Pokémon TCG Pocket Players Love and Hate Heartbreaking Time Space Showdown Art

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket received its Space Time Smackdown expansion yesterday, January 30, and players have expressed shock and heartbreak at one specific card’s artwork that depicts a particularly brutal scene for Pokémon.

The card in question is Weavile ex, and while this comes in three separate forms, it’s the 2 Star full art card that has fans in an uproar. In the artwork, below, a group of Weavile are hiding in the treetops with claws at the ready, preparing to prey on an innocent Swinub.

“No Swinub,” look up! Look up!” reads a Reddit post featuring the artwork with nearly 10,000 upvotes. “Always got to be one card per set that shows Pokémon in the process of straight up killing each other,” one user replied. “Leave the lil guy alone,” said another.

“The ecology of Pokémon is always so crazy to imagine,” another fan added. “Like these are still animals, some smarter than others. Just they have the ability to fire laser beams.”

Some are choosing to believe the full art card for Mamoswine, the final evolution of Swinub, depicts a happy ending though, as it shows the mammoth pocket monster looking up while protecting a handful of Swinub.

“Hey, Mamoswine protected his baby. Don’t worry. He most definitely saw those Weaviles,” said one desperate fan. “The Mamoswine alt card already looks above. He saw them. He saw…” said another.

Space Time Smackdown arrived as a Pokémon Diamond and Pearl themed set bringing the likes of Weavile and Mamoswine alongside Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, and more. It includes a total of 207 cards and is therefore significantly smaller than Genetic Apex’s 286. That being said, 52 of these are the alternate art, Star and Crown rarity cards, and as Genetic Apex had 60 of these, there is a higher percentage of rare pieces to collect.

Creatures Inc. still hasn’t commented on the controversial trading update which arrived the day before, with its social media accounts and the game itself only really focusing on Space Time Smackdown. It also failed to respond to IGN’s request for comment.

A “Trade Feature Celebration Gift” did arrive with 500 Trade Tokens and 120 Trade Hourglasses (the former of which is enough to trade a single ex Pokémon), but the developer has otherwise remained quiet on fan complaints.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.