Those with a penchant for Pokémon TCG may soon notice a new Yellow A Alternate symbol that will appear in the lower-right corner on select cards, it has been announced.
This will be used when a card has been reprinted with a new illustration, an example given being the Jolteon-EX in the Mega Powers Collection which is an alternate illustration of the Jolteon-EX card in the Generations expansion.
“In the past, cards like these were typically printed as Black Star Promo cards,” The Pokémon Company explains. “In some cases, that caused the card to be legal for tournament play in the Standard format for a much longer period of time.
“For example: Yveltal-EX was released in 2014 as part of the XY expansion, which is no longer legal in the Standard format—however, the Shiny version of the same Yveltal-EX was released two years later as a Black Star Promo card, which continues to be legal in Standard long after the original card would have rotated out.”
“Yellow A Alternate cards will be legal for tournament play only in formats where the original card is legal. Any card with the Yellow A Alternate symbol will have the same expansion symbol as the original card, and the same collector number with an added ‘a’ to denote that it’s an alternate illustration. (If there are multiple alternate illustrations for the same card, those will be numbered accordingly—28b, 28c, etc.)”
The new Mega Lucario-EX in the Mega Powers Collection is an alternate illustration of the Mega Lucario-EX card that was released in the XY – Furious Fists expansion.
The original card has the collector number 55/111, with the card being numbered 55a/111. But, as XY – Furious Fists is no longer legal in the Standard format, the new card still can’t be played in Standard format tournaments.
