Discover
Discover Pokémon cards without knowing their names
Most card sites start with a search box, which only helps when you already know what to type. IllusCards starts with a card. You look at it, decide whether you like it, and the next one appears.
IllusCards is a Pokémon trading card discovery platform that allows collectors to explore cards visually, swipe through individual cards, save favourites and build a personalised digital binder.
The problem with searching by name
A beautiful card is easy to recognise and hard to look up. If you saw one on a friend’s table or in a video, you may not know the Pokémon, the set or the number. And the cards you would love most are often the ones you never heard of, so you would never think to search for them.
Browsing a set list does not solve this either: you see a set name first and the art only after you have picked one. IllusCards turns that around and puts the artwork first.
How discovering works
- Open the deck. No account and no download: it runs in your browser, on a phone or a computer.
- See one card at a time, in a shuffled order of its own for your device.
- Swipe right if the artwork is beautiful, left if it is ugly, up if you are not sure. Not-sure cards come back later for a second look.
- Everything you judged lands in your collection, where you can mark favourites, grade cards from 1 to 10 and write notes.
What you notice after a few dozen cards
Who drew it
Every card carries the name of its illustrator, and one tap shows the other cards they drew. Most people end up with a few favourite artists they had never heard of.
What your taste is
Your Taste shows the illustrators, eras and sets your verdicts point to, based on your own swipes and nothing else.
How one Pokémon can look
Compare the different artworks of the same Pokémon side by side, or run a Duel between them to find the one you like best.
A few cards to start with
Illustration-focused cards from recent sets in the catalogue, each by a different illustrator. Open one to see its details and who drew it.
Mega Zeraora ex · GIDORA
Mega Chandelure ex · REND
Mega Darkrai ex · AKIRA EGAWA
Morpeko ex · NC Empire
Gwynn · Naoki Saito
Mega Greninja ex · Susumu Maeya
Cinccino ex · Keisin
Mega Starmie ex · takuyoaQuestions
How can I find cool Pokémon cards without knowing their names?
Look through cards by their artwork rather than by searching. On IllusCards you swipe through cards one at a time and keep the ones you like. The name, set and illustrator are shown on the card, so you learn them as you go.
Is there an app where I can swipe through Pokémon cards?
Yes. IllusCards is a free web app with a swipe deck: right for beautiful, left for ugly, up for not sure. It runs in the browser and can be installed on your phone or computer from there. There is no App Store or Play Store version.
Is there a Tinder for Pokémon cards?
IllusCards uses the same gesture, one card at a time and a swipe to decide, for card artwork. It has nothing to do with the dating app or the company behind it.
Is it a random Pokémon card generator?
Not exactly. The deck is shuffled, so what comes next is a surprise, but it is your own deck: a card you have judged does not come back unless you marked it as not sure. If you want one random card to look at, swiping once does the same job.