20 Pokémon Cards That Belong in a Museum
Twenty Pokémon cards chosen for their art alone, from a sleeping Drowzee in an amusement park to Giratina V, read from their scans, illustrator by illustrator.
These are 20 Pokémon cards that belong in a museum, picked for the artwork alone: a Magikarp climbing a waterfall, three legendary birds in stained glass, a Steelix on a construction site, and Giratina V at number 1.
The countdown runs from 20 to 1 in the order of the stakd.cards carousel this list comes from, an art ranking, not a price ranking. Every detail below is read off the card itself: number, illustrator, attacks and flavour text.
20. Drowzee 210/198, 2023
Tomokazu Komiya gives Drowzee the smallest corner of its own card: asleep on a bench inside a glowing tent, while a whole amusement park, Ferris wheel included, glows red around it. The flavour text explains the choice: when it twitches its nose, Drowzee can tell where someone is sleeping and what they are dreaming about.
19. Gloom 198/197, 2023
Masako Tomii paints the jungle in colours no jungle has: electric blue ferns, pink mushrooms, orange flowers like flames. Gloom walks through it eyes closed and smiling, and the flavour text clears its name: what looks like drool is actually sweet honey, and very sticky.
18. Smeargle TG10/TG30, 2022
The only painter on the list is a Pokémon. Kiyotaka Oshiyama draws Smeargle bent over its canvas, green paint dripping from its tail and splashed across the whole card, while a man in a striped shirt throws his arms up behind it. Its attack is called Colorful Palette, and it pulls Energy out of the deck.
17. Ninetales 199/197, 2023
Sie Nanahara turns the forest into gold light and Ninetales almost dissolves into it, nine pale tails open like a fan. The flavour text adds the warning: very smart and very vengeful, and grabbing one of its tails could bring a 1,000-year curse.
16. Suicune V GG38/GG70, 2023
Atsushi Furusawa sets Suicune on a snowfield at night, under a sky crossed by shooting stars, its white ribbons drawing curves in the cold air. It opens a trio: Entei and Raikou follow, numbered in the same GG series, and all three carry the same Ability, Fleet-Footed.
15. Entei V GG36/GG70, 2023
Shigenori Negishi gives Entei a volcano in full eruption, lava streaming down its sides, and Entei answers with a roar from its ledge. Its attack, Burning Rondo, is the fire version of Suicune's Blizzard Rondo: 20 more damage for each Benched Pokémon, on both sides.
14. Raikou V GG41/GG70, 2023
nagimiso paints the sky in horizontal streaks of red, orange and blue, as if the whole landscape were moving at Raikou's speed, and the lightning runs off the edges of the card. Lightning Rondo closes the trio: same Ability, same attack text, a third element.
13. Deoxys VMAX GG45/GG70, 2023
Akira Komayama draws Deoxys VMAX like the flying saucer of an old science fiction poster: the giant form hovers overhead and beams down a smaller Deoxys, under a purple sky with ringed planets. Its Ability, Protective DNA, takes 30 off the damage your Pokémon take from VSTAR attackers.
12. Deerling 165/162, 2024
Susumu Maeya splits one forest into vertical bands of orange, blue and pink, and Deerling leaps from one to the next. The flavour text gives the reason: Deerling's scent changes with the season, and in this form it is softly sweet and lingers.
11. Steelix 208/182, 2023
nisimono puts Steelix on a construction site, as tall as the steel frame going up next to it, with workers in hard hats chatting on the top floor as if it were part of the crew. The flavour text fits the scene: its body is thought to have changed because iron built up inside it from the soil it swallows.
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10. Koraidon ex 247/198, SVI
Ryota Murayama gives Koraidon a quiet moment: no charge, no lightning, just a dense jungle of leaves and purple flowers and a small brown Pokémon sitting in front of it. The pause is in the attack too: Wild Impact does 220, and Koraidon can't attack on its next turn.
9. Hisuian Zoroark VSTAR GG56/GG70, 2023
Sie Nanahara's second card on the list looks like an ink painting: black swirls wrap around a pale Hisuian Zoroark on sepia paper. The attack matches the ghostly look: Ticking Curse does 50 for each of your Pokémon with damage counters on it.
8. Celebi V 245/264, 2021
Teeziro draws the moment a bare tree comes back to life: Celebi floats past, and the branches burst into green leaves in a trail of sparkles, above the stone stairs of a misty ruin. The attack names follow the scene: Leaflet Dance, then Slash Back.
7. Moltres & Zapdos & Articuno GX SM210, 2019
The most literal museum piece on the list: Hyogonosuke draws the three legendary birds as a stained glass window, every shape outlined in black like lead around coloured glass. Their attack Trinity Burn asks for one Fire, one Water and one Lightning Energy, one for each bird.
6. Solgaleo & Lunala GX 216/236, 2019
Hideki Ishikawa puts a person at the centre of a Tag Team card: a girl in a white dress holding the strap of her bag, Solgaleo on one side and Lunala under the full moon on the other. The GX attack, Light of the Protector, works with a Trainer card it names: Lillie's Full Force.
5. Magikarp 203/193, 2023
Shinji Kanda draws Magikarp jumping up a waterfall in a night jungle made of thousands of small bright strokes, and in the top right corner, in the dark, something waits with lightning around it. The flavour text keeps Magikarp humble: it may jump high on rare occasions, but never more than seven feet.
4. Arceus VSTAR GG70/GG70, 2023
Akira Egawa draws Arceus rising out of a volcano at the centre of a spiral of fire, and the whole card is gold up to its border. It is the last number of its series, GG70 out of GG70, and its attack Trinity Nova does 200 while it fetches up to 3 basic Energy cards.
3. Leafeon VMAX 205/203, 2021
Hyogonosuke's second card is the gentlest giant on the list: a Dynamax Leafeon as tall as the hills, pushing a hay bale around a field at harvest time. It has 310 HP and Max Leaf does 170, but the picture is an animal at play in a meadow.
2. Lugia V 186/195, 2022
kawayoo paints Lugia coming out of a storm, wings wide and lightning everywhere, and a man on the deck of a boat looking up at it. The whole scale of the scene sits in that small figure. The attack names stay on theme: Read the Wind, then Aero Dive for 130.
This Lugia V also appears in our ranking of the Pokémon cards with the most aura, for the same storm.
1. Giratina V 186/196, 2022
Number 1 goes to Shinji Kanda again. Giratina fills the card from corner to corner, its black shadow wings reaching out over a background so dense with patterns, plants and points of light that every look finds something new. Its first attack, Abyss Seeking, sends the cards you don't keep to the Lost Zone.
What museum-worthy cards have in common
Size is not the point. Seven of the twenty are ordinary Pokémon with no V, ex, VMAX, VSTAR or GX in their name, Magikarp and its 30 HP among them, and each one is small inside a scene that does the work: an amusement park, a jungle, a construction site, a forest cut into seasons.
Five cards put people in the frame: the visitors around Drowzee, the man behind Smeargle, the workers next to Steelix, the girl between Solgaleo and Lunala, the man on the boat under Lugia. A human figure is what gives a giant its size.
And the same names come back. Shinji Kanda signs numbers 1 and 5, Hyogonosuke numbers 3 and 7, Sie Nanahara numbers 9 and 17. A list ranked by art, not by price, ends up ranking illustrators.
“On a museum-worthy card, the Pokémon is part of the picture, not the whole of it.”
Magikarp and Ninetales are also in our list of the most amazing Pokémon card art, next to other illustrators.
Art is a matter of taste; what a card is worth is a number. Stakd shows the value of every card in your binder, from a 70 HP Drowzee to a Giratina V.
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