Introductions Are In Order

Before I get into the details of the project, I'd like to say a few words about myself. I'm known online as Matthew Kaine, and I'm a college student. My major is unrelated to my work here, and I will be getting no revenue or course credit for the work I do. This is simply a hobby. I've been playing Magic: The Gathering since Middle School, but there was a pretty big hiatus for me between then and college. Once I discovered the University's Magic Club, I began to play again, mostly in the limited format. However, I'm a huge fan of deckbuilding and Standard, and I play with my roommates casually with constructed multiplayer decks.

  Artwork by Ruth Taylor

Earlier this week I was walking back from classes thinking about proxy creation, which is another hobby I've been pursuing lately, and I came up with the idea of making proxies of original cards, which is something I've never done before. Pondering on what would be fun to make (and at this point I was only imagining a couple cards for fun), I decided that making the starter Pokemon into Magic cards would be good start to test my designing skills. Well, after the first three were done, I just kept going until I realized what I needed to do.

 Artwork by Sycra Yasin

I'll be making a complete set using the creatures, abilities, technology, and locations found in the original game of Pokemon. I will mainly be drawing inspiration from the GameBoy games, since I always thought the portrayal of Pokemon using that system was the most believable. I'll use the TV show for ideas on locations and humans, and I'll be looking at the card game's Trainer Cards for references to technology. I'm not sure how long this will take me, but I already have 50 creatures set, so I can't imagine it will be more than a month or so. I won't post all the cards on here until they're complete, but I will include little previews with every article. For example, here's a look at the first three Pokemon I initially created.

Artwork by Eric Chen, Molly Gur, and RJ Palmer

 While this won't give you a good feel for the power level of the set (I made them a little more powerful than your average common creature), it should give you a little taste of how I'll be interpretting the creatures. Obviously not all fire Pokemon will have Charmander's ability, and not all of the Pokemon with Bubble will be like Squirtle. Each creature will be unique in its own way while still keeping with the power level of a regular Magic set and properly representing the Pokemon in question.

That's all for now. I hope you join me in this exciting journey and give me feedback and support along the way. Until next time.