Boost Energy – Pokemon Throwback Thursday

Vince

Note: I’ve made a re-review/extension on Decidueye-GX if you’re interested to see. It’s on the 8th best card of 2017. (https://www.pojo.com/decidueye-gx-top-10-pokemon-cards-of-2017/).

Boost Energy is our Throwback Thursdays for this week. We’ve actually reviewed it last year, but we decided to look at it again due to a future Japanese card that does a similar thing. This card was printed several times, first printed on Aquapolis until the final print on EX Dragon Frontiers/POP Series 5. If you’re looking for older reviews on this card in the Pojo archives, then it has received three separate reviews. The first initial thought was pretty negative based on numerical score, but the second and third reviews were highly favorable. If you’re wonder why this special energy is pretty good, you would first have to read what this card does.

-This card can only be attached to an Evolved Pokémon. Straightforward.

-You must discard this Special Energy card at the end of the turn it was attached. Again, pretty straightforward, as it effectively means you have one turn.

-The Pokémon with the Boost Energy attached to it CANNOT retreat. The wording, however, suggests that you can switch the Pokémon with Boost Energy attached to it, but that would be pointless for Boost Energy in the first place.

-And it automatically discards itself if the Pokémon is no longer an Evolved Pokémon. For situations where you use Devolution Spray to devolve from a Stage 1/Stage 2 into a Basic, this clause will hurt.

-Once you are aware of the limitations that this card provides and overcome them, then Boost Energy provides three units of Colorless Energy, or what would be called – albeit unofficially – Triple Colorless Energy.

Even after a year after chiming in on this Special Energy, not much has changed about what I think of, so I might as well snatch one of my paragraphs from the previous review and put it here: Boost Energy can be used in many ways strategically. This is not a card to be relied on, since it works for only one turn, but to act as a clutch card in a particular turn and scenario. Boost Energy can be used to meet attack costs of CCC or below instantly and can be used to pay for the discard cost. Something like Charizard’s (XY Evolutions, not Base Set) Fire Spin attack that does 200 damage with three energy discard? Boost Energy alone covers the discard cost. What about attacks that does damage based on how many energy your Pokémon has in play? Gardevoir-GX would get to deal 90 more damage with a single Boost Energy before factoring in how many Secret Spring Abilities that you’re about to use! With four Secret Springs, a Choice Band, and a manual attachment of Boost Energy, you could go from zero damage to 240! The best part of this card discarding itself at the end of your turn is that you won’t be liable for opposing Pokémon that punishes your Pokémon for having too much energy on the board; your opponent’s Gardevoir-GX would lose an opportunity to deal an extra 90 damage due to your Boost Energy automatically discarding itself. One thing I will add is that Special Charge will help get your Boost Energies back if you need them for later and multiple use.

The last minute decision of looking at Boost Energy is due to a Japanese card, plus another card (indirectly). Triple Boost Energy is a new Special Energy that functions almost exactly what Boost Energy does but with one notable difference: it allows you to retreat! That means not only you can easily fuel attacks with CCC or below, but if you wanted a stranded Pokémon to be put on the Bench, then Triple Boost Energy can pay for it. Pokémon with CCCC retreat cost will need extra help since that Special Energy alone won’t be enough, Escape Board would be paired with this card to eventually pay CCCC to retreat. For Expanded, Float Stone completely shaves off the retreat cost, so it wouldn’t be a good idea to attach energy and pay for it. Some may think that Triple Boost Energy is underpowered; we got Double Colorless Energy to provide CC and doesn’t have to automatically discard itself. It’ll last indefinitely until it is removed or if the Pokémon is Knocked Out. Which is mostly what players will use unless…

…UNLESS…

…

…

…

…Pokémon stopped re-printing Double Colorless Energy!

***gasp***

Our latest English print of Double Colorless Energy is in Shining Legends, while their latest Japanese print lands on Super Burst Impact or Thunderclap Spark, which is the equivalent of English’s Sun & Moon Lost Thunder expansion. So if we happen to be in Ultra Prism onwards on this coming September – and still no further prints on Double Colorless Energy after Shining Legends – then Double Colorless Energy is gone from Standard. This must be some sort of message saying they are not keeping this veteran energy card anymore. It has overstayed their welcome, being returned to Standard in 2010 via HeartGold SoulSilver. Even then, Triple Boost Energy isn’t for everyone, but it will see play to some degree.

Now, the second Japanese card has something to do with Special Energy cards. Porygon-Z has an ability called Crazy Code which lets you attach as many Special Energy cards from your hand as you like. If Deluge Blastoise, Inferno Fandango Emboar, or Magnezone Magnetic Circuit had seen success before, Porygon-Z joins the list of potentially successful Pokémon that you can build a deck around. Imagine what it’s like to attack FOUR Double Colorless Energy or even today’s card. A playset of Boost Energy will provide a whopping 12 energies, more than what you need to OHKO anything in the game for users that has attacks that scale damage based on how much energy is on the board.

With those cards recently revealed at PokeBeach regarding Triple Boost Energy and Porygon-Z, Triple Boost Energy will eventually have solid prospects for competitive play for certain decks. The same can be said to Boost Energy. And since those two are extremely similar cards, they are not identical! In Unlimited, you could theoretically have FOUR Boost Energies and FOUR Triple Boost Energies in one deck!

Ratings:

• Standard: N/A
• Expanded: N/A
• Limited: 4/5
• Unlimited: 4/5

21times
PokeDeck
Central

I started playing Pokemon TCG about three years ago this month.  I entered a meta where Basic Pokemon were the most powerful Pokemon in the game, no question.  Remember these guys?

• Yveltal EX
• Darkrai EX
• Seismatoad EX
• Wailord EX
• Joltik

And then they got the meta defining card Max Elixir out of Breakpoint!  I didn’t know any different – I had just started playing.  It was a couple of months before I figured out that it was REALLY hard to win with Stage 2 Pokemon. The game had definitely slanted in favor of Basic Pokemon.  Big or Small, Basic Pokemon were generally more successful than their Mega or Stage 1 or Stage 2 counterparts.

Two years ago – like everybody else in the Pokemon universe – I started playing Pokemon GO.  What I really like about Pokemon GO is evolving Pokemon – Stage 2 Pokemon are my favorites.  Love my Dragonites, Tyranitars, Metagross, Rhyperior, Gardevoirs, and on.  I LOVE that Pokemon GO has made Stage 2 Pokemon the best Pokemon in the game.

Today, we live in a meta that is very Stage 1 dominant.  Zoroark GX, Lycanroc GX, Malamar, Magcargo, Alolan Ninetales GX LOT, Gyarados TEU, Garbodor GRI, I could go on.  Stage 1 Pokemon are generally better than either Basics or Stage 2’s right now (yes, totally aware that Zapdos and the Tag Teamers are probably about to change that… but that’s going to make my point).

We all know that Stage 2 Pokemon get disproportionately shafted in comparison to Stage 1’s and Basics.  Stage 2 Pokemon should have twice the HP that Big Basics have – it’s the only way they’d be competitive.  Believe me, I’ve been playing a ton of Blissey and Chandelure lately.  I can one shot anything in the Pokemon TCG with those decks.  Even 270 or 300 HP isn’t enough – that’s why I’m 3 W 0 L against Celebi & Venusaur with Blissey and Chandelure but 0 W 5 L with everything else.

IMO, Stage 2’s should get the best abilities.  Stellar Wish should be on a Stage 2.  Mysterious Guidance should be on a Stage 2.  Psychic Recharge, Trade, Bloodthirsty Eyes?  Yep all on Stage 2’s.  I even think that Stage 2’s should all have single attachment attacks.  All Basics and Stage 1’s should have high energy count attacks.  There shouldn’t be any Stage 1 with a Double Colorless attack.  That’s just ridiculous.  I’ll go as far as saying that all Stage 2’s should have a one or zero retreat cost too.  Stage 2’s should be the absolute BEST Pokemon in the game in all aspects.

And I totally get that I’m alone in the room on that opinion.  Not a biggie, if you’ve read my reviews for the past two years, you’ll have figured out by now that I’m not afraid to stand by myself on an opinion.  And I’m not afraid to be wrong – I regret being wrong (sigh … Yes I biffed on Erika’s Hospitality) – but I’m not afraid to say that I made a mistake.  I absolutely could and more importantly SHOULD have done some theoretical testing of Erika’s before TEU dropped and I realized I had completely whiffed on her.

But I would love to see an era where Stage 2’s are the best cards in the game, where they rule over all and every deck is an evolution deck. Basics and Stage 1’s are disproportionately easy to get into play.  I remember one game when Swampert Magcargo first came out that I was amazed that I actually got FIVE Swamperts into play over the course of the entire game.  I can get five Basic Pokemon out in one turn in today’s meta, and then layer multiple Stage 1’s on top of them in the turn after that.

I’m not saying that we need to bring back Broken Time-Space – far from it, that card was absolutely appropriately named as we learned from Forest of Giant Plants.  I’m saying the game needs to slow down around it – the game itself needs to change so that we can develop more Stage 2 Pokemon and get them into play. It needs to give Stage 2 Pokemon these crazy HPs – NOT the Big Basics.  The best abilities need to go on Stage 2 Pokemon.

Why?  Because it will make the game better.  It will make the game more complex, and not just complex for the sake of complexity.  It will force you to think ahead more and make better judgments in regards to probability.  It will allow the truly intelligent and talented players to rise to the top in major tournaments.  It will make the game more interesting and more mentally intense.  The amount of choices you’ll have to make will increase, and they will become more difficult decisions as well.

Sorry but I’m just not a big fan of what we saw last weekend.  I watched all of the streamed matches from Oceania.  Big Basic Pokemon slapping other Big Basic Pokemon around.  And not even a variety of Big Basics, it was all the same thing.  I’m so sick and tired of watching Pikarom decks.  It was very unimaginative, reminded me of May 2017 when Drampa Garb was 80% of the decks in Seattle.  And I’m sure that we’ll see more variation in Collinsville and Cannes this weekend, but I doubt any of it will be Stage 2 Pokemon.

Which finally leads me to Boost Energy: this card is just another example of giving Stage 2 Pokemon a real, true, significant advantage… and then attaching so many strings to it that those limitations almost make the advantage a disadvantage.  C’mon Pokemon give Stage 2’s some real love.  I’ll say they’ve done that with some of the Stage 2’s we have: I love Dragonite and I can blow anything out of existence with Chandelure.  But we need more for the Stage 2’s and less for the Big Basics.

Stage 2 decks just can’t compete in this Stage 1 and Big Basic favorable era that we’re now finding ourselves in.  Maybe someday that will change, I look forward to a game that is rich in variety of Stage 2 quality top tier Pokemon… but that day is long way off considering what the designers dropped on us this weekend.

Rating

Standard: N/A (would be something like a 2.5 or 3, I could totally abuse it with Blissey, and cards like Sceptile or Gardevoir GX would use it as well but considering almost every deck was Pikarom or Zoroark this weekend, Boost Energy would have seen very little play).

Otaku

This Throwback should look familiar, considering we most recently reviewed it about a year ago (also because I’m the last review). Why look at Boost Energy (Aquapolis 145/147; EX – Deoxys 93/107; EX – Unseen Forces 98/115; EX – Dragon Frontiers 87/101; POP Series 5 8/17) for the fifth time? To begin with, my original pick for this week was going to be Pokégear 3.0, as we should be getting a reprint of it our May expansion but then 21times pointed out I had us re-review it barely a month ago for that exact reason. Oops.  Japan’s March set has started leaking, though, and it showed a pseudo-reprint of Boost Energy.  Seemed like a good enough reason to me.

If you haven’t read any of the past reviews, the ones before mine, or just need a refresher, Boost Energy is a Special Energy card which provides [CCC] Energy. There are a few drawbacks to it, though:

• It may only be attached to an Evolved Pokémon.
• It discards itself at the end of the turn in which it was attached.
• If it somehow ends up on a non-Evolved Pokémon anyway, it discards itself immediately.
• The Pokémon to which it is attached cannot retreat (it can be sent to the Bench by other effects, though).

This may seem a bit underwhelming if you think of Boost Energy in modern terms, so let us take a moment to consider it from the perspective of the past Standard Formats where it was legal. Of course, that first review of Boost Energy was mostly negative. The short version is that most of the reviewers got it wrong, but it is somewhat forgivable if you understand the circumstances. The TCG wasn’t even five years old back then, they didn’t have Youtube or Twitter or Facebook for learning and sharing information, and Nintendo didn’t start publishing Top 8 results for major events on the official Pokémon website until a few years ago. I mean, that original review is from 2003, when WotC was still in charge!

The concerns raised by the reviewers were and are valid, they were just overstated. Boost Energy is only good for a temporary boost, as the name implies. The “no retreating” clause still seems silly as it is hard to imagine burning a Special Energy card to manually retreat was going to “break” something; it’d be a nice option and sometimes being unable to retreat using Boost Energy hurt. The Standard Format did not have Double Colorless Energy at this time and wouldn’t be getting it back for another seven years. The metagame was slower than the present, with 2HKO’s and 3HKO’s being more common than OHKO’s… I think. You had a decent amount of Evolutions with [CC] and [CCC] costs in their attacks, plus a few with effects that could make additional use of Boost Energy; some changing its Type while others using it for a mandatory discard cost. Eventually, we saw some nice attackers which did more damage based on how much Energy was attached to them, without caring about that Energy’s Type.  Boost Energy also didn’t care about any of the “specialty” mechanics that existed during its time; something other popular, potent Special Energy like Double Rainbow Energy did care about. We reviewed Boost Energy a second time after it was reprinted. Having learned all the things I just mentioned by that point, we scored it well.

About five months later was review number three because Boost Energy had been reprinted again, and nothing significant had changed so we again heaped praise upon it. Fast forward from 2005 to early 2018, when Boost Energy received its fourth review. We looked at it because Super Boost Energy {*} was on the way, and the two do have some in common but Boost Energy does less while being much easier to use. So besides needing a replacement for my originally planned Throwback, Boost Energy receives this fifth CotD because Triple Boost Energy was recently revealed. Triple Boost Energy is simply Boost Energy without the odd “Cannot Retreat” clause. It still can only be attached to an Evolved Pokémon and discards itself if you manage to get it onto a Basic Pokémon anyway. It still discards itself at the end of your turn. Yes, it would much stronger if it could work with Basic Pokémon and stuck around, but that would be stupidly good. We’ve already been teased with new combos for Triple Boost, thanks to the recently revealed Porygon-Z from that same Japanese set: its Ability lets you attach a Special Energy card from your hand to one of your Pokémon as many times as you want during your turn before you attack! Even if Porygon-Z ends up being a bust, we’ll have Gardevoir-GX or something similar that will happily use Triple Boost Energy like a ninefold PlusPower! Plus all the cards with [CCC] in their attack costs, of course.

Ratings

• Standard: N/A
• Expanded: N/A
• Limited: 3.5/5

Boost Energy isn’t Triple Boost Energy, and even if it was, Triple Boost Energy isn’t out yet, so Boost Energy earns a big ol’ “N/A” for Standard and Expanded. WERE it legal, I suspect it would be worth a solid 3.5/5, maybe even 4/5.  It would be competing with Double Colorless Energy in some decks, though others would just run both.  I won’t elaborate on Vincent’s theory that Double Colorless Energy won’t be reprinted again, because I don’t want to get my hopes up.  Odds of being able to afford older packs to use for a Limited Format event aren’t likely, but if you find a way, you’ll also need an Evolution capable of using Boost Energy… which is likely but far from guaranteed.