Lost Origin’s newness may have been eclipsed by Silver Tempest, Crown Zenith, and the Scarlet & Violet era on our horizons, but there’s never a bad time to talk aboutPokemon TCGTrainer Card Gallery artwork. In fact, should this list stay up for years to come, Lost Origin may well and truly feel lost to the sands of time - but good art is timeless, and few card games know that better than Pokemon’s.
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We’ve gathered our personal favorites for your viewing pleasure. Perhaps you’ll go on the hunt to collect them before they become woefully rare!
8Roserade
Hey, it’s Gardenia! Sinnoh’s Grass-type Gym Leader is spelunking in a forest alongside her dutiful Roserade. Gardenia’s clearly spooked over something, but Roserade is ever-ready to come to her aid if things get out of hand. What we love about this card is it’s just so delightfullygreen. Saino Misaki not only brilliantly captures Gardenia’s and Roserade’s countenance, but ties it all together in a myriad of similar shades that makes the red and blue flowers at the ends of Roserade’s arms really pop with color.
Plus, one of the attacks is called Assassin’s Rose. How cool is that?
7Charizard
First things first: this is a powerful card. We aren’t in the business of ranking Trainer Gallery Art on account of the, uh, non-art parts, but folks may recall this particular Charizard mucking up a good many games when it first appeared in Vivid Voltage. Lost Origin turned it into a Trainer Gallery entry, meaning that Leon rule will be messing people up for months to come.
But isn’t it wonderful? Look at Leon. The Galar Champion, a force to be reckoned with. Look at his Charizard - the true force in that outstanding equation. And look at them just… chilling. They’re hanging out like two best buds. Even Leon just wants to kick back on a couch with his BFF sometimes. That’s inspirational stuff right there.
6Pikachu
Lost Origin has not one, not two, but a whopping three Trainer Gallery Pikachus. That’s wild. But it makes sense! In addition to the regular Pikachu card we’ve chosen as one of the best in the set, there’s also a Trainer Gallery card for Pikachu V and Pikachu VMAX. The former’s got a trainer checking a map out in the wilderness while his trusty Pikachu peers about. The latter’s a VMAX card, so naturally, it’s one massive Pika.
But the most ‘basic’ of them all is our personal fave, and it’s for the same reason we enjoy that Charizard so much. Rei, Pokemon Legends: Arceus' female protagonist, is fast asleep bundled up with her beloved Pikachu somewhere in the vastness of untamed Hisui. Pikachu’s leg is stretched not unlike a cat’s, its paw pushing up against poor Rei’s cheek as they doze. It’s delightfully adorable.
5Centiskorch VMAX
And now for something completely different. Here we have Kabu, Galar’s Fire-type Gym Leader, using his massive Gigantamax’d (sorry, ‘VMAX’d’) Centiskorch like some kind of treadmill. Logistics aside - Centiskorch’s body temperature is nearly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, so thatcannotbe comfortable - it’s strikingly silly, but also sort of… genius?
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With 320 HP, and the G-Max Inferno attack that had all sorts of players' blood boiling for a bit back in 2022, this card is one to be reckoned with. Yet Lost Origin’s Trainer Gallery rendition invites folks to look less at the impending death of its text and more at the sheer glorious absurdity of a man running across a gargantuan centipede with an utterly unfazed look about him.
4Gengar
There’s just a lot going on here. Enough to tilt our heads and then some. Gengar itself looks pleased as punch to be here in the Hisuian jungle, hanging out with Miss Fortune sisters Clover, Coin, and Charm. But it’s the siblings who truly stand out in this Trainer Gallery card. Clover looks like she’s going to murder that turnip or die trying. No one needs a weapon to carve a turnip, Clover.
Coin’s antics are far more mundane - she’s simply checking on clothing that’s been hung out to dry. Charm’s fairly chill, too. But the combination of them, with Gengar at the center, makes for an impressive picture.
3Spiritomb
That poor girl. Spiritomb lays curses upon people via its own wicked thoughts, and whatever it’s been thinking lately, the kid appears to have taken the bait. We fear for not just the child, but whomever she encounters before sunrise.
Really though, Spiritomb is such a unique-looking creature, and surely always a joy to draw. We love what artist Hitoshi Ariga did here in particular; the bright pinks and purples swirling within appear simultaneously pretty and scary.
2Orbeetle VMAX
We’re down to the wire with our picks for the best of the bunch in the Pokemon TCG’s Lost Origin set, and wowza meowza, as Meowth would say - there is some sheer chaos at play here on the Orbeetle V card. What’s happening? Heck, what isn’t? Poor Bugsy is in over his head with this Pokemon. A route sign, a tree, aMiltank- it’s all being swept up by a Gigantamax Orbeetle.
It’s your token UFO movie scene, Pokemon-style. We only wish we were aflybeetle on the wall when illustrator Teeziro first got it in their head to draw this catastrophic scene.
1Eternatus VMAX
Yes, Eternatus is a terrifying Pokemon. Sure, Eternatus VMAX cranks that dread to a proverbial 11. And to be sure, the illustration of Eternatus itself on this card is jaw-droppingly well done. Its plate-like purple protrusions come across as truly textured, like armor jutting out of a fuchsia mass of energy.
What really does it for us, however, is how Mitsuhiro Arita elected to draw Rose. Pokemon Sword & Shield’s low-key main antagonist is a bittoolow-key for our tastes, and as such, comes across more as a caricature to some players than a man who is never a tenth as threatening as he probably ought to be. But there is a coldness, a cunning, a calculated self-righteousness at work in Arita’s depiction of the man. We would have loved to go head-to-head againstthisRose in Galar.
Next:Pokemon TCG: The Best Trainer Gallery Art In Sword & Shield: Silver Tempest
