Winner cards are reprints of select cards from various Pokémon Trading Card Game expansions with a foil "WINNER" stamp in the bottom right corner of the card illustration. These cards were released through Pokémon League or related tournaments.
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The Winner stamp was first used on cards from the Best of Game collection and were given to Pokémon Professors and Tournament Organizers of the BattleZone tournaments. The stamp itself is a gold foil "winner" in lowercase with a star for the point in "I". These cards were exclusively released in English.
After Pokémon USA acquired the TCG license, winner variants of cards released through the Pokémon League were awarded during the 2003-2004 season under the Play! Pokémon Player Rewards scheme. The stamp was updated to match the stamp featured on Prerelease cards, with a Poké Ball symbol to the left of "WINNER". These cards were released in English, with the exception of Combusken, Grovyle, and Marshtomp, which were also released in German, French, and Italian.[1]
Following the commencement of the 2004-2005 season, individual promotional cards were phased out in favor of POP packs, though variant cards with special stamps would still be released via Premier events. Newer Winner cards feature a Poké Ball with the word WINNER written beside it in all caps.
To commemorate the 2025 Pokémon World Championships, Pokémon Leagues held "2025 Worlds Celebration" tournaments in August 2025. Winners of these tournaments received a variant of SVP PromotionalPikachu with a WINNER stamp in the bottom-left corner of the artwork and a Play! Pokémon logo behind the card text.[2] Unlike older stamps, this winner stamp is written in plain text, similar to STAFF stamped Prerelease cards. This card was released in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin American Spanish, and Portuguese.
