Pokémon Scarlet & Violet's Final TCG Packs Have Some Stunning Art

Look, let’s all be adult about this. Unovan Pokémon are hardly the best range. Filled with the likes of the vile Pansage, Pansear and Panpour, and whatever the holy heck a Musharna is supposed to be, it wasn’t exactly the most inspired collection. Vanillite, for crying out loud. Oh, and that Audino abomination. Brrrr. But thankfully, great artists can make up for terrible crimes. As is the case with this Klinklang.

You have to imagine that everyone involved was just not feeling it when they drew up the Unovan creatures. “I dunno,” someone must have said. “What about three Pokémon that are just cogs?” And someone else looked over, annoyed to be interrupted while drawing a Pidove and pretending it was different from a Pidgey, and said, “Sure, whatever.”

But then along comes the wonderful Yuka Morii and delivers a clay-made rendition of the awful idea. I’d love to have seen this lit a bit more brightly, but it’s so rare that we see Morii get a full-art card that it’s to be celebrated every time.

And to prove the point further, here’s an Audino card I want to own. Asako Ito has her first full-art card since Crown Zenith’s Altaria!

No one seems to know who Asako Ito really is—the name is a pun on crocheting, and unless this is one of the most extreme examples of nominative determinism, it seems very unlikely that’s her real name. But whomever she may be, her cards with their woolen Pokémon and felt backgrounds are a constant delight.

This isn’t just a matter of cuteness, I swear. Although goodness me, it’s very cute. It’s that this type of art tends to do extremely well, too. The level of detail, and depictions of the coast, always seem to spike prices. Artist Okacheke is a non-stop hit machine, recently also giving us Destined Rivals’ amazing Misty’s Pysduck, and while I don’t imagine this’ll be as big of a breakout success, I can imagine it becoming pretty desirable.

Here’s the inevitable waifu card. Hilda is a special art rare in the Japanese set, so likely a special illustration rare over here, and, well, you can see the angle of the depiction and figure out why everyone’s going to buy it.

This seems like an inevitable smash hit to me. Yuu Nishida’s Keldeo is a stunningly beautiful card, and so gloriously colorful. And look at the detail! Look at that two-stage waterfall in the background, the water ripples around Keldeo’s hooves, the god rays coming from the trees.

It helps that that two-energy first attack, the 30+ one, is in fact 30+90 if you played it from the bench that turn, and then Sonic Edge will do another 120 every turn after that.

Oh wow. Long-time PTCG collaborator Kawayoo has been providing art since 2009, and it’s always great. But this Reshiram is off the charts. It’s just bizarre that this is the artist’s first full-art contribution since Silver Tempest’s Lugia V in 2022, which still fetches around $300 raw, and goes for closer to $750 in a PSA 10.

If there’s justice in the world, this card should supersede the Lugia for infamy, and while I’m always reluctant to wish high prices for cardboard kids want to collect, I find it hard to believe it won’t match it for prices.

Talking of art that should go down in legend, look at this Hydreigon ex SIR. Illustrated by Takumi Wada, who I believe was previously the lead artist on the Zelda franchise, and has now absolutely established himself within the PTCG. He also gave us Destined Rivals’ incredible Zamazenta and that lovely full-art Crustlem but this is something beyond. Gosh, I hope I can pull this, because I’ll never be able to afford to buy it.

OK, let’s move on to the real big-hitters. They might not be the prettiest, but they’re going to be very sought after.

A weird thing about this card is that it appears in both sets, as #171 in Black Bolt and #172 in White Flare. Another weird thing is that it’s almost entirely red. This was a promo in Japan, given away in tournaments and lotteries, making it far more rare. Ours will likely still be a very rare pull, but not quite as obscure. Still though, as a novelty, it’ll attract a lot of attention.

This and the next card are the big two, however. Or that’s clearly the hope, at least. With a brand new rarity designation—that white and black star—they’re a completely unique type of card, almost like a woodcut of holo lines, and this one appears far darker in real life than in the artwork.

It’s clearly hoped these will prove to be a big deal, especially given that they’ve not been chosen as the promo cards to include in the related ETB.

You can get a much better idea of the bizarre nature of these cards from the Reshiram version. Until we can hold one in our hands, it’s pretty hard to get an idea of how the holo effect works.

I think these two will be very popular, but I’m not convinced its a concept that’ll last if TPCi tries to keep it going. As with gold cards, in the end the artwork just can’t be as engaging or as enjoyable, and imposed rarity is really never what causes a particular card to really take off.

We’ll all know a lot more come July 18 when the sets are released into the wild.

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