Posted in: Card Games, Games, Pokémon TCG, Tabletop | Tagged: Obsidian Flames, pokemon, pokemon cards, swablu

Cards Of Pokémon TCG: Obsidian Flames Part 24: Swablu & Lillipup

Oswaldo KATO's Swablu and Yuka Morii's Lillipup feature on common cards in Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet - Obsidian Flames.

With Sword & Shield officially concluded, the Scarlet & Violet era of the Pokémon TCG kicked off in March 2023 with a focus on the ninth generation of Pokémon games and the new region: Paldea. It all began with the Scarlet & Violet base set, which introduced major, lasting changes to the hobby. Now, the borders of the cards have become silver, matching the Japanese releases. Another major change is that now, each pack culminates in at least a holo-rare and two reverse holos. The major mechanic of this era is the lowercase ex, which features a double holographic pattern of a horizontal shine and a starry sparkle. Full Art exs now use a green, foil outline around the Pokémon. The Secret Rare section of expansions going forward features Full Arts, Illustration Rares and Special Illustration Rare exs, Full Art Trainers, Special Illustration Rare Trainers, and Gold Hyper Rares. On August 11, 2023, the Pokémon TCG released the third set of this era, Scarlet & Violet – Obsidian Flames, which introduced Tera Pokémon with a Tera type differing from their base type. The chase card is a Dark-type Tera Charizard ex. In today's installment of this Scarlet & Violet – Obsidian Flames art spotlight, we continue with the Normal-types.

Swablu is illustrated by Oswaldo KATO, an artist who has many styles. KATO is known both for hand-drawn Alt Arts and 3D-style Trainer cards of Pokémon Stadiums. This looks more like the latter, which shows KATO blending techniques, using his penchant for Trainer Stadiums to create an interesting background here.

We have a Yuka Morii! The iconic clay artist who has been contributing to the Pokémon TCG for many, many years delivers a Lillipup here, and it looks perfectly cute. Morii's expressions are always so evocative. Fans of Morii's clay creations should check out our Artist Spotlight series on her work, which covers her vintage cards, classic cards, and modern cards, which takes us all the way into the Sword & Shield era.

Stay tuned for the journey through this special set as we continue to spotlight the cards and artwork of Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet – Obsidian Flames. Next time, the spotlight continues with the standard section of the set. You can read more about this iconic trading card game right here at Bleeding Cool.

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