Pokémon Art Academy Cards: All 9 English Promos and Prices

Quick Facts

• What they are: official Pokémon TCG promo cards printed with fan artwork, from the 2015 Pokémon Art Academy Competition.
• How fans entered: they drew in Pokémon Art Academy on the Nintendo 3DS and submitted the drawing from the game.
• How many: twelve international winners. Nine of the cards are in English.
• Print run: each winner received 100 copies of their own card.
• Never sold, never playable: the cards were not in any product and are not legal in sanctioned play.

A Contest That Printed Real Cards

Pokémon Art Academy came out on the 3DS in 2014. It teaches you to sketch and paint Pokémon through a series of lessons, then opens up a free paint mode.

In 2015 The Pokémon Company ran a drawing contest through the game. CGC Cards calls it the company's first true international illustration contest, and Pokumon's history of the contest notes that earlier illustration contests had been limited to Japan. This one ran as two regional competitions:

• North America: the US, Canada and Mexico.
• Europe and Oceania: Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and Russia.

Entries were open from 18 February to 29 March 2015. Winners were contacted on 8 June 2015, and the cards reached them that autumn. There were two categories:

1. Dress-Up Pikachu: design an outfit for Pikachu, in the spirit of Cosplay Pikachu from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
2. Your Favorite Pokémon: a portrait of any Pokémon, drawn in the game's free paint mode.

Each region picked three winners per category, which made twelve in total. The prize was the card. Each winner's artwork was printed as an official TCG promo, and 100 copies arrived in a special Art Academy box. Gosha, one of the North American winners, posted on Elite Fourum in September 2015 that the prize was "100 copies of an official Pokemon card featuring the artwork I did using the software."

Why Only Nine Are in English

Collectors call a complete English set "all 9 English cards", even though the contest had twelve winners. The difference comes from the European side.

Each card was printed in its winner's own language. Three of the six Europe and Oceania winners lived in Spain, Germany and France, so their cards are in Spanish, German and French. The other nine are English: the six North American cards, two from the UK and one from Australia.

The Complete Checklist

All twelve international cards, English first. The artist names are the winners' contest handles, which is how the cards are catalogued and how CGC labels them.

Winners and categories come from Elite Fourum's winners article and Pokumon. The languages are printed on the cards themselves and on their CGC labels.

Card photos: Landry Pop.

Five of the nine English cards are Pikachu, since every Dress-Up entry was a Pikachu. The other four put Primal Kyogre EX, Tangrowth, Chespin and Delphox in art you won't find on any other card.

Card photos: Landry Pop.

How to Identify One

At a glance these look like ordinary cards from the XY era. Each one has full game text, with HP, attacks, weakness and retreat cost. Three things on the front give them away.

Card photo: Landry Pop.

1. The Pokémon Art Academy logo is printed in the lower right corner of the artwork.
2. The illustrator credit is the winner's contest handle, such as "Illus. Me!" or "Illus. Mireil", not a professional card artist.
3. The bottom edge carries nothing else. There is no set number, no set symbol and no copyright line.

The missing number also separates them from the Japanese contest cards, which carry XY-P numbering (more on those below).

What a Full Set Sold For

These cards rarely trade in public, so one sale stands out. On 18 August 2025, Landry Pop's Evolution: 25+ Years of Pokémon Grails auction offered all twelve international cards as consecutive lots, every one graded by CGC. The slabs carry consecutive certification numbers, 6015102005 through 6015102016, which means they were submitted together.

Here are the nine English cards, with the CGC population each lot listed at the time of sale and the number of bids it drew:

The nine English cards came to $105,896. The other three added $21,960 (Phanpy's German Mew, CGC 10), $6,100 (Lily-Chan's Spanish Pikachu, CGC 9) and $5,124 (Scarlett's French Kecleon, CGC 9), for $139,080 across all twelve.

The results include Landry Pop's 22% buyer's premium. The Primal Kyogre EX, for example, hammered at $20,000.

Each card has one public sale here, so read every row as a single data point rather than a market price.

What Set the Order

The results follow the subject of the card more closely than the grade. Our Natta Wake promo analysis found the same pattern.

• Ashley's Pikachu in CGC 8.5 sold for almost four times Gosha's Tangrowth in CGC 10, and Gosha's was the only CGC 10 of that card at the time.
• The four highest results were Primal Kyogre EX and three Pikachu. Chespin, Tangrowth and Delphox came last, two of them in CGC 10.
• The bidding split the same way. Those top four drew 10 to 17 bids each. Chespin, Tangrowth and Delphox drew 3 to 5.
• Among the Pikachu, population may have mattered. Rhivern's and Meli's are both Pikachu in CGC 9. Rhivern's brought $18,300 and Meli's $4,880. Rhivern's copy had no higher graded copies above it, while Meli's was one of eight CGC 9s with one copy graded higher. Buyers may have paid for the top copy, but one sale each can't prove it.

How Rare Are They?

Each winner received 100 copies, but that is not the same as 100 copies in circulation.

Winners treated their cards very differently. When Elite Fourum surveyed the market in March 2017, some winners' cards were circulating and others had never been offered for sale. Scarlett sold a few, only to trusted collectors. Meli and Gabi sold some of theirs.

Extra copies exist. CGC writes that "it is unknown how many complete international sets exist," because extra copies have appeared on the secondary market. Elite Fourum reports that a former employee sold spare copies of every international card through the dealer Collector's Cache. Pokumon describes it as a rumor. Either way, some cards may exist in more than 100 copies.

Edge wear is common. The cards shipped between two large pieces of foam, which CGC suggests caused the minor edge wear on many copies. Peegeray reported edge wear too and put it down to the card stock.

CGC and PSA both grade these cards. CGC reports grading at least two complete international sets, and PSA's Set Registry has a 2015 Pokémon Art Academy Competition set.

The Japanese Contest Cards

Japan ran its own contest, Pokémon Art Academy × Pokémon Card Game, with entries from 13 December 2014 to 1 February 2015. Its judges included the card illustrators Mitsuhiro Arita and Kagemaru Himeno. Ten winners each received 100 cards.

Those ten cards are a separate set, with different artists and different artwork, and they carry XY-P numbering. Six of them are Pikachu. A card with an XY-P number is from the Japanese contest, not one of the twelve international winners.

Buying One

These cards come up rarely, usually as graded singles at auction or through collectors who know a winner. Before you pay:

1. Buy graded. No packs ever contained these cards, so a raw copy's history is hard to confirm. Our PSA vs. BGS vs. CGC guide covers how the labels compare.
2. Check it against the checklist. It should have the right artist, Pokémon and language, the Art Academy logo and no set number.
3. Run the standard fake checks. We found no reports of counterfeit Art Academy cards, but cards this scarce and this expensive attract fakes. How to spot a fake Pokémon card covers the basics.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many English Pokémon Art Academy cards are there?

Nine. The 2015 international contest had twelve winners, six from North America and six from Europe and Oceania. Each card was printed in its winner's own language, so the Spanish, German and French winners' cards are not in English. The six North American cards, the two UK cards and the Australian card make up the nine.

How many copies of each Art Academy card were printed?

Each winner received 100 copies of their own card in a special prize box. Extra copies of the international cards have since reached the market, so the exact number of each card in circulation is not known.

Are Pokémon Art Academy cards legal for play?

No. They were never sold in any product and are not legal in sanctioned organized play. They are unnumbered promos that exist only because the winners received them.

What is the most valuable English Art Academy card?

In the one public sale of a full set, at Landry Pop on 18 August 2025, Mireil's Primal Kyogre EX in CGC 9 brought $24,400, the most of any English card. Me!'s Pikachu in CGC 10 was next at $19,520.

Is there a Japanese version of the Art Academy cards?

Japan ran a separate contest, with entries from 13 December 2014 to 1 February 2015 and ten winners. Those cards show different artwork by different artists and carry XY-P numbering. The twelve international cards are unnumbered.

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Contest details: CGC Cards, Pokumon, Elite Fourum. Auction results, bid counts and CGC populations: Landry Pop, Evolution: 25+ Years of Pokémon Grails, 18 August 2025, lots 202 to 213. Card photos: Landry Pop. Populations are as listed at the time of sale and will have changed since.