Yea, I also suspected that this might happen since Netherlands also did not get Pokemon Masters EX. I am not expecting Pokemon to change any gaming mechanics for a few countries . I personally am in favour of the laws and feel that they are an overall positive. It is unfortunate but it is what it is.
Cheers!
Now that it has soft launched in New Zealand, a flurry of new cards have emerged. A lot of artist resources have gone in, it’s becoming a reality that TPC wants this app to have as much collecting value as the physical tcg itself
A1 Alakazam (illus. AKIRA EGAWA)
A1 Charmander (illus. GIDORA)
A1 Dragonite (illus. Gemi)
A1 Golbat (illus. Tomokazu Komiya)
A1 Gyarados (illus. Nurikabe)
A1 Nidoking (illus. nagimiso)
A1 Pinsir (illus. ???)
A1 Porygon (illus. Akira Komayama)
A1 Rapidash (illus. Taira Akitsu)
A1 Slowpoke (illus. Miki Tanaka)
A1 Weezing (illus. KEIICHIRO ITO)
A1 Pikachu (illus. Atsushi Furusawa)
A1 Nidoqueen (illus. aoki)
A1 Cubone (illus. ???)
A1 Diglett (illus. Shinya Komatsu)
A1 Ditto (illus. ???)
A1 Electrode (illus. ???)
A1 Gloom (illus. ???)
A1 Snorlax (illus. HYOGONOSUKE)
A1 Gengar ex (illus. NC Empire)
A1 Machamp ex (illus. AKIRA EGAWA)
A1 Zapdos ex (illus. ???)
A1 Wigglytuff ex (illus. Shibuzoh.)
A1 Charizard ex (illus. kantaro)
The first Crown Rare,
A1 Charizard ex (illus. PLANETA CG Works)
A1 Mewtwo ex (illus. PLANETA Mochizuki)
A1 Pikachu ex (illus. ???)
A1 Blaine (illus. ???)
A1 Erika (illus. saino misaki)
A1 Giovanni (illus. Hideki Ishikawa)
A1 Koga (illus. Souichirou Gunjima)
A1 Misty (illus. Sanosuke Sakuma)
A1 Lt. Surge (illus. ???)
A1 Brock (illus. ???)
Omg wow, that komiya Golbat is incredible! Man, these really should be real cards!
This is turning out to be the best set that never was.
This blew my expectations!
Just got the APK and VPN for NZ 
The pokemon look great and i cant wait for proxies to be made. The trainers on the other hand look like ai made them and there is something off about their look, of course this is when they decide to do a full art surge 
.
The pikachu does remind me of this though.
How does that early release apk account work when they full release the game? I would do it if I could keep my progress
Someone on reddit was able to source textless illustrations of the special art cards,
3 of which haven’t shown yet in cards,
There are two cards here with clefairy dolls on them. I will be sick if these are never released…
Seeing these incredible arts and knowing that they’ll never be made into cards is heartbreaking. 
Wow, there goes any chance of being able to complete a gen 1 art rare binder. It seems very unlikely these will be made if they want to pull as many people in to play the mobile game
Feels criminal if/that we aren’t getting physical cards out of these, there are so many breathtaking ones that i won’t even try to form a list of the best ones
Looks like Venusaur is a promo with that second picture?
Also realistically, besides the immersives, all of the actual art can be easily reproduced in physical card form. The only thing that physical cannot reproduce is that amount of gloss and shine on the SRs, but they are so basic anyway it’s not even desired.
I get that the set is huge but it just feels more complete than most JP sets ever get close to.
-All mascots with immersives.
-All Kanto gym leaders with SRs
-All legendary birds/legendaries
-All starters inc. Pikachu
-Some hugely popular Pokemon like Gengar, Machamp, Dragonite, Snorlax, Gyarados, Lapras all being featured
It’s like an upgrade of 151s SRs though obviously it cannot touch the cohesiveness of the main set.
This is what 151 should have been….
I don’t doubt their ability to turn this into a physical tcg set, it’s a question of whether they will. We should be very aware how rare cross-platform engagement is in the tcg. As of now, TPC explicitly stating that these cards are exclusive to the app and that they continue to release sets with special art as usual. Only time will tell whether they convert these illustrations but right now they want to market the app separately
Connected artwork between regular oddish in first post and the full art snorlax
First LT. Surge full art and you can’t get it…
