Search results

Welcome to the March 2024 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is Kalos Pokédex. I fully expected to be running a Black & White–focused theme right about now. However, with the announcement of Pokémon Legends: Z–A last week, it seems Game Freak has other plans — we’re making a return...

Welcome to the January 2024 round of the Create-a-Card! Happy New Year, everyone! This month’s theme is Level Ball. HP levels are hardly a constant in the Pokémon TCG: the highest HP on a Base Set card, 120, pales in comparison to the ever-increasing maximum of today. Fewer and fewer playable...

Welcome to the September 2023 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is Attacking for Free. Energy cards are an integral part of the Pokémon TCG, and people commonly tell you when you’re first learning to play that you should always make sure you have enough Energy attached when you’re...

Welcome to the June/July 2023 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is Special Energy Swap. This CaC will be different from the ones you might be used to, so make sure you read this post in its entirety! People have asked us time and time again whether we’ll ever do a Special Energy...

Welcome to the March 2023 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is Synergy: Stage 2. Synergy — how well a card or effect plays with some other card or effect — is a staple of the Pokémon TCG. Archeops SIT’s Primal Turbo is one of the most powerful Abilities in the game, but it...

Welcome to the January 2023 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is New Year, New Type, back for its second incarnation after we first used it two years ago! Throughout the TCG’s history, there have been cases where Pokémon have been given cards with types they don’t possess in the...

Welcome to the November 2022 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is Scarlet & Violet. But wait! The new video games aren’t out yet. So instead, we want to look back on scarlet and violet Pokémon of the past. This month, you’ll create a card based around a Pokémon that, according to...

Welcome to the September 2022 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is Middle Stages. Evolving Stage 1 Pokémon get a bad rap. Often played as one-ofs or even none-ofs in favor of the more efficient Rare Candy, seeing a deck playing a full set of them is almost unheard of. Some make a...

Welcome to the July 2022 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is the Lost Zone. A new set is upon us, and with it, the return of one of the game’s few recurring special mechanics: the Lost Zone! Now, we’re returning to this most enigmatic of game zones for the second time in CaC’s...

Welcome to the May 2022 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is On-Drop Effects. Pokémon that do something as soon as you play them down: they’ve been a staple of the game for years. In recent times, they’ve grown in importance as games have tended toward longer turns, facilitating...

Welcome to the March 2022 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is One Per Deck. The TCG’s usual deckbuilding rules stipulate that you’re allowed to play up to four of any given card, basic Energy excepted. However, over the course of its history, we’ve seen several cards with...

Welcome to the January 2022 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is Energy Acceleration. Energy acceleration has been a staple of the game ever since Base Set, allowing players to skirt the one-Energy-per-turn limit in an ever-present testament to the fact that no rule in this game...

Welcome to the November 2021 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is Discard Pile. The all-important discard pile is a well-known aspect of the game. Some cards take advantage of its contents, some cards manipulate its contents, and most cards end up becoming its contents sooner or...

31 Days of CaC It’s October 2021, and you know what that means — it’s been 10 years since the first-ever Create-a-Card contest was posted here on PokeBeach! To celebrate, the judging staff took a trip down memory lane, combing through all the old rounds of the contest, picking out the entries...

Welcome to the September 2021 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is Unused Pokémon. The Create-a-Card competition has had a long history here on the ‘Beach — ten years ago next month, @CMP posted the very first round of what was to become a decade-spanning phenomenon. Back then, I...

Welcome to the August 2021 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is Top Cards. The top of the deck is an underexplored area of the game. Some effects let you peek at the top few cards, others let you rearrange them, and some—think Luxio SHF or Galarian Mr. Rime DAA—get a little more...

3rd Custom PTCG Tournament Standard getting you down? Want to try a new SM-like format with over 800 custom cards? We’ve got the tournament for you! What is this? The Custom PTCG Format is a way for people to play Pokémon with custom cards, played using a plug-in in LackeyCCG. With over a...

Welcome to the June 2021 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is Owner’s Pokémon. What would the Pokémon games be without Pokémon Trainers? From Gym Leaders to Frontier Brains, villainous teams to playable characters, there’s almost as many different types of people training Pokémon...

Welcome to the May 2021 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is Extreme Heights. Through 8 regions and nearly 900 species, Pokémon run the gamut from the enormous to the minute. For this round of the competition, you’ll choose a Pokémon either 1’00” or smaller, or 10’00” or bigger...

Welcome to the April 2021 round of the Create-a-Card! This month’s theme is Trick. April’s a good month, full of all sorts of tricks — at least for the first 24 hours. But even though April Fool’s Day is behind us, there’s no reason we can’t keep up the spirit for the next few weeks! After...