Energy Exchanger is one of those cards it is hard to believe
isn't a reprint or an update.
Energy Exchanger has you place an Energy card from your hand on top of your deck, then allows you to search your deck for an Energy card and add it to your hand. Perhaps the effect seems so familiar since it is basically
Pokemon Trader or
Pokemon Communication, but for Energy cards, and
Pokemon Trader has been with us on and off since the original Base Set! You're hand is down by two cards (though one has merely been returned to the deck), but if your deck should run this, you'll have significantly improved the
quality of your available Energy card.
So this card provides something quite rare in the Pokemon TCG: a reliable, if somewhat costly, method of obtaining Special Energy. Barring disruption, of course.
While writing this article I went to bounce this card off a returning player who was still relearning the card pool: he had dismissed this as inferior to
Energy Search because he didn't notice
any Energy, and
not just Basic Energy cards were legal targets.
While not a must run for all or even most decks, there are many that
need to get their Special Energy cards to hand quick and reliably, and can't afford to rely on mass draw or search based effects. I don't think this would be all that useful for Unlimited play just because that format features blisteringly fast draw and general search: odds are you'll either
Professor Oak into what you need or have the cards in hand to
Computer Search for it. In Limited play it will depend on what your running. Most of the time it will be at least good: you'll be running multiple Energy types and sometimes all of a particular Energy will be buried, plus it always gives you a peak at your deck. If you have something splashed in with very few of its needed Energy or actually pull some Darkness or Metal-Type Pokemon and their respective Special Energy card(s), then you'll most definitely be running it!
Ratings
Unlimited: 6/10
Modified (MD-On): 7/10
Modified (HGSS-On): 8/10
Limited: 7/10
Summary
Energy Exchanger most definitely has a niche use, and it isn't an especially small niche: if the format had a greater variety of Special Energy as some older ones had (I am thinking specifically of
Call Energy and
Warp Energy) this actually would be huge for most decks, as there is a definite appeal to having access to single or double copies of those cards regularly.
