Curstraw FakeThe relatively-recent leaks of the Betamon between both the Gigaleak and the Teraleak has made my hype levels shoot through the roof. Like, I remember learning about them back in the day, so it’s nothing less than a straight-up dream come true to finally put actual faces to the names and confirm certain other facts (such as “Yoroidori” being a beta name for Skarmory).

So it went without saying that I HAD to make fake cards for all the new Pokémon designs, seeing as I would’ve made fakes for them back in the day as well. But since my old blanks didn’t cut the mustard any longer, especially since I never made blanks for a lot of the new card types which were made in the mean time—such as Fairy, Dragon, Supporter cards, etc—I decided to remake all the original Classic-era blanks from scratch.

But now that that’s out of the way, it’s time to finally start work on my fake card sets: Lore Hack

 

What Is “Lore Hack”?

Lore Hack will be a block of three fake card sets, each with their own themes. In fact, there will be an overarching plotline goal to help further add flavor and gameplay mechanics to tie everything together. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

  • Lore Hack — A mysterious portal has opened up in our Pokémon World… but what is it all about? Even more curious: strange creatures which appear to be Pokémon are coming out… but they seem unrelated to the Ultra Beasts. Worse, they seem to be having an effect on the Pokémon that already exist. If nothing is done, this could upend everything we know about Pokémon! But do we close the portal, or do we live with the unknown? As Scientists, Pokémon Professors and Philosophers from around the world congregate to study and debate over this pheonomena, a small group of them—the Lore Hackers—have branched off and decided to fight the portal head on…
  • LH Alpha⁹⁷ — Turns out the portal is one of many “Fractal Points”: windows into one of many strange, and alternate Pokémon worlds… a window into what might have been or what could be coming. Unfortunately, it’s already doing some strange things to our Pokémon… like, giving them new forms, or giving them Baby Pokémon to those who never had them before… what’s going on here?
  • LH Beta⁹⁸ — Each step into a Fractal Point reveals its own Fractal Point… universes that are just as foreign to one world as that world is to our’s. This universe’s Johto region has two completely new starters! And what’s this shark/anchor-like Pokémon? If the main Fractal Point portal doesn’t close soon, who knows what other strange beings will be let loose to cause untold chaos?
  • LH Omega⁹⁹ — Closing the infinite number of Fractal Points out there is impossible, but surely there is one that can close them all. But it’s just getting too weird: unrelated Pokémon evolving to one another, Pokémon changing types, it boggles the mind! Will it be a one way trip to save the Pokémon world as we know it? What Pokémon will the Lore Hackers find on their way to oblivion?

That said, this will remain a work in progress, with the story in flux… and maybe even the cards will be updated as well. Who knows! But by the end of this project, I hope to have a fun set for everyone to play with… and maybe collect!

 

 

What Are The Primary Set Themes?

The Lore Hack block is my Pokémon TCG version of Magic the Gathering’s Time Spiral block. With the Time Spiral sets, each had three primary design goals: past (Time Spiral), present (Planar Chaos) and future (Future Sight), and also utilized different and unique card designs (Retro style, standard Eighth Edition, and the new Future Sight style). While Lore Hack’s focus is more sideways from the Pokémon world than forwards/backwards, it will still have a similar three stage and card style focus:

  • LH Alpha⁹⁷ — This set focuses mostly existing Pokémon; largely just the prototype forms of known Pokémon. Card from this set will utilize the “Shadowless Base Set” blanks.
  • LH Beta⁹⁸ — For this set, I’m going to include all the completely new Pokémon, albeit the ones based on existing Pokémon (babies and evolutions). Cards from this set will utilize the “Unlimited Base Set” blanks.
  • LH Omega⁹⁹ — Finally, this set will cover completely new Pokémon, albeit ones that were clearly officially made by Game Freak and given as much official lore as possible. There may be other cards that simply don’t fit anywhere else. Cards from this set will utilize a custom mix of “Neo” and “Modern/SWSH” blanks.
  • Overall — I want to make sure each set has a similar amount of cards AND Pokémon types. Sure, by nature there are simply more Grass-type Pokémon than Lightning-type Pokémon… but to the best of my ability, I want to make sure that there is an equal number of cards across every set. This also means that some cards that make more sense in one set might appear in another… let’s just consider them “leaks”.
    • Also, I’m debating on whether or not it should have a modern- or classic-level power creep… I’m aiming for modern-level, but who knows.

The primary philosophy behind building these sets up like this is because, honestly, I don’t feel like the Pokémon TCG has a lot of story-driven sets. There are cards that have a story within them, but the sets themselves don’t exactly have a unique story outside of whatever the video game has set up. There are, at best, themed sets (such as all the various Team Rocket-based sets, Future/Ancient-labels or Trainer/Owner-based sets) but that’s about as much flavor as the Pokémon TCG gets. Perhaps the best example of the Pokémon TCG doing something flavorful was the Holon/Delta Species sets, but that was just about it. For me—since day one in 1999—I wanted to make Pokémon TCG cards for ideas that I wanted to see in the actual card game, and that hasn’t changed.

 

 

Clarifying The Source

Given the different kinds of Pokémon from all the different places they come from, I’ve decided to include Regulation Marks on each cards, just to give a subtle hint of the kind of Pokémon card being designed. I originally planned to use Regulation Marks from U through Z, but since they might appear in the future, I decided to switch to using PokéLatin characters, further emphasizing the custom nature of the cards.

Existing, normal Pokemon

These Pokémon are unaltered, not customized, completely normal regular plain-as-porridge Pokémon. I’ll be including these guys to bridge the gaps between some of these new Pokémon or fill in some of the empty spaces.
Existing, Officially altered

Basically existing Pokémon but have had a significant change to it’s existing design (think of it as a new forme).
Existing but new design

These are also existing Pokémon in name only, as they have a completely new and unrelated design to what the actual Pokémon is supposed to be. Kinda rare relative to “Existing, Official altered” but definitely still there.
Completely new

These are the real deals, the actually completely new and totally never before released Pokémon which ultimately never appeared in any final video game release. They may have a connection with existing Pokémon, but they themselves are 100% new. This covers lost Pokémon like the マンボー1 Manboo1 line, the リンリン Rinrin line, and ウルフマン Wolfman line.
Conjecturally customized

This is a step towards fan-theory, but at least based on what already existed. For example, while the spiky green Cyndaquil was actually depicted in a prototype GS ROM, there was never a spiky green Quilava or Typhlosion. So if I make my OWN customized versions of those Pokémon, albeit based on established designs, then I’ll use this mark.
OC donut steel

Finally, these are the absolutely unofficial, 100% fan-designed, donut steel OC Pokémon. I’m going to avoid using this as much as possible, but maybe I might make up a new evolution of a Pokémon which I’ve always felt needed one, or maybe include one of the classic “Pokémon USA“ designs. Who knows??

There will also be additional special labels on each card to also make them easier to tell if they’re normal or special. You can use both the special labels and the Regulation Mark to determine where the Pokémon truly came from… but the goal is to make it as invisible as possible!

 

 

Where Can You Find New Cards?

I’m gonna post them on social media—Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram—though I will be posting an archive on this site as well. This will also include the absolute latest version of that card, just in case I make any updates to them. So follow my accounts to be sure to never miss a card!