TCG Card Design - Gen 1

Presented as a Fictional Conversation

Q. First, how do we integrate the process of Pokémon evolution into our awesome new trading card game?

A. Obviously the evolved cards need to be stronger than their previous forms, but we can't just plop them into play as if they were a normal card. Let's make it so that the player is encouraged to build them up over the course of multiple turns.

Q. Won't that be too slow and inconsistent? Doesn't that make Stage 1 cards inherently better than Stage 2 cards?

A. Good point. Alright, we'll add in a card that can skip over the middle stage. Players will still want to play all three levels of their favorite line, especially since the middle stage will usually have more efficient attacks for the second and third turns.

But if they absolutely can't draw the cards they need, at least there will be an alternative for them to fall back on.

Q. Okay, but you also mentioned that the Evolution Cards are bigger and stronger. Some 'mons don't evolve. How are we supposed to keep cards like Mewtwo and Tauros relevant?

A. Oh, right. Well, we'll need some ways to keep the opponent from snowballing out of control. Let's add in some tools to control the tempo of the match. Maybe removing energy would be a good comeback mechanic?

If you're really worried, we could even add a more powerful version of energy removal with a sizable drawback of some kind.

The designer had no way of knowing that his harmless suggestion would end up leading to the death of all Evolution Cards...

Q. Next we need to figure out these "Energy" things. How much damage is one Energy Card worth anyway?

A. Well, we've already established that we're going to have Colorless symbols too, right? Since we're blatantly ripping off the mana system of Magic the Gathering, we need to make sure that Colorless attacks are a little bit weaker than other attacks.

This way the cards that can use Colorless energy will be splashable, but not omnipresent. So I'm thinking a Colorless energy should be worth 10 damage and every other type should be worth just a little bit more. Like...maybe 15?

Q. Okay, but do you really want to keep track of multiples of 5 damage? That sounds kind of annoying.

A. I see your point. Okay, how about coin flips? When we need to represent 15 damage, it can be something like 10 damage and a 50/50 chance of adding 10 more damage.

We can even make a fun design subgame out of it! Like maybe an attack that's "worth" 15 damage sometimes gets there with the formula 30/2 but at other times gets there with 10/2+10/2+10/2.

This could even be a way to represent attacks that hit multiple times! An attack that hits twice can be represented by two coin flips. Man, I'm a genius!

I bet players will never, ever complain about us heavily integrating RNG into one of the game's most central elements.

And they did complain. They complained a lot.

Q. Okay, but we can't always integrate coin flips, right? Won't that make the game kind of annoying?

A. Ugh, fine. I guess sometimes we'll just round up or down. I guess we can always give the card more or less HP to compensate or whatever.

Q. Can we circle back to Colorless energy for a second? If Colorless attacks are always worth less than their counterparts, doesn't that inherently make every Colorless 'mon worse?

A. Okay, hear me out. We add an Energy Card to the game that provides two energy, but only for Colorless attacks. I guess we need to limit how many are in a deck, though, since we don't want to make it too powerful.

So basically it just won't count as a "Basic" Energy. It's something else. Something restricted by the 4 per deck rule. It's...special.

Little did he realize that his clever little fix for the Colorless type would pave the way for countless new mechanics going forward. Energies that don't count as basic. Energies that count as multiple attachments.

And yet...the devil's bargain always takes before it gives. For years, Pokémon would be printed with prohibitive energy costs, in order to keep them from being compatible with DCE. Worth the price? Maybe. But a price was surely paid.

Q. How do we handle recoil damage?

A. Recoil what now? Oh, that thing where the user takes damage? I don't know. Subtract it, I guess? An attack that does 80 damage and 30 recoil has a net value of 50. There. Problem solved.

Q. Won't that get kind of complicated when multiple coin flips and recoil damage are all involved on a single card?

A. That's a problem for the design team. I'm just the ideas guy.

Q. Between Evolutions and energy attachments, players will be going through their cards pretty fast. Don't we need to implement some countermeasures?

A. That's fair. Drawing one card each turn will help a little, but it's not realistic to expect every deck to draw at the same pace. Every card game needs a draw engine.

We'll have a card that draws 2 cards and another card that resets your entire hand. Like, it just straight up discards your entire hand and draws 7 cards. Last but not least, a card that searches your deck for whatever you need. We can give it a serious downside, like discarding 2 cards.

Q. Don't all these discard costs unfairly punish evolution decks?

A. That's fine. We were worried about their big numbers being a problem anyway, right? Basic decks get to play faster and evolution decks build up slowly to an unstoppable force.

Sadly, this lapse in judgement was not "fine." But that's a story for another day.

Q. What if the player uses your powerful search card to grab that hand reset card? Wouldn't that offset the entire downside of the search card?

A. Nah. You're giving up your chance to search for a powerful Evolution Card. Anyway, you keep talking like you think players are going to play a deck full of nothing but Trainer Cards.

You can't win the game without attacking and you can't attack without energy. Players are only going to have enough space for maybe 10-15 Trainer Cards in their deck, and that's being generous. If you're willing to waste your whole turn on drawing a few more cards, that's probably fine. And it's not like anyone's favorite Pokémon is Professor Oak! They're going to want to load up on 'mons.

They did not load up on 'mons. It turns out that WINNING is a pretty strong incentive to play whatever gets you over the finish line. So begins the history of a game dominated by decks half-full of support cards and dripping with absurd draw power.

Q. Okay, so you're probably right, but can we add something to counter Trainer Cards anyway? Just in case, you know.

A. I hear you. Better safe than sorry.

Since the goal is to punish greedy decks that play way too many Trainer Cards, how about a card that forces both players to shuffle all their Trainers back into the deck?

See, that way a player that's playing the game properly will barely even be affected by it, but it will completely obliterate greedy decks that go all-in on Trainers.

It's a win-win, right?

Q. Next, let's get started on that Jungle Expansion that's coming up. Any ideas?

A. Way ahead of you. First, let's add a payoff for filling your deck with Basics. I'm thinking we'll have an attack that gets stronger the more full your bench is.

Q. Won't that be a little too powerful?

A. We'll put it on an Evolution Card to slow it down. You can have up to 6 'mons in play, so I guess we should give the attack a cost as if it did about half of its maximum damage output?

That way you get to go a little above curve if you get set up properly. It'll take several turns to fill the bench completely, so it should be a relatively safe design space to mess around with.

It was here that a critical mass of assumptions started to add up. "Players won't fill their decks with Trainer Cards." "Evolution Cards are crazy powerful and need lots of checks and balances." "Basics need extensive support since they're so much weaker."

Unfortunately, it was already too late to stop the domino effect. In order to get all 151 'mons into the game as fast as possible, Base Set, Jungle, and Fossil needed to be designed in rapid succession. There was no time for the designers to learn from their mistakes.

Q. Fossil is right around the corner. You have a plan, right?

A. You bet I do! You remember how, in play-testing, our big 100-120 HP Evolution Cards took over the office meta?

So this is where we're finally introducing the big anti-evolution nuke. Prehistoric Power. A dedicated floodgate that just turns off evolution completely, but for both players.

Of course we'll give it low HP and a high retreat cost. We need to make sure that it isn't too overpowered. It will use Colorless energy to attack, though. We don't want to give one specific type a card this powerful.

Q. Aren't you worried that players might just leave Aerodactyl on the bench indefinitely?

A. What, and miss out on the chance to attack with it? Who would do something like that? Anyway, Gust of Wind exists. If your deck really, really needs to deal with Aerodactyl, just use Gust.

Anyway, we already created a powerful Scyther card that could do 30 damage with Colorless energy. So evolution-based decks can just gust the Grass-weak Aero in for a free KO. I get that floodgates are a risky design space, but I think they'll be fine for our game.

After all, our floodgates have HP and can be knocked out. If Magic the Gathering can put powerful floodgate effects on Enchantments, then surely we can get away with something like this, right?

Q. Speaking of floodgates, didn't Pokémon Powers cause some pretty serious issues when playtesting?

A. Yep. And actually, now that I'm looking at Aerodactyl again, I'm wondering if maybe I made it too good.

So here's my compromise. A floodgate for powers, specifically. It'll turn off Rain Dance, Damage Swap, and even Prehistoric Power. That should keep the game from being dominated by Stage 2 decks, hopefully.

Q. Wouldn't that make Aerodactyl pointless as a floodgate?

A. Not if we put it on another Stage 1. That way it becomes a race to see who can get their floodgate into play first.

Q. Apparently marketing wants us to do a set themed around Team Rocket next. This is also a chance to address some of the issues of the previous sets. Thoughts?

A. So many thoughts. First, we screwed up. Evolution decks suck and Trainer Cards are way, way more powerful than we could have possibly imagined.

The first thing we need is hard counters to Trainers. A new floodgate. I don't care how oppressive we have to get; we have got to get these draw engines under control by any means necessary. We'll even add a card that snipes Trainers straight out of the opponent's hand.

Also, more consistency tools for Evolution Cards, because that is really not going well. Turns out that the discard effect of Professor Oak was a bit short-sighted. We'll add a 'mon that searches Evolution Cards every turn. Maybe a few more with draw effects.

Q. Okay, okay, calm down! I'm glad you regret our recent design mistakes, but I meant how should we implement the new Dark Pokémon?

A. Oh, right. Um...give them less HP but stronger attacks. Wait, I guess they can't actually be stronger attacks. That would violate our energy cost formulas. We'll make them strong risky attacks.

Q. Doesn't that give us no net value? It sounds like they're losing HP for no real benefit.

A. Ugh, just make them fun to play with! Spam Pokémon Powers all over the set, give them fun artwork, and choose iconic 'mons like Charizard and Dragonite! Who cares if they're good? Our focus right now should be on fixing how badly we screwed up the metagame, not this one-set gimmick!

Q. I think we might have also over-tuned the draw engine. What would make for a good counter?

A. I know it's over-tuned. Believe me, I know. So we're adding anti-draw. Remember when Oak allowed players to reset themselves to 7 cards in hand?

Well we're adding the Anti-Oak. Literally and figuratively. This one resets your opponent's hand down to 4 cards. Also, this one shuffles instead of discarding. I learned my lesson from Oak. Discarding all your Evolution Cards sucks, and we really should've noticed sooner.

Q. One more thing for this set. Our system kind of makes it hard to play multitype decks. How do we fix this?

A. So I'm actually pretty confident about this solution. We obviously can't just give attacks more splashable costs, because that would make Double Colorless Energy broken.

Energy Search was great, but here's my pitch. An Energy Card that counts as any type of energy, at the cost of damaging the user. And we can limit it to 4 per deck, since we already have a mechanic for that, thanks to DCE.

That should just about do it, right? It's not like multitype decks were completely unplayable. And we don't want to easily enable decks that use every type.

Q. I'm sure you're a little tired, but these are the last sets for this generation, I promise. Gym leaders and gyms. Ideas?

A. Sure. This is our last chance to fix the big issues with the generation before moving on, so we're going all-in. These new stadium cards give us some exciting new design space to work with, and we're going to capitalize on it.

First, we need to COMPLETELY stop these stall strategies based on Energy Removal before they get out of hand.

Print a card that absolutely nukes Energy Removal and Super Energy Removal into the ground. We can't tiptoe around this problem. Call them out by name like a kid being sent to the principal's office.

Hell, print a picture of Energy Removal straight into the card art with a big red NO on it. Do whatever you need to do. We're putting a stop to these cards.

Q. I'm told Wigglytuff is still winning tournaments left and right. Thoughts?

A. A stadium that limits the number of benched 'mons in play. I'm done being subtle. Subtle didn't work. We'll be as blatant as we need to be.

The next generation is coming up fast and we cannot afford to let those broken cards from previous sets run rampant any longer.

Q. Speaking of "the next generation," we've used up every 'mon at this point. How are we supposed to diversify the format when you can only have 4 copies of each species?

A. Okay, this one's deceptively easy to solve. Remember those Dark 'mons from the last set? Names. We're only limited by how many names there are, not by how many species there are.

So we'll take advantage of the gym theme to create new evolutionary lines that are technically new 'mons. We'll give them names that denote their owners. Blaine's Arcanine. Brock's Onix. It can even be grounds for new deck themes.

Q. I hate to even bring this up, but the draw engine from Base Set is STILL causing problems. So what should we do?

A. If drawing cards is the problem, then obviously discarding cards is the solution, right?

So here's my toss. A card that just straight up rips three cards out of the opponent's hand, full stop.

We'll add a coin flip, just to keep it from being too problematic. Anyway, players are drawing cards so fast that they can probably take the hit and still keep swinging. Between this, Imposter Oak's Revenge, and Rocket's Sneak Attack, we should FINALLY be able to get this nonsense under control.

Q. Aren't you worried that it'll be too hard for players to recover?

A. Listen. If there's one thing I've learned from this experience, it's that we should never, never underestimate the draw engine we've created. Players will bounce back from these cards in a heartbeat. By this time next month, you might be telling me that we didn't go far enough!

Sadly no one on the design team thought to add together the various discards in their head. The optimal way to play these cards is to use Imposter (set opponent's hand to 4), then Sneak Attack (snatch 1 card), then flip a coin for Trap (snatch 3 cards). In their rush to fix the speed of the format, they failed to recognize that 4-1-3=0.

And an empty hand, unsurprisingly, cannot play cards.

The Base-Gym format would henceforth be remembered as one of the most degenerate formats in the game's history, all because of cards meant to solve problems.

Q. One last question. I couldn't help but notice this one Jigglypuff card in your design documents?

A. That card was designed by my perfect, beautiful daughter who can do no wrong. Is there a problem? Do you not like Jigglypuff? Do you not like my daughter? Do you not like me?

Q. No, no! It's just... You're not concerned about printing an attack that does 40 damage for a single attachment?

A. It only hits that hard if the opponent doesn't have any damage counters on it. How many 40 HP cards are even relevant?

Anyway, I don't see an issue with it and you need to have a more concrete complaint than "it's a little strong."

The supervisor scratched his chin. He tried with all his might to think of edge cases where this card might be a problem.

Unfortunately, his management position didn't leave him with much free time to playtest cards. He ultimately designed to entrust the task to the main design team and leave it at that, but something in the back of his head kept nagging him about that one Jigglypuff...

It wasn't until minutes after the card had already been printed that he sat up straight in his chair, a sudden realization hitting him when it was already far too late."Pluspower!" he screamed. But there was nothing he could do now. So he would move on, secretly carrying the shame of that moment for the rest of his professional career.