A Brief Introduction to Noncreatures

Today isn't going to be a very long post, but I thought I'd take some time to talk about how I designed the first couple noncreatures of the set. But before I get to that, though, I'd like to discuss the card I showed off at my university's Magic club meeting the other night. Allow me to introduce Arcanine:

Arcanine sort of works like a Trumpet Blast with legs. Just by himself he's hitting for 7, but he can be a total game-ender if you have a couple decent-sized creatures already on-board. The members of my club all thought he'd see Constructed play if he was officially released, which I was happy to hear because that was my intention. And with that we move on to an artifact.

Voltorb was initially going to be an artifact creature, but I couldn't decide on a good number for power and toughness. Its most powerful effect in Pokemon is Self-Destruct, and it seemed odd to make a creature that was useless unless it died. There certainly are creatures in Magic where this is the case, but Voltorb doesn't even feel like a creature; it's almost entirely utility. With that in mind, I decided to run with Self-Destruct and just turn that effect into an artifact. It still retained Voltorb's name and image, though, mainly because a name like Self-Destruct sounds too much like an instant or sorcery. Speaking of which...

 

Tackle is the first of many instants and sorceries that are based on Pokemon Moves. Some I will skip due to being too far from Magic's color pie or simply being stronger or weaker versions of the same Move. I'll also be reprinting certain cards that either bear resemblance or match the name exactly of the Move in question. I won't give any away today, but I'm sure you can guess at least a couple. But one thing I will say is that I won't be designing any new cards with the same name as a card that already exists with that name. A good example of a Move that couldn't be in the set due to this decision is Agility. While it is a well-designed card, I won't bring back Flanking just for the sake of one reprint.

Tackle | Artwork by Jessie Lam

As you might have noticed, the artwork I selected for Tackle isn't related to Pokemon; it bears much more resemblance to a typical Magic card. I won't be doing this for all the Moves, but when I can't find an image that is specifically showing the Move in question, I'll be using pictures that represent the concept with a Magic kind of style. My vision of Kanto during the time of this set is just like any other Plane in the Multiverse. It has all the classic fantasy elements you might expect from Magic. The only difference is that the creatures are based on Pokemon. I'll go into more detail about this once I write out the story of the set, but hopefully this should give you a good idea of the direction I'll be taking it.

That's all for today. As I said in a previous post, I'm now done with all the set's creatures, so it's possible that the focus of the blog will be shifted to noncreatures for a little while until the rest of the set is complete. We'll see what happens. Until next time.

A Quick Note for Artists

Since I received my first complaint today about using an artist's work on my cards, I'd like to make this clear to anybody whose work I use or alter for the purposes of this set. While I didn't ask permission, I do credit the artists on the cards and the larger art that I post here. I also did my best to use artwork that didn't explicitly state not to be posted elsewhere. If my usage of your artwork is offensive to you or you're at all worried about me using it in a manner you don't approve of, please just let me know and I'll happily take it down and replace it. Pokemon are extremely popular, and there's an abundance of fan art available. I also dabble in art as well, so I could also produce my own pieces if I can't find a better replacement. I would also be willing to pay commission for a piece if I can't find an equal replacement. So if I do offend you, I sincerely apologize, but please at least know that everything I'm doing here is just for fun, and I have no intention to profit from your work.

And for those wondering if their artwork will turn up later down the road, here is a list of all the artists that I've used work from thus far:

Retreat!

Good news everyone! I'm officially done with creating all the Pokemon I wanted to make for the set. Now begins the much harder process of designing spells, lands, artifacts, and so on. But before I begin talking about that, I'd like to spend some time today discussing the new mechanic I made for the set. Allow me to introduce to you Fallback:

The way that Fallback works is very similar to Regeneration. Whenever you get into a situation where the creature might die, whether it be through combat or a removal spell, you may pay the Fallback cost to return the creature to your hand at the moment that it would die. This means that just like Regeneration, the creature still deals combat damage to the attacking or blocking creature before returning to your hand. Using the example of Weedle, you can see how well this ability works with something like Deathtouch. Weedle may seem a bit scrawny, but it can take out countless threats as long as you have the one Forest to return it to your hand.

As you might imagine, this gets even more powerful when combined with "enter the battlefield" effects. Let's take a look at Clefairy, who can provide us with a great example of this power.

Those who have been playing Standard lately know the potential of creatures that give life when entering the battlefield. While Clefairy isn't close to the terrifying Thragtusk, it does bear resemblance to Cathedral Sanctifier, which has been seeing some play in Reanimator decks lately. If gaining three life once is good enough to be played in a tournament-worthy constructed deck, imagine the potential of the effect being repeatable, especially on a creature that can block reasonably well.

From a creative standpoint, I made Fallback because I needed an ability that reflected Pokemon being able to go back into the Trainer's Pokeball when low on HP or bad for the particular match-up. Giving the ability to return on command didn't feel unique enough for a keyword, so I had to make it a bit more conditional. Also, but making the return only happen under certain circumstances, I made it a bit more difficult to exploit their other abilities. Obviously I haven't had the chance to playtest yet, but I imagine it's going to work out pretty well.

Weedle | Artwork by Madde "CrazyRatty"

 That's all for today. I hope a taste of the new mechanic will get you all excited to see the rest of the cards with this unique ability. Later this week I'll be discussing a couple ways I added Pokemon to the set without making them into unique creatures, so be on the lookout for that. Until next time.

On the Origin of Species

Today I thought I'd talk a bit about evolution, since I know a few people have been interested to see how I did that. I received a number of suggestions from people, including using a leveling system like in Rise of the Eldrazi, making lesser creatures work as cost-reducers of the higher evolutions, and making creatures like tutors that can search for the higher evolutions at any time. I didn't stick to one method for every evolution line, mainly because there were some Pokemon that have been excluded entirely, and it also just felt right to treat each line individually when designing. I'll be previewing a few new creatures today, each one representing a different form of evolution that I used in the set.

Artwork by Dante Corvus

After I completed the starters and their evolutions (I won't be giving those away today), I moved on to Caterpie's line, which is the three-Pokemon line of Caterpie, Metapod, and Butterfree. I originally was going to leave out Caterpie because I thought it would be too insignificant, but then I realized that if I was going to make this a complete set, we were going to need some "bad" creatures, too. However, the transition from a little bug to a hardening cocoon seemed odd, so I made Caterpie separate from Metapod. Because of this decision, I won't take the time to show you Caterpie today. Metapod is a different story.

I loved the idea of making Metapod a parallel to Roc Egg, since it was such a great value card in Limited. However, the fact that Metapod wanted to be green made this endeavor a little tricky. On one hand, a defender that makes a decent flier seems fine as uncommon, but when you think about green, they never get fliers. Pokemon's insects tend to fly in later evolutions, so I decided to translate that into higher rarity. Despite the fact that Metapod isn't incredible, it does enable you to have decent evasion in a mono-green deck, which barely ever happens. Thus an evolution line has been established.

Artwork by Snook-8

Another way of connecting creatures of the same evolution line is indirectly through parallels. A couple creatures in Pokemon simply look like the different age-groups of the same animal, so I was often able to represent that through the growth of power and toughness or a change of color. For Cubone, it was the latter.

The Pokedex suggested that the key difference between Cubone and Marowak was the emotional shift from sadness to anger. I decided to represent that by keeping the same creature, just flipping the power and toughness and changing the color. Neither are super powerful, and both are relatively useful in a draft. They both are also perfect for being common, which is also important to keep in mind when designing the set as a whole.

Artwork by Irshad Karim

...And then there's Magikarp. It's always hard to think of a creature so useless as being directly related to the most powerful Pokemon in the games. However, this is an undeniable fact, and I couldn't will myself to exclude it or separate the two. So I made it a herald.

Extremely easy to kill and extremely powerful when given the opportunity, heralds have been the bringers of much pain in Magic's history, particularly the heralds of Shards of Alara, which are the most similar to Magikarp. However, Magikarp is much more powerful due the significantly lower cost to search for its evolution. And I'm sure you're dying to see Gyarados...

Artwork by Alysia Prosser

As you can see, if you have both cards in your deck, and your opponent can't kill your turn-one Magikarp, it's going to be a pretty tough game to beat. I didn't want to give it an immediate effect, but it's still a pretty significant force to be reckoned with, even if you have to hard-cast it.

That's all for today. I hope you enjoyed my first mythic preview of the set; there will be a few more mythic previews to come, though not necessarily in the near future. Stay tuned next week for when I jump into the new mechanic of the set and start discussing noncreatures! Until next time.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I've been out and about with my fiancée today for Valentine's Day, but I thought I'd pop in to give you a little holiday preview! I'll probably post again on Friday or Saturday with a more in-depth article.

Chansey | Artwork by Benjamin Sigas

 

Color Me Impressed

Today I'm going to move on to another critical element of design that wasn't a huge issue for the first couple of Pokemon. As I'm sure a couple of you have already guessed, color is a huge factor when designing cards, not just in terms of their abilities, but also their base power and toughness, since some colors simply get better creatures than others. Let's think about some issues with translating into Pokemon types into Magic colors and how each color affects the card's outcome.

Rattata | Artwork by RJ Palmer

Nobody brought it to my attention after I published my last article, but I'm sure a couple of you guessed that Rattata was going to be white. If I had to give a name to that line of thought, it would be something like direct-translational bias. Because Rattata had the "normal" Pokemon type, which was colored white in the card games, we impulsively think that it belongs in Magic's equivalent. And without going too deep into the flavor and color wheel of Magic, you wouldn't see anything wrong with this line of thinking. After all, it would be easy to give Rattata an ability that would make it fit in that color, so why not appeal to this direct translation?

The first issue is regarding the history of Magic's creatures. In order to make a set that fits right into the Multiverse (or the world of Magic, for people who are unfamiliar with this term), we need be aware of where Magic has placed its creature types over the years. Over the course of its history, Magic has placed rats in only two colors when making creatures. Red and black. There are a couple instances where you'll see me violate these historical norms, but I would never go so far as to place a common rat in its opposite color. 

The second problem is how creature needs to be represented through top-down design. The flavor of white animals is that they are useful to society in terms of servitude or they have personalities that resonate with white's values. When thinking about rats, they are stereotypically defined as creatures of disease and filth. While I actually disagree with this sentiment, I do know that all rats like cluttered environments and are generally seen as detrimental to society when not bred for science or domesticated as pets. If Rattata was a lab rat or a pet rat, I might see an argument for a color other than red or black, but white is the color of order and posterity. Rats simply don't belong. 

 Artwork by Sycra Yasin

So where does that leave Pikachu? Not only is Pikachu very similar to a rat, it also has the Pokemon type of "electric", which doesn't smoothly align with Magic's color system. 

Click here to see how where Pikachu lies:

Electricity may seem tricky at first, but when thinking about spells in Magic that use it (Lightning Bolt, Shock, and Electrickery, to name a few), they exclusively fall into red. It only makes sense that electric creatures would align with the same color. But Pikachu is also a minor example of how I'll stretch the norms a bit in my set. While I said rats are only found in black and red, I failed to mention that red has never received a mono-color rat; it's always required black in the cost. Pikachu had to be a rat, but its behavior as a Pokemon is nothing like black, so the lines have been blurred to compensate for flavor.

As we move forward, you'll see that I always put the personality and behavior of the Pokemon above the demands of Magic. I'll do my best to stick close to the well-established norms, but I could already name a couple instances where I've found myself on the edge of that line. As I preview those cards, I'll provide more detail on the struggles I faced while making them, but until then, I'll just leave you guessing. Until next time.

Baby Steps

I figured I would start off small, since the set is still incomplete and there's still a lot I want to hold back until it's done. So I'll begin with how I decided on the first few creatures' abilities.  Before showing you a new card, let's take a look at our starters, since I know a lot of people will find them the most popular.

Bulbasaur | Artwork by Eric Chan

 The way I start with most of the Pokemon, and the starters were no exception, was to look at their bodies and assess how that translates into power and toughness. If it's hard to get a good feel just by looking at the creature, I'll base it on their attack and defense statistics from the GameBoy games. Using the example of Bulbasaur, I determined based on its body that it shouldn't be larger than a 3/3. The creature is heavy-set, but it certainly doesn't feel threatening. The rather innocent look about it made me want to give it higher toughness, since I imagined that it would want to be more defensive. Before going any deeper than that, I settled on 2/3. If you read my previous article, you'll know this wasn't the final decision. Let's keep going and see why I changed it.

Charmander | Artwork by Molly Gur

After giving an estimate of its power and toughness, I move on to the next key factor, converted mana cost. Knowing how much a creature should cost to play will determine a baseline of how powerful its abilities are, which is extremely important when working with Pokemon. Many of these creatures tend to look little or adorable, but their powers suggest the opposite. In order to control for that, we need to find a middle-ground, and the best way to establish that is through changing the cost. For Charmander, we begin with this tiny salamander that can incinerate anything with its tail. Obviously we can't let it kill everything, and the way to prevent it from having that potential is by making it weaker by means of a lower mana cost. If we made Charmander cost 3 or 4 instead of 2, we would need to make it more powerful to match the cost. Those who know Magic know that this isn't always true, but when dealing with a creature that people expect to be powerful, it's important to scale it accordingly. Once I decided that I wanted Charmander to be only big enough to kill most things at the beginning of the game, I knew that he couldn't cost more than 2. 

Squirtle | Artwork by RJ Palmer

Once we have our base creature set, we need to give it an appropriate ability to match the body and cost we've established. Of course, this step doesn't always happen; there are plenty of creatures with just power and toughness, especially at the common level of rarity. We couldn't do that for something as exciting as a starter Pokemon, though; nobody would want to use them if they didn't have something special. However, like I said above, it's important to keep cost in mind so that they don't become overpowered. Let's take a look at Squirtle.  At this point he was already a 1/3 for 2, which by itself isn't anything to write home about. There are plenty of creatures in Magic with these statistics (Martime Guard, Straw Soldiers, and Talas Merchant to name a few), so we needed to find a way to use Squirtle's abilities in Pokemon to make him stand out. When thinking about Squirtle, I always imagine it using Bubble, which is a very simple move with a flavorful visual effect. The best match to a Magic creature using something similar is Watercourser, whose ability works great with creatures of lower power and high toughness. This creature costs one more mana than Squirtle, but it had an extra point of power, so it balanced out almost perfectly. 

Artwork by Eric Chan, Molly Gur, and RJ Palmer

So now that I've walked you through the process, why do you think Bulbasaur ended up as a 2/2 instead of a 2/3? Well, there are a couple reasons, the first of which is cost. A 2/3 for 2 has only happened twice in green, and both times they were given a more restricted cost. I wanted all three creatures to cost the same, and adjusting all three just for the sake of Bulbasaur didn't seem worthwhile. And as you might have guessed, rarity is another key factor. Given the popularity of the three starters, I wanted them to come up often enough for everyone to get a chance to play with them. Similar to how Magic often has spells with names connected to Planeswalkers, I didn't want people who couldn't afford to hunt for the higher evolutions to be left out of the fun of using such iconic creatures in the game. 

Let's see if you can apply this process to our preview card for today. To make it simple, I've selected one with the same cost and rarity. How would you rank its power and toughness? If it has an ability, what would you give it? Here's the artwork.

Artwork by RJ Palmer

Have any guesses?

Click here to see if you were right:

That's all for now. I hope this process will help you understand the decisions I make on cards as we move forward, and maybe it will even help you in your own card design endeavors. Until next time.

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.