Gligar's INTRO Articles to Pokemon
(An ipgeek21.com EXCLUSIVE!!!)

Article 3: Energy Energy is the key to attacking. That is a fact that everyone knows. Fire pokemon need fire energy, water pokemon need water energy. So why am I writing an article about energy? Because, there are other things to energy. Combos and balance being the main issues. Read and enjoy ^_^. Balance is the key to preserving energy, yet not overdoing it. Learning how much energy a deck needs is an art really. It depends on the pokemon that you use. If you have fast hitting pokemon that need very few energy, then use little energy in your deck. It's the opposite with hard hitters. It is far far more complex than that though. Here is an example of figuring energy. Here are the Pokemon that Joe plans to use in a deck: 4 Vulpix 3 Ninetales 3 Base Electabuzz 3 Fossil Magmar From this, Joe knows that he is only going to use 1-2 ninetales in the game. He will only get about 1-2 Electabuzz and Magmar. He thinks that if he will only get 1-2 Electabuzz, and they will only need one electric energy, that he will only 1-2 the whole game. For reassurance, he uses 4-5 electric energy. Knowing that Ninetales takes up a lot of energy, and that 16-20 energy will be enough, he uses 14-16 fire energy. After playtesting, he added Nighly Garbage Run so he didn't need as many fire energy, this is what he decided on: 5 Electric Energy 14 Fire Energy This is a way to decide energy. Another important factor must not be overlooked. You must decide if you have enough draw power to get the energy that you have decided on. If you run a low energy count, then you should have low costing attacks, and a good search engine to make up for it. Don't be afraid to use much lower energy than you would normally use. If you have a lot of card drawing, you will not need 28 energy. 10-25 is enough. It depends on the Pokemon and search engine. Here is a bad example of too many energy: 4 Rocket Zapdos 4 Electabuzz 3 Hitmonchan 3 Gligar 15 Electic Energy 15 Fighting Energy That is WAY too much. All of the Pokemon require very little energy. The energy should be lower, and look somewhat like this: 8-9 Electric Energy 5-8 Fighting Energy The basic formula for energy counts, would Be this: You will probably only use 1/3-2/3 of the Pokemon that you have. Figure how much they would need depending on energy requirements. Add or take some energy, and see if you have the search engine too do it. Then playtest and figure out if you have too many or little. Remember to stay in 10-25 range depending on the Pokemon and search engine! So go and adjust your energy count, and start winning more battles! -Gligar

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