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The Best Art In The Pokemon TCG
- Thread starter Yung Dramps
- Start date
All time terrible post, pumpkinz
Definitely not my Iron Moth bias speaking
I took a long break from the TCG during Covid. My main drive for collecting the game was also playing it, and that wasn’t an option in the plague times.
The world of the Pokemon TCG post Covid is wild. The game’s art went absolutely insane, to the point where it’s completely outmatched every other TCG in that department. The cards being printed today are the prettiest they’ve ever been.
There is also so, SO much more product being opened. Pokémon cards are being cracked at incredible volume. The popularity is like nothing I knew when I came back to the game in 2014. The result is we have heaps of beautiful cards that don’t feel like they’re getting any attention, at least by the pseudo-measurement of desirability that comes from after market sales prices. I want to take a second to talk about some of the prettiest and most neglected cards from recent sets. These are cards that stunned me coming back to the game in earnest this year. Way more people should cherish these cards.
For now, I want to focus on the trainer galleries in the last four main SWSH sets and Crown Zenith’s Galarian Galery. These are the cards that really gripped me from Gen 8’s offerings, and I can’t belive how dirt cheap they all are. Outside of the secret rare haymakers like the gorgeous creation trio + Arceus posted earlier, there’s a heap of others I want to make sure get some love.
Kingdra TG03
I love when Pokemon dives into its rich history of characters, especially when it’s not in the form of a gacha game. No, I have class; unlike those plebeians, I only enjoy physical gacha.
(Don’t buy packs, kids. Buy singles, single cards for sale on second hand markets, especially when Pokemon singles are dirt cheap.)
Little references like this card are so nice. It’s Clair! She’s just randomly in a set focused on Hisui! Who doesn’t enjoy a jumpscare Clair? I know this is lopped off from Japan’s V-Max climax, the Japan-only set featuring special treatment of SWSH-era cards, but still, it’s weird to see it there too. On top of all that, it’s depicting a trainer interacting with their Pokemon in a way that adds a great texture to the Pokemon world. This is all without mentioning the wonderful dynamic pose of the duo riding up a waterfall. Such great scope, story telling, what’s not to love?
Simisear GG37
Simisear owns the proud title of being the least popular Pokemon. You have not been able to catch a Pansear in the mainline games since 2013. It is reaching a level of forgotten that dips below the depths of where dunsparce used to struggle. Despite all this, they gave it not only an ultra rare with simisear vstar, punching alongside generational headliners like Zacian, Arceus, and H-Zoroark, but it got a secret rare. Assigning nagano and their playful chibi style was the perfect match for the borderline parody nature of Simisear’s existence.
Pokémon seems determined to save Simisear. As someone who thought in 2010 the elemental monkey evolutions were hideous upgrades for the pretty cure base forms, this treatment has caused me to soften on them a little. Not much though, simipour is an eyesore.
Mew GG10
Here we see Mew, hitting the baby Jesus emote, while a gaggle of Pokemon surround it in awe at the fetus’s raw marketability.
This was apparently one of the chase pulls from Crown Zenith while I wasn't playing and I can absolutely see why. Cards with lots of Pokemon on them are such fun, and the grouping with this lighting really sells a sense of majesty to Mew. Seeing this thread, this was the first card that came to my mind. I then went out and bought like three of them lol. This card is cool as hell, and seeing four of them in a row has got to hit crazy nice.
Druddigon TG09
I did not know this card existed for a good long while. I was looking through an old college friend’s binder at league, saw this, and went out loud in a local game store “That’s the prettiest Pokemon card I’ve ever seen!” I have never been much of a druddigon fan, but seeing it lounge around and be used as pillow is so endearing. This, and we get to see another tip into Pokémon’s character history with the Gen 5 ace trainer. It’s so scenic. I love it.
Zekrom TG05
This might be my favorite modern Pokemon card. It’s incredible. I don’t even know what to say, this is gorgeous. If this card had a textured surface or a different string of letters at the bottom saying it was a higher rarity, it’d be like a $40 chase card. It’s one of the prettiest pieces capturing one of the most beloved Pokemon games in a scope the DS never could. It’s N riding around on a Pokemon so incredibly powerful, cleaving through the brilliant blue and orange sky and chasing dusk is nothing. It’s a snapshot of the world of Pokemon Black in a way like nothing else, where you’re certain that THIS is what’s happening right after the credits. It’s an astoundingly wonderful card.
It’s also $2.
You should probably go on TCGplayer or eBay or something and buy a copy for less than half the value of a booster pack. More people should be treasuring this card.
Pokémon cards are WAY too pretty lately!
The world of the Pokemon TCG post Covid is wild. The game’s art went absolutely insane, to the point where it’s completely outmatched every other TCG in that department. The cards being printed today are the prettiest they’ve ever been.
There is also so, SO much more product being opened. Pokémon cards are being cracked at incredible volume. The popularity is like nothing I knew when I came back to the game in 2014. The result is we have heaps of beautiful cards that don’t feel like they’re getting any attention, at least by the pseudo-measurement of desirability that comes from after market sales prices. I want to take a second to talk about some of the prettiest and most neglected cards from recent sets. These are cards that stunned me coming back to the game in earnest this year. Way more people should cherish these cards.
For now, I want to focus on the trainer galleries in the last four main SWSH sets and Crown Zenith’s Galarian Galery. These are the cards that really gripped me from Gen 8’s offerings, and I can’t belive how dirt cheap they all are. Outside of the secret rare haymakers like the gorgeous creation trio + Arceus posted earlier, there’s a heap of others I want to make sure get some love.
Kingdra TG03
I love when Pokemon dives into its rich history of characters, especially when it’s not in the form of a gacha game. No, I have class; unlike those plebeians, I only enjoy physical gacha.
(Don’t buy packs, kids. Buy singles, single cards for sale on second hand markets, especially when Pokemon singles are dirt cheap.)
Little references like this card are so nice. It’s Clair! She’s just randomly in a set focused on Hisui! Who doesn’t enjoy a jumpscare Clair? I know this is lopped off from Japan’s V-Max climax, the Japan-only set featuring special treatment of SWSH-era cards, but still, it’s weird to see it there too. On top of all that, it’s depicting a trainer interacting with their Pokemon in a way that adds a great texture to the Pokemon world. This is all without mentioning the wonderful dynamic pose of the duo riding up a waterfall. Such great scope, story telling, what’s not to love?
Simisear GG37
Simisear owns the proud title of being the least popular Pokemon. You have not been able to catch a Pansear in the mainline games since 2013. It is reaching a level of forgotten that dips below the depths of where dunsparce used to struggle. Despite all this, they gave it not only an ultra rare with simisear vstar, punching alongside generational headliners like Zacian, Arceus, and H-Zoroark, but it got a secret rare. Assigning nagano and their playful chibi style was the perfect match for the borderline parody nature of Simisear’s existence.
Pokémon seems determined to save Simisear. As someone who thought in 2010 the elemental monkey evolutions were hideous upgrades for the pretty cure base forms, this treatment has caused me to soften on them a little. Not much though, simipour is an eyesore.
Mew GG10
Here we see Mew, hitting the baby Jesus emote, while a gaggle of Pokemon surround it in awe at the fetus’s raw marketability.
This was apparently one of the chase pulls from Crown Zenith while I wasn't playing and I can absolutely see why. Cards with lots of Pokemon on them are such fun, and the grouping with this lighting really sells a sense of majesty to Mew. Seeing this thread, this was the first card that came to my mind. I then went out and bought like three of them lol. This card is cool as hell, and seeing four of them in a row has got to hit crazy nice.
Druddigon TG09
I did not know this card existed for a good long while. I was looking through an old college friend’s binder at league, saw this, and went out loud in a local game store “That’s the prettiest Pokemon card I’ve ever seen!” I have never been much of a druddigon fan, but seeing it lounge around and be used as pillow is so endearing. This, and we get to see another tip into Pokémon’s character history with the Gen 5 ace trainer. It’s so scenic. I love it.
Zekrom TG05
This might be my favorite modern Pokemon card. It’s incredible. I don’t even know what to say, this is gorgeous. If this card had a textured surface or a different string of letters at the bottom saying it was a higher rarity, it’d be like a $40 chase card. It’s one of the prettiest pieces capturing one of the most beloved Pokemon games in a scope the DS never could. It’s N riding around on a Pokemon so incredibly powerful, cleaving through the brilliant blue and orange sky and chasing dusk is nothing. It’s a snapshot of the world of Pokemon Black in a way like nothing else, where you’re certain that THIS is what’s happening right after the credits. It’s an astoundingly wonderful card.
It’s also $2.
You should probably go on TCGplayer or eBay or something and buy a copy for less than half the value of a booster pack. More people should be treasuring this card.
Pokémon cards are WAY too pretty lately!
The Mew card also likely became a chase card because the card itself was meta for a long time. Opening Mew to Mysterious Tail for items was the play to be making for some key decks.
Pokemon card prices are in a pretty interesting spot. Despite the scalping issues, and the absurd speculative market, cards are pretty abundant so outside of very specific chase cards (waifus, competitive staples, the turbo popular mons most usually) you can usually find singles at pretty cheap prices. I think even compared to other card games their "chase" cards trend towards the cheaper end unless you're "Illustration Rare Umbreon VMax" just due to the volume. There's also always the time sweet spot of "old enough to not be relevant anymore but recent enough to not have Nostalgia Fueled inflation".
Pokemon card prices are in a pretty interesting spot. Despite the scalping issues, and the absurd speculative market, cards are pretty abundant so outside of very specific chase cards (waifus, competitive staples, the turbo popular mons most usually) you can usually find singles at pretty cheap prices. I think even compared to other card games their "chase" cards trend towards the cheaper end unless you're "Illustration Rare Umbreon VMax" just due to the volume. There's also always the time sweet spot of "old enough to not be relevant anymore but recent enough to not have Nostalgia Fueled inflation".
I haven't seen any Pokemon TCG Pocket arts in this thread yet, lots of the normal arts are reused but hot damn some of the secret rares...
My favorite is still the Crown Rare Mewtwo ex. Just looking at it, you can already see that it's Mewtwo escaping the Pokemon Mansion, which is already an interesting idea, but then you hold on the card and it just shows you the path that it took through to escape and oh my it's so gorgeous
This is totally not a case of bias cos I got it on my first day
My favorite is still the Crown Rare Mewtwo ex. Just looking at it, you can already see that it's Mewtwo escaping the Pokemon Mansion, which is already an interesting idea, but then you hold on the card and it just shows you the path that it took through to escape and oh my it's so gorgeous
This is totally not a case of bias cos I got it on my first day
Attachments
Shoutout to Kiyotaka Oshiyama's contributions to the TCG. You'd think his art would be more well-known considering he's also a top talent in the anime industry right now (director of Flip Flappers, monster designer in Chainsaw Man, basically-drawing-the-entire-thing in the Look Back movie).
I just love how the rendering is very simplistic, but it compensates by a very strong sense of perspective and bold expressions
I just love how the rendering is very simplistic, but it compensates by a very strong sense of perspective and bold expressions
monch
It's giving me Disney cartoon, especially those eyes. I love it
It's not card art, but the new ex Starter Generations decks all have an art piece dedicated to them and they're all very good.
They're at the bottom here https://www.pokebeach.com/2024/10/ex-starter-deck-generations-revealed-featuring-18-pokemon-ex
In particular I really love the Johto deck's sunset vibes and sleepy houndour
and Zacian leaping across rooftops in Motostoke with Alcremie hanging on to its tail
The TCG often gets lots of original art that they put on products so wouldn't surprise me if these get turned into deck boxes & sleeves.
They're at the bottom here https://www.pokebeach.com/2024/10/ex-starter-deck-generations-revealed-featuring-18-pokemon-ex
In particular I really love the Johto deck's sunset vibes and sleepy houndour
and Zacian leaping across rooftops in Motostoke with Alcremie hanging on to its tail
The TCG often gets lots of original art that they put on products so wouldn't surprise me if these get turned into deck boxes & sleeves.
Thanks to TCG Pocket, I've found myself back to the pokemon card purchasing scene, and of course i've found more cards that i've enjoyed the art of in the process
I've grown quite fond of Aron as a pokemon recently, and because of that i've ended up finding quite a bit of art of it i've liked as well. Anything that shows its tendency to eat metal gets points from me, and for the one that isn't, the background just really hits nicely for me
The portrayal of both Hisuian clans on these cards is really nice, though I'm certainly biased towards the Diamond clan's version. Ingo just sticks out a bit too much for my liking, though the art is still one I enjoy
I went through all the XY series to see if I could find anything exceptional to add, as I mostly started my collection with the XY sets, and in the promos alone there are so many of these i just ended up not listing, just to not overload this post. I genuinely think this is my favorite era of card art. I also really miss the Ancient Trait cards, and I hope they bring that mechanic back some day
Limiting myself to one or two per set for this one, to go with the promos. As you might be able to tell, I'm a massive fan of XY Era Full Arts, but there's also a surprising amount of times where I ended up going "wait there's an EX for this mon?" buried in the sets. Could probably make a whole post just on a single set, for multiple of these tbh. Maybe i'll do that next... Either way, that's it for now.
I've grown quite fond of Aron as a pokemon recently, and because of that i've ended up finding quite a bit of art of it i've liked as well. Anything that shows its tendency to eat metal gets points from me, and for the one that isn't, the background just really hits nicely for me
The portrayal of both Hisuian clans on these cards is really nice, though I'm certainly biased towards the Diamond clan's version. Ingo just sticks out a bit too much for my liking, though the art is still one I enjoy
I went through all the XY series to see if I could find anything exceptional to add, as I mostly started my collection with the XY sets, and in the promos alone there are so many of these i just ended up not listing, just to not overload this post. I genuinely think this is my favorite era of card art. I also really miss the Ancient Trait cards, and I hope they bring that mechanic back some day
Limiting myself to one or two per set for this one, to go with the promos. As you might be able to tell, I'm a massive fan of XY Era Full Arts, but there's also a surprising amount of times where I ended up going "wait there's an EX for this mon?" buried in the sets. Could probably make a whole post just on a single set, for multiple of these tbh. Maybe i'll do that next... Either way, that's it for now.
Attachments
is it cheating to just mention an artist? Mex's post got me thinking "man I loved the art of some of the Ancient Traits cards", I looked them up and...of course I do, they were done by the legend Kawayoo. One if the reason I became interested in the TCG to begin with was seeing his wonderful art on the booster packs of HGSS- I remember being extremely cateful to not tear them apart. Look at those dam strokes is so unique and fitting for Johto!
I'm glad he's still at it too, his Scream Tail is very recent if I'm not mistaken.
I'm glad he's still at it too, his Scream Tail is very recent if I'm not mistaken.
If you like it enough, I say it's fair game. I'll say they did a fair few cards i'm quite fond of and could've easily put in my post as well, including one of the mascot mons for the Roaring Skies set, and another card that i notably included in my other post in the Little Things You Like About Pokemon thread
China's been getting the "Pokemon Go" cards with new artwork presumably to get around the Niantic copyright, and the latest one for Articuno is so good
I don't believe any of these cards have a shot at leaving china unless they randomly reprint them or reuse the art on "new" cards, which is a shame.
I don't believe any of these cards have a shot at leaving china unless they randomly reprint them or reuse the art on "new" cards, which is a shame.
What are they discussing
Oh look it's me in the tcg thread again, what a surprise.
Man, where to start with these. Going through two sets i collected a significant amount of while they were new, from the gen 7 sets this time since i don't need to fill my gen 6 bias further. One thing I did notice was that, at least in Team Up's case, a lot of the best art is backloaded in the Full Art trainers and Alternate Art cards, a few of which have already been posted like the Latias & Latios tag team. Meanwhile, in Unbroken Bonds, there's more general art I found that hit with me, and there's a few themes that i've quite liked as well, the Caturday attack being the main one you'll see. Still, the Alternate Arts and Full Art Trainers will still hit well.
This brings me to my main criticism of gen 7 sets though. The regular Full Art Pokemon are incredibly underwhelming. After how great the previous two generations were with them it's a major let down, and while this thread tries to keep on the positive end, it does sour my enjoyment of the sets when some of the big hits look like this
Man, where to start with these. Going through two sets i collected a significant amount of while they were new, from the gen 7 sets this time since i don't need to fill my gen 6 bias further. One thing I did notice was that, at least in Team Up's case, a lot of the best art is backloaded in the Full Art trainers and Alternate Art cards, a few of which have already been posted like the Latias & Latios tag team. Meanwhile, in Unbroken Bonds, there's more general art I found that hit with me, and there's a few themes that i've quite liked as well, the Caturday attack being the main one you'll see. Still, the Alternate Arts and Full Art Trainers will still hit well.
This brings me to my main criticism of gen 7 sets though. The regular Full Art Pokemon are incredibly underwhelming. After how great the previous two generations were with them it's a major let down, and while this thread tries to keep on the positive end, it does sour my enjoyment of the sets when some of the big hits look like this
I can't agree, the background is certainly a big part of why i like them, but even without that the posing is significantly more dynamic with the Full Arts in the gen 5-6 era, the main comparison i use is between Scizor EX and Scizor GX, where I find that the pose alone on the EX version just makes the card look significantly nicer than the GX variant.
vs
The new set in the TCG has a bunch of reprints and for the Team Star cards they got new alt-arts of their DLC appearences where they're just in normal uniforms and it's fantastic
https://www.pokebeach.com/2024/11/full-art-eri-mela-and-more-from-terastal-festival-ex
They're so normal. I love the contrast.
https://www.pokebeach.com/2024/11/full-art-eri-mela-and-more-from-terastal-festival-ex
They're so normal. I love the contrast.
RED ALERT: TETSUO HARA DID A PALAFIN ILLUSTRATION FOR THE TCG
If you don't know who that is, he's the guy who illustrated the entirety of THIS
next stop: naotoshi shida cut on a pokemon anime
If you don't know who that is, he's the guy who illustrated the entirety of THIS
next stop: naotoshi shida cut on a pokemon anime
I don't think it's a stretch to say that the Special Illustration Rares are some of the best things they've added to the TCG ever, there are so many more beautiful pieces of art you can get from your booster pack now, if you strike lucky, and I love it
I could've put the entire list of every single one of these in that spoiler and been like "yeah these all belong here", realistically, but i try to limit myself a bit. Genuinely I don't think there's a single one of these that I don't love.
I could've put the entire list of every single one of these in that spoiler and been like "yeah these all belong here", realistically, but i try to limit myself a bit. Genuinely I don't think there's a single one of these that I don't love.