Artist set · curated by Ninth Pocket

Ken Sugimori

1113 cards · 107 sets · 1999–2022 (set release years)

Every card illustrated by Ken Sugimori, the original Pokémon character designer whose art defined the earliest sets. Tracked like any other set: a complete set is one of each card, a master set is every booster-pack variant, and a grand master set adds every non-pack printing.

Ken Sugimori designed Pokémon itself — every one of the original 151 — and his card catalog is the largest of any illustrator we track: over 1,100 English cards, nearly half from the WotC era. He drew Base Set Blastoise, Mewtwo, and Alakazam, the classic trainer portraits (Professor Oak, Bill, Lass), and essentially the entire Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge sets.

Unlike most major illustrators, Sugimori’s TCG run has an ending: his last English cards appeared in 2022. That makes his artist master set a rare thing in this hobby — a finite chase. It is also a deep one, anchored in vintage sets where cards come in both 1st Edition and Unlimited printings.

See also: Base Set · Gym Challenge · Mitsuhiro Arita cards