Pokémon TCG: Call of Legends is the name given to the first and only main expansion of cards from the English Call of Legends Series of the Pokémon Trading Card Game. It does not have a main expansion as a Japanese equivalent.
Description
Their names are legend: Raikou. Entei. Suicune. Lugia. Ho-Oh. Kyogre. Groudon. Rayquaza. Deoxys. Dialga. Palkia. And when Legendary Pokémon come together, only the greatest Trainers can control their might. In the Pokémon TCG: Call of Legends expansion, not only will you discover incredibly powerful Pokémon—including very rare “Shiny” versions of some of them—but you’ll also find exciting new Lost Zone effects to expand your gameplay choices. The Legendary Pokémon have gathered—are you ready to answer the call?
Information
Call of Legends is the only English expansion of the Call of Legends Series, and was created in order to bide time until the introduction of Generation V into the card game. The set features Legendary Pokémon, with an 11 card subset depicting featuring Shiny versions of the Legendary Pokémon featured in the expansion. As with most premier sets in the English TCG Series, the set also includes the 8 basic Energy cards. However, they are only included as Mirror Reverse Foils, making them considerably rarer than their Rarity implies.
The Call of Legends expansion is made up of cards from throughout the Legend era in Japan. The remaining cards from the Japanese Lost Link mini-set were all included, as well as many of the remaining L-P Promotional cards. In order to finish out the remainder of the set, reprints from the four HeartGold & SoulSilver Series expansion—HeartGold & SoulSilver, Unleashed, Undaunted, and Triumphant—were created specifically for Call of Legends. Each Pokémon reprint features brand new English exclusive artwork, most of which were done by the original illustrators.
The Shiny Pokémon in the subset all originated from the Japanese L-P Promotional cards, and were based on the Pokémon LEGEND cards from the main Japanese expansions of the LEGEND era: HeartGold Collection, SoulSilver Collection, Reviving Legends, and Clash at the Summit. Darkrai and Cresselia were never created, because their LEGEND card originated from the Japanese mini-set Lost Link instead of a main expansion. The Japanese prints of Ho-Oh, Lugia, Entei, Raikou, and Suicune were released through the Shiny Pokémon Present Campaign, a campaign in which during the months of May and June 2010, those who bought two LEGEND series booster packs were entered into a drawing to win one of one thousand sets of the Shiny Rare Holographic print of either Ho-Oh and Lugia or Entei, Raikou, and Suicune. Groudon, Kyogre, Rayquaza, Deoxys, Dialga, and Palkia were released in a similar promotion, the Legendary Pokémon Present Campaign, where starting on July 27, 2010, those who bought any LEGEND series booster pack were entered into a drawing to win one of five thousand sets of the six promotional cards.
Hakozaki's Lugia promotional artwork
As with the cards in the HeartGold & SoulSilver Series, much of the artwork features location around the Johto region. For example, Espeon is featured in Ecruteak City and Koffing is depicted in the Burned Tower. In regards to illustrations, many of the illustrators provided the alternate artwork to their original prints, with a few exceptions in order to feature the five new illustrators debuting in this set, as well as a few others who were less prevalent. sui provided the illustrations for Clefable, Clefairy, and Cleffa instead of Masakazu Fukuda. Newcomer Shigenori Negishi took over Hitmontop and Tyrogue from Ken Sugimori, while newcomer mizue took over Sugimori's Granbull and Snubbull. match took on Noriko Hotta's Leafeon and Wataru Kawahara's Jirachi. New illustrator Akira Komayama provided new artwork for both Masakazu Fukuda's Magby and Kanako Eo's Eevee. Palkia's Rare Holographic print was provided an illustration by Daisuke Iwamoto instead of Ayaka Yoshida. Ryo Ueda took on the most, by taking over Hideaki Hakozaki's Ho-Oh and Lugia, Yuri Umemura's Groudon and Kyogre and Noriko Hotta's Deoxys and Rayquaza. Six of these eight illustrators whose cards were taken on by someone else did not create any new card artwork for this set: only Masakazu Fukuda and Ayaka Yoshida provided new artwork for some of their cards. However, Hideaki Hakozaki did provide the artwork for the booster packs and Theme Decks: Retort and Recon.
The Prerelease promo for this set is Snorlax. This set's most notable error card is Phanpy. Early prints of Phanpy have Phanpy misspelled twice as Phanphy in the Ultra-Thick Skin Poké-Body, but it was quickly corrected in subsequent print runs. This error exists in both Mirror Reverse Holo and Regular prints. Additionally, on early print runs, the Energy Costs on many Reverse Holofoil cards are off center.
Officially, the set contains 95 cards. Between alternate holofoils, promotional stamps, subsets, and Reverse Holofoils, the set contains 210 cards (not including error cards). A list of the non standard cards can be seen below.
Additional cards
No.
Mark
Card name
Type
Rarity
Promotion
6/95
[[Image:RegMarkGroudon.png|x18px|link=Standard format (TCG)|Groudon]]
Rarity implies.
.png){kind=link}
