WastedSkyPirate’s Seedot
April 2017 — Pokédex Colours
Judge: @Jabberwock
Thematically and flavorfully, this is brilliant. “Falling Acorn” and “Tree Climb” are both very simple yet vivid names, and I can absolutely imagine a mischievous Seedot scurrying up a tree only to fall on people below. It’s simple yet playable in its own right, without need of an evolution, without being too overpowered for an evolving Basic.
It saddens me I can’t give you full aesthetics points for an evolving common, but fitting art has a certain appeal in its own right.
Before you look at your scoring rubric, you should know it’s not easy to get this kind of score from me. You’ve really done something special here.
Wording errors:
- On point.
Fonts and Placement errors:
- Attack text should be Justified. [-1 point]
- Not certain about that Pokédex text, but my uncertainty isn’t enough to dock you points.
Creativity/Originality: 14.5/15
(Ingenious concept.)
Wording: 15/15
(Looks good.)
Fonts and Placement: 9/10
(Just one thing.)
Believability/Playability: 5/5
(At its finest.)
Aesthetics: 3.5/5
(For reasons above.)
Total: 47/50
Entry post: [https://www.pokebeach.com/forums/th...ex-colours-results-are-up.139291/post-2864921]
Results post: [https://www.pokebeach.com/forums/th...ex-colours-results-are-up.139291/post-2868722]
Like meme cards, evolving Basics are another category of Pokémon that tend to get substantially less airtime in CaC. The hardest thing to get right about them is balancing the ingenuitive demands of the Creativity score with the fact that, from a Believability perspective, evolving Basics aren’t allowed to be all that complex. It’s hard to do anything exciting with cards that by design have to be so simple.
In April 2017, though, inspired by a theme that called for Pokémon types re-imagined as their Pokédex color, WastedSkyPirate brought this simple yet elegant entry to the fold. He envisioned a Rock-type Seedot (represented as Fighting on the card) falling from trees (players’ hands) and dealing damage to Pokémon that happened to be passing below (in the Active Spot). Then, if Seedot somehow ended up in the Active Spot itself, it could run away and scurry back up the tree to prepare another falling threat.
The on-paper effects of this card aren’t really all that new. Falling Acorn is quite similar to Abilities on cards like Crobat G and Galarian Zigzagoon, and Tree Climb has been seen by other names in plenty of other places before. Where the bulk of this card’s Creativity points come from, then, is its impeccable attention to flavor and outstanding interpretation of the theme.
It was pretty novel back then for anyone to submit an evolving Basic as their entry. To do so with a streamlined design — a card that has an interesting niche and does it efficiently and effectively, and doesn’t waste space with unnecessary additional components — was a big deal. To do so with such great attention to flavor and the theme was simply amazing. I’ve become a little more jaded on the Creativity score since 2017 (average scores are higher, but that’s largely because the average caliber of entry has also spiked), but even placing this card in the context of its time, I think it was a truly remarkable entry.
On a separate note, I reckon Pokédex Colors was one of the more interesting rounds we’ve done in the past. It encouraged some really interesting creative choices across the board. I’d encourage anyone who wasn’t around back then to give it a look here.
What past themes have you felt the most creative in? What did you submit? What was your design process? Let us know below!
