Contest July 2020 CaC: Special Conditions (All Results Up!)

I couldn't decide on a single idea, so I'm just gonna enter the image contest too even if it's not my forte.

For the image, I'm going back to Neo Era, where they introduced a prototype burn effect with Neo Genesis Quilava and introducing a pseudo-freeze type effect.

mzth5wD.png


Freeze is the most busted status condition in the video game series, but it doesn't exist in the cards. In Gen I, if you get frozen, you're basically screwed. If you get hit by a fire move, you can thaw, but that's about it, which is why I designed this to wake you if you get a fire energy.

I think in the Base-Neo format, this card would be decent, but not busted. There's plenty of switch, gust, and scoop-up type ways to either get the frozen poke out of the way or get Jynx out of the active. It's also really slow to rack up damage after putting someone to sleep.


My text based card is Tauros V!

Tauros V – Colorless – HP200
Basic Pokémon

Ability: Bullring
If this Pokémon is in the Active Spot and there is any Stadium card in play, this Pokémon is now Confused.

[C][C] Disoriented Thrash 100+
If this Pokémon is Confused, this attack does 100 more damage.

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

V rule: When your Pokémon V is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.


With this I wanted to go for a positive way to use a status condition, and I think I came up with a pretty creative way to activate it. It's also pretty thematically appropriate for Tauros, as bullfighters sometimes intentionally agitate and disorient the bull so it is more agressive.

Big power with a big drawback is really fun to me. In the current format, swinging in for 200 turn 1 with a DCE and a stadium down would be entirely possible, but you could also just whiff and hurt yourself. I think that the possibility to hit yourself in confusion would stop it from being a Tier 1 card, but the quick powerup would make it a brutal rogue strategy that could destroy with good flips.
 
I couldn't decide on a single idea, so I'm just gonna enter the image contest too even if it's not my forte.

For the image, I'm going back to Neo Era, where they introduced a prototype burn effect with Neo Genesis Quilava and introducing a pseudo-freeze type effect.

mzth5wD.png


Freeze is the most busted status condition in the video game series, but it doesn't exist in the cards. In Gen I, if you get frozen, you're basically screwed. If you get hit by a fire move, you can thaw, but that's about it, which is why I designed this to wake you if you get a fire energy.

I think in the Base-Neo format, this card would be decent, but not busted. There's plenty of switch, gust, and scoop-up type ways to either get the frozen poke out of the way or get Jynx out of the active. It's also really slow to rack up damage after putting someone to sleep.


My text based card is Tauros V!

Tauros V – Colorless – HP200
Basic Pokémon

Ability: Bullring
If this Pokémon is in the Active Spot and there is any Stadium card in play, this Pokémon is now Confused.

[C][C] Disoriented Thrash 100+
If this Pokémon is Confused, this attack does 100 more damage.

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

V rule: When your Pokémon V is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.


With this I wanted to go for a positive way to use a status condition, and I think I came up with a pretty creative way to activate it. It's also pretty thematically appropriate for Tauros, as bullfighters sometimes intentionally agitate and disorient the bull so it is more agressive.

Big power with a big drawback is really fun to me. In the current format, swinging in for 200 turn 1 with a DCE and a stadium down would be entirely possible, but you could also just whiff and hurt yourself. I think that the possibility to hit yourself in confusion would stop it from being a Tier 1 card, but the quick powerup would make it a brutal rogue strategy that could destroy with good flips.
Thanks for your submissions, @47bennyg — unfortunately, though, I can only count one of them. This is a judging volume thing; if all of our contestants entered both categories, we would reach capacity very quickly and it would become much harder to judge in a timely manner.

Let me know which entry you'd like to have counted in the judging. :)
 
Thanks for your submissions, @47bennyg — unfortunately, though, I can only count one of them. This is a judging volume thing; if all of our contestants entered both categories, we would reach capacity very quickly and it would become much harder to judge in a timely manner.

Let me know which entry you'd like to have counted in the judging. :)


Man thats embarrasing. I just wasted my entire day lol! I haven't entered one of these in like 5 years so I guess things have changed. I'll just do text.
 
I'm afraid I'm gonna have to drop out of this one. I don't have the time I still need to make what I have into a full image fake. Best of luck to the remaining contestants.
 
Toxtricity HP110 Darkness
Stage 1 ~ Evolves from Toxel
NO. 849 Punk Pokemon HT: 5’3” WT: 88.2 lbs.

/Ability/ ~ 50//50
Once during your turn, when this Pokemon moves from your Bench to the Active Spot, you may choose 1:
  • Your opponent’s Active Pokemon is now Poisoned.
  • Flip a coin. If heads, your opponent’s Active Pokemon is now Paralyzed.

[C][C][C] Vantage Point 60
If your opponent’s Active Pokemon is Poisoned, this attack can be used for [D]. At the end of your opponent’s turn, if your opponent’s Active Pokemon recovers from the Special Condition Paralyzed, this Pokemon may use this attack. (You still need the necessary Energy to use this attack.)

This short-tempered and aggressive Pokémon chugs stagnant water to absorb any toxins it might contain.

Weakness - Fighting x2
Resistance - None
Retreat - 2
Nyora's Eternatus VMAX's CaC judging
Mewtwo & Mew-GX
Celesteela CES
Heatran-GX
Judge Whistle

I hope this is good! This is my first CaC, so I hope I do well. Finding something to do with special conditions came naturally for whatever reason, though I'm unsure how good this actually is, I'm not a very competitive player xD
 
haha no ideas go ...
Musharna V HP 220 Psychic
Basic Pokémon

[P][P][C] Nightmare Cast 80
Both Active Pokémon are now Asleep. At the end of your opponent's next turn, if this Pokémon is Asleep, put damage counters on your opponent's Benched Pokémon in any way you like equal to the same amount of damage you did to your opponent's Active Pokémon.

[P][P][C][C] Moonbeam 130
If your opponent's Pokémon is not Knocked Out by damage from this attack, you may switch your opponent's Active Pokémon with 1 of their Benched Pokémon. The new Active Pokémon is now Asleep.

When your Pokemon V is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.

Weakness: Darkness x2
Resistance: Fighting -30
Retreat: 3
 
This is my entry
0709_TREVENANT_CAC.png


Image updated by me to have the original-size card. ~~Jabber

This is a ghost type blank i've built, based off of a SM blank from Aschefield. The Energy icons are from CMP's NeoRedux. Illustration by Autobot.Tesla.

This card will be part of a set i'm making, with focus on digital play, and with modded rules and core mechanics, although this one is slightly edited to fit the CaC more. The wording i use is based off of Diamond/Pearl gen cards (mostly because i like that wording more over modern versions and most of the cards i own are from that time), tho with my own changes which i took the liberty to create considering the cards i'm making are not exactly compatible with existent official cards.

You probably already spotted on the card things that do not exist on official cards. Many of those revolve around new rules and mechanics i've built, but i don't want to go on here about all those changes, so i'll only focus on explaining the necessary for this special condition themed CaC:
  • In my set's rules, Benched Pokémon can be Poisoned, and Benching/Retreating a Pokémon does not cure it. However, any Poisoned Pokémon on the Bench does not receive damage from the Poisoned Special Condition between turns. This is relevant for this card's Miasma Of The End effect, which states that Poisoned Pokémon on the Bench will indeed also receive damage between turns from the Poisoned Special Condition.
  • Another new thing i have to explain is one of the new 10 Special Conditions i've been working on, Doomed. If a Pokémon is Doomed, it no longer has Resistances, and it cannot Evolve. A Doomed Pokémon can only be cured by leaving play, or through effects of other cards. When a Doomed Pokémon is Knocked Out, it is sent to the Lost Zone.
Doomed Special Condition also has another effect, but it is tied with one of my main core mechanic changes which i'd rather not extensively talk about here. Summing it up without going through those rules, when a player tries to attack, and has Doomed Pokémon in play, there is a small chance (by default around 5%, which can be changed with effects from other cards, both for a lower % or a higher %), that every Doomed Pokémon of that player is Knocked Out. If the Pokémon that attempted the attack was also Doomed, the attack does nothing.

Overall, this is a very high-risk high-reward card, which is one of my themes for ghost types. When Trevenant is played, it applies its effect to every Pokémon in play, including itself and your own Pokémon. Trevenant is a ticking bomb paired with russian roulette, which should be enough to up the nerves and fear of both players. It requires proper setup and maybe some combos to reduce the risk of using such a card. It is also a very late-game card that is hard to evolve into, and requires a certain combo of a different type of cards that my set has to evolve (does not evolve by normal means).
 
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Hi guys! Here's my entry for this CaC!

Galarian_Articuno_CARD.png

Dusknoir CES (Ability)
Walrein CES (Ability)
Slaking UNM (Positioning)
Galarian Weezing (Positioning)

As I spoiled in Discord, my entry for this CaC is Galarian Articuno!

This month's theme is about Special Conditions and when I read about the new Articuno I instantly had an inspiration.

Just like the new regional bird takes a psychic approach to freezing (which I thought is AMAZING, concept-wise), I decided to go with a similar concept.

This card's main purpose is disruption by Paralyzis. I gave it a balanced way (and maybe assuring too) to inflict this Special Condition: with 2 [P] Energy, it freezes the Defending Pokémon, and if the opponent doesn't find a way out of it (coin flip, Switch), not only their Pokémon will be brain-freezed with Paralyzis, but their game as well!

You probably have noticed I really like decks/cards that brings a new perspective to the game from my other entries (besides the "I must do colossal damage to win"), so I think Galarian Articuno is a very "Gabs-esque" card and I'm happy with the outcome!

I would like it to be evaluated as a SM-era card (I know Galarian Articuno didn't exist there but I don't think I'm going to fake in SwSh format).

PS: There's a difference between flying and levitating and I had to remake the whole illustration bc my Articuno was flying in the original one (yes, I didn't noticed Articuno doesn't flaps its wings from the trailer). However, it was a good thing bc the new one is much nicer than the previous one LoL

Good luck to all contestants! I'm very excited for the results :)
 
Sorry for cutting it a little close x.x

Arctozolt_CaC.png
I think with this card I struck a solid balance between a supporter with its Ability and a self-combo with the attack. The ability being able to function standalone can give the card potential as a support Pokemon for a Paralysis-focused deck. The attack synergy is tricky, but powerful if pulled off. The mixed energy and discard costs make this card steep in its needs, and successfully pulling it off will leave you with a choice; if you're able to accelerate the energy needed to attack again, do you apply paralysis again or take the bonus damage? I should mention the W/R/RC thing. Lightning types normally resist Metal, putting me in an awkward spot when it comes to resistance, as Water types who are Ice-types in the games are weak to Metal. So I just cut the resistance altogether. Also, I know that for SwSh, there's a new fossil card for the gen 8 fossils. Since this is an SM card, I used the SM fossil. This blank is a variant of my normal dual-type SM blank that I am testing. It's a lot less harsh on its edges so it's a fair amount easier on the eyes. On Pokemon selection, tbh I'm not really sure why I went with Arctozolt. I've always really liked it, despite all odds, and I think it's becoming one of my favorites out of gen 8. I honestly just find it adorable, and then I had the idea of Paralysis becoming another status, and it spiraled into this. Then I found this art while scrolling through DeviantArt and then I just knew I had to make this, it's too darn cute.
Paralytic Chills:
Wishiwashi CEC 62

Frosty Bolt:
Gourgeist CIN 45
Ampharos LOT 78
Breloom UNM 108

Credit:
Art - EdoNovaIllustrator (Warning: Some art 18+)
Blanks & Type symbols - asche (dual typing by me)
CaC symbol - @Nekoban Ryo
 
Since I did do a little work on a card this month, I might as well share what I did finish. I want to emphasize that this still is not an entry as I've not had time to check all the wording and balancing, I don't think it's entirely as creative as I normally would shoot for, nor do I think it would perform particularly well in the text-based judging. Maybe I'll recycle the idea for a card from my own sets if I ever get back into card faking like I used to.

The idea is that it's suppose to pair well with Munna BCR 68 (or, more appropriately for the format, Exeggcute card from Frontiers Renewed). Like always, it would be balanced around HGSS, yada yada.

Polteageist – Psychic – HP60
Stage 1 - Evolves from Sinistea

Ability: Morning Coffee
Once during your turn (before your attack), if your Active Pokémon is Asleep, you may reveal the top card of your deck. If it is an Energy card, attach it to your Active Pokémon. If it is not an Energy card, shuffle it back into your deck. Your Active Pokémon is no longer Asleep.

[P][P] Hypnotic Hit and Run 40
Switch this Pokémon with 1 of your Benched Pokémon. If you do, each Active Pokémon is now Asleep.

Weakness: Darkness +20
Resistance: Fighting -20
Retreat: [C]
#855 Black Tea Pokémon HT: 0’ 8” WT: 0.9 lbs.
Shield: Leaving leftover black tea unattended is asking for this Pokémon to come along and pour itself into it, turning the tea into a new Polteageist.

Illus. [REDACTED] - ©2020 Pokémon/CardPone
 
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That's a wrap on this round of the CaC! Thanks so much to y'all for entering, and stay tuned for judging at the end of August. :)
 
I'm a bit late, but hopefully this is ok --
Kyurem-1-10-Fin.png

I know there are heaps of errors in terms of fonts/placements, but hopefully there's at least some improvement. Figuring out that I could justify text was probably the big improvement there.

The holosheet is also quite subdued, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out to be honest.

The art is by salanchu, and all other resources come from Ashche, BB, and Nekoban Ryo (if I missed anyone there please lmk)
 
It's probably important to include what the Frozen condition actually does, so here it is --

Frozen
Turn the Pokémon face down to show that it is Frozen.

If a Pokémon is Frozen, it cannot attack, retreat, or use an Ability. When a Pokémon becomes frozen, remove all damage counters and special conditions from that Pokémon. Prevent all effects of attacks and Abilities (including damage) done to Frozen Pokémon. Between turns, flip two coins. If both are heads, the Pokémon thaws (turn the card back right-face up), but if one or both are tails, it stays Frozen.

Worded in accordance with existing conditions.

It's intentionally quite strong, but hopefully the drawbacks of the card counteract that somewhat.
 
This completely slipped my mind x.x Hopefully this is still ok, but even if not I wanted to share because I thought this was such a cool Pokémon when I first saw it in Pokémon Sapphire and the 3d models did it dirty because now it's just standing around instead of a menacing pose.
[Basic] Zangoose HP90 [C]

NO. 335 Cat Ferret Pokémon HT: 4' 03'' WT: 88.8 lbs.

Ability: Poison Gene
Once during your turn, if this Pokémon is Poisoned, this Pokémon may recover from that Special Condition. If it does, until the end of this turn, its attacks do 20 more damage to your opponent's Active Pokémon for each time this Pokémon was affected by that Special Condition during this turn.

[C][C][C] Blood Feud 120
If this Pokémon is Poisoned, this attack costs [C] less for each Seviper you have in play. If you have more Seviper than Zangoose in play, this attack does nothing.

Weakness: [F]x2
Resistance: -
Retreat: [C]
Memories of battling its archrival Seviper are etched into every cell of Zangoose's body. This Pokémon adroitly dodges attacks with incredible agility.
Thunder Mountain, Choice Band (each of its attacks vs its attacks)
Dust Island (repoisoning a Pokémon)
Thunder Mountain+Counter Gain for attack cost reduction
When I saw the theme, I knew how I wanted to use it (on myself) and Zangoose instantly came to mind, as the legndary rival of Seviper who must have got Poisoned all the time. The Dex entry reveals that the feud between the two is so deep, it's etched into its cells, and so I figured an evolutionary adaptation wasn't out of place - Poison Gene.

I always wondered why on Earth you can status a Pokémon with a status it already has in the TCG - at least now there's a legitimate niche for that mechanic. If you pair Zangoose with multiple ways to poison yourself - Ariados-like cards come to mind - you can add a lot of damage to your attack. I spent a while trying to figure out how to word an effect that took into account poisoning yourself when you were already poisoned, initially being not OPT and instead adding damage every time you healed yourself.

However, I had no clue how to make such an Ability stack, and so we have the current iteration. The idea is to have 2-3 Ariados on the Bench for damage output, while the rest is a mix of Seviper/Zangoose to maximize cost/damage. The attack can potentially be very strong, but both the damage and cost reduction are artificially capped by the requirements.

If you're not poisoned, you can't reduce the cost at all, and 120 for 3 is pretty sad, so you have to save one way to poison yourself before attacking. Since the Ability is now OPT, you have to calculate your damage numbers taking into account you always have one less poison method than you think, unless you're in a pinch and could really use the extra damage.

You also cannot attack for free unless you have 3 each of Seviper and Zangoose, but that means you don't have poison available, though 120 for free is pretty strong. Too bad you're paper thin and will get rolled over by pretty much any attack lol.
 
I'm a bit late, but hopefully this is ok --
Kyurem-1-10-Fin.png

I know there are heaps of errors in terms of fonts/placements, but hopefully there's at least some improvement. Figuring out that I could justify text was probably the big improvement there.

The holosheet is also quite subdued, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out to be honest.

The art is by salanchu, and all other resources come from Ashche, BB, and Nekoban Ryo (if I missed anyone there please lmk)
This completely slipped my mind x.x Hopefully this is still ok, but even if not I wanted to share because I thought this was such a cool Pokémon when I first saw it in Pokémon Sapphire and the 3d models did it dirty because now it's just standing around instead of a menacing pose.
[Basic] Zangoose HP90 [C]

NO. 335 Cat Ferret Pokémon HT: 4' 03'' WT: 88.8 lbs.

Ability: Poison Gene
Once during your turn, if this Pokémon is Poisoned, this Pokémon may recover from that Special Condition. If it does, until the end of this turn, its attacks do 20 more damage to your opponent's Active Pokémon for each time this Pokémon was affected by that Special Condition during this turn.

[C][C][C] Blood Feud 120
If this Pokémon is Poisoned, this attack costs [C] less for each Seviper you have in play. If you have more Seviper than Zangoose in play, this attack does nothing.

Weakness: [F]x2
Resistance: -
Retreat: [C]
Memories of battling its archrival Seviper are etched into every cell of Zangoose's body. This Pokémon adroitly dodges attacks with incredible agility.
Thunder Mountain, Choice Band (each of its attacks vs its attacks)
Dust Island (repoisoning a Pokémon)
Thunder Mountain+Counter Gain for attack cost reduction
When I saw the theme, I knew how I wanted to use it (on myself) and Zangoose instantly came to mind, as the legndary rival of Seviper who must have got Poisoned all the time. The Dex entry reveals that the feud between the two is so deep, it's etched into its cells, and so I figured an evolutionary adaptation wasn't out of place - Poison Gene.

I always wondered why on Earth you can status a Pokémon with a status it already has in the TCG - at least now there's a legitimate niche for that mechanic. If you pair Zangoose with multiple ways to poison yourself - Ariados-like cards come to mind - you can add a lot of damage to your attack. I spent a while trying to figure out how to word an effect that took into account poisoning yourself when you were already poisoned, initially being not OPT and instead adding damage every time you healed yourself.

However, I had no clue how to make such an Ability stack, and so we have the current iteration. The idea is to have 2-3 Ariados on the Bench for damage output, while the rest is a mix of Seviper/Zangoose to maximize cost/damage. The attack can potentially be very strong, but both the damage and cost reduction are artificially capped by the requirements.

If you're not poisoned, you can't reduce the cost at all, and 120 for 3 is pretty sad, so you have to save one way to poison yourself before attacking. Since the Ability is now OPT, you have to calculate your damage numbers taking into account you always have one less poison method than you think, unless you're in a pinch and could really use the extra damage.

You also cannot attack for free unless you have 3 each of Seviper and Zangoose, but that means you don't have poison available, though 120 for free is pretty strong. Too bad you're paper thin and will get rolled over by pretty much any attack lol.
You're both in; you missed it by less than a day and I'm not a monster. <3

at least Almonds is in, because I have jurisdiction over image judging, and I'm making the executive decision that Vom is also in because the text-based judge was also late so he can't argue <3
 
This is my entry
0709_TREVENANT_CAC.png


Image updated by me to have the original-size card. ~~Jabber

This is a ghost type blank i've built, based off of a SM blank from Aschefield. The Energy icons are from CMP's NeoRedux. Illustration by Autobot.Tesla.

This card will be part of a set i'm making, with focus on digital play, and with modded rules and core mechanics, although this one is slightly edited to fit the CaC more. The wording i use is based off of Diamond/Pearl gen cards (mostly because i like that wording more over modern versions and most of the cards i own are from that time), tho with my own changes which i took the liberty to create considering the cards i'm making are not exactly compatible with existent official cards.

You probably already spotted on the card things that do not exist on official cards. Many of those revolve around new rules and mechanics i've built, but i don't want to go on here about all those changes, so i'll only focus on explaining the necessary for this special condition themed CaC:
  • In my set's rules, Benched Pokémon can be Poisoned, and Benching/Retreating a Pokémon does not cure it. However, any Poisoned Pokémon on the Bench does not receive damage from the Poisoned Special Condition between turns. This is relevant for this card's Miasma Of The End effect, which states that Poisoned Pokémon on the Bench will indeed also receive damage between turns from the Poisoned Special Condition.
  • Another new thing i have to explain is one of the new 10 Special Conditions i've been working on, Doomed. If a Pokémon is Doomed, it no longer has Resistances, and it cannot Evolve. A Doomed Pokémon can only be cured by leaving play, or through effects of other cards. When a Doomed Pokémon is Knocked Out, it is sent to the Lost Zone.
Doomed Special Condition also has another effect, but it is tied with one of my main core mechanic changes which i'd rather not extensively talk about here. Summing it up without going through those rules, when a player tries to attack, and has Doomed Pokémon in play, there is a small chance (by default around 5%, which can be changed with effects from other cards, both for a lower % or a higher %), that every Doomed Pokémon of that player is Knocked Out. If the Pokémon that attempted the attack was also Doomed, the attack does nothing.

Overall, this is a very high-risk high-reward card, which is one of my themes for ghost types. When Trevenant is played, it applies its effect to every Pokémon in play, including itself and your own Pokémon. Trevenant is a ticking bomb paired with russian roulette, which should be enough to up the nerves and fear of both players. It requires proper setup and maybe some combos to reduce the risk of using such a card. It is also a very late-game card that is hard to evolve into, and requires a certain combo of a different type of cards that my set has to evolve (does not evolve by normal means).

Hi all,
I know I’m not a Judge on this, but I just HAVE TO comment on this very unique Trevenant!

First of all, it’s shiny!! What does the 6 Poke Ball sign in the evolution stage mean?
Keep in mind the English cards use ft/in and lbs for the Pokemon’s measurements, not m and kg.

Poke-Body:
When you list Special Conditions in the text, they are usually in alphabetical order, so I would write “Doomed and Poisoned.”. When you put damage counters, you need to specify how many (even for Special Conditions). Don’t make the same mistake as Rocket’s Minefield Gym from Gym Challenge!

First attack:
When you say 20HP or less remaining, is that before or after doing damage? For example, if the Defending Pokemon has 30HP left, it is NOT Knocked Out (according to the effect), but if it takes the 20 damage from the attack, the effect would apply. So which is it?

Second attack:
Can Pokemon be Asleep and Doomed at the same time? Would this contradict the Poke-Body?

Look at that crazy Resistance!
What do you mean by you can’t put any Trevenant in your deck? Where do I put it? In my pants? In my mouth?

If I were to put a rarity symbol on it, I would make it a Common :D

Again, sorry for judging, but this card is sooo cool!!!!
 
Image-Based Results

Judge: @Jabberwock

Impressive work this round! There were no off-the-charts scores in either a positive or a negative direction; all the entries ended up clustered around the high-30s/low-40s range. I was extremely impressed with the creativity this round in particular — y’all really took the theme and ran with it!

If there’s one thing I’d suggest working on for next time, it would be double- and triple-checking wording. The faking community’s Discord chat is a great place to get an additional pair of eyes to look over wording, and I promise we’re all friendly over there. :p

As a reminder, next month’s CaC will premiere the new rubric, which increases the points allotted for Believability/Playability at the expense of Wording and Fonts/Placement. Read about it here.

Almonds’s judging (for text-based) is coming within the week, and September’s round will go up tomorrow. Stay tuned!

~~Jabberwock


bC0q4yu.png


Hey, KoD! Good to see you back, and with a Prism Star no less! These are tricky to do both for aesthetic and balancing reasons, as I reckon you discovered in the process. :p

First things first — the aesthetics look good! You talk about the holosheets being a pain, and man, yeah, I feel that, but you executed them well. It shines up the illustration border and the central diamond without being obtrusive, and I’d say the effect on the illustration itself is just about perfect.

The one area I wish had a more obvious holosheet, though I’m not gonna dock for it, is the dark gray border of the card itself — and you talk about this yourself in your notes, so I assume you know what I’m talking about. I think the key there would be using predominantly lightening blending modes, like Color Dodge or Linear Dodge, as opposed to Multiply, Overlay, etc. The idea is that the border is already so dark, the only contrast you need comes from the light effects of the holosheet.

I like the effects of the card, too. It uses Sleep in a very control-y way, which is exactly what I’d expect of a good Darkrai card. It’s got a bunch of different things in its toolbox, too — being able to drag up your opponent’s Benched Pokémon, lock its Abilities, and all the while do passive damage to your opponent’s field. It’s a very versatile card, and it immediately makes you think of all the different ways you can play it.

The question is essentially whether you’ve overdone it. Versatility is an asset to a card; it can be a mark of good design because it shows you’re thinking about multiple avenues of play, but it can also become a problem if it does too much. If it does everything, then you don’t have any reason not to play it, and that can be stifling to a metagame.

Looking at this card, thinking about the state of the game if I were able to send a Pokémon of my choice to Sleep, have a 50% chance to shut off its Abilities and spread 80-130 damage over the opponent’s field, and then thinking about the state of the game if my opponent did that — yeah, I think it edges into overpowered territory. It’s interesting actually; I think it’s very very close to being on-point, but it’s missing a couple things.

First of all, making a Pokémon a Prism Star is a useful balancing tool. Not only does it mean you can only play one of that Pokémon, but it also means you have to be really careful with it, because once it gets Knocked Out, it’s gone. You used the only-play-one rule to prevent The Long Night from stacking, which was a good decision. But I think the don’t-let-it-get-KO’d rule also needs consideration here.

Prism Stars tend not to make good attackers, because attackers are more likely to get Knocked Out by virtue of their being in the Active Spot all the time. That means that, if at all possible, people will avoid using Darkrai for Ethereal Grasp and take advantage instead of just The Long Night. And it is possible — because The Long Night works just fine from the Bench. So you can set up a field with this Darkrai ◊, Slumbering Forest, some non-attack way to put your opponent’s Active Pokémon to Sleep (Amoonguss UNM? Hypnotoxic Laser?), and then you even still get to attack however you want. The opponent’s Active doesn’t have Abilities and only has a 25% chance of waking up, and if your attack of choice locks Trainers in some way? Then you’ve got a very efficient, near-total lock, plus the ability to spread 8-13 damage counters between every set of turns.

I think the simplest way to balance this would be to make The Long Night only work if Darkrai is Active. That way it’s much more vulnerable, and it’s harder to abuse with supplementary effects like that. With Slumbering Forest or a similar effect it would still be a force to be reckoned with, but you wouldn’t be able to enact the near-total lock.

Apart from that, there’s probably some other stuff you could do to balance it. I think the Ability lock is a bit overkill, but it does open up exciting avenues of play, so I think it’s reasonable to keep, provided Darkrai has to be Active. 8 damage counters probably is a bit too high for the non-GX one, but I think 13 is fine for the other. I like the balancing on Ethereal Grasp, too — it just comes back, again, to the fact that it won’t be used unless you’re forced to use it.

Overall, though, a solid all-around card, and the creativity is really shining through. You’re using Sleep in a fun thematic way with a ton of in-game possibilities, and it makes you excited about all the different ways you can exploit this Special Condition. In terms of answering the brief, a really excellent job.

Wording errors:
- I assume you meant “Ethereal Grasp” (not “Ethreal”) for the attack? When I google ethreal I just get results for ethereal. [-1 point]
- The attack should reference “the new Active Pokémon,” as per cards like Druddigon UNM and Roserade UPR. [-2 points] Edit: Whoops! I learned shortly after posting this that the intent of the attack was to leave the Active Asleep regardless of whether it was switched or not. This is absolutely my bad and your wording is on-point; the totals have been adjusted accordingly. ~Jabber

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Looks good! I didn’t mention this above, but I like the subtle shadow you applied to the white text to make it easily readable over the diamond.

Creativity/Originality: 13/15
(Great take on Sleep through a Darkrai lens, with good attention to different avenues of play and the card’s general versatility. Overall a very good response to the Special Conditions brief.)
Wording: 14/15
(One spelling thing.)
Fonts and Placement: 10/10
(Nice effects on the white text over the holo diamond.)
Believability/Playability: 2/5
(A few balancing concerns that I think could be mostly rectified by making the Ability only work while Active.)
Aesthetics: 5/5
(Excellent. The holosheet on the illustration itself is particularly superb.)
Total: 44/50

SPOILER_BeautiflyAT.png


Oh, wow! You know, it’s hard to get an Ancient Trait card to look visually on-point — you have to choose good art, often manipulate it in some way to make it suitable, and then apply the holosheet and mono-color gradient just right — and I think you pulled it off! The colors of the art itself, with the blue of Beautifly’s eyes and the yellow and red of its wings, contrast really well with the green gradient for an excellent multi-color effect that I’m sure would make this card a beauty to behold in person.

I have a couple of nitpicks regarding the aesthetics, though — number one, there’s some choppiness around the bottom of the card, which initially I thought was because you had saved it as a JPG, but it’s not a JPG; it’s a PNG, as it should be. I wonder whether Corel might just not handle gradients well?

The other things are that the gradient should be a little bit less opaque (compare it to the Dustox you linked in your post, for example — leaves are clearly visible through the gradient) and that there’s a little blotch missing around the bottom-left corner. Overall, though, with the perfect contrast of colors and the lightly applied holosheet, the aesthetics are stunning.

I question the application of the theme a bit. It ends up coming down to “pick a Special Condition to do a little bit more chip damage,” but there’s not much gameplay potential there. The Special Conditions aren’t even all equal; I’d expect that you’d almost always pick Poison since, especially with Virbank City Gym, it’s far-and-away the best Special Condition of the three. So even though you technically have the choice, it turns into a bit of an autopilot thing.

I do like the Ability; it opens up the potential to be fairly skill-testing. You went into the card knowing you would design it with some anti-synergy in mind (∆ Plus versus the Special Conditions of the attack) and you included the Ability to help the player work around that somewhat. In practice it’s still fairly limiting; once-a-turn on a Stage 2 that needs to be Active means you really are just moving, in general, one damage counter per turn — but it’s still skill-testing, and the potential for other combos is there. So I think that’s a mark of good creativity.

Speaking of being limited in practice, though, I think the card is a little bit underpowered for what it is, especially given the format you’re intending to release it into. Stage 2s didn’t do well in the XY era, for reasons you hinted at in your post — it was quite a fast format with very little support for Evolutions. Even going back into BW, they were primarily used for support — it would have been very rare to see them Active and attacking at all.

Take Beautifly — three Energy for 30 damage plus (since you’d probably run Virbank and choose Poison) the potential for another 60 before your next attack? That just isn’t very good, especially on a Stage 2, and especially in a format where there are all sorts of ways for your opponent to knock that 60 down to 30 or even 0. Dustox ROS has a similarly low power level, but at least it has a sniping attack that you can use to cheese out the occasional two Prizes from a low-HP Bench-sitter.

Ultimately I think the balancing needs work. Is it roughly in line with a lot of existing Stage 2s from the format? Yeah, but that’s not necessarily a good thing, or what you’re trying to achieve. It’s believable, all right, but it needs a substantially higher power level (or other support) to be playable.

I reckon there’s a lot of potential steps you could take to balance it — the attack cost could easily afford to be reduced, and/or the base damage increased. I think one-for-30 makes sense, or two-for-50 or 60. Three Energy probably needs to be at least 60 damage, but even then three Energy is quite cumbersome for a Stage 2 in a format without Scramble Energy.

The other neat thing I could see working here is to make it work specifically as a partner for Dustox ROS. Beautifly’s Ability moving damage counters to the Bench already works nicely with Dustox’s Wind Shard attack, so by removing the Beautifly-needs-to-be-Active restriction you would be getting into some synergy space there. But then, that does kinda remove the need for Beautifly to attack, and that means there’s no relevance to either the Ancient Trait or the Special Conditions (which of course were the brief). So then again, maybe not.

I think there’s a good idea here. I like the idea of an inherent anti-synergy that tests the player’s skill in playing around it, and the fact that it awards huge dividends (extra Prizes) if the player can successfully do that. But anti-synergy isn’t a compelling balancing tool if the card itself is already underpowered, and unfortunately Beautifly, especially for its era, undoubtedly is.

Wording errors:
- Special Conditions should be listed in alphabetical order, so “Burned, Confused, or Poisoned.” There should also be an Oxford comma after the second one. [-2 points]

Fonts and Placement errors:
- On-point as usual.

Creativity/Originality: 11/15
(Getting into some good skill-testing design space with the anti-synergy, but the Special Conditions feel a bit tacked-on, especially since two of them would often end up being superfluous.)
Wording: 13/15
(Special Condition order and Oxford comma in the attack.)
Fonts and Placement: 10/10
(All good.)
Believability/Playability: 3/5
(Playability concerns — the card is underpowered for its era.)
Aesthetics: 4/5
(Stunning color combinations, and solid application of the holosheet. There’s some wonkiness with the gradient, though; specifically, I would expect it to be a bit less opaque, and a couple other minor nitpicks.)
Total: 41/50

0709_TREVENANT_CAC.png


Woo, okay. First of all, hi there, Luka! Always glad to see folks make their way over here from Discord, and we certainly hope to see more of you in the future. Secondly, wow! For the folks here on PB who have never seen your work before, this card must surely come as a shock; heck, I’ve seen plenty of your cards over on Discord, and I still feel like I’m learning something new about your format with each one I see.

With that being said — and I do want to acknowledge it; you’ve essentially built up not just a format from scratch, but an entire TCG, tangentially based on the Pokémon TCG but at the same time rejecting a lot of the conventions WotC and Nintendo have established and paving the way with new ones — while that’s incredibly impressive and I applaud the sheer effort that goes into such a feat, I also want to acknowledge that it may mean this judging isn’t what you were expecting.

I spent a long time — most of August, actually — trying to decide how best to judge this card, because honestly it just comes down to the fact that we’ve never had a card quite like this one submitted before. You’ve mentioned before that your cards are intended for play in the context of your larger set, which helps you balance them by cutting them out of the context of the Pokémon TCG as a whole. But ultimately, if your cards aren’t intended for play with the bulk of real-life Pokémon cards, then they’ve diverged into their own game.

Where that makes judging difficult is that I don’t know all the rules of that game, and tbh I’m not sure I’d be able to learn them all if I tried. You provided like a mini-essay’s worth of context in your OP (which believe me, I super appreciate), but even then there’s a lot of context I’m still missing. Some of it I was able to ask you about separately for clarification’s sake, but I don’t think I ever really had any hope of learning how all of it works without a lot more time invested in learning to play the set itself. Given that time over the course of a month, could I learn a whole new game for the purpose of CaC judging? Yeah, maybe. Would it be sustainable to do on a regular basis, if multiple people submitted cards like this one? Probably not. The question could be extrapolated to “Can I submit a YGO or MtG card, if it’s of a Pokémon?” And the answer to that would be, pretty unequivocally, no. So the precedent I’m going to have to set here is that while I’m gonna try to keep an open mind and remember that it’s designed for a different game entirely, there are points in this judging where that’s gonna break down, and so ultimately I’m going to have to judge this card, and any hypothetical submissions like it in the future, from the perspective of the real-life Pokémon TCG.

First things first — I like the blank; I think you’ve done a really admirable job of cutting up and restitching a general SUM-era blank for your purposes. The Poké Ball thing below the evobox, the expanded W/R boxes, the added box with the “You can’t put any Trevenant in your deck” — all of it looks like a really natural fit with the aesthetics of the SUM era. I can’t tell if you made the Ghost texture yourself or if that’s one of the things you repurposed from Neo Redux, but either way the integration is seamless. All together, it looks really good.

The art is a nice choice too. It’s a very dark card; there’s not much in the way of flashy lighting or high contrast effects, but I think some little details, like the purple glow of the eye complementing the purple color of the blank’s texture and the red leaves drawing the eye from the lower-right box, work really well together to set it off. It definitely gives off the impression of being a Ghost-type.

In relation to the card being so dark, though, I’m a bit confused as to why some of the text is blank and some of it white. Cards have (rarely) mix-’n’-matched the black and white text before, as in the case of multi-types like Bisharp STS, or ex-era Darkness-types. But in each of those cases, the mix-’n’-matching is designed to make the text as easily readable as possible against the background, which changes from one part of the card to the next. Since the background behind “Limbo” on Trevenant isn’t any lighter than the background behind the “Put damage counters …” text, it’s jarring to read and (imo) actually gives the appearance of being incomplete, almost like you were in the process of changing all the text from black to white and forgot about “HP 70,” “Final Demise,” “Limbo,” and “(C) 2017 Pokémon.”

There’s some other fonts-n-placement choices I’d also question — I reckon if I were designing the blank, I’d probably vertically-center the W/R icons as well as the text in the lower-right red box — but I think it’s also fair not to; keeping them in the upper-left of each respective box isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Your-blank-your-rules on this one.

Now for the effects — and the first thing that catches my eye, as I’m sure it did for a lot of other folks seeing this card, is the integration of the new Special Condition Doomed. And boy howdy, does it do a lot.

If I’m reading this right, a Doomed Pokémon (a) has no Resistances, (b) can’t evolve, (c) can’t be recovered after a Knock Out, and (d) might destroy itself and all other Doomed Pokémon on your field on a roughly 1/20 chance whenever it attacks. And you can only get rid of it through Full Heals, Super Scoop Ups, and similar effects.

Right off the bat, even putting aside the fact that existing Special Conditions aren’t that complicated, I’m thinking it sounds pretty powerful. Stopping your opponent from evolving is huge, as we’ve seen in the case of Archeops NVI, and the fact that that lock continues as long as that Pokémon is in play — i.e. no Switching out of it, etc — makes it even better. Easily on par with Paralysis in terms of how it can completely lock down your opponent’s strategy, I’d say.

And Miasma of the End applies that effect to your opponent’s whole board. No evolving for them, ever, for [/i]at least[/i] as long as Trevenant remains in play. Furthermore, it’s passively doing chip damage through Poison the whole time, so you’re not even just stalling — you have your whole win condition right there. It doesn’t even need to be Active, so you can park it behind a wall, heal it every few turns, and watch as your opponent slowly succumbs to the Poison damage on their end. I can’t see anything short of a Virizion-EX-style effect beating this.

So then the question becomes, how hard is it to get this Trevenant into play in the first place? And the answer seems to be somewhat, but not very. According to a conversation we had on Discord, Ghost-types in this set evolve through a particular type of Scroll, which is like an Item that fails if you have insufficient Magic to play it (and you can get Magic through the effects of other cards). The particular Scroll you need (I’m gonna call it an Evo-Scroll) you can run up to 4 of, so it ends up functioning like a slightly-harder-to-pull-off Evosoda. Given that you (presumably) are allowed to play Phantumps as normal, I think this is actually significantly easier to get into play than an Archeops NVI, even factoring in Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick. You just need a Phantump, a way to get Magic, and a way to draw the Evo-Scroll when you need it — and meanwhile, Trevenant isn’t even taking up space in your deck!

So at the end of the day, while I like the ingenuity of introducing a new Special Condition (and revamping how Special Conditions work in general!), I think dropping Special Conditions all over the field is probably not the way to do it. It’s not a symmetrical effect because you can build your deck around it in a way that your opponent presumably can’t, and it locks down their whole board and introduces an (imo unnecessary) element of swinginess with the 5% boardwipe.

Actually, in light of how good the Poké-Body is (and the fact that it doesn’t need to be Active to use it), the attacks are kinda underwhelming by comparison. Final Demise is basically a vastly-weakened Flying Flip (Tapu Koko SM30), and Limbo is 5 Energy on a 70-HP Pokémon for a singular Knock Out. (Not that an OHKO isn’t good, but the Poké-Body gives you such a winning gameplan, there’s not really any need to bother with it.) I don’t really understand why Limbo puts the Defending Pokémon to Sleep; I guess it’s for the random possibility that the Defending Pokémon can be Asleep but not Poisoned? But in all other circumstances it would just be immediately Knocked Out by the Poké-Body-induced Poison.

There’s probably a lot here that I’m missing, nuances of the card that can be chalked up to “it’s a different format.” But to me, having played my fair share of decks from all the different eras of the Pokémon TCG, that’s just the way I see the card shaking out in an actual game, regardless of format. It seems very easily break-able, and the linearity of the strategy plus the random added swinginess likely wouldn’t make games with it terribly fun to play.

I think your designs in general are incredible, so I absolutely encourage you to stick around and enter again if it ever strikes your fancy. Let me know if there’s anything in this judging I can clarify, and either way, I hope to see more from you in the future. :)

Wording errors:
My general policy is that custom blanks largely get a pass for wording, because the decisions the faker makes are often specific to their custom era and, as long as they’re consistent, don’t need to adhere to TPCi’s conventions. However, I do still deduct points for grammatical/syntactical errors, for ambiguity, and for inconsistency.
- “Miasma Of The End” should be “Miasma of the End”; prepositions and articles should always be lowercase except as the first or last word of a title. Real-Pokémon examples are Jumpluff DRX (“Leave It to the Wind”), Haxorus PLB (“Strike of the Champion”), etc. [-1 point]
- The Poké-Body needs to specify how many damage counters (presumably 1?) are put on each Benched Pokémon between turns. I figure the reason you left it ambiguous is for Poison-modifying effects similar to Virbank City Gym, but there needs to be a baseline or some other way of resolving contradictions. [-2 points]
- “20HP” and “10HP” should be “20 HP” and “10 HP,” respectively, as HP is a quantity the number describes and not part of the number itself. This follows the convention of more than 60 cards that have referenced such things in Pokémon’s history. However, since TPCi’s own convention is slightly inconsistent on this (see Gliscor DP36), I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and dock no points here.
- For clarity’s sake, since this was brought up in a post later on in the thread, I’m not docking points for metric-system measurements or for the order in which you listed the Special Conditions, because both of those can be chalked up to the “your blank, your rules” clause.
- As for Final Demise, the official rules of the Pokémon TCG indicate that you apply all effects of the attack after doing damage (unless it explicitly says “before doing damage”). Since the game’s rulebook clearly shows how to resolve it, I won’t be docking here either. However, I would advise re-wording the attack regardless; more clarity is always better.

Fonts and Placement errors:
My general policy here is similar to Wording — custom blanks get a great deal of leeway. However, I reserve the right to deduct points for any choices I deem to be too far out of the realm of plausibility, such as using Comic Sans for attack text or having blatantly eyeballed all placements.
- The one thing I’m going to dock for here is the mix-’n’-matched black-and-white text, and that’s specifically because when I first saw it, I thought it was an accident, like you’d been in the process of changing the text from black to white and just missed a few spots. Since then, I’ve seen others of your Ghost-type cards with the same text color style, so I know it was intentional, but the fact remains that my first reaction upon seeing a custom text template should not be “Did they mean to do that?” [-2 points]

Creativity/Originality: 12/15
(Definitely good use of new design space; the new Special Condition is particularly striking. I would have liked to see the Special Conditions more integrated with the rest of the card, though; as it stands right now, the chip damage from the Poison feels at odds with the design of the rest of the card, and the Sleep in Limbo feels like an afterthought.)
Wording: 12/15
(A capitalization thing and an ambiguity thing.)
Fonts and Placement: 8/10
(The black attack names vs white attack text is jarring.)
Believability/Playability: 1/5
(I have some pretty extreme concerns about the power level of the Poké-Body, and the attacks feel underwhelming by comparison.)
Aesthetics: 5/5
(The blank is very expertly spliced together, and the integration of the Ghost-type background is seamless. It’s dark, but the colors in the art work well to tie the whole thing together.)
Total: 38/50

Galarian_Articuno_CARD.png


Man, I’m sorry to hear the first-try artwork wasn’t working out, but this one looks absolutely incredible! The craggy-icy-rock background with the aurora and the full moon overhead is so compelling, and of course lording over it all is an exquisitely posed Articuno. The placement of the wing just barely breaking the illustration box is excellent, and the soft glow around the blue part of the wings is surreal.

My one (very, very minor) nit to pick is that the holosheet could probably stand to be a bit brighter — or else, honestly, removed entirely. The art stands fine on its own, and I actually reckon the subtle almost-there holosheet detracts from it. I do applaud the choice to use the Cracked Ice sheet, though; there’s something very thematically appropriate about that.

But yeah, overall, the aesthetics are incredible. A stunning blend of soft blues and greens with the more robust purple; I think it’s one of the best artworks I’ve seen from you yet.

Effect-wise, I think you’re exploring some excellent design space by going after multiple Special Conditions, especially since the card presents them not as an “Asleep-OR-Paralyzed” thing, but rather an “Asleep-THEN-Paralyzed” thing. The progression from one to the other acknowledges and makes use of the power disparity between the two Special Conditions in a really unique way.

You talk in your entry post about how you like making cards with strategies other than “do colossal damage,” and I think that definitely shines through here. I remember your Delcatty from the last round had a very roundabout stall-y strategy (which, coincidentally, also took advantage of sleep), and I reckon you’ve even one-upped yourself this month.

A deck with Galarian Articuno is a lock deck, and Paralysis + no-Trainers-at-all is a pretty powerful lock too, but since you can’t rely on the 25% chance of Sleep holding for a full turn cycle, it’s not very easy to make it consistent. You would need some way to put the opponent’s Active to Sleep before attacking on your turn, and (for good reason) there aren’t very many reliable ways to do that. And even if you can find some way to make it consistent, the lock is broken whenever you KO a Pokémon.

So at that point, it plays out like a fun one-off tactic rather than a whole deck with the streamlined design to fully lock down your opponent’s board, and I reckon that’s what makes it fun. I like the “Gabs-esque” nature of it, and I’d be excited to play it in a game of Pokémon myself.

Wording errors:
- “the Defending Pokémon” should be “your opponent’s Active Pokémon” in the Ability, because Pokémon can’t be Defending from Abilities, and also in the attack, because in all XY-on formats, that’s just the wording convention for Special Conditions. [-2 points]
- You don’t need the “during their turn” in the Ability, as per Kabutops TEU and similar cards. If you were releasing this card into a format with lots of cards like Power Spray, which are Trainer cards intended to be played during your opponent’s turn, then it would make a difference, but in the SUM-era there’s no reason for it. [-2 points]
- One or both of the latter usages of “the Defending Pokémon”/”your opponent’s Active Pokémon” in the attack should be “that Pokémon” or “it”; SUM cards tend to use these replacing phrases to keep it from sounding redundant when you read it. Either “your opponent’s Active Pokémon - that Pokémon - it” or “your opponent’s Active Pokémon - your opponent’s Active Pokémon - that Pokémon” would have worked here. [-2 points]
- “Kinectic” -> “Kinetic” [-1 point]
- “acts” -> “act” and “beigns” -> “beings”, in the flavor text [-1 point]

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Looks perfect to me.

Creativity/Originality: 14/15
(Great use of different Special Conditions to make a card that screams “play me!”. Deckbuilding with it, as well as incorporating it into an actual game, would be very exciting and skill-testing. There’s also clear self-synergy without being a totally go-it-alone type of card. Overall I like it a lot.)
Wording: 7/15
(A few outdated slips (“your opponent’s Active” vs “the Defending”) and a couple minor typos. Feel free to run wording by the folks in the Discord chat for a proofreading, if you like!)
Fonts and Placement: 10/10
(On point.)
Believability/Playability: 3/5
(Balancing seems generally okay. The lock isn’t sustainable over the course of an entire game, but a cautious point docked nonetheless because an all-Trainer lock, even for just a couple turns here or there, is pretty darn good. An additional point docked for unusual Weakness; only Ghost-types are usually weak to Darkness before the SWS era. Galarian Articuno, a Psychic-type, would instead be weak to Psychic.)
Aesthetics: 5/5
(I adore the custom art, and this is some of your best work yet.)
Total: 39/50

Arctozolt_CaC.png


Huh, okay. My first thought on reading the card is that I … just don’t get how it works. After reading it again, I understand that the point of the Ability is to leave the opponent’s Active Pokémon Asleep rather than fully recovered whenever Paralysis is naturally supposed to wear off (or right before it, I guess, since that would happen during the between-turns step). After reading the attack a few times, reading your supplementary notes, and then reading the attack again, I think I get that you’re supposed to have the choice of whether to leave the Defending Pokémon Paralyzed or Asleep + damage. And if I compare the wording to the exact text of the rulebook and go sentence-by-sentence, then yeah, my interpretation is that that’s what should happen. But I had a couple other initial interpretations while reading the card for the first (and second, etc) times, and it shouldn’t really be that ambiguous, especially for a game that advertises itself as ages 6 and up. Always err on the side of understandability, particularly in SUM-on.

That being said, I do like the design space you’re exploring by making Paralysis essentially “wear off” into Sleep. It shows good attention to the different tiers of Special Conditions, and is actually quite a bit like what Gabs did this month, only in reverse. I also like that the attack offers the player a choice between Paralyzing the opponent and doing more damage; there’s a further element of good design space there, in that it opens up a multiplicity of things you can use it for in a game.

I think the power level leaves a bit to be desired, though. For three Energy (of two different types, no less) on a Stage 1, having to discard two of them, I’d want a little bit more than 40 damage, even if it does come with Paralysis. Paralysis is good, don’t get me wrong, but my opponent could easily have a switching card or some way to heal the Paralysis up their sleeve, and then where would I be? If the main selling point of the card is guaranteed Paralysis, but it makes you expend a bunch of Energy on a Stage 1 to get there, then you almost certainly want something else to make it worth it — either a safeguard, like an Item-lock to prevent most switching cards, or the simple payoff of more than 40 damage.

And honestly, I can’t envision a scenario where I’d want to keep the Energy and go for the 110 damage option either, both because it requires the set-up of it already being Asleep and because there’s a heavy chance it wouldn’t remain Asleep, and a 120-HP Stage 1 would be quite a frail sitting duck if it wakes up.

I think there’s definitely a way for it to work out; tbh, a higher damage output might be all it needs. Starting the base damage around 80 would make it more playable; 80 + paralysis seems like a suitable enough reason to me to invest three Energy in a Stage 1, especially because with two types you might be able to hit more relevant Weaknesses. Then you could choose not to discard the Energy and do 150 damage instead, and that number also seems about right for three Energy (of two types) on a Stage 1 (that evolves from a Fossil) in the SUM era.

I do like that the Ability works from the Bench, opening the possibility of a combo with it — but I’m not sure what that combo would look like. Paralysis is already plenty good, and Arctozolt doesn’t really make it easier to achieve, just slightly better once you’ve achieved it, which probably isn’t a good enough reason on its own to set up the Stage 1 on your Bench. As it is, the best partner for it is probably itself, which is a good example of self-synergizing effects, but doesn’t really excite me in terms of avenues of play or deckbuilding.

The aesthetics look great, though. There’s something about the artwork — the pastel colors all kinda fading into each other — that works really well with the way you’ve done the dual-type blank. I remember the previous dual-type things you’ve done (mainly GXs, I think?) all have sharper divisions between the type textures, which I also like because it seems much easier to implement for part-Darkness Pokémon, but this one is definitely easy on the eyes for cards like Arctozolt.

I think there’s a little too much fading between textures in some places, especially near the flavor text — too much blue-into-yellow just makes it look kinda green, which probably isn’t what you were going for. There’s also some harshness in some areas of the holosheet, where the blending modes overpower the background — given the subtle pastels of the artwork, I think it probably could have stood a subtler use of the holosheet here.

I respect the decision to cut the Resistance altogether rather than deal with the ambiguity of Metal, as well as the decision to use Unidentified Fossil over Rare Fossil for an SUM-era Arctozolt. I would also have respected leaving the Metal Resistance and using Rare Fossil, though, fwiw. Either way works here, but your justification does seem reasonable.

Wording errors:
- By the absolute letter of the rulebook, the wording you’ve got here works the way you want it to. However, without referencing the rulebook, it’s quite difficult to understand, which is at odds with what TPCi has generally tried to do since they started to simplify the game around the release of BLW. I’m going to dock a blanket [-2 points] for the Ability and [-3 points] for the attack for what I reckon is unnecessary ambiguity. In the next couple bullet points I’ll go over (imo) a more optimal wording.
- I would word the Ability like this: “At any time between turns, if your opponent removes the Special Condition Paralyzed from their Active Pokémon, leave that Pokémon Asleep instead.” Moving the point at which the Ability activates from the end-of-turn step to the between-turns step means you get around the possibility of it activating on a self-Paralyzing attack*, and goes with the established “leave that Pokémon XXX” convention for dealing Special Conditions with Abilities.
- I think all the attack needs is for the last sentence to begin “If you don’t and if your opponent’s Active Pokémon is Asleep, …”. While “If you do/if you don’t” has never appeared in this way on the same card before, plenty of SUM-era cards feature “If you don’t” as an accepted alternative to “If you do” for similar effects (see “If you don’t, this attack does nothing”), and I believe it would be a fully reasonable way to distinguish an effect that likewise has never appeared in this way on a card before.

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Pixel-perfect.

Creativity/Originality: 13/15
(Good design space with different levels of Special Conditions, and I like that the choice in the attack opens the door to some potential variation in play. An additional point or two here would come from a card that interacts with the Special Condition itself (i.e. other cards that also use it) in some fresh and exciting way, encouraging more options in deckbuilding and avenues of play, rather than being largely self-synergistic.)
Wording: 10/15
(Different levels of ambiguity in the Ability and attack; see my notes and suggested wordings above.)
Fonts and Placement: 10/10
(Pixel-perfect.)
Believability/Playability: 3/5
(Seems fairly underpowered. It’s a Stage 1 evolving from a Fossil, and it’s got multicolor Energy requirements — don’t be afraid to go ham!)
Aesthetics: 4/5
(Nice reimagining of the dual-type blank, and it goes along nicely with the artwork. Cautious point withheld because the blending of textures turns the blank slightly green in some areas, and the holosheet could probably have been slightly subtler.)
Total: 40/50

Kyurem-1-10-Fin.png


Glad to see you back again deadlines notwithstanding, Almonds — and month to month, it’s clear that your cards are getting better and better! You say your fonts and placements are all over the place, but that’s not true at all. There’s a couple things off here and there, which I’ll get to later, but you’re definitely heading in the right direction, and that’s really cool to see.

I love the art you’ve chosen; salanchu’s stuff is incredible, and this piece is no exception. It’s rare for the Pokémon not to be facing the viewer, but coupled with the fact that it’s offset into the left half of the frame and looking off into a mountainous distance, for a Kyurem especially, I think it works. The holosheet is definitely interesting; it looks as though you’ve chosen not a holosheet, but a texture foil, of the sort used to implement texturing on FA EXs and the like. It’s an interesting choice, and I agree that subtlety was the way to go for it, but I reckon you may have been better off just sticking with conventional holosheets — this way, it ends up looking kinda like it’s part of the art, moreso than an added shine.

Now, onto the effects, and man do I like these. The effects of Frozen aside — and I do like them; it’s so simple and yet reflects so well exactly what I think Frozen should be — setting that aside, reading through the Ability and attack, the first thing I notice is that you’ve designed them in a really unique way. It imposes quite a heavy lock — no Abilities, no attacks, not even the hope of your opponent being able to switch out of it with a Trainer card, at least for a turn. But, and here’s the interesting part, it’s largely symmetrical; since you can’t attach Energy to your own Pokémon, you’re also prevented from attacking unless you’ve got a sneaky Trainer card up your sleeve.

And there are ways to get around it, of course: you could play it with Welder or The Masked Royal or a similar card; you only need to get one or two Energy onto a Pokémon that can then use an attack to accelerate more. But your opponent also isn’t left entirely helpless either — even putting aside the 25% chance of their Active Pokémon thawing out, the full lock is only in place for a turn, after which they can Switch out of it quite easily. Glaciating multiple times doesn’t even do much to advance your position, because it heals them every time.

So what I really like about this card is quite simple — it accomplishes its purpose, which is (if you’ve built your deck around it with Welders and the like) it can give you a powerful turn-or-two’s leg-up on your opponent, where you’re setting up with Trainer-and-attack-based Energy and they can’t do much of anything about it. And it requires that deckbuilding investment, so you can’t just splash it in anywhere, which is good because it keeps it from being metagame-defining — but it also isn’t enough to win games on its own; playing it requires some deckbuilding strategy. It rewards careful planning and skill on the part of the player, opens the game up to make feasible some otherwise untenable avenues of play, and does it all while being very well-balanced for the era and format it would be released into. That’s the mark of a well-designed card.

I do have some slight concerns over the power level of Frozen as a Special Condition — it’s well-balanced here because of all the other restrictions Kyurem places on it, like preventing you from attaching Energy and locking down all other Abilities. But if there were ever a way to reliably Freeze the opponent’s Active Pokémon, being able to play it alongside some form of Trainerlock and a way to hit the opponent’s Bench would be a force to be reckoned with. As it stands, though, for this card, it’s well-balanced, and in that light I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that it would be possible to incorporate into any particular metagame in a reasonable way.

As an aside, I also considered the 40 damage on Glaciate — what’s the point of doing damage if it’s just gonna get healed when you apply the Special Condition? — but I realized it means you can also use it to take KOs on low-HP targets, and I think that’s actually pretty cool because it adds another layer of things you can use this card for.

Wording errors:
- I know “except with an attack, Ability, or Trainer card” is the convention for that type of effect as per Primarina LOT, but nonetheless it seems weird to mention Abilities there when it also locks down all non-Frozen Prisoner Abilities. [-2 points]
- The “Defending Pokémon” in the attack should just be “that Pokémon,” as you’ve already referred to it earlier in the same sentence. [-2 points]

Fonts and Placement errors:
- You’ve got Gill Sans as the font for the HT/WT info bar — I can’t remember offhand the name of the font it should be, but I think it’s some variant of Frutiger. The Discord chat will be able to help if you can’t find it on your own. [-1 point]
- It looks like you’ve downsized the point size of the Ability/attack text without downsizing the spacing between lines. They should be the same number. Should be right next to the point size in the Character window, if you’re using Photoshop. [-1 point]
- The flavor text is noticeably smaller than it should be. You’re allowed to go to three lines for this, but not to downsize the text. [-1 point]

Creativity/Originality: 15/15
(Easily the best take on Frozen as a new Special Condition I’ve ever seen, and in the context of this card it enables some really fascinating room to explore both while deckbuilding and as a way to get ahead in an actual game. The symmetry of the design, both in that each player is “locked” to a similar degree, and in that each player has ways to get around it, is truly inspired, and despite being a lock-y card, I reckon it would be an asset to any metagame. I can’t imagine any possible way to improve on this.)
Wording: 11/15
(You’re referencing good sources, but don’t forget to make sure that it all makes sense in context, too.)
Fonts and Placement: 7/10
(A few minor things; only one point docked for each because they’re barely noticeable. You’re doing much better here than you think you are!)
Believability/Playability: 4/5
(Point docked because “Glaciate” is an attack that already exists, and it doesn’t do that.)
Aesthetics: 2/5
(Nice choice of artwork, but I think you’d probably be better off just going with sunlava (or galaxy if you really don’t like sunlava) for your holosheet. An additional point docked to remind you to cut your corners — check the upper-right.)
Total: 39/50

3rd Place: Nyan’s Arctozolt, with 40/50 points.
2nd Place: bbninjas’s Beautifly, with 41/50 points.
1st Place: KnightofDust’s Darkrai ◊, with 44/50 points.
 
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Image-Based Results

Judge: @Jabberwock

Impressive work this round! There were no off-the-charts scores in either a positive or a negative direction; all the entries ended up clustered around the high-30s/low-40s range. I was extremely impressed with the creativity this round in particular — y’all really took the theme and ran with it!

If there’s one thing I’d suggest working on for next time, it would be double- and triple-checking wording. The faking community’s Discord chat is a great place to get an additional pair of eyes to look over wording, and I promise we’re all friendly over there. :p

As a reminder, next month’s CaC will premiere the new rubric, which increases the points allotted for Believability/Playability at the expense of Wording and Fonts/Placement. Read about it here.

Almonds’s judging (for text-based) is coming within the week, and September’s round will go up tomorrow. Stay tuned!

~~Jabberwock


bC0q4yu.png


Hey, KoD! Good to see you back, and with a Prism Star no less! These are tricky to do both for aesthetic and balancing reasons, as I reckon you discovered in the process. :p

First things first — the aesthetics look good! You talk about the holosheets being a pain, and man, yeah, I feel that, but you executed them well. It shines up the illustration border and the central diamond without being obtrusive, and I’d say the effect on the illustration itself is just about perfect.

The one area I wish had a more obvious holosheet, though I’m not gonna dock for it, is the dark gray border of the card itself — and you talk about this yourself in your notes, so I assume you know what I’m talking about. I think the key there would be using predominantly lightening blending modes, like Color Dodge or Linear Dodge, as opposed to Multiply, Overlay, etc. The idea is that the border is already so dark, the only contrast you need comes from the light effects of the holosheet.

I like the effects of the card, too. It uses Sleep in a very control-y way, which is exactly what I’d expect of a good Darkrai card. It’s got a bunch of different things in its toolbox, too — being able to drag up your opponent’s Benched Pokémon, lock its Abilities, and all the while do passive damage to your opponent’s field. It’s a very versatile card, and it immediately makes you think of all the different ways you can play it.

The question is essentially whether you’ve overdone it. Versatility is an asset to a card; it can be a mark of good design because it shows you’re thinking about multiple avenues of play, but it can also become a problem if it does too much. If it does everything, then you don’t have any reason not to play it, and that can be stifling to a metagame.

Looking at this card, thinking about the state of the game if I were able to send a Pokémon of my choice to Sleep, have a 50% chance to shut off its Abilities and spread 80-130 damage over the opponent’s field, and then thinking about the state of the game if my opponent did that — yeah, I think it edges into overpowered territory. It’s interesting actually; I think it’s very very close to being on-point, but it’s missing a couple things.

First of all, making a Pokémon a Prism Star is a useful balancing tool. Not only does it mean you can only play one of that Pokémon, but it also means you have to be really careful with it, because once it gets Knocked Out, it’s gone. You used the only-play-one rule to prevent The Long Night from stacking, which was a good decision. But I think the don’t-let-it-get-KO’d rule also needs consideration here.

Prism Stars tend not to make good attackers, because attackers are more likely to get Knocked Out by virtue of their being in the Active Spot all the time. That means that, if at all possible, people will avoid using Darkrai for Ethereal Grasp and take advantage instead of just The Long Night. And it is possible — because The Long Night works just fine from the Bench. So you can set up a field with this Darkrai ◊, Slumbering Forest, some non-attack way to put your opponent’s Active Pokémon to Sleep (Amoonguss UNM? Hypnotoxic Laser?), and then you even still get to attack however you want. The opponent’s Active doesn’t have Abilities and only has a 25% chance of waking up, and if your attack of choice locks Trainers in some way? Then you’ve got a very efficient, near-total lock, plus the ability to spread 8-13 damage counters between every set of turns.

I think the simplest way to balance this would be to make The Long Night only work if Darkrai is Active. That way it’s much more vulnerable, and it’s harder to abuse with supplementary effects like that. With Slumbering Forest or a similar effect it would still be a force to be reckoned with, but you wouldn’t be able to enact the near-total lock.

Apart from that, there’s probably some other stuff you could do to balance it. I think the Ability lock is a bit overkill, but it does open up exciting avenues of play, so I think it’s reasonable to keep, provided Darkrai has to be Active. 8 damage counters probably is a bit too high for the non-GX one, but I think 13 is fine for the other. I like the balancing on Ethereal Grasp, too — it just comes back, again, to the fact that it won’t be used unless you’re forced to use it.

Overall, though, a solid all-around card, and the creativity is really shining through. You’re using Sleep in a fun thematic way with a ton of in-game possibilities, and it makes you excited about all the different ways you can exploit this Special Condition. In terms of answering the brief, a really excellent job.

Wording errors:
- I assume you meant “Ethereal Grasp” (not “Ethreal”) for the attack? When I google ethreal I just get results for ethereal. [-1 point]
- The attack should reference “the new Active Pokémon,” as per cards like Druddigon UNM and Roserade UPR. [-2 points] Edit: Whoops! I learned shortly after posting this that the intent of the attack was to leave the Active Asleep regardless of whether it was switched or not. This is absolutely my bad and your wording is on-point; the totals have been adjusted accordingly. ~Jabber

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Looks good! I didn’t mention this above, but I like the subtle shadow you applied to the white text to make it easily readable over the diamond.

Creativity/Originality: 13/15
(Great take on Sleep through a Darkrai lens, with good attention to different avenues of play and the card’s general versatility. Overall a very good response to the Special Conditions brief.)
Wording: 14/15
(One spelling thing.)
Fonts and Placement: 10/10
(Nice effects on the white text over the holo diamond.)
Believability/Playability: 2/5
(A few balancing concerns that I think could be mostly rectified by making the Ability only work while Active.)
Aesthetics: 5/5
(Excellent. The holosheet on the illustration itself is particularly superb.)
Total: 44/50

SPOILER_BeautiflyAT.png


Oh, wow! You know, it’s hard to get an Ancient Trait card to look visually on-point — you have to choose good art, often manipulate it in some way to make it suitable, and then apply the holosheet and mono-color gradient just right — and I think you pulled it off! The colors of the art itself, with the blue of Beautifly’s eyes and the yellow and red of its wings, contrast really well with the green gradient for an excellent multi-color effect that I’m sure would make this card a beauty to behold in person.

I have a couple of nitpicks regarding the aesthetics, though — number one, there’s some choppiness around the bottom of the card, which initially I thought was because you had saved it as a JPG, but it’s not a JPG; it’s a PNG, as it should be. I wonder whether Corel might just not handle gradients well?

The other things are that the gradient should be a little bit less opaque (compare it to the Dustox you linked in your post, for example — leaves are clearly visible through the gradient) and that there’s a little blotch missing around the bottom-left corner. Overall, though, with the perfect contrast of colors and the lightly applied holosheet, the aesthetics are stunning.

I question the application of the theme a bit. It ends up coming down to “pick a Special Condition to do a little bit more chip damage,” but there’s not much gameplay potential there. The Special Conditions aren’t even all equal; I’d expect that you’d almost always pick Poison since, especially with Virbank City Gym, it’s far-and-away the best Special Condition of the three. So even though you technically have the choice, it turns into a bit of an autopilot thing.

I do like the Ability; it opens up the potential to be fairly skill-testing. You went into the card knowing you would design it with some anti-synergy in mind (∆ Plus versus the Special Conditions of the attack) and you included the Ability to help the player work around that somewhat. In practice it’s still fairly limiting; once-a-turn on a Stage 2 that needs to be Active means you really are just moving, in general, one damage counter per turn — but it’s still skill-testing, and the potential for other combos is there. So I think that’s a mark of good creativity.

Speaking of being limited in practice, though, I think the card is a little bit underpowered for what it is, especially given the format you’re intending to release it into. Stage 2s didn’t do well in the XY era, for reasons you hinted at in your post — it was quite a fast format with very little support for Evolutions. Even going back into BW, they were primarily used for support — it would have been very rare to see them Active and attacking at all.

Take Beautifly — three Energy for 30 damage plus (since you’d probably run Virbank and choose Poison) the potential for another 60 before your next attack? That just isn’t very good, especially on a Stage 2, and especially in a format where there are all sorts of ways for your opponent to knock that 60 down to 30 or even 0. Dustox ROS has a similarly low power level, but at least it has a sniping attack that you can use to cheese out the occasional two Prizes from a low-HP Bench-sitter.

Ultimately I think the balancing needs work. Is it roughly in line with a lot of existing Stage 2s from the format? Yeah, but that’s not necessarily a good thing, or what you’re trying to achieve. It’s believable, all right, but it needs a substantially higher power level (or other support) to be playable.

I reckon there’s a lot of potential steps you could take to balance it — the attack cost could easily afford to be reduced, and/or the base damage increased. I think one-for-30 makes sense, or two-for-50 or 60. Three Energy probably needs to be at least 60 damage, but even then three Energy is quite cumbersome for a Stage 2 in a format without Scramble Energy.

The other neat thing I could see working here is to make it work specifically as a partner for Dustox ROS. Beautifly’s Ability moving damage counters to the Bench already works nicely with Dustox’s Wind Shard attack, so by removing the Beautifly-needs-to-be-Active restriction you would be getting into some synergy space there. But then, that does kinda remove the need for Beautifly to attack, and that means there’s no relevance to either the Ancient Trait or the Special Conditions (which of course were the brief). So then again, maybe not.

I think there’s a good idea here. I like the idea of an inherent anti-synergy that tests the player’s skill in playing around it, and the fact that it awards huge dividends (extra Prizes) if the player can successfully do that. But anti-synergy isn’t a compelling balancing tool if the card itself is already underpowered, and unfortunately Beautifly, especially for its era, undoubtedly is.

Wording errors:
- Special Conditions should be listed in alphabetical order, so “Burned, Confused, or Poisoned.” There should also be an Oxford comma after the second one. [-2 points]

Fonts and Placement errors:
- On-point as usual.

Creativity/Originality: 11/15
(Getting into some good skill-testing design space with the anti-synergy, but the Special Conditions feel a bit tacked-on, especially since two of them would often end up being superfluous.)
Wording: 13/15
(Special Condition order and Oxford comma in the attack.)
Fonts and Placement: 10/10
(All good.)
Believability/Playability: 3/5
(Playability concerns — the card is underpowered for its era.)
Aesthetics: 4/5
(Stunning color combinations, and solid application of the holosheet. There’s some wonkiness with the gradient, though; specifically, I would expect it to be a bit less opaque, and a couple other minor nitpicks.)
Total: 41/50

0709_TREVENANT_CAC.png


Woo, okay. First of all, hi there, Luka! Always glad to see folks make their way over here from Discord, and we certainly hope to see more of you in the future. Secondly, wow! For the folks here on PB who have never seen your work before, this card must surely come as a shock; heck, I’ve seen plenty of your cards over on Discord, and I still feel like I’m learning something new about your format with each one I see.

With that being said — and I do want to acknowledge it; you’ve essentially built up not just a format from scratch, but an entire TCG, tangentially based on the Pokémon TCG but at the same time rejecting a lot of the conventions WotC and Nintendo have established and paving the way with new ones — while that’s incredibly impressive and I applaud the sheer effort that goes into such a feat, I also want to acknowledge that it may mean this judging isn’t what you were expecting.

I spent a long time — most of August, actually — trying to decide how best to judge this card, because honestly it just comes down to the fact that we’ve never had a card quite like this one submitted before. You’ve mentioned before that your cards are intended for play in the context of your larger set, which helps you balance them by cutting them out of the context of the Pokémon TCG as a whole. But ultimately, if your cards aren’t intended for play with the bulk of real-life Pokémon cards, then they’ve diverged into their own game.

Where that makes judging difficult is that I don’t know all the rules of that game, and tbh I’m not sure I’d be able to learn them all if I tried. You provided like a mini-essay’s worth of context in your OP (which believe me, I super appreciate), but even then there’s a lot of context I’m still missing. Some of it I was able to ask you about separately for clarification’s sake, but I don’t think I ever really had any hope of learning how all of it works without a lot more time invested in learning to play the set itself. Given that time over the course of a month, could I learn a whole new game for the purpose of CaC judging? Yeah, maybe. Would it be sustainable to do on a regular basis, if multiple people submitted cards like this one? Probably not. The question could be extrapolated to “Can I submit a YGO or MtG card, if it’s of a Pokémon?” And the answer to that would be, pretty unequivocally, no. So the precedent I’m going to have to set here is that while I’m gonna try to keep an open mind and remember that it’s designed for a different game entirely, there are points in this judging where that’s gonna break down, and so ultimately I’m going to have to judge this card, and any hypothetical submissions like it in the future, from the perspective of the real-life Pokémon TCG.

First things first — I like the blank; I think you’ve done a really admirable job of cutting up and restitching a general SUM-era blank for your purposes. The Poké Ball thing below the evobox, the expanded W/R boxes, the added box with the “You can’t put any Trevenant in your deck” — all of it looks like a really natural fit with the aesthetics of the SUM era. I can’t tell if you made the Ghost texture yourself or if that’s one of the things you repurposed from Neo Redux, but either way the integration is seamless. All together, it looks really good.

The art is a nice choice too. It’s a very dark card; there’s not much in the way of flashy lighting or high contrast effects, but I think some little details, like the purple glow of the eye complementing the purple color of the blank’s texture and the red leaves drawing the eye from the lower-right box, work really well together to set it off. It definitely gives off the impression of being a Ghost-type.

In relation to the card being so dark, though, I’m a bit confused as to why some of the text is blank and some of it white. Cards have (rarely) mix-’n’-matched the black and white text before, as in the case of multi-types like Bisharp STS, or ex-era Darkness-types. But in each of those cases, the mix-’n’-matching is designed to make the text as easily readable as possible against the background, which changes from one part of the card to the next. Since the background behind “Limbo” on Trevenant isn’t any lighter than the background behind the “Put damage counters …” text, it’s jarring to read and (imo) actually gives the appearance of being incomplete, almost like you were in the process of changing all the text from black to white and forgot about “HP 70,” “Final Demise,” “Limbo,” and “(C) 2017 Pokémon.”

There’s some other fonts-n-placement choices I’d also question — I reckon if I were designing the blank, I’d probably vertically-center the W/R icons as well as the text in the lower-right red box — but I think it’s also fair not to; keeping them in the upper-left of each respective box isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Your-blank-your-rules on this one.

Now for the effects — and the first thing that catches my eye, as I’m sure it did for a lot of other folks seeing this card, is the integration of the new Special Condition Doomed. And boy howdy, does it do a lot.

If I’m reading this right, a Doomed Pokémon (a) has no Resistances, (b) can’t evolve, (c) can’t be recovered after a Knock Out, and (d) might destroy itself and all other Doomed Pokémon on your field on a roughly 1/20 chance whenever it attacks. And you can only get rid of it through Full Heals, Super Scoop Ups, and similar effects.

Right off the bat, even putting aside the fact that existing Special Conditions aren’t that complicated, I’m thinking it sounds pretty powerful. Stopping your opponent from evolving is huge, as we’ve seen in the case of Archeops NVI, and the fact that that lock continues as long as that Pokémon is in play — i.e. no Switching out of it, etc — makes it even better. Easily on par with Paralysis in terms of how it can completely lock down your opponent’s strategy, I’d say.

And Miasma of the End applies that effect to your opponent’s whole board. No evolving for them, ever, for [/i]at least[/i] as long as Trevenant remains in play. Furthermore, it’s passively doing chip damage through Poison the whole time, so you’re not even just stalling — you have your whole win condition right there. It doesn’t even need to be Active, so you can park it behind a wall, heal it every few turns, and watch as your opponent slowly succumbs to the Poison damage on their end. I can’t see anything short of a Virizion-EX-style effect beating this.

So then the question becomes, how hard is it to get this Trevenant into play in the first place? And the answer seems to be somewhat, but not very. According to a conversation we had on Discord, Ghost-types in this set evolve through a particular type of Scroll, which is like an Item that fails if you have insufficient Magic to play it (and you can get Magic through the effects of other cards). The particular Scroll you need (I’m gonna call it an Evo-Scroll) you can run up to 4 of, so it ends up functioning like a slightly-harder-to-pull-off Evosoda. Given that you (presumably) are allowed to play Phantumps as normal, I think this is actually significantly easier to get into play than an Archeops NVI, even factoring in Maxie’s Hidden Ball Trick. You just need a Phantump, a way to get Magic, and a way to draw the Evo-Scroll when you need it — and meanwhile, Trevenant isn’t even taking up space in your deck!

So at the end of the day, while I like the ingenuity of introducing a new Special Condition (and revamping how Special Conditions work in general!), I think dropping Special Conditions all over the field is probably not the way to do it. It’s not a symmetrical effect because you can build your deck around it in a way that your opponent presumably can’t, and it locks down their whole board and introduces an (imo unnecessary) element of swinginess with the 5% boardwipe.

Actually, in light of how good the Poké-Body is (and the fact that it doesn’t need to be Active to use it), the attacks are kinda underwhelming by comparison. Final Demise is basically a vastly-weakened Flying Flip (Tapu Koko SM30), and Limbo is 5 Energy on a 70-HP Pokémon for a singular Knock Out. (Not that an OHKO isn’t good, but the Poké-Body gives you such a winning gameplan, there’s not really any need to bother with it.) I don’t really understand why Limbo puts the Defending Pokémon to Sleep; I guess it’s for the random possibility that the Defending Pokémon can be Asleep but not Poisoned? But in all other circumstances it would just be immediately Knocked Out by the Poké-Body-induced Poison.

There’s probably a lot here that I’m missing, nuances of the card that can be chalked up to “it’s a different format.” But to me, having played my fair share of decks from all the different eras of the Pokémon TCG, that’s just the way I see the card shaking out in an actual game, regardless of format. It seems very easily break-able, and the linearity of the strategy plus the random added swinginess likely wouldn’t make games with it terribly fun to play.

I think your designs in general are incredible, so I absolutely encourage you to stick around and enter again if it ever strikes your fancy. Let me know if there’s anything in this judging I can clarify, and either way, I hope to see more from you in the future. :)

Wording errors:
My general policy is that custom blanks largely get a pass for wording, because the decisions the faker makes are often specific to their custom era and, as long as they’re consistent, don’t need to adhere to TPCi’s conventions. However, I do still deduct points for grammatical/syntactical errors, for ambiguity, and for inconsistency.
- “Miasma Of The End” should be “Miasma of the End”; prepositions and articles should always be lowercase except as the first or last word of a title. Real-Pokémon examples are Jumpluff DRX (“Leave It to the Wind”), Haxorus PLB (“Strike of the Champion”), etc. [-1 point]
- The Poké-Body needs to specify how many damage counters (presumably 1?) are put on each Benched Pokémon between turns. I figure the reason you left it ambiguous is for Poison-modifying effects similar to Virbank City Gym, but there needs to be a baseline or some other way of resolving contradictions. [-2 points]
- “20HP” and “10HP” should be “20 HP” and “10 HP,” respectively, as HP is a quantity the number describes and not part of the number itself. This follows the convention of more than 60 cards that have referenced such things in Pokémon’s history. However, since TPCi’s own convention is slightly inconsistent on this (see Gliscor DP36), I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and dock no points here.
- For clarity’s sake, since this was brought up in a post later on in the thread, I’m not docking points for metric-system measurements or for the order in which you listed the Special Conditions, because both of those can be chalked up to the “your blank, your rules” clause.
- As for Final Demise, the official rules of the Pokémon TCG indicate that you apply all effects of the attack after doing damage (unless it explicitly says “before doing damage”). Since the game’s rulebook clearly shows how to resolve it, I won’t be docking here either. However, I would advise re-wording the attack regardless; more clarity is always better.

Fonts and Placement errors:
My general policy here is similar to Wording — custom blanks get a great deal of leeway. However, I reserve the right to deduct points for any choices I deem to be too far out of the realm of plausibility, such as using Comic Sans for attack text or having blatantly eyeballed all placements.
- The one thing I’m going to dock for here is the mix-’n’-matched black-and-white text, and that’s specifically because when I first saw it, I thought it was an accident, like you’d been in the process of changing the text from black to white and just missed a few spots. Since then, I’ve seen others of your Ghost-type cards with the same text color style, so I know it was intentional, but the fact remains that my first reaction upon seeing a custom text template should not be “Did they mean to do that?” [-2 points]

Creativity/Originality: 12/15
(Definitely good use of new design space; the new Special Condition is particularly striking. I would have liked to see the Special Conditions more integrated with the rest of the card, though; as it stands right now, the chip damage from the Poison feels at odds with the design of the rest of the card, and the Sleep in Limbo feels like an afterthought.)
Wording: 12/15
(A capitalization thing and an ambiguity thing.)
Fonts and Placement: 8/10
(The black attack names vs white attack text is jarring.)
Believability/Playability: 1/5
(I have some pretty extreme concerns about the power level of the Poké-Body, and the attacks feel underwhelming by comparison.)
Aesthetics: 5/5
(The blank is very expertly spliced together, and the integration of the Ghost-type background is seamless. It’s dark, but the colors in the art work well to tie the whole thing together.)
Total: 38/50

Galarian_Articuno_CARD.png


Man, I’m sorry to hear the first-try artwork wasn’t working out, but this one looks absolutely incredible! The craggy-icy-rock background with the aurora and the full moon overhead is so compelling, and of course lording over it all is an exquisitely posed Articuno. The placement of the wing just barely breaking the illustration box is excellent, and the soft glow around the blue part of the wings is surreal.

My one (very, very minor) nit to pick is that the holosheet could probably stand to be a bit brighter — or else, honestly, removed entirely. The art stands fine on its own, and I actually reckon the subtle almost-there holosheet detracts from it. I do applaud the choice to use the Cracked Ice sheet, though; there’s something very thematically appropriate about that.

But yeah, overall, the aesthetics are incredible. A stunning blend of soft blues and greens with the more robust purple; I think it’s one of the best artworks I’ve seen from you yet.

Effect-wise, I think you’re exploring some excellent design space by going after multiple Special Conditions, especially since the card presents them not as an “Asleep-OR-Paralyzed” thing, but rather an “Asleep-THEN-Paralyzed” thing. The progression from one to the other acknowledges and makes use of the power disparity between the two Special Conditions in a really unique way.

You talk in your entry post about how you like making cards with strategies other than “do colossal damage,” and I think that definitely shines through here. I remember your Delcatty from the last round had a very roundabout stall-y strategy (which, coincidentally, also took advantage of sleep), and I reckon you’ve even one-upped yourself this month.

A deck with Galarian Articuno is a lock deck, and Paralysis + no-Trainers-at-all is a pretty powerful lock too, but since you can’t rely on the 25% chance of Sleep holding for a full turn cycle, it’s not very easy to make it consistent. You would need some way to put the opponent’s Active to Sleep before attacking on your turn, and (for good reason) there aren’t very many reliable ways to do that. And even if you can find some way to make it consistent, the lock is broken whenever you KO a Pokémon.

So at that point, it plays out like a fun one-off tactic rather than a whole deck with the streamlined design to fully lock down your opponent’s board, and I reckon that’s what makes it fun. I like the “Gabs-esque” nature of it, and I’d be excited to play it in a game of Pokémon myself.

Wording errors:
- “the Defending Pokémon” should be “your opponent’s Active Pokémon” in the Ability, because Pokémon can’t be Defending from Abilities, and also in the attack, because in all XY-on formats, that’s just the wording convention for Special Conditions. [-2 points]
- You don’t need the “during their turn” in the Ability, as per Kabutops TEU and similar cards. If you were releasing this card into a format with lots of cards like Power Spray, which are Trainer cards intended to be played during your opponent’s turn, then it would make a difference, but in the SUM-era there’s no reason for it. [-2 points]
- One or both of the latter usages of “the Defending Pokémon”/”your opponent’s Active Pokémon” in the attack should be “that Pokémon” or “it”; SUM cards tend to use these replacing phrases to keep it from sounding redundant when you read it. Either “your opponent’s Active Pokémon - that Pokémon - it” or “your opponent’s Active Pokémon - your opponent’s Active Pokémon - that Pokémon” would have worked here. [-2 points]
- “Kinectic” -> “Kinetic” [-1 point]
- “acts” -> “act” and “beigns” -> “beings”, in the flavor text [-1 point]

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Looks perfect to me.

Creativity/Originality: 14/15
(Great use of different Special Conditions to make a card that screams “play me!”. Deckbuilding with it, as well as incorporating it into an actual game, would be very exciting and skill-testing. There’s also clear self-synergy without being a totally go-it-alone type of card. Overall I like it a lot.)
Wording: 7/15
(A few outdated slips (“your opponent’s Active” vs “the Defending”) and a couple minor typos. Feel free to run wording by the folks in the Discord chat for a proofreading, if you like!)
Fonts and Placement: 10/10
(On point.)
Believability/Playability: 3/5
(Balancing seems generally okay. The lock isn’t sustainable over the course of an entire game, but a cautious point docked nonetheless because an all-Trainer lock, even for just a couple turns here or there, is pretty darn good. An additional point docked for unusual Weakness; only Ghost-types are usually weak to Darkness before the SWS era. Galarian Articuno, a Psychic-type, would instead be weak to Psychic.)
Aesthetics: 5/5
(I adore the custom art, and this is some of your best work yet.)
Total: 39/50

Arctozolt_CaC.png


Huh, okay. My first thought on reading the card is that I … just don’t get how it works. After reading it again, I understand that the point of the Ability is to leave the opponent’s Active Pokémon Asleep rather than fully recovered whenever Paralysis is naturally supposed to wear off (or right before it, I guess, since that would happen during the between-turns step). After reading the attack a few times, reading your supplementary notes, and then reading the attack again, I think I get that you’re supposed to have the choice of whether to leave the Defending Pokémon Paralyzed or Asleep + damage. And if I compare the wording to the exact text of the rulebook and go sentence-by-sentence, then yeah, my interpretation is that that’s what should happen. But I had a couple other initial interpretations while reading the card for the first (and second, etc) times, and it shouldn’t really be that ambiguous, especially for a game that advertises itself as ages 6 and up. Always err on the side of understandability, particularly in SUM-on.

That being said, I do like the design space you’re exploring by making Paralysis essentially “wear off” into Sleep. It shows good attention to the different tiers of Special Conditions, and is actually quite a bit like what Gabs did this month, only in reverse. I also like that the attack offers the player a choice between Paralyzing the opponent and doing more damage; there’s a further element of good design space there, in that it opens up a multiplicity of things you can use it for in a game.

I think the power level leaves a bit to be desired, though. For three Energy (of two different types, no less) on a Stage 1, having to discard two of them, I’d want a little bit more than 40 damage, even if it does come with Paralysis. Paralysis is good, don’t get me wrong, but my opponent could easily have a switching card or some way to heal the Paralysis up their sleeve, and then where would I be? If the main selling point of the card is guaranteed Paralysis, but it makes you expend a bunch of Energy on a Stage 1 to get there, then you almost certainly want something else to make it worth it — either a safeguard, like an Item-lock to prevent most switching cards, or the simple payoff of more than 40 damage.

And honestly, I can’t envision a scenario where I’d want to keep the Energy and go for the 110 damage option either, both because it requires the set-up of it already being Asleep and because there’s a heavy chance it wouldn’t remain Asleep, and a 120-HP Stage 1 would be quite a frail sitting duck if it wakes up.

I think there’s definitely a way for it to work out; tbh, a higher damage output might be all it needs. Starting the base damage around 80 would make it more playable; 80 + paralysis seems like a suitable enough reason to me to invest three Energy in a Stage 1, especially because with two types you might be able to hit more relevant Weaknesses. Then you could choose not to discard the Energy and do 150 damage instead, and that number also seems about right for three Energy (of two types) on a Stage 1 (that evolves from a Fossil) in the SUM era.

I do like that the Ability works from the Bench, opening the possibility of a combo with it — but I’m not sure what that combo would look like. Paralysis is already plenty good, and Arctozolt doesn’t really make it easier to achieve, just slightly better once you’ve achieved it, which probably isn’t a good enough reason on its own to set up the Stage 1 on your Bench. As it is, the best partner for it is probably itself, which is a good example of self-synergizing effects, but doesn’t really excite me in terms of avenues of play or deckbuilding.

The aesthetics look great, though. There’s something about the artwork — the pastel colors all kinda fading into each other — that works really well with the way you’ve done the dual-type blank. I remember the previous dual-type things you’ve done (mainly GXs, I think?) all have sharper divisions between the type textures, which I also like because it seems much easier to implement for part-Darkness Pokémon, but this one is definitely easy on the eyes for cards like Arctozolt.

I think there’s a little too much fading between textures in some places, especially near the flavor text — too much blue-into-yellow just makes it look kinda green, which probably isn’t what you were going for. There’s also some harshness in some areas of the holosheet, where the blending modes overpower the background — given the subtle pastels of the artwork, I think it probably could have stood a subtler use of the holosheet here.

I respect the decision to cut the Resistance altogether rather than deal with the ambiguity of Metal, as well as the decision to use Unidentified Fossil over Rare Fossil for an SUM-era Arctozolt. I would also have respected leaving the Metal Resistance and using Rare Fossil, though, fwiw. Either way works here, but your justification does seem reasonable.

Wording errors:
- By the absolute letter of the rulebook, the wording you’ve got here works the way you want it to. However, without referencing the rulebook, it’s quite difficult to understand, which is at odds with what TPCi has generally tried to do since they started to simplify the game around the release of BLW. I’m going to dock a blanket [-2 points] for the Ability and [-3 points] for the attack for what I reckon is unnecessary ambiguity. In the next couple bullet points I’ll go over (imo) a more optimal wording.
- I would word the Ability like this: “At any time between turns, if your opponent removes the Special Condition Paralyzed from their Active Pokémon, leave that Pokémon Asleep instead.” Moving the point at which the Ability activates from the end-of-turn step to the between-turns step means you get around the possibility of it activating on a self-Paralyzing attack*, and goes with the established “leave that Pokémon XXX” convention for dealing Special Conditions with Abilities.
- I think all the attack needs is for the last sentence to begin “If you don’t and if your opponent’s Active Pokémon is Asleep, …”. While “If you do/if you don’t” has never appeared in this way on the same card before, plenty of SUM-era cards feature “If you don’t” as an accepted alternative to “If you do” for similar effects (see “If you don’t, this attack does nothing”), and I believe it would be a fully reasonable way to distinguish an effect that likewise has never appeared in this way on a card before.

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Pixel-perfect.

Creativity/Originality: 13/15
(Good design space with different levels of Special Conditions, and I like that the choice in the attack opens the door to some potential variation in play. An additional point or two here would come from a card that interacts with the Special Condition itself (i.e. other cards that also use it) in some fresh and exciting way, encouraging more options in deckbuilding and avenues of play, rather than being largely self-synergistic.)
Wording: 10/15
(Different levels of ambiguity in the Ability and attack; see my notes and suggested wordings above.)
Fonts and Placement: 10/10
(Pixel-perfect.)
Believability/Playability: 3/5
(Seems fairly underpowered. It’s a Stage 1 evolving from a Fossil, and it’s got multicolor Energy requirements — don’t be afraid to go ham!)
Aesthetics: 4/5
(Nice reimagining of the dual-type blank, and it goes along nicely with the artwork. Cautious point withheld because the blending of textures turns the blank slightly green in some areas, and the holosheet could probably have been slightly subtler.)
Total: 40/50

Kyurem-1-10-Fin.png


Glad to see you back again deadlines notwithstanding, Almonds — and month to month, it’s clear that your cards are getting better and better! You say your fonts and placements are all over the place, but that’s not true at all. There’s a couple things off here and there, which I’ll get to later, but you’re definitely heading in the right direction, and that’s really cool to see.

I love the art you’ve chosen; salanchu’s stuff is incredible, and this piece is no exception. It’s rare for the Pokémon not to be facing the viewer, but coupled with the fact that it’s offset into the left half of the frame and looking off into a mountainous distance, for a Kyurem especially, I think it works. The holosheet is definitely interesting; it looks as though you’ve chosen not a holosheet, but a texture foil, of the sort used to implement texturing on FA EXs and the like. It’s an interesting choice, and I agree that subtlety was the way to go for it, but I reckon you may have been better off just sticking with conventional holosheets — this way, it ends up looking kinda like it’s part of the art, moreso than an added shine.

Now, onto the effects, and man do I like these. The effects of Frozen aside — and I do like them; it’s so simple and yet reflects so well exactly what I think Frozen should be — setting that aside, reading through the Ability and attack, the first thing I notice is that you’ve designed them in a really unique way. It imposes quite a heavy lock — no Abilities, no attacks, not even the hope of your opponent being able to switch out of it with a Trainer card, at least for a turn. But, and here’s the interesting part, it’s largely symmetrical; since you can’t attach Energy to your own Pokémon, you’re also prevented from attacking unless you’ve got a sneaky Trainer card up your sleeve.

And there are ways to get around it, of course: you could play it with Welder or The Masked Royal or a similar card; you only need to get one or two Energy onto a Pokémon that can then use an attack to accelerate more. But your opponent also isn’t left entirely helpless either — even putting aside the 25% chance of their Active Pokémon thawing out, the full lock is only in place for a turn, after which they can Switch out of it quite easily. Glaciating multiple times doesn’t even do much to advance your position, because it heals them every time.

So what I really like about this card is quite simple — it accomplishes its purpose, which is (if you’ve built your deck around it with Welders and the like) it can give you a powerful turn-or-two’s leg-up on your opponent, where you’re setting up with Trainer-and-attack-based Energy and they can’t do much of anything about it. And it requires that deckbuilding investment, so you can’t just splash it in anywhere, which is good because it keeps it from being metagame-defining — but it also isn’t enough to win games on its own; playing it requires some deckbuilding strategy. It rewards careful planning and skill on the part of the player, opens the game up to make feasible some otherwise untenable avenues of play, and does it all while being very well-balanced for the era and format it would be released into. That’s the mark of a well-designed card.

I do have some slight concerns over the power level of Frozen as a Special Condition — it’s well-balanced here because of all the other restrictions Kyurem places on it, like preventing you from attaching Energy and locking down all other Abilities. But if there were ever a way to reliably Freeze the opponent’s Active Pokémon, being able to play it alongside some form of Trainerlock and a way to hit the opponent’s Bench would be a force to be reckoned with. As it stands, though, for this card, it’s well-balanced, and in that light I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that it would be possible to incorporate into any particular metagame in a reasonable way.

As an aside, I also considered the 40 damage on Glaciate — what’s the point of doing damage if it’s just gonna get healed when you apply the Special Condition? — but I realized it means you can also use it to take KOs on low-HP targets, and I think that’s actually pretty cool because it adds another layer of things you can use this card for.

Wording errors:
- I know “except with an attack, Ability, or Trainer card” is the convention for that type of effect as per Primarina LOT, but nonetheless it seems weird to mention Abilities there when it also locks down all non-Frozen Prisoner Abilities. [-2 points]
- The “Defending Pokémon” in the attack should just be “that Pokémon,” as you’ve already referred to it earlier in the same sentence. [-2 points]

Fonts and Placement errors:
- You’ve got Gill Sans as the font for the HT/WT info bar — I can’t remember offhand the name of the font it should be, but I think it’s some variant of Frutiger. The Discord chat will be able to help if you can’t find it on your own. [-1 point]
- It looks like you’ve downsized the point size of the Ability/attack text without downsizing the spacing between lines. They should be the same number. Should be right next to the point size in the Character window, if you’re using Photoshop. [-1 point]
- The flavor text is noticeably smaller than it should be. You’re allowed to go to three lines for this, but not to downsize the text. [-1 point]

Creativity/Originality: 15/15
(Easily the best take on Frozen as a new Special Condition I’ve ever seen, and in the context of this card it enables some really fascinating room to explore both while deckbuilding and as a way to get ahead in an actual game. The symmetry of the design, both in that each player is “locked” to a similar degree, and in that each player has ways to get around it, is truly inspired, and despite being a lock-y card, I reckon it would be an asset to any metagame. I can’t imagine any possible way to improve on this.)
Wording: 11/15
(You’re referencing good sources, but don’t forget to make sure that it all makes sense in context, too.)
Fonts and Placement: 7/10
(A few minor things; only one point docked for each because they’re barely noticeable. You’re doing much better here than you think you are!)
Believability/Playability: 4/5
(Point docked because “Glaciate” is an attack that already exists, and it doesn’t do that.)
Aesthetics: 2/5
(Nice choice of artwork, but I think you’d probably be better off just going with sunlava (or galaxy if you really don’t like sunlava) for your holosheet. An additional point docked to remind you to cut your corners — check the upper-right.)
Total: 39/50

3rd Place: Nyan’s Arctozolt, with 40/50 points.
2nd Place: bbninjas’s Beautifly, with 41/50 points.
1st Place: KnightofDust’s Darkrai ◊, with 44/50 points.
Do you know when the text based results will be announced?
 
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