Pokemon Card of the Day - Pokemon Tips - Pojo.com

Rand0m	Friday - Retro Energy This card is good. The card reads something close to "This counts as C energy. When you attach this to a pokemon from your hand, discard the top evolution card from it (if you can). Then remove 2 damage counters from that Pokemon." Now you're all saying "Now wait, RaNd0m, why do we want to DISCARD an evolution?" GOOD QUESTION!!! Answer: You don't... in some decks. You do in others. I have a riddle: What flies around and buzzes that's grass that does tons of damage with a great pokemon power? Give up? BEEDRILL PEOPLE. Maybe you've seen some Beedrill lists on the boards and stuff, and a lot of them use Hyper Devo Spray, Lure Ball, Undersea Ruins. Retro Energy is just another addition to a great deck. The idea is to discard evolutions every turn, and bring them back the same turn so you can evolve again the NEXT turn. IT's insanity people. Thats a deck you have to counter. But otherwise, this card isn't really good with anything except Arcanine from SKY (same concept as Beedrill), and maybe a couple evolutions I missed. Unlimited: 2/5 (only good with Beedrill or Arcy) Modified: 4.5/5 (GOOD with Beedrill or Arcy or both) Draft: 1/5 (Pointless) ~ RaNd0m
X- Act	Retro Energy Retro Energy is not too bad. It's better than Bounce Energy, although that's not saying very much. It has three effects: (1) It provides one colorless energy to the Pokemon attached to it; (2) If it is attached to an Evolved Pokemon, you may (note: may) remove up to two damage counters from it; (3) If it is attached to an Evolved Pokemon, you must (note: must) discard the highest stage of Evolution of that Pokemon. Of course, you might say that discarding the Evolution, rather than returning it to your hand (as Hyper Devolution Spray does) is bad. Well, it is. But Lure Ball can bring it back from your discard pile to your hand, unless you're horribly unlucky that you don't flip at least one heads out of three (a probability of 12.5%). And so this can be comboed with Retro Energy. And remember that Retro Energy is also kind enough to heal the Pokemon of 2 damage counters (you still need to be careful that the devolution won't kill the Pokemon though). However, the usability of this card is somewhat curbed by the fact that there is already a Stadium Card that does a similar thing: Undersea Ruins from Aquapolis. Undersea Ruins allows you to discard the top stage evolution of an Evolved Pokemon on a heads flip. And that's _every turn_. Retro Energy is not every turn (unless you play Aquapolis Espeon). Then again, since you can only have a maximum of 4 Lure Balls in a deck, you still can bring your Pokemon off your discard pile into your hand only a certain number of times anyway, whichever way you discarded it (not necessarily 4 actually, if you're smart and lucky). Unlimited: Devolving a Pokemon in Unlimited is, in most cases, pointless. So my rating for this card in Unlimited, accordingly, is also pointless. (Remember that I can't rate a card less than 1.) 1/5 Modified: Retro Energy can be cool for Evolved Pokemon which have come-into-play Poke-Powers, like many of the Rare Pokemon in this set (Gengar, Beedrill, Arcanine, et cetera). Leave out the Gyarados from that list, because to transform from a 90HP Pokemon to a 30HP one, you need at most 2 damage counters, which is impractical, unless you're suicidal. (A massive blow, because it would have certainly been cool to invoke Gyarados' Poke-Power several times.) Also, you heal that Pokemon 2 damage counters in the process too, and the devolution is certain (unlike Undersea Ruins, where you need a flip). But you can only devolve whenever you get the Retro Energy, i.e. a maximum of four times (barring Aquapolis Espeon). Well, it's your choice whichever you choose to devolve with. Play whichever suits your deck best. 2.5/5 Draft: In Draft, it's not very good, even if you had also drafted some Lure Balls (which are Uncommon, like Retro Energy itself). Although being a healer is never bad in Draft (again careful about devolving a Gyarados), I don't believe that you will draft enough of your come-into-play-Poke-Power Pokemon, Retro Energies, and Lure Balls to make a really competitive draft deck. For that reason, I regard the Drafting of Retro Energy as a mistake in most cases. 1.5/5
The Poke`mon Master 1110	Retro Energy: Not a bad card. The best use for it is for evolutions that have come-into-play powers, such a Dark Crobat, the new Gengar and Beedrill. Used with Lure Ball, it can heal and reuse those awesome powers over and over again. But really, Hyper Devolution Spray is just alot better. It's only one card, while retro needs lure ball or a similar card to help it. But HDS doesn't heal, so you'll have to decide which one you want to use. Unlimited: Stay far, far away. There is almost no use for it here. 1/5 Modified: Could be useful, but I still think Hyper Devolution Spray is better. 2.5/5 Limited: Not good at all, since you would have to draft Lure Ball to counter the effect. Not worth it. 1.25/5 The Bottom Line: 1.5/5
Meganium45	Retro Energy - what a waste This wins the award for the most worthless special energy ever! I would even play potion energy or crystal energy before I would play this! Now, if like hyper devolution spray, the evolution would go into your hand, and not to your discard, this could be good. It is not. There may be some bizarre situations (Chansey/Blissey) in which you can devolve, not lose hit points, and still end up with a better pokemon, but this is the exception and not the rule. Ratings - Unlimited 1/5 Modified 1/5 Draft 1/5 - I cannot go lower, hope you play someone foolish enough to play this
TR Shadow	Retro Energy The only reason I would see to play this is that some of the Pokemon with Pokemon Powers in Skyridge say "When you play this card from your hand." You'd get to play another one to use the Pokemon Power more than once. It does provide a colorless energy, but I don't see why you'd want to play it over a basic energy. The fact that it removes two damage counters helps it a little, but that is just simply not enough. If you want to heal, use Gold Berry or Pokemon Center. They work a lot better. Devolving is not a widely used strategy in the game and I don't see much use for it in the current format. I guess if you were playing Eevees or something that has more than one evolution, you might want to use a different one than you have out. You could also use it if you were desperate to get an attack off a basic or a stage one. I wouldn't rate this one too high. Unlimited 2/5 Modified 2/5 Limited 2/5 ~TR Shadow~
Thundachu	Retro Energy Overlook: erm, it is pretty much a Potion Energy with a twist. If you have to de-evolve to remove damage counters, it is not good. =\. I would keep with Potion to remove damage counters and if you want energy with the removal, just use Potion energy in Unlimited. I guess it could be KIND OF good in Draft. Your getting rid of damage counters, but your still discarding the evolution and getting evolutions with the stage 1 or basic is hard enough. Unlimited: Potion Energy. 1.5/5 Modified: 2/5 Draft: 2.5/5

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