LEGO Ideas has moved its Pokemon Trading Card Game building challenge into the next stage, opening a public fan vote that will help decide which custom design has the best shot at becoming an official set. After a huge response from builders, five finalists are now up for consideration, and voting is open through June 11.
This is one of the more interesting LEGO Ideas contests in recent memory because the format is so specific. Rather than asking fans for a broad Pokemon model, the challenge centered on original brick-built takes on full-art Pokemon TCG cards using a limited list of eligible Pokemon. That gave the contest a clear visual identity from the start, and it also raised the bar for the finalists. These were not just creature builds. They had to capture the layered, framed look of a trading card while still working as display pieces in brick form.
Brick Fanatics reports that 756 entries were submitted before the challenge closed, which gives some sense of how much appetite there is for LEGO and Pokemon to do more together. From that pool, the review board selected five finalists that now move on to the public vote. The Brick Fan also confirms the June 11 voting deadline and notes that the winning design will be announced on February 4, 2027.
The finalist lineup covers a good range of styles and Pokemon picks. Gyarados: Sunset Splash by CreativeDynamicBuilder turns the Water-type favorite into a dramatic composition with a three-dimensional head pushing out from a colorful background. The Mythical Arceus by livetobuild leans into a cosmic presentation with the Legendary Pokemon emerging from a fiery scene. A Mew Soaring High by IsleOh goes lighter and more airy, placing Mew above a detailed landscape. Rowlet Razor Leaf by DMWM aims for movement and impact, while Joltik Charges Up! by Chrixeleon brings one of the smallest Pokemon into a compact card-style display with readable game-inspired details.
What makes this vote worth watching is that it is not just a popularity contest in the casual sense. The winner gets a real pathway toward becoming an official physical LEGO Ideas set. According to Brick Fanatics, the Grand Prize Selection will eventually be developed into a retail product, and the winning fan designer will receive 10 copies of the finished set plus 1% of the product's total net sales. The other finalists are not leaving empty-handed either, with the remaining four selected entries set to receive a prize package of current LEGO products.
There is also a bigger signal here for collectors. LEGO and Pokemon already have obvious overlap in fandom, but a challenge like this shows how much demand there is for display-first builds that speak to both hobbies at once. The card framing concept feels especially smart because it gives LEGO a format that can work beyond a single mascot character. If this eventually becomes an official set and performs well, it would not be surprising to see LEGO revisit the same display language for future Pokemon releases.
For now, the real question is which design best balances character recognition, brick-built depth, and shelf appeal. Gyarados and Arceus look like strong contenders on spectacle alone, but smaller and more inventive picks can sometimes benefit from the fan-vote format if they feel more original or more buildable. That tension is part of what makes the current field stronger than a typical popularity-driven shortlist.
Either way, LEGO has turned what could have been a routine contest update into a genuinely fun vote. Five finalists are in place, the deadline is set for June 11, and the road to a future official LEGO Pokemon set is now a little more real.
Sources: The Brick Fan, Brick Fanatics.
