We begin our exploration of a seller’s generous freebies with a truly celestial specimen: the Legendary Pokémon, Cosmog. This delightful card from the early Sun & Moon era is a wonderful surprise, a “Friend of Geopik” that connects our collection to the very origins of the cosmos.
Card Details
- Pokémon Name: Cosmog (コスモッグ)
- Set: Sun & Moon Strengthening Expansion Pack (SM1+)
- Year: 2017
- Card Number: 027-071
- Rarity/Edition: Common
- Artist: Megumi Mizutani
- National Pokédex No.: 789
Card Text & Attacks
- Type: Psychic
- HP: 60
Attack 1:
- Japanese: ちりあつめ
- Romaji: Chiri Atsume
- English: Dust Gathering
- Cost: [Colourless]
- Effect: Draw a card.
- Weakness: Psychic x2
- Resistance: None
- Retreat Cost: [Colourless]
Pokédex Entry:
- Japanese: ひかりをあびて ガス状の体が温まると 大気のチリを吸い寄せ ゆっくりと 成長していく。
- Romaji: Hikari o abite gasu-jō no karada ga atatamaru to taiki no chiri o sui-yose yukkuri to seichō shiteiku.
- English: When its gaseous body is warmed by absorbing light, it sucks in the dust in the atmosphere and slowly grows.
Collector’s Notes
This Cosmog is from the Sun & Moon Strengthening Expansion Pack (SM1+), a special subset released in 2017 designed to supplement the first wave of Sun & Moon cards. The artwork by Megumi Mizutani is wonderfully charming, using a soft, illustrative style to capture Cosmog’s innocent and otherworldly nature as it floats above a beautiful landscape.
This card is a fantastic example of “ludonarrative harmony”, where the gameplay mechanics perfectly reflect the character’s story. In the Pokémon Sun and Moon games, Cosmog is a famously helpless creature that can’t do much on its own, and this card captures that perfectly. Its only attack, “Dust Gathering”, is one of the simplest in the game, merely allowing the player to draw a card. It represents the first, tiny step in this Pokémon’s journey to becoming a mighty celestial guardian.
As a Friend of Geopik, Cosmog provides a fascinating link to the “Astrogeology” theme. Its name is derived from “cosmos” and its lore is all about primordial matter. Both its attack name, “Dust Gathering”, and its Pokédex entry state that it grows by collecting atmospheric dust. This cosmic dust is the very raw material from which planets, asteroids, and meteorites are formed. Cosmog, therefore, represents the pre-geological state of the universe, the swirling nebula of stardust from which all the rocks, minerals, and gems in our collection would eventually be born.
