from Drowzee and Munna, but I also really like the Yugioh hand-trap like cards such as Audino BCR. I decided to combine them to create Longer-Distance Hypnosis. In addition to card game influences, I took inspiration from my favourite Hypno Pokédex entry:
Seeing its swinging pendulum can induce sleep in three seconds, even in someone who just woke up.
The idea of Hypno being able to put its prey to sleep in 3 seconds flat really seals the deal on an evil build for me. The Defending Pokémon is just sitting there, minding its business, when suddenly a Hypno emerges from the hand and puts it to sleep almost instantly. Then, its cohort of other dark type Pokémon could come in and finish it off.

Balancing:
=======
This card is meant to be balanced for the e-card era. For starters, I picked a fairly standard HP for a the time, if not a little low. I didn't want to make it too high, because this is a very offense heavy build, if it's on the field. Next up is actually the typing. You see, last CaC I also made a Dark Pokémon, but for the ex era. What I didn't realize is, before DPPT era, Dark energy only came in the Special variety! This meant that you could only play four in your deck, or resort to measures like Rainbow Energy; it also had an effect that increased damage output by 1o. This was taken into careful consideration when building this card. I chose only a single Dark energy for the attack, so it could get rolling quickly and not depend on drawing half your deck to power up. I also tried to balance the damage around the fact that it would do at least 10 more, if not 20 or even 30 more damage each hit. There is a chance that I could have upped it to 40, as Sleep isn't that easy to keep around, but it is what it is. The best part about this card is that in addition to sleep utility, it synergizes greatly with itself. I could see a potential decklist with this as the main attacker and long-distance drowzee on the bench.
Audino BCR: "Once during your turn (before your attack), if [this Pokémon => Hypno] is in your hand, you may [reveal it => show it to your opponent]. If you do, ... Then, discard [this Pokémon => Hypno].
Lure Ball SK: "show it to your opponent"
Poliwrath SK: "if [NAME] is ..."
Bill's Maintenance: "in your hand"
Seel SK: "Flip a coin. If heads, the Defending Pokémon is now Asleep."
Forest Guardian AQ: "Then, ..."
Wooper N1, Wooper DF: "Choose 1 of the Defending Pokémon's attacks. That Pokémon can't use that attack during your opponent's next turn." [Didn't change between neo and ex era, so assumed to be correct for e-card era.]
Haunter EX: "If the Defending Pokémon isn't Asleep, this attack does nothing."
ascefield101 on DA for the blanks
Yours truly for the art
Thanks for reading, and I really hope this doesn't inconvenience you guys with how late it is!
 
I really wanted an excuse to use this art... lol

Without further ado... I present to you all what is probably one of my favorite fakes of all time:

Glacina.png

Of course I made a Glaceon fake. To anyone who has seen my recent fakes, you will recognize the layout style I used for this card. This is sorta the in-between of Broken Eternity and a normal SM blank, with the proportions of the former but the visuals of the latter. The reason I decided to go for this as opposed to a normal blank was the art - if I really wanted it to look good, it would have been really awkward if I had confined it into an art box. Speaking of the art, it's a birthday gift that HarlequinWaffles did for his friend. It's supposed to be a mashup between Glaceon and Lucina from Fire Emblem, of course, hence "Glacina". The type is taken from Honedge, which inspired a lot of this card. There is a pretty solid chance that I made this card too strong for a non-GX Stage 1... which, in all honesty, I am okay with. Most non-GX Stage 1s in this era were tech cards anyways, there are very few I can think of that were attackers. It's balanced around Pre-TT SM, so it would have a fair amount of support (Malamar comes to mind), but the fact that it's a Stage 1 that needs to play 2 Energy types really makes it hard to justify playing over something like Ultra Necrozma-GX, which has a potentially higher damage output at the same double-energy cost with more HP... all as a Basic. That being said, Glaceon's ability is pretty significant because it can allow her to soak hits better than other Stage 1s, and potentially even take multiple weaker hits better than even other Pokemon which have higher HP (such as Ultra Necrozma-GX). The attack is probably the most unique part of this card. There isn't really a precedent for how this works, so I just went for "each effect you chose." Although if there is a precedent I am not aware of, I am sure it'll become known in judging. The second effect is intended to be the one that is potentially useful in several situations. The first effect is situationally useful as well (can get you into range to resist damage with "Blessed Warrior") but less so, and it is usually detrimental. The second effect is useful to get rid of Pokemon which have taken a large amount of damage, or free bench space by ridding of on-drop effect Pokemon like Dedenne-GX. The third effect is one that is relatively safe to take, but never great. However, it is the only one that you can always activate regardless of the situation (unless you somehow attack with 0 energy attached...), meaning that you can always reliably do 100 damage, but if 50 is enough to KO, you don't need to discard the Energy. This card is designed to be flexible, but it's a card that requires thought while you play... or at least those were my intentions while designing the effects. This card went through a lot of iterations and several changes, but I ultimately settled on this due to the flexibility and utility in multiple matchups.

Blessed Warrior
Stunfisk UNM 67 - "If"... "your opponent’s Active Pokémon has more remaining HP than this Pokémon,"
Melmetal-GX SM178 - "This Pokémon takes X less damage from attacks (after applying Weakness and Resistance)."

Cursed Sword
Rescue Stretcher GRI 130 - "Choose"... ":"
Pikachu-GX SM232 - "This Pokémon does 30 damage to itself."
Garchomp & Giratina UNM 146 - "Discard 1 of your"... "Pokémon and all cards attached to it."
Magcargo CEC 27 - "Discard an Energy from this Pokémon."

On Weakness/Resistance:
Previous Honedge cards have had either a Psychic Resistance or a Fighting Resistance. This card's primary type is Metal, so I went with the Fire weakness. However, it felt weird giving this either Resistance from Honedge because of the card's typing. Fighting would make the most sense due to it being immune in the games, but some Metal cards during the ex-era were weak to Fighting. I just decided not to give it a resistance. I may get knocked a point in Believability for this but I am okay with that... I mean, I made a Lucina card, pretty much. How much more unbelievable can it get.

Original blanks & symbols by @aschefield101
Modified by me~
Holosheet ripped from PTCGO
Thank you to everyone on the Faking Discord (specifically @CardPone) for helping me out with balance/wording!
 
I was gonna go with something like a Dark Luxray or Fight Staraptor, but I think I was able to come up with something much more unique, at least as far as the concept is concerned.
[Stage 1] Cacturne HP110 [W]
Evolves from Cacnea

NO. 334 Scarecrow Pokémon HT:4'04'' WT: 170.6 lbs

[C][C] Icebreaker 30+
If both Active Pokémon have full HP, this attack does 50 more damage for each Energy attached from your hand to this Pokémon during this turn.

[W][C][C] Night Harvest 120
If your opponent's Active Pokémon is Knocked Out by damage from this attack, you may draw a number of cards up to the number of Prize cards you would take for that Knock Out instead of putting those cards into your hand. If you do, until the end of your next turn, you may attach 1 more Energy card from your hand to any of your Pokémon for each card you drew in this way.

Weakness: [M] x2
Resistance: -
Retreat: [C][C]
In a futile effort to save himself, a Hoenn archaeologist unwittingly introduced one of the fastest-adapting and most effective invasive species to the Galarian northern ecosystem.
Opal: drawing cards stuff
Billowing Smoke: Prize card wording nightmare
So. A cold cactus. Considering there are many species of vegetation that do very well at very high latitudes, and that deserts need not be hot, I thought it would be a cool twist on an otherwise hot desert Pokémon. This is referenced in the first attack name, and even more so on the custom dex entry. It also reflects the very real problem of invasive species, so that's one more layer of stuff for ya.

I wanted to do something different for the actual card than what I usually do, aka an Ability. Icebreaker is kind of an X-Ball attack, I guess, but it only does meaningful damage if both Pokémon are healthy and if you attached Energy this turn (which the second attack helps with, but more later). This makes the Pokémon have a strong spammable attack, but only once as more often than not as you will likely get KOd and even if you don't, you'd have to heal and gust which is just impractical.

The second attack is more about the effect than the damage, as it is cleanly outdamaged by Icebreaker assuming 3 Energy attached. You can choose to delay taking Prize cards for the benefit of more Cacturne and chaining one of Icebreaker or Night Harvest, and oh boy was that annoying to word. It's also reliable damage, as you won't always be able to successfully chain attacks.
 
Melmetal - Lightning - 120HP
Stage 1 - Evolves from Meltan

NO. 809 – Hex Nut Pokémon – HT: 8’02” – WT: 2844.67 lbs

Ability: Electrum Alloying
This Pokémon gets +10HP and its attacks do 10 more damage for each [M] Pokémon card in your discard pile.

[L][L][C] Electric Arc Blast 80
Discard a [M] Pokémon card from your hand. If you don’t, this attack does nothing. If this Pokémon has any [M] energy attached to it, heal 60 damage from this Pokémon and deal 20 damage to all [M] Pokémon in play (yours and your opponent's).

Weakness: Fighting x2
Resistance:
Retreat: [C][C][C][C]

Meltan that alloy with gold and silver can create a rare electrum Melmetal. This composition makes the Melmetal's body more conductive at the cost of speed and softness.

Galarian Stunfisk V (DAA 128), Steelix V (VIV 115), Charizard (VIV 025): Ability text.
Barraskewda (RCL 053): Attack text.

Alternate PokeDex Entry:
“Melmetal usually form from steel but can combine with more exotic metals if they find them. This can lead to rare alloy Melmetal, such as electrum.”

When I saw the theme this month, I instantly knew what I’m going to do. One of my favourite modern Pokémon is Melmetal, but since the start I was a little confused why it’s pure Steel and not Steel/Electric; after all, in its original game, Pokémon Go, the only fast attack it can learn is Electric and it has a lead for a tail for crying out loud!

Therefore, we ended up with a Lightning type Melmetal. However, I wanted to do something extra, rather than just type-swapping him, so I combined another interest of mine, metals and minerals, to create this Electrum Melmetal! Electrum is a metal alloy that is made out of gold and silver, meaning it is soft and dense, but also very electro-conductive (hence why it fits with the Lightning type). Apart from that, the alloy can actually occur naturally, meaning the whole idea of Melmetal being a natural beast kind of fits in. The name of the attack is kind of related to alloying as well, as electric arc furnaces can be used to alloy certain metals.

It was a bit tough to balance this card out to be honest, as the ability is not limited, meaning it can be an extremely strong card… However, I have reduced the usual HP a Melmetal has to 120 from 150 (balancing and it makes sense in terms of electrum being softer than steel). The attack almost seems too weak to me in comparison to the current meta, but I believe that this is the type of number the card designers would use.

Finally, something not many people would have spotted is the weight PokeDex entry is higher than a regular Melmetal, due to electrum being denser than steel. However, something I have noticed while designing this card, is that Melmetal’s original weight is waaaaaay lower than it should be if it actually was made of solid steel… this makes me think that either Melmetal is hollow, or he is meaty inside rather than steely :D For anyone interested here’s the maths behind the weight increase:
800kg / 7.75 = 103.23
103.23 x 12.5 = 1290.32kg
1290.32kg = 2844.67 lbs

And here’s how much a real, solid steel Melmetal should weigh based on density of steel and the approximate size of 2.5m x 2.5m x 1m (it is not that big but I am only doing approx. sizing, but the fact is, it’s steel (get it? steel instead of still) waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off):
PokeDex: 800kg
Min. Density of Steel: 48,437.5kg!!
Max. Density of Steel: 50,312kg!!!

In other words, I think it’s time the game developers move on from their three digit and a decimal way of classifying Pokemon weights…

Also, I’m aware wording may be a bit off as I’m still not really used to SwSh wording and I’ve left the clean-up until last minute soooo… I don’t mind being knocked there, I guess.
 
Alright folks, that's a wrap on this round! Stay tuned for judging coming near the end of the month!

In the meantime, we've got a few smaller events lined up for February while we wait for CaC results and the next round — head on over to the Faking Community Discord to be the first in the know when that happens!
 
Image-Based Results

Judge: @Jabberwock

Hey hey, we got results out early! Huge thanks to our new judging rotation, and especially PMJ, for helping to make that happen.

In accordance with some feedback we received on the survey we put out two months ago, we’ve been discussing ways to return CaC to its old monthly structure, and I’m happy to report that we’ll be moving back to that monthly structure for March! There will be a few changes to go along with this, including a reduction in submission time from four weeks to three weeks so the judges have time to get results finished and polished before the next round, but overall the transition should go smoothly, and we hope y’all enjoy!

Now, this month: We saw a definite uptick in commitment and effort, which is cool — but I want to stress, because it seems important to do so, that this is not a writing competition. In the past I’ve encouraged people to post submission notes — go through some of their thought process around their entry, explain a couple of choices if they want to — but the intent of this has always been to allow the entrant to highlight a thing or two about the card that they’re particularly proud of. We want to continue encouraging submission notes, but please use common sense when writing them. It’s cool to see some of the thought that went into designing the entry, but your card should be able to stand alone if necessary.

That aside, there were some fantastic entries this month, from new faces as well as old hands. If it’s your first time in CaC, or if you’re making the jump to image from text, welcome! We’re glad to have ya. :D

Now onto the results!

~~Jabberwock


zLqyLYi.png


Ayy new judge being the first one to submit. Good on ya.

I’m not sure how many different options you actually ran through before settling on [W]-type Zangoose, but I reckon it’s an inspired choice. The art works well, and the rationale of linking it to water mongooses makes it almost seem obvious in hindsight. I think that’s the mark of a good use of this theme.

Really impressed with the foil effects behind the text. This is what I’m talking about when I give something 4/5 in Aesthetics and say the extra point would come from something to put it over the top. It wasn’t immediately obvious that they were Zangoose silhouettes; I thought they were little fireworks, but hey, that’s okay. It works either way, and it certainly puts the card over the top.

I’ll put a quick note here about the galaxy foil, because I’m not convinced mixing foils is a good idea, especially galaxy with sunlava. I was actually wavering back and forth on whether to dock an Aesthetics point for it, because I feel like it’s /that/ out of place for a card to essentially have one foil on one half of it and another foil on the other — and I’m only not going to because the galaxy foil isn’t really all that noticeable on the art. I think if you want to make the art more obviously holo here, sunlava is the way to do it, because repeating the foil in multiple places ties the whole card together.

As far as the text effects go, the imagery, with Zangoose being a hunter with all of its moves tying into each other, is particularly nice. Seems like a natural place to take the Pokémon if you’re trying to forget Seviper exists. Flush Out is a fantastic name, and both effects seem thematic for their names and for the Pokémon.

It’s also clear you’ve put a lot of thought into the effects from a gameplay perspective. 80 HP is a great limiter for the Ability, since 90 HP is where PCL seems to like putting stuff like Malamar FLI in this era (though most formats, including this one, have pretty easy ways to lower that bar). The stuff you’re bringing up is likely to be evolving Basics or stuff like Jirachi TEU or Marshadow SLG — which, yeah, as you said, is enough to give you cheap Prizes, but probably not enough to completely screw over your opponent. It’s hard to stream without devoting your deck to it, but it’s not quite good enough as an attacker to warrant that.

Actually it reminds me a little bit of Luxray GL LV.X, in that you can drag up weak Pokémon and score cheap Knock Outs in a relatively splashable way, at the cost of some Bench space since the Pokémon is largely useless after that turn. Lux X has a pretty infamous reputation, but I think it was good for the format it was in. Now this card does a little less damage, but it does it a little more easily. My concern is being able to pull it off too quickly and overwhelm your opponent in the first few turns by targeting down all their evolving Basics before they can get set up, but then, all they really have to do is play multiple of those Basics. So for three generations of power creep, I think a Lux X-adjacent effect on a Basic is probably okay.

So overall, nice balancing work. It’s the sort of card I could see being played in a bunch of different decks without becoming format-warping or broken in any of them. The creativity is also shining through in every aspect down to the core idea of the card, with the consideration you’ve paid to how it can be played being particularly noteworthy. And the aesthetics are a great touch, too. Mad props for this one.

Wording errors:
- Good references.

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Looks good.

Creativity/Originality: 15/15
(I like it a lot. The gameplay potential is great — it occupies a niche that feels very DPPt in design, but adapted well for SM. I think the attack and Ability are well-designed for synergy with each other, as well as being thematic tie-ins to your reimagining of Zangoose. And speaking of which, inspired take on the theme. All around, a card well deserving of the full 15.)
Believability/Playability: 14/15
(I have one gripe here, which is around the precise effect of the Ability: I think it’s a mistake to let Zangoose Flush Out any Pokémon with 80 HP or less /remaining/, as opposed to 80 HP or less /maximum/. I think the cutoff at 80 HP is great, but if it’s 80 *remaining*, it’s too easy to blur the cutoff through spread damage and the like. And as an aside, I’m not sure I buy the thematic argument that Zangoose is threatening to even a weakened VMAX.)
Wording: 10/10
(Good references.)
Fonts and Placement: 5/5
(Looks good.)
Aesthetics: 5/5
(You’ve really stepped up your game — the art’s brilliant, the glow around the claw is a nice touch, and the Zangoose/firework effects behind the text are a great way to put it over the top. I’m giving you the 5/5 here even though I have some minor technical gripes like mixing foils, because at first glance the card is just so pretty to look at.)
Total: 49/50
porygon_z.png


Welcome to the image-based side of things, TLS!

Jumping from one category to another can be quite a leap, but it looks like you’ve taken to it pretty well! The custom art for Porygon-Z is solid work, and the fact that it’s upside-down and obviously Confused is a nice thematic touch. The forest background feels a little weird, though — something more digital or space-y might work better, both for the Pokémon and for the art style.

I like Improbable Calculations — I think there’s some great design space to be had in glass cannons that nerf themselves except under very specific conditions. Dimensional Analysis is more convoluted and messes a bit with the simplicity of the rest of the card — it’s like, you can do 210 damage, except if you have a retreat cost, except if you’re not Confused, except if you have a way to just shut off the Ability. It’s readable and understandable, and there have definitely been more complicated effects in the TCG’s history, but there’s still a lot going on. It’s like two Abilities in one, and each one has multiple “if” or “as long as” clauses.

Now, is it worth it? Complex Abilities are fine if they add a lot to the card’s gameplay potential. The trouble here is that I’m not sure this one does.

If you want to attack, it can go in one of two ways. You can play the card as written — reduce its Retreat Cost, find a way to Confuse it, and then attack through Confusion — in which case we’re assuming that the Confusion flip is a valid way to balance an attack doing 210 for [P]. Or, as you noted, you can just find a way to shut off the Ability, through Garbodor DRX or a similar card, and then you’re doing 210 for [P] much more easily.

Either way, I think there’s a pretty significant design flaw. With the former, it’s always dangerous to balance a card with the mindset of “it’s flippy, so I can make it do a ton of damage.” Variance, including coin flips, is a valid balancing tool, but it’s only fun as long as the player has some level of control over it. With Super Scoop Up or Crushing Hammer, for example, you can play four of them to maximize your odds of hitting it when it matters. With lots of coin flip effects on attacks, you have options like Victini GRI or Trick Coin to turn the odds more in your favor. But attacking through Confusion, especially with a high-risk-high-reward attack like Improbable Calculations (210 for 1!), is no fun. Either you’ve done a huge amount of cheap damage, or you’ve thrown away your turn, and very few people are gonna be happy making that call.

Or there’s the latter option — just setting up a Garbodor (or similar way of shutting off Porygon-Z’s Ability), putting a Float Stone on Porygon-Z, and whaling away for 210 for [P]. That’s definitely the more effective way to use the attack, but then there’s very little point to the Ability in the first place. If you’re relying on that many additional cards, the Ability might as well have just said “This Pokémon can’t attack” and had the same impact. I guess the first sentence means you could forgo Garbodor and just slap a Float Stone on Porygon-Z and sit back, and then there’s not much your opponent can do without a free retreater themself? But then the attack becomes the moot point. Overall, I think the anti-synergy is working a little too hard against you here.

What might make the card more balanced and fun to play? As with balancing anything, there are lots of routes you could take here. But I think the first thing is to figure out what you want the card’s niche to be. Is it a glass cannon attacker, or a wall that can regulate what kinds of stuff it walls? Should it rely on another Pokémon (like Garbodor) to be good, or should it be self-containing? Are you committed to the Confusion angle — in which case it’ll need a way to mitigate the variance from Confusion — or is there another way to balance the other effects? Once you’ve figured out how you want the card to play, designing the details of the effects will be much more straightforward.

Wording errors:
- “cannot attack” -> “can’t attack” [-1 point]
- “retreat cost” should be capitalized. [-1 point]
- “changed in any way” has no precedent. You could probably get away with “changed” alone, based on Sudowoodo GRI, though a better wording there would be “If an effect changes this Pokémon’s Retreat Cost …”. Alternatively, based on Bronzor SF and other cards from back when they used the “after applying effects” reminder text, another good wording here might be “If this Pokémon’s Retreat Cost is affected by any effects, …”. [-2 points]
- You don’t need the W/R clause in the attack — reference Golem UNB. [-2 points]

Fonts and Placement errors:
- A lot of the fonts are just barely off for minute issues with kerning and the like. If Paint.net has a Character panel or some other window where you can mess with font settings, you might look into what’s causing this for the future. I’m not docking for kerning for now, cos it’s barely noticeable. [-0 points]
- The right-hand side of the Ability and attack text should line up with the right-hand side of the damage numerals. [-1 point]
- The flavor text should be lower, closer to vertically centered in the given space. [-1 point]
- The illus test is too bold. [-0.5 point]
- The Pokédex stats (directly below the image) should be a variant of Frutiger. (I believe Frutiger LT std gets you pretty close; you may have to mess with the width settings.) [-0.5 point]

Creativity/Originality: 12/15
(Some good design space, especially in the self-limiting glass cannon attack, but feels needlessly convoluted in execution. Would recommend deciding what niche you want the card to fill, and then designing around that.)
Believability/Playability: 9/15
(The variance of Confusion would make it pretty unfun to play — variance can be a good balancing tool, but not in the all-or-nothing way it’s used here. Needs a balancing rework.)
Wording: 4/10
(Make sure to proofread to get the capitalization and stuff.)
Fonts and Placement: 2/5
(A few minor errors, but actually quite good overall, especially for your first image fake!)
Aesthetics: 4/5
(I like the custom Porygon-Z art, especially the nod to Confusion. The background feels like a weird choice, though.)
Edited: [-2 points]
Total: 29/50
SPOILER_CaC_08_-_Shuckle.png


Alrighty, here I am 9,845 words later — and I’m equal parts impressed and exasperated. I know you know this, but I wanna get it out of the way anyway: writing me a novel isn’t a secret hack to get 50 points. Your analysis of past CaCs and what cards have done to get high scores in bygone months is actually super cool, extremely thorough, and probably largely accurate, and I’m highkey impressed by that. But it’s mainly cool information about CaC *as a whole*, and other than that, I think the notes specific to your actual card are much longer than they needed to be.

That aside, I like the card. I’m fascinated by cards that push the boundaries of PCL convention without doing anything mechanically illegal, and this Shuckle’s 10-HP-but-it-scales-with-damage gimmick is a great example of that. The attack is a natural complement to the HP gimmick, and I think taken as a whole, the effects are inspired. Genuinely, from a raw creative design standpoint, I can’t imagine improving upon it — which, I know, is probably setting off some bells in your head. :p

Balance-wise, it’s a little trickier. You’ve written out literally thousands of words on the subject, but I’ll summarize here: the card is designed to scale well for any given format’s power levels, it does particularly well in formats with high-HP damage sponges and/or efficient ways to damage your own Pokémon, and it’s gutted by Ability lock. That’s all well and good; I think you achieved that admirably, and there aren’t any big issues if you’re just teching Shuckle into any old deck. But as with anything that scales ad infinitum, you gotta be careful in your designs to make sure it’s not too easily breakable with a deck geared toward breaking it.

The main issue I see is the fact that a Benched Shuckle counts its own damage counters toward its HP, so as long as you’re not one-shotting it, it can scale forever. If you scale that HP arbitrarily high, you can rack up theoretically infinite damage on a single Benched Pokémon. Then you drop your second Shuckle, which now has infinitely high base HP, and does infinite damage for 3 Energy. This is something that can be pulled off in any format with a damage sponge. Yeah it still gets gutted by Ability lock, but “play Ability lock or get stomped by an infinitely large Shuckle” probably isn’t the metagame you’re going for anyway.

I also find the Retreat Cost of 4 tangentially weird. I generally think that if you’re gonna be messing with a PCL convention, there needs to be a good reason for it. Like giving Shuckle 10 HP here — there’s plenty of good reason for that. It’s interesting, it’s necessary for the card’s gimmick, and it’s kinda thematic with the Holon lore you’ve written up for it. But why 4 retreat? Just because it’s slow in the games? The TCG’s a totally different beast, and it’s almost always optimal to just stick with its convention around those stats — unless, of course, you’ve got a compelling reason otherwise.

It’s clear you’ve put a ton of thought into literally every aspect of this card, though, which I appreciate — and that would have been obvious even without the notes. Some choices I like, in no particular order: the Holon-themed flavor text; the name “Odd Resilience” in connection to the flavor text; the extension of the holosheet along the entire border rather than stopping it at Shuckle; and the decision to keep the “+” in the attack cost even though it’s not a Tag Team GX attack. I think those were all very good calls.

And lastly, I look forward to seeing what you do in the coming months! I reckon CaC (and card faking in general) is generally an art, not a science, but nonetheless I’m regularly astonished by the level of data analysis you keep pulling out for it. With or without the novel’s worth of notes, you’ve done something pretty special with your Shuckle this month, and I hope to see more in the future. :)

Wording errors:
- Good references, and good analysis of their limitations.

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Seems right.

Creativity/Originality: 15/15
(Pushes the boundaries of convention without doing anything mechanically illegal. The attack and Ability have great interplay, and the Holon-ness makes sense as a justification of the boundary-pushing. Overall a very well-composed card.)
Believability/Playability: 7/15
(Being able to rack arbitrarily high damage onto a single Shuckle, and then drop a second Shuckle to gain arbitrarily high HP and damage output, is a severe balancing concern. Fortunately for the future of this card, it’s a pretty easy fix — just make the Ability exclude Shuckle, or even just exclude itself. An additional docked point here comes from the convention-defying Retreat Cost.)
Wording: 10/10
(On point.)
Fonts and Placement: 5/5
(Never not on point.)
Aesthetics: 5/5
(The faded Autobot art works surprisingly well with the random flashes of color from the cracked ice sheet. I’d be intrigued to see the sheen holo though — don’t give up on that one! :p )
Total: 42/50
m82cmv8.png


Welcome back to CaC, FireLizard! :D

The card seems like a cool concept. Talonflame’s the sort of Pokémon I could easily see being [L]-type in an alternate universe — it’s certainly fast and aggressive enough. I guess the only thing holding it back is the “flame” in the name. You’ve given it fast-’n’-aggressive effects to match, and so I think the idea is solid overall.

Unfortunately I think it fails a bit in execution. The nature of the Ability means you can get it into play very easily on the first turn, and from there you only need like 10 cards in your discard to OHKO any Basic Pokémon in the game. That’s pretty manageable for any deck that sets its mind to it, and especially one in the SM era. Guaranteed Paralysis is also an incredibly powerful effect, though ironically it’s probably the least powerful thing about the card — don’t need to Paralyze the opponent’s Active Pokémon when you can just obliterate it with damage.

There’s a few potential ways to balance it, and most of them involve redesigning the attack. The damage output would need to come down, and I’d suggest scaling it off something other than the cards in the discard (which can have quite a high cap in the middle-to-late game). Guaranteed Paralysis is also too strong, so you’d probably want to put that on a coin flip.

Basically, the reason Darkrai-GX works is that it’s quite a good Ability on a Pokémon without an especially good attack. On this card, you’ve got quite a good Ability on a Pokémon with an absolutely incredible attack. Balancing here means walking a fine line between versatility and omnipotence.

Wording errors:
- “(before your attack)” should be italicized. [-1 point]
- The accent over the e’s in “Pokémon” is facing the wrong direction in the Ability (though not the attack). [-0.5 point]
- [L] Energy should have the [L] symbol in place of “Lighting” (or “Lightning”, rather). [-2 points]
- “If you used this Ability” -> “If you do” [-2 points]
- “Lighting Gale” -> “Lightning Gale” [-1 point]
- “This attack does 30 damage for each card in your discard pile.” [-2 points]

Fonts and Placement errors:
- All the fonts seem to be in the same variant of Gill Sans (which is only correct for the Ability and attack text), and placements seem largely eyeballed. Docking a blanket [-4 points] for this. To get placements more accurate, I’d suggest dragging a scan of a real card over your blank, setting the opacity to 50%, and using the scan as a reference to place your text and symbols.

Creativity/Originality: 10/15
(I like the reimagining of Talonflame, a fast and aggressive Pokémon, as a Lightning-type. The Ability strikes me as a nice throwback to Talonflame STS, in addition to the Darkrai-GX you designed it from. There isn’t much new design space, though, and while you’re using existing effects in an interesting way, some additional points here could have come from more wholly unique or innovative effects.)
Believability/Playability: 4/15
(Much too easy to swing for a mountain of damage on the first turn. Cycles itself ad infinitum, and really has no downside beyond maybe needing to trash some resources in order to get there.)
Wording: 1.5/10
(Don’t forget to proofread! References can also be a good way to check your work.)
Fonts and Placement: 1/5
(Try the DIY placement method outlined above — drag a real card over your blank, set opacity to 50%, and use that as a reference for placements. For fonts, those can be found in a font pack in the resources channel of the Faking Community Discord.)
Aesthetics: 2/5
(It’s some nice art on a blank. It’s okay. Some additional points here could have come from brightening the art a tad, emphasizing yellows and/or lightning-y effects, and of course, holosheets.)
Total: 18.5/50
pikachu_libre.png


Howdy howdy, good to have ya, Nemes. I’ve been really impressed with the work I’ve seen of yours lately, and was wondering when you’d make it over to CaC. :p

Form Catalysts seem like a great new mechanic, and this seems like a pretty solid card to showcase them with. They let you design a card around a very particular purpose, and enable it to serve that purpose exceptionally well, by removing the possibility of breaking it in other game states. Like in this case, [L][F] for 160 would be a pretty powerful attack, but it’s specifically an anti-GX revenge-killing card, and the fact that you can’t just use it willy-nilly makes it balanced.

160 seems like a fine number in that regard; with a little damage-boosting support you can easily OHKO most Basic Pokémon-GX, but it requires a little more effort to take out Evolutions, Pokémon VMAX, and even some Basic Pokémon V. That feels like a good place for it to be at, because it means you have to dedicate at least some of your resources to pulling the big Knock Outs, rather than Pikachu being a splashable single-card combo.

I take issue with the 90 HP as a believability thing — I don’t think there’s reason to expect Pikachu to power creep quite that high for some time yet, and since the card’s gimmick is high damage, the extra HP isn’t a mechanical necessity — but apart from that, I think you’ve done a fantastic job balancing a card with an entirely new mechanic. Props for that.

The effect of Cosplay is a bit of a weird inclusion. I guess the idea is that you’d have other Cosplay Pikachu with the same effect, so you could make a sort of box deck out of them, but the fact that the Form Catalysts are so niche (or at least, this one is) makes me think such a deck would struggle to get up and running. The card seems best-suited to a big-damage Fighting deck, and Cosplay feels kinda irrelevant for that. You could use it to power up Pikachu in one turn without needing an Energy Switch, but it’s an Ability with such broad potential that it feels weird for that to be its only use.

The aesthetics are stunning, full stop. You’ve got a real knack for constructing custom-mechanic blanks that look official, and I can’t wait to see more! The Fighting-colored blank is particularly striking here.

The one suggestion I might make aesthetics-wise would be to move the Form Catalyst Rule Box from the middle of the card to sit between the bottom of the attack text and the top of the Weakness/Resistance/Retreat bar. I think right now it gets in the way of the illustration space, which isn’t too big a deal for this particular card, but I could see it being a concern for other cards on the same blanks. I reckon Ancient Trait cards leave that space free for a reason.

Wording errors:
- The italicized Rule Box reminder text should come directly after the words “Rule Box”. [-1 point]
- “an Energy or 1 damage counter” is awkward; “an Energy or damage counter” would be better here. TPCi usually goes for reasonable syntax when strict adherence to convention would make it awkward. [-1 point]

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Looks good.

Creativity/Originality: 14/15
(Stellar new design space. I particularly like how Form Catalysts let you design the whole card around a specific niche and allow it to fulfill that niche exceptionally well. I’m less certain about how well Cosplay’s effect fits into the rest of the card’s design, but overall it’s excellent.)
Believability/Playability: 14/15
(HP is wonky, but apart from that I think it’s great. Mad props for balancing an entirely new mechanic very effectively.)
Wording: 8/10
(A couple minor errors.)
Fonts and Placement: 5/5
(Looks good.)
Aesthetics: 5/5
(Stunning. As noted above, I think the Rule Box would be better placed below the attack text so it’s not edging into the illustration, but it’s fine for this particular card, so no points docked here.)
Total: 46/50
Flygon_-_Cac_January_2021.png


Hey, welcome to CaC! Glad you’ve taken to the community so quick. :D

I assume this is a reimagining of Flygon as a Bug-type Pokémon, which I think is neat. It’s a natural place to take the Pokémon, and what I particularly like is that you’re riffing on common Bug-type TCG themes (like the swarm-building Ability) to drive home the connection.

When I reached out to confirm, you mentioned that it’s intended for the SM era, and the HP and bottom stats seem largely in line with that, new Weakness notwithstanding. Where I think it falters a bit is the damage output, which usually caps at 120. (You can cheese out some additional damage through gimmicks like Ditto Prism Star, but that doesn’t go very far.) [G][G][C] for 120 on a Stage 2 with some additional setup required just doesn’t cut it in this era — you want bigger numbers for that level of investment. Something like 60 + 40 per Trapinch and Vibrava would probably be more useful.

It does have a powerful setup Ability, though, and that comes close to making up for it. But as it is, the guaranteed Paralysis is so good, you’d probably wind up seeing the deck used more as a stall archetype with something like Stoutland BCR or Trevenant XY than as a Flygon swarm archetype.

Some potential ways to fix the auto-Paralysis angle might be to only let that effect trigger if you successfully grab a Trapinch and Vibrava from the deck (i.e. you can’t fail the search if you want the Paralysis), or use a different effect like Sleep that’s easier to get out of.

I like the composition of the art, and it’s definitely solid work overall. Just make sure to watch the effects, and think about every way they can be played. :)

Wording errors:
- “(before your attack)” should be italicized. [-1 point]
- Wishiwashi-GX CEC would make a good reference for the attack: “This attack does 20 more damage for each of your Trapinch and Vibrava in play.” [-2 points]

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Custom blanks often get a sort of free pass here, but on this card there’s a disconnect in the setup of the Abilities and attacks. The text is set up like Classic/Neo/e-card attacks, i.e. without a line break between the name of the attack and the first line of the effect, but the Energy costs and damage numerals follow post-WotC (i.e. SM) conventions. [-2 points]
- There are a couple other minor differences, like the kerning on the HP numerals and the “x” on the Weakness, but these aren’t big enough to dock for — they fall under the custom blank pass in this case.

Creativity/Originality: 11/15
(I like the swarm flavor for a Bug-type Flygon. We’re getting into some new design territory, which is also cool, but there’s also room for more creativity in, say, the attack design.)
Believability/Playability: 8/15
(The attack is noticeably underpowered, but the Ability (like any easily repeatable auto-Paralysis, honestly) is very breakable.)
Wording: 7/10
(A minor error and a syntax thing — see reference above.)
Fonts and Placement: 3/5
(Mixing of SM-style line breaks with WotC-era Energy costs and damage layout.)
Aesthetics: 4/5
(Pretty good — nice composition of the render with the background. The foils could stand to be a bit brighter, and the border feels a bit out of place without Flygon breaking it.)
Total: 33/50
ded9e4c-967ce597-00af-4dc2-b118-260b3f42cd98.png


Ooo, I’m a fan of the bb-mucking-about-in-Blender methodology! If we compare this to cards like Rocket’s Snorlax ex and Rocket’s Scyther ex, it’s clear you’ve hit the aesthetics just about spot on. The background could maaaaybe use a little more variation in coloring, but that’s minor, and it certainly doesn’t look out of place among all the others, so I’d call that a job well done.

I like where you’re at with linking Victini to gathering Energy and dispersing them; it’s sort of a neat callback to Victini NVI’s Stored Power. I’m not sure I buy that the Rocket’s engine sorely needed Energy acceleration — people just played Rocket’s Sneasel ex with Dark Dragonite and Dark Electrode — but I’ll go with it; necessary or not, it’s rarely an unwelcome effect in any format.

Where I’m hung up a bit is that you can only get that Energy acceleration by prizing Victini and then drawing it from your Prizes, and effects like that generally aren’t playable. You want to be able to manipulate it, but most formats don’t have a satisfactory way to do that — in fact, the only cards I can think of that let you manipulate your Prize cards like that, in all of Pokémon TCG history, are Mr. Mime DET and Azelf LA. Contrast this with something like needing Victini to be your topdeck for the turn, which can be manipulated through countless cards, and would allow Dark Muster to go off vastly more reliably.

It’s cool that Energy Overload goes both ways. It’s the sort of thing that would never see play nowadays since games are just too fast-paced, but you can totally get away with in the more chess-like ex era. Also, minor detail, I like that it does damage, because it means you can boost it with those Darkness Energy you just attached with Dark Muster.

Oh! and I’d be remiss if I didn’t shout out the R in the bottom right there, since I know you found that yourself on a surprisingly high-quality old booster pack scan. Props.

Wording errors:
- You put Pokémon “onto” the Bench, not “on” it. [-1 point]
- I checked and double-checked the rest of your wording, and it checks out. Some additional references are Ninjask LA and Pokémon Retriever.

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Seems good. The “ex” might be just a little bit too close to the “Victini” (like, on the order of one or two pixels), but it’s barely noticeable, and it’s definitely true that it was closer on the Rocket’s exs than on regular exs. [-0 points]

Creativity/Originality: 12/15
(Got some interesting trigger design space going, and I like the thematic connections to Victini of moving Energy around and (I assume) Prize cards / victory.)
Believability/Playability: 12/15
(Too hard to pull off the Ability, making the card noticeably underpowered despite a usable attack. Would recommend giving it an alternate trigger, like drawing Victini as a topdeck.)
Wording: 9/10
(One minor error.)
Fonts and Placement: 5/5
(Solid.)
Aesthetics: 5/5
(Looks right at home next to all the real Rocket’s Pokémon-ex!)
Total: 43/50
hypno.png


Neat art! The close-up on Hypno’s pendulum with the offset view of its face in the background is really great. I think the rainbow swirl behind the pendulum looks a bit faded in places, which probably could have been touched up digitally, but it’s a cool effect nonetheless. e-card blanks are a good home for it.

“Longer-Distance Hypnosis” is amusing in concept — I assume the hand is a longer distance from the Defending Pokémon than the Bench here. I particularly like the continuity since Drowzee was the last Pokémon before Munna BCR to have Long-Distance Hypnosis, and so it seems fitting that Hypno should have the longer-distance counterpart.

What you’ve done, essentially, is made a much more powerful Long-Distance Hypnosis (no flips, doesn’t take up a Bench spot) and made it single-use. Alternatively, you’ve made a Sleep! without a coin flip, on an easily searchable Pokémon that you also aren’t in any danger of starting with. Cautiously, I think that’s okay. Sleep! was never a good card, so removing the coin flip and putting it on a Pokémon doesn’t exactly break it. But I’d feel better if it were on a Basic, just because then there’d be some level of risk analysis, like “do I play this? what if I start it?”

Night Amnesia feels weird. It’s interesting thematically; I like where you’re at on the whole “forgetting the eaten dreams” thing. But there’s a 50% chance from Sleep that they won’t be able to attack on that turn anyway, so the “amnesia” effect is much shorter-lived than it might seem. It’s believable and balanced, it’s just a weird design. It might be better if it caused the Pokémon to wake up? And then it could do bonus damage if the Pokémon was Asleep, in addition to making it forget the attack.

Hypno as a [D] Pokémon seems fine. Not a huge leap — [P] and [D] Pokémon both commonly have sleep-adjacent effects. I do like the art, I do like the choice of e-card blanks, and I think there’s some interesting thematic-ness with the effects.

Wording errors:
- Looks good. Nice references!

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Also good.

Creativity/Originality: 11/15
(You’re clearly thinking through the connections to flavor, and I like that it’s got some light self-synergy. But there isn’t much new design space, and I think Night Amnesia’s secondary effect could have been a bit more interesting from a gameplay perspective.)
Believability/Playability: 14/15
(Cautious point docked for Longer-Distance Hypnosis being on a Pokémon that doesn’t have any risk of being opened with, because there doesn’t seem to be much risk at all to playing it.)
Wording: 10/10
(On point.)
Fonts and Placement: 5/5
(Also on point.)
Aesthetics: 4/5
(Parts of the art look a tad faded, but overall it’s a very nice piece and goes well with the blank.)
Total: 44/50
Glacina.png


Harlequin’s art is incredible, and Glaceon fan that I know you to be, I can see why you like this piece. :p I love how it blends with the holosheet, too; definitely one of the best holosheet uses I’ve seen in my time.

I’ve got a quibble with the aesthetics, though, which is that I’m not sure the type textures on the top and bottom are helping you here. It might seem arbitrary — all cards have type textures! — but the way the art blends with those textures, or clashes with them, as the case may be, can go a long way in helping or hurting the card’s aesthetics. I think making the card [M] (i.e. single-type) could help — that way you’ve just got a monochrome border on the top and bottom, rather than a purple in a striking paint-scatter pattern where both the color and the pattern are at odds with the rest of the card. Or just getting rid of the type textures entirely, haha — the card’s already borderless; it would be a natural direction to take it in.

I’ll say, I think the borderless blanks are doing a world of good in allowing you to fit a three-bullet-point effect into an attack with two more lines outside of it. It doesn’t even look out of place, which is something I reckon bulleted effects often suffer from. Aesthetically, apart from the top and bottom borders, it’s a beautiful card.

One of the first things I notice about the effects is that the card’s got some big numbers. Reducing damage by 40 is out there but passable, 200 for 3 is getting into questionable territory, and 130 HP is off-the-charts for a Glaceon! Any one of these by itself might be justifiable, if the card’s niche was damage reduction, tank-and-heal, or glass-cannon-ing — but all three at once? That’s a lot!

I could see this card being a GX, if you wanted to justify the higher numbers. Maybe a new mechanic focused on Glaceon being a valiant warrior, or being equipped with a Honedge, or something like that, with a restriction like only being able to play one in your deck. There are many balancing options, even if you don’t want to do any lowering of numbers.

The modes on Cursed Sword are interesting — I think being able to choose your drawbacks is cool design space. It’s risky, though, especially if any of your drawbacks can be construed as an advantage for the right deck. I think the second mode here would definitely be a concern in that regard — being able to drop Pokémon like Dedenne-GX and then immediately clear them from harm’s way is pretty darn useful.

Blessed Warrior ties into the first mode, so some light synergy there. I’ve seen Ability-based damage reduction on at least one Glaceon from you before, though, so it feels less original than it might otherwise.

All that being said, though, it’s good work overall — the aesthetics, barring the top and bottom borders, are top-notch, and there’s some good design space in the effects too. You’ve got every right to be proud of this card. :)

Wording errors:
- Seems good. I think your wording for the end of Cursed Sword is fine.

Fonts and Placement errors:
- It’s awkward for the damage numerals not to be right-aligned with the attack text. I see that the “+” is, but what do you do if there’s an attack with a modifier and an attack without? I think I noted this last month, too. You’ve got enough space for the modifier on the right side of the blank beyond the attack text, and it seems like a needless buck of convention not to use it. [-1 point]

Creativity/Originality: 11/15
(Some new design space with the choose-your-own-drawback effect, some light synergy with the Ability and the first mode of the attack.)
Believability/Playability: 12/15
(The card does it all, and unfortunately not in a balanced way. At the end of the day it’s still a Glaceon, and making it overpowered loses points here. If you want it to be special since it’s an anthropomorphic Glaceon wielding a sword, I’d suggest giving it a Rule Box-style gimmick to justify the increased stats.)
Wording: 10/10
(Looks good.)
Fonts and Placement: 4/5
(Damage numerals alignment.)
Aesthetics: 4/5
(Beautiful art/holosheet combo, but I think the top and bottom borders take away from it.)
Total: 41/50


3rd Place: ggDerpyDerp’s Hypno, with 44/50 points.
2nd Place: Nemes’s Pikachu Libre, with 46/50 points.
1st Place: PMJ’s Zangoose, with 49/50 points.
 
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Text-Based Results

As a general note to all text fakers: Starting with the next contest, you will be required to include both Pokedex information and flavor text in your fakes. Image fakers would be docked for excluding this information, so it is only fair that you are, too.

This month, no points were deducted for any text fake that does not have this information.

Secondly, I would like to take this time to promote the usage of pkmncards.com as a premier wording resource. Using the +text:"" search operation, you can look for wording that appears on any card. Every one of you had wording issues that could have been solved with a trip to this site. Each and every error is worth a whole point off, and that's a death sentence if you're trying to bring home the gold.

Drampa V
Type: [P] – HP 210
Basic Pokémon (Pokémon V)
V Rule: When your Pokémon V is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.

Ability: Maniac Frenzy
Once during your turn, you may discard your hand. If you do, put 1 damage counter on one of your opponent’s Pokémon for each card discarded in this way. During this turn, your Pokémon in play have no Abilities, except for Maniac Frenzy.

[P] Spectral Vengeance 10+
This attack does 20 more damage for each Pokémon in your discard pile. If this attack does more than 240 damage, shuffle all Pokémon in your discard pile into your deck.

Weakness: [D] X 2
Resistance: [F] -30

Retreat: [C][C]

At first glance I thought Maniac Frenzy put 1 damage counter on each of your opponent's Pokemon. That would have been terrifying. It's still strong, though. Maniac Frenzy has the potential to be a powerful snipe option, and even combos with Spectral Vengeance to drastically increase its damage output without having to lose all the Pokemon you dumped over the course of the game.

Forcing you to lose all of your Pokemon if you hit a certain damage threshold is a bad idea. It weakens the attack far too much. Traditionally, there has been no cap at all; the most recent example, Machamp CPA, does 20x for FC with no strings attached. The Mad Party squad all does 20x with varying costs. If a Vengeance-style attack is limited in some way, there is always a damage cap. The most relevant example of this is Persian-GX UNB, who does 10 + 20 (for a notably all-Colorless cost of CCC) with a cap of 190 (nine Pokemon). In that vein, Spectral Vengeance is too powerful. It should cost more Energy, do less damage (with a cap), or, preferably, both.

Overall I think you tried too hard to keep it from being too powerful and ended up shooting yourself in the foot. Losing your entire hand with no way to recover from it sounds like a fair way to balance an otherwise strong Ability, but any situation that puts you in topdeck mode is bad news. Sure, things like Silvally-GX and Rose Tower exist, but those can be easily snuffed during your opponent's turn, leaving you with no hope but to believe in the heart of the cards and that's a bad place to be. It would have been better to simply tone the card down a little.

Wording errors:
Maniac Frenzy
- The Ability should read, "...put 1 damage counter on 1 of your opponent's Pokémon." (Galarian Zigzagoon SSH) [-1 point]
- The Ability should read, "...for each card you discarded in this way." (The only time you do not use you is if it's an action that both players take [see: Magmortar RCL].) [-1 point]
Spectral Vengeance
- The attack should read, "If this attack does 240 or more damage..." (Cards do 'X or more' damage, not 'more than X' damage). [-1 point]
- The attack should read, "...shuffle all Pokémon from your discard pile into your deck." (When you are moving cards out of the discard pile, use from.) [-1 point]

Creativity/Originality: 15/20
(It's clear that you had a plan and you successfully enacted it, but Vengeance-style attacks aren't anything new. Polteageist DAA can even power up its own Mad Party attack, so that's not unique either.)
Wording: 11/15
(You made a lot of simple errors and this will tank anyone's score. It's the most brutal part of the rubric and it's very easy to lose points here.)
Believability/Playability: 12/15
(In its current iteration, it's too strong. Even with something as simple as an additional C in Spectral Vengeance's cost would have gone a long way.)
Total: 38/50
Basculin HP: 80 [D]
Basic
basculin.png

NO. 550 Hostile Pokémon HT: 3'03" WT: 39.7 lbs.
[D] Injury Sensing
Put up to 3 damage counters on 1 of your Benched Pokémon. For each damage counter put onto that Pokémon by this attack, search your deck for a Pokémon with "Basculin" in its name and put it onto your Bench. Then, shuffle your deck.

[D][C] Feeding Frenzy 20x
This attack does 20 damage for each Pokémon in play with any damage counters on them.

Weakness: [G] x2
Resistance:
Retreat: [C]

Savage, violent Pokémon, red and blue Basculin are always fighting each other over territory.

All right, this is neat, I like it. Great idea making Basculin a Darkness-type, it fits well. Feeding Frenzy is powerful enough that you don't really need to worry about damaging your own guys to get any good mileage out it; 120 still 2HKOs a lot of stuff. This could easily be its own deck alongside Spiritomb UNB, who makes a fantastic target for Injury Sensing. Streaming attackers might be a little difficult in Standard, but there are multiple options in Expanded to help get your fish going.

My only regret is that Injury Sensing can't save you from getting donked. If you start with a lone Basculin and go second, you're dead in the water. Perhaps I'd change it so that you get a Basculin for free, but if any of your Pokemon are damaged at all then you get 3 instead. With only 80 HP, asking the player to essentially cut their life in half for a Call for Family effect is kinda sketch. There have been a lot sturdier attackers with more powerful attacks that only require 1 damage counter to do big damage, so I think 1 is fine. Besides, no reason why three Basculin can't smell the same blood and come running, right?

Wording errors:
Injury Sensing
- The attack should read, "For each damage counter you placed in this way..." (Froslass UNM) [-2 points]
- The attack should read, "...search your deck for a Pokémon that has "Basculin" in its name..." (Falinks RCL) [-1 point]
Feeding Frenzy
- The attack should read, "This attack does 20 damage for each Pokémon that has any damage counters on it (both yours and your opponent's)." (Rhyperior SSH) [-2 points]

Creativity/Originality: 16/20
(Loved the chosen type. While judging I frequently forgot that Basulin actually isn't a Dark-type. Attacks combo well with each other but Injury Sensing asks a lot from such a little Pokemon. I could easily see this as a rogue deck for some event.)
Wording: 10/15
(It took me a while to find that Rhyperior. pkmncards.com is a fantastic resource.)
Believability/Playability: 15/15
(It's a neat little fake that would fit right in.)
Total: 41/50
This isn't counted in the scores (not that it matters because it wouldn't have hit top 3). I'm just salty that he switched after I'd already judged his card.
Porygon-Z [P] 130HP
Stage 2- evolves from Porygon-2

Ability: Tricky Trap
As long as this Pokémon is your Active Pokémon and has less Retreat Cost than the Defending Pokémon, that Pokémon cannot attack. If this Pokémon's retreat cost is changed in any way, this Pokémon cannot attack.

[P] Wacky Withdrawal 210-
This attack does 100 less damage for each [C] in this Pokémon's Retreat Cost.

Weakness: [F]x2
Resistance:
Retreat: [C][C]
This Pokémon is the result from an error in its code. It is said that this is the same error that caused ADP GX to get through quality control.

So here we have a gimmick card in the same vein as Ultra Necrozma, as you mentioned. Tricky Trap is kinda interesting, but there aren't a lot of commonly used Pokemon with a Retreat Cost of 3 or more, so it becomes fairly hard to stall with. However, locking yourself out of attacking if you alter your own Retreat Cost at all makes me want to throw this card back in the binder. Unlike Ultra Necrozma, who can actually attack with no restrictions during the late game (as intended), the Porygon-Z player is forced to find some way to shut Tricky Trap off in order to get any damage out of Porygon-Z at all. While you can utilize Garbodor and Float Stone, like you said, a gimmick should be able to function on its own merits. Wacky Withdrawal does 10 damage if you don't alter Porygon-Z's Retreat Cost and that's not feasible.

Stage 2s are notoriously difficult to get into play, and as a Stage 2 that requires an unrelated Stage 1 and two Tools to function properly, you won't be streaming attacks with this any time soon. I feel the deck has too many moving parts to be anything near consistent.

Wording errors:
General
In the SSH era, Psychic Pokemon should have Darkness Weakness and a -30 Fighting Resistance. Reimagining a Pokemon as a new type means factoring in that new type's Weaknesses and Resistances (if any) as well, not just slapping a new card color on an existing Pokemon. [-2 points]
Evolves from Porygon2 should be capitalized. [-1 point]
Evolves from Porygon2, not Porygon-2 [-1 point]
Tricky Trap
- The general wording of the Ability could probably be a little cleaner, but with no existing reference for cards that compare each other's Retreat Costs, my hands are tied. [-0 points]
- The Ability should read, "...that Pokémon can't attack." (Lucario VIV) [-1 point]
- The Ability should read, "...this Pokémon can't attack." (Lucario VIV) [-1 point]

Creativity/Originality: 14/20
(I liked the idea, but the execution was a bit poor. It can't stand on its own and requires too much support to go anywhere.)
Wording: 9/15
(Be more careful next time.)
Believability/Playability: 8/15
(This sort of joke flavor text wouldn't appear on a card. This card is also highly underpowered and should have some way to make it feasibly self-sufficient.)
Total: 31/50
Raikou & Entei & Suicune GX — 280 HP — [P]
Basic — TAG TEAM

[P][C][C] Extrasensory: 100+
If you have the same number of cards in your hand as your opponent, this attack does 100 more damage.

[P][P][P] Roaming Beasts GX
Discard this Pokémon and all cards attached to it. Then, your opponent reveals their hand. Choose 3 cards you find there. Your opponent shuffles those cards face-up into their deck. When your opponent draws one of the face-up cards, choose 1 of your opponent’s Pokémon and place 15 damage counters on it. (You can’t use more than 1 GX attack in a game.)

TAG TEAM rule: When your TAG TEAM is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 3 Prize cards.

weakness: [P]×2
resistance:
retreat: 2

It's kinda cool to use this contest as an excuse to put all three of these guys together on a card, since they don't share a type like the birds do. Probably the neatest aspect of this card.

Extrasensory has a couple aspects about it that I don't like. It's clear you've copied it from Shiftry-GX and altered the damage slightly, but the attack cost should not be PCC on a Basic. You also need to be careful when considering Expanded, as Dimension Valley cutting the cost by C makes it easier to pull off, and cards like Cinccino SSH or Zoroark-GX can be used to fairly easily match hand sizes.

Generally, three-Prize Tag Teams shouldn't be able to do that much damage without some kind of drawback. Both MZA and ADP have attacks with mutiple Energy colors in their costs. The fact that RES are mono-Psychic means the attacks are easier to pull off since you are not using multiple colors of Energy. The attack sits in a weird place of being both too weak and too strong.

Roaming Beasts GX also has a couple problems, the most major of which is shuffling cards face up into your opponent's deck. This can lead to stacking issues where either your opponent tries to shuffle in a way that keeps the chosen cards away from the top, or where you do the opposite when presented with the deck to cut. Assuming that these problems don't exist and the attack works solely as intended, the attack is also in the poor position of being too weak and too strong, because you never know when your opponent is going to draw into the face-up cards. They might not even draw into them at all, and losing the Pokemon is a pretty steep price to pay for an effect that isn't even guaranteed to trigger. On top of this, getting to snipe 150 three separate times is an immensely powerful effect, especially when compared to MZA whose three 110 snipes have to happen immediately. Lastly, there is no extra bonus which is found on all Tag Team Pokemon-GX. Whether it's a bonus for extra Energy or doing a certain action during the turn, all Tag Team GX attacks have one, and this one should, too. It would be cool to see a bonus that hadn't been yet used in this space, like a bonus for using a specific Ability or by playing X number of cards from your hand.

Wording errors:

General
- Suicune isn't listed first. [-50 points]
- The name should be hyphenated (Raikou & Entei & Suicune-GX). [-1 point]
Roaming Beasts GX
- Whether or not there should be an and connecting the "Choose 3 cards your find there." and "Your opponent shuffles those cards face-up into their deck." sentences is debatable because there are instances of both. I personally think it belongs there. [-0 points]
- The attack should read, "Your opponent shuffles those cards face up into their deck." Face up should only be hyphenated when describing cards that are already face down, similar to "face down". When generally referring to cards that are put face down, you don't hyphenate it. The game has never used an instance of "face-up" but cards like Xurkitree-GX UPR and Blacephalon UNB show what I'm talking about here. Incidentally, I believe your second usage of face-up is correct. [-1 point]
- The attack should read, "...and put 15 damage counters on it." Damage counters are always put, never placed. Placed is only used to describe damage counters placed after the fact; the action is always put. [-1 point]

Creativity/Originality: 15/20
(Excellent use of the type challenge. Roaming Beasts GX is interesting if not a bit flawed in execution.)
Wording: 12/15
(It's easy to tank your score from small mistakes like this. After you finish your fake, wait a day or two and go over it with a fresh mind before you hit submit.)
Believability/Playability: 13/15
(Tag Team GX attack bonus is missing, shuffling cards face up into your opponent's deck will never ever happen, both Extrasensory and Roaming Beasts GX have awkward power levels.)
Total: 40/50
Dusknoir – Water – HP150
Stage 2 – Evolves from Dusclops

Ability: Ominous Haze
Once during your turn, you may have your opponent reveal their hand. Put as many cards you find there into the Lost Zone until your opponent has at least 2 cards left in their hand. At the beginning of your opponent’s turn after they draw a card, return the cards you put in the lost from the effect of this Ability back into their hand. You can't use more than 1 Ominous Haze Ability each turn.

[W] [W] Tundra Curse 50
Flip 3 coins. If 1 of them is heads, discard a random card from your opponent's hand. If 2 of them are heads, discard a random card from your opponent's hand and discard an Energy from your opponent's Active Pokémon. If all of them are heads, discard a random card from your opponent’s hand, discard an Energy from your opponent’s Active Pokémon, and discard the top card of your opponent’s deck.

Weakness: Metal (x2)
Resistance:
Retreat: [C] [C] [C]
This Pokémon can be seen from afar on plateaus doing intricate movements during the early morning. Whenever a researcher comes close to it, it vanishes in a cloud of vapor. Researches still do not understand the purpose of these movements.

Perhaps fittingly, someone who chose the username Stalltar submitted a bulky Ghost-type as another premier defensive type (sort of), and it causes disruption. And boy howdy, that's a lot of disruption. Let's break it down.

On the first reading, Ominous Haze sounds extremely busted, but I can't help but feel like you're missing a key part of the Ability here. Still, I have to judge it as written and not make assumptions about what may or may not be missing.

And, as it's written, it's a largely useless Ability. Dumping nearly your opponent's entire hand sounds broken, but then they just get all the cards back at the start of their turn. If there exists an extremely niche use for this, I can't think of it.

Tundra Curse's damage should be balanced around the effects it can provide. The most obvious comparison is to Lickilicky UNM, who outclasses this card in every way; it does more damage, easier damage (it's Triple Acceleration Energy-friendly), is a Stage 1 and, most notably, gets all three of Dusknoir's bonuses without any coin flips at all. With that in mind, the attack feels extremely weak. Galarian Obstagoon SSH does 90 for two. Charizard VIV can do damage in the hundreds, for two. Even something that sees no competitive play, Toucannon VIV, does 60 damage for CC and gets to discard an Energy with no flips. Compared to all of those, this card seems too weak. I feel like you, like me, played it safe and didn't want to make something too powerful. But these days, power creep is the name of the game, so you can go a little harder in terms of card strength.

The last thing I want to mention is your usage of the Lost Zone. While I understand that you specify that the cards put there are immediately returned, the whole idea behind the Lost Zone is that once a card goes there, it's gone forever. Empoleon LV.X's Supreme Command sets cards from the opponent's hand aside in the same vein you did with Ominous Haze; you could have adopted that wording and still gotten the effect across without treading into the forbidden Lost Zone.

I'm down for the disruption, though, so I would have liked to have seen Ominous Haze actually mean something, although you'd have to be careful to not break it. Tundra Curse should do 80 damage minimum for those two colored Energy. If you went the three-Energy route to mimic Lickilicky, you could up that damage to 100 or 110 and still be okay.

Wording errors:
Ominous Haze
- Something bugs me about the second sentence, but I can't put my finger on how I'd fix it. If it really is incorrect, you're off the hook. [-0 points]
- The Ability should read, "After your opponent draws a card at the beginning of their next turn... (In all instances, the mention of drawing a card happens before the mention of the beginning of the turn.) [-2 points]
- The Ability should read, "...return those cards to your opponent's hand." (Empoleon LV.X) [-2 points]

Creativity/Originality: 12/20
(Ability has no real effect on the game. Tundra Curse is a strictly worse Licks Go Crazy with no reason to justify it, considering Dusknoir is harder to get into play.)
Wording: 11/15
(Your wording overall was good, but all the small errors, like getting clauses in the wrong order, add up quickly.)
Believability/Playability: 10/15
(Weak for SSH era. Pulls cards from the Lost Zone, which by design cannot be allowed and wouldn't appear on a real card. The Retreat Cost is too high; cards that can't pay their own Retreat Cost (assuming it can use the attack that require the most Energy) have a good reason for it such as a high damage-to-Energy ratio or a gimmick that lets them escape the Active Spot. This card has neither.)
Total: 33/50
Arctozolt [D] 120 HP
Stage 1- Evolves from Rare Fossil

Ability: Resentment
Whenever your opponent takes a Prize Card, attach a [D] Energy from your discard pile to this Pokémon.

[D][D][D] Stitchy Situation
Choose 1 of your opponent’s Basic Pokémon that has at least 4 damage counters on it. Remove all damage counters and Special Conditions from it, and discard all cards attached to it. Then, play it onto 1 of your opponent’s other Basic Pokémon as an Evolution. This Pokémon can’t attack during your next turn.

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
No Resistance
Retreat: [C] [C] [C]
This Pokémon was stitched together from unrelated prehistoric fossils. It resents all other living creatures and seeks to merge them together as well.

Okay, I think I get the premise behind this card - stitch together your opponent's Pokemon, preventing them from doing much since they're all evolved into like 60 HP Basics or something?

It's an interesting idea, but this card has a lot of major issues. Stitchy Situation is extremely difficult to use effectively, not only because the most commonly used Basics are big Pokemon V or Pokemon-GX, but because it has a fairly steep Energy cost and can't damage the opponent. This means that not only do you have to pay for Stitchy Situation, you also have to pay for some other attack to deal 40 damage to something, then hope they don't evolve or heal it before you can stitch it to something. It would be cool to do something like stitch a Mew to a big VMAX, but consider that you'd have to deal 40 damage to it before you can do it. All this work for zero Prizes and the possible death of whatever you used to put 40 on a target.

Resentment can help you power the attack up for "free," but you're down anywhere from 1-3 Prizes at that point. Just bad news all around.

To fix this card, I'd change Resentment to do something to help use Stitchy Situation more effectively. There is synergy with Arctozolt DAA, but Fossils are already difficult to get into play consistently. I'd rather not rely on such a card as the backbone of our attacking potential. I'd also consider making Stitchy Situation easier to use, because the effect is already hard enough to use on its own.

Wording errors:
General
- Weakness should be Grass in SSH era, not Fighting. (Fighting Weakness is reserved for Poison-types.) [-1 point]
Resentment
- "Card" should not be capitalized. (Any Pokemon-GX or V) [-1 point]
Stitchy Situation
- The attack should read, "...Heal all damage from it and it recovers from all Special Conditions. Then, discard all attached cards and put it onto 1 of your opponent's other Basic Pokémon to evolve it." The attack should use SSH-era wording, and doesn't include anything to cover the possibility that there are no valid targets for the attack. (A card is presumed submitted for the current era unless otherwise noted.) [-5 points]

Creativity/Originality: 16/20
(I like the idea and the theming behind this card, but as it stands it's too much work for not enough payoff.)
Wording: 8/15
(Make sure you clarify the era your card is being submitted in.)
Believability/Playability: 9/15
(Hard to get into play and harder to use, and very underpowered on top of that. The Retreat Cost should be 2, not 3; the real Arctozolt has a RC of 2 and it's way better than this.)
Total: 33/50
[Stage 1] Cacturne HP110 [W]
Evolves from Cacnea

NO. 334 Scarecrow Pokémon HT:4'04'' WT: 170.6 lbs

[C][C] Icebreaker 30+
If both Active Pokémon have full HP, this attack does 50 more damage for each Energy attached from your hand to this Pokémon during this turn.

[W][C][C] Night Harvest 120
If your opponent's Active Pokémon is Knocked Out by damage from this attack, you may draw a number of cards up to the number of Prize cards you would take for that Knock Out instead of putting those cards into your hand. If you do, until the end of your next turn, you may attach 1 more Energy card from your hand to any of your Pokémon for each card you drew in this way.

Weakness: [M] x2
Resistance: -
Retreat: [C][C]
In a futile effort to save himself, a Hoenn archaeologist unwittingly introduced one of the fastest-adapting and most effective invasive species to the Galarian northern ecosystem.

Always down to see more Ice-types :] I like the thought that went into it.

The attack names are thematic and I like it. Icebreaker also works literally, as the damage is "breaking" the Pokemon's pristine "ice" HP amount. I like the idea behind the attack - using Night Harvest to fuel big damage with Icebreaker - but the attack's cost is needlessly clunky. You could achieve the same effect by having the cost simply be [C]; since you are most likely to get revenge killed after taking a KO with Night Harvest, both Pokemon will again be at full HP. However, if you fail to hit two Energy, your sacrifice was for nothing. One Energy for a conditional 80 on a Stage 1 is totally fine in this format. I would go so far as to say that you should increase the damage to 50+50 or even 30+70, because this card demands a lot of resources in order to stream attacks, especially since you are losing access to your Prize cards for half of your attacks.

On the note of losing your Prize cards, that's a huge deal. For a deck that requires you to build around it, Icebreaker should be as easy to use as possible, so that you can maximize your ability to take Prizes with that attack. Even for two Energy, Icebreaker can't even kill Dedenne-GX. Given that you have to score a kill to even get Night Harvest's bonus effect, it becomes more important than ever that Icebreaker makes your Prize sacrifice worth it, and I just don't see it here. To help fix this, I would get rid of the sacrifice requirement entirely and just say that if you get a kill with this move, you can attach 1 more Energy card for each Prize card you took. The effect itself is unique and I like it a lot. If it wasn't so costly, it would absolutely find its way into some decks, especially with such a reasonable Energy cost.

Wording errors:
Icebreaker
- "Full HP" has never been used to refer to your opponent's HP, but given the fact that even in SSH era they still seem to use "full HP" and "has no damage counters on it" interchangeably with no rhyme or reason makes me believe it's a translation thing. Or not. With this company, who knows? [-0 points]
Night Harvest
- The attack should read, "...attach 1 more Energy card from your hand to your Pokémon..." (Alcremie RCL) [-1 point]

Creativity/Originality: 17/20
(Perfect new typing for Cacturne. I could easily see an Ice-type Cacturne as a regional variant. Icebreaker and Night Harvest have good synergy with each other. The idea behind Night Harvest's effect is excellent if not slightly flawed. I want to incorporate this somehow into my next set.)
Wording: 14/15
(The "any" is a minor thing compared to how frustrating this must have been for you to get right. Well done.)
Believability/Playability: 13/15
(Trading Prize cards for an extra bonus is an interesting idea, but the card's a resource sink and puts you at risk of never actually taking any Prize cards, and both of those make for a bad combination.)
Total: 43/50
Melmetal - Lightning - 120HP
Stage 1 - Evolves from Meltan

NO. 809 – Hex Nut Pokémon – HT: 8’02” – WT: 2844.67 lbs

Ability: Electrum Alloying
This Pokémon gets +10HP and its attacks do 10 more damage for each [M] Pokémon card in your discard pile.

[L][L][C] Electric Arc Blast 80
Discard a [M] Pokémon card from your hand. If you don’t, this attack does nothing. If this Pokémon has any [M] energy attached to it, heal 60 damage from this Pokémon and deal 20 damage to all [M] Pokémon in play (yours and your opponent's).

Weakness: Fighting x2
Resistance:
Retreat: [C][C][C][C]

Meltan that alloy with gold and silver can create a rare electrum Melmetal. This composition makes the Melmetal's body more conductive at the cost of speed and softness.

First, I want to say I appreciate the thought that went into this. So much so, that I'm going to let your Pokedex info slide. Normally, I would dock points for getting it wrong, but this Melmetal is just as much a variant as Alolan or Galarian variants, and those can differ wildly in weight and height. It's exciting to see the thought processes involved in selecting a Pokemon, and this entry doesn't disappoint. Good, good stuff, man.

I think the HP reduction was a good call here. It takes a lot of dudes in the discard to reach even Tag Team levels of HP, and stuff like Zacian V is gonna be bullying you all game long as you try to mount a comeback. Same goes for Electric Arc Blast; while it doesn't take long for this attack to reach man-sized damage outputs, the fact that this is a Stage 1 that takes three Energy to attack means you aren't going to be using this attack nearly as much as you think you will.

Generally, I kinda like it. There's deck potential there, but it'll take a skilled builder to overcome this Pokemon's flaws.

Wording errors:
General
- "120HP" should be "HP120" or "HP 120". (This was a change made way back in Diamond & Pearl.) [-1 point]
- "+10HP" should be "+10 HP". [-0 points]
Electric Arc Blast
- The attack should read, "Discard a Pokemon from your hand." (The word card is not necessary; Naganadel & Guzzlord-GX) [-1 point]
- The attack should read, "If this Pokemon has any M Energy attached, heal 60 damage from it..." (Clefable VIV; Energy should always be capitalized.) [-3 points]
- The attack should read, "...and this attack does 20 damage to..." (Zapdos VIV) [-1 point]
- There is no clause clarifying whether or not Weakness and Resistance is to be applied to Bench damage. This is required. [-3 points]

Creativity/Originality: 17/20
(Theming is perfect. The Ability lets it be a contender in today's meta without being centralizing. Figuring out ways to bring out this card's full potential would be a joy for deckbuilders. I love it.)
Wording: 7/15
(It's a shame you didn't submit this sooner, or cared more to make sure your wording was correct. Had you done that, you would have easily walked away with a win this month.)
Believability/Playability: 15/15
(It's strong, but not oppressively so. Discarding a Pokemon to fuel the attack is not only thematically appropriate but a fair balancer as well and ensures you aren't just swinging for 300 for free in the late game.)
Total: 39/50


3rd Place: 47bennyg’s Raikou & Entei & Suicune-GX, with 40/50 points.
2nd Place: Falling Skies’s Basculin, with 41/50 points.
1st Place: Vom’s Cacturne, with 44/50 points.
 
Congrats all the winners and massive congrats to PMJ for such a solid score!

Aesthetics: 5/5
(Looks right at home next to all the real Rocket’s Pokémon-ex!)

The playability is also right at home next to all the real Rocket's Pokemon, but I digress. ;) Thanks for judging Jabber!
 
I knew that my card wasn't good enough.
Really sorry,especially that I still use Paint for making cards.
I'll go to text-based from now on.
 
I knew that my card wasn't good enough.
Really sorry,especially that I still use Paint for making cards.
I'll go to text-based from now on.
Not at all FL - we all started where you did, and faking is never something you should learn on your own! There's actually a free online program called Photopea that you could learn and use to make your own cards - they'll turn out much better than in Paint, and you'll be whipping up your very own cards in no time. Plus there's plenty of ways to get help in the Faking Community Discord when you need it.
 
Thanks for the fantastic analysis, Jabber! I knew I couldn't compete with Faking "legends" like BB, or CardPone, but simply your professional analysis means a lot to me, and I'm sure I'll be even better in March then! Thank you for taking the time to write this whole review on every card! I don't know how you don't get burned out, writing this much so often!

I'd also like to say thank you again to bbninjas for introducing me to this wonderful community! You are all so kind, welcoming, and helpful!

Great job, everyone! See you next month, or in the Faking Discord; I'll be there as Dorian#7765!
 
Wow, I didn't realise my card would score that high... I really wish I had the time to take a look at wording more closely now! Ah well, I'm happy with the score anyways! Thanks for judging, @PMJ and well done to all other contestants :) I look forward to seeing what March has in store for us and hopefully I'll have more time to put the effort in!
 
I knew that my card wasn't good enough.
Really sorry,especially that I still use Paint for making cards.
I'll go to text-based from now on.
Don't ever feel sorry for your work! Like bb said, it's all a learning process, and all of us started somewhere. If you don't get a score you're happy with, you can always look at where you might have gone wrong and figure out what you can do to fix it for next time. Either way, the most important thing in faking is that you enjoy it! And if you enjoy it, then I can't think of any reason to drop it. :)

I second bb's endorsement of Photopea — it's actually extremely similar to Photoshop, meaning many of our users will be able to help you figure it out. (And it's free! Which is a big deal for something as close to Photoshop as this.)
 
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