Today, I would like to share with you my collection of Banned and Altered Artworks. I find this part of the TCG super interesting! It seems that it’s been 11 years since the last banned artwork (Magmortar) so let’s see if any more pop up in the coming years. I hope not, since it would make it impossible to display all of them at once in the 12-pocket binder haha!
As for the altered artworks, the Neo holos stand out to me the most. I still don’t fully understand why they decided to remove the holo treatment on the English side but I love the non-holos nevertheless.
Butterfree… In Jungle, they robbed her of the star rarity and in Neo Discovery of the holo treatment. Glad it finally got justice in Expedition a few sets later!
I really like the Starmie card. There is just something about having a purple Pokémon on a purple background with a purple card layout. And the mighty Kingdra. Beautiful.
I wonder how well-known the Base set Vulpix and Neo Discovery Ruin Wall variants are. I just found out about those on E4 last year!
And below are some of my graded Japanese cards that are different from their English counterparts. Still not sure where JR Eevee belongs in my collection but for now, I consider it to be a Japanese card too. And I really like the Articuno, so much better as a holo!
As for the Venusaur, I also like to treat it as a different variant, since the Japanese release has the holo foil only in the upper half of the background, whereas the English release has its background fully covered. An interesting touch!
Happy to know what your favourite banned or altered artwork is! 