A guide to full-art Pokémon cards
Illustration Rare, Special Illustration Rare, Full Art, and every variant in between. A plain-English reference for the rarity terms that show up on card backs.
If you're new to the hobby, "full art" is a casual umbrella term that covers about six different printing styles. This is the guide I wish had existed when I started, the shortest route from "what does SIR mean?" to being able to read a rarity code at a glance.
The short rarity cheatsheet#
| Code | Name | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|
| C / U / R | Common / Uncommon / Rare | Regular-bordered cards, no extras |
| FA | Full Art | Art extends to the card edges |
| IR | Illustration Rare | Character in a scene, no attack box overlay |
| SIR / SAR | Special Illustration Rare | Alternate-art variant, often with holofoil |
| HR | Hyper Rare | Rainbow or gold-foil texture |
| UR | Ultra Rare | Catch-all for top-shelf pulls |
Terms overlap because the TCG has iterated on naming across eras. The two codes that matter most in the current Scarlet & Violet era are IR and SIR. Those are the cards collectors chase.
The two that matter right now#
Illustration Rare (IR)#
An IR card shows the Pokémon in a painted scene, with no attack box covering the artwork. The card still has the attack text and HP, but everything is pushed to the bottom so the image breathes.
If you've seen the 2023 Pikachu card with the trainer running in the rain, that's an IR. The artwork is the point; the card mechanics live at the margins.
Special Illustration Rare (SIR)#
SIRs are the scarcer cousin. Same "art-first" layout, but with a different illustration and a holofoil finish that makes the card reflect light differently depending on angle. Pull rate is roughly one in six booster boxes. Street value scales accordingly.
Reading a card back#
The little symbol at the bottom right tells you the set; the number before the slash tells you where the card sits in that set's numbering. Cards numbered beyond the "printed total" (e.g. 240/198) are almost always in one of the full-art categories. Those are the ones most binders chase.
Why any of this matters for tracking#
When DexBindr shows a slot as "filled with a Special Illustration Rare," it's doing two things:
- Marking that Pokémon as collected
- Signaling which variant is the face. A swap from an SIR to a regular rare is a visible downgrade on the binder page
If you're grinding a dex for completion only, any rarity counts. If you're building a show binder, you'll swap faces over time as better variants land in your collection.
Getting started#
Open any Pokémon page on the app and the gallery lists every card the site knows about, tagged with the right rarity code. The top rows show the premium variants first. That's the quickest way to learn the codes: see one, swap to it, watch the card art change on the binder page.
If you're a returning collector who doesn't know half these codes yet, the restart guide covers what changed while you were away.
Related posts
Reading Scarlet & Violet rarity codes at a glance
A plain-English reference for the rarity codes that show up on Scarlet & Violet-era Pokémon cards. IR, SIR, UR, HR, AR, SAR — what each one looks like and what it's worth paying for.
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