Tag: Pokémon

(Want to read Part 1 before you read this follow-up? Click here.)

This has been a great year for Porygon fans! Two new official plushes (including an absolutely ginormous mega-plush shipping early next year), an Ultra Pro TCG playmat releasing soon, and several new cards in the Scarlet & Violet TCG series—some of which were actually a challenge to find!

The Porygon family has only been featured in two sets so far in the Scarlet & Violet series: 151, where only the original Porygon was included, and Paradox Rift, which included the entire family along with an illustration rare of Porygon-Z.

But as cool as a full art Porygon-Z is, it’s not the card that collectors should be most excited about—because this year has seen the release of two new blister pack exclusive Porygon promo cards.

One of my proudest Pokémon video game achievements is breeding a shiny Smeargle (nicknamed Escher, because I’m that kind of dork) in Omega Ruby, and raising it to become a ribbon master: a Pokémon that has earned every ribbon available to it in the games it could be sent into.

It wasn’t always easy. The ORAS contest ribbons required me to do some pretty convoluted things to Sketch the optimal movesets for each contest condition. (But that was part of why I chose Smeargle for this journey in the first place—one of the most flexible Pokémon, for one of the most wide-ranging challenges.) And for the Battle Tree in Sun/Moon, at certain points I was dual-wielding my 3DS in one hand, and a laptop in the other, with reference pages open to Bulbapedia’s list of Battle Tree trainers and their movesets.

But I persevered, and eventually, Escher’s collection was complete, and its summary screen became a thing of beauty.

Now, many years later, after several games that didn’t include Smeargle (Sword/Shield, Legends: Arceus) and thus couldn’t contribute to my ribbon quest, it’s finally time to pick back up where I left off. Smeargle is available in both Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl and Scarlet/Violet, which means a slew of new ribbons for Escher to be adorned with.