The Pokémon TCG Pocket recently updated the artwork for the Ho-Oh EX and Lugia EX cards featured in the latest Wisdom of Sea and Sky expansion. This change was prompted by accusations of plagiarism related to the original art.

Concerns were initially raised by players when an artist highlighted similarities between their fan art and the in-game Ho-Oh EX card. In response, the Pokémon TCG Pocket team acknowledged a mistake in the reference materials provided to the illustrator and promised that the artwork would be substituted with temporary images.

These temporary images were simple gray backgrounds with the message: “new art coming soon” displayed on them. Interestingly, this spontaneous placeholder design gained unexpected popularity among a section of the community, resulting in a humorous collection of reimagined versions.

In the aftermath, the Pokémon TCG Pocket team urged fans to refrain from targeting the illustrator of the original art, emphasizing that the issues stemmed from errors made by the production teams of The Pokémon Company and Creatures Inc, who supplied inaccurate official documents to the artist. They assured fans that they would take full responsibility for this oversight.

Now, just a week after the issue came to light, the artwork has been updated, and everything appears to be back on track. Fans are hopeful that improvements in the art creation process will prevent similar incidents in the future.