Our final specimen for this batch is the adorable Swinub. This common card from the brand new Scarlet & Violet era set Night Wanderer features a beautifully moody and understated piece of art that perfectly captures the Pokémon’s unique foraging behaviour.
Card Details
- Pokémon Name: Swinub (ウリムー)
- Set: Night Wanderer (sv6a)
- Year: 2024
- Card Number: 023/080
- Rarity/Edition: Common
- Artist: imomoo
- National Pokédex No.: 220
Card Text & Attacks
- Type: Water
- HP: 70
- Attack 1: Trample (ふむ)
- Cost: [Colourless]
- Damage: 10
- Attack 2: Snow Ice (スノーアイス)
- Cost: [Water][Colourless]
- Damage: 20
- Weakness: Metal x2
- Resistance: None
- Retreat Cost: [Colourless][Colourless]
- Pokédex Entry:
- Japanese: 鼻先で 地面を 掘って 食べるものを 探す。 凍った 地面も へっちゃらだ。
- Romaji: Hanasaki de jimen o hotte taberu mono o sagasu. Kōtta jimen mo hetchara da.
- English: It uses the tip of its nose to dig for food in the ground. Even frozen ground is no problem for it.
Collector’s Notes
The artwork by imomoo is wonderfully atmospheric. It depicts a lonely Swinub at the bottom of a set of concrete steps in the soft, warm light of dawn or dusk. The brick wall and urban setting provide a unique, almost melancholy feel for a creature usually found in the wild.
This card is a fantastic Geological Pokémon. In the video games, Swinub is an Ice/Ground type, a combination that ties it directly to our theme. The TCG represents this with the Water type, the common classification for Ice-types. The geological connection is made explicit in its Pokédex entry: it uses its nose to dig for food, even through frozen ground. This links it directly to the study of permafrost, glaciology, and the general geology of cold environments. It is a creature perfectly adapted to excavating and thriving in the hardest, coldest parts of the earth.
