Contest July 2022 CaC: Lost Zone II (All Results Up!)

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I thought about doing this in DP era just because I'd be able to avoid having to use the new Lost Zone swirlies (and SWSH's atrocious foil). Even though they've only just been revealed in Japan, I decided that they looked simple enough that I could recreate the effect (sort of) in Photoshop. While I used similar colors, I didn't try to mimic the exact design since that would have been impossible. I personally think it looks awful but the card would be worse off without it and who knows, maybe you'll be like wow pmj I am somehow extremely impressed by your ability to use the brush, blur, and smudge tools, the contest is over here's your 50.

Really don't like this foil. I can't get it to look nice. Or maybe my brain just can't figure out that it does look nice and it's supposed to look like this. It reminds me of Acid Wash and how godawful that foil looks too. I originally had it fairly dark because I didn't want it to completely drown out the background but I've since lightened it up to at least get a little color in there. I'm open to any way you think it could be improved.

As far as the card itself goes: It's a little difficult to balance the power of Lost Zone attackers since we only have a few to work with. Magcargo, a Stage 1, does 220 for RRC with all to the Lost Zone. Shiftry, a Stage 2, does 210 for G but Lost Zones itself. Given that Lugia VIV can do 250 for four of anything if your opponent has a moderately sized hand, I didn't think it was unacceptable for Dialga to hit the same benchmark for four colored Energy, as a Lost Zone attacker. It LZs three Energy as an extra drawback, making streaming attacks with it quite difficult. But, as an extra bonus, if you have a hefty investment in the Lost Zone, the attack goes into overdrive, and nets you extra Prizes as a result.

Fifteen cards is a lot to ask for, as evidenced by Mirage Gate requiring seven, and the new Sableye and Fantina requiring ten. This cost is mitigated somewhat by Dialga's Rewind Ability. I noticed that there weren't a lot of cards that actually help you get cards in the Lost Zone. Comfey can LZ one per turn but requires it to be Active, and Colress can LZ two but it's a Supporter. I wanted a card that can help speed up Lost Zone decks, and when it comes to making the game go faster, the Lord of Time himself makes perfect sense, which is why I chose it for my entry.

I think Rewind is the perfect Ability. Being able to get up to 4 cards back in a turn is a powerful effect, but this is held in check by needing to LZ something with every usage, shuffling the chosen card in (as opposed to going to the hand or to the top or bottom of your deck), and only being able to do so at the end of your turn. I think that most players would want no more than two Dialga in play, as Dialga itself is an expensive attacker and likely won't come out to swing until the mid to late game in order to close it out. I felt that limiting Rewind to once per turn was unnecessary because of the LZ requirement; having that many cards to throw away while still maintaining consistency is going to be tough. Needing to LZ something also prevents it from being used to create endless loops.

Its ability to LZ cards consistently without needing to be Active like Comfey, and its ability to close out games with Lost Overdrive's extra Prize gain, cements Dialga's place in Lost Zone decks, while its ability to recycle resources consistently earns it consideration for non-LZ-focused decks that can afford to pay Rewind's cost. Lost Overdrive is expensive, but it's strong, which makes it appealing as a single-Prize attacker in Metal decks, but streaming attacks from it basically can't happen due to permanently losing three Energy with every swing. It's the perfect balance of attacker and Bench sitter and can do anything you need it to do.

As a final note about Lost Overdrive, it is so named to keep the "Lost" naming convention of recent cards that reference the Lost Zone, and I feel like it accurately describes what the attack does, too. It's the perfect attack name. Rewind is also perfectly named, and doesn't require a LZ reference as evidenced by Comfey or Banette, or existing cards like Ampharos LOT and Skiploom LOT.

References:

- Radiant Greninja ("You must [do a thing] in order to use this Ability.")
- Whimsicott CEC ("put a card from your hand in the Lost Zone")
- Radiant Venusaur ("Once at the end of your turn (after your attack)")

- Snorlax CL/Typhlosion LOT ("Put [number] Energy attached to [target] in the Lost Zone.")
- Greedent VMAX ("If your opponent's [target] is Knocked Out by damage from this attack...") ("...take 2 more Prize cards.")
- Unown LOT (MISSING) ("...and if [you] [have] [number or more] cards in the Lost Zone...")
 
PMJ, I know this might not sound like much from the guy who always mixed holosheets and flooded the help channel of th e Discord every other day, but that's a beautiful card! It's also one I would be excited to build around if it was an actual card! (Actually, who says it has to be an actual card?)
As for the holosheet, didn't Aschefield make two SWSH holosheets, one with more of a rainbow pattern?
 
Charmaster:) said:
PMJ, I know this might not sound like much from the guy who always mixed holosheets and flooded the help channel of th e Discord every other day, but that's a beautiful card! It's also one I would be excited to build around if it was an actual card! (Actually, who says it has to be an actual card?)
As for the holosheet, didn't Aschefield make two SWSH holosheets, one with more of a rainbow pattern?
Click to expand...
What's that? Can't hear you, guess you'd better get your ass back in the Discord. :) :) :)
 
Eternatus VSTAR HP: 270 [D]
ddkmhru-68f55379-fac6-46cc-88e9-0fa312aa6104.pngVSTAR – Evolves from Eternatus V
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NO. 890 Gigantic Pokémon HT: 67’07” WT: 2094.4lbs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ability: Lost Power

This Pokémon’s attacks do 30 more damage to the Active Pokémon for each card in the Lost Zone (after applying Weakness and Resistance).

[D][D] Power Spot 30x

This attack does 30 damage for each [D] Energy card in the Lost Zone.

==================VSTAR Power=====================

[VSTAR Power] Calamity Starstorm 250

This attack does 20 damage to all Benched Pokémon. For the rest of this game, your Pokémon’s attacks do 100 more damage to your opponent’s Active Pokémon (before applying Weakness and Resistance).

Weakness: [L] x2

Resistance: [F] -30

Retreat: [C][C]

The core on its chest absorbs energy emanating from the lands of the Galar region. This energy is what allows Eternatus to stay active.

When your Pokémon VSTAR is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.
 

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i'm falling into a pattern with my CaC entries. struggle for ideas, procrastinate, struggle for ideas, find one, optional procrastination, then rush and put something together in the last 3 or 4 days. this CaC i was full of motivation and really wanted to get something done but every idea i had was boring or had already been done. eventually, i came up with an attack that revolves around having multiples of a card in the lost zone! it seemed interesting enough, so i ran with it and here i am! the card was originally going to be a swsh card but i didn't think i'd have enough time to make a good first swsh card with a holosheet, so i made it a sunmoon card instead. i feel better about the holosheet with this one, but i'm not sure how to handle moving the attack and ability this far up. also, despite coming from an official drifblim card the evo icon looks a bit off... other than that, i'm pretty happy with the card overall! drifblim is neat and i've been wanting to use this art for a while.
text entry will come tomorrow...ish! (will that cost me points because it's a second post?)
 
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Originally planned to be a Shining Legends, SM-style card, this contest seemed like a good opportunity to make a new era Lost Zone card. (And to that end, I borrowed the *marvelous* Lost Zone smoke that PMJ made for his Dialga!) I present to you: Radiant Giratina!

I don't tend to make cards with a holofoil layer, but for Radiant Giratina I tried to give it a shot. With a mix of layers using color dodge, multiply, and color burn I've done my best to recreate the effect on a real card. I also cut around the Lost Zone smoke in the foil layer, to blend the foil a tiny bit different (and so the smoke shows up a little better).

Now, on to the card itself. First, the names of the attacks. It's worth pointing out, while the SWSH era Lost Zone-related attacks and abilities occasionally reference "Lost" in their title, they are not consistent with this. So, we have chosen to go half-and-half on the names here. Lost Pull is the ability (fairly standard name for what it does), and Dark Dismissal for its attack (my choice for a cool attack name).

Lost Pull was designed to combo with Giratina's attack, not necessarily as a replacement for Boss or Cross Switcher. I feel the drawbacks of requiring RG to be active, and having to send 2 cards in hand to the LZ, are a high enough cost that you'd have to still expend significant resources to combo this with something else. Radiant 'Tina has a 3 retreat cost, so it's not something you can just Air Balloon out without paying at least 1 energy. This ability is meant to be good, but not so broken as to be overpowered. You could theoretically slot this card into any deck willing to take up a bench slot, but I feel that's not very practical. You'd probably want to just Boss/Cross Switcher, instead of paying a 1 retreat + balloon for a gusting effect.

Dark Dismissal is where it's at. While it has a fairly high cost, the payoff is that it has an incredible effect. If you score a KO against something with Dark Dismissal's damage, you Lost Zone the 'mon and all the cards it has attached. Goodbye energy, tools, and all the Pokemon in the line. This attack would be a death sentence for Regis if you can pull it off twice, effectively turning off Ancient Wisdom for the rest of the game. This attack can also eliminate Inteleon pieces, Manaphy, or any other vital Pokemon that your opponent generally expects to recycle with Rescue Carrier, Ordinary Rod, or other cards. In short, this attack is a good remover for any Pokemon you don't want to see coming back in the game. I feel the high cost is enough to keep this attack from being too easy to pull off. Overall, your best chance of using Radiant Giratina would likely be in a Shadow Rider deck, which are not exactly popular at this time since Dark is so rampant (and RG itself being weak to Dark).

For all the points I've laid out here, I personally view this card as fairly balanced, and thus a realistic enough card that could exist in the game.

References:

* Radiant Greninja ASR (You must [put 2 cards from your hand in the Lost Zone] in order to use this Ability. Once during your turn, [if this Pokémon is in the Active Spot,] you may)
* Cross Switcher FST (switch 1 of your opponent's Benched Pokémon with their Active Pokémon.)

* Greedent VMAX FST (If your opponent's Active Pokémon is Knocked Out by damage from this attack,)
* Tyranitar GX LOT (put that Pokémon and [all cards attached to it] in the Lost Zone instead of the discard pile.)
* Eldegoss V SSH (all attached cards)
 
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Xatu – P – HP100
Stage 1 – Evolves from Natu

NO. 178 Mystic Pokémon HT: 4’11” WT: 1.5 lbs.

Ability: Sunpath
Once per turn, when you put a card in the Lost Zone, you may put a card from your discard pile in the Lost Zone. You can't use more than 1 Sunpath Ability each turn.

[P][P][P] Lost Visions
Choose an attack from 1 of the Pokémon in the Lost Zone and use it as this attack.

Weakness: Dark (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-20)
Retreat: [C] [C]
They say that it stays still and quiet because it is seeing both the past and future at the same time.
this is my first text fake, and i had a fun time! this fake was easier to come up with, but i'm happy with how it turned out. the ability went through several iteratons, but i ultimately settled on this one because it lets you accelerate cards to the lost zone faster in a semi-unique way - not much goes from discard to the lost zone, and this card cuts out the recovery card and puts them straight there. it can be used to hit other criteria or let xatu use the attacks of knocked out pokemon.
 
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Bastiodon PL#20 "...remove 1 damage counter from Bastiodon between turns."
Gulpin AR#40 "...during your opponent’s next turn, if Gulpin would be Knocked Out by damage from an attack..."
Arceus AR#AR5 "Remove all Energy cards attached to Arceus and put them in the Lost Zone."
Nidoking RR#29 "...put 2 damage counters on the Attacking Pokémon."
Meganium is an underrated Pokémon, and I wanted to give it some love here in CAC, and salanchu's art gave me an interesting angle to pursue in design terms. Withered Swirl is the result of that. It has a very favorable typing to pair with Mew Prime and Celebi Prime, which makes the attack all the more dangerous. While Catcher does get around the effect, I think it's strong enough to consider play, as losing all of the Energy you put on your attacker results in quite a loss of tempo. And once you've set up your Lost Zone, Meganium gains some healing to help it stay on the field just that little bit longer. I'm not much more familiar with the metagame as it was back then to commentate further, but I feel that the design is interesting enough and I'm glad to have made it.
 
I'm unfortunately going to have to drop this month, mostly due to a lack of free time. Best of luck to everyone else though.
 
Klinklang– Metal – HP150
Stage 2 – Evolves from Klang

NO. 601 Gear Pokémon HT: 2’0” WT: 178.6 lbs.

Ability: Shatter Gear
Once during your turn, you may put an Item card from your discard pile in the Lost Zone. If you do, use the effect of that card as the effect of this Ability. You can't use more than 1 Shatter Gear Ability each turn.

[W] Gear Lockup 60
During your opponent's next turn, their Pokémon can't use any VSTAR Powers. (This includes Pokémon that come into play during that turn.)

Weakness: Fire (x2)
Resistance: Grass (-30)
Retreat: [C] [C] [C]
The three gears that compose this Pokémon spin at high speed. Its new spiked gear isn't a living creature.
Girafarig LOT# 94 "Put 2 cards from your opponent’s discard pile in the Lost Zone."
Mimikyu CEC #96 "If you do, use the effect of that card as the effect of this attack."
Cobalion-GX TEU #108 "During your opponent’s next turn, their Pokémon can’t attack."
Canceling Cologne ASR #136 "This includes Pokémon that come into play during that turn."
Reusing Item cards is always a control dream, and this Klinklang can do so, at a price. You only get to do so once per turn, and it gets Lost Zoned after use, so in any standard play, it's actually unusable, because Klinklang is a Stage 2. That said, I wanted a fun effect, and working with Items seemed like it could be useful. The attack is another cool idea that's unplayable because Stage 2, but currently there isn't much counterplay to VSTAR Powers beyond Path to block Abilities. Perhaps if the upcoming Klinklang is popular, this could be teched in alongside it, as replaying cards like Rare Candy and Evolution Incense would greatly help that Klinklang accelerate, but that card remains to see if it will be playable. Overall, I'm happy with where this ended up.
 
Submissions are now closed! Thank you for entering, and stay tuned for results at the end of the month!
 
Image-Based Results

Judge: @Jabberwock

With Lost Origin, the TCG made a return to the Lost Zone for the first time in a while, and with this month’s theme, so did we. There are now four official eras of Lost Zone devilry to choose from — Platinum, HGSS, Sun & Moon, and Sword & Shield — each with its own host of cards that make it harder or easier to work with the Lost Zone in a mechanical sense. We saw three of those eras represented this month, and the effects and balancing were just as widespread as you would expect!

My notes for this month would be to double-check wording — seriously, building up a list of references is an extremely good way to check your work before you submit, and those points are a fifth of the rubric — and to pay close attention to fonts and placement.

With the increased prevalence of font guides in the community in recent years, F&P has taken something of a back seat in most people’s minds, but that doesn’t mean it should be slept on. You can have the most thorough font guide in the world and still mess up your placements if you’re not careful. Dragging a 50% opacity scan over your card can be a great way to make sure everything lines up properly — and, if everything doesn’t, it makes adjusting your placements easy.

Otherwise, September’s round is coming soon. See y’all there!

~~Jabberwock

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Welcome to CaC! It’s been good to see your progress faking around the Faking Community Discord lately, and we’re glad to have you over here in our part of town this month.

The first things I notice are the blank modifications — the dual-type attack bar takes up a lot of the card, even with an attack with only two reduced-size lines of text. I’m not super sold on the blockiness of the attack bar, or the way the big bar for the attack is just a scaled-up version of the little bar for the “Dual-Type Attack [R][D]” text. (You can see an awful lot of blurriness from the upscaling.) If I don’t look at it too hard — or if the whole card is in very low resolution — I don’t mind it too much, but I think there’s a lot of room for a more elegant design there at the 747x1038 resolution it is.

Desperation Flame is quite the powerful attack! Swinging for 100 for 2 Energy with two very good offensive types, raising the likelihood of your damage being doubled from Weakness, is nothing to laugh at, especially when the attacker only gives up one Prize. Add an efficient way to drastically increase your own damage output by getting as many as four cards in the Lost Zone in a turn (four uses of the Ability from four different Galarian Moltres) and you’ve got an extremely strong card. Oh, and its HP gets boosted as well!

You get some ambiguity in the Ability from mixing an activated effect (“Once during your turn …”) with a passive one (“This Pokémon gets +20 HP …”). Do you need to activate the first part of the Ability in order to gain the HP boost for the turn? Is the HP boost constant, whether the Ability is activated or not? Creatures, Inc., tends not to mix activated and passive effects in this way, so there’s not much precedent to tell us.

I like where you’re at with the design space — flavorfully, a dual-type attack is a great way to pay homage to Moltres’s [R]-type origins without falsely making Galarian Moltres a [R]-type Pokémon. The execution of the effects could just use a little work. With so much progress in just a couple months, it can be weird to take a retrospective look at a card from early July this way — but then, that’s the nature of the contest. I look forward to seeing what you come up with in September!

Wording errors:
- “(before you attack)” → “(before your attack)” [-1 point]
- Energy are referred to as Energy cards when not attached to a Pokémon, as in “Energy cards in the Lost Zone” [-1 point]
- Somehow, you need to disambiguate the Ability — how and when does the HP boost come into play? I would suggest simply not mixing activated and passive effects, as that runs into issues with believability. [-3 points]
- Order of type symbols requires that the attack cost be [R][D], not [D][R]. [-1 point]
- Damage counters are put, not placed. [-1 point]
- “a damage counter on your opponent’s Active Pokémon for each card in the Lost Zone” would be a more concise way to word the attack, per cards with the Lost March attack. [-2 points]
- “this Pokémon was/is both [R][D] type” is the established way to refer to dual-type Pokémon from the ex era. [-2 points]

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Kerning is very tight; there should be more space between letters. [-2 points]
- The right-hand side of the Ability text box doesn’t extend far enough to the right — see how much more space there is to the right of the Ability than there is to the left? [-1 point]

Creativity/Originality: 11/15
(I like the dual-type attack from a flavor perspective, but the effects feel somewhat disjointed in that they’re kinda just a laundry list of buffs you can give to a Pokémon for having cards in the Lost Zone.)
Believability/Playability: 11/15
(Quite high-powered and possibly meta-defining — it’s so low-maintenance and gives up so few Prizes, I’d imagine it would shut multi-Prize [D]- and [R]-weak decks out of the format almost completely. Also, docking one point for the [Y] Weakness on a SwSh-era card.)
Wording: 0/10
(Don’t forget to check references! Many of these errors were avoidable.)
Fonts and Placement: 2/5
(Kerning and Ability text box.)
Aesthetics: 3/5
(Solid work overall, though I could wish the holosheet was brighter. The dual-type attack bar is also quite blocky and blurry from being so heavily upscaled.)
Total: 27/50
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Dialga is a good choice thematically — lots you can do with a Sinnoh-region legendary and the Lost Zone. On the flavor end of things, I really like that the attack is set up to be a ticking time bomb — time, wink wink — that lets you take an explosion of Prize cards once its requirements are met. It’s a great centerpiece to the card, and gives you that immediate rush of how-can-I-use-this planning that’s central to so many great designs.

Rewind helps you conserve resources in a deck that would otherwise probably burn through them like nobody’s business. The card burn is good for getting you up to 15 in the Lost Zone, but that’s not all — the conservation aspect helps here, too, since the requirement says you have to be okay with irrevocably throwing away a quarter of your deck, and you don’t want to lose too many cards to the discard pile on top of those 15.

It could probably stand to be capped at a hard once-per-turn, though. I’m not convinced that players wouldn’t want to just go all in with an aggressive Dialga-centric strategy. If you can find a way to power up a costly [M]-type attacker a couple turns in a row, you can probably expect to win the game in as few as two attacks: Rewind 4 times on turn one, then 4 more times with a Lost Overdrive into a two-Prize Pokémon V on turn two for a total of 11 cards in the Lost Zone, and you only need to get one more card in there through other means for a second Lost Overdrive into a Pokémon V to close out the game on turn three. Finding a way to attach seven or eight Energy in three turns is probably the hardest part, but I don’t see it as all that unreasonable (Rewind even lets you get more than one use each out of your Metal Saucers and Mirage Gates). Wanting to speed up games is thematic for Dialga, sure, but in this era of all eras there’s only so much left to speed up!

The Lost Zone swirl wreathing the illustration box … I applaud the initiative to give your card a little extra sparkle beyond the typical art-plus-holosheet treatment, but I think the execution could be better. It looks like you took a blurry brush and just kinda drew some squiggles freehand around the art. It’s shaky in places, and the placement of the squiggles doesn’t really align with where they are on the revealed Lost Origin cards. Ultimately, it’s not bad, but I’m not sure I’d call it good.

I don’t think it’s impossible to mimic the exact placements. You just need to drag a scan over the card, set it to 50% opacity, and trace over it with your brush. Actually, I’d probably recommend using the Pen tool to draw a smooth path and then applying a stroke, since that eliminates the shakiness from drawing freehand with the Brush tool.

So, some room for improvement. I like the core of the design, choosing Dialga for a Lost Zone theme and then making its effects about the tempo of the game. But I think tempo is a hard thing to mess with without warping the format around it, and I think that’s the case here.

Wording errors:
- None that I can spot. Good references — Radiant Venusaur in particular coming in clutch.

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Realistically the attack text shouldn’t be dipping that low on the card — you should be reducing the font size before you let it approach the W/R bars that closely. Compare to Stoutland CEC, which also has 8 lines of effect text. [-1 point]

Creativity/Originality: 13/15
(Good choice thematically, and you follow through on the flavor. Definitely makes me want to think about how to play it. Not sure it’s pull-out-all-the-stops revolutionary, but it’s up there.)
Believability/Playability: 12/15
(Cautious about the power levels here, though I think capping Rewind at a hard once-per-turn would be enough as a fix.)
Wording: 10/10
(Looks good.)
Fonts and Placement: 4/5
(Attack text edging pretty close to the W/R bar.)
Aesthetics: 2/5
(Edo’s art tends not to play nice with holosheets, in my experience — something about the simple shading making it hard for the Pokémon to pop out more than the holosheet behind it. The glowiness of the crystals on Dialga’s body helps it stand out a little bit, but overall I think it’s not a great art/holosheet combination. The Lost Zone swirls, being slightly shaky and having inaccurate placements, also hurt you more than they help.)
Total: 41/50
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Unique choices, doof! Drifblim is one of the Flying Pokémon that still have yet to receive [C]-type cards, and this artwork is a splendid choice for it.

I used this art myself in a set (though that was on a [P]-type card) and found that the saturation was quite high, so I dulled the colors a little bit to make it work for my purposes. You might like the art to pop a little more when it’s in front of a washed-out [C] blank, but even still I think the colors are on the excessive end of vibrancy. The holosheet could still use some work to make it clearly distinct from the background behind it, but honestly in this case a subtle holosheet might be working in your favor — any additional saturation would probably overwhelm the image.

Playing a matching game with cards in the Lost Zone is a cool gimmick that I don’t think I’ve seen before. It forces you to get a little creative with deckbuilding, maximizing counts of cards that you don’t mind throwing away to fuel Hidden Pathway, and potentially restricting deck space for other cards in the process. Although, right now you’re allowed to simply play a bunch of basic Energy, Lost Zone one of them, and then just use Hidden Pathway on basic Energy for the rest of the game. I might suggest restricting the valid targets to Pokémon and Trainer cards for that reason.

Is sniping 8 damage counters the right effect for this card? There’s definitely precedent; Drifblim cards have a history of dropping damage counters around the opponent’s field. So it’s believable, if not exactly the most novel effect. That many references means we can pretty easily gauge numbers, too, and I find that I don’t have an issue with the balancing, either.

Lost Bluster is an interesting inclusion, though. It’s a very risky effect, and given that Hidden Pathway would like specific cards to be in the Lost Zone (rather than any old random card off the top of the deck), there’s a sort of anti-synergy between the two effects. I actually have a somewhat hard time envisioning when you’d want a card in the Lost Zone badly enough to toss the dice on permanently getting rid of your topdeck. Maybe for Mirage Gate, or some effect like that. Probably not to fuel Hidden Pathway, though.

Cool concepts! Just don’t forget to think about how the different effects play into each other. :)

Wording errors:
- You’ll need some kind of “Once during your turn” clause at the beginning of the Ability — or “Once during each player’s turn” if that’s what you’re going for, or something like that. It’s necessary because of the line at the end, which specifies that the Ability can only be used once per turn. [-2 points]
- “If you placed damage counters” → “If you placed any damage counters”, per cards like Flapple RCL. [-1 point]
- The “Don’t apply Weakness etc” clause is unnecessary; damage counters aren’t affected by Weakness and Resistance anyway. [-2 points]
- Drifblim is 33.1 lbs, not 1.2 lbs. [-0.5 point]

Fonts and Placement errors:
- The text between the illus box and the W/R bar can’t be moved up and down arbitrarily — the Ability bar must always stay in the same place (unless there’s no attack), and you always need to keep some minimum amount of space between the bottom line of text and the top of the W/R bar. Sometimes this leads to some major text squishing, which is usually okay. Do that before allowing your text to approach parts of the card where it’s not allowed to go. [-2 points]

Creativity/Originality: 11/15
(The matching-game aspect of the attack is fresh and fun. The Ability is an interesting idea, but I could wish it presented a little less anti-synergy so that the card could work as a cohesive unit.)
Believability/Playability: 11/15
(Apart from the anti-synergy between Lost Bluster and the attack, I have a hard time imagining how I would ever use Lost Bluster at all — the risk of Lost Zoning something important is just too high. Also docking a cautious point because allowing Energy as a target for Hidden Pathway doesn’t feel like something Creatures would do.)
Wording: 4.5/10
(A few errors — somewhat more niche than the average error, but still catchable. Don’t forget to check your references!)
Fonts and Placement: 3/5
(Spacing of Ability and attack text is quite off.)
Aesthetics: 3/5
(It’s solid — the art is a good choice for the blank, and the holosheet, while not particularly vibrant, doesn’t hurt. Extra points here would come from working out the saturation balance of the art and the holosheet, allowing Drifblim to pop without becoming hard to look at, and leaving the nice holo effect over the background.)
Total: 32.5/50
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It’s definitely daring to push out a card with not one, but two visual gimmicks released so recently we haven’t really settled as a community on resources for them. The Radiant blank is solid — Rune and picky did their work well — but I find the Lost Zone swirls less so. As I noted with PMJ’s entry, it’s important to get the swirls in the right place. The shakiness is a little less apparent here because of the holosheet, but it could still be cleaner, and it’s worth making the little bit of extra effort to trace them out over a real card with the Pen tool.

The art is neat; the colors feel right. It occurs to me we’ve never seen a Shiny Giratina card, which feels weird, because the color scheme goes so well with so many potential backgrounds. You’ve made a good choice here — the background could probably use a few filters to make it look less like a straight-up photo of a galaxy, but the color scheme is brilliant.

I think the holosheet could stand a little more tweaking. It’s an unusually blocky pattern, which will make it hard to find the right blending modes, but it should be possible if you keep at it. It might take a little finagling with the holosheet itself to make different parts of it stand out more. I would probably find it helpful to reference images like this to get the right effect.

On the effects themselves, I find it an interesting choice to make an attack the focal point of a Radiant Pokémon. And actually, the Ability behaves almost like an attack, too, in that it requires Radiant Giratina to be in the Active Spot and offers it few ways of getting out of there. Few enough real-life Radiant Pokémon are designed that way, with only Radiant Charizard seeing any real success that I know of, and for good reason: it’s hard to anticipate leaving a Pokémon susceptible to attacks in the Active Spot when you’re only allowed to play one of that Pokémon in your deck.

I believe it works here, though, since both effects are so well balanced around it — very good for a Basic Pokémon, but with enough checks to keep them from being broken. And having that much power on a one-of Pokémon may be swingy, but at least it’s not on a Prism Star, which might wreak havoc or get Lost Zoned before it can do anything at all.

I could wish the effects broke the box a little bit more — Lost Pull is a new spin on an existing (gust) effect, but Dark Dismissal we’ve seen plenty of times before, and even one time on an old Giratina. I can respect hewing closely to existing effects as a springboard to consider all of a card’s gameplay potential in a given metagame, because that shows a lot of creativity in how you’re thinking about designing and balancing your card. But I’d like to see some more truly new effects, too — don’t be afraid to push the envelope!

Wording errors:
- Good references.

Fonts and Placement errors:
- This is extremely dumb and I can’t believe Creatures does it this way, but the illus etc text in the lower left of the card needs to have a white stroke around it. No other text does. Just that text. [-0.5 point]

Creativity/Originality: 11/15
(Good consideration of the card’s gameplay potential, but I’d love to see the effects push the envelope a little bit more. It’s hard to award too many points for originality when one of the attacks is essentially a carbon copy of an attack that was featured on another Giratina card thirteen years ago.)
Believability/Playability: 15/15
(Interesting choice to design a Radiant Pokémon around being in the Active Spot — i.e. in harm’s way — but I think you’ve managed it balance-wise. The effects are good enough to warrant the risk, but not so good as to drastically swing the game.)
Wording: 10/10
(Good references.)
Fonts and Placement: 4.5/5
(White stroke around the lower-left text.)
Aesthetics: 4/5
(Some high notes and some low notes: I love the colors of the illustration, how Giratina complements the background and the Lost Zone swirls, but the swirls themselves are a little shaky, and the holosheet’s blending modes could use some refining. At first glance, the effect is pretty cool — ironically, the holosheet mostly cancels out the issues of the swirls — and maybe it’s just that I haven’t seen many custom Radiant Pokémon yet, but from that first glance I’m impressed, and in spite of some technical faults once you look closer, this score reflects that impression.)
Total: 44.5/50
kpcac11_meganium-png.16697


An HGSS card! I was hoping we’d see one of these this month — it would be a shame to run a Lost Zone theme and not get any entries paying homage to the first format in which it achieved metagame relevance. Props for taking that route even without feeling confident enough to comment on the HGSS metagame.

The art struck me as an unusual choice when I first saw the card, but then I read the text and saw Withered Swirl. I think that’s an inspired choice — to be honest, I probably would have passed right over this art if I were looking to make a Meganium card, since it’s so much less vibrant than I would usually expect to see from the old dinosaur, but instead you chose to incorporate it as part of the text! And in a month about the Lost Zone, no less. Points for flavor.

Effects-wise, the card is set up very conservatively — it just sort of sits there and plugs away for 50 damage a turn until the opponent finds a way to Knock it Out while minimizing the loss of Energy from Withered Swirl’s effect. It’s true that there are a few ways to do this in formats containing HGSS cards — Warp Point would do it, as would Pokémon Catcher. At such a low damage output, though, Meganium is hardly threatening from an offensive standpoint — the opponent might find it easier to just take the Knock Out and then take a turn or two to rebuild their Energy base.

If you wanted to make it more of an offensive threat, you could consider dropping the Energy cost. [G][G][C] is a pretty hard cost to achieve, but even [G][C] would be substantially easier, and make looping Mew Primes accelerated by Celebi Primes a very real possibility.

Lost Bloom introduces an unusual element of anti-synergy, and I’m not sure I really get it. Healing is generally a useful thing to have, but in this case you want Meganium to get Knocked Out — by far the most powerful aspect of the card, the Lost Zone effect of Withered Spell, only comes into play when Meganium goes down. So why heal it? I guess you could play the long game tanky-style, but I’m not sure 130 HP is really enough to be a tank in HGSS. The effect seems a little out of place, on the whole.

That said, I like the card. The flavor is certainly there — I just have a bit of a hard time imagining how the effects would play out, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just means there’s room for refinement.

Wording errors:
- “Remove all Energy cards [...] and put them in the Lost Zone” is a little archaic — Pachirisu CL would probably be a better reference there. [2 points]

Fonts and Placement errors:
- Looks good.

Creativity/Originality: 12/15
(Unusual anti-synergy between the Poké-Body and attack, which I’m not sure really makes sense to me in the card’s design context. The effects feel somewhat fresh, though, and I love the flavor linking Withered Swirl to the art during a Lost Zone theme.)
Believability/Playability: 12/15
(Slightly underpowered — the damage seems too low for the attack cost to be threatening, and the big threat of Withered Swirl can be played around.)
Wording: 8/10
(HGSS references take precedence over Platinum references.)
Fonts and Placement: 5/5
(Looks good.)
Aesthetics: 5/5
(Unusual choice of art, but hey, you made it work. The holosheet is solid, too.)
Total: 42/50

3rd Place: PMJ’s Dialga, with 41/50 points.
2nd Place: Kaleidophoenix’s Meganium, with 42/50 points.
1st Place: Holy Star’s Radiant Giratina, with 44.5/50 points.
 
Feels good that I did good enough of a job ripping out and positioning the radiant rule box that jabs had no idea it was me

Feels a million times better that my help actually helped @Holy Star win. Well deserved, buddy, welcome to the winners club.
 
Text-Based Results

I probably should write this stuff up when I finish scores, I can't remember any of what I wanted to say. Wording is always an issue, everyone can always do better. Holy Star came to me for help with his fake and he ended up taking the gold; you can't get much of a better example than that. Our Discord server is full of folks who would be more thean happy to offer a helping hand if you ask.


Aurorus HP: 150 [W]
698.png
Stage 2: Evolves from Amaura
aurorus.png

NO. 699 Tundra Pokémon HT: 8'10" WT: 496.0 lbs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ability: March of Time
If this Pokémon is put into your Lost Zone by the effect of an Attack, Ability, or Trainer card, you may search your deck for a card and put it into the Lost Zone. Then, shuffle your deck. You can't use more than 1 March of Time Ability per turn.

[W][W][C] Glacier Wall 120
During your opponent's next turn, this Pokémon takes 10 less damage for each card in your Lost Zone (after applying Weakness and Resistance).

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

An Aurorus was found frozen solid within a glacier, just as it appeared long ago, which became quite a big event in the news.
Click to expand...

Pretty cool, and not just cause it's an Aurorus card. March of Time seems like a decent way to increase the number of cards in the Lost Zone, but it's currently pretty difficult to get it to trigger unless you happen to draw it off of Colress's Experiment. Glacier Wall is the biggest draw here; with enough cards in the Lost Zone, you can become virtually unkillable. I think building around this attack is a much better use of Aurorus's talents than trying to find ways to activate March of Time (which, by the way, is a really weird name for this Ability, it doesn't seem like it fits at all). I think that the damage reduction can be powerful, but turning yourself into a wall requires a massive, focused investment in the Lost Zone, and given that the bonus can be removed with Boss or other similar card, it's fine. Nice work.

As an aside, the reason attacks named Growl are applied before Weakness and Resistance is because a growl is meant to intimidate whatever you're growling at instead of bolstering your own defenses somehow (Steel Wing, Guard Press, Ice Barrier, etc), and effects on the attacker are applied before Weakness and Resistance instead of after. It's actually a great example of how having good attack names can be important, especially for wording purposes.

Wording errors:
General
- In Sword & Shield era, weights ending in .0 simply remove it (Walrein CRE) [-1 point]
March of Time
- Cards are put in the Lost Zone, not into it. [-1.5 points]
- Similarly, cards are put in the Lost Zone, not yours or your opponent's. There is only one Lost Zone, even if you both have cards in it! [-1 point]
- Don't capitalize attack, ever, in any circumstance. Never ever ever ever ever. Ever. [-1 point]
Glacier Wall
- "for each card in the Lost Zone" (-0.5 point]

Creativity/Originality: 16/20
(Trying to solve the game's lack of non-attacking ways to fuel Lost Zone requirements is a good idea, but it still falls victim to its own inability to get triggered. Glacier Wall is a powerful defensive attack that scales nicely that makes me wanna try and abuse it.)
Wording: 10/15
(When in doubt, ask; alternatively, use existing cards. Don't rely on translations!)
Believability/Playability: 15/15
(No problems here)
Total: 41/50
[Basic] Shedinja <> HP50 [P]

You can't have more than 1 <> card with the same name in your deck. If a <> card would go to the discard pile, put it in the Lost Zone instead.

Ability: Lost Shell
Put this Pokémon into play only if there is a Nincada in your Lost Zone. (When you are setting up to play, you cannot put it face down as your Active Pokémon or on your Bench.)

Ability: Lost Soul
Once during your turn (before your attack), if this Pokémon is on your Bench, you may choose 1 of your opponent's Benched Pokémon and put it in your opponent's Lost Zone (discard all card attached to it). If you do, discard all cards from this Pokémon and put it in the Lost Zone.

weakness - [-]
resistance - [-]
retreat cost - [-]

Often appears when a Nincada evolves, anyone who dares to peak into this Pokémon's cracked shell will lost their soul and became an empty shell.
Click to expand...

On the surface, this is a really cool card. Requiring Nincada, a 60 HP Basic shitmon, to be in the Lost Zone adds a simple layer of complexity to the card since you now risk opening with it (Nincada). Then you need to find a way to actually get it in the Lost Zone before you get Shedinja Prism Star into your hand, and you can't discard it either or else it goes to the Lost Zone itself. It seems like a small, meaningless change, but it's actually quite impactful without being obnoxious. I like it a lot.

I have mixed feelings on Lost Soul, though. The ability to straight up delete one of your opponent's Benched Pokemon is absurdly powerful. Lost Blender exists, and there are a million ways to get a Nincada in your hand, so while you do have to go through an extra step in order to get Shedinja Prism Star out, it's not exactly impossible to do. And once it's there, it becomes an enormous threat that you don't have to invest anything further into. Nothing on your opponent's Bench is safe from being wiped from existence at a moment's notice, and that's not a good thing. You can even use something to push their Active Pokemon to the Bench and then use Lost Soul to delete it.

The bottom stats and HP don't even matter. Lost Soul is so powerful that it essentially forces your opponent to deal with it immediately (assuming you don't trigger Lost Shell the turn you drop it) or risk getting sent back several turns. While I'm sure it could be used to meme out wins in donk decks, as a general card, I think the effect of Lost Shell is too powerful, even for a Prism Star.

Wording errors:
General
- Flavor text has many grammar errors: "Often appears when a Nincada evolves. Anyone who dares to peek into this Pokemon's cracked shell will lose their soul and become an empty shell." [-4 points] I know English isn't your first language, but this is still a competition, so we have to grade on accuracy. We help each other out in the Discord all the time, I'm sure everyone would be able to assist in making sure your English is up to snuff. I will give you props for making your own flavor text, although in times like this, you can't go wrong with just copy and pasting some existing dex entry from Bulbapedia or something.
Lost Shell
- "Put this Pokemon in play only if you have Nincada in the Lost Zone." (Raikou VIV) You do not have your own Lost Zone. There is only one Lost Zone, even if you both have cards in it! [-2 points]
Lost Soul
- "and put it in the Lost Zone (discard all cards attached to it)." [-1.5 points]

Creativity/Originality: 15/20
(The extra requirement to get it into play is nice. Once it's in play, though, it's a hell of a menace.)
Wording: 7.5/15
(Ask for help! It's okay!)
Believability/Playability: 12/15
(Way too powerful.)
Total: 34.5/50
Eternatus VSTAR HP: 270 [D]
VSTAR – Evolves from Eternatus V

NO. 890 Gigantic Pokémon HT: 67’07” WT: 2094.4lbs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ability: Lost Power

This Pokémon’s attacks do 30 more damage to the Active Pokémon for each card in the Lost Zone (after applying Weakness and Resistance).

[D][D] Power Spot 30x

This attack does 30 damage for each [D] Energy card in the Lost Zone.

==================VSTAR Power=====================

[VSTAR Power] Calamity Starstorm 250

This attack does 20 damage to all Benched Pokémon. For the rest of this game, your Pokémon’s attacks do 100 more damage to your opponent’s Active Pokémon (before applying Weakness and Resistance).

Weakness: [L] x2

Resistance: [F] -30

Retreat: [C][C]

The core on its chest absorbs energy emanating from the lands of the Galar region. This energy is what allows Eternatus to stay active.

When your Pokémon VSTAR is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.
Click to expand...
Comparing this to Giratina VSTAR, it's a little stronger. Calamity Starstorm is what puts this over the top, I think. Giratina VSTAR's Star Requiem requires you to have 10 cards in the Lost Zone before you can use it; Calamity Starstorm has no such drawback. Its extra effect also drives Power Spot's damage up so much that you only need 3 Darkness Energy (and no other cards) in the Lost Zone before you're hitting 280, and that doesn't take your other cards, extra Darkness Energy, or your opponent's cards into account. The damage potential is pretty ridiculous, and given the ease with which Calamity Starstorm can delete something, I think it could stand to be curbed in power just a little.

Wording errors:
General
- Pokemon VSTAR don't have Pokedex info. [-1 point]
- Your height is also incorrect, but I'm not docking you for it since it's not supposed to be there in the first place. [-0 points]
- Pokemon VSTAR don't have flavor text either [-1 point]
- Lightning Weakness? In what universe? [-1 point]
- Fighting Resistance? I can't make heads or tails of why you would do such a thing. [-1 point]
Lost Power
- You are missing some clarifying text here. Whether this Ability is only meant to count your cards or everyone's cards, you need to say so. [-1 point]
Power Spot
- Same thing here [-0.5 point]
Calamity Starstorm
- Attack cost is missing [-1 point]
- "...to each Benched Pokemon (both yours and your opponent's)." [-2 points]

Creativity/Originality: 13/20
(It's almost exactly like a Lost Zone version of Darkrai VSTAR. Calamity Starstorm is Altered Creation GX on steroids. There's no wow factor here.)
Wording: 6.5/15
(How did you go from perfect wording to this??? Remember to proofread and look at real cards before you hit submit!)
Believability/Playability: 12/15
(It's a powerful Lost Zone attacker, but it's a little too strong.)
Total: 31.5/50
Xatu – P – HP100
Stage 1 – Evolves from Natu

NO. 178 Mystic Pokémon HT: 4’11” WT: 1.5 lbs.

Ability: Sunpath
Once per turn, when you put a card in the Lost Zone, you may put a card from your discard pile in the Lost Zone. You can't use more than 1 Sunpath Ability each turn.

[P][P][P] Lost Visions
Choose an attack from 1 of the Pokémon in the Lost Zone and use it as this attack.

Weakness: Dark (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-20)
Retreat: [C] [C]
They say that it stays still and quiet because it is seeing both the past and future at the same time.
Click to expand...
Pretty cool. It's kinda like the descendent of Mew (Prime). Sunpath is a neat way to accelerate things into the Lost Zone, giving Xatu plenty of different targets to pick from. I'm not sure the hard limit is necessary since Xatu is a Stage 1 and simply putting Pokemon in the Lost Zone isn't going to break the card, given how difficult it is to stream Lost Visions. And speaking of, Lost Visions is pretty strong, being able to copy GX attacks and VSTAR Powers, but its expensive cost combined with low HP means you're probably not gonna hit it more than once. But that one time could be all you need. Overall, I like it.

Wording errors:
General
- Xatu's weight is wrong. Bet you'll never do this again! (-1 point)
Sunpath
- "Once during your turn," [-1 point]
Lost Visions
- If your intent is to have both your and your opponent's Pokemon as viable targets for this attack, you need to clarify that. [-1 point]

Creativity/Originality: 16/20
(I'm a fan of toolbox decks and this does a decent job of putting tools in your box to use.)
Wording: 12/15
(Simple mistakes, easily fixed.)
Believability/Playability: 14/15
(As a Stage 1, I don't think the limit on Sunpath is necessary. It can work as a one-Prize attacker to stall or even close out the game. Definitely could see play.)
Total: 42/50
Klinklang– Metal – HP150
Stage 2 – Evolves from Klang

NO. 601 Gear Pokémon HT: 2’0” WT: 178.6 lbs.

Ability: Shatter Gear
Once during your turn, you may put an Item card from your discard pile in the Lost Zone. If you do, use the effect of that card as the effect of this Ability. You can't use more than 1 Shatter Gear Ability each turn.

[W] Gear Lockup 60
During your opponent's next turn, their Pokémon can't use any VSTAR Powers. (This includes Pokémon that come into play during that turn.)

Weakness: Fire (x2)
Resistance: Grass (-30)
Retreat: [C] [C] [C]
The three gears that compose this Pokémon spin at high speed. Its new spiked gear isn't a living creature.
Spoiler: References
Click to expand...
There is little I don't like about this card. The attack names are fitting, the Ability is fitting for a Stage 2, the attack is cheap, powerful for its cost, and has a unique effect. My only gripe is that for such an interesting effect on the attack, there is no reason to ever actually use it. Sixty damage in this meta isn't gonna get you anywhere when the added effect is something that has as little meaning as stopping VSTAR Powers. I think that stopping VSTAR Powers would have worked better as an always-on Ability, and then transfer the effect of Shatter Gear to the attack. Other than that, it's a really cool card. Much love for Klinklang.

Wording errors:
General
- In Sword & Shield era, when height ends in zero inches, it is omitted from the card. [-1 point]
Gear Lockup
- "...they can't use any VSTAR Powers." (Latios-GX) [-1 point]

Creativity/Originality: 16/20
(A cool Stage 2. Shutting off VSTAR Powers is nice but I wish it didn't cost your attack to do so.)
Wording: 13/15
(Simple mistakes)
Believability/Playability: 14/15
(Could see play pretty easily, but never for the attack.)
Total: 43/50

3rd Place: Falling Skies’s Aurorus, with 39/50 points.
2nd Place: doofisconfused’s Xatu, with 42/50 points.
1st Place: Kaleidophoenix’s Klinklang, with 43/50 points.
 
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