“Top” in terms of price or how iconic the card is? The most iconic non-Base Blastoise has to be Dark Blastoise, right? In terms of price, it’s probably close competition between Expedition Blastoise, FRLG Blastoise ex, and 1st Ed. Dark Blastoise.
My favorites are Expedition and CD Promo, but I don’t think either of those would be the most valuable since one is Japanese only and the other comes from Expedition (which still doesn’t receive a ton of love for some reason).
Lottery promo is a cool and rare release, but personally I don’t find the artwork very appealing + there is a Lottery Zard (with better artwork) that isn’t the second most valuable Zard behind the 1st Ed Base version either.
Honestly I think 1st Ed TR Dark Blastoise would take the cake since I feel demand and popularity outweigh rarity most of the time.
Ahh I love your taste, before I read through your post I was going to mention the Expedition artwork as being absolutely fantastic. And of course that CD Promo / Squirtle Intro Pack Blastoise is such a classic, even if it’s not rare at all.
Imo, 1st Edition Dark Blastoise, no question. This isn’t my personal taste necessarily, just the Blastoise I think would be most desired by a fairly large margin in this hypothetical.
If there’s a shiny blastoise in shiny star v that would be pretty hype no lie.
But I’m going with expedition blastoise as well. Hands down my favourite artwork out of the existing blastoise cards though the cd promo is terrific as well. These are further down the totem pole but I really liked pop series 3 and the tag team arita/komayama arts as well.