Contest June's Create A Card: Fully Evolved Basics! (Official Results!)

[Nyora]

Lel for fun another
HITMONLEE - HP90 [F] ( I think that stands for fighting)
ABILITY -Big kicks
Each of this pokemon a attacks do 20 more damage when attacking your opponents benched Pokemon.
[F][F]Punishing Stretch Kick
This attack does 50 damage to one of your opponents Pokemon that already has damage counters on it.
[F][F] Energetic stretch kick
This attack does 10 damage to one of your opponents benched Pokemon. You may discard an energy attached to that Pokemon.

 

[PMJ]

What's the hold up for July cac? @Fancy @Ice Arceus @Jabberwock

 

[Athena]

No @Athena? I feel left out.

There's been a bit of a delay but the new month's contest should be going live on Monday.

 

[PMJ]

I didn't tag you because I talk to you in the chat room all the time and I figured you were busy on your super fun adventure plus I never see any of these layabouts posting so I figured I'd make them do work :>

 

[Jabberwock]

I have nothing whatsoever to do with the CAC or the schedule for which it is posted, but I appreciate the sentiment.

At any rate, looking forward to the next round.

 

[PMJ]

I just did it cause you moderate this forum.

 

[Jabberwock]

No, I got that, but for future reference, I'm not the one to ask about the CAC.

 

[Athena]

Yeah, Activities are separate from forum duties. Me, SR, and/or IA would be the best ones to get in touch with for any questions or problems.

 

[Ice Arceus]

Image-Based Results

@BigfootAUS:

Spoiler: Tropius

This is exactly how weird Ancient Traits should work. It’s a great way of having a nice team effect without actually breaking the Ancient Trait rules. It seems a bit mean against cards with incidental bench damage and it does nothing against dedicated snipers, but concessions have to be made for this to be an Ancient Trait. Great job on creatively colouring inside the lines.

Green Gale seems good. It’s always a bit odd to care about what is essentially a catch-all type like colourless (especially when the attack is named “Green Gale”), but sure.

Phototropism seems like an interesting way of not having Tropius be an Energy hoarder. I’m not sure if it’s good, but it would probably come up occasionally, especially if this slots into more controlling decks.

Wording errors:
- “That is not a [G] or [C] Pokémon” seems wrong. The pre-BW wording was excluding [type] Pokémon, sometimes between brackets. I’m not sure if this would need to be changed, and excluding definitely makes enough sense. It’s also still what is used for excluding Pokémon-EX.

Fonts and placement errors:
- The font for the HP seems a bit too wide.
- The retreat cost is a couple of pixels too far to the left.

Creativity/Originality: 16/20
(Very good use of Ancient Trait design space.)
Wording: 13/15
(One medium mistake.)
Fonts and Placement: 8/10
(2 mistakes.)
Believability/Playability: 5/5
(Seems fine.)
Total: 42/50

@Blui:

Spoiler: Absol

Dear mother of unnecessary rules complications, you’re combining the power/body split AND Ancient Traits? I assumed Ancient Traits were added to fill a gap created by the (-re)consolidation of power and bodies into Abilities. Adding them on top of bodies seems like overkill. It also makes it very hard for me to judge the era. Based on your previous entries, I’m assuming HS.

ɸ Revival seems interesting. It obviously serves a different purpose than similar effects in Magic, where it’s more of a downside. It’s not like there are a low of Discard Pile shenanigans going on in Pokémon. Being allowed to add one-offs to your deck without having to mitigate the risk of losing them halfway through the game is an interesting proposition, and could add some interesting deck building decisions. It definitely feels like a very plausible Ancient Trait.

Omen Scouter is missing necessary rules clarification. What happens if you discard a Pokémon Tool? Or a TM? Or a Fossil? Even an “if possible” would’ve helped. The only cards which have copied Trainer effects either had a lot of rules explanation (Sabrina’s Psychic Control) or only copied Supporters. I think only copying supporters would’ve been a better way of going about this effect. Supporters generally don’t come in a lot of shapes and sizes, usually have at least a relevant effect, and don’t often do weird things (think Super Scoop Up). I think you might’ve also wanted to include the word “may” in there, unless you wanted this to be risky (think cards like Judge, Mr. Briney’s Compassion, etc.).

In terms of power level this also feels too strong. Copying trainers can be very useful (you essentially draw an extra trainer every few turns, every 2 turns on average in a competitive setting, which is nice), but the biggest thing here is that you can essentially lock your opponent out of drawing trainer cards for the rest of the game. More than 1 Absol seems like it would be one of the most effective locks since Neo Slowking. I think having this power only work if Absol is active might be better. I really like the idea and flavour here, but the execution seems flawed.

Guarding Blade seems nice, and can be a nice way of stopping oppressive trainers. It also makes Absol a slightly better lock Pokémon, I’m not sure if this is good or bad.

Wording errors:
- As previously mentioned, Omen Scouter is missing some necessary rules clarification, which is sadly -3.

Fonts and placement errors:
- “Basic” looks kind of blurry, I’m not sure what’s up with that.
- Everything else is within acceptable parameters.

Creativity/Originality: 17/20
(Fun Ancient Trait, creative power. (never thought I’d use those 2 in the same sentence))
Wording: 12/15
(One major mistake.)
Fonts and Placement: 9.5/10
(-.5 for blurriness.)
Believability/Playability: 2/5
(Some power level issues, and some complexity issues.)
Total: 40.5/50

@Zygarde & @Otaku:

Spoiler: Snorlax

That Ability reminds me of a Magic card called “Treasure Hunt”, which is essentially only used for combo decks. I don’t think this is quite as abusable, though maybe I’m just not thinking about it hard enough. It does seem like a very interesting drawback for what would otherwise be a very strong Ability. Replacing the “You can’t use more than 1” clause for this Ability with simply knocking out both Pokémon is definitely interesting. It might on the surface seem far worse than the alternative, especially since you can’t attach Energy to a Benched Snorlax in case the Active one would get Knocked Out, but it’s actually a pretty deep effect, since it provides an emergency exit when you’re about to deck yourself. Very interesting design choice.

Feeding Frenzy feels like a nice counterbalance to Carb Loading, and it turns the game into a rather interesting new subgame where you’re trying to keep your Snorlax alive long enough to deck your opponent without milling yourself to death in the process. Overall a very creative take on milling and a very flavourful take on snorlax.

It’s very hard to judge the power of this card, but it definitely feels like it completely changes the rules of the game. That can be a fun thing in small doses, though nobody would want this card to be dominant.

Wording errors:
- “Between turns” should be “At any time between turns”.
- I think this needs to say “all other revealed cards.
- Abilities refer to themselves by name, not as “this ability”.

Fonts and placement errors:
- As far as placement can be judged, everything seems to be in order.

Creativity/Originality: 19/20
(Great flavour, neat effects, creative use of design space, very well done.)
Wording: 11/15
(2 minor errors and 1 medium error.)
Fonts and Placement: 10/10
(Seems fine.)
Believability/Playability: 4.5/5
(A cautious -0.5 since it does seem a bit out there.)
Total: 44.5/50

@PMJ & @Athena:

Spoiler: Dedenne

That’s some trippy art right there. Copy-pasting the official Iapapa art makes it look a bit out of place, though.

Fairy Guard feel pretty Mr. Mime-ish (come to think of it, why didn’t you make a Mr. Mime card?), but I guess the flavour fits Fairy Pokémon in general as well. I’m not sure “Fairy Guard” is a very fitting name for an attack which also does 20 damage, but considering the TCG itself doesn’t know what “guard” means either, I guess I can let this slide.

Short Circuit is pretty funny in terms of flavour. It’s elegant and does what it needs to do, very nice.

Wording errors:
- You use “any abilities” and then “that ability”, which seems like a mis-match.

Fonts and placement errors:
- Everything seems to be roughly in the right place.

Creativity/Originality: 15/20
(Flavourful and elegant.)
Wording: 14/15
(Mixing plural and singular.)
Fonts and Placement: 10/10
(Seems fine.)
Believability/Playability: 5/5
(No problems here.)
Total: 44/50

@professorlight:

Spoiler: Luvdisc

The flavour behind Date Night is understandable if a bit creepy. The power level isn’t quite as obvious. Only having 60 HP hurts it, but being able to shuffle away your opponent’s Active Pokémon sounds like a pretty nice proposition. An army of these things could quite quickly rid your opponent of her entire team. Assuming a bit of luck, you can shuffle away your opponent’s Active Pokémon without them even getting a turn, something the TCG has tried to rid itself since the BW rules changed. And once you shuffle away a Luvdisc after your turn, you can always send in a new one and hope to shuffle away your opponent’s new Active Pokémon when after your opponent’s turn. This in general feels like a very swingy and very unfun effect. I’m not sure I can condone it.

Soothing Spray is nice. Symmetrical healing effects aren’t new, but they’re pretty nice. I think you can safely up this to 20 or 30 damage, though I guess making this card any better in conjunction with Date Night might not be such a good idea.

Wording errors:
- “Defending” isn’t capitalised.
- “Must” hasn’t appeared on a card since before BW, so I think “your opponent shuffles […]” is correct here. Same goes for you have to shuffle.
- In what scenario would healing from a Pokémon without any damage counters on it do anything? “with damage counters on them” is superfluous here.

Fonts and placement errors:
- Seems fine.

Creativity/Originality: 14/20
(Flavour is nice.)
Wording: 9/15
(A minor and some bigger wording errors.)
Fonts and Placement: 10/10
(Custom blank.)
Believability/Playability: 2/5
(Very unfun.)
Edit Penalty: -2
Total: 33/50

@xaej806:

Spoiler: Sudowoodo EX

Pseudo Wood Wall, while a very weird name, is a pretty neat concept. If you had some way of consistently reducing retreat costs this might be slightly problematic, but I think it’s fine. Seems like a fun build-around effect, being able to protect otherwise vulnerable attacks and all.

Rock Return has some nice synergy with the Ability, which is good, but other than that is a pretty standard attack. It does seem very appreciate here, though the flavour may be a bit weird.

Wording errors:
- Forgot a comma between “turn” and “when”.
- I don’t think attacks “target”. I think it you should have said that Sudowoodo EX becomes the new Active Pokémon before damage is dealt, which would functionally make it the target without introducing new terminology.

Fonts and placement errors:
- There is no white outline for the Energy Symbols.
- The text of the Ability and the attack don’t line up.
- The size of the “x2” is a pixel too big.
- The retreat Cost symbols are too far to the left.
- In general the card is very pixeley, you’re either using very odd image editing software or your settings are off. All of this also makes it very hard to judge placements for me.

Creativity/Originality: 15/20
(Fun Ability, good synergy.)
Wording: 12/15
(2 errors, one of them minor.)
Fonts and Placement: 5/10
(4 mistakes and 1 general issue.)
Believability/Playability: 5/5
(Seems fine.)
Total: 37/50

@RedArceus:

Spoiler: Absol

Yes, I do vaguely recognise the shape of Absol in that weird assortment of lines. This is neat and fancy and all, but it feels like a bit much. I get that there’s a precedent for wacky foils, but I don’t think this is really the place to do it.

Identify a Disaster (while perhaps a bit of a hyperbole) is quite a fun mechanic. Anything which hates on Pokémon-EX is fine in my book, and this does an exceptional job at it. I do have power level concerns. The Ability being stackable makes a very scary threat in large numbers. If you manage to get 4 of these in play, you’ll deal a cool 120 damage to any new Pokémon-EX. Poor Mew EX never stood a chance. Since Absol is a viable starter Pokémon, it’s not unimaginable for someone to play the full 4, and try to play them all against any EX-focussed decks. Anything higher than 30 would’ve definitely been problematic, but a maximum of 120 is sort of acceptable. Not making the Ability stack would’ve probably been better, though. I also feel I need to point out that I like that this card forces you to not play any Pokémon-EX yourself. We wouldn’t want you to be a hypocrite.

First Aid makes sure that this card is never completely pointless even against EX-less decks. It’s not super exciting, but it does suit the design and purpose of the card very well. I’m not sure “First Aid” as a name fits the attack very well, or Absol at all. It’s worth noting that the name has been used before, on a Promo Jigglypuff from way back, with a much more suitable effect. I would’ve gone with more of a prophecy flavour here, which would compliment both the Ability and the Pokédex entry. Also, the attack is functionally equivalent to “Future Sight”, which also uses the prophecy flavour.

Wording errors:
- I feel the Ability is missing “from his or her hand onto his or her Bench”, which is a clause which is always included when referencing playing a Pokémon. The Ability now also happens when your opponent Mega-Evoles a Pokémon-EX, which seems like it might be confusing. Since I’m not sure this is a rules clarification error, I’ll only deduct 2 point for missing text and not the 3 for a mistake in rules clarification.
- The attack is missing the words “ on top of that player's deck in any order”.

Fonts and placement errors:
- Seems fine. The energy symbols are a bit weird, though, and the rainbow foil effect thingy makes the text seem sort of washed out above and below the word “First”.

Creativity/Originality: 15/20
(Fun way of hosing Pokémon-EX.)
Wording: 11/15
(2 wording errors.)
Fonts and Placement: 10/10
(Seems fine.)
Believability/Playability: 4/5
(Some power level concerns.)
Total: 40/50

@kachitta:

Spoiler: Tate’s Solrock

I must say I really like the look of this card, it’s sad I don’t get to give points for that yet.

ψ Shard feels a bit odd, since it could easily be part of an attack. I don’t think it breaks any Ancient Trait rules, but I’m not sure I’m a huge fan of it. I don’t think it would enable a dedicated mill strategy, in which case it’s just some weird bonus.

“Calm Mind” is a very clearly defined move within the TCG: it heals damage. This doesn’t do that, so it should have a different name. Call for Family has been a staple of the TCG since its inception. Not the most creative effect, but it does turn any Pokémon into a decent early gale play.

Missing Gear adds the expected Lunatone-requiring effect. Discarding all Pokémon tools is definitely a big upside, but feels a bit too hit—and-miss for this to be a build-around. It’s pretty interesting that it allows your opponent to have Liza’s Lunatone for this to work. I’m not sure how that would play, though, and it seems easy to miss.

While there’s definitely some synergy between Calm Mind and Missing Gear, the card in general feels pretty disconnected. Having simple effects is fine, as long as it forms a cohesive whole, which this doesn’t really do.

Weakness to Metal is a bit weird. Rock Pokémon normally don’t get weakness to Metal unless they also happen to be Fairy or Ice type. Having the card itself be Psychic isn’t really helping either. Resistance to Psychic is perhaps even worse. That’s also reserved for 2 specific types: Steel and Dark, but more importantly resistance usually denotes immunity in the games rather than being not very effective. The distribution of Weaknesses and Resistances is pretty well-defined, and there’s usually no need to try and be different here.

Wording errors:
- None I can find.

Fonts and placement errors:
- Everything looks like it’s in the right place.

Creativity/Originality: 13/20
(Nothing truly interesting or new.)
Wording: 15/15
(Seems good.)
Fonts and Placement: 10/10
(Seems fine.)
Believability/Playability: 4/5
(Weird weakness and resistance.)
Total: 42/50

@Alexander Degtyarev:

Spoiler: Shuckle EX

Okay, that art is super cute and hilarious. I wish I could increase your score for it.

Slow Fermentation seems like a pretty neat control effect. There really isn’t much of a trade-off here, since 10HP probably isn’t to not make one base their decision on whether or not the opponent can use their top card effectively. I don’t think the coin flip was needed here, it would still be unfun enough for your opponent, but at least it would be consistently so. Being locked out by coin flips always feels so much worse.

Substitute is bonkers. Any kind of consistent heal effect and you can essentially lock out your opponent if they can’t snipe, don’t have a Gust of Wind type effect and aren’t using an alternative win condition. I feel I’ve had to mention this a couple of times in the feedback this round: effects which shut down the standard win condition in Pokémon are not particularly fun or believable.

Everything else seems fine.

Wording errors:
- “As long as this Pokémon is your Active Pokémon” should be “if this Pokémon is your Active Pokémon”.

Fonts and placement errors:
- The name font seems too small.
- The HP is too far to the left.
- The font for the HP is too wide.
- The Energy Symbols are the wrong ones, the symbol itself shouldn’t be touching the edges.
- No white outline for the Energy symbols
- The size for Ability symbol thing seems off.
- The retreat cost is a bit too far to the left.
- The font for the info at the bottom of the card seem too small.
- The card in general seems a bit blurry.

Creativity/Originality: 14/20
(Flavour is fine.)
Wording: 13/15
(1 error.)
Fonts and Placement: 1/10
(A lot of mistakes, but a nice effort.)
Believability/Playability: 2/5
(Problematic)
Total: 30/50

@Jabberwock:

Spoiler: Tropius EX

Nutritional Harvest is a very flavourful Ability, and surprisingly deep. The coin flips make it a bit swingy, but potentially being able to use 2 berries between turns can be quite good, and might encourage one to get as wide a collection of Berries in their discard pile as possible. Very cool design.

Strong Winds looks strong. 80 for 2 Energy is a lot without any hoops to jump through. There are cards which have a comparable damage output, but 80 for 3 would still be roughly above average for most Pokémon-EX. Then there’s it having an upside rather than a downside. Being able to remove a Pokémon of your choice is certainly not nothing. It punishes your opponent for over-extending, so it’s fair in that regard, but being added to what is already probably a higher-than-acceptable damage output might make this too strong. If your opponent had the choice of which Pokémon to shuffle away, this might’ve been a lot fairer and more interesting gameplay-wise.

Wording errors:
- Seems fine.

Fonts and placement errors:
- I think the HP font might be a pixel too tall, it seems too wide as well.
- Text should start at around where the symbol inside the first Energy symbol starts, not at the edge of the Energy symbol itself. So the text is a pixel or 2 too far to the right.

Creativity/Originality: 16/20
(Interesting Ability, nice flavour.)
Wording: 15/15
(Seems fine.)
Fonts and Placement: 8/10
(2 mistakes.)
Believability/Playability: 4/5
(Power creep.)
Total: 43/50

@Joshi44:

Spoiler: Unown !

“Watch Out!” seems fun. It sort of challenges your opponent to take you down in one hit (which shouldn’t be much of a problem considering Unown only has 60 HP). What is problematic, though, is the way this combines with “[!] Ghost”. Cards like Robot Subsitute or Clefairy Doll don’t do any damage, and the various Shedinja with similar effects require energy to deal damage. This requires neither. All this asks of you is to keep it coming back. Since Ancient Traits can’t be stopped, there’s also no effective answers for it. Shedinja/old Fossil based stall decks have existed in quite a few different iterations, and they’ve never truly been dominant. I think a basic which is a Pokémon and not a Trainer, and which has both somewhat acceptable HP and a very relevant Ability might be able to change that. I will acknowledge that it requires being damaged, but all that really does is make it ineffective against certain decks, it does not weaken it against the “default” deck in Pokémon, which aims to do damage and win the game that way.

Hidden Power seems powerful. You can’t really “replace” Computer Search with a card which can be a 4-of, and I don’t think this replaces it anyway. What this does is let you set up a consistent game plan rather than simply searching for a silver bullet or a missing piece, and Unown being essentially a free Pokémon means the risk involved is minor. While it might not be busted, it does greatly reduce variance, which isn’t always the most fun experience. Its power would depend on the power level of the format, and on how fast the format is, but it does seem like a very viable starter.

Wording errors:
- Seems fine.

Fonts and placement errors:
- There’s no white outline on the Energy symbols.
- The placement for the retreat cost seems off.
- The HP is too far to the left, and there’s too mcuh space between “HP” and “60”

Creativity/Originality: 13/20
(A rather creative combination of rather bland effects.)
Wording: 15/15
(Seems fine.)
Fonts and Placement: 7/10
(Some placement errors.)
Believability/Playability: 4/5
(Some power level concerns, depending on the meta it lands in.)
Edit Penalty: -2
Total: 37/50

@JC-Dez:

Spoiler: Mawile

Another Bite is quite a neat Ability. It helps quite a bit in dedicated mill decks, and having support Pokémon around is always nice. I’m not sure how powerful it would be. It essentially becomes a Durant which works for every milling attack, which considering Durant was already quite powerful might make it problematic. It all kind of depends on what kind of cards are in the format, though.

Lockjaw is pretty straightforward. It does what it does, the flavour is obvious (which is good), not sure what else to say.

Wording errors:
- I think it’s fine.

Fonts and placement errors:
- Seems roughly correct.

Creativity/Originality: 13.5/20
(Nice support, but everything else is pretty bland.)
Wording: 15/15
(Seems fine.)
Fonts and Placement: 10/10
(Seems fine.)
Believability/Playability: 4/5
(Possible power lever concerns.)
Total: 42.5/50

@TheEpicBidoof:

Spoiler: Lapras EX

80 is a quite a lot of damage for 2 Energy, 120 is insane. This is broken.

Sheer Cold is pretty strong as well. 150 for 4 is also a lot, the upside is pretty immense as well.

I’m not sure what else to say. You don’t have to go big, but you do have to be creative. I’m afraid you did exactly the opposite.

Wording errors:
- “Energy”, “Benched” and “Pokémon” should be capitalised.
- I’m still going to have to deduct a point for missing the “é” in Pokémon.

Fonts and placement errors:
- You’re missing the white outlines for everything.
- The Energy symbols are too large for weakness/retreat cost.
- The damage doesn’t align with the end of the text.
- The text of the attacks should be justified.
- the “x2” looks weird.
- Font sizes and Energy symbol sizes in general seem off.
- The EX symbol is wrong.
- The Bottom text font seems wrong.
- You’re not using the CaC set symbol.

Creativity/Originality: 8/20
(Nothing new or exciting.)
Wording: 11/15
(A few capitalisation errors.)
Fonts and Placement: 1/10
(Quite a few mistakes.)
Believability/Playability: 2/5
(Overpowered.)
Edit Penalty: -2
Total: 20/50

@GreninjaTheNinja:

Spoiler: Kangaskhan

Parenting Help is… confusing. It adds a barrier of entry to the TCG, since one would have to know what Pokémon can and cannot evolve. Also, do Mega Evolutions count? Because if that’s the case, Kangaskhan technically can’t attack. Unless you consider only legal cards and not potential cards, in which case it can, since there’s no non-EX Mega Kangaskhan. So yeah, there are some rules issues here.

Power-level wise it seems abusable. Stall decks which aren’t all too interested in attacking anyway could seriously abuse this effect. And just in general locking out the win condition of most decks (do damage) falls under the category of “not fun”. I get the flavour you’re going for, but the execution is far too radical.

Evoloution [sic] Punch is interesting. We’ve had attacks which search for an evolution before, but I don’t think we’ve ever had one which deals damage. That still doesn’t make it too much of an innovation, however. The flavour is also a bit (read: very) weird.

Wording errors:
- “Basic” and “Abilities” should be capitalised.
- “Opponents” should be “opponent’s”, “cannot” should be “can’t”,
- Unless I’m missing some weird pun, “Evoloution” should be “Evolution”.
- The attack should mention the fact that the card you’re looking for is a Pokémon card.
- You missed the colons after “HT” and “WT” in the info bar. You also forgot the inches symbol and a full stop after “lbs”.
- You’re also missing necessary rules clarification, which is -3.

Fonts and placement errors:
- Placement of the name is wrong.
- The HP is too big.
- The font for the information is too big, as is the font for “x2”.
- The Ability and Energy symbols are too far to the right.
- And on top of this, the text is too far to the left.
- The text font seems way off, but that may just be because it’s not anti-aliased.
- The damage is not aligned with the attack name.
- The Pokédex entry text all doesn’t change indentation.
- The rarity symbol is too far to the right.
- The illustrator font is wrong.

Creativity/Originality: 13/20
(Heart in the right place, but could use some work.)
Wording: 4/15
(Lots of mistakes.)
Fonts and Placement: 0/10
(Same.)
Believability/Playability: 1/5
(Too much rules baggage and probably pretty oppressive.)
Total: 18/50

@AceRangerKaru:

Spoiler: Seviper

Strong Wrap… isn’t particularly creative, I would say. Also, wrap usually paralyses in the TCG, I don’t see why “Strong Wrap” shouldn’t. 30 for 1 Energy on a non-EX Basic is definitely on the high.

Blood Cutoff, aside from probably not being very appropriate (I don’t think I’ve ever seen blood mentioned in an attack before), seems a bit weird in combination with the first attack. They seem like 2 very different goals: fast beatdown and slow, grindy mill. 3 Energies for a non-damaging attack means you must be pretty dedicated to keeping this thing alive somehow.

Wording errors:
- Not a lot of wording here, so this seems fine.

Fonts and placement errors:
- The Energy symbols are so small it’s kind of cute.
- Attack name placement is way off.
- Same with the Energies, though it’s kind of hard to judge.
- Font for the attack seems wrong.
- The font for the “x2” seems wrong.
- Retreat cost placement is wrong, and it also looks like it’s too big.
- Illustrator is too far to the left.
- The font for the Pokédex entry seems wrong.

Creativity/Originality: 9/20
(Pretty basic stuff, anti-synergy.)
Wording: 15/15
(Yup.)
Fonts and Placement: 1/10
(Plenty of mistakes)
Believability/Playability: 4/5
(Somehow doesn’t strike me as perfectly believable.)
Total: 29/50

3rd Place: Jabberwock’s Tropius EX, with 43/50 points.
2nd Place: PMJ & Athena’s Dedenne, with 44/50 points.
1st Place: Zygarde & Otaku’s Snorlax, with 44.5/50 points.

Judge: @Heavenly Spoon

 

[Ice Arceus]

Text-Based Results

@NintendoAlian:

Spoiler: Heracross

Heracross - Grass - HP: 100
Basic

Ability: Swarm
All of your Pokémon (excluding Pokémon-EX) do 20 more damage to your opponent’s active Pokémon.

[G][G] Rescue Horn 60
Shuffle 5 in any combination of Pokémon and basic Energy from your discard pile to your deck.

Weakness: Fire
Resistance:
Retreat: 2

That Swarm attack is broken. It’s not a hard task to drop 4 Heracross and increase your damage output by a whooping 80! That’s a world where Magikarp can 1-hit KO Charizard-EX, Nincada can 1-hit KO Seismitoad and Tynamo can 1-hit KO Yveltal-EX. Flavourwise, the effect and attack name feel a bit loosely connected (I assume you're swarming and thus helping the active but then that seems a bit weird). Just noting that this ability is very similar to Machamp FuF's ability.

Rescue Horn is pretty average. Fishing Pokemon and/or energy from the discard isn’t really something abnormal (see Super Rod), and Rescuing is a fairly common flavour. I’m not sure if I would want to be rescued by a horn, but whatever, it’s a funny prospect. The damage is a little high on comparison with other Heracross cards (heck even the EX doesn’t do that much for two energy :/), and that’s not considering the extra 80 damage buff. I do question the energy cost, but I guess its justified with the ability to do 140 damage plus have a good effect. What I do like is the very subtle synergy - rescuing your fellow Heracross to constantly spam your Swarm.

Wording errors:
- “active” should be capitalised as “Active”
- “All” should be “Each”
- “To” should be “into”
- Should be “basic Energy cards” not “basic Energy”. “Cards” is only not used when the Energy is attached to something.
- Clarification needed for when the extra 20 damage is applied. Probably should be (before applying Weakness and Resistance).

Creativity/Originality: 13/20
(Some synergy and fairly flavourful)
Wording: 8/15
(Minor errors and clarification error.)
Believability/Playability: 9/15
(Broken. Every non-EX deck has suddenly become viable.)
Total: 30/50

@Scorched Feathers:

Spoiler: Luvdisc

Luvdisc – Water – HP70
Basic

Ability: Love Letter
Once during either player's turn, when a Pokémon is Knocked Out, each player may search his or her deck for a card, reveal it to his or her opponent, and put it into his or her hand. Each player shuffles his or her deck afterward. Discard this Pokémon. You cannot use more than one Love Letter ability per turn.

[W] Water Show: 10 damage. Draw cards until you have 6 cards in your hand.

Weakness: Lightning (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 1

Luvdisc’s heart-shaped body is a symbol of love and romance. It is said that any couple meeting this Pokémon is promised a loving relationship that never ends.

If you’re going with Lightning Weakness, then I assume you’ve written in a BW format, or you’ll get penalised for the wrong Weakness. So here we go.

When I first read Love Letter (fun name btw), I immediately thought of Manaphy PLS. However, on second glance, the two are actually quite different. I like how Luvdisc is nuked a little by simply helping out your opponent, despite normally helping you more than your opponent as you presumably have more one-of techs to search for in a deck you include this card in. It does seem a inconsistent that KOs happening in between turns don’t do anything. Flavourwise, the ability strikes me as odd. Do you send love letters to your opponent when he kills your Pokemon? And then you discard the letter or something?

Looking at the ruling side, what happens if this Luvdisc is KOd? You can’t discard it as part of the ability, because the Luvdisc is technically already discarded because of the KO. Considering the believability, most abilities like this only activate by “damage from an opponent’s attack”, while revealing is bit of a weird choice since you only actually reveal cards to prove you’re not cheating (i.e.preventing one from taking an energy using Ultra Ball).

Water Show feels feels pretty typical. Most sets have some type of draw Pokemon like this, and it looks like an exact copy of the attack “Return”. I guess the flavour works, but is still weird - do you draw cards for the attendance of the show? I like how the attack works with the ability by saying ‘if you don’t KO me I get more cards, but if you do, I still get cards’, and overall feels subtly like you’re making your opponent use resources to KO you.

70HP was a bit of an interesting choice, especially considering all recent Luvdisc are 60HP. However, a Luvdisc from DP Platinum had 70HP, so I think it’s all cool. After all, DP was before the huge BW and huger XY power creep

Wording errors:
- “ability” should be capitalised as ‘Ability”
- I believe that “either” should be “each”. “Either” appears to be used only when a player must choose between himself/herself. In this case, Love Letter can be used in both players’ turns, and each player has no control over who’s turn the Ability activates in.
- “cannot” should be “can’t”
- “per” should be “each”
- “one” should be “1”
- “Discard this Pokemon” should say “Then, discard this Pokemon.”
- “reveal it to his or her opponent” really should be “reveal it”. The judge also needs to see the card after all
- Missing clarification on Luvdisc being KO’d. Probably should have the clause “even if this Pokemon is Knocked Out”.

Creativity/Originality: 14/20
(Weird flavour/effect shenanigans and fun ability. No wow factor.)
Wording: 5/15
(Lots of minor errors, a clarification error)
Believability/Playability:14/15
(A few weird flavour and wording structuring prevents me from giving a full mark here.)
Total: 33/50

@Rhesis:

Spoiler: Shuckle

Shuckle– Fighting – HP70
Basic Pokémon

Ability: Shellf-defense
Prevent all damage done to this Pokémon if that damage is 70 or more.

[F] Wrap 10: The Defending Pokémon can't retreat during your opponent's next turn.

[F][C] Shack a Mole. Whenever your opponent plays a Item card from his or her hand during his or her next turn, your opponent flips a coin. If tails, that card has no effect, put 20 damage in your opponent’s Active Pokémon. (Your opponent still discards that card.)

Weakness: Water (x2)
Resistance: None
Retreat: 1

Well, you just sent me on a wild goose chase to find the three different wordings for a possible ability like that Shellf-defense. The “prevent all damage” appears to be used when with the variable is unrelated to integers, while the “would be damaged by an attack” appears when there is an integer variable. But then again, “prevent all damage” is commonly used on abilities, while “would be damaged be an attack” has only been used on one ability. Since the effect is fairly novel, I’ll just go along with the “prevent all damage” path. You do need some clarification of when the damage is actually prevented, is after or before Weakness and Resistance?

Either you made a typo or you made a cool pun with Shellf-defense, but either way, it works well as flavour. Preventing large amounts of damage is fairly unique, and has certainly not been made into an ability before. It doesn’t feel too OP when considering most decks run Pokemon that can hit under 70, and it makes your opponent think about when - and how - they should invest their buffs and energy. You also would need to think of when you should put out the wall, which adds even more strategy.

Wrap is fairly boring, but does work well with the wall nature of Shuckle. Pull out your opponent’s Pokemon and lock them there with a painstaking 10 damage per turn until they find a Switch seems plausible . There is a technical problem with the attack name, however - attacks named “Wrap” will always do something about Paralyzing, making this attack a little less believable.

I never knew three words could contain such a fun and flavourful meaning! I’m not sure if you meant to write “Shack” over “Whack”, but either way it’s fun. I don’t really get the actual attack’s effect’s reference to the name. Are you whacking yourself every time your opponent uses an item? Or is your opponent whacking your Shuckle to prevent it from stealing your item? And then why is damage going onto your opponent’s Active and not Shuckle? I’m not sure if I like how similar this attack is to Venomoth PHF, but hey, it’s still different. There is a nice, similar synergy with Wrap - prevent your opponent from using their notorious Switch cards. In conjunction with Wrap, this card really forces you to think ahead about which attack to use each turn, which I like a lot.

Finally, the weakness is wrong. It should be [G] not [W], even though Shuckle is not weak to [G] in the games. It appears that TCG ignores secondary typings, as seen by [N] Dialga-EX.

Wording errors:
- “Shellf-defense” should be captilised as “Shellf-Defense” as abiding by the hyphen trends
- the “a” before “Item” should be “an” for grammatical reasons
- Should say “no effect and put” instead of “no effect, put”
- Should say “on” not “in”
- Should say “2 damage counters” not “20 damage”. You should be putting damage counters on the Pokemon as the damage is done during a turn, not as part of the attack’s damage calculations.
- Should say “by attacks” after “this Pokemon”
- Needs clarification on Weakness and Resistance, probably “(after applying Weakness and Resistance)”.


Creativity/Originality: 15/20
(Challenges a player's skill with synergy, flavour and adapted attacks and abilities.)
Wording: 4/15
(Minor errors, some major errors and a clarification error.)
Believability/Playability: 14/15
(Wrong weakness.)
Total: 33/50

@Vom:

Spoiler: Castform

Castform – Colorless – HP90
Basic

Advanced Forecast
If your opponent attaches an Energy card to his or her Pokémon for the second time this turn, you may use this Ability. If that Energy is [F] or [R], this Pokémon is now [W]. If that Energy is [G] or [M], this Pokémon is now [R]. If that Energy is any other type, this Pokémon is now [L]. These changes last until the end of your next turn.

[C][C][C] Weather Ball: 50+ damage.
If this Pokémon's type isn't [C], this attack does 50 more damage.

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
Resistance: None
Retreat: 1

I quite like this Castform. It feels like a very unique and a highly synergetic way to punish over acceleration of energy using its Weather Ball attack to exploit weakness. The card, of course, can be easily countered simply by not accelerating, but Castform’s synergy does allow the user to mess up the opponent’s strategy a little, and force them to be less reliant on acceleration. This forces both players to think further ahead in the game. I think there may be a little bit of discrepancy about attack-based acceleration, or attaching energy from attacks. I would have put either ‘before your opponent attacks’ or ‘from your opponent’s hand’ for maximum clarification, but it is really a necessity to the wording.

I feel the Weather Ball attack does a bit too much compared to other Castform - the possibility of 1-hit KOing EXs is alarming in the power creep department. Personally, I would’ve lowered the base damage to about 30 and lowered the increment to 40, or even 30.

Wording errors:
- ‘Changes’ should be ‘effects’. ‘Changes’ is nearly never used, and the changes are technically the ‘effects’ of the ability.
- The ‘until the end of your next turn’ should be located after each effect. Error x3
-’second time this turn’ should read ‘second time during his or her turn’. The turn is not during your turn after all.
- You need to specify exactly what those Energy symbols mean. To do this, 'this Pokémon is now' should read 'this Pokémon's type is now'. Error x3


Creativity/Originality: 17/20
(Great synergy and strategy combined with very creative effects.)
Wording: 6/15
(Multiple major errors and a few minor errors.)
Believability/Playability: 13/15
(Something feels wrong with that ability; probably the defining terms of energy acceleration. High power in comparison to other Castform.)
Total: 36/50

rainyman123:

Spoiler: Spiritomb

Sprititomb - Darkness - HP90
Basic
Ability: Special Madness
As long as this pokemon is in play, each special energy attached to all pokemon is [D] and provides [D] instead of its original type.
[D][C]Energy Beam: 10+ This attack does 10 more damage for each [D] attached to each of your pokemon,(excluding this pokemon).

Weakness: none
Resistance: none
Retreat: 1
Its constant mischief and misdeeds resulted in it being bound to an Odd Keystone by a mysterious spell.

Sprititomb does not exist. Is this a fusion of Spritzee and Spiritomb?

Interestingly enough, Special Madness is very similar to Light Dragonite from years and years agp, minus the effect blocker. Just so you know. I’m really two-sided on the ability. To me, it feels just a bit overpowered on a Basic Pokemon. Being able to attach a single DCE that can turn into a Double Dark Energy very easily is quite worrying, and would be staple in numerous dark (and colourless I guess) decks. You also manage to render most Special Energy your opponent uses useless, bar the effect, which is unfun due its droppable nature. For balancing, the ability effect would be appropriate on a Stage 1 (maybe) or Stage 2. Flavourwise, I don’t really get why you chose the ability name. Special Madness honestly seems like something for a more frantic Pokemon, and doesn’t feel like the best name for a hexing, cursing, ghostly Pokemon like Spiritomb. Something like Special Hex or Special Keystone would carry a lot more flavour.

The ability has obvious synergy the attack, allowing you to use a variety of accelerators with Special Energy to both take advantage of their extra effects, or in the case of DCE, power up your attack quicker. Same with the ability, I think you could have done a bit more with the attack flavour. I find it interesting how you decided to exclude energy attached to Spiritomb in the calculations, especially considering the BW/XY power creep... but not too much power is good in my opinion.

90HP is too high, especially on a utility /and/ possible attacking Pokemon like this. All Spiritomb have HP that ranges 60-70, and this the bracket you should’ve stayed in.

Wording errors:
- ‘special energy’ should be captilised as ‘Special Energy’
- ‘pokemon’ should be ‘Pokémon’. Error x4
- ‘each special energy’ should be ‘all special energy’
- ‘all pokemon’ should be ‘each pokemon’
- ‘attached to each’ should be ‘attached to all’
- ‘original’ should be ‘usual’
- ‘its’ should be ‘their’
- There ‘should be no comma after ‘pokemon’.
- ‘pokemon is [D] and provides [D] instead of its’ should say ‘pokemon are [D] and provides [D] instead of their’.
- ‘is [D]’ should be ‘is [D] Energy’. ‘[D]’ is short for ‘Darkness’ not ‘Darkness Energy’. Error x3
- ‘Sprititomb’ does not exist.
- There should be a ‘(both yours and your opponent’s)’ clause after ‘to all pokemon’.


Creativity/Originality:12/20
(Synergy and some originality.)
Wording: 0/15
(Constant minor errors and a few major errors; ‘Sprititomb’ does not exist.)
Believability/Playability: 13/15
(Large HP with a potentially very powerful ability that could be unfun for the opponent.)
Edit Penalty -2
Total: 23/50

@TheMaskedMeowth:

Spoiler: Klefki

Klefki – Fairy – HP60
Basic
Θ Guard: Prevent all effects of attacks, including damage, done to this Pokemon by Pokemon-EX.
[Y] Fairy Wind: 30 damage. Return this Pokemon and all cards attached to it to your hand.
[Y][Y][C] Lock In: 60 damage. Your opponent may not play any Trainer cards from his or her hand during his or her next turn.
Weakness: Metal (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-20)
Retreat: 1

This card looks simply like a cut and past of three different effects loaned from Sigilyph LT, Shaymin-EX ROS and Seismitoad-EX with some synergy. But into each effect individually.

I’m not sure if I like the Ancient Trait. ATs effectively should be less powerful and simple abilities. An EX wall is very powerful, especially in current format. Also, this becomes a huge obstacle for EXs, which is not necessarily a bad thing, who could originally get rid of Safeguarders through blocking the ability, which is not possible with ATs.

Fairy Wind is generic, however, kudos in using a normally bland effect in a synergetic (or anti-synergetic) way. Whenever your opponent brings out a non-EX, wisp out your frail Klefki for a different wall. But then again, you have to be careful when you Fairy Wind. Why? You won’t be able to use your powerful Lock In if you keep on returning the Klefki into your hand (although with Aromatisse XY this is disputable). Just a note: the attack “Fairy Wind” does exist in TCG, and is traditionally effectless, and I think you could have chosen a different and slightly more flavourful name.

Once again, I’m two-minded about Lock In. If you can get that setup (which is not impossible with the XY format’s energy acceleration), it is ridiculously powerful. Preventing all, as in every single Item, Stadium and Supporter card, is absurd through an effect that honestly cannot be stopped when it has started. The walling AT makes this attack even more scarier. Once your opponent’s EX deck is locked, your opponent will literally need to go into top deck mode. To find what? Something that can actually beat the Klefki, which is probably located in one fifteenth of your EX-based deck.

Oh, and you have the wrong resistance. It should be Darkness.

Wording errors:
- ‘Pokemon’ should be ‘Pokemon’. The accent is important! Error x3.
- ‘may not’ should be ‘can’t’. After all, your opponent shouldn’t have a choice

Creativity/Originality: 13/20
(Synergetic and flavourful stuff.)
Wording: 12/15
(Minor errors.)
Believability/Playability: 8/15
(Scarily powerful combination, wrong resistance and incorrect use of Ancient Trait.)
Total: 33/50

@Ms Hugo:

Spoiler: Heatmor

Heatmor – Fire – HP110
Basic

Ability: Spicy Appetite
Once during your turn (before your attack), you may discard a [R] energy from your hand to search your deck for a Durant, reveal it, and place it on your Bench. Shuffle your deck afterward.

[R][R][C] Explosive Feast: 40+ damage. Does 40 damage plus 30 for each Durant on your Bench. Then, discard those Durant cards (your opponent does not take a prize for any).

Weakness: Water (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 2

I really like the flavour that runs with this Heatmor - very creative and fun names, that work perfectly with the effects! The ability synergy here is very nice, being able to fuel the card's own attack through the ability. I don't really think the spammable nature of the ability is a problem, as sooner or later, you're going to run out of energy. Synergy-wise, the only thing I’d be worried about is how your ability becomes redundant after incinerating all of those poor Durant, and would need an outside source to run again.

I do question the whole way you wrote the second attack. Should you discard the Durant and then do the damage? This feels like it coincides better with current wording. Looking at the attack power, I honestly think it is very well balanced. There is a lot of set up needed to do that maximum of160 damage, meaning it is pretty unlikely that you are going to hit consistent high numbers.

I also question your choice of HP. 110 seems like quite a lot compared to other Heatmor, which are normally 90HP. A wish I could give this a higher score, but sadly your wording lets you down. Be sure to check wording next time!

Wording errors:
- The ‘(before you attack)’ clause should be italicised. Yes, that is important here.
- You don’t need to reveal a card when you are putting it onto your bench.
- You ‘put’ cards onto your bench, not ‘place’.
- ‘on your Bench’ should be ‘onto your Bench’.
- You don’t need to tell me to me the attack does 40 damage as I can tell that from the base damage.
- It is not a ‘[R] energy’ until it is attached to a Pokemon, otherwise it is an ‘[R] Energy Card’. This means that thing you discard should be a ‘[R] energy card’.
- XY-on always writes ‘This attack does’ instead of a plain ‘Does’.
- After ‘from your hand’ there should be a full stop. Then there should be an ‘If you do, search’ afterwards.
- ‘your opponent does not take a prize for any’ should read ‘those Pokémon don’t count as Knocked Out Pokémon.’
- You need to specify what this ‘30’ is that you speak of. As in, you need to mention it is ‘30 damage’.
- Clarification on what do I do with the cards attached to Durant? Do I discard them? (i.e. should say ‘discard those Durant and all cards attached to them’).

Creativity/Originality: 18/20
(Highly synergetic attacks that works extremely well with flavour.)
Wording: 0/15
(Numerous minor and major errors, and a clarification error.)
Believability/Playability: 14/15
(High HP.)
Total: 32/50

@Cheeriox:

Spoiler: Druddigon-EX

Druddigon EX – Dragon – HP180
Basic Pokémon

Ability: Tough Skin
Any damage done to this Pokémon by an opponent’s attack is reduced by 50

[R] [W] [C] Dragon Tail: 90 damage. Flip a coin. If heads switch your opponent Active Pokémon with 1 of his or her Benched Pokémon. If tails, your opponent’s Active Pokémon is Paralysed.

Weakness: Fairy (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat: 3

When a Pokémon-EX has been Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.

Cool, a Tough Skin ability. Pretty typical and expected with the flavour, reducing damage like a boss. However, you probably should have mentioned when that damage is reduced. Is it before Weakness and Resistance or afterwards?

Dragon Tail doesn’t surprise me either. Generic flip a coin, heads do this, tails do this. However, I notice there are some slight synergy between that and the Ability, which you may or may not have noticed. What is it? Disruption. You switch your opponent around, messing up who they attack, stop your opponent in their tracks with Paralysis and troll around by taking less damage from the ability. Fun for you. Trivially, Dragon Tail in the TCG exists (on a Druddigon from Dragon Vault in fact) as a flip attack. However, I prefer your attack more than the real one.

Wording errors:
- The Paralyzed Special Condition follows American spelling. Therefore, “Paralysed” should be “Paralyzed”.
- It’s ‘if heads, switch’ not ‘if heads switch’. I’d like some breathing time :<
- It’s your ‘opponent’s Active Pokémon’ not your ‘opponent Active Pokémon’.
- Should be ‘Your opponent’s Active Pokémon is *now* Paralysed.’
- Technically, it should be ‘switch the Benched Pokemon with the Active’ due to using a ‘pull’ mechanism (you choose). The ‘push’ mechanism is when your opponent chooses, and is worded like you have.
- Missing clarification on when damage is reduced by Tough Skin. Is it before or after Weakness and Resistance?

Creativity/Originality: 12/20
(Some hidden synergy and flavourful stuff.)
Wording: 6/15
(A few minor errors and a major and a clarification error.
Believability/Playability: 15/15
(Looks all good to me.)
Total: 33/50

@Reggie McGigas:

Spoiler: Unown

[Basic] Unown HP 70 [P]
Г Xenoglossia: This Pokémon can use the attacks of your opponent's Active Pokémon. Treat the cost of the attack as [C][C][C].

Ability: Gobbledygook
If this Pokémon is your Active Pokémon, you may flip your deck upside down so the bottom card of the deck is on the top, facing front up. If this Pokémon is no longer your Active Pokémon, flip your deck right side up.

[P] Draw a Card
This attack does 20 damage to one of your opponent's Pokémon.

Weakness: [D]
Resistance:
Retreat: 1

Ancient scriptures can be found with Unown-style writing in many regions. However, in the Hoenn Region this is not the case as Braille is the main written language there.

Somewhat disappointing to see this Unown here again (despite being ever so slightly different) considering you posted it in your thread weeks back, but I’ll just have to remember my original thoughts. Not to hard, though, considering I haven’t seen the original for weeks now…

Wow, such creative names! Both Xenoglossia and Gobbledygook feel very simple but highly fun and sophisticated. Anyways, onto the Ancient Trait. Basically, I just don't think the effect feel right as an Ancient Trait effect, despite its novelty. ATs should be simpler and less powerful compared to abilities. It also feels very specific, unlike most ATs, which are general in flavour. This sorta defies all of them. Being able to use your opponent’s attacks can be very powerful (although setting that attack cost is sufficient in balancing), is fairly complicated and the flavour 'Xenoglossia' flavour just doesn’t seem to fit onto any other Pokemon (things like Wild could easily be put onto other Pokemon). Maybe Relicanth? Even that doesn’t feel right.

Gobbledygook is a very cool effect. Flipping your deck is a very, very unique, cool and plausable design space, and something I don’t ever think I’ve ever seen done before. My only concern is the lack of synergy the ability has with the rest of the card. I think you could’ve made some attack that would interact with the deck just so the Unown could actually make use of the upturned deck.

An attack named ‘Draw a Card’ that does damage to the bench? I am very confused. 70 HP does feel maybe a little too much, but does make sense considering the Unown’s requirement of staying Active. Also, wrong weakness. It should be [P].

Wording errors:
- ‘one’ should be ‘1’
- The ‘cost of the attack’ should be the ‘attack cost’.
- There needs to be a mentioning if Weakness and Resistance is applied, probs should be (Don’t apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokémon.).


Creativity/Originality: 18/20
(Creative and flavourful stuff. Confusing attack.)
Wording: 11/15
(A couple minor errors and a major error.)
Believability/Playability: 12/15
(Wrong weakness, incorrect use of the Ancient Trait mechanic.)
Total: 41/50

@thegroyvlekid:

Spoiler: Dedenne

Dedenne - Lightning - HP: 70
Basic
View attachment 8096
Ability: Chain Lightning
As long as Dedenne is your active Pokémon, each of this Pokémon's attacks do 10 more damage to your opponent's active Pokémon for each [L] Pokémon on your bench.

[L] Nuzzle 10
Flip a coin. If heads, the defending Pokémon is now Paralyzed.

Weakness: [F] x2
Resistance: [M] - 20
Retreat: 1

Chain Lightning. I must say I smiled when I read that flavourful attack name. I also find the ability quite balanced. Up to an extra 80 damage (through Skyfield) seems quite huge, but then again, the set up to get that buffer is quite significant. I do question why it really matters to have Dedenne has the Active for its ability to activate, but whatever.

Nuzzle, however, feels quite bland. A coin flip Paralysis is nothing overly special, especially as the Dedenne from Phantom Forces had the same attack name with the same effect /without/ base damage. There also seems to be no synergetic connection between the two effects.

Wording errors:
- ‘active Pokémon’ should be capitalised as ‘Active Pokémon’. Error x2
- ‘defending Pokémon’ should be capitalised as ‘Defending Pokémon’.
- ‘As long as Dedenne’ should be ‘as long as this Pokémon’.
- Missing clarification on when the ability buffer occurs. After or before Weakness and Resistance?

Creativity/Originality: 12/20
(Flavourful stuff.)
Wording: 8.5/15
(Minor errors and a clarification error.)
Believability/Playability: 15/15
(Nothing I can think of.)
Total: 35.5/50

@SeventhPrize:

Spoiler: Unown

Unown - Psychic - HP60
Basic

Ability: Greek Alphabet
As often as you like during your turn (before your attack), you may reveal a Pokémon in your hand. If that Pokémon has an Ancient Trait, put all Pokémon Tool cards attached to this Pokémon into your hand and attach that Pokémon to this Pokémon as a Pokémon Tool card. As long as this Pokémon has a Pokémon attached to it as a Pokémon Tool card, this Pokémon has that Pokémon’s Ancient Trait.

[P][P][C] Last Letter: 10+ damage. Reveal cards from the top of your deck until all cards in your deck have been revealed. Does 30 more damage if you didn’t reveal any Unown. If you have any Unown on your Bench, this attack does nothing.

Weakness: Psychic (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat Cost: 1

When alone, nothing happens. However, if there are two or more, an odd power is said to emerge.

Oh, another Unown! Greek Alphabet has an ability sounds interesting. Although Ancient Traits should be something that doesn’t interact with abilities, I actually don’t mind this ability. The interaction is quite passive and doesn’t really alter the actual AT, so I think it is fine… at least as a new design space. The Greek Alphabet name did ring some bells because of the direct reference to real life with ‘Greek’ (which doesn’t seem to ever happen in proper cards), but then again the AT letters are in fact Greek letters themselves. Noting the power level, I feel that this is not breakingly strong. Things like Plus, Barrage, Barrier, Wild and Growth would probably be the strongest, while things like Evolution and Double are effectively useless. My only worry is abilities that copy other abilities, which could make the effect broken.

On first glance, I really did think the 3 energy cost was quite excessive and unrealistic especially considering other Unown power levels. However, when I listed off relevant ATs I realised how many measures and thought processes you went through to achieve a balance. I feel revealing every card is somewhat impractical, which makes it difficult for me to give full points for believability. Flavour’s nice as well. The only thing that disappoints me is the lack of synergy the attack has with actual Ancient Traits. There is obvious measures for balancing, but there seems to be a lack of benefit. Growth appears to be the only thing that is overly synergetic, allowing you to attack a bit earlier.

Wording errors:
- It should be ‘until you reveal all cards in your deck’ instead of ‘until all cards in your deck has been revealed.’
- There should be a ‘This attack’ before ‘Does’.

Creativity/Originality: 17/20
(New design space and creativity with nice flavour.)
Wording: 11/15
(Two major errors.)
Believability/Playability: 14/15
(Possibly unrealistic ability name and possibly impractical attack is enough to take a point here.)
Total: 42/50

@Gengar master:

Spoiler: Miltank

Miltank - Colorless - HP110
Basic
Ability: Nurturing Milk: Once during your turn, as long as this Pokemon is your active Pokemon, you may heal 20 damage for each Miltank you have in play from one of your bench Pokemon.

[C] Spoiled Milk: 20 Damage. Flip a coin, if heads, the Defending Pokemon is now poisoned, if tails, this Pokemon is now poisoned. (This attack can be used even if Miltank is Asleep or Paralyzed)

[C][C][C] Continuous Rollout: Damage: 50x. Flip a coin for each Miltank on your bench, for each heads, this attack does 50 damage.

Resistance: None

Weakness: Fighting x2

Retreat: 2

Yay, Miltank gets some love! Nurturing Milk seems interesting, but nothing overly different, so not much to comment on. It seems powerful yet contained, with the potential to heal 80 damage, but probably not consistently.

Spoiled Milk has very nice flavour and gives the Miltank a bit of a niche with poison. I question why you can use the attack while Paralyzed and Asleep. I’d hope Miltank would give the personally… Anyway bar the flavour, the attack is quite simple and bland.

Continuous Rollout is that average, balanced attack. Nothing much to say.

Looking at the card in general, I think the energy is the only thing a bit off. 110 HP is just slightly higher than typical Miltank, which is a consistent 100 HP.

Wording errors:
- ‘active Pokemon’ should be capitalised as ‘Active Pokemon’
- ‘one’ should be ‘1’
- ‘Pokemon’ needs the accent; ‘Pokémon’. Error x4
- ‘poisoned’ should be capitalised as ‘Poisoned’. Error x2
- It is ‘Flip a coin. If heads…’ not ‘Flip a coin, if heads...’. Same error with ‘Flip a coin, if tails…’ meaning Error x2.
- There should be a ‘.’ after ‘poisoned’.
- It is ‘...bench. For each heads...’ not ‘...bench, for each heads…’
- There should be ‘.’ after ‘Paralyzed’.
- The last clause on ‘Spoilt Milk’ should say ‘this Pokémon’ instead of ‘Miltank’.
- The ‘as long as’ clause is only used when the effect is constantly in occurrence, not when an effect is supposed to be triggered. ‘if’ should be used instead.
- The ‘from one of your bench Pokemon’ clause should be located after ‘damage’ and before ‘for’.
- Miss clarification on when during the turn Nurturing Milk can be activated. Before you attack? [i.e. should say ‘(before you attack)’)

Creativity/Originality: 12/20
(Flavourful stuff.)
Wording: 0/15
(Lots of minor errors, a couple of major errors and a clarification error.)
Believability/Playability: 14.5/15
(Probably a bit too high HP.)
Edit Penalty -2
Total: 24.5/50

@Supa_Hot_Fire:

Spoiler: Audino

Audino - Colorless - HP70
Basic Pokémon

Ability: Fortify
As long as this Pokémon is on your Bench, both Active Pokémon have no Weakness.

[C][C] Healing Wish: Knock Out this Pokémon. When one of your Benched Pokémon replaces Audino in the Active position (excluding Pokémon-EX), you may remove all damage counters from that Pokémon.

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
Resistance: none
Retreat Cost: 2

It touches others with the feelers on its ears, using the sound of their heartbeats to tell how they are feeling.

Powerful, but not necessarily overpowered. That Fortify ability certainly would be used as a tech in decks that fear weakness, and perhaps is too splashable. However, one could argue Weakness is an overpowered/unfair mechanic, so possibly justified. Helping your opponent could be useful in the nuke, however you could simply not play it if your opponent will benefit, so the nuke is overall weakened. In the flavour boat, Fortify is a weird name choice. I got out my trusty dictionary to see the relevance of the ability name to Audino and ‘comforting emotions’ and stuff did come up, so I guess that’s fine. However, I do not see what Fortifying Audinos have to do with Weakness.

I really like the novelty Healing Wish, despite sending me on a wild goose chase to find appropriate wording. Brought me to Omega Barrage actually. Anyway, to the critique. Although healing all damage of a Pokemon is generally considered OP, I think you did well here. It costs a DCE/2 Energy and a prize to actually use, which is a quite large drawback. Flavourwise, pretty much perfectly in sync with the actually attack and Audino is a great Pokemon to showcase it.

Despite the creative attacks, I am concerned about the lack of synergy between the attack and the ability. As an all-out support card, it really would’ve been nice if the support complimented each other a bit better. In the department of HP, Weakness, Resistance and Retreat… all looks good.

Wording errors:
- ‘one’ should be ‘1’
- ‘Audino’ should be ‘this Pokémon’.
- The attack is novel so difficult to judge. However, I know the wording is not right (uses too many unique terms) so you lose a point. I think the wording should be “Knock out this Pokémon. Then, you may remove all damage counters from your new Active Pokémon.”

Creativity/Originality: 13/20
(Flavourful and somewhat synergetic.)
Wording: 12/15
(Minor errors.)
Believability/Playability: 14/15
(Weird flavour and powerful ability prevents me from giving full points here.)
Total: 39/50

@RedHatTrick:

Spoiler: Miltank

Miltank - HP100 - [C]
Basic

No. 241, Milk Cow Pokémon, HT: 3'11" WT: 166.4 lbs.

Ability:Special Milk
Anytime you attach a Special Energy card from your hand to one of your Pokémon, heal 30 damage from that Pokémon.

[C][C] Team Rollout 20+
If you control a Tauros, this attack does 60 more damage.

Weakness: [F] x2
Resistance:
Retreat Cost: [C][C][C]

Its milk is packed with nutrition, making it the ultimate beverage for the sick or weary.

I’m going to call you Emotional Trick from now on, in reference to the Red Thinking Hat.

Special Milk is interesting. Most decks will only run 4 Special Energy, and with limited ways to retrieve them, the ability feels quite limited and situational. 30 damage does not seem an overly large - or even significant amount - except… the ability is worded in such a way that it can stack. This means you can heal about 120 damage at one time, which is not an overly difficult task considering the Miltank is an easily droppable Basic. Originally I thought this was a little powerful, as it is technically possible to heal 480 damage in a single game, but then I realised that required an engine to constantly have Miltank out (difficult after KOs), a lot of bench space and a consistent draw of Special Energy, all fairly unlikely. It also can’t fully heal an EX in a single turn, which makes the ability much more balanced. Considering playability, I could imagine a fun a Recovery deck using this card, but nothing top tier or broken, just very, very powerful. Flavour is good too.

The attack effect is nothing too special. Many cards use the ‘If you have [X] in play’ mechanic, notable Lunatone and Solrock. I was originally going to call you out for lack of synergy, but there’s something I originally overlooked. With your ability, you can constantly keep your benched Tauros nice an healthy as well as powering it up for some big damage later. I’m wondering if the attack cost should be three like more recent Miltank, but two for 80 is not overly powerful. It can also be powered up by the DCE Special Energy which has even more synergy with the ability! Also, good flavour.

Wording errors:
- ‘one’ should be ‘1’
- ‘Anytime’ should be ‘Whenever’
- You don’t ‘control’ a Tauros. It should say ‘If Tauros is on your bench...’ instead of ‘If you control Tauros’.
- Kudos for correctly using the ‘Energy Card’ term.

Creativity/Originality: 14/20
(Intricately synergetic and flavourful.)
Wording: 11/15
(Two minor errors and a major error.)
Believability/Playability: 13/15
(Looks all good to me.)
Total: 38/50

@GM DracLord:

Spoiler: Joy Chansey

Joy Chansey 120 HP [C]
Basic Pokémon

[Egg Pokémon. Height 113 3'07" (1.1 m). Weight 76.3 lbs. (34.6 kg)]

Pokémon Power: Healing Touch
As long as Joy Chansey is your Benched Pokémon, remove up to 2 damage counters from your Active Pokémon between turns. This power stops working while Joy Chansey is Asleep,Confused, or Paralyzed or if there is another Joy Chansey in play..

[C][C][C] Back Away 40
Switch Joy Chansey with one of your Benched Pokémon.

weakness - [F]
resistance - [P] - 30
retreat cost - [C][C][C]
[Legend has it this Pokémon is the alpha of it's species. It brings joy and laughter to those around it.]

Oh, Base Set wording. Of course since I’m not as old as Spoon, I now need to go back and discover the old nostagia that I missed out on. Yay. Separate comment, I wish you’d explain exactly what the importance of ‘Joy’ is in front of the Chansey, and if it carries any new mechanic.

Healing Touch is overpowered, and that’s not only in Base Set. Even in XY, Healing Touch would be considered powerful - BW saw a Serperior with a similar ability but on a Stage 2 to balance! Besides, an ‘in between turns’ ability is nearly unseen during the Base Set era, and for good reason. The HP of typical Base Set Pokemon was abnormally low, allow for any in between turn healing and damaging often chipping away (or healing) a third to a quarter of a Pokemon’s HP at one time, for 10 damage. 20 damage in between turns (like this Chansey) then rises to a third to two thirds of a Pokemon’s HP. Put this on a Basic, and you have a card I certainly would use in each of my decks. Now, there is a balancing thing I find interesting. If your opponent has a Joy Chansey in play, your Joy Chansey won’t work. This essentially makes ‘first to get Joy Chansey out wins’ or a ‘if I don’t get Joy Chansey, then you get Joy Chansey’ types of scenarios, as you would expect with the staple nature of the card. These scenarios effectively create a never-ending loop of bluffs and double bluffs, trying to decide if Joy Chansey would be worth the space in your deck (or on your bench!) or not.

Back Away is pretty bland. Switching effects are not uncommon throughout each era. Power level feels fine to me. I see the synergy you have made between the attack and ability - if you somehow find your way as Active, you have a way to escape. Happy days.

That retreat cost (3) feels abnormally high compared to the Chansey from Base Set 2 (1).

Wording errors:
- There should not be another full stop (.) after the ‘in play.’
- There should also be a space ( ) after ‘Asleep,’.
- ‘one’ should be ‘1’
- In the Ability, I think it is ‘Benched’ not ‘your Benched Pokemon’.
- I think that’s all - Base Set is not my forte

Creativity/Originality: 13/20
(Flavourful and synergetic.)
Wording: 11/15
(A few minor errors.)
Believability/Playability: 9/15
(Effectively overpowered and unrealistic Retreat Cost choice.)
Total: 33/50

@AgentMFilms:

Spoiler: Smeargle

Smeargle-Colorless-HP60

Basic

α Growth: When you attach an Energy card from your hand to this Pokemon (except with an attack, Ability, or Trainer card), you may attach 2 Energy cards.

Ability: Color Palette- Once during your turn (before your attack), you may choose one of your Pokemon. Until the end of your opponent's next turn, any Basic Energy attached to that Pokemon provides every type of Basic Energy, but only 1 Energy at a time.

[C] Sketch: Use 1 of your opponent's Pokemon's attacks as this attack (you still need the necessary Energy required for that attack).

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
Resistance: None
Retreat Cost: 2

'It marks the boundaries of its territory using a body fluid that leaks out from the tip of its tail. Over 5,000 different marks left by this Pokémon have been found.'

The alarms are whirling on my analytical side on the choosing of an Alpha Ancient Trait, which are normally reserved for the sea dwellers, for a land-bound Smeargle. Buuuut, I think my creative side is saying ‘wynaut, there is always time for change’. Nothing overly special here, as a unoriginal ancient trait on its own is exactly that - an unoriginal ancient trait.

Color Palette is an interesting concept and relatively unexplored design space, bar the Hydreigon NV and a few similar effects of the past. However… I really think the multiple Pokemon design space was left unexplored for a reason. I feel the effect defies the point of energy costs if you can use any energy you’d like in conjunction with this splashable ability to power up your Pokemon. It also effectively allows the type-specific energy accelerators, such as Bronzong or Eels, to accelerate nearly anything, creating a bit of unbalance. Despite the technical side of things, the flavour is quite nice and the ability is certainly fun and opens up many combinations. I’ll get to the synergy after the attack.

I find Sketch a bit of an odd and somewhat obvious choice of an attack for Smeargle despite being its signature attack and think you could have been slightly more creative. The effect itself is not overly creative - it’s effectively a nuked Mega Gengar-EX or Kecleon PLF. However, there is something that balances this out - the synergy. All in all, the actual card strategy is quite sound and is certainly fun: attach two energy through the otherwise boring AT, change the energy into rainbow and exploit your opponent’s attacks without much problem.

The lower HP and higher retreat cost both strikes me as odd choices, but as there hasn’t been a Smeargle printed since ages, anything is honestly possible.

Wording errors:
- ‘one’ should be ‘1’
- The ‘(before your attack)’ clause should be italicised. Yes, that is important.
- It is ‘before you attack’ not ‘before your attack’.
- ‘every type of Energy’ defaults as ‘Basic Energy’, so you don’t need ‘Basic’
- There should not be a comma (,) after ‘Basic Energy’.
- ‘Basic Energy’ should be formated as ‘basic Energy’.
- ‘any’ should be ‘all’
- ‘Pokemon’ should be accented as ‘Pokémon’. Error x4
- ‘Use’ should be ‘Choose’
- There still needs to be a ‘provides’ between ‘but’ and ‘only’.
- The ‘Until the end of your opponent’s next turn’ clause should be located after the effect, that is ‘but only 1 Energy at a time’.
- The ‘as this attack (you still need the necessary Energy required for that attack).’ should read ‘If this Pokémon has the necessary Energy to use that attack, use it as this attack.’ This also means that there will need to be a full stop (.) after ‘...Pokemon’s attacks’


Creativity/Originality: 16/20
(Moderate creativity and great flavour, very fun and obvious synergy.)
Wording: 0/15
(Numerous minor errors and a few of major errors.)
Believability/Playability: 9/15
(Powerful ability that defies the point of an energy cost with a powerful combination of card effects.)
Edit Penalty -2
Total: 23/50

@grantm1999:

Spoiler: Rotom

Rotom - Lightning - HP90
Basic
Ability: Appliance Takeover
Once during your turn, you may change this Pokemon's type to either {G}, {R}, {W}, or {C}. At the end of your opponent's next turn, this Pokemon's type becomes {L}.
[C] Trick: Move an Energy card from 1 of your opponent's Pokemon to another of your opponent's Pokemon. Then, you may move a Pokemon Tool card from 1 of your opponent's Pokemon to another of your opponent's Pokemon
[L][L] Electro Ball: 60+ If your opponent's Active Pokemon has a Weakness to this Pokemon's current type, this attack does 60 more damage.

Weakness: Darkness (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-20)
Retreat: none
Its body is composed of plasma. It is known to infiltrate electronic devices and wreak havoc.

Appliance Takeover is a fun and flavourful name, while the ability is a nice way to get around printing the 4 other rotom versions. Despite that, other Rotoms in the past have used mechanics similar to this with much less variety. I am worried about the wide possibilities of exploiting weakness that could be quite unfun - and even render certain decks useless against the card - especially in conjunction with that Electro Ball attack, but I’ll come to that later.

Trick is nothing overly special. A very similar attack of the same name attack already exists on a Mr Mime from Phantom Forces. There is some synergy in the disruption and unpredictable department with the ability, but nothing overly outstanding. Flavourwise, I am somewhat confused on why energy has a part, but wynaut.

Electro Ball carries way too much potential (and completely viable) power for two energy on a basic, let alone a Rotom that generally does 60 damage if you’re lucky. With the obvious synergetic ability combination, you can exploit nearly half of the metagame’s weakness and technically dish out 240 damage to them - an insane amount of damage for a little Rotom. I see you’re trying to counter the Mega-EXs, but this type of power creep is exactly what PTCG doesn’t need.

Looking at the HP, it is insanely high compared to other Rotom, which generally sit at 60 or 70 HP. The Rotom Appliances are a different case, but this is the small, unboosted Rotom we’re talking about. The Weakness and Resistance should be [F] and [M] respectively, and even though Rotom has a Ghost typing, the standard electric typing is religiously stuck to. The retreat really shouldn’t be null, and just adds to the card’s power.

Wording errors:

- ‘Pokemon’ should be accented as ‘Pokémon’. Error x8
- There should be an ‘card attached to’ instead of ‘card from’. Error x2
- There is no need for ‘current’. The ability turns the Pokemon into a new type, meaning that is its actual type, not the one on the card.
- The last clause of ‘Appliance Takeover’ should read ‘until the end of your opponent’s next turn.’ and be located directly after ‘{C}’.
- You need clarification on when I can use this ability. Before or after? Probably should say (before you attack) after ‘Once during your turn’.
- Clarification is needed about moving a Tool to Pokemon with a Pokemon Tool card already attached. i.e. probably should say ‘that doesn't already have a Pokémon Tool attached to it.’ directly after the ‘Trick’ attack’s second clause.

Creativity/Originality: 15/20
(Synergy and mild creativity with flavour.)
Wording: 0/15
(Repetitive minor errors, a major error and a couple of clarification errors.)
Believability/Playability: 9/15
(A very powerful combination that is potentially unfun, incorrect Weakness and Resistance and incorrect retreat cost.)
Total: 24/50

@Jolanna Ivey:

Spoiler: Absol

Absol - Dark - HP110
Basic

Ability: Super Luck
Once during your turn (before you attack), if you have more prize cards left than your opponent’s, draw 2 cards.

[D][C] Impending Doom: 40+ damage. If any of your Pokémon were Knocked Out by damage from an opponent's attack during his or her last turn, this attack does 70 more damage.

[D][D][C] Future Sight: 30x damage. Look at the top 5 cards of your deck. You may reveal any number of trainer cards you find there. This attack does 30 times the number of trainer cards you revealed. Discard those trainer cards. Shuffle the other cards back into your deck.

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
Resistance: Psychic (-20)
Retreat: 1

Absol appears when it senses an impending natural disaster. As a result, people commonly mistake Absol as the cause of the disasters it senses.

Yay, an Absol! I was a little surprised to see no Absol - my favourite Basic Pokemon - until this entry popped up

Super Luck feels like a nice, creative translation from VG ability flavour to the TCG, especially with that prize card hinder, which we haven’t seen for years on abilities. Spoon wants me to mention that if you’re so super lucky, why are you losing? He thinks it makes no sense… but I’ll tell him to go away now since it doesn’t affect your score. Anyways, I think the ability is too powerful for the basic nature of Absol. An extra two cards from an ability is very powerful despite being only a single step up from 1 card, and being on a droppable basic, you can technically get 8 cards in certain circumstances. I understand how you’ve tried to balance the ability with a Prize requirement, which sorta works, but in all honesty, getting behind your opponent is not a difficult feat. I can see this work particularly in decks that go for a condition other than retrieving six prizes, notably mill, and could possibly be extremely powerful in those deck types.

Although Impending Doom is literally a copy of the common attack ‘Revenge’, I like how you’ve used an otherwise bland effect on this card. The synergy between the attack and the ability is less obvious and more intricate - sacrifice a Pokemon to hit for big numbers with Impending Doom while being able to draw a few extra cards with Super Luck while you’re behind on prizes.

I like what you’ve done to make the already existing Future Sight attack more exciting, but I honestly don’t see the value the attack adds to the card. The attack isn’t overly great (discarding Trainers is rarely beneficial), either, and you’ll want to use Impending Doom over Future Sight nearly all the time. I think the attack could have been used effectively on a different card with some other synergetic effect, but really doesn’t fit on this Absol.

I’m two-minded about the extra 10HP in comparison to other Absol - I think you should’ve stuck with 100HP.

Wording errors:
- ‘(before you attack)’ needs to be italicised as ‘(before you attack)
- ‘than your opponent’s’ should be ‘than your opponent’.
- ‘trainer’ needs to be captilised as ‘Trainer’. Error x3
- I do not think ‘any number’ is the correct term for this attack. I think it should read “You may reveal as many trainer cards as you like that you find there.”
- 30 what? I assume you mean ‘30 damage’, but you do need to mention the ‘damage’ part.

Creativity/Originality: 16/20
(Intricate synergy with creativity expressed, and very nice flavour.)
Wording: 8/15
(A few minor errors and a few major errors.)
Believability/Playability: 12.5/15
(Can be too powerful in certain circumstances, a bit too much HP.)
Total: 36.5/50

@Luispipe8:

Spoiler: Mawile

Basic/ Mawile / HP90

/ε Shield/ Any damage done to this Pokémon by an opponent's attack is reduced by 10 for each Energy card attached to this Pokémon (after applying Weakness and Resistance).

NO. 303/Deceiver Pokémon/HT: 0,6m/WT: 11.5kg​

Sharpen
If this Pokémon is your Active Pokémon and it's damaged by an opponent's attack (even if this Pokémon is Knocked Out), you may flip a coin. If heads, during your next turn, each of this Pokémon's attacks does 30 more damage to your opponent's Active Pokémon (before applying Weakness and Resistance).

Punishing Bites 30x
This attack does 30 damage times the number of your opponent's Pokémon-EX in play.

Weakness:

x2
Resistance:

-20
Retreat:

It uses its docile-looking face to lull foes into complacency, then bites with its huge, relentless jaws.

AW09

​

Ah, Luis. I was expecting you.

Like virtually every Ancient Trait I’ve judged, I’m two-minded about this one. It feels much more complicated and ability like than your average Ancient Trait due to its energy variable. There isn’t really variables like this in other Ancient Traits, which follows an ‘if this happens do this’ template. Yours has another layer of complexity: ‘if this happens do this using this’. I do like you’ve nerfed the AT to be something not overly powerful by making it ‘each card’, which also carries a bit of anti-synergy with the attack’s cost, which you would normally want to fulfil with a Metal Energy and DCE. However, Spoon has just mentioned that Rain Dance cards would abuse the Ancient Trait, so I’ll have to dock a believabiltiy point for power.

I like the twist you put on the Sharpen ability. The ‘if damaged’ effect feels a bit overused with Rough Skin type of abilities. As you said, the ability is pretty balanced due to the little bulkiness Mawile actually has, meaning you will have even less opportunities to use the boost after coin flip. That said, the AT works nicely with this ability to add a bit more bulk to the Mawile.

I don’t really get why you chose this attack effect in conjunction with the ability and Ancient Trait. However, I’ve noticed there is a bit of anti-synergy or balancing with the other effects. EXs are the things that are more likely than not going to 1-hit KO you, meaning it will be more difficult to survive and use the abilities than if you were vsing a Stage 1 or 2. That aside, I was surprised that this attack hasn’t ever existed! xD

I find your HP choice odd, especially considering surrounding Mawile. 70 HP I feel is an adequate amount for a Mawile, and if you have to, 80, but Mawile with the HP of Girafarig PHF (a notable difference of 20 points in HP in VG) sounds a bit absurd. The Retreat Cost of the Mawile also feels a bit high, with surrounding cards sticking to a single cost.

Wording errors:
- ‘it’s damaged’ should be ‘is damaged’.
- I think that’s all.

Creativity/Originality: 16/20
(Hidden synergy, flavourful and moderately creative.)
Wording: 14/15
(A minor error.)
Believability/Playability: 13/15
(Odd choices for HP and Retreat, can be broken.)
Total: 43/50

3rd Place: Reggie McGigas’ befuddling Unown, with 41/50 points.
2nd Place: SeventhPrize’s periodical Unown, with 42/50 points.
1st Place: Luispipe8’s sturdy Mawile, with 43/50 points.

Judge: @bbninjas

 

[Reggie McGigas]

A few notes about my score/judging

Xenoglossia is the rare ability to fluently speak a language with little to no training. It's like watching an episode of Dora the Explorer and being able to fluently speak Spanish after that. Or just waking up being able to speak Italian after you went to a Carraba's last night. It's a rare an unexplained phenomenon. While Unown totally makes sense for this ability, you could stick it onto, say, an Xatu or Chatot and it'd still make sense.


Also I believe I stated that my unown was going to be my CAC Entry. You shouldn't be disappointed, you should have expected it. I posted it there for people to give criticism before I submitted it to CAC

 

[thegrovylekid]

Darn it, Capitalization! That's going to be my mortal enemy, isn't it?

 

[bbninjas]

A few notes about my score/judging

Xenoglossia is the rare ability to fluently speak a language with little to no training. It's like watching an episode of Dora the Explorer and being able to fluently speak Spanish after that. Or just waking up being able to speak Italian after you went to a Carraba's last night. It's a rare an unexplained phenomenon. While Unown totally makes sense for this ability, you could stick it onto, say, an Xatu or Chatot and it'd still make sense.

Fair enough. I still don't really think it'd be as appropriate flavour on things like Xatu and Chatot (what have they got to do with speaking different languages?) but I guess it could work.

Also I believe I stated that my unown was going to be my CAC Entry. You shouldn't be disappointed, you should have expected it. I posted it there for people to give criticism before I submitted it to CAC

You didn't mention it; I just checked. Anyways, you're not supposed to get public criticism before a contest, particularly from the judge (and I was pretty close to critiquing it myself).

Darn it, Capitalization! That's going to be my mortal enemy, isn't it?

Yup Always read over your entry before you submit it.

 

[Ms Hugo]

Thanks for the feedback. The card was meant to be paired with a Durant that had the ability to shuffle itself back into the deck from discard but, obviously, I couldn't enter two cards.

Interesting stuff on the wording too. I figured that might be the downside but I guess I wasn't expecting to do so well anyway. I appreciate the tips and will keep them in mind for future.

 

[Reggie McGigas]

Fair enough. I still don't really think it'd be as appropriate flavour on things like Xatu and Chatot (what have they got to do with speaking different languages?) but I guess it could work.


You didn't mention it; I just checked. Anyways, you're not supposed to get public criticism before a contest, particularly from the judge (and I was pretty close to critiquing it myself).

I didn't? Must have forgotten

Chatot is an obvious candidate for Xenoglossia because it is a sound based Pokémon that knows moves like chatter. Xatu has always seemed like a "mysterious" Pokémon to me that would have that kind of ability. Also, Mew would be a front runner because it typically has abilities and attacks with similar effects.

 

[Jabberwock]

Somewhat belated, but I decided that I should make a post of my thoughts for this contest.

This was my first contest in which we had formal judging. I opted not to ask HS for my results for last contest, however, with the thought that I would prefer to go into this one as if it were truly my first. I think I made my card to the best of my ability (or where my ability was at the time of the contest; I think I've improved since then). Overall, from what I hear of Heavenly Spoon, he's a notoriously critical critic p), so I'm glad to have made top 3, especially when the margin was so close.

You can imagine how I regret my decision now to make Strong Winds 80 for only 2 Energy, but I felt it wouldn't be too playable otherwise, with the lack of Grass support post-rotation. Perhaps I also shouldn't have compared it to Megas Manectric and Sceptile, but at any rate, I'll certainly give more thought to balancing in future rounds.

Honestly, I had no idea about the placement of lining up the text with the symbol as opposed to the icon. I'll bear that in mind for future rounds as well.

Thank you to Heavenly Spoon for judging this round, and to everyone who participated.

 

[SeventhPrize]

Text-Based Results

@NintendoAlian:

Spoiler: Heracross

That Swarm attack is broken. It’s not a hard task to drop 4 Heracross and increase your damage output by a whooping 80! That’s a world where Magikarp can 1-hit KO Charizard-EX, Nincada can 1-hit KO Seismitoad and Tynamo can 1-hit KO Yveltal-EX. Flavourwise, the effect and attack name feel a bit loosely connected (I assume you're swarming and thus helping the active but then that seems a bit weird). Just noting that this ability is very similar to Machamp FuF's ability.

Rescue Horn is pretty average. Fishing Pokemon and/or energy from the discard isn’t really something abnormal (see Super Rod), and Rescuing is a fairly common flavour. I’m not sure if I would want to be rescued by a horn, but whatever, it’s a funny prospect. The damage is a little high on comparison with other Heracross cards (heck even the EX doesn’t do that much for two energy :/), and that’s not considering the extra 80 damage buff. I do question the energy cost, but I guess its justified with the ability to do 140 damage plus have a good effect. What I do like is the very subtle synergy - rescuing your fellow Heracross to constantly spam your Swarm.

Wording errors:
- “active” should be capitalised as “Active”
- “All” should be “Each”
- “To” should be “into”
- Should be “basic Energy cards” not “basic Energy”. “Cards” is only not used when the Energy is attached to something.
- Clarification needed for when the extra 20 damage is applied. Probably should be (before applying Weakness and Resistance).

Creativity/Originality: 13/20
(Some synergy and fairly flavourful)
Wording: 8/15
(Minor errors and clarification error.)
Believability/Playability: 9/15
(Broken. Every non-EX deck has suddenly become viable.)
Total: 30/50

@Scorched Feathers:

Spoiler: Luvdisc

If you’re going with Lightning Weakness, then I assume you’ve written in a BW format, or you’ll get penalised for the wrong Weakness. So here we go.

When I first read Love Letter (fun name btw), I immediately thought of Manaphy PLS. However, on second glance, the two are actually quite different. I like how Luvdisc is nuked a little by simply helping out your opponent, despite normally helping you more than your opponent as you presumably have more one-of techs to search for in a deck you include this card in. It does seem a inconsistent that KOs happening in between turns don’t do anything. Flavourwise, the ability strikes me as odd. Do you send love letters to your opponent when he kills your Pokemon? And then you discard the letter or something?

Looking at the ruling side, what happens if this Luvdisc is KOd? You can’t discard it as part of the ability, because the Luvdisc is technically already discarded because of the KO. Considering the believability, most abilities like this only activate by “damage from an opponent’s attack”, while revealing is bit of a weird choice since you only actually reveal cards to prove you’re not cheating (i.e.preventing one from taking an energy using Ultra Ball).

Water Show feels feels pretty typical. Most sets have some type of draw Pokemon like this, and it looks like an exact copy of the attack “Return”. I guess the flavour works, but is still weird - do you draw cards for the attendance of the show? I like how the attack works with the ability by saying ‘if you don’t KO me I get more cards, but if you do, I still get cards’, and overall feels subtly like you’re making your opponent use resources to KO you.

70HP was a bit of an interesting choice, especially considering all recent Luvdisc are 60HP. However, a Luvdisc from DP Platinum had 70HP, so I think it’s all cool. After all, DP was before the huge BW and huger XY power creep

Wording errors:
- “ability” should be capitalised as ‘Ability”
- I believe that “either” should be “each”. “Either” appears to be used only when a player must choose between himself/herself. In this case, Love Letter can be used in both players’ turns, and each player has no control over who’s turn the Ability activates in.
- “cannot” should be “can’t”
- “per” should be “each”
- “one” should be “1”
- “Discard this Pokemon” should say “Then, discard this Pokemon.”
- “reveal it to his or her opponent” really should be “reveal it”. The judge also needs to see the card after all
- Missing clarification on Luvdisc being KO’d. Probably should have the clause “even if this Pokemon is Knocked Out”.

Creativity/Originality: 14/20
(Weird flavour/effect shenanigans and fun ability. No wow factor.)
Wording: 5/15
(Lots of minor errors, a clarification error)
Believability/Playability:14/15
(A few weird flavour and wording structuring prevents me from giving a full mark here.)
Total: 33/50

@Rhesis:

Spoiler: Shuckle

Well, you just sent me on a wild goose chase to find the three different wordings for a possible ability like that Shellf-defense. The “prevent all damage” appears to be used when with the variable is unrelated to integers, while the “would be damaged by an attack” appears when there is an integer variable. But then again, “prevent all damage” is commonly used on abilities, while “would be damaged be an attack” has only been used on one ability. Since the effect is fairly novel, I’ll just go along with the “prevent all damage” path. You do need some clarification of when the damage is actually prevented, is after or before Weakness and Resistance?

Either you made a typo or you made a cool pun with Shellf-defense, but either way, it works well as flavour. Preventing large amounts of damage is fairly unique, and has certainly not been made into an ability before. It doesn’t feel too OP when considering most decks run Pokemon that can hit under 70, and it makes your opponent think about when - and how - they should invest their buffs and energy. You also would need to think of when you should put out the wall, which adds even more strategy.

Wrap is fairly boring, but does work well with the wall nature of Shuckle. Pull out your opponent’s Pokemon and lock them there with a painstaking 10 damage per turn until they find a Switch seems plausible . There is a technical problem with the attack name, however - attacks named “Wrap” will always do something about Paralyzing, making this attack a little less believable.

I never knew three words could contain such a fun and flavourful meaning! I’m not sure if you meant to write “Shack” over “Whack”, but either way it’s fun. I don’t really get the actual attack’s effect’s reference to the name. Are you whacking yourself every time your opponent uses an item? Or is your opponent whacking your Shuckle to prevent it from stealing your item? And then why is damage going onto your opponent’s Active and not Shuckle? I’m not sure if I like how similar this attack is to Venomoth PHF, but hey, it’s still different. There is a nice, similar synergy with Wrap - prevent your opponent from using their notorious Switch cards. In conjunction with Wrap, this card really forces you to think ahead about which attack to use each turn, which I like a lot.

Finally, the weakness is wrong. It should be [G] not [W], even though Shuckle is not weak to [G] in the games. It appears that TCG ignores secondary typings, as seen by [N] Dialga-EX.

Wording errors:
- “Shellf-defense” should be captilised as “Shellf-Defense” as abiding by the hyphen trends
- the “a” before “Item” should be “an” for grammatical reasons
- Should say “no effect and put” instead of “no effect, put”
- Should say “on” not “in”
- Should say “2 damage counters” not “20 damage”. You should be putting damage counters on the Pokemon as the damage is done during a turn, not as part of the attack’s damage calculations.
- Should say “by attacks” after “this Pokemon”
- Needs clarification on Weakness and Resistance, probably “(after applying Weakness and Resistance)”.


Creativity/Originality: 15/20
(Challenges a player's skill with synergy, flavour and adapted attacks and abilities.)
Wording: 4/15
(Minor errors, some major errors and a clarification error.)
Believability/Playability: 14/15
(Wrong weakness.)
Total: 33/50

@Vom:

Spoiler: Castform

I quite like this Castform. It feels like a very unique and a highly synergetic way to punish over acceleration of energy using its Weather Ball attack to exploit weakness. The card, of course, can be easily countered simply by not accelerating, but Castform’s synergy does allow the user to mess up the opponent’s strategy a little, and force them to be less reliant on acceleration. This forces both players to think further ahead in the game. I think there may be a little bit of discrepancy about attack-based acceleration, or attaching energy from attacks. I would have put either ‘before your opponent attacks’ or ‘from your opponent’s hand’ for maximum clarification, but it is really a necessity to the wording.

I feel the Weather Ball attack does a bit too much compared to other Castform - the possibility of 1-hit KOing EXs is alarming in the power creep department. Personally, I would’ve lowered the base damage to about 30 and lowered the increment to 40, or even 30.

Wording errors:
- ‘Changes’ should be ‘effects’. ‘Changes’ is nearly never used, and the changes are technically the ‘effects’ of the ability.
- The ‘until the end of your next turn’ should be located after each effect. Error x3
-’second time this turn’ should read ‘second time during his or her turn’. The turn is not during your turn after all.
- You need to specify exactly what those Energy symbols mean. To do this, 'this Pokémon is now' should read 'this Pokémon's type is now'. Error x3


Creativity/Originality: 17/20
(Great synergy and strategy combined with very creative effects.)
Wording: 6/15
(Multiple major errors and a few minor errors.)
Believability/Playability: 13/15
(Something feels wrong with that ability; probably the defining terms of energy acceleration. High power in comparison to other Castform.)
Total: 36/50

rainyman123:

Spoiler: Spiritomb

Sprititomb does not exist. Is this a fusion of Spritzee and Spiritomb?

Interestingly enough, Special Madness is very similar to Light Dragonite from years and years agp, minus the effect blocker. Just so you know. I’m really two-sided on the ability. To me, it feels just a bit overpowered on a Basic Pokemon. Being able to attach a single DCE that can turn into a Double Dark Energy very easily is quite worrying, and would be staple in numerous dark (and colourless I guess) decks. You also manage to render most Special Energy your opponent uses useless, bar the effect, which is unfun due its droppable nature. For balancing, the ability effect would be appropriate on a Stage 1 (maybe) or Stage 2. Flavourwise, I don’t really get why you chose the ability name. Special Madness honestly seems like something for a more frantic Pokemon, and doesn’t feel like the best name for a hexing, cursing, ghostly Pokemon like Spiritomb. Something like Special Hex or Special Keystone would carry a lot more flavour.

The ability has obvious synergy the attack, allowing you to use a variety of accelerators with Special Energy to both take advantage of their extra effects, or in the case of DCE, power up your attack quicker. Same with the ability, I think you could have done a bit more with the attack flavour. I find it interesting how you decided to exclude energy attached to Spiritomb in the calculations, especially considering the BW/XY power creep... but not too much power is good in my opinion.

90HP is too high, especially on a utility /and/ possible attacking Pokemon like this. All Spiritomb have HP that ranges 60-70, and this the bracket you should’ve stayed in.

Wording errors:
- ‘special energy’ should be captilised as ‘Special Energy’
- ‘pokemon’ should be ‘Pokémon’. Error x4
- ‘each special energy’ should be ‘all special energy’
- ‘all pokemon’ should be ‘each pokemon’
- ‘attached to each’ should be ‘attached to all’
- ‘original’ should be ‘usual’
- ‘its’ should be ‘their’
- There ‘should be no comma after ‘pokemon’.
- ‘pokemon is [D] and provides [D] instead of its’ should say ‘pokemon are [D] and provides [D] instead of their’.
- ‘is [D]’ should be ‘is [D] Energy’. ‘[D]’ is short for ‘Darkness’ not ‘Darkness Energy’. Error x3
- ‘Sprititomb’ does not exist.
- There should be a ‘(both yours and your opponent’s)’ clause after ‘to all pokemon’.


Creativity/Originality:12/20
(Synergy and some originality.)
Wording: 0/15
(Constant minor errors and a few major errors; ‘Sprititomb’ does not exist.)
Believability/Playability: 13/15
(Large HP with a potentially very powerful ability that could be unfun for the opponent.)
Edit Penalty -2
Total: 23/50

@TheMaskedMeowth:

Spoiler: Klefki

This card looks simply like a cut and past of three different effects loaned from Sigilyph LT, Shaymin-EX ROS and Seismitoad-EX with some synergy. But into each effect individually.

I’m not sure if I like the Ancient Trait. ATs effectively should be less powerful and simple abilities. An EX wall is very powerful, especially in current format. Also, this becomes a huge obstacle for EXs, which is not necessarily a bad thing, who could originally get rid of Safeguarders through blocking the ability, which is not possible with ATs.

Fairy Wind is generic, however, kudos in using a normally bland effect in a synergetic (or anti-synergetic) way. Whenever your opponent brings out a non-EX, wisp out your frail Klefki for a different wall. But then again, you have to be careful when you Fairy Wind. Why? You won’t be able to use your powerful Lock In if you keep on returning the Klefki into your hand (although with Aromatisse XY this is disputable). Just a note: the attack “Fairy Wind” does exist in TCG, and is traditionally effectless, and I think you could have chosen a different and slightly more flavourful name.

Once again, I’m two-minded about Lock In. If you can get that setup (which is not impossible with the XY format’s energy acceleration), it is ridiculously powerful. Preventing all, as in every single Item, Stadium and Supporter card, is absurd through an effect that honestly cannot be stopped when it has started. The walling AT makes this attack even more scarier. Once your opponent’s EX deck is locked, your opponent will literally need to go into top deck mode. To find what? Something that can actually beat the Klefki, which is probably located in one fifteenth of your EX-based deck.

Oh, and you have the wrong resistance. It should be Darkness.

Wording errors:
- ‘Pokemon’ should be ‘Pokemon’. The accent is important! Error x3.
- ‘may not’ should be ‘can’t’. After all, your opponent shouldn’t have a choice

Creativity/Originality: 13/20
(Synergetic and flavourful stuff.)
Wording: 12/15
(Minor errors.)
Believability/Playability: 8/15
(Scarily powerful combination, wrong resistance and incorrect use of Ancient Trait.)
Total: 33/50

@Ms Hugo:

Spoiler: Heatmor

I really like the flavour that runs with this Heatmor - very creative and fun names, that work perfectly with the effects! The ability synergy here is very nice, being able to fuel the card's own attack through the ability. I don't really think the spammable nature of the ability is a problem, as sooner or later, you're going to run out of energy. Synergy-wise, the only thing I’d be worried about is how your ability becomes redundant after incinerating all of those poor Durant, and would need an outside source to run again.

I do question the whole way you wrote the second attack. Should you discard the Durant and then do the damage? This feels like it coincides better with current wording. Looking at the attack power, I honestly think it is very well balanced. There is a lot of set up needed to do that maximum of160 damage, meaning it is pretty unlikely that you are going to hit consistent high numbers.

I also question your choice of HP. 110 seems like quite a lot compared to other Heatmor, which are normally 90HP. A wish I could give this a higher score, but sadly your wording lets you down. Be sure to check wording next time!

Wording errors:
- The ‘(before you attack)’ clause should be italicised. Yes, that is important here.
- You don’t need to reveal a card when you are putting it onto your bench.
- You ‘put’ cards onto your bench, not ‘place’.
- ‘on your Bench’ should be ‘onto your Bench’.
- You don’t need to tell me to me the attack does 40 damage as I can tell that from the base damage.
- It is not a ‘[R] energy’ until it is attached to a Pokemon, otherwise it is an ‘[R] Energy Card’. This means that thing you discard should be a ‘[R] energy card’.
- XY-on always writes ‘This attack does’ instead of a plain ‘Does’.
- After ‘from your hand’ there should be a full stop. Then there should be an ‘If you do, search’ afterwards.
- ‘your opponent does not take a prize for any’ should read ‘those Pokémon don’t count as Knocked Out Pokémon.’
- You need to specify what this ‘30’ is that you speak of. As in, you need to mention it is ‘30 damage’.
- Clarification on what do I do with the cards attached to Durant? Do I discard them? (i.e. should say ‘discard those Durant and all cards attached to them’).

Creativity/Originality: 18/20
(Highly synergetic attacks that works extremely well with flavour.)
Wording: 0/15
(Numerous minor and major errors, and a clarification error.)
Believability/Playability: 14/15
(High HP.)
Total: 32/50

@Cheeriox:

Spoiler: Druddigon-EX

Cool, a Tough Skin ability. Pretty typical and expected with the flavour, reducing damage like a boss. However, you probably should have mentioned when that damage is reduced. Is it before Weakness and Resistance or afterwards?

Dragon Tail doesn’t surprise me either. Generic flip a coin, heads do this, tails do this. However, I notice there are some slight synergy between that and the Ability, which you may or may not have noticed. What is it? Disruption. You switch your opponent around, messing up who they attack, stop your opponent in their tracks with Paralysis and troll around by taking less damage from the ability. Fun for you. Trivially, Dragon Tail in the TCG exists (on a Druddigon from Dragon Vault in fact) as a flip attack. However, I prefer your attack more than the real one.

Wording errors:
- The Paralyzed Special Condition follows American spelling. Therefore, “Paralysed” should be “Paralyzed”.
- It’s ‘if heads, switch’ not ‘if heads switch’. I’d like some breathing time :<
- It’s your ‘opponent’s Active Pokémon’ not your ‘opponent Active Pokémon’.
- Should be ‘Your opponent’s Active Pokémon is *now* Paralysed.’
- Technically, it should be ‘switch the Benched Pokemon with the Active’ due to using a ‘pull’ mechanism (you choose). The ‘push’ mechanism is when your opponent chooses, and is worded like you have.
- Missing clarification on when damage is reduced by Tough Skin. Is it before or after Weakness and Resistance?

Creativity/Originality: 12/20
(Some hidden synergy and flavourful stuff.)
Wording: 6/15
(A few minor errors and a major and a clarification error.
Believability/Playability: 15/15
(Looks all good to me.)
Total: 33/50

@Reggie McGigas:

Spoiler: Unown

Somewhat disappointing to see this Unown here again (despite being ever so slightly different) considering you posted it in your thread weeks back, but I’ll just have to remember my original thoughts. Not to hard, though, considering I haven’t seen the original for weeks now…

Wow, such creative names! Both Xenoglossia and Gobbledygook feel very simple but highly fun and sophisticated. Anyways, onto the Ancient Trait. Basically, I just don't think the effect feel right as an Ancient Trait effect, despite its novelty. ATs should be simpler and less powerful compared to abilities. It also feels very specific, unlike most ATs, which are general in flavour. This sorta defies all of them. Being able to use your opponent’s attacks can be very powerful (although setting that attack cost is sufficient in balancing), is fairly complicated and the flavour 'Xenoglossia' flavour just doesn’t seem to fit onto any other Pokemon (things like Wild could easily be put onto other Pokemon). Maybe Relicanth? Even that doesn’t feel right.

Gobbledygook is a very cool effect. Flipping your deck is a very, very unique, cool and plausable design space, and something I don’t ever think I’ve ever seen done before. My only concern is the lack of synergy the ability has with the rest of the card. I think you could’ve made some attack that would interact with the deck just so the Unown could actually make use of the upturned deck.

An attack named ‘Draw a Card’ that does damage to the bench? I am very confused. 70 HP does feel maybe a little too much, but does make sense considering the Unown’s requirement of staying Active. Also, wrong weakness. It should be [P].

Wording errors:
- ‘one’ should be ‘1’
- The ‘cost of the attack’ should be the ‘attack cost’.
- There needs to be a mentioning if Weakness and Resistance is applied, probs should be (Don’t apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokémon.).


Creativity/Originality: 18/20
(Creative and flavourful stuff. Confusing attack.)
Wording: 11/15
(A couple minor errors and a major error.)
Believability/Playability: 12/15
(Wrong weakness, incorrect use of the Ancient Trait mechanic.)
Total: 41/50

@thegroyvlekid:

Spoiler: Dedenne

Chain Lightning. I must say I smiled when I read that flavourful attack name. I also find the ability quite balanced. Up to an extra 80 damage (through Skyfield) seems quite huge, but then again, the set up to get that buffer is quite significant. I do question why it really matters to have Dedenne has the Active for its ability to activate, but whatever.

Nuzzle, however, feels quite bland. A coin flip Paralysis is nothing overly special, especially as the Dedenne from Phantom Forces had the same attack name with the same effect /without/ base damage. There also seems to be no synergetic connection between the two effects.

Wording errors:
- ‘active Pokémon’ should be capitalised as ‘Active Pokémon’. Error x2
- ‘defending Pokémon’ should be capitalised as ‘Defending Pokémon’.
- ‘As long as Dedenne’ should be ‘as long as this Pokémon’.
- Missing clarification on when the ability buffer occurs. After or before Weakness and Resistance?

Creativity/Originality: 12/20
(Flavourful stuff.)
Wording: 8.5/15
(Minor errors and a clarification error.)
Believability/Playability: 15/15
(Nothing I can think of.)
Total: 35.5/50

@SeventhPrize:

Spoiler: Unown

Oh, another Unown! Greek Alphabet has an ability sounds interesting. Although Ancient Traits should be something that doesn’t interact with abilities, I actually don’t mind this ability. The interaction is quite passive and doesn’t really alter the actual AT, so I think it is fine… at least as a new design space. The Greek Alphabet name did ring some bells because of the direct reference to real life with ‘Greek’ (which doesn’t seem to ever happen in proper cards), but then again the AT letters are in fact Greek letters themselves. Noting the power level, I feel that this is not breakingly strong. Things like Plus, Barrage, Barrier, Wild and Growth would probably be the strongest, while things like Evolution and Double are effectively useless. My only worry is abilities that copy other abilities, which could make the effect broken.

On first glance, I really did think the 3 energy cost was quite excessive and unrealistic especially considering other Unown power levels. However, when I listed off relevant ATs I realised how many measures and thought processes you went through to achieve a balance. I feel revealing every card is somewhat impractical, which makes it difficult for me to give full points for believability. Flavour’s nice as well. The only thing that disappoints me is the lack of synergy the attack has with actual Ancient Traits. There is obvious measures for balancing, but there seems to be a lack of benefit. Growth appears to be the only thing that is overly synergetic, allowing you to attack a bit earlier.

Wording errors:
- It should be ‘until you reveal all cards in your deck’ instead of ‘until all cards in your deck has been revealed.’
- There should be a ‘This attack’ before ‘Does’.

Creativity/Originality: 17/20
(New design space and creativity with nice flavour.)
Wording: 11/15
(Two major errors.)
Believability/Playability: 14/15
(Possibly unrealistic ability name and possibly impractical attack is enough to take a point here.)
Total: 42/50

@Gengar master:

Spoiler: Miltank

Yay, Miltank gets some love! Nurturing Milk seems interesting, but nothing overly different, so not much to comment on. It seems powerful yet contained, with the potential to heal 80 damage, but probably not consistently.

Spoiled Milk has very nice flavour and gives the Miltank a bit of a niche with poison. I question why you can use the attack while Paralyzed and Asleep. I’d hope Miltank would give the personally… Anyway bar the flavour, the attack is quite simple and bland.

Continuous Rollout is that average, balanced attack. Nothing much to say.

Looking at the card in general, I think the energy is the only thing a bit off. 110 HP is just slightly higher than typical Miltank, which is a consistent 100 HP.

Wording errors:
- ‘active Pokemon’ should be capitalised as ‘Active Pokemon’
- ‘one’ should be ‘1’
- ‘Pokemon’ needs the accent; ‘Pokémon’. Error x4
- ‘poisoned’ should be capitalised as ‘Poisoned’. Error x2
- It is ‘Flip a coin. If heads…’ not ‘Flip a coin, if heads...’. Same error with ‘Flip a coin, if tails…’ meaning Error x2.
- There should be a ‘.’ after ‘poisoned’.
- It is ‘...bench. For each heads...’ not ‘...bench, for each heads…’
- There should be ‘.’ after ‘Paralyzed’.
- The last clause on ‘Spoilt Milk’ should say ‘this Pokémon’ instead of ‘Miltank’.
- The ‘as long as’ clause is only used when the effect is constantly in occurrence, not when an effect is supposed to be triggered. ‘if’ should be used instead.
- The ‘from one of your bench Pokemon’ clause should be located after ‘damage’ and before ‘for’.
- Miss clarification on when during the turn Nurturing Milk can be activated. Before you attack? [i.e. should say ‘(before you attack)’)

Creativity/Originality: 12/20
(Flavourful stuff.)
Wording: 0/15
(Lots of minor errors, a couple of major errors and a clarification error.)
Believability/Playability: 14.5/15
(Probably a bit too high HP.)
Edit Penalty -2
Total: 24.5/50

@Supa_Hot_Fire:

Spoiler: Audino

Powerful, but not necessarily overpowered. That Fortify ability certainly would be used as a tech in decks that fear weakness, and perhaps is too splashable. However, one could argue Weakness is an overpowered/unfair mechanic, so possibly justified. Helping your opponent could be useful in the nuke, however you could simply not play it if your opponent will benefit, so the nuke is overall weakened. In the flavour boat, Fortify is a weird name choice. I got out my trusty dictionary to see the relevance of the ability name to Audino and ‘comforting emotions’ and stuff did come up, so I guess that’s fine. However, I do not see what Fortifying Audinos have to do with Weakness.

I really like the novelty Healing Wish, despite sending me on a wild goose chase to find appropriate wording. Brought me to Omega Barrage actually. Anyway, to the critique. Although healing all damage of a Pokemon is generally considered OP, I think you did well here. It costs a DCE/2 Energy and a prize to actually use, which is a quite large drawback. Flavourwise, pretty much perfectly in sync with the actually attack and Audino is a great Pokemon to showcase it.

Despite the creative attacks, I am concerned about the lack of synergy between the attack and the ability. As an all-out support card, it really would’ve been nice if the support complimented each other a bit better. In the department of HP, Weakness, Resistance and Retreat… all looks good.

Wording errors:
- ‘one’ should be ‘1’
- ‘Audino’ should be ‘this Pokémon’.
- The attack is novel so difficult to judge. However, I know the wording is not right (uses too many unique terms) so you lose a point. I think the wording should be “Knock out this Pokémon. Then, you may remove all damage counters from your new Active Pokémon.”

Creativity/Originality: 13/20
(Flavourful and somewhat synergetic.)
Wording: 12/15
(Minor errors.)
Believability/Playability: 14/15
(Weird flavour and powerful ability prevents me from giving full points here.)
Total: 39/50

@RedHatTrick:

Spoiler: Miltank

I’m going to call you Emotional Trick from now on, in reference to the Red Thinking Hat.

Special Milk is interesting. Most decks will only run 4 Special Energy, and with limited ways to retrieve them, the ability feels quite limited and situational. 30 damage does not seem an overly large - or even significant amount - except… the ability is worded in such a way that it can stack. This means you can heal about 120 damage at one time, which is not an overly difficult task considering the Miltank is an easily droppable Basic. Originally I thought this was a little powerful, as it is technically possible to heal 480 damage in a single game, but then I realised that required an engine to constantly have Miltank out (difficult after KOs), a lot of bench space and a consistent draw of Special Energy, all fairly unlikely. It also can’t fully heal an EX in a single turn, which makes the ability much more balanced. Considering playability, I could imagine a fun a Recovery deck using this card, but nothing top tier or broken, just very, very powerful. Flavour is good too.

The attack effect is nothing too special. Many cards use the ‘If you have [X] in play’ mechanic, notable Lunatone and Solrock. I was originally going to call you out for lack of synergy, but there’s something I originally overlooked. With your ability, you can constantly keep your benched Tauros nice an healthy as well as powering it up for some big damage later. I’m wondering if the attack cost should be three like more recent Miltank, but two for 80 is not overly powerful. It can also be powered up by the DCE Special Energy which has even more synergy with the ability! Also, good flavour.

Wording errors:
- ‘one’ should be ‘1’
- ‘Anytime’ should be ‘Whenever’
- You don’t ‘control’ a Tauros. It should say ‘If Tauros is on your bench...’ instead of ‘If you control Tauros’.
- Kudos for correctly using the ‘Energy Card’ term.

Creativity/Originality: 14/20
(Intricately synergetic and flavourful.)
Wording: 11/15
(Two minor errors and a major error.)
Believability/Playability: 13/15
(Looks all good to me.)
Total: 38/50

@GM DracLord:

Spoiler: Joy Chansey

Oh, Base Set wording. Of course since I’m not as old as Spoon, I now need to go back and discover the old nostagia that I missed out on. Yay. Separate comment, I wish you’d explain exactly what the importance of ‘Joy’ is in front of the Chansey, and if it carries any new mechanic.

Healing Touch is overpowered, and that’s not only in Base Set. Even in XY, Healing Touch would be considered powerful - BW saw a Serperior with a similar ability but on a Stage 2 to balance! Besides, an ‘in between turns’ ability is nearly unseen during the Base Set era, and for good reason. The HP of typical Base Set Pokemon was abnormally low, allow for any in between turn healing and damaging often chipping away (or healing) a third to a quarter of a Pokemon’s HP at one time, for 10 damage. 20 damage in between turns (like this Chansey) then rises to a third to two thirds of a Pokemon’s HP. Put this on a Basic, and you have a card I certainly would use in each of my decks. Now, there is a balancing thing I find interesting. If your opponent has a Joy Chansey in play, your Joy Chansey won’t work. This essentially makes ‘first to get Joy Chansey out wins’ or a ‘if I don’t get Joy Chansey, then you get Joy Chansey’ types of scenarios, as you would expect with the staple nature of the card. These scenarios effectively create a never-ending loop of bluffs and double bluffs, trying to decide if Joy Chansey would be worth the space in your deck (or on your bench!) or not.

Back Away is pretty bland. Switching effects are not uncommon throughout each era. Power level feels fine to me. I see the synergy you have made between the attack and ability - if you somehow find your way as Active, you have a way to escape. Happy days.

That retreat cost (3) feels abnormally high compared to the Chansey from Base Set 2 (1).

Wording errors:
- There should not be another full stop (.) after the ‘in play.’
- There should also be a space ( ) after ‘Asleep,’.
- ‘one’ should be ‘1’
- In the Ability, I think it is ‘Benched’ not ‘your Benched Pokemon’.
- I think that’s all - Base Set is not my forte

Creativity/Originality: 13/20
(Flavourful and synergetic.)
Wording: 11/15
(A few minor errors.)
Believability/Playability: 9/15
(Effectively overpowered and unrealistic Retreat Cost choice.)
Total: 33/50

@AgentMFilms:

Spoiler: Smeargle

The alarms are whirling on my analytical side on the choosing of an Alpha Ancient Trait, which are normally reserved for the sea dwellers, for a land-bound Smeargle. Buuuut, I think my creative side is saying ‘wynaut, there is always time for change’. Nothing overly special here, as a unoriginal ancient trait on its own is exactly that - an unoriginal ancient trait.

Color Palette is an interesting concept and relatively unexplored design space, bar the Hydreigon NV and a few similar effects of the past. However… I really think the multiple Pokemon design space was left unexplored for a reason. I feel the effect defies the point of energy costs if you can use any energy you’d like in conjunction with this splashable ability to power up your Pokemon. It also effectively allows the type-specific energy accelerators, such as Bronzong or Eels, to accelerate nearly anything, creating a bit of unbalance. Despite the technical side of things, the flavour is quite nice and the ability is certainly fun and opens up many combinations. I’ll get to the synergy after the attack.

I find Sketch a bit of an odd and somewhat obvious choice of an attack for Smeargle despite being its signature attack and think you could have been slightly more creative. The effect itself is not overly creative - it’s effectively a nuked Mega Gengar-EX or Kecleon PLF. However, there is something that balances this out - the synergy. All in all, the actual card strategy is quite sound and is certainly fun: attach two energy through the otherwise boring AT, change the energy into rainbow and exploit your opponent’s attacks without much problem.

The lower HP and higher retreat cost both strikes me as odd choices, but as there hasn’t been a Smeargle printed since ages, anything is honestly possible.

Wording errors:
- ‘one’ should be ‘1’
- The ‘(before your attack)’ clause should be italicised. Yes, that is important.
- It is ‘before you attack’ not ‘before your attack’.
- ‘every type of Energy’ defaults as ‘Basic Energy’, so you don’t need ‘Basic’
- There should not be a comma (,) after ‘Basic Energy’.
- ‘Basic Energy’ should be formated as ‘basic Energy’.
- ‘any’ should be ‘all’
- ‘Pokemon’ should be accented as ‘Pokémon’. Error x4
- ‘Use’ should be ‘Choose’
- There still needs to be a ‘provides’ between ‘but’ and ‘only’.
- The ‘Until the end of your opponent’s next turn’ clause should be located after the effect, that is ‘but only 1 Energy at a time’.
- The ‘as this attack (you still need the necessary Energy required for that attack).’ should read ‘If this Pokémon has the necessary Energy to use that attack, use it as this attack.’ This also means that there will need to be a full stop (.) after ‘...Pokemon’s attacks’


Creativity/Originality: 16/20
(Moderate creativity and great flavour, very fun and obvious synergy.)
Wording: 0/15
(Numerous minor errors and a few of major errors.)
Believability/Playability: 9/15
(Powerful ability that defies the point of an energy cost with a powerful combination of card effects.)
Edit Penalty -2
Total: 23/50

@grantm1999:

Spoiler: Rotom

Appliance Takeover is a fun and flavourful name, while the ability is a nice way to get around printing the 4 other rotom versions. Despite that, other Rotoms in the past have used mechanics similar to this with much less variety. I am worried about the wide possibilities of exploiting weakness that could be quite unfun - and even render certain decks useless against the card - especially in conjunction with that Electro Ball attack, but I’ll come to that later.

Trick is nothing overly special. A very similar attack of the same name attack already exists on a Mr Mime from Phantom Forces. There is some synergy in the disruption and unpredictable department with the ability, but nothing overly outstanding. Flavourwise, I am somewhat confused on why energy has a part, but wynaut.

Electro Ball carries way too much potential (and completely viable) power for two energy on a basic, let alone a Rotom that generally does 60 damage if you’re lucky. With the obvious synergetic ability combination, you can exploit nearly half of the metagame’s weakness and technically dish out 240 damage to them - an insane amount of damage for a little Rotom. I see you’re trying to counter the Mega-EXs, but this type of power creep is exactly what PTCG doesn’t need.

Looking at the HP, it is insanely high compared to other Rotom, which generally sit at 60 or 70 HP. The Rotom Appliances are a different case, but this is the small, unboosted Rotom we’re talking about. The Weakness and Resistance should be [F] and [M] respectively, and even though Rotom has a Ghost typing, the standard electric typing is religiously stuck to. The retreat really shouldn’t be null, and just adds to the card’s power.

Wording errors:

- ‘Pokemon’ should be accented as ‘Pokémon’. Error x8
- There should be an ‘card attached to’ instead of ‘card from’. Error x2
- There is no need for ‘current’. The ability turns the Pokemon into a new type, meaning that is its actual type, not the one on the card.
- The last clause of ‘Appliance Takeover’ should read ‘until the end of your opponent’s next turn.’ and be located directly after ‘{C}’.
- You need clarification on when I can use this ability. Before or after? Probably should say (before you attack) after ‘Once during your turn’.
- Clarification is needed about moving a Tool to Pokemon with a Pokemon Tool card already attached. i.e. probably should say ‘that doesn't already have a Pokémon Tool attached to it.’ directly after the ‘Trick’ attack’s second clause.

Creativity/Originality: 15/20
(Synergy and mild creativity with flavour.)
Wording: 0/15
(Repetitive minor errors, a major error and a couple of clarification errors.)
Believability/Playability: 9/15
(A very powerful combination that is potentially unfun, incorrect Weakness and Resistance and incorrect retreat cost.)
Total: 24/50

@Jolanna Ivey:

Spoiler: Absol

Yay, an Absol! I was a little surprised to see no Absol - my favourite Basic Pokemon - until this entry popped up

Super Luck feels like a nice, creative translation from VG ability flavour to the TCG, especially with that prize card hinder, which we haven’t seen for years on abilities. Spoon wants me to mention that if you’re so super lucky, why are you losing? He thinks it makes no sense… but I’ll tell him to go away now since it doesn’t affect your score. Anyways, I think the ability is too powerful for the basic nature of Absol. An extra two cards from an ability is very powerful despite being only a single step up from 1 card, and being on a droppable basic, you can technically get 8 cards in certain circumstances. I understand how you’ve tried to balance the ability with a Prize requirement, which sorta works, but in all honesty, getting behind your opponent is not a difficult feat. I can see this work particularly in decks that go for a condition other than retrieving six prizes, notably mill, and could possibly be extremely powerful in those deck types.

Although Impending Doom is literally a copy of the common attack ‘Revenge’, I like how you’ve used an otherwise bland effect on this card. The synergy between the attack and the ability is less obvious and more intricate - sacrifice a Pokemon to hit for big numbers with Impending Doom while being able to draw a few extra cards with Super Luck while you’re behind on prizes.

I like what you’ve done to make the already existing Future Sight attack more exciting, but I honestly don’t see the value the attack adds to the card. The attack isn’t overly great (discarding Trainers is rarely beneficial), either, and you’ll want to use Impending Doom over Future Sight nearly all the time. I think the attack could have been used effectively on a different card with some other synergetic effect, but really doesn’t fit on this Absol.

I’m two-minded about the extra 10HP in comparison to other Absol - I think you should’ve stuck with 100HP.

Wording errors:
- ‘(before you attack)’ needs to be italicised as ‘(before you attack)
- ‘than your opponent’s’ should be ‘than your opponent’.
- ‘trainer’ needs to be captilised as ‘Trainer’. Error x3
- I do not think ‘any number’ is the correct term for this attack. I think it should read “You may reveal as many trainer cards as you like that you find there.”
- 30 what? I assume you mean ‘30 damage’, but you do need to mention the ‘damage’ part.

Creativity/Originality: 16/20
(Intricate synergy with creativity expressed, and very nice flavour.)
Wording: 8/15
(A few minor errors and a few major errors.)
Believability/Playability: 12.5/15
(Can be too powerful in certain circumstances, a bit too much HP.)
Total: 36.5/50

@Luispipe8:

Spoiler: Mawile

Ah, Luis. I was expecting you.

Like virtually every Ancient Trait I’ve judged, I’m two-minded about this one. It feels much more complicated and ability like than your average Ancient Trait due to its energy variable. There isn’t really variables like this in other Ancient Traits, which follows an ‘if this happens do this’ template. Yours has another layer of complexity: ‘if this happens do this using this’. I do like you’ve nerfed the AT to be something not overly powerful by making it ‘each card’, which also carries a bit of anti-synergy with the attack’s cost, which you would normally want to fulfil with a Metal Energy and DCE. However, Spoon has just mentioned that Rain Dance cards would abuse the Ancient Trait, so I’ll have to dock a believabiltiy point for power.

I like the twist you put on the Sharpen ability. The ‘if damaged’ effect feels a bit overused with Rough Skin type of abilities. As you said, the ability is pretty balanced due to the little bulkiness Mawile actually has, meaning you will have even less opportunities to use the boost after coin flip. That said, the AT works nicely with this ability to add a bit more bulk to the Mawile.

I don’t really get why you chose this attack effect in conjunction with the ability and Ancient Trait. However, I’ve noticed there is a bit of anti-synergy or balancing with the other effects. EXs are the things that are more likely than not going to 1-hit KO you, meaning it will be more difficult to survive and use the abilities than if you were vsing a Stage 1 or 2. That aside, I was surprised that this attack hasn’t ever existed! xD

I find your HP choice odd, especially considering surrounding Mawile. 70 HP I feel is an adequate amount for a Mawile, and if you have to, 80, but Mawile with the HP of Girafarig PHF (a notable difference of 20 points in HP in VG) sounds a bit absurd. The Retreat Cost of the Mawile also feels a bit high, with surrounding cards sticking to a single cost.

Wording errors:
- ‘it’s damaged’ should be ‘is damaged’.
- I think that’s all.

Creativity/Originality: 16/20
(Hidden synergy, flavourful and moderately creative.)
Wording: 14/15
(A minor error.)
Believability/Playability: 13/15
(Odd choices for HP and Retreat, can be broken.)
Total: 43/50

3rd Place: Supa_Hot_Fire’s supportive Audino, with 39/50 points.
2nd Place: Reggie McGigas’ befuddling Unown, with 41/50 points.
1st Place: Luispipe8’s sturdy Mawile, with 43/50 points.

Judge: @bbninjas

I don't mean to complain, but my text-based Unown received a score of 42 and did not make top 3, but the second and third place entries, while extremely well made, scored less than 42.

 

[Ice Arceus]

I don't mean to complain, but my text-based Unown received a score of 42 and did not make top 3, but the second and third place entries, while extremely well made, scored less than 42.

We apologize for the mistake. We had to move a couple of participants up in the placings considering there was an error in the winners before the results could go up. We will be working on fixing this issue in both the thread and activity story itself.

 

[bbninjas]

Huge apology on my part to each of the Top 4. As IA mentioned, there was a mix up right before the results could go up causing the final results to be skewed. Thanks SeventhPrize for alerting us to this

 

[Rhesis]

Shuckle– Fighting – HP70
Basic Pokémon

Ability: Shellf-defense
Prevent all damage done to this Pokémon if that damage is 70 or more.

[F] Wrap 10: The Defending Pokémon can't retreat during your opponent's next turn.

[F][C] Shack a Mole. Whenever your opponent plays a Item card from his or her hand during his or her next turn, your opponent flips a coin. If tails, that card has no effect, put 20 damage in your opponent’s Active Pokémon. (Your opponent still discards that card.)

Weakness: Water (x2)
Resistance: None
Retreat: 1

Text-Based Results

@Rhesis:

Spoiler: Shuckle

Well, you just sent me on a wild goose chase to find the three different wordings for a possible ability like that Shellf-defense. The “prevent all damage” appears to be used when with the variable is unrelated to integers, while the “would be damaged by an attack” appears when there is an integer variable. But then again, “prevent all damage” is commonly used on abilities, while “would be damaged be an attack” has only been used on one ability. Since the effect is fairly novel, I’ll just go along with the “prevent all damage” path. You do need some clarification of when the damage is actually prevented, is after or before Weakness and Resistance?

Either you made a typo or you made a cool pun with Shellf-defense, but either way, it works well as flavour. Preventing large amounts of damage is fairly unique, and has certainly not been made into an ability before. It doesn’t feel too OP when considering most decks run Pokemon that can hit under 70, and it makes your opponent think about when - and how - they should invest their buffs and energy. You also would need to think of when you should put out the wall, which adds even more strategy.

Wrap is fairly boring, but does work well with the wall nature of Shuckle. Pull out your opponent’s Pokemon and lock them there with a painstaking 10 damage per turn until they find a Switch seems plausible . There is a technical problem with the attack name, however - attacks named “Wrap” will always do something about Paralyzing, making this attack a little less believable.

I never knew three words could contain such a fun and flavourful meaning! I’m not sure if you meant to write “Shack” over “Whack”, but either way it’s fun. I don’t really get the actual attack’s effect’s reference to the name. Are you whacking yourself every time your opponent uses an item? Or is your opponent whacking your Shuckle to prevent it from stealing your item? And then why is damage going onto your opponent’s Active and not Shuckle? I’m not sure if I like how similar this attack is to Venomoth PHF, but hey, it’s still different. There is a nice, similar synergy with Wrap - prevent your opponent from using their notorious Switch cards. In conjunction with Wrap, this card really forces you to think ahead about which attack to use each turn, which I like a lot.

Finally, the weakness is wrong. It should be [G] not [W], even though Shuckle is not weak to [G] in the games. It appears that TCG ignores secondary typings, as seen by [N] Dialga-EX.

Wording errors:
- “Shellf-defense” should be captilised as “Shellf-Defense” as abiding by the hyphen trends
- the “a” before “Item” should be “an” for grammatical reasons
- Should say “no effect and put” instead of “no effect, put”
- Should say “on” not “in”
- Should say “2 damage counters” not “20 damage”. You should be putting damage counters on the Pokemon as the damage is done during a turn, not as part of the attack’s damage calculations.
- Should say “by attacks” after “this Pokemon”
- Needs clarification on Weakness and Resistance, probably “(after applying Weakness and Resistance)”.


Creativity/Originality: 15/20
(Challenges a player's skill with synergy, flavour and adapted attacks and abilities.)
Wording: 4/15
(Minor errors, some major errors and a clarification error.)
Believability/Playability: 14/15
(Wrong weakness.)
Total: 33/50

Judge: @bbninjas

First, thanks for the feedback , I learn reading what i haven't done well. But I want to clear up some facts, if you let me

As i said before, I don't speak English as a mother tongue, i'm spanish, buuuuuut... I love "word games", for that reason I used that titles for the attack and the ability, but I think you get it jeje. For the others that though that i was a little dyslexic, here are the reasons:

-"Shell-Defense": Shell+Self-Defense, because it protects its body with the shell, and it is funny I think ).

-"Shack"a Mole: "Shuck" of Shuckle same like Whack so, i mix them, for a "word game". Also, Shuckle has more holes in its shell than parts of its body that go out through them, so... you know where i want to go with that? Exactly. nWhen you hit a mole with a hammer, you win (you can use the item). When you fail...ouch... you hit the ground with a hammer, that shouldn't feel so good...(for that 20 damage to the Active Pokémon, because here the player can't take damage jeje).

About naming Resistance/Weakness in the Ability, I searched about XY Kakuna that says:

"During your opponent's next turn, if this Pokémon would be damaged by an attack, prevent that attack's damage done to this Pokémon if that damage is 60 or less."

So I thought it wasn't necessary name it.

I think the Weakness isn't wrong, simply is different. I know that Shuckle before mine has [G] or [R] Weakness, but Why not [W]? Is it forbidden? I wanted a [F] Shuckle but with no [G] Weakness, because, [G] is going to be a very used (Giant Plant Stadium) and for that [R] will rebirth too, so I didn't want a Pokémon with common Weakness, for that I chose [W], because isn't as common as the others.

The last things i want to say is that i want to see the next "Create a card" (because in July I was on Holidays and seems that in August there is no contest). Aaaaand congratulations to the winners, and the staff of the contest