TRADER REWARDS

Just as you may have already expected, trading is a very big part of trading card games. Not only is trading extremely beneficial to your collecting decks, it also serves as an opportunity to gain more cards through a counting system that most TCGs may refer to as stamp cards.

For every 20 cards you trade, you complete 1 stamp card. Turning in 1 stamp card will earn you 4 random cards. Unlike other trading card games that Caitlin has helped run, Idolise has decided to skip on photo cards or other stamp card rewards, because we’d rather spend time making other custom items.

While it is not required to fill out a physical stamp card (like the examples below) to track your progress, we do invite members to make their own should they enjoy having them in their trade piles. They are worth nothing and truly do serve no purpose, other than looks.

If you’re interested in making your own, you can find the PSD here. If you are not Photoshop savvy, I’m very sorry! We will not be accepting donations for stamp cards. As they are purely for looks and have no value in game, we are allowing members to make their own at this time.

PHOTOCARDS

If you’re looking to make yourself a little reward for your efforts, we’ve decided to allow our members their right to make their own photocards. Throughout time, Kpop TCGs have often provided some sort of trading incentive, like photocards, that were made by the staff. Making photocards may actually be one of the most time consuming things on earth, so Idolise is skipping them, but giving you guys the opportunity to make your own using any photos and effects you freaking want.

Because not everyone is running Photoshop and they may still want photocards, we’re decided allow members to take photocards that they see on other people’s pages and upload them to their own. Because of that reason, members are encouraged to name their photocards after themselves, and put a number on the end, so that members can easily save and reupload with credit to the original source. Below are three examples that Caitlin has made, but there are no real rules here for what you can do. At the end of the day, as long as you like your own photocard, then it doesn’t matter what anyone else says.

The only condition to photocards is that you are only allowed one photocard for every completed 20 trades. If you have only handed in one stampcard, you should not have 20 photocards!

The PSD file can be found here. Again, these are not at all required! They are purely for looks.

TRADING LOGS

What is required is tracking your trades in your logs, preferably with some sort of number/counting system like the examples below as you will have to submit the portion of your logs that you're using for a stamp card whenever you turn one in.

MARCH 11, 2018 ----------
Traded nikki: my wno-energeticdaniel04, wno-energeticdaniel13 for gsvt-boomboomdk08, svt-boomboomdk20 [03/04]
Traded caitlin: my infinite-dongwoospecialgirl01 for gg-taeyeonholler10, +MCs[01/02]

OR
MARCH 11, 2018 —————
Traded nikki: my wno-energeticdaniel04, wno-energeticdaniel13, wno-energeticdaniel18 for shinee-viewonew03, shinee-viewonew15, shinee-viewonew18 [05]
Traded caitlin: my infinite-dongwoospecialgirl01 for gg-taeyeonholler10, +MC [02]

As you can see, at Idolise we include member cards when counting trades for stamp cards and in general, we care about the amount of cards you trade not the amount of trades you make overall. So even though Player A traded 2 cards to Player B in one trade, we would count that as 2 trades not 1. When you're ready to turn in a stamp card, visit our Trader Rewards page to submit a form and pick up your cards!

ERA/MUSIC VIDEO CARDS & DECKS

Every single one of our decks has 20 cards in it, and all cards are always worth 1 towards your overall count. Music video decks are always made from the official version, while all of our era decks are made from fantaken/candid or high quality news photos, all of which are of a single artist throughout the entire duration of one promotional period. All era decks and their matching music video will have the same color border, just to make sure they look great together on both the deck page and your mastery page.

Speaking of looking great together on your mastery page: In an effort to keep things as organized as possible, all filenames will follow the exact same format, no matter what. Not only is this to promote consistency, but the format will allow all same-eras to remain grouped together when decks are listed in alphabetical order. prefix-song(featured).

The ‘prefix’ portion will always be the group name or the solo artist. The prefix will always be immediately followed by the song title or the name of our era, depending on which rule this deck follows. In the case of an era deck, the song title will always be followed by the artist who is featured in that deck. By putting the song title first, we ensure that the decks from the same era will all be forced to stick together!

The only decks that do not follow the same format are the era decks for solo artists. It seems incredibly redundant to write the artist’s name twice, so instead, music video decks will still be artist-song, while era decks will be the same, but followed by ‘era’. (example: sunmi-gashinaera)

Remembering the names of decks can also be a huge issue for members, which is why we have decided to write out every single song title. With the prefix/group name, we will politely shorten them once, and then consistently keep that shortened version across all artist decks and eras forever. Trying to remember the song titles once we start to shorten them can get a little bit difficult, so we’ve decided to always write those out in the filename. There will be times where the cards may have a shortened version or an acronym, but the filename will not. We hope that members don’t mind, but we do understand that this may result in longer file names. EXTREMELY LONG FILENAMES. But you guys are smart, you know how to copy and paste. There will certainly be instances where a card will not be able to fit the full title of a song or the full group name without getting weird and overcrowded, but please do not mistake an abbreviation for a accident, even if it appears to be one. There is only so much space on our cards and we definitely don’t want to abbreviate or take letters out of the featured group member’s name! That’s the only thing we’ll never shorten or sneak letters out of on our cards.

MEMBER CARDS

Although member cards are collectable, they are not masterable. Unlike our regular trading cards, member cards are worth 0 toward your overall card count. They do, however, count as 1 card traded when it comes to counting and handing in your stampcards for rewards.

Unlike some trading card games, our member cards do not feature any pixels to denote status. Instead, our member’s page has all the information you need regarding member status. New member cards can be purchased at any time in our forum shop, but only the original member card can be traded.

All past and present member cards can be viewed via member's profiles on our member list. Click the question mark to view their entire profile!

EVENT CARDS

Much like most TCGs, Idolise enjoys celebrating milestones with event cards that our members can take and display on their personal pages. These cards are worth 0 are not masterable for rewards.

Event cards are larger than our regular cards and are more like badges. Event cards are released randomly, helping us celebrate as our website grows and changes. They are also released as we meet goals, or, just because we feel like it. Images we use on our event cards will vary and we are very sorry if we never feature your favorite artists. We often just choose at random or when we see something cute kicking around.

Here at Idolise, we also enjoy celebrating our member's birthdays. Birthday badges can be requested through our forum on the month of their birth. Unlike regular event badges, birthday badges are specifically for that particular person who is celebrating! It's for them to display proudly on their personal page. You can not take anyone else’s birthday badge. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait for your own!

If you'd like to see all of our event cards, click here for our gallery.

REGULAR DECK MASTERIES

Once you have successfully collected all of the cards in a single deck, you have mastered it and will receive a reward of , and a badge like the examples below for doing so.

Although the mastery badge that comes with a specific deck will not change (unless it is remade or includes an error, which we will fix), we do give members the opportunity to choose their own image and receive a custom badge for any decks they have mastered. These custom badges, however, must be purchased via our shop and requested in their designated forum topic.

These custom badges will always keep the same color scheme as the original. There will be no custom border colors with these, even though they are a shop purchase.

Once you master any deck in the TCG, you can not trade these cards away for any reason unless you get duplicates of any of the cards! Your masteries will also be displayed in your profile on the site as well as listed in the individual deck's page as one of the deck masters. To turn in a mastery, head on over to our Mastery Form and submit for rewards.

CURRENCY

The currency we use here are called coins and you use them to buy power ups, card packs, and choice cards from our Shop. Coins are typically earned through playing our games, but sometimes we may hand them out in updates as freebies or include them in events so keep an eye out for them! You are entirely responsible for tracking and logging your coins. It is not something we currently do for you, so it is incredibly important that members keep accurate count of their coins. Once you spend coins, you must also remove the used amount from the total count. When you receive coins, make sure that you add them!

PROFILE DISPLAY ICONS

We can all easily agree that member cards get boring after a while. Not only are our biases constantly altering their appearance (I specifically mean hair, but some idols could cool it on the plastic surgery), but our taste in idols is often changing. No one likes just one thing, which is why we give our members the opportunity to swap out the image that not only appears in their profile, but on the member list as well.

These images are not member cards and are not for trade. They are merely for looks. They have absolutely no worth should you decide to display them somewhere in your trade post. They are worth 0, just like event cards.

There is absolutely no difference between the look of display icons and your original member card. Consistency in this game is so important to me and I don’t want to soil how the member list looks.

As display icons are purchased, they will be added to your profile. This is a great way to keep track and view the ones that you have, so that you can decide which you would like to display in both your profile and on the main member list. The display icon you choose to show off can be edited through the profile form. Rather than typing out the full file link, simply writing out the filename (sans the extension) is all we require! (example: caitlin001)

Should you prefer to show off your member card, simply leaving the field blank will do so! The code handles all of the work for us!

Profile display icons can be purchased through their own topic on the forum.

POWER UPS

Below is the full list of current boosters that you can buy from us! They come in the forms of different coloured iPods and all of them will last for a specific amount of updates or uses. Please respect the limits and understand that Idolise is attempting to create a challenging game that depends on trading, so the boosters are not cheap! We want our members have weeks where they don’t know the sweet taste of double game rewards!

Remember, each iPod has a specific amount of intended uses. Please note those limits and use them carefully!

IPOD	ABILITY	USES	PRICE
	The Pink iPod allows you to receive double the amount of rewards you usually get from the Weekly games. Simply take the second row of rewards from the prize page if you have this iPod! This iPod does not and will never apply to set 1, set 2 or our monthly games. This is certainly a luxury item, but this iPod is good for 2 uses, which can be any time. You do not need to use this over two consecutive weeks if you do not want to. This iPod does not expire until you have used it two times.	2	700 coins
	The Blue iPod allows you to make +1 donation at absolutely any time. This power up can be used twice when it’s purchased, and both additional donations can be made at absolutely any time. Even in the same month. This power up does not allow members to donate additional era decks of the same idol. However, it does allow additional donations of an overall group, allowing the two decks per group rule to be broken.PLEASE NOTE: In order to avoid artist hoarding, we are only allowing additional decks from the same group to be donated once all other related donations have been approved and rewarded. (ex: If in the first week of the month you have already capped at 5 donations, with 2 of those decks being svt-dontwannacryscoups and svt-dontwannacryjeonghan, you are allowed to donate svt-dontwannacryjun and svt-dontwannacryseungkwan, but only after the first two decks have been turned in and rewarded)	2	400 coins
	Our Yellow iPod allows you two extra pulls from any three updates of your choice. These do not have to be used on three consecutive updates. You can not use use this booster on past updates, obviously. If you buy this on Friday, you can use this power up on the following Sunday, and two more after that of your choosing.	2 x 3	400 coins
	The Purple iPod gives you the opportunity gain double rewards for your next 10 stamp cards. If you purchase this on January 1st, you can not use any old trades by before that date for this powerup. You must made a new 20 trades, but will be able to hand in "2" stamp cards for your 1. This also means you're free to make yourself 2 photocards per a stampcard for this powerup. Additionally, members are free to take 2 choice cards when you reach your 10th stampcard.	10	700 coins

CARD PACKS & CHOICE CARDS

Below is the full list of current card packs that you can buy from us as well as info about buying choice cards! There are currently no limits to how many card packs and/or choice cards you can buy at once, per week, per month, etc. As long as you have the coins you can buy as many as you want!

era masteries

If you are at all familiar with OnStage and our previous era mastery rules, please erase everything that you know from your mind and focus right here. We have gone ahead and simplified the entire process to make era masteries more managable for both your admin team, and you, our precious member.

Era masteries are, to put as as simply as we possibly can, additional rewards and custom badges that you can earn through mastering the decks from the artists you're already interested in. In order to complete an era mastery, you must complete all decks from that specific era. To make this a little bit easier on our members, we'll consider an era complete once you have mastered each of the member decks, as well as the title song from that era.

rewards

Someday when you least expect it, you will finally complete all of the decks from a single era. You're finally ready to request your rewards, which will come in the form of 1 custom badge for your page, and two random cards for every deck you mastered from that era. If there are five decks in an era, you will receive 10 random cards. If there are 14 decks, you will recieve 28 random cards.

Your era mastery badges will be requested through its designated forum and all members are required to fill out the provided form to make life a little bit easier on your moderators when they are checking your work.

The above badges are examples and members do not receive three badges. These are simply on display to show you what the badges look like and that any image can be used from the era, as long as it has at least one of the members in clear view. The badges will always follow the same color scheme as the decks do and feature the deck count as well as your name in the top corner. Check our FAQ below for more information on image requirements.

era masteries faq

CAN WE SUBMIT ERA MASTERIES FOR SOLO ARTISTS?
You can and you will receive a custom badge for you! However, you will not obtain any additional cards for these era mastries.

DO I HAVE TO INFORM YOU OF MY INTENT TO COLLECT AN ERA?
This had been a rule over at OnStage, but we will not be asking this of our members here at Idolise. We are not interested in which eras you're working on, only the ones you have completed. Nice and simple.

ARE THERE ANY IMAGES REQUIREMENTS THAT MY BADGE MUST FOLLOW?
Previously, the expectation was that members had to find a fantaken or news photo of the entire group performing from that era. We will no longer have requirements like these. Your badge can be anything you want, just as long as it is a high quality photo that was taken during that era. Teasers and photoshoots are acceptable, as well as the usual fantaken or news photo that we prefer working with. Photos do not have to be of the entire group and can be your favorite member(s) instead. We only ask that members do not use selcas or screencaps. Selcas are really hard for us to crop, where screencaps can really lower the quality of an otherwise beautiful badge. Please be aware!

I WANT TO DISPLAY MY ERA MASTERIES ON MY PAGE. HOW CAN I DO THIS?
As of right now, we do not have any codes or recommendations. We can only suggest talking to your fellow members and experimenting with ideas until you find what looks best on your own page. Should we have any ideas or suggestions, we will definitely update this section!

DONATIONS

At Idolise, we are always accepting donations for brand new decks. However, as we are allowing others to help out by doing this, there are some guidelines (which will be listed below) that we ask donors to follow in order to keep things as consistent as possible. Currently, members are allowed to donate five decks per month.

era donations
Reward: 5 random cards per 1 donation.

music video donations
Reward: 3 random cards per 1 donation.

other notable information

era donations: good vs bad

Because a lot of our information may be a little unclear, we recommend that users read this guide before they attempt their first deck donation or reference it while they're compiling their folder. We understand that some artists have a much larger variety of high quality photos available, and that some donations are just a lot easier to make, but these guidelines are necessary in helping you get your donation right the first time. These guidelines are here to not only help you determine which images are worth adding to a donation, but which photos are better off being left behind as well. The more photos you add that can't be used usually means the more time it takes me to sort through your donation to make a deck out of it.

AGAIN, we only use fan taken images or news photos that are candid (taken during performances, arrivals, press conferences: never photoshoots, selcas, magazine scans, teasers, etc), so please do not include images that are otherwise just going to be passed over and rejected!

That being said, I think we can all agree that the more photos, the better. Variety is a beautiful thing. But a 100+ photo donation is entirely worthless if I can't use most of the photos in it. Sorting through a difficult donation causes me to take longer to make those decks, or just give up entirely and add it back to the queue for when I'm being ambitious.

If there are photos you really love and you are unsure of, add them to the donation. But make sure there are enough for-sure photos in there, otherwise it might be a little while before your deck comes out.

bad images

If needed, clicking the image thumbnails will make them larger.

The above photos may look different, but they have some very important in common. Both are too close for me to work with. Although the left photo is beautifully lit and the quality is incredible, there is absolutely no way I'd be able to crop this into our deck template. The photo on the right could potentially be color corrected to match what a normal deck would look like, and it is a little further away, it would still cause me a lot of trouble. It's a little too off center, and if you look below, you can get a better idea of just how they'd pan out as cards.

On the left side, we have an imagine that would genuinely be otherwise perfect if not for how close it is. Because it literally can not be cropped any other way, we're left staying close. In our deck template, we'd end up covering his chin or giving up his entire forehead. With how consistently I like to crop my decks, I genuinely believe this sort of image is a waste of time. On the right side, we have an imagine that would require a lot of editing if we decided it was necessary for the deck. The photo is incredibly yellow and, as if that wasn't bad enough, it is also off center. This imagine can't be easily cropped and in order to center the card, we would have to crop even closer than we've already been forced to.

Now that we've covered images that are too close, I want to dive into some photos that may normally cause some confusion while you're scrolling by. A few of these would actually be considered good photos if you were scraping the bottom of the barrel for those lesser known groups, but a majority of the groups who are promoting right now have amazing fansites, so I would still prefer we avoid these if at all possible.

I've chosen all of the above images for different reasons. More or less.

The very first image (although VERY CUTE) is a nearly impossible fix. For me, anyway. Even if I could fix the color of this photo to bring it back to a skin tone, I don't think I'd be able to easily fix the inconsistent lighting. I'm sure there would still be uneven and bright patches on their faces where the light is hitting them. Scroll by photos like this. They do not belong in your donation! ♥

The second photo is another example of an image that is too close. It's beautiful, but it would throw the deck off because of how I'd be forced to crop.

Our third photo is a little bit different. I had originally added it into the guide as another photo with lighting issues. Although this image would be easy to fix and color match with the rest of the deck, I would still prefer that you avoid images that may throw a donation off. If you're scrolling through your donation and you see a photo like this, that is much darker than most fan taken photos, just delete it. Of course, with that being said, this is an excellent example of a photo that could be salvaged for your lesser known groups, or groups with a lack of fansites.

In our fourth image, this angel wearing a flower crown is so beautiful that I might just cry, but this image has a slight coloring issue. It's a little bit on the green (?) side and while that could be fixed if need be... I would prefer to do as little editing to someone else's photos as possible.

The next photo is in the same boat as our last. It's beautifully taken and the quality is really great, but it would mean color correcting to make sure it meshes with the rest of our deck.

The last photo I'm including today is super cute, but would take a lot of color correcting to get back his skin tone and it is also a little too close to crop with ease. Images like this are a real shame and they often give the appreciance that they can be cropped... They're tricking you!

One issue with a lot of portrait/vertical photos is that they're often more difficult for us to crop than those that are landscape/horizontal. All of the above examples are too close for us to crop. There are a few with lighting/coloring issues, but even more than that, the closeness is what I was focusing on when I decided on these photos. I think that most people will be able to get a better idea of what to avoid from the above images.

good images

So let's move on to the good examples of what I'm always happy to see in a donation. I am not going to really bother talking about the why behind the choices I've made for good images, because I think that the bad images have already filled you in enough. All of the below images require no real editing on my part. They're all going to be easy to crop because they give me a ton of wiggle room on either side of his cute little head. The less editing I have to do, the better. We're seeking photos that will easily slide into our deck template without making a card look like it belongs to another TCG.

There's a lot less to say about images that I consider easy to work with. I've chosen the above and below photos because of their lighting and how easy they are to crop. None of these photos are too close and they wouldn't take any effort at all to slide into our deck template. No real editing necessary!

If there's only final thing I can leave with everyone, it is that not all donations are going to be easy. Not everyone is as blessed as me with Yoon Jeonghan and his 50 beautiful fansites. I encourage all of you to just do your best. If you're having a hard time finding photos or you just need advice, reach out to your admin team here on the forum or through our Twitter and we will do everything we can to help make your bias decks come true.