ところで、2ちゃんから読んだ方へ: こんにちは！ はじめまして。どうぞお楽しみください
(For any non-Japanese readers; someone on 2chan—the Japanese predecessor to our 4chan—posted a link to PA! in a Pokémon thread. I think that is the first time someone ever did so on 2chan, so that was nice. Specifically, it was a discussion about the G/S Lost Pokémon, which I think the people in the thread were surprised to discover that they even existed to begin with, so someone posted a link to the page mentioning that I had split things up by build/release.)
The Actual News:
This is just a quick post… but as I’m trying to finalize my “Space World” block sets—or at least get the ball rolling on it—I only just discovered that since the initial Sword & Shield TCG set, no new Dragon-type TCG cards have been made. But unlike the Fairy-type, where TPCi straight up said that they were 86’ing it, they didn’t say anything about removing the Dragon-type as well. And yet, here we are.
Soooo…. what does this mean? I’m not sure.
Maybe I’ll just do the same thing like I did with my Fairy-style Psychic-type blanks?
As a reminder, although my “Space World” block will have the APPEARANCE of the classic Neo-era of Gold/Silver, I intend for them to be as authentic to the game as it exists today versus what it used to be. Much of this will therefore manifest in things like accounting for 20+ years of power creep, the use of regulation marks, and also 86’ing Fairy-type. However, I made a set of Fairy-style Psychic-type blanks, so that I could at least have “Fairy” cards in the set.
So here’s the thing… what to do about Dragon-type cards? If the game officially removed it, I could remove it too. In that case, I could just make a set of Dragon-style Colorless-type blanks just like the Fairy-style Psychic-type blanks above. However, unlike Fairy-types, which are at least purple-esque like the Psychic-type is, and so it’s still easy to tell they’re Psychic-type at a glance (ie “if it’s purpleish, it’s Psychic”), Dragon-type and Colorless-type don’t look much like one another one bit. So if I make Dragon-style Colorless-type blanks… should it be a blend of the two, or simply just be the normal Dragon-type background but with a Colorless-type icon in the corner? Take a look below and let me know what you think:
Or…. should I simply not use Dragon-type cards, period? And by that I mean, not even utilizing Dragon-style Colorless-type blanks. Maybe I’ll even remove Fairy-style Psychic-type blanks too. This will definitely be a tough choice to make regardless of what I do.
On the other hand…
Here’s something to consider: again, I plan on making three sets in the “Space World” block, with each set being one step removed from the familiar. The first set, Alpha97, will still feel familiar and only include new Pokémon related to existing ones. The second set, Beta98, will be less familiar but one could still feel like it’s still “Pokémon”. The last set, Omega99, however, will be a step into the unknown… things that break all boundaries and standards about what the game is “supposed” be like… although it’ll still be compatible with the game. This means that, while the first two sets will still feel “normal”, the last set will include all kinds of random ideas, as if we’re looking into versions of the “Pokémon TCG” from alternate universes and timelines. Of course the set won’t be TOTALLY bizarre, but it will include plenty of oddball cards that still function within the game, even if it twists it a bit… so it might be stuff like new Pokémon I’ve invented, new card types (like maybe a “Stage 3” card), and even new types like “Bird-type” or the “Gear-type” that was on the bootleg cards from an earlier post.
What am I getting at? It may be that the first two sets will only use types that are standard in current modern (ie post-Sword/Shield) Pokémon TCG sets… meaning no Fairy or Dragon-type cards, style or otherwise. However, since I plan to have the last set be “no holds barred”, that might be where I’ll include Dragon and Fairy cards. Even proper ones. Hell, I might even have Dragon cards run on “Dragon-type Energy”, which don’t actually exist and can therefore can only be provided by cards like Rainbow Energy (seeing as they provides ALL colors albeit one at a time… one of those colors could be “Dragon” or “Bird” or “Gear”!).
The point here is… I made Fairy and Dragon blanks because I wanted to see them as Neo-style cards. However, to be honest, I always felt that adding Fairy and Dragon-type to the game was unnecessary, and I’m glad that the game basically removed them. But then this might mean that the Fairy and Dragon blanks I made would never be utilized if I wanted to keep things authentic. Fortunately tho, the point of the last set, Omega99, was to toss “authenticity” out the window.
So I guess what I’ll do is…
With authenticity being the goal of the first two sets, and NOT-authenticity being the goal of the last set, I might as well just push all my Fairy and Dragon plans to the last set. This will mean having to readjust my type plans once again… and right after I had JUST finished with it too! But at least this would keep things more right and proper, and it might even help me achieve a better type balance than I had already done.
So then… that’s about it. I’m removing BOTH the Fairy-style Psychic-type and Dragon-type from my first two sets, and they will only appear in the last set. But also, I’m not planning on releasing only ONE set at a time… that would be too boring. Rather, I will be releasing cards from ALL three sets simultaneously! So like, maybe one day I’ll release Elekid/Electabuzz/Electravire for Alpha97, then the next day I’ll release “Space World Forme” Porygon/Porygon2/Porygon-Z from Beta98, and then another day I’ll release Dragon-type Horsea/Seadra/Kingdra (which also use “Dragon-type Energy!”) for Omega99. Basically, I’ll be releasing cards from the ENTIRE block, even though they will only be part of one of the three sets from that block. Sound good?
I guess this wasn’t a quick post afterall… instead you got to see me suss out my plans for the Dragon-type as I was writing this post. Huzzah…? …Actually, yeah, good times.