The connections between the Pokémon TCG and Magic The Gathering are long and storied, not in the least because MTG’s owners—Wizards of the Coast—helped introduce the game outside of Japan between 1999-2003. But in 2022 there was a new MTG set called Unfinity which added one more connection to the two games: Wizards used something called a “Galaxy Foil” for a special version of their Basic Land cards (think of them as MTG’s Basic Energy cards)… and they looked mighty familiar:
Wait a sec… that looks like the holo foils used back in the day! So it got me to think… over Pokémon TCG history, what were the other holofoil types? And did they maybe reappear elsewhere? Well, this page aims to answer that: this is a complete analysis of all the holofoil types used in the Pokémon TCG, both in Japan and outside it… and maybe any other holo types that come up. I’ll include info about what sets they appeared in, if they only existed in a certain style, and any other tidbits. I may even include a raw example of the foil, likely from a damaged card which has been sacraficed for this greater good.
(This page is a work in progress; right now I’ve just built the scaffolding and I’ll start filling things out via scans pulled from PkmnCards.com and/or images I scanned in myself.)
| Foil Type | Foil Example | Foil Raw | Japan Sets | Int. Sets | Info |
| Wizards Stars | (n/a) | Base Set to Fossil | Wizards-only holofoil. | ||
| Cosmo |  |
Base Set to …. | Team Rocket to …. | Original holo foil which Wizards didn’t begin to use until Team Rocket. Technically Base Set 2 was the first set to use them, but that was a Wizards-only reprint set. Seen in Magic the Gathering’s “Unfinity” set as “Galaxy Foil” for Basic and Nonbasic Lands. | |
| Pixel Explosion | (n/a) | Legendary Collection | Holo Rares used the Cosmo foil. However, this was the first set to use “Reverse Foils”, and these cards used a special foil style. |
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More to come soon!