The Pokémon Company has dramatically pulled the design of a new Pokémon TCG Pocket trading card, amid a firestorm of controversy over its apparent origins.
Fans had said the card, Ho-Oh EX from the game’s Wisdom of Sea and Sky expansion, was based on plagiarised fan art — and in a statement issued today, The Pokémon Company essentially admitted as much.
Now, the card’s artwork — alongside that of its sister Lugia EX card, which also features the Ho-Oh design — have been pulled from the game, mere hours before Wisdom of Sea and Sky’s global launch. Addressing the situation, The Pokémon Company said it “deeply apologize[d] for any inconvenience” and was now conducting a review of all other cards, to ensure no other designs were at fault.
“To our community, thank you for your continued support and passion for Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket,” The Pokémon Company wrote. “We want to share an important update regarding the upcoming expansion, Wisdom of Sea and Sky. It has come to our attention that there was a production issue regarding the illustration of Ho-Oh featured in the immersive card artwork for Ho-Oh EX (3-Star) and Lugia EX (3-Star).
“After internal review, we discovered that the card production team provided incorrect materials as official documents to the illustrator commissioned to create these cards. As a result, both cards have been replaced with a temporary placeholder that the team is actively working to replace with new artwork as soon as it’s ready.
“We are also conducting a broader investigation to ensure no similar issues exist elsewhere in the game.”
Currently, obtaining the card shows an empty card design with awkward-looking “New Art Coming Soon” text — and then a black screen in place of the card’s immersive artwork. It doesn’t look great.
Holy cow guys I can’t believe I opened this in Pokemon TCG pocket 🤯 pic.twitter.com/3st3ILATSW
— Poli (@ProfPoliwag) July 30, 2025
Yesterday’s controversy, which came after the Wisdom of Sea and Sky’s card designs were datamined and examined online, sparked a wider discussion over the Pokémon’s legal terms for fanart — which appear to suggest the company could, if it wanted, do whatever it liked with fan-made designs.
Today’s action strongly suggests that while The Pokémon Company may legally be able to argue it can use fan designs, it in practice does not want to typically do so, or leave fans thinking it now sees fanart as fair game for its commercial use.
“To all our players who have been looking forward to this expansion, and to the talented illustrators who bring the Pokémon world to life, we deeply apologize for any inconvenience this has caused,” The Pokémon Company continued. “We take this matter very seriously and are committed to strengthening our quality control processes to prevent this from happening again.
“Thank you for your understanding, patience, and continued support of Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket. We remain dedicated to delivering an experience that you can enjoy.”
Speaking to IGN yesterday, video game industry legal expert Richard Hoeg, host of the Virtual Legality podcast, said The Pokémon Company’s legal terms on fan art act as an acknowledgement that fans will create their own Pokémon art — but that ultimately, from a legal standpoint, any publicly-shared designs fall under the ownership of The Pokémon Company.
“It effectively says ‘Look, we (TPC/Nintendo) are legally still the only ones allowed to make derivative works (fan art included), but we all know you’re going to do it,” Hoeg said of the terms, “so if you do, on the off-chance it’s special, we can use it without otherwise paying you (since it was ours to begin with)’.”
Today’s statement, however, suggests Pokémon TCG Pocket will not be featuring any more fan art anytime soon.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
