How do find the right number of energy cards?
- Thread starter Ryoko
- Start date
vaporeon
Moderator
I judge energy counts based on what you want your deck to do. If I play a deck that has no energy acceleration or ways to move and maintain energy ( 1 hard attachment per turn) then at least 14 energy works. This all depends on how heavy the attack cost are. I use the EX legendary birds in my deck and they require 4 energy to attack but I also use a strategy that keeps energy in play so I can get away with 12, though 14 would help.
If you are using a deck that dumps a lot of energy a turn on to attacks, decks like Blastoise and Emboar, then 12 works fine. With the release of Prof Letter, letting you grab 2 energy from the deck (a lot better then Energy Search) You can play little energy, but have faster ways to get to them, allowing for more use of other cards. If you want to play a deck that requires trainer and attack based energy acceleration, 14 works because you need to see the energy first before you can do anything with it.
At the end of the day, this all depends on what attackers you choose and how you run the deck. I hope this helped and good luck.
If you are using a deck that dumps a lot of energy a turn on to attacks, decks like Blastoise and Emboar, then 12 works fine. With the release of Prof Letter, letting you grab 2 energy from the deck (a lot better then Energy Search) You can play little energy, but have faster ways to get to them, allowing for more use of other cards. If you want to play a deck that requires trainer and attack based energy acceleration, 14 works because you need to see the energy first before you can do anything with it.
At the end of the day, this all depends on what attackers you choose and how you run the deck. I hope this helped and good luck.
ArcticPhoenix46
New Member
I remember people talking about half of your deck should be energy when Pokemon TCG was something in here
Yeah, that will help me deckbuilding. Thanks.
I follow the half rule at prerelease tournaments. 14 is a good number for most decks. Playtesting is the only real way to know tho
ShadowCard
Active Member
Agreed, half of the deck in energy is usually what I end up with in draft/sealed events. Sometimes this is because there are so many types of pokemon and the amount of draw/search is not powerful so the higher number of each type is needed. Sometimes you just run out of things to put into the deck, because of an absence of trainers or because you did not get enough solid evolution lines, so energy cards are all that is left to get your deck up to 40.
In a Constructed deck, you have more search at your disposal. You can afford to run only 1 or 2 of a type of energy because you can target it specifically with cards like Energy Search (now Professor's Letter). 10 is about the minimum level of energy in a deck. Even if you have pokemon with cheap energy costs, you start not being able to draw those cards at less than 10. Professor's Letter helps that but our current format has more of a "draw a massive hand and see what you find" and most of the search is pokemon search. Even decks that pull energy out of the discard and so recycle it, less than 10 starts to be a stretch. For an upper limit, more than 15 starts to be excessive. This usually comes at the cost of your trainers. Even if you run a deck with very few pokemon, you would use the spare space for trainers to find the pokemon and energy. You wouldn't add in energy.
In a Constructed deck, you have more search at your disposal. You can afford to run only 1 or 2 of a type of energy because you can target it specifically with cards like Energy Search (now Professor's Letter). 10 is about the minimum level of energy in a deck. Even if you have pokemon with cheap energy costs, you start not being able to draw those cards at less than 10. Professor's Letter helps that but our current format has more of a "draw a massive hand and see what you find" and most of the search is pokemon search. Even decks that pull energy out of the discard and so recycle it, less than 10 starts to be a stretch. For an upper limit, more than 15 starts to be excessive. This usually comes at the cost of your trainers. Even if you run a deck with very few pokemon, you would use the spare space for trainers to find the pokemon and energy. You wouldn't add in energy.
rileysill32
New Member
I almost always find that 13 is the magic number. Depending on the attack costs of the main strategy I have going, I may drop to 11-12 with energy searchable items.