Pokémon: the Gathering - A Custom Cube

[Brad]

TL;DR: It's a Pokemon themed custom cube.
Intro
I, of course, Googled this before starting the project to get some ideas and see if it could work. The main issue I saw was that like half of the Pokemon don't fit into MtG colors. I saw Abra and Electrode in white. Geodude and Gengar sharing black. Psychic in white and black? Psychic and Electric in white? It doesn't make sense. Those are different types of Pokemon!

So what makes this attempt unique?
I dug into the MSE files and swapped out the card backs and icons so that my cards would actually work within MtG. Electric, Water, Fighting, Fire, Grass, and Psychic as intended.

Color Pie
I knew I'd need to maintain some kind of a color pie. Each attribute/color will have strengths and weaknesses, just like typical MtG. I did, however, spread the card selection out across more than just blue. I also have a little more bleeding in my color pie.

Once I had a loose color pie, it was easier to make design decisions. Let's take a look at what we're working with.

Electric ≈
Electric had the lowest creature/Pokemon count. A lot of spells are needed to fill in the card count, so electric has strong similarities to blue.

Water ≈
Water had a ton of Pokemon in it, but a lot of them were kinda lame. This led me to making Water similar to MtG's white.

Fighting ≈
Fire and Grass played out like red and green, so Fighting got the leftovers, which was black.

Fighting is a weird attribute where there's lots of defensive and lots of offensive Pokemon, so it's kind of all over the place. It obviously required MtG's Fight mechanic, as well.

So you can think of Fighting as being a bit like black, but it's the least comparable to its MtG color counterpart.

Fire ≈
There's not that many Fire Pokemon, so Fire plays as a spell/burn based red.

Grass ≈
This is really, really similar to MtG green. Creatures are abundant. There's only a handful of Grass spells in the list. Energy/land ramp. It's exactly what you'd expect from green.

Psychic ≈
Psychic might get a typeless basic land, similar to Wastes or it might only be produced by adding "one energy of any attribute" (any color). Not sure yet.
Psychic is a jack of all trades at the cost of being difficult to produce. Psychic has considerably fewer cards than the other colors. It's most comparable to cards costing from MtG, I suppose.

Dark, Fairy, and Steel ≈ IDK
There's very few cards with these costs.
These three have no basic land. Instead, their energy can come from producing any attribute or by paying their alternate costs:
Dark: 2 life
Fairy: Opponent gains 4 life.
Steel:

Spoiler Season Starts Now
I'm going to roll this out in small batches. That makes it easier to take in for you guys as opposed to analyzing an entire set and gives us time to collectively discuss any possible issues in each batch.

If you want to help and keep up with a shitload of customs, go ahead and hit the Watch button at the right side of the screen above this post to get notified about new posts! I'll probably drop the link in the customs thread when I have larger concerns, as well.

Target cube size will be 360-405 and could include further releases that would expand the cube.

 

[Brad]

Starters
Just like in the games, I began with the starter Pokemon.

Bulbasaur was first. A very pushed one drop, but we tolerate Nacatl.

Ivysaur maintains the over statted body. Venusaur's ability represents Solar Beam, one of its signature moves which requires a turn to charge. I went with an immediate impact ETB rather than charging here and had it recharge instead. I added the life gain because the double tapped drawback is kind of hefty for a 6 drop.


Fire has a type advantage vs grass. Charmander and Charmeleon were design to win a fight against Bulbasaur and Ivysaur while being similar power levels.

Charizard had to gain flying and the top tier evolutions have some extra bells and whistles on them. Trades with Venusaur in combat despite dying to the 'Solar Beam' ability.


Making these ones win the Rock-Paper-Scissors starter battle of Grass-Fire-Water was difficult. They need to die to the bulky Grass Pokemon while still killing the first striking Fire ones. A lot of toughness was immediately necessary, but that's uninspiring. Especially on a one drop. The attempted solution is to add nearly-flying as well as allowing them to block afterwards. There's also a Ninjutsu equivalent mechanic that can take advantage of surf.

Blastoise gains reach with those massive cannons and can tap to use them as a hell of a blocker. The worst final evolution on the turn it enters play, but it's likely to dominate the board if it sticks around.



Any flavor text is copy and pasted from a Pokedex entry in an official game. A few are mashups of two entries and a few are a partial entry if space was an issue.

The super thick frames are for MPC's cutting margin of error, by the way.

 

[Zoss]

Is Ivysaur really supposed to be 2GG for a 4/5? I feel like that's fine in regular Magic. What power level is this supposed to correspond to, roughly? Also, what type of pokemon experience are you hoping to capture--a five-year-old playing the card games? A twelve-year-old playing the video games casually? People our age laddering on Smogon?


-------


Also, about typing--maybe each color corresponds to one type (5 total), each pair corresponds to a mid-tier type (10), and you can dish the remaining 3 types out to either 5C or have some double up on color combos. I'd dish them out like so, with explanations on the ones I feel aren't entirely intuitive:


Normal is your colorless faction.


Water--Blue
Grass--Green
Fire--Red
Flying--White
Poison--Black.


Fairy--WG
Electric--RU
Fighting--RW
Dark--UB
Steel--RB. In this case, Steel is more about singleminded determination than chaos.
Ghost--BW
Bug--BG. Get it?
Ice--WU
Rock--RG
Ground--UG. Okay, this is more "mud" than "ground," but it makes the most sense to me as dirt is traditionally associated with the elements of water and growth.


Psychic and Dragon can be any of the 5 colors.


Now, how do we implement this? I don't really know. Maybe make these elements into the type lines and have the colors as per normal as you've done? That seems a little clunky, but without doing this you're leaving a bunch of mons out, some of which I'm sure you'd love to have. But even if you don't change the architecture to allow for app 18 types, this could be a helpful framework for thinking about what different color combos represent mechanically in the Pokemon universe, at least according to me
-------------------------------


Alternatively, I could see making Psychic Black, as messing with someone's head is straight-up evil, IMO. This would mean that Poison would switch to BG, Bug would become WG, and Fairy would become available in all 5 colors.

Or just switch Poison and Ground, but then you have an imbalance in your five base colors (water and grass > ground), which might not be acceptable.


-------------------------------

Also, I freaking love Pokemon, so I'm super excited to see this!

 

[Brad]

Is Ivysaur really supposed to be 2GG for a 4/5? I feel like that's fine in regular Magic.

It's a 5/4. It kind of has to be to fit the rock-paper-scissors setup I'm going for with the RBY starters. It's possible I'm trying to do too much with that here. Maybe Ivy and Venu should get trample?

What power level is this supposed to correspond to, roughly?

Decently strong fair cube, but some of the cards necessitate being higher power level than others due to their standing in the game. The power band will be a little wider than usual, but nothing crazy. You simply can't put Pidgey and Bulbasaur on the same tier, though.

Also, what type of pokemon experience are you hoping to capture--a five-year-old playing the card games? A twelve-year-old playing the video games casually? People our age laddering on Smogon?

Should feel as if the plane you're on is Kanto. Legendary Pokemon will be hugely powerful. Starters will be quite good. Weedle, Tentacool, etc will be playable but aren't about to take over any games. The Pokemon should represent what they did in the games. Venusaur has solar beam, Pidgey is a very basic flyer, Kangaskhan brings a Baby token with it.

--Color stuff--

The base set only used 6 energies to represent the 151 and I'll be following that, with the exception of some multicolored cards.

Also, I freaking love Pokemon, so I'm super excited to see this!

Sounds like you'll be a valuable resource!

More designs coming soon. Trying to get a decent chunk out there a little fast to start so people can get a feel for things. Trying to determine what's best to show next.

 

[Brad]

Electric Intro
Here's all the Electric Pokemon that aren't part of another cycle, such as the legendary birds.

Imagine the Electric spells section is a typical blue spells section and you're 90% of the way there.


I need to resize some of the art eventually.
I knew I wanted these to self destruct, but Electric is like blue so I had to nerf their removal capabilities. Slowed it down just a bit.


Mystic Snakes. Raichu needed to be bigger on stats, so it counters fewer things to balance that out.


Those of you who only played Pokemon waaay back in the day may not recognize Electivire. Well, 151 Pokemon in a 360 card cube is too low of a creature density, so I've added any Pokemon who are directly related to Generation 1 Pokemon. Electivire is new, but familiar if you remember Electabuzz.

These are both trying to support some kind of a storm deck. Electivire's design is pretty unique and I'd love any thoughts on it.


Looks like I have an extra space on the first two before their names in the text.
I wanted some prowess guys. These charge up when you're casting stuff they like.



As you can see, it's a fairly 'blue' section except for the orbs.

 

[Brad]

Normal Flyers

Normal is your colorless faction.

Yep! Here's the mostly kind of boring flyers.


Pidgey has to be very weak and has to have flying, but 1/1 flyers for 1 is super boring, so it costs 0.


Ok, Farfetch'd is a pretty cool 2/1 for 2 and I halfway stole that one from something I saw online. Doduo and Spearow I'm kind of uncertain on. Very open to redesigns or other input.
Is it just me or did Spearow and Fearow always using the multi-hitting Drill Peck attack? That's why I gave it double strike. Doduo, obviously, has two heads to hit two times.


From spear to fear. Not sure how the dickheaded Spearow became the danger-fleeing Fearow, but oh well. Pidgeotto is intentionally boring.


Poor Pidgeot is straight up outclassed here and I think it's ok. It's an inherently basic Pokemon.

Switch Out!! It's Ninjutsu renamed for Pokemon!

Dodrio is trying to have triple strike for its three heads.


I added Mega Pokemon, but not Gigantamax... So far. And, yes, that means I withheld Mega Starters from the OP.

 

[Rusje]

You want to keep the color strengths of the pokemon's right? Why don't you do something like:
On a fire pokemon: *name* damage to grass pokemon is doubled and damage received is halved from another type?
Or put on the grass pokemon: it receives double the damage from fire pokemon?

 

[Brad]

You want to keep the color strengths of the pokemon's right? Why don't you do something like:
On a fire pokemon: *name* damage to grass pokemon is doubled and damage received is halved from another type?
Or put on the grass pokemon: it receives double the damage from fire pokemon?

I thought about this, but that's really imbalanced, similar to protection. Color vs color hate should also be slight, as it's very luck based.

There's also the issue of this color pie being imbalanced as well as colors containing a variety of types (poison grass bug flying are all in Grass) with differing weaknesses. Add in multicolor and it gets even more convoluted. For whatever reason, Fire vs Water and Fire vs Grass seem more consistent (Or maybe that's my perception of it. No math was done), so I've made a few in there:

 

[Brad]

I just spent a shitload of time reworking MSE code and troubleshooting and I'm exhausted from that. Finishing up with the behind the scenes bullshit now and will post more cards later.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Really liking this idea and how it feels both magic and pokemon

 

[Brad]

Really liking this idea and how it feels both magic and pokemon

Perfect. That's the goal!

Grass Flyers
Let's take a look at some more flyers. Maybe comparisons between the flyers will lead to some development.


Some hate bears. Their poison powder makes it difficult to function.


Not sure on these designs. Open to input. It's difficult to design even more double striking flyers.


I'm not too inspired by the -bat cycle. These can definitely be improved and I need some help.


Had to put the non-flying little brother in there. Pinsir either crushes its prey or tosses it away, hence the options on the ETB.

 

[Brad]

Badges
Here's a sampling of effects across the colors:

 

[japahn]

Zubat reminds me of Leech Life, Supersonic and Confuse Ray. Maybe something like this?

Zubat G
Flying, Lifelink
1/1

Golbat 1G
Flying
When Golbat enters the battlefield, exile the top card of that player’s library. Until end of turn, you may play that card.
2/1

Crobat 3G
Flying, Haste
Whenever Crobat attacks, exile the top card of that player’s library. Until end of turn, you may play that card and you may spend {P} as though it were mana of any type to cast that spell.
2/2

 

[Brad]

Zubat reminds me of Leech Life, Supersonic and Confuse Ray. Maybe something like this?

Zubat G
Flying, Lifelink
1/1

I considered lifelink but felt like deathtouch does such a good job of keeping this relevant for longer in the game and makes it a better Ninjutsu enabler. Lifelink probably makes more sense, though.

Golbat 1G
Flying
When Golbat enters the battlefield, exile the top card of that player’s library. Until end of turn, you may play that card.
2/1

Is this me stealing their card? Like draining their life force for my own? If so, I really like that (so just say that's what you meant either way), but I hate the confusion from borrowing my opponent's stuff in a format where everything is sleeved the same.

Maybe I could go for the Bloodthirst ability? "When ~ ETB, do X if opponent lost life this turn." That and lifelink both feel like I'm benefiting from their loss, which is kind of blood drinking. They just did it for Vampires in MID, now that I'm looking.

Zubat G
Flying, lifelink or Gains lifelink and deathtouch as long as it's attacking? (Element of surprise)
ETB if an opponent lost life this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on ~.
1/1

Golbat 1G
Flying, lifelink or Gains lifelink and deathtouch as long as it's attacking? (Element of surprise)
ETB if an opponent lost life this turn, each opponent loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.
2/1

Crobat 2GG
Flying, lifelink, deathtouch (more skilled, doesn't need surprise as much? or could be other wording)
ETB if an opponent lost life this turn, each opponent discards a card at random and you draw a card.
2/2

?

 

[blacksmithy]

Perfect. That's the goal!

Grass Flyers
Let's take a look at some more flyers. Maybe comparisons between the flyers will lead to some development.

View attachment 6002View attachment 6008
Some hate bears. Their poison powder makes it difficult to function.

View attachment 6001View attachment 6005
Not sure on these designs. Open to input. It's difficult to design even more double striking flyers.

View attachment 6009View attachment 6004View attachment 6003
I'm not too inspired by the -bat cycle. These can definitely be improved and I need some help.

View attachment 6006View attachment 6007
Had to put the non-flying little brother in there. Pinsir either crushes its prey or tosses it away, hence the options on the ETB.

on the bats, why not play up their Supersonic angle with some sort of hand disruption? is this in color pie for Grass?

 

[Brad]

on the bats, why not play up their Supersonic angle with some sort of hand disruption? is this in color pie for Grass?

Specter of the Deep Hours (Crobat) 1GG
Switch Out 1G (1G: Ninjutsu)
Flying
Lifelink and deathtouch when attacking.
Hippie effect.
2/2

?
Maybe deathtouch and hippie effect is too punishing, overall. Maybe at 2GG? I want Zu and Gol to have some kind of deathtouch to make them strong Ninjutsu targets, so you'd expect Cro to get those effects, as well.

 

[blacksmithy]

maybe it’s an ETB instead of a hit trigger so that you can’t rip a hand to shreds off nabbing removal on the first trigger?

 

[Brad]

maybe it’s an ETB instead of a hit trigger so that you can’t rip a hand to shreds off nabbing removal on the first trigger?

Maybe. The designs are in the ballpark of what they'll end up at, so that's some good progress. I'll have to decide if I want to let Grass have the discard or not and then compare to the other 3-4 drops and Switch Outs. I'll leave them incomplete for now unless anyone has anything better to add.

Grass Spells + Legendary Birds
These are ALL the non-Badge Grass spells.

Couple of protection spells. STAB means Same Type Attack Bonus. I may change this to Type Bonus or something.


Dinky removal spell. Midnight Bloom is Summer Bloom 2.0. There's currently only one self-sacrificing land, so the idea of turbo fetching is irrelevant. Strictly a payoff for the graveyard decks.


Bird design goals:
Titan-ish
Same power level on all three
ArticUNO, ZapDOS, and MolTRES should have effects corresponding to the numbers one, two, and three, respectively.

 

[Zoss]

Moltres seems a little weaker than the other two, as Articuno's text is likely Time Walk against nonreactive decks and Zapdos is a guaranteed +2 cards, whereas Moltres will go up 2 only against a deck with at least one 1-toughness creature on the battlefield, which likely isn't the most impactful thing to be killing on T6 (unless you have a ton of fragile utility 'mons? Time will tell.).

Keeping the 3 theme, maybe Moltres gets to fight up to 3 target creatures on ETB or it gets to give 3 of your creatures +3/+0 until end of turn. Or you could just crank it to 3 damage to each of up to 3 different targets.

 

[blacksmithy]

you could give it haste and “when this attacks deal 3 to all enemies and their little dogs too”
or just have it cast Sweltering Suns on ETB

 

[japahn]

It is a color pie break to give it Fire Spin? Deals 1 damage to up to 3 target creatures. Those creatures do not untap during their controller's next untap step.

My idea with Golbat and Crobat was to represent Supersonic and Confuse Ray.

I don't remember if you liked the ability words in AFR but I think they would help a lot with these pokemon cards.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I don't remember if you liked the ability words in AFR but I think they would help a lot with these pokemon cards.

I actually love this idea

 

[Brad]

I don't remember if you liked the ability words in AFR but I think they would help a lot with these pokemon cards.

Like the flavor keywords? I don't love it. I considered doing that, but in bold, but my MSE crashes sometimes when I bold text lmao. I've tried to use the flavor text where I can to help describe what the card is doing. Look at Butterfree, for example. Why can't I draw more cards?! Oh. There's highly toxic dust in the air.

I also have spells named after moves. I couldn't put a flavor keyword on a card if it didn't do the exact same thing as the spell of the same name.

EDIT: I guess I do love it, but have already opted out of it. I just didn't love that WotC used italics and made it look like a traditional keyword.

Moltres seems a little weaker than the other two, as Articuno's text is likely Time Walk against nonreactive decks and Zapdos is a guaranteed +2 cards, whereas Moltres will go up 2 only against a deck with at least one 1-toughness creature on the battlefield

It's on the field +2, which is better, but that's true it'll be rare.

Keeping the 3 theme, maybe Moltres gets to fight up to 3 target creatures on ETB or it gets to give 3 of your creatures +3/+0 until end of turn. Or you could just crank it to 3 damage to each of up to 3 different targets.

you could give it haste and “when this attacks deal 3 to all enemies and their little dogs too”
or just have it cast Sweltering Suns on ETB

It is a color pie break to give it Fire Spin? Deals 1 damage to up to 3 target creatures. Those creatures do not untap during their controller's next untap step.

What about giving it ETB Cone of Flame?

 

[blacksmithy]

WA HA HA
yes but only if you prefix the ability as
“Cone of FLAAAAAME - “ a la the AFR flavor keywords

 

[Brad]

WA HA HA
yes but only if you prefix the ability as
“Cone of FLAAAAAME - “ a la the AFR flavor keywords

Ice Cream Cone But Opposite -- ...

One Drops
These are just in alphabetical order.