Bulbasaur Illustration Rare

This card, and the next, demonstrate the continued power of those Base Set starters, almost 30 years later. By the TCG’s own ranking, this is only considered a single-star rarity, a card that should be showing up more frequently than the SIRs below it on the list. Yet here it is, in third place, with an asking price of $40 for a small piece of cardboard.

It certainly helps that Orca’s art is utterly stunning, yet another example of how it’s inexplicable madness that The Pokémon Company doesn’t sell poster-sized versions of these art works in its stores. I’d put this on the wall in an instant.

As a card for your deck, it’s nothing special. It’s nice that it adds a 20HP heal to its 20 attack, but that comes at the cost of needing two Energy for a Basic card with such low damage. But honestly, play this and your opponent will be so distracted, craning their neck to get a better look at it, that you’ll put them right off their strategy.