Pokemon TCG Pocket’s Wisdom of Sea and Sky set dropped last weekand was immediately tainted as eagle-eyed fans noticedsome of its cards seemingly featured traced fan art. That artwork was promptly removed from the game and replaced with cards that don’t have anyPokemonon them at all, and rather than get angry and upset about it, Pocket players have been making the most of the situation.
The accusations started to emerge before the set was released as cards from the expansion began doing the rounds on line. It didn’t take long for someone to notice the art used in Wisdom of Sea and Sky’s immersive Ho-Oh card lined up perfectly with fan art of the Gen 2 Pokemon. When the set dropped on Wednesday, Ho-Oh and Lugia’s immersive art had been removed from the game, and Pokemon shared a message explaining what had happened.
Pokemon TCG Pocket players are making memes out of the new set’s Ho-Oh and Lugia placeholder art
To avoid adding an incomplete set to Pocket, instead of removing the cards completely, Pokemon left them in, but they’re blank. That’s where Pocket players have been having their fun.EBarutook the empty art, complete with the “New art coming soon” message, and slapped it onto the box art forPokemon Gold & Silver, replacing Ho-Oh and Lugia with Ho-Oh and Lugia-shaped silhouettes.
Another player, who goes bychocoampan321, went a different route with it upon unlocking the blank Lugia card, filling in the big blank space with their own, rather crude drawing of Lugia. Still far better than any drawing of Lugia I could ever do, and if they find a way to add it to the game, I’ll happily trade them anything they want for it.
Yes, I know you’re able to’t trade immersive rares. Please don’t @ me.
The winner of the best use ofPokemon TCG Pocket’s placeholder art so far goes tospragels. They’ve gone back to the first episode of the anime to poke fun at Pokemon’s blunder, replacing the mysterious Pokemon that flies over Ash and Pikachu with the Ho-Oh “new art coming soon” placeholder. Ho-Oh famously appears in episode one, even though it and the rest of Johto’s Pokemon wouldn’t be officially revealed until years later.
As for how this happened, according to Pokemon, the artist who created the cards isn’t to blame. They were given artwork to work from, and it was whoever sourced that inspiration who made the mistake. It’s the first scandal of this description that has affected Pocket, but nothing new to thePokemon TCGas a whole. Last year, a Pokemon card illustration descended into chaos aswinning entries were found to have used AI in their creations.
