Lugia alt art pop report: the most graded card in Silver Tempest

Published August 15, 2026 · Pop figures refresh with every site build; the current pull is August 13, 2026

First, make sure we are talking about the same card. Silver Tempest has two "full art" Lugia V prints, and the census tracker labels both the same way. The 185/195 is the standard full art by 5ban Graphics. The 186/195 is kawayoo's alternate art, Lugia diving out of a lightning storm over black water, and it is the one this page counts: 46,235 graded, 25,348 PSA 10s as of the August 13, 2026 pull. Listings mix the two up daily, and the price gap makes that an expensive mistake.

The count behind the confusion

46,235 total grades makes this the most graded card in all of Silver Tempest, more than the next two chase cards combined. The spread: 25,348 tens, 16,497 nines, 3,191 eights, a 54.8 percent gem rate. The 30 day trend reads -6% with 677 grades added last period. The PSA 10 population of this one card exceeds the entire graded population of most Sword and Shield alternate arts.

Number confusion is the recurring hazard on this row. The tracker's raw label for both prints is identical; only the card number separates them. That is the variant row discipline from our guide to reading a pop report, applied to a card where getting it wrong means comparing against the wrong population entirely.

Why does it gem barely more than half the time?

The SWSH alternate art foil is etched and textured, and graders who handle these in volume keep reporting that it leaves the factory already scratched more often than the flat foils do; the silver borders show every touch of edge whitening, and print lines glow against the storm-dark artwork. No handling attrition exists on a 2022 card, everything was sleeved within seconds of the wrapper, so the 45 percent that miss are mostly factory victims. The same fail pattern, on a darker canvas with a worse rate, runs through the Giratina V alt art pop report from the set released two months earlier.

kawayoo, the illustrator, is a 2009 veteran of the TCG (his debut was in Rising Rivals) and collectors read the boat in his composition as a nod to Lugia's movie appearance. The 185 full art is a different artist entirely, one more reason the two prints are not interchangeable.

Fee, comps, and the one number that matters

The 9 line refunds the raw price and not much else, so the grading case is entirely the 10, which happens 54.8 percent of the time on a card that must survive its own foil. Worth watching right now: European market data on August 15, 2026 showed the one day average running about 45 percent above the 30 day average, so this census's price context is moving while its pop keeps climbing.

Your copy, in practice

Start at the silver borders: edge whitening shows there first, and the surface scratches follow. The surface is where this card dies. If you are buying instead, remember what 25,348 tens means: you are paying for certainty, not scarcity, the same trade explained in the moonbreon pop report, the card that made peace with a giant census better than any other. Both rows sort next to each other in the BetterPop gallery.

Sources

• PSA population via the GemRate pull of August 13, 2026; figures refresh with each site build
• PriceCharting: Lugia V #186, read August 15, 2026; Cardmarket and TCGplayer same day cross-checks
• Bulbapedia print tables (Silver Tempest, Paradigm Trigger); artist credits verified on the card scans
• Release window coverage of the November 2022 English launch