Uh oh, we have a problem! There are simply too many excellent entries for the Lego Company’s Pokémon Trading Card Game Challenge contest. Choosing a single winner seems like an impossible feat; surely the company is just going to have to produce multiple new sets so it can use several of these fan-submitted builds?
In case you missed our earlier article, the PTCG Challenge is an official contest run by The Lego Company, giving fans a chance to have their brick-based creations turned into a real life Lego model.
Lego asked fans to design a full art Pokémon card starring one of a handful of possible Pokémon. The grand prize is to have your design used as the basis of a real kit in the company’s new Pokémon line – and the winner will get a portion of the proceeds as well!
Entries for the contest just closed (May 6) so we thought we’d check back in to scope out the highlights. And with a whopping 756 creations all jostling for top position, it was honestly difficult to trim it down to just a handful to show in this article, let alone pick a single winner…
Some of my favorite designs portray a Pokémon bursting through the card frame. I really like the way this Garchomp design by RegosMan217 moves from 2D to 3D, and the head shape is really accurate. Kimezima’s Ceruledge, meanwhile, kicks out of the frame with an incredibly striking stance, and the fact it can be removed and posed puts me in mind of a brick-built Bionicle.
Then we have an impressively detailed Giratina by AjRed, which uses so many detailed parts so cleverly, that it honestly feels like they made Lego produce some new bricks for them. Tofu.brikett’s Gengar is far simpler, but it’s use of color is very impressive – this is a design that really pops.
Most of the entrants made use of all three dimensions, but I quite like the designs that kept things as thin as a real life Pokémon card. RKFern’s Mewtwo looks wonderfully dynamic for a (mainly) 2D build, while Rhinoswagobius has used clever gearwork to create a flat Giratina that moves!
I also really, really like this adorable Joltik by Chrixeleon. It’s a very faithful recreation of Pokémon’s cutest bug-type, and the electrical cables are cleverly implemented. I worry that a design featuring a Pokémon chewing through exposed wiring might be too much of a liability for Lego, however.
We’re currently in the ‘shortlist phase’, where Lego picks a shortlist of its favorite designs. Then on May 28, 2026 there’ll be a week or so where the community gets to vote for an overall winner. So stay tuned!
Do you have a different favorite? Let us know on the Wargamer Discord!
Source: Wargamer
