Contest November 2020 CaC: Ghost Pokémon (Results Are Up!)

Jabberwock

#Jovimohnaeliackvid
Forum Mod
Articles Staff
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Welcome to the November 2020 round of the Create-A-Card!

This month’s theme is Ghost Pokémon.

Ghost Pokémon have a well-deserved reputation of spookiness in all forms of Pokémon media, from the haunting of Pokémon Tower in the Generation I anime to the mysterious Strange House in Generation V, and all generations between and since. Are Ghost Pokémon the spirits of departed Pokémon, or simply mischievous beings that like wreaking havoc? Who knows! But Halloween’s not so far gone, and it seems like a good time to celebrate them a little.

For this round of the competition, we want to see you tackle a Pokémon card of a Ghost-type Pokémon. Ghosts have traditionally been represented by the [P] type in the TCG, but your card doesn’t necessarily have to be [P] type if your Pokémon of choice has an additional type, or you’re making a Delta-species card, or you have some other reason for taking a creative liberty. Just remember the Believability score!

This competition has two sections, text-based and image-based fakes. For text-based fakes, all you have to do is create a card in text form and post it in here! For image-based fakes, you’ll need the help of some software to let your creations come to life. But one thing remains important between both of them: your cards must be completely original!


Registration

  • To sign up you must reply to the thread below. Make sure to include whether you’re in for text or image-based fakes!
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  • You may register with a partner and work together on the same card. This way each member can use their different talents and combine their skills, especially if one of you is an artist and the other is a TCG player. (Feel free to post in the thread that you’re looking for a partner if you want one.)
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  • We have a total of 15 spaces available for text-based entries and 15 for image-based. If you’ve never done an image-based card before, now is a great time to learn! PokéBeach has many card blanks and guides available for use.


Judging

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Text-Based
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  1. Creativity/Originality
    We’re all tired of effectless attacks! Without images, part of the intrigue with text-based fakes is the creativity of Pokémon Power / Body / Ability / attack effects. Let’s see something cool and new!
    Total: 20 points
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  2. Wording
    Proper wording is key in designing any fake card. Try to ensure wording is correct for the era of card you choose as card wording has changed many times over the years. Naturally, grammar and spelling are also taken into consideration.

    Text-based fakers may format their entries any way they choose, but for those who are new or would like a guideline to follow, this is a simple formatting guideline you can follow:

    Pokémon – Type – HP50
    Stage 1 – Evolves from Pokémon

    Ability: Name
    Ability Effect

    [R][C] Attack 20
    Attack Effect

    Weakness: Fire (x2)
    Resistance: Psychic (-20)
    Retreat: [C] [C] [C]
    Pokédex Information

    Total: 15 points
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  3. Believability/Playability
    Text-based fakes rely heavily on their believability. Think of your entries as if they were real cards. Try to avoid those 400 HP monsters which do 200 damage for [R]! Proper type (unless Delta-species), Pokédex information, and ballpark HP will also be taken into consideration. We will assume that your card is being created for the current TCG era unless otherwise stated, so if you are making a card for a previous era, you must mention this in your entry post.
    Total: 15 points
Max Points: 50

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Image-Based
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  1. Creativity/Originality
    This is a given. With the proper photo editing tools, let your imagination run wild! Among other things, this can involve innovating new mechanics, envisioning new card interactions, and exploring exciting gameplay potential or other design space.
    Total: 15 points
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  2. Believability/Playability
    Believability and playability are both integral to the realism of a fake. A card’s playability is its power level — try not to be overpowered or underpowered for the era you’re designing in! For believability, proper type (unless delta-species), Pokédex information, ballpark HP, and so on will be taken into consideration.
    Total: 15 points
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  3. Wording
    Proper wording is key in designing any fake card. Try to ensure wording is correct for the era of blank you choose, as card wording has changed many times over the years. Naturally, grammar and spelling are also taken into consideration.
    Total: 10 points
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  4. Fonts and Placement
    Correct fonts (which may change era by era) are imperative when creating realistic fakes — even for custom blanks, fonts in line with the convention can go a long way toward making them appear realistic. Placement of text / symbols / etc. is also taken into consideration.
    Total: 5 points
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  5. Aesthetics
    Aesthetics is all about how your card looks as a complete whole. Aspects of this category include using creative and appropriate artwork, using neat or custom blanks, and overall having an appealing card creation. Additionally, you may not use existing artwork from the TCG for your cards. If you’d like to use Ken Sugimori stock artwork, you may do so, but it must be transformative in nature.
    Total: 5 points
Max Points: 50

And that’s the point breakdown for this round’s Create-A-Card! @Jabberwock will be judging image-based, and @FourteenAlmonds will be judging text-based.

We’re always looking for new judges. Keen to join the team? You can learn how to apply here.


General Rules

  • The card you submit must be of a Pokémon — that is, not a Trainer, Energy, or other type of card. Occasionally, we open this up to other types of cards if the month’s theme warrants it, but otherwise it’s impossible to judge (for example) Pokémon cards against Trainer cards, since their uses in-game are so different.
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  • For those entering image-based, you must include the symbol here on your card (such as the set symbol) or else your entry won’t be accepted. It was designed by the lovely Nekoban Ryo who continuously creates resources for the faking world and is a prominent faker himself. In addition, we do not allow any image-based entries that have been made using automatic, online card generators.
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  • If you edit your post you’ll incur deduction of 2 points from your overall score, and posting your entry again on a different post also deducts 2 points. When you submit, make sure you’re done! If you mess up the tags or have a similar coding disaster, tag or PM me to get it fixed. If you forget to credit someone, do so in a new post instead of editing.
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  • Participants who fail to submit a card by the deadline, if the particular portion is full, will automatically lose 2 points for next round (similar to losing 2 points for the current round for editing). If the portion you have signed-up for is full and if you wish to drop out, you must do so with three days remaining before the deadline to not incur the penalty. Continuing to fail to post a submission in future rounds will result in a possible ban from the contest for a couple of months. Please keep a close eye on the deadline.
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  • All CAC entries should not be posted elsewhere in the PokéBeach forums while the current month’s contest is ongoing. If you have a personal thread or gallery where you post your fake card creations, you must wait to post your CAC card there until the contest is complete and full judging results have been posted. This is to ensure that CAC judges can continue to give proper feedback both within the contest and in the forums.
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  • Participants should only enter one of the two categories. This is to prevent the potential for an excessive influx of entries for our judges to manage.
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  • Artists/illustrators are free to post in this thread, letting participants know that they are available.
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  • All entries should meet the forum rules. You should always credit the artist, and never use someone else’s art without their permission, else it is considered art theft.

Deadline: November 30th (Mon.) 12:00pm EST
Here’s a deadline countdown for convenience: [link]​

Anticipated Entrants


Image-Based:
  1. @CardPone
  2. @AlphaLad
  3. @Nyan
  4. @bbninjas
  5. @The Ωmega One
  6. @ggDerpyDerp
  7. @PMJ
  8. This could be you!

Text-Based:
  1. @AshCo
  2. @Luispipe8
  3. @47bennyg
  4. @Ethan R
  5. @DashKing
  6. @FireLizard
  7. @Falling Skies
  8. @Stalltar
  9. This could be you!

Bold names means I have seen your entry in this thread.

Want to help advertise the contest? Just paste the code below for the banner in your sig!
Code:
[url=https://www.pokebeach.com/forums/threads/november-2020-cac-ghost-pokémon-sign-ups-open.151819/][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/314734526020583436/772529525379563560/cac_banner_nov20.png[/img][/url]

Credit goes to @Nekoban Ryo and @Jabberwock for the banner.
 
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...I always second-guess myself doing these, but...Hey, why not? Sign me up for Text.
 
I was asked about this separately, and I'll confirm here —

Rotom forms other than the original are fair game, despite the fact that they haven't been Ghost-type since Generation IV. They're all still the same Pokémon, and the Ghost type in the original is enough to make me count it for all of them.

If there are any other ambiguities in the theme (though I can't think of any), feel free to ask, and I'll clarify. :)
 
I'll sign up for text. I may not get to it due to schoolwork but will try.

Also, how do I do a spoiler? I'm new lol
 
Code:
[SPOILER="Name Me"]
Hi.

I am a Pokemon card.

I can do attacks and damage. Maybe Abilities too.

Sometimes I retreat.

Actually I don't.

I have a Retreat Cost of [C][C][C][C].
[/SPOILER]

@Ethan R
 
Wasn't planning on making this so soon, but it just kind of happened. Pretty happy with how succinct this card is while still doing something semi interesting.

Drifblim – Psychic – HP110
Stage 1 – Evolves from Drifloon

Ability: Untether
During your turn, you may retreat your Active Pokémon as many times as you like.

[P][P] Spirits of the Departed 10+
This attack does 60 more damage for each of your Benched Pokémon that was in the Active Spot this turn.

Weakness: Darkness (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-30)
Retreat: [C]

Some say this Pokémon is a collection of souls burdened with regrets, silently drifting through the dusk.
 
Here's my entry! I actually came up with the idea November 1st I believe, but it took some serious fine tuning. Anyway, here's the card.
sableye-ex-november-cac-big.png
I was originally going to make a different card, but then I saw this sableye art and couldn't help myself. Basically my thought process was based on the artwork. I looked through a bunch of different cards until I found the lowercase-ex's, which the art style seemed to fit with. I also really like the aesthetics of the blanks, so I decided to go with that. I knew going in that I wanted some kind of wacky, random attack, kind of in the spirit of Halloween with Trick or Treating and such. I also wanted it to be somewhat viable, so I decided on giving it a powerful effect with powerful drawbacks. Originally, the effect was going to work on Pokémon Tools as well, but after testing some wordings with the wonderful people in the faking discord, we decided it would make more sense to leave them out of the equation. The wording I settled on allows you to use any non-tool Trainer that you pull. It also addresses more niche cases such as an Ultra Ball with 1 card in hand, or some other missing parameter, but my favorite part is that it forces you to play whatever you draw! We spent far too long scrutinizing over the finer details of the attack, and finally decided on a wording based on the cards in the References section. Next I wanted an attack that was really embeded into Sableye's lore, and thus was born Rock Chomp. The idea popped into my head looking at the dex entries; there was one about Sableye eating rocks to strengthen its attacks. The damage and cost were balanced around 2 popular decks in the EX era, Nidoqueen and Ludicolo. Ludicolo was good with a 10x attack and a good ability, so a the combination of being a basic and an ex kind of balance out that aspect. I realized that it would also do well against Nidoqueen, which makes it less clunky and to where it could almost see play (I'm not too sure, I've never played that meta myself).
"Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a ..." (nidoran female rg, cubone trr)
"excluding Pokémon ..." (Great Ball pk)
"Pokémon Tool cards" (quagsire df)
"(You must still do anything else required for that ..." (mew pop5)
"If you can't ..." (Holon Mentor df)
"Discard the other cards." (charizard cg)
"Does 10 damage times the number of ..." (ludicolo dx)
Energy orb in attack (clefable-ex rg)
"each player's" (sidney's stadium)
"In each player's discard" (garbodor ltr, wobbuffet gen, marshadow smpr)
Font Guide and Blanks: Metagross101
Illustrator: EdoNovaIllustrator
Help with balancing and such: Pokémon TCG Faking Community, especially CardPone, TheObseleteOne, and PMJ
Anyway, that was my first Create-a-Card entry! Hopefully this card lives up to the stupendous entries I've seen in these events, and I hope to join in next month as well!
 
Pokémon – Type [P] – HP 160
Stage 2 – Evolves from Haunter

Ability: Shadow Tag
Ability: Before you select your active Pokémon, if this Pokémon is in your hand when you are setting up to play, you may reveal it and draw three cards. You can't use more than one Shadow Tag Ability per game.

[P][C][C] Attack: Dream Eater 100+
You may discard up to 3 cards from your hand. For each card you discarded in this way, this attack does 60 more damage.

Weakness: Dark (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-30)
Retreat: 0
Pokedex Entry: On the night of a full moon, if shadows move on their own and laugh, it must be Gengar’s doing.



The initial idea came from the ability. I thought Talonflame (Steam Seige 96) was a really cool card, and while I didn't want to copy it exactly, I liked the idea of being able to do something before the game starts. I also really want some better Stage 2 Pokémon, so I tried to make it at least decent, though I'm not too sure how well I did. My idea for the ability was to try to make a Gengar deck able to start Jirachi or other good starting Pokémon as much as possible to set up quickly. I wanted Dream Eater to be able to OHKO something like Arceus, Dialga, & Palkia GX, hence the 280 max damage.


Shadow Tag: Taloflame STS 96
Weakness/Resistance: Gengar SSH 85
Retreat: Gengar CRI 38


This was my first CAC entry, so I hope I did everything okay at least.
 
I'm sorry, I'm going to have to drop out of this one, if that's fine. Good luck to all the contestants!
 
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