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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage	Rainbow Energy's an amazing card, so why not make it twice as good?  Double Rainbow Energy does have a lot stipulations for a card that provides 2 of any Energy though. The most important part is that it has to be attached to an Evolved Pokemon, but there's also the slight decrease in damage output by 10. Course while there is risk in having a card that makes your attack unable to get that KO, the ability to get 2 Energy of any kind quickly can be a tremendous boon to a Pokemon as well! And damage outputs back in the day were at least lower than they are these days.  It shouldn't come back into Standard though, at least not without greater stipulations. With the advent of GX, the game has a slight shift towards the powerful Evolved Stage 1 and 2 GX, and a reduction of only 10 damage in exchange for powering up many of their attacks - in some cases, almost instantly - would hardly be an incentive NOT to play this card. Just look at how frequently we see DCE as it is, and it doesn't have any restrictions other than providing 2 Colorless Energy.  It's probably for the best Double Rainbow Energy sits this format out...at least until it gets an improvement. I wonder if reducing damage output to 20 or 30 would affect the outcome of you playing it in this modern age?  Rating  Standard: N/A (it was a powerful card back in the day since the evolved Pokemon were more dominant)  Expanded: N/A (but coming back to this day and age would immediately let it see play again in certain decks)  Limited: 3.5/5 (admittedly, outside of evolution decks, this card is...not that great)  Arora Notealus: If only there were Double Rainbow Energies for people who were sick. Sure, you wouldn't be able to hurt people as bad, but hey, you'd at least be able to do things faster, eyyy? Eyyyyyy?...yes, I'm a little sick and tying it into my review, don't change the subject.  Next Time: ...oh no, I am not reviewing this guy down to a summary review, this guy DESERVES a LONG REVIEW!!
Otaku	For today’s Throwback Thursday, we’re tripping back to the days of Double Rainbow Energy, released as EX: Team Magma vs Team Aqua 88/95, EX: Emerald 87/106, EX: Crystal Guardians 88/100, and Pokémon Organized Play Series 5 4/17.  I don’t remember the exact rules for when a new card became tournament legal back in the day, but EX: Team Magma vs Team Aqua officially released on March 15, 2004, so it ought to have been part of the half of the 2003-2004 Modified (what we now call “Standard) Format.  Re-releases kept it legal until Pokémon Organized Play Series 5 rotated out of Modified on September 1, 2008.  That means it nearly had a solid four-and-a-half year run.  We first reviewed the card here, and then again here.  This card is a Special Energy that provides two units of Energy, both of which count as all Types at once.  It mentions providing no other effects because at this time, we still didn’t have basic Darkness Energy or Metal Energy but we did have two Special Energy cards with those names (and they did provide bonus effects).  A Double Dragon Energy that works for all Types sounds too good to be true, and it would be except it came with some additional drawbacks.  To begin with, only Evolved Pokémon could use it; on the off chance it ended up attached to a Basic Pokémon (such as through devolving), its own effect stated that Double Rainbow Energy would discard itself immediately.  It also could not be used by Pokémon-ex, which were basically the Pokémon-GX of their day, as well as being near identical to but mechanically distinct from the Pokémon-EX of the BW- and XY-eras.  If a Pokémon became a Pokémon-ex (such as through Evolving), against Double Rainbow Energy would discard itself.  Finally, it reduced the damage done by the attacks of the Pokémon using.  Each Double Rainbow Energy attached meant 10 less damage done to the opponent’s Pokémon (if your own attack hit your own Pokémon, it still did full damage).  Oddly, earlier printings of the card applied this reduction after Weakness and Resistance, but later printings state it applies before, which is consistent with how such things are handled in the modern game.  Even with such drawbacks, this was a mighty card.  At the time it was around, Rare Candy could still be used to immediately Evolve a Basic Pokémon into either its Stage 1 or Stage 2 form (the latter skipping the Stage 1 entirely); first turn rules from this time are hazy in my mind, but I believe at least some of this time allowed Player 1 to use it on his or her first turn, and for sure Player 2 could do it.  So you could quickly face a Stage 1 or 2 Pokémon with access to any attack that cost [XX] or less, where “X” is any Energy requirement (and not necessarily the same as other instances of “X”).  Historically, this was just a good, semi-general card.  Many decks used Pokémon-ex, but not all; some decks could even still afford Double Rainbow Energy.  Decks that were less focused on damage, capable of moving a particular Energy Type around, and several other tricks that make Rainbow Energy so good also helped Double Rainbow Energy earn its keep.  I can’t remember all the decks off the top of my head and I don’t have time to research them all, but I can at least look through the World Championship decks for the years where Double Rainbow Energy was part of the format.  This is hardly a good way of sampling the metagame for an entire year.  The metagame and card pool change throughout the year, and as we saw with the recent 2016 World Championship decks, as the format was defined both going into Worlds and for a good chunk before by Night March decks, but that meant the top decks all had good-to-great Night March matchups.  Still, this is what we have, so for 2004… no Double Rainbow Energy.  2005 saw its usage in two of the four decks, including the winner of the 15+ age bracket.  Double Rainbow Energy was absent again in the 2006 decks and only shows up in one deck (as TecH) for 2007.  In 2008, it once again had the winner of the Masters Division use four, plus another deck using Double Rainbow Energy as TecH.  Besides the metagame, the card pool is a big deal here as well; several alternatives to Double Rainbow Energy were released during this time, including (but not limited to) Holon’s Castform, Holon’s Electrode, Holon’s Magneton, and Scramble Energy.  This card would be pretty crazy if it were re-released, though I suspect if it were, the effect (and possibly the name) would be tweaked.  Pokémon-GX and Pokémon-EX would probably be excluded instead of Pokémon-ex, since those aren’t even in the Legacy Format, let alone Expanded and Standard.  It might still work only for Evolutions as well; Basic Pokémon had been dominant until the original 2001-2002 Modified Format and didn’t start to regularly prove competitive again until after Double Rainbow Energy was gone.  I could see this as an attempt at leveling the playing field, though if you’re a long-time reader, you know I would prefer balancing the Stages through better card design and game pacing.  If you’re fortunate enough to play in a Limited Format event with such old cards, this is a welcome sight from your product; you’re often stuck using whatever half-decent Evolution you pull and running a deck that needs multiple (sometimes three or more) Energy Types.  I can’t comment on Unlimited because I don’t know if any First Turn Win or Lock decks need it; apart from those, it would be a key part of certain (but not all) decks.  It has all the competition it saw during much of its Modified run plus a few more cards from throughout the years.  Ratings  Standard: N/A  Expanded: N/A  Limited: 4.25/5  Conclusion  Double Rainbow Energy wasn’t always a must run, but it definitely shaped the metagame while it was legal; two units of Energy that count as all Types tend to do wonders, even with the drawbacks.​
Vince	Today is Throwback Thursdays! And this week’s throwback card is Double Rainbow Energy! So last week I said that I had some cards from Base Set and cards from Diamond & Pearl onwards, but I forgot that my friend gave me a Blastoise Theme Deck (Storm Surge) that was in EX Crystal Guardians.  And in that same set came a card which is Double Rainbow Energy, which I still have one heavily played copy of.  I wished that I had four of them, but since this is 2017 and not 2005-06, I should be grateful that I still have it.   Anyways, Double Rainbow Energy does what its name suggests: Providing two units of energy of any type.  Think of it as 2 separate Rainbow Energies, but in just one card instead of two, and no damage counter being placed onto the Pokemon this energy is attached to.  There are some restrictions and detrimental effects for such an amazing energy card: It has to be attached to an evolved Pokemon, damage output is reduced by 10 (before applying weakness and resistance), and it gets discarded if the Pokemon is no longer an evolved Pokemon.  Don’t let the drawbacks turn you away from this card.  This is extremely useful for evolution decks whose attack costs need to be met quickly so that players can use that attack.  If the attack cost was two energies, Double Rainbow Energy takes care of it right away!  The damage reduction of 10 may hinder your performance, but if you can still land OHKOs or 2HKOs even with the reduction, then that drawback is inconsequential.  And there are few ways to devolve Pokemon such as Devolution Spray and Espeon EX’s Miraculous Shine.   I might have mentioned the various Evolution cards last week.  We got Mega Evolutions that would love to have this energy to fuel their attacks.  Break Evolutions is still an Evolution card, so Xerneas BREAK of top of Basic Xerneas can make use of Double Rainbow Energy while Basic Xerneas itself can’t.  Some GX Pokemon can make use of it depending on the stage.   Since this energy can provide any type of energy, it can be moved by abilities that transfer energy to another Pokemon.  So, Shift Gear, Dark Trance, Fairy Transfer, Psychic Transfer, and the like can move this energy.  Unfortunately, effects that fetches a particular type won’t allow DRE.   There’s another special energy which did a similar job: Double Dragon Energy.  It is a special energy for Dragon types only, and it provides two units of any type.  This is extremely useful for meeting attack costs that would otherwise be hard to meet.  Most dragons have attack costs that requires two different energy types such as Dragonite’s Grass/Lightning or Hydreigon’s Dark/Psychic.  It also can be attached regardless of stage and damage output is not reduced, unlike Double Rainbow Energy.  It is worth noting that Double Dragon Energy is about to leave rotation; Once DDE is gone, there isn’t a special energy which provides two units of any type at the moment.   Overall, Double Rainbow Energy is a serious contender for Standard and Expanded if it were to be reprinted, and it is of no surprise that it’ll do extremely well in Limited if you use a particular evolutionary line (both the EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua and EX Crystal Guardians).   Ratings:   Standard: N/A (would be 4.5/5 if reprinted)   Expanded: N/A (would be 4.5/5 if reprinted)   Limited: 5/5   Notes: Double Rainbow Energy is an example of an effect that is taken to the extremes much like Broken Time Space last week.  However, I don’t see how this card would be broken; it just provides a big boost to help them.  It is vulnerable to Enhanced Hammer and Aegislash-EX’s Mighty Shield would render this energy helpless. Lastly, decks that don’t run evolution cards won’t use Double Rainbow Energy.   Coming Up: Lana, am I really battling against this totem Pokemon?!