Drop Into the World of Skate TCG: A Chat with Founder Josh Cerceda
We were thrilled to sit down with Josh for a 30 minute interview to learn about The Game of Skate - the brand new Trading Card Game celebrating skateboarding.
A note from the Editor: I am thrilled to have the first ever interview up on Katterhaus and am honored to have it be an absolute banger like this. Interviewing Josh was a quick idea and Instagram message that turned into an awesome connection between the world of skateboarding, trading cards, and journalism.
Thank you to Josh for all his work into creating a game that has been well loved from the beginning, enjoy our conversation about dropping into SKATE TCG — his brand new trading card game, which was released (today!) June 21st, 2026.
Interview
KC: Josh, you are so passionate about Skate TCG. I remember you told me you were working in I think.. medical device sales before you got started. What were you doing when the idea for Skate TCG appeared?
Josh: So, it was about 2020 where I actually was just laid off through the global pandemic that we had. I had some time on my hands and was able to identify a gap in the TCG World.
You know, being a card collector and card player myself, going to Walmart, Target, and even card stores - you see a lot of different games.
I was noticing that there is no skateboard representation and not in the way I was thinking, with a Trading Card Game. So I took it into my hands to make it happen, and that’s really where it kind of all started. My career had been in software medical sales. And as of lately, it was bio pharmaceutical software in highly corporate environments, which I didn’t particularly like either.
So, breaking away from all of that was a change and you know taking a risk, of course. I would say it started more as just a passion project to make a game for me and my friends to play.
Then, I thought that if I could make a cool game for my friends, you know, maybe other skaters would enjoy it as well.
That’s kind of the genesis of it there. You know?
From there, I started working with professional skateboarders, like Mark Appleyard, Louis Barletta, Chris Markovich, which, are some of the skateboarders I looked up to growing up at the time I was skating. So it was really neat to get their buy in, their credibility, get them backing the project, and really just gained a lot of steam and momentum from there.
Mark Appleyard doing a feeble grind down rail.
KC: And from there, from 2020 to now, so for the past 6 years? That’s a long time.
Josh: Yeah, it's been quite the journey. You know, progression over the last few years has been pretty amazing in the way it's been received through card players, and a lot of skaters are really tapping in now, too, and really paying attention to what's going on.
So it's making a lot more progress now. As we have more and more credibility behind the project, but it started off where it was it was quite hard to get pro skaters involved so to say. Whereas now they're asking me to be in the game. I have pro skaters reaching out to me.
“Hey, it's a great project. How could I be a part of it?”
KC: Awesome. I mean, I don’t want to spoil any of the next sets or anything, but do you think any of the skaters who have reached out to you have a chance on making the next set?
Josh: Oh yeah. We plan to work with as many skaters as we can. Anybody who really wants to be in the game can be.
They just have to reach out to me, but we have plans to get other skaters in that we are already in talks with. Probably shouldn’t mention their names just yet, but we do have more stuff planned for set two.
Greg Lutzka at the X Games Los Angeles
KC: Perfect, keep those names under wraps! Now, as you said a lot of skaters like Mark Appleyard and Greg Lutzka, they’ve rallied around you to really make this happen. Josh, was there a moment were you realized that everything was coming together, this is it?
Josh: There's a couple of moments that make you think, wow, it's on another plateau, another level, or another peak, sort to say.
Partnering with Greg Lutzka is definitely one of those moments where, when he fully got behind it, became a partner, and really started exposing me to bigger companies; that's when things shifted a little bit internally and started taking it much more serious.
You know, it started could be just more than a little indie game. We could actually get onto retail shelves, and, um, you know, not only being in America, but get over to Europe, and ultimately, we would love to be in Japan. Greg is helping a lot with those logistics and is a great partnership to have.
KC: I know you’re seeing a US Release June 21st 2026. I’m excited to see when you’re going to be in Europe and Asia because that’s where you’re going to fly. I’m stoked for you on that!
Josh: Absolutely. We plan to make regional differences in the card game. We would love to even have a set translated into Japanese or Spanish. Then have pro skateboarders, like hometown heroes from Japan to make it regionally appropriate.
KC: That is so cool. I know that a lot of the cards are based off of real skater personas, tricks, and locations. So seeing that from around the world would be absolutely crazy.
I would love to see what you could do in places like Belgium and France, especially Paris. It's a massive skate city. I'm excited to see where y'all go around the world with skate.
Josh: You're absolutely right. There's a lot of places in Europe that would love this game, as Spain is the mecca for skateboarding. Lots of famous spots there in Barcelona and Madrid, and they're big on board games there too.
Specifically with Japan, you know, it's been a TCG Mecca for a long time. A lot of card games come out of there. Now the skateboarding in Japan is also on a rise, and there's some amazing skateboarders coming out of there, like Yuto Horigome being the two time Olympic champion. He is revered as a national hero of Japan at this point.
Yuto Horigome sending it at the 2024 Paris Olympics
So Skateboarding in Japan is big, and I think that a skateboard card game hits on both of targets there.
KC: Japan is going crazy with their skate culture right now. That is for sure, I think Skate TCG might be a good addition.
Josh: Absolutely, those are some of the future plans.
KC: Speaking of regional differences and future plans. Josh, you’re one of the artists on the game. You did a lot of the locations. How has Skate TCG grown you as a person? Did you know how to do art before this?
Josh: That’s a great question! I wouldn’t have considered myself an artist before any of this. Through the process of wanting to make this card game happen, I had to learn many artistic programs and make some of the art happen myself.
It's all kind of unique in a way. The art styles, or the concept of the art, doing skateboard tricks in mid air or just depicting a location of just stairs and handrails, it's like unique concepts. So some of them I had to do myself just to make sure it was done right.
The application that I chose to go with is blender, it’s a 3D program. Learning that was a very complex system, and you can do so much with it, so that did take time and a lot of effort. It was almost like learning a new language.
It takes many hours to set up the scene, create the stuff in 3D, block it out, then render it out, get the angles right. There’s interesting things that you gotta learn along the way - Procreate, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator. These are all useful tools that I use every single day.
KC: As someone who works on Blender, I know how difficult it can be. Were there any times in creating the art for skate TCG, where you were thinking, I don't know about this - but perservered?
Josh: Oh yeah, I mean just messing with blender in general. You know you could spend hours Googling little glitches or “how do you make certain things happen?” There's tons of research that go with it, ups and downs. Sometimes it's not rendering right, and it takes you hours, and it's like, one single click of something that you just overlooked.
So, you know, lots of things like that.
KC: For sure. Now Josh, I want to turn real quick to the game itself.
Walk me through a Quick Game of SKATE.
Josh: Sure, it plays just like a real game of SKATE.
Players take turns throwing down their tricks, the cards are the tricks.
You play the cards, then you roll your dice to land the tricks.
You then match up the symbols depending on the trick you played and the location intensity.
So, a little bit about the art and the locations here — we have real life locations like Hollywood 16 and the water tank gap for Jeremy Wray.
And depending on what location comes out it's gonna determine the difficulty.
So again, roll your dice.
If you land it, all the other players have to match that same dice roll.
If they don't, they take a letter.
You have five letters, it's S K A T E, and if you get all five letters — you're out the game.
The last skater standing wins.
Between the back and forth, there's lots of strategic action cards that can make the dice rolls a lot harder. Make landing something like a kick flip, much harder.
They can also buff you up to help you land a trick, such as rolling more dice or eliminating the requirements needed.
KC: I remember when we were planning this interview, you were talking about how skate TCG may be a little different from other trading card games on the market right now. Tell me more about that.
Josh: You know, there's not many games where you can do 360 flips or kick flips in them.
The nature of the mechanics is not a traditional attack and defense game, I think is pretty unique. It's fresh for seasoned TCG players, where 99% of games out there (which I love and play), are all attack and defense.
You know, I attack for four, you block for two, etc.
So, this is just a really fresh take on strategy.
This involves taking risks and having much more dynamic gameplay, real time excitement, to comebacks, and just tense games.
If you really give SKATE TCG a shot, there's lots of depth in strategy and lots of combos you can set up.
For example, there's big moves you can do — and by that, I mean, you can do multiple letters in one fall.
KC: Oh?
Josh: That's what we consider a banger. So if you do your banger move, you can actually do two or three letters all in one go, and eliminate the opponent pretty fast — it’s like a special move.
KC: Now I gotta ask. Are we able to know what cards do special moves? Are we talking like a Tony Hawk 900 type thing or..?
Josh: We do have the 900 and that is one of the biggest cards in the set. It’s actually one of the hardest cards to pull from a pack or to obtain actually.
It's both one of the rarest and most powerful cards in the set.
KC: Ooh. So you can pull a 900, AND you can get multiple letters on the 900?
Josh: Exactly.
KC: Oh, that's sick! I'm excited to see what the special moves are.
I mean, are any other card types you can spill or are we going to have to wait until June 21st?
Josh: Hero Cards, there are 8 heroes in this set, each hero has its own unique ability and banger. So, each hero is very unique in its own way that you play them.
[For example], you want to have a vert style hero to land something like the 900.
KC: You know, talking about the skate heroes, you know, we have 8 in set one. I did see that there may be a expansion pack coming through. Perhaps? What would an expansion pack do? I saw that you have like Jack Calypso coming in.
Josh: Yeah, he’s actually part of the main set at this point, but in between now and set two we do plan to have a small expansion set introducing a few more heroes, skate tricks, items, and action cards. There’s more expansions and more coming along the way, for sure.
KC: It looks like Jack has his mainstay now. Very good! Congratulations to Jack Calypso!
KC (cont): Well.. speaking of the cards, I know we were chatting about San Francisco. You have Pier 7, I know I was talking about maybe adding China banks in, since its gonna be demolished soon, but I gotta ask:
How did you end up selecting these specific cards? Any favorites?
Josh: Yes! A lot of them are skate spots that I know or ones I have seen in skateboard videos. So there is somewhat of a preference because there's many locations. There's hundreds of locations, including the fictional locations I've created. So there is a blend between fantasy locations and then real life skate spots that skaters will recognize.
I mean, I have quite a few favorites. I think the water tanks for me represents quite a bit. One of the biggest gaps possible, and so much to risk there, it's probably 30 to 45 feet in the air. Very little room for error.
And... Jeremy Wray, Ollied it. He had one try to do so, and he landed it from tank to tank.
So it was a really incredible thing when I saw that, you know, growing up. Making that location, as the homage to that was really nice.
KC: Of course, who hasn't seen the clip of Jeremy Wray jumping across the water tanks? I know you're from Florida, are there any location cards you snuck in to represent your local scene by chance?
Josh: Yes, there are a couple Easter eggs. There's actually dozens of skateboard Easter eggs. If you're a skater, you're gonna notice a lot of little shout outs and homages.
We used to skate the benches outside of my old elementary in Miami — Doolin Elementary. So, I went ahead and snuck in that location which no one's really gonna know what that is. Me and a couple friends will probably know Doolin. With having so much control over the creativity side of this, I love bringing in my actual life experiences or personality through the cards.
KC: I think that’s beautiful, honestly.
Josh: There’s over 60 locations in set one. So plenty to pick from and plenty more to come.
KC: Well, I gotta ask because with over 60 location cards, 8 skate heroes, and more coming along the way — then getting into Zumiez with other local skate shops ordering distribution worldwide…
It's a big moment for you, Josh.
Josh: Absolutely.
KC: How does it feel to finally see your idea, you know going from Doolin elementary, from practicing your ollies off the curb, to now you're becoming a part of mainstream skate culture. How does that feel?
Josh: There's a little bit of validation being in retail at this point.
I think the market is really going to resonate with the product and find it refreshing. So I'm excited for that.
I guess you could say I gotta remain focused.
That's one thing that I learned through this process, as the famous Kobe Bryant would say, the job's not finished. So it's very exciting, and there's a little bit of validation there, but, there’s lots of work to still accomplish in getting into skateboard shops, card shops, and expanding into Europe, and eventually Japan. I'm happy to check in with you in the future as well and update you on the success.
"What's there to be happy about? Job's not finished. Job finished? I don't think so." - Kobe Bryant, post game interview 2009 NBA Finals
KC: Job's not finished, Josh. What is the next 5 years looking like for Skate TCG? What do you hope the future holds?
Josh: We want to be the premier skateboard card game, incorporating all skateboard culture, skateboard professionals, hometown heroes or local heroes as we call them, and keeping it skateboard centric as we grow. I look forward to expanding this, all through Europe, South America, into Japan.
We're gonna keep adding new skaters, new mechanics, and keeping it fresh, and always listening to our players. We can take a lot of feedback from them and make the card game better, so we're always open to that. We are always available through email. You can contact us through our website.
Love player feedback. If anybody, you know, wants to make the game better, has ideas for tricks, cards, let's talk.
KC: Well, perfect. I'm excited to see where the future holds.
Thank you so much for joining me today, Josh.
Josh: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for giving me the time on your platform. Uh, let's check in again in, uh, maybe a few months, or, you know, later this year, and see where we're at.
KC: I would love to, and I got one last question for you — a little off the cuff, if that's okay.
Josh: Go for it, go for it.
KC: Should card players be excited to see any local or perhaps tournaments showing up? Any local meetups?
Josh: We definitely want to do something here in Miami at Lot 11. It's a huge skate park under a bridge, and we can put a lot of tables and players there. So we're looking to secure that hopefully later this year, where players can come in person, compete in person, and win prizes.
KC: Oh, yeah. Well, it looks like we might have to make our way down there if Lot 11 is a go!
Well, Josh, that's all I got for you. Thank you so much for joining me today on Katterhaus, and if you’re someone reading this — thank you for reading our interview!
Enjoy my work? Consider donating to Katter.haus to keep this publication pay-wall free and to allow me to explore more of the world.
