Posted in: Card Games, Games, Pokémon TCG, Tabletop | Tagged: Neo Destiny, pokemon, pokemon cards, Pokemon TCG, shining legends

A Holographic History Of The Pokémon TCG: Shining Pokémon

Over the years, the Pokémon TCG has featured many different patterns used on their holographic cards. Some patterns lasted for years, while others had short stays, making them markers for their short time in the franchise. In this next installment of A Holographic History of the Pokémon TCG, let's take a look at a style of card that debuted during the Wizards of the Coast era and then returned in 2017's Shining Legends. The Shining Pokémon card.

We have indeed covered cards that feature Shiny Pokémon. We've talked about the modern Shiny Pokémon Cards, which have both standard and Full Art forms. We've talked about Gold Shiny Pokémon cards which are glittering, golden Secret Rares. Shining Pokémon pre-date all of these. This style of card first appeared in Neo Revelation with Shining Magikarp and Shining Gyarados. These depicted the Pokémon in their Shiny forms over the standard galaxy foil background. The next set, Neo Destiny, is known as the expansion that changed this style of card and made it iconic. This set included Shining Celebi, Kabutops, Mewtwo, Tyranitar, Noctowl, Raichu, Steelix, and, most sought-after of all… Shining Charizard. This time around, the noticeable difference was that the Pokémon itself was foil while the background was not. These cards have remained some of the most valuable and desired cards in all of the Pokémon TCG.

Shiny Pokémon were depicted in various different ways between the release of Neo Destiny and Shining Legends. It wasn't until the release of Shining Legends, though, that this specific style of card came back. The set reintroduced Shiny Pokémon by rendering the Pokémon itself is textured, gleaming foil. It included Shining Mew, Genesect, Volcanion, Jirachi, Rayquaza, and Arceus. Promo cards associated with the set included more Shining Pokémon, including Celebi, Lugia, and Ho-Oh. This was the last we saw of this style of card, with Hidden Fates introducing a new style of Shiny Pokémon that depicted the sparkles one sees when encountering these rare variants in the game. However, the Pokémon TCG did indeed reprint Shining Magikarp as part of its 25th Anniversary Classic Collection, a subset of iconic reprints in their October 2021 set, Celebrations.

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