Triple Acceleration Energy – Pokemon Review

Vince

After looking at Boost Energy at least twice due to Throwbacks, we are now at the actual card. Triple Acceleration Energy may look like Boost Energy, but it is slightly better than the original. It has inherited some of the built in restrictions Boost Energy had except for one thing. While it works for Evolved Pokémon, lasting only one turn, and even discards itself if the Pokémon this energy attached to it is no longer an Evolved Pokemon, one big difference is that the Pokemon with Triple Acceleration Energy can retreat, and with Escape Board, it can take care of nearly all Pokemon up to the retreat cost of CCCC. Yes it provides three units of Colorless energies. Attacks that are Colorless friendly or has the potential to amplify the amount of damage based on how many energies you have WILL love to have this Special energy around!

I did talked about Double Colorless Energy leaving rotation, so unless future releases reprinted them, this new Special energy will be your alternative to providing multiple units of energies aside from Super Boost Energy. It may be unfortunate that this energy card lasts for only a turn, but think of it as a bonus. One scenario I can think of is Whimsicott-GX benefitting with Triple Acceleration Energy by increasing the damage output of Energy Blow, and after the Special energy discards itself, you won’t be heavily punished by having too many energies for your opponent to capitalize of. Gardevoir-GX mirror matches is probably a better example since you can hit harder while your opponent can’t hit you back as hard. It’s even unfortunate that Basic Pokémon cannot take advantage, though with Tag Team GXs on the scene, I suppose this was a balancing factor to not help those Tag Team GXs acquire excess energies via this card. Three for the price of one is still good!

But wait, we’ve got even better combos! Porygon-Z from Unbroken Bonds has a crazy ability – pun intended based on the name of the ability, Crazy Code – such that it is another one of those Pokémon that lets you attach as many energies as you want! In this case, you can attach as many Special Energies as you like to your Pokemon. Imagine if you had four Triple Acceleration Energies and Porygon-Z, you would attain TWELVE Colorless energies for one turn, which for decks that have unlimited scaling of 20x or more, is enough to OHKO most Pokemon in the game. Unfortunately, I don’t see a card that recovers Special energies in Standard, though Expanded has Special Charge from XY Steam Siege that can recover them so that you can use them again!

So far, two good things happened for Triple Acceleration Energy: this is a better version of Boost Energy and Special Energy finally has support in the form of Porygon-Z. The built in restrictions suggests that it’s not for every deck, but in cases where you use Evolved Pokemon, there’s no reason why you won’t run this unless the attack costs aren’t Colorless compliant. Only skip it in Limited if you don’t have worthwhile Evolved Pokémon to use.

Ratings:

Standard: 3.5/5 (A older card with a similar effect that was good before will remain good for this one)

Expanded: 4/5 (Special Charge is in this format. Also, Mega Evolutions and Break Evolutions are considered Evolved Pokémon)

Limited: 4.5/5 (combo it with Whimsicott-GX in this set…)

aroramage

Following up in the realm of multi-Energy Special Energies, seems like we’ve got a new one on the scene, and it is…something!

Triple Acceleration Energy lets Pokemon run three times as fast. Obviously because the Pokemon are in the form of cards, they won’t actually get much out of this bonus, so to compensate for that, the card has a better more relevant effect. Namely, it provides 3 Colorless Energy to the Pokemon it’s attached to, but it gets discarded at the end of the turn and can only be used by an Evolution Pokemon.

This card has some similarities to Super Boost Energy <Prism> and Counter Energy, both of which provide multiple Energies, though SBE provides 4 Energy of any Type, is restricted to Stage 2 Pokemon in particular, and you can only run 1 copy, while Counter Energy only provides 2 Energy if you’ve got more Prizes and it’s attached to a non-EX/GX. I could run down the list of all the Pokemon this actually helps, but the long and short of it is that it works best on Evolutions that have 3 Colorless Energy in their costs. Of course there aren’t many Pokemon that have that much Colorless Energy required outside of Colorless Pokemon, so let’s talk about the next best thing: Pokemon with ONLY Colorless Energy requirements.

As a general rule of thumb, any Evolved Colorless Pokemon pretty much works with this regardless, and while there are some Evolved Pokemon within each Type that have Colorless-only costs in their attacks, most of the attacks themselves tend to, by design, be really underwhelming due to their ease of access – that is, it’s easy to power them up when you can attach whatever you want to them. That being said, Crabominable from this set though has Fight Alone, which does a lot of damage the fewer Pokemon you have in play than your opponent, and it’s completely Colorless! Melmetal also can use this effect with Heavy Impact (as long as he’s got a Metal Energy attached as well), saving you precious Metal Energy to help it recover. And Persian-GX can strike back with an immediate Vengeance out of nowhere! And those are all just from this set, I haven’t even touched on the obvious Zoroark-GX in the bag.

Having a one-shot type of effect to utilize some of the most powerful attacks your Pokemon have is pretty handy, and rounding out these high-Energy costs with such an effect has its uses. At first it might seem a bit much, but turns out it’s not a bad card to have hanging around. Feel free to look through your collection for some good attacks to use with this!

Rating

Standard: 3.5/5 (it won’t fit in every deck, but it works well in what it can fit in)

Expanded: 3/5 (more targets to work with, alongside more ways to get rid of it)

Limited: 2.5/5 (you’re going to need to work your way up to whatever Pokemon you can use this with, but there are a lot of them in the set)

Arora Notealus: Triple Acceleration Energy does in fact live up to its name – immediately ramping up quickly to a strong move for a turn, with the slight drawback being the “burn-out” of going so fast so quickly. That is to say, it’s like your Pokemon got superpowered for a brief moment, only to then lose its power after one attack. It can be tough to beat with that initial burst, but afterwards it’s got to work back up to that move. Or you play another Triple Acceleration Energy on your next turn.

Next Time: Shifting gears into shifting shadows!

Otaku

Time for another card that didn’t make our Top 11 but was nominated for it, and should also be pretty important to the metagame: Triple Acceleration Energy (SM – Unbroken Bonds 190/214, 234/214). It provides [CCC] while attached to an Evolution Pokémon. What’s an “Evolution Pokémon”? There is a ruling which answers that, though somewhat indirectly:

Triple Acceleration Energy (Unbroken Bonds)

Q. If an Evolution Pokemon has been put directly into play by using Greninja & Zoroark GX’s “Dark Union GX” attack can I attach Triple Acceleration Energy to it?
A. Yes, as long as the Evolution Pokemon says “Evolves from…” on it. (Unbroken Bonds FAQ; May 2, 2019 TPCi Rules Team)

So, what does it provide for Basic, Restored, and the more obscure “non-Evolution” Pokémon? Nothing. In fact, Triple Acceleration Energy states that it can only be attached to Evolution Pokémon, and while that technically only bars attaching it from hand, a later clause states you must discard Triple Acceleration Energy if it somehow winds up attached to something that is not an Evolution Pokémon. The final part of Triple Acceleration Energy’s effect is that it discards itself at the end of the turn in which it was attached even when it was properly attached to an Evolution Pokémon.

16 years ago, when Boost Energy (Aquapolis 145/147; EX – Deoxys 93/107; EX – Unseen Forces 98/115; EX – Dragon Frontiers 87/101; POP Series 5 8/17) released with a very similar effect, I recall being underwhelmed. Boost Energy was restricted to Evolved Pokémon (instead of Evolution Pokémon) and states the Pokémon with Boost Energy attached cannot retreat. If I wasn’t impressed right away, that quickly changed.  We’re in a very fast Format right now, where OHKO’s and 2HKO’s are the norm. Access an attack a turn or two early; if your opponent KO’s the attacker afterward, then it makes no difference that Triple Acceleration Energy discarded itself. If your opponent is using an attack that hits harder based on the Energy attached to your Active, the discard might even help you out. If your Active does survive, even if you don’t have anything you can do with your Active now… you’re still ahead. It used an attack it couldn’t have used the previous turn, possibly still couldn’t use this turn, and your Active is still around. Power it up again, heal it, switch it out, etc.

There are many times when you need to discard Energy as part of an effect’s cost, or the retreat mechanic. Triple Acceleration Energy can be used for such costs guilt-free… well, it is a bit of a waste if you use it for lower costs, but [CC] and up seems like a good deal. You enjoyed a massive [CCC] Energy spike but you’re no worse off in terms of Energy than if you’d discarded three other units of Energy. Max Potion also presents combo opportunities; flush away all damage between using attacks that cost [CC] or [CCC], since you won’t be out any additional Energy. Yes, these are all very, very simple uses for this card… but they’re still incredibly effective. Now, what if your Pokémon doesn’t need [CCC] but still needs [CC]? You can still take advantage of Triple Acceleration Energy! A Zoroark-GX deck, for example, can run four Double Colorless Energy cards and four Triple Acceleration Energy; while you’ll only be able to attack once per Triple Acceleration Energy, instead of digging for just four Energy cards, you’ll have eight in your deck. Attacking with Gadevoir-GX? It’s “Infinite Force” attack costs [Y] BUT it does 30 damage per Energy attached to both Active Pokémon… so you can use Gardevoir-GX’s “Secret Spring” to attach a basic Fairy Energy from hand to cover the printed cost, then manually attach a Triple Acceleration Energy from hand for +90 damage!

Looking ahead, as of right now, Double Colorless Energy is gone from the Standard Format as of the next rotation on August 15th; at that point, while far less effective, your only option will be Triple Acceleration Energy. For now, though, Triple Acceleration Energy is a very good card for the Standard, the Expanded, and even the Limited Format. It isn’t for every deck, but when you just need “extra” Double Colorless Energy cards OR can make full use of [CCC] in one shot, it’s great. It might actually be a bit better in Expanded, where you’ve got Special Charge to recycle them and (possibly) more Pokémon to utilize it (depends on the actual metagame). You’ll have a harder time pulling stuff to work with it in Limited, but even just as an aid to manually retreating it is useful, so again, high marks.

Ratings

Standard: 3.5/5

Expanded: 3.5/5

Limited: 3.5/5

If our Top 11 countdown had been a Top 20, Triple Acceleration Energy would have taken 19th place. For my personal list, I had it as my 17th place pick; it was good, but this was a huge set with several other “good” and even “great” cards.