General Notes

This set includes all 251 Pokémon from generations 1 & 2 as well as some variations on them to bring the set to a total of 311 cards.

Designed for Limited

The set is designed for limited play just like any real set that would be released, and it's balanced accordingly.

Digital Play

The entire set is programmed into a game that you can download and play now. Play limited or constructed against AI or friends. Check out the Play page for more info.

Art and Immersion

The art in this set was critical to me. Every custom Pokémon set I've ever seen relies on anime or game art. I wanted this world to feel like the fantasy worlds you see in Magic. So every card's art is intended to have a realistic, fantasy style. The card back incorporates elements of the Pokémon TCG card back, but still with the outline of a typical Magic card back.

Future Expansion

I created this set with the possibility that it could be expanded in the future, so some mechanics could get more love later on. That said, this took way longer than I expected, so I intend to take a long break before adding any more generations.

Featuring: Creature Combat

The world of Pokémon revolves around creature combat. It may be that in generations beyond 1 & 2, instants, sorceries, Auras, and other card types play a role. But, for this iteration, I wanted to focus entirely on the core of what makes Pokémon Pokémon: creature combat. The lack of card types probably makes for a less interesting set overall, but playtesting has shown the creature-focused interactions to be pretty rewarding. Some wild Pokémon also help fill the role of one-time effects by flashing in and surprising your opponent.

Mechanics

New Mechanic: Evolve from

This behaves pretty much exactly like the existing mutate mechanic, but simplified to only work for a named card. The goal here is to build your Pokémon up over time (if they can survive long enough) so that their abilities harmonize. If you don't have the time, resources, or the right cards to evolve, don't fret; just play the creature outright and keep the tempo of battle moving forward.

Draft packs are built to have guaranteed evolutions in each pack to allow this mechanic to work in limited. Check out the "Play" page to learn more. (See the Release Notes for C.R. updates for how this ability interacts with the existing evolve ability introduced in Gatecrash.)

New Mechanic: Weather

Weather plays a critical role in the world of Pokémon. Some Pokémon are made more powerful under certain conditions, while others are weakened. Weather is a state that the game has, like day/night, but easier to track because it only changes when a card tells you to do so.

Some cards will get buffs or have different abilities that can only be activated under certain weather conditions. If you want to build your deck around the weather, take care to ensure you have enough cards to change the weather to the conditions you prefer.

Valid weather conditions:

• Windy (white creatures like Birds tend to prefer the wind)
• Rainy (blue and green creatures grow stronger in the rain, while rock-type or fire-type Pokémon might be weakened)
• Foggy (black creatures tend to prefer the fog)
• Sunny (green and red creatures typically prefer the sun)
• Snowy (snow creatures can freeze others when it's snowy)

New Mechanic: Status counters

Status effects are a big part of Pokémon battles. Status counters are poison, stun, frost, and burn. Each one has its own rules.

In this set, poison counters are put on creatures instead of players. Their effects on creatures are unique: they cause loss of life during the end step. At the beginning of your end step, you face a choice for each creature you control with poison counters. Either you sacrifice that creature, or you lose 1 life for each poison counter on it.

Stun counters are a returning mechanic that prevents untapping. If a creature with a stun counter would untap, remove a stun counter from it instead. This helps represent the paralysis status effect.

Frost counters slow you down. You must pay {1} for each frost counter on a creature for it to attack or block, but only if it's snowy! These represent the frozen status effect, which can be completely debilitating, or vanish in an instant!

Burn counters cause pain in the sun. Each gives -1/-1, but only if it's sunny. Fire-type Pokémon will stack as many of these as possible on creatures, then bring out the sun to burn them all down.

New mechanic: Caustic and scorching

These static abilities work with poison and burn counters and happen as a creature deals combat damage (and only combat damage, not other kinds of damage) to a creature.

Scorching is similar. A creature dealt combat damage by a creature with scorching gets a burn counter put on it.

Returning mechanic: Phase out

Phasing in/out is how this set blinks creatures without any weird rules implications for merged (i.e. evolved) creatures changing zones. Since this set is so focused on creature combat, maintaining the state of counters and evolutions is important. Phasing in/out isn't too tricky to grasp once you get the hang of it. A creature that phases in/out doesn't enter or leave the battlefield (so those triggers don't trigger). The game continues as if the creature doesn't exist until it phases in at the beginning of its controller's next turn (or whenever otherwise stated by the effect).

Returning mechanic: Shield counters

These help protect your creatures. If a creature with a shield counter on it would be dealt damage or destroyed, remove a shield counter from it instead. This applies to any amount of damage, so shield counters are best for stopping one-hit KOs. You'll see them most commonly on rock-type Pokémon as a parallel to the "sturdy" ability in the Pokémon games.