We start of the week with a CotD that I
thought would short and sweet:
Energy Exchanger.
It is still sweet, but I managed
to go on at length in my usual fashion.
Universal to winning a TCG are a few
factors, and this card affects one of
the big ones: card advantage.
Card advantage itself can be
broken down into three kinds: quantity,
quality or (the most potent both).
Energy Exchanger falls into the
“quality” category as it actually will
result in a net loss of one card in
hand/field size.
This is a normal Trainer that
lets you take an Energy card from your
hand, show it to your opponent, then top
deck it.
After that, you search your deck
for an Energy card, show the new card to
your opponent, and put it into your
hand, finishing the effect by of course
shuffling your deck.
The important thing to note here is that
this card is not restricted to searching
out only Basic Energy cards; simply put
you are running this to find Special
Energy cards quickly and efficiently.
Yes, it does lower the cards play
value a little by requiring you have an
Energy card already in hand, but that is
only worth mentioning for those highly
efficient decks that can already get by
running an extraordinarily low amount of
Energy cards to begin with.
Such decks might become too
powerful through this card if it let
them shuffle any card back into the
deck.
If, by the end of your draw, you
should have an Energy card in your deck,
this will allow you to improve the
quality of your Energy.
Instead of having to hope that
you draw into a
Double Colorless Energy (or any of
the other highly useful Special Energy
cards), you just need to hit any Energy;
an insurance policy, if you will.
It also makes it much less
painful to TecH in a Special Energy: if
Call Energy or
Warp Energy show up too soon or too
late, you can toss them back into the
deck.
Given the nature of the wording, I
suspect TPC knew the final two benefits
of the card.
The lesser is that you can use
this card even if you are on your last
Energy: you add an Energy card from your
hand to the deck first.
So if you find no other Energy,
you can grab the one you sent to the
deck.
No worries about wasting the card
or hitting into awkward rulings
territory.
Best of all, no matter what, you
get to
see your deck.
I don’t recall if they’ve ever
printed a Trainer just so you could see
your deck, but for many a card that has
been what bumped it from mediocrity to
being useful, or from being useful to
being a must-run card.
While
you can’t drop this on the very first
turn of the game, it’s still a wonderful
trick to pull off second or third turn,
allowing you to deduce your prizes and
start strong.
Many cards grant this boon, but
far less are useful in nearly any deck
or else are Supporters; having that
Supporter usage after finding out your
deck contents is most useful.
Using it later confers less
advantage, but is still useful.
Ratings
Modified:
4/5 – An entire point is knocked off for
deck space/effectiveness of draw power,
potential for being a dead draw,
popularity and potency of Trainer
denial, and those few decks that really
just don’t need it (mono-Type, few/no
Special Energy).
Limited:
5/5 – A must run, even if you don’t pull
any/can’t use any Special Energy cards.
Mono-type decks are rare, and
even if you manage one you’ll still want
to use it just to peak at your deck.
Unlimited:
3/5 – Worth a mention (and placed here
to avoid messing up or score averages).
More Special Energy is played,
but we have potent general search and
stronger Trainer denial, potent generic
search cards, and lower overall Energy
counts.
Combos with:
Double Colorless Energy (and every
other Special Energy)
Summary
This is not a must run card, but it is a
“must eliminate” card in my book.
You start out assuming you’ll
want to run it an only cut it when you
find you have to, because some critical
piece of your deck bumps it out.
It should easily clear the first
wave of cuts, and make it to playtesting
and often tournaments.
I am still selling my former
collectables on eBay. I’ve had a
lot of hobbies over the years, so at
various times I’ll have comic books,
manga, action figures, and video games
on the auction block. You can take
a look at what’s up for bids
here.
I had a complicated weekend so
expect a lot to be added midweek.
Just a reminder, Pojo is in no
way responsible for any transactions and
was merely kind enough to let me mention
the auctions here. ;)
