Posted in: Card Games, Games, Pokémon TCG, Tabletop | Tagged: Evolving Skies, pokemon, pokemon cards, Pokemon TCG, Sword & Shield

Pokémon TCG 2022 End-Of-Year List: Top Alt Arts Of SWSH Era

The Sword & Shield era of the Pokémon TCG will be looked back upon as an era of Alternate Arts. Let's take a look back at this iconic card type to see which cards will be remembered as the best Alternate Arts of this exciting era.

It is no surprise that the popular Eeveelutions will be the crowning Alternate Arts of the Sword & Shield era. The biggest set of this series block was Sword & Shield – Evolving Skies, and pack openings were largely an Eeveelution chase. This set contained Alternate Art Vs of all Eeveelutions except Vaporeon, Flareon, and Jolteon and all Alternate Art VMAXes except those three and Espeon. Vaporeon, Flareon, and Jolteon got Alternate Art V and VMAX cards as SWSH Black Star Promos in special premium collections and Espeon VMAX Alt Art was moved to Sword & Shield – Fusion Strike.

My personal favorite Alternate Art of the Sword & Shield era is the Sylveon VMAX Alternate Art by Taira Akitsu. This card showed Dynamax Sylveon become so huge that Vaporeon, Marchadow, and a bunch of Eevees are playing on its ribbons as if it is an amusement park ride. The card that has to take the winning slot, though, is of course…

…the Umbreon VMAX Alternate Art. Illustrated by KEIICHIRO ITO, this card showed Dynamax Umbreon reaching for the moon. The card has become worth over $500 and sits as the most valuable chase card of this era of the Pokémon TCG.

Runners-up include…

• Tyranitar V from Sword & Shield – Battle Styles which kicked off the Alt Art craze.
• Moltres V from Sword & Shield – Chilling Reign which showed how unique the art styles of these cards could be.
• Rayquaza V from Sword & Shield – Evolving Skies which harkened back to Character Rares by including Zinnia and indeed teased the arrival of Character Super Rares the following year.

• Espeon VMAX and Gengar VMAX from Sword & Shield – Fusion Strike, two monster chase cards.
• Charizard V from Sword & Shield –  Brilliant Stars which showed a battle between two iconic Kanto favorites.

• Origin Forme Dialga V from Sword & Shield – Astral Radiance which saw the legendary Mitsuhiro Arita show that the skill he used to create Base Set Charizard all those years ago is as sharp as ever.
• Giratina V from Sword & Shield – Lost Origin which showed us how artists could use stunning imagery to give us insight into Giratina's reality-breaking powers.
• Lugia V from Sword & Shield – Silver Tempest which was the final Alternate Art chase card of the era.

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