Pokemon Trading Cards

Pokemon, a popular franchise with merchandise from anime TV shows and movies to stuffed animals and toys, has captivated generations of fans. The series even has a trading card game that lets players build and battle the fictional pocket monsters with attacks, abilities and more. The goal of the game is to assemble a deck of 60 cards and compete with another player by taking turns using attacks and abilities. There are ten different energy types — Grass, Fire, Water, Lightning, Psychic, Fighting, Metal, Dragon and Fairy — that can be used for attacks or abilities.

There are other special cards that can be used to boost a Pokemon’s attack, defense or speed. These are called stadium cards and can be placed on the playing field for a cost of one energy card. Pokemon can move in and out of a stadium as many times as they wish, but only one stadium card can be active at a time.

A Pokemon’s health, or HP, can also be found on its card. This number tells the amount of damage a Pokemon can take before it is knocked out of play. Other important information on a Pokemon’s card include its weakness, resistance and retreat cost. Weakness denotes which types of attacks a Pokemon is susceptible to, while resistance indicates how much damage it can receive from certain kinds of moves. A Pokemon’s retreat cost identifies the amount of energy that must be paid in order to bring it back to your hand after being played.

The card’s bottom right corner has a symbol that can be read by a Pokemon collector to determine its rarity. A circle indicates a common card, a diamond shows an uncommon card and a star is a rare card. A rare card will usually have an additional text box that contains a short description of the Pokemon.

It takes a lot of work to come up with new Pokemon cards and bring them to life on paper. A full team of game designers, over 70 artists and 19 playtesters work full time to create the cards for each release. They also try to ensure the cards match with the latest video games, ensuring they are competitive and attractive to collectors. Creatures staff often send the artists details about a specific Pokemon, such as its name and evolution path. These instructions influence the art style that’s used on the card. For example, the artist for a Bulbasaur or Venusaur card might use a more classical painting style to make it look like a more imposing Pokemon. Similarly, a Pikachu card might feature more cartoony art than a fat version of the same Pokemon. Pokemon trading cards