Pokémon TCG Pocket removes two illustrations after "incorrect materials" used in latest expansion

• A Pokémon TCG Pocket illustrator was provided the "incorrect materials" when commissioned to create new artwork.
• The cards appear to have been based on fan art rather than official artwork.

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has removed illustrations from two new Immersive Cards, resulting in their debut in-game with placeholder text.

The rare cards should depict Legendary Pokémon Ho-Oh and Lugia, the mascots of GameBoy Color games Gold and Silver, and the faces of the latest expansion in TCG Pocket, Wisdom of Sea and Sky.

Instead, the new set has launched today, June 30th, without this art included. The cards are still available to pull from packs, but their art has been removed from the game and replaced with the text: "New art coming soon".

This Ho-Oh and Lugia artwork was removed as The Pokémon Company realised the card production team had provided illustrator Sie Nanahara with "incorrect materials", which seemingly included fan art of Ho-Oh.

The illustrator was commissioned to draw the Legendary Pokémon using said materials, resulting in artwork with striking similarity to that fan art - as highlighted by the fan themselves on X (formerly Twitter).

Quality control

"After internal review, we discovered that the card production team provided incorrect materials as official documents to the illustrator commissioned to create these cards," The Pokémon Company said in a statement.

"As a result, both cards have been replaced with a temporary placeholder that the team is actively working to replace with new artwork as soon as it's ready.

"We are also conducting a broader investigation to ensure no similar issues exist elsewhere in the game. To all our players who have been looking forward to this expansion, and to the talented illustrators who bring the Pokémon world to life, we deeply apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.

"We take this matter very seriously and are committed to strengthening our quality control processes to prevent this from happening again."

Notably, Immersive Cards such as these are some of TCG Pocket’s most complex and a unique selling point of the mobile title over the physical TCG. These cards go beyond the rectangular confines of a classic card and open up into short, animated scenes of the subject Pokémon.

Specifically, the wrong documents appear to relate to Ho-Oh's depiction, rather than Lugia, but since the same Ho-Oh appears in Lugia's animated scene, both pieces of artwork have been pulled.

Immersive Cards are likely one of a number of factors in TCG Pocket’s race to $1 billion in gross player spending, a feat achieved faster than Pokémon Go.