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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

Baby Mario 2010 UK National Seniors Champion	Double Colourless Energy  Alongside things like Super Energy Removal, Scoop Up, and Gust of Wind (heh), Double Colourless Energy was in that category of ‘really broken cards from ye olde dayes that they will never bring back’ . . . until they did just that in the HGSS set, and most players were pretty shocked.  To anyone who has come into the game since then, DCE (as it is universally known) must now seem like an ever-present part of the game, much like Switch or Rare Candy. It has been printed no less than four times since then, so I guess we should assume it’s something the designers want to keep around.  The reason DCE is so stupid good is that it is pretty much a drawback-free way to break the ‘one attachment per turn’ rule. Other Energy cards that have done this have always had some kind of downside (Double Rainbow, Scramble, Boost) and were still ridiculously powerful (well, maybe not in the case of Boost). Of course, that only holds true if we have Pokémon that can make use of the two Colourless Energy, but Pokémon has not exactly been shy of giving us those: from the Outrage Dragons in the Black and White sets, through Mewtwo EX and Yveltal EX, right up to Seismitoad EX where DCE turns Quaking Punch from a good attack to a near-broken one by allowing Item Lock from the first attacking turn onwards.  As long as they keep printing Pokémon that can take advantage of it, DCE is a major cause of the speed/damage inflation that has taken hold in the TCG. I am not at all sure that the card is good for the game, but there’s no denying that it is very powerful indeed.  Rating  Modified: 4.75 (begs to be abused, and gets its wish granted) Expanded: 4.75 (ditto) Limited: 4.75 (plenty of cards in the set that can use it)
aroramage	Finishing off our little week of reminiscence, we come to a card we've talked about frequently here on pojo, Double Colorless Energy or "DCE" as we abbreviate it. Last we saw of this guy was over in Legendary Treasures, and before that he was out in Next Destinies just in time for Mewtwo-EX's debut!   DCE's an Energy card that simply adds 2 Colorless Energy to the Pokemon it's attached to, but that's usually enough for those who run it. To give you an idea of what these 2 Colorless Energy unlock, it gives you access to Mewtwo-EX's X Ball and Sesimitoad-EX's Quaking Punch, charges up your Kangaskhan-EX and Gengar-EX to be one turn away from using their best move or even can get Dialga-EX or Charizard-EX their first attack sooner, and it makes Yveltal-EX's Evil Ball even Stronger than it was before (as well as Mewtwo-EX's X Ball)! Another popular deck that isn't EX-related it can be apart of is the new Night March deck, which usually requires 3 Colorless Energy to unleash the attack!   As wonderfully beneficial as DCE is to some Pokemon, it's not a card you'd want in any deck. Fighting Decks should be packing more Strong Energy with their Lucario-EX (who has no such Colorless Energy requirements) and Landorus-EX's (who has the problem many Pokemon have of not having enough Colorless Energy requirements), and Rayquaza Decks can only take advantage of Electric and Fire Energy so there's no need to run DCE. And while Aegislash-EX does get his Slash Blast off much sooner with DCE, it's significantly weaker than it would be if you'd been attaching Metal Energies regularly or via Bronzong to it. In other words, this isn't a card you want on just any Pokemon - it's for special Pokemon, and that's why it's a Special Energy!   Which does bring up another major weakness to this card: Enhanced Hammer and Xerosic are both in the format. If there was just one of them, it could be easy to say, "It's alright, DCE's still viable," but with both of them, you better be running all 4 you can or none at all, cause they're gonna go flying off your Pokemon the moment your opponent grabs one or the other - and against something like Seismitoad-EX, even Xerosic looks like a good option!   DCE's been around since the TCG's inception, and I imagine it'll continue to get reprinted for as long as the game goes on, whether that's the next time it rotates out in a few years or if it'll be relevant further down in a Pokemon-EX-less future that has even bigger Pokemon with even bigger HP scores.   ...well, you probably never thought it'd be like this at the start, did you?   Rating   Standard: 4/5 (a good card, not necessarily a staple, but it can give access to some heavy cost attacks)   Expanded: 4/5 (about the same here, honestly)   Limited: 4/5 (again, a good card, but if you don't have something that has 2 CEs in its cost, it's better to not run it since there's nothing like X Ball or Evil Ball in the set...at least not that I'm aware of...)   Arora Notealus: I kid you not, I had a friend who actually believed that because this Energy existed, you couldn't use any Pokemon with Colorless Energy without this card. They interpreted it as, for instance, "This attack costs me 1 Fire Energy and 1 Colorless Energy, so I need 1 Fire Energy and 1 Colorless Energy to use it," rather than, "I need 1 Fire Energy and then another of any type of Energy." I'm sure others have made the mistake too - I figure at some point that crossed most players' thoughts!   Weekend Thought: For those of you in the Americas, have a happy Thanksgiving and eat lots of turkey! For those not around, remember that the holiday we hold is a way of giving thanks for what we have, and we like to celebrate that by gathering together with loved ones and eating lots of food. On a holiday like this, it's better to think of the thanks you give rather than the food you eat, so with that in mind, what do you have to be thankful for? And what card in the TCG are you thankful for being?
Otaku	Tomorrow we in the United States of America celebrate Thanksgiving, so this will be the last review for this week.  Being grateful for what you have is an important thing in general as it tends to put things into perspective and help you enjoy life, but I’d especially like to encourage my fellow countrymen to take some time to really, really ponder what it is both we collectively (and you individually) have to be thankful for, even though I know life is far from perfect.  I’d also encourage studying up on the history of Thanksgiving in the U.S.A. as it is quite interesting and a lot tends to get glossed over.  Today we cover a very familiar card: Double Colorless Energy.  Even though this is a card that debuted back in the original Base Set, the review crew didn’t look at it until September 15th of 2010, when it was reintroduced into the Standard Format, and the first time it became Modified Legal.  I gave it the lowest marks and I still sang its praises.  You might notice something that now seems rather odd; I still trusted that the-powers-that-be new best for the path of the game (I was apparently still more trusting back then).  Knowing what the game is like now, I seem quite naive and doubt things were as well balanced as I claimed back then and no, it isn’t sarcasm when I comment about how we’d be in trouble if certain things happened; this was before things like the return of Computer Search, even if only as an Ace Spec.  Before the return of a “Discard your hand, draw seven.” card with “Professor” in the name, even if they are Supporters and don’t have “Oak” in the name.  Before we got Gust of Wind back in the form of the (pre-errata) Pokémon Catcher. I am pretty sure at the time of this review, Rare Candy could still be used on the turn a Basic Pokémon had been played and also be used to Evolve rapidly into the Stage 1 form.  This was before we started getting stronger and stronger big, Basic Pokémon, including but not limited to examples like Mewtwo-EX with its X-Ball that does at least 40 points of base damage due to the Energy on itself and more if there was Energy on the Defending Pokémon… plus the same attack could do more if you kept adding Energy, instead of topping out at a certain amount.  For the record I was referencing Erika’s Jigglypuff with the comment about Basics and Double Colorless Energy in that older review… it could do 40 for [CC]... but only if the Defending Pokémon had no damage on it.  It was quite effective in Haymaker style builds and thankfully we don’t have any scaled up equivalents, but it still isn’t Mewtwo-EX caliber.  With the right (wrong?) card pool, any card can be improperly balanced: over or underpowered.  The same goes for being balanced; sometimes its the hardest of the three to achieve, but sure enough it too can happen with the right card pool and/or rule revisions.  To keep Double Colorless Energy balanced, it needs to help but not to the point where whiffing on it means you’ll never take (or regain) the lead but where a lucky draw with it doesn’t lead to undue reward.  Right now, Double Colorless Energy is clearly overpowered; it doesn’t belong in all decks, perhaps not even in most decks, but where it works it usually is a power play.  We’ve got the draw power that running a full four count gives solid odds of getting one on your first turn and its odd if you don’t get one in your first few turns.  When I try to figure out whether or not cards are overpowered, I consider what support they require and try to see if losing that support would change things.  A card like Yveltal-EX might still be pretty potent without Double Colorless Energy: when in a format where Dark Patch is legal, it definitely would be even without Double Colorless Energy.  On the other hand, Mewtwo-EX takes a real hit when you have to run some other effect to easily ready X-Ball… especially as you telegraph the attack when you have to manually attach two Energy to it.  The game would still have serious issues without Double Colorless Energy, but it might be just a bit better.  There, something to be thankful for: I think I’ll end the rant there!  If you have something that can use Double Colorless Energy well you’re probably running at least two or three copies.  In many decks, it is well worth maxing out.  Faster attacks, easier retreats, the only downside is that as a Special Energy it isn’t as easy search out (best option is Computer Search, an Ace Spec) or recycle (Lysandre’s Trump Card can send both from discar back into deck).  It is also vulnerable to Special Energy counters like Enhanced Hammer.  Ratings  Standard: 4.5/5 - It isn’t in every deck, but most that include it will be running a high count and it would probably function as nearly a five out of five.  Expanded: 4.5/5 - As above; technically there are a few more cards that can make use of it, but not in a manner that I believe it should score higher.  Limited: 4.5/5 - You should almost certainly run this, even if it is just to make retreating a bit easier.  I would score it higher as a decent chunk of the set can use it for attacking, retreating or both and there are even a few cards that have simple combos with it (like getting it back via AZ or Lysandre’s Trump Card) but this set also has Enhanced Hammer.  Summary: Double Colorless Energy is one of the building blocks of a too fast format, and while it isn’t perfect it may seem like it in some decks.  Its one of those cards that you probably already have a play-set of and if not, that’s part of why it keeps getting re-released, sadly keeping it in the format for the foreseeable future.  Might as well enjoy it, and I’ll commiserate with a double scoop of mashed potatoes.  Have a happy Thanksgiving!