The first question everyone asks once they have seen a finished page is "which of my cards should I do?" The honest answer is that some cards make a page almost by themselves and others never quite work, and the difference is mostly about what the illustrator drew around the Pokémon.
Start with the art, not the rarity
Rarity is a rough guide. Illustration Rares and Special Illustration Rares are full-art cards where the picture runs to the edge, and they are the natural candidates. Standard cards with a framed art window can work too, but the window is small and the frame hides the edges of the scene, so there is less for the expansion to continue from.
Within full-art cards, look at the picture and ask three things.
Is there a scene?
The best pages come from cards where the Pokémon is in somewhere. Charizard ex from 151 is the textbook case: a canyon, a volcano, clouds at sunset and a trainer on a ledge. Every direction the page expands in, there is something the scene already promised would be there. The same is true of Latias ex from Surging Sparks, which is a sky and a coastline before it is a Pokémon.
Compare that to a card where the Pokémon fills the frame against a flat gradient. It can still expand, but the surrounding pockets become more gradient, and that reads as filler.
Is there a horizon?
A horizon line, or any strong horizontal, is the single best predictor of a page that reads as one picture. It gives the expansion something to continue in both directions and it tells your eye where the ground is across all nine pockets. Magikarp from Paldea Evolved is a good example: a small Pokémon, a big sky, and a waterline that carries across the page.
Where is the subject?
If the Pokémon is centred and large, the card wants the centre pocket and the page becomes a frame around it. If the subject is off to one side, or small in a big landscape, try placing the card in a corner or an edge pocket so the scene has room to open up on the other side. Squirtle from Stellar Crown sits low in its frame, and the page comes alive when the card is placed in the bottom row.
Cards that expand well
- Landscape Illustration Rares. Canyons, forests, beaches, city streets. Anything with depth.
- Sky cards. Flying Pokémon against clouds expand almost perfectly, because clouds are forgiving.
- Night scenes. Umbreon ex from Prismatic Evolutions has a moonlit palette that stays consistent across the whole page, which hides seams.
- Water. Reflections and ripples continue naturally. Lapras, Milotic and the Surging Sparks cards all do well.
- Painterly styles. Softer brushwork gives the model more latitude and makes small inconsistencies invisible at binder distance.
Cards that fight it
- Text-heavy cards. Trainer cards and cards with large ability boxes leave little art to work from once the text is removed.
- Busy decorative borders. Some Special Illustration Rares have ornamental frames that are part of the design. The clean step removes them, but the composition often depended on them.
- Tight portraits. A face filling the frame against a plain background has nowhere to go.
- Hard geometric interiors. Tiled floors and architecture with strong perspective are where models still slip. They can work, and area fixes help, but expect to fix a corner or two.
- Very dark or very bright cards with no midtones. The expansion has less to anchor to and can drift in exposure.
Our current favourites
From the catalogue, these are the pages the team keeps coming back to.
- Charizard ex, 151 #199. The reference page. Everything about it expands.
- Umbreon ex, Prismatic Evolutions #161. Moonlight, a rooftop, a city below. Reads as one painting.
- Latias ex, Surging Sparks #239. Sunset over water. Put the card in a top corner and let the coast run.
- Magikarp, Paldea Evolved #203. Proof that a common Pokémon on a great card beats a legendary on a plain one.
- Squirtle, Stellar Crown #148. Small subject, big beach. Bottom row.
When in doubt, try it
The builder is free to use and the preview costs nothing. If you are unsure whether a card will work, search for it, generate the page and look. The cards that surprised us most were the ones we would have skipped on paper. For how the expansion is made and where it still fails, read how the AI expansion works, and for the layout side of the decision, see binder page ideas.
