Explaining Modern Pokémon TCG Gameplay

11/16/2024

Recently, I've been workshopping some ideas for Pokémon TCG videos on Bluesky. I think it would be fun to do that, but in that process someone asked me about how the modern game is played. I thought these were great questions. In case Bluesky explodes one day, here are the contents of that post.

"Several things, like how/why most competitive deck lists I see have only like 6-8 energy cards, the role of tutoring in the game (probably related to the first point), are Pokémon that you evolve even viable still, is going wide even possible in the game or are you building up an ace?"

I'm going to split these up into four sections, though they'll tie together a bit. On the off chance this article gets read by new people, here's some background me. I've been a regular player for two years; my entry point for locals and paper play was around the time Lost Origin came out. Since then, I've become a devotee and major fan of this game, its history, and relation to other card games. I watch nearly every regional event, and just generally fixate on this game. If you want ultra-high, regional or up level competitive advice, you've got no shortage of top players making content. I'm a fan of OmniPoke and AzulGG is an overall trustworthy voice, I feel. For this game's history, I cannot recommend enough Ruby Retro's YouTube Channel and World Champion Jason Klazcynski's blog.

What I'm going to attempt to do is attempt to bridge the gap in knowledge. As I mentioned somewhat recently, for whatever reasons, the Trading Card Game seems to be a bit of a blindspot for people. You might know some things about it, or nothing at all, or played twenty years ago, or just read a few cards. This is for you! By covering bloomf's questions, I think we'll hit upon what the modern Pokémon TCG is like.

So, question one...

Why are the Energy counts so low?

If you're of a certain age, you might remember some old deckbuilding adages. This is something parents and other folks have asked about at locals. What happened to 20/20/20? That is, twenty Pokémon, twenty trainers, and twenty energy cards. This isn't some obscure thing a kid in Florida came up with. This was stuff you would read in guidebooks! While competitive, major tournament-winning decks of the time (let's say, 2000) don't quite hit that exact ratio, many are somewhat close. If we go back one year to 1999, we see that 20+(!) Energy decks were the norm.

So, was there something wrong with that? Well, not exactly. For one, we must remember that trading card games in general were relatively new. If we're talking '99 or so, it's not like you had anything else to go on! There were no major tournaments for a while, and it was certainly not like today, where we can regularly look to regular regional-level gameplay for innovations. What we would think of today as aggressive play or optimal deckbuilding was just not the same back then. Pokémon, at this time, was a slower game. Or it was supposed to be, maybe. Resource management was a big part of the game, as it is now, but not in the same way. You would try to speed that game up with powerful (and unlimited use per turn!) Trainer cards and low maintenance basic Pokémon (usually). As Jason Klazcynski points out, some of the Trainer cards of the Base Set-Fossil-ish era would make today's cards blush. They're strong, ridiculously so.

But at that time, pulling Energy cards out of your deck was rare. The first printing of Energy Search came in Fossil, but it seems like the wisdom of the time must have been to just run the Energy card you're going to find with it instead. You're fighting against your own discard pile if you're aggressively drawing with Professor Oak, or drawing more slowly with Bill, and you're also fighting against the evil powers of Super Energy Removal.*** You still had to draw into it. Energy acceleration (that is, attaching Energy to your Pokémon outside of the rules-alloted once per turn) was also nearly as common at this time. So there was more of an emphasis on making sure you do it every turn if you could. Everyone loves Rain Dance Blastoise and Base Set Electrode has an effect that still gets printed, including in our latest set, Surging Sparks with Magneton. But generally speaking, those are the reasons we saw higher Energy counts back then. You still had to draw into them, you're fighting against removal, and things were a bit slower overall.

**Someone else on Bluesky asked (not me, directly) where Energy Removal effects went in the modern game. The answer is to hell. Super Energy Removal is one of the most unfun cards in Pokémon's history, at least in my view. It was banned in Japan (along with the less evil but still strong Energy Removal) because they result in nothing happening for countless turns. They suck. Energy removal effects are now almost always on coin flips (or other, niche places) because consistent and easy Energy removal can still end up stalling out the game. We're not getting into Snorlax Stall right now.

Okay, so what's different now?

First off, of course it depends on the deck. I'll show off a few meta decks that should illustrate this.

Let's look at a current deck that almost certainly wins the contest for lowest Energy counts. Charizard ex, from Obsidian Flames. Charizard ex's Ability allows it to pull 3 Fire Energy from the deck, and place them in any way the player desires. Obviously, this is extremely strong. If we take a look at a recent 1st place Charizard list, we see just five Fire Energy in the deck, as well as one Mist Energy (this is a tech for one matchup, Roaring Moon). This is a pretty common configuration for the deck lately.

Your Energy is pretty safe in your deck, compared to your hand. Your opponent cannot send your precious Fire Energy out of your hand with, say, Iono, where you must spend some kind of resource to get it back. Energy is also pretty much totally safe in your discard pile. It's easy to put back into your deck thanks to Super Rod, a staple and very versatile card.

With all this in mind, before the next deck, I'll further explain. From a modern deckbuilding perspective, there are two things to consider. One is that we don't want to run any more Energy than we absolutely need, barring in mind that one (or more) Energy cards could get Prized. In Charizard's example, we need a lot of cards and multiples of them to help us set up. We don't want to cut our precious opening cards like Buddy-Buddy Poffin, Nest Ball, or recovery cards like Super Rod and Night Stretcher. You better not cut any Rare Candy, since we want to evolve Charizard when we need it. To get all those, we need Arven, and...you get the picture. Basically, any room we can make for tech cards or consistency or whatever is useful.

That leads to our second point, which is that in the Pokémon Trading Card game, single card techs and differences are meaningful deck building choices. This is why that space in the deck is so valuable. Did you notice the deck only runs two Charizard ex? And two Pidgeot ex? Remember that Mist Energy I mentioned? That's really all the deck needs to turn that one matchup around. There are quite a few cards in the deck at two or less. You don't need to Dusclops/Dusknoir more than once in a game, usually, (though you could try, if you use Super Rod and your Ball/Candy cards wisely) so you get a 2-1-1 line starting from Duskull.

You might be thinking to yourself "Gee, I would run 6 Fire, or a 3rd Charizard", etc etc. That's great! Welcome to deckbuilding and decision-making in Pokémon! Thoughts like that, more often than not, matter!

Let's look at Raging Bolt ex, a deck I'm decently fond of for its relative simplicity and power level. Raging Bolt's Bellowing Thunder attack does 70 damage for each Energy you choose to discard from all of your Pokémon. Yes, the damage scaling on this is fantastic. This list I linked runs the typical Energy configuration that's emerged. 6 Grass , 3 Fighting and 3 Lightning . That's 12, which is exactly double what our Charizard example ran.

Keep in mind while we talk about this one that Ancient Pokémon have access to Professor Sada's Vitality, which is a ridiculously good card and justifies the lower counts of Fighting and Lightning.

A quick scan of the Raging Bolt deck should reveal most of its strategy, even to newcomers. Teal Mask Ogerpon ex works as both a draw engine, and the source of your discardable Energy for Raging Bolt. It serves double duty and is highly valued for the deck. Since we want the Grass Energy back in our hand to use for Ogerpon, the deck runs the regular Energy Retrieval. We don't care that the Fighting and Lightning end up in the discard pile, we WANT it there so we can Professor Sada nearly every turn. Sada and your Energy attach per-turn is your way to power up Raging Bolt itself.

Earlier, I mentioned that there weren't always as many ways to just pull Energy from your deck to your hand. Today, Earthen Vessel exists and is a card featured in many decks. Charizard would be the exception, here, as its strategy demands the exact opposite. More powerful Energy searching Items and Supporters have existed in the game for a while, it varies with the era, but Earthen Vessel's downside is often an upside. With a high count of Earthen Vessel and Nest Ball, it's not unreasonable to get Ogerpon going quickly, and draw into your other vital pieces. Since this deck CAN attack on its first turn, going second, it tries to, which is why Squakabilly ex features in the list.

So, to recap. Energy counts in the game are overall lower because...

  • Modern deckbuilding suggests we should run as few as possible to make room for other cards.
  • It can be (relatively) easy to get Energy out of your deck.
  • More reliable Energy acceleration to the board exists in the game.

The degree to which any of these three are true is on a per-deck basis, but I believe the concepts hold true.

What Is The Role of Tutoring/Search?

As I mentioned above, it's fairly easy to get Energy out of your deck and into your hand/board, but we'll examine general search ability for this question.

In general, I would rank the card types ease of search as such...

  • 1. Pokémon

    • Getting Pokémon out, or into your hand, is not usually difficult. It is a feature of many Items, Abilities, and Supporters. And, they can be played on the bench at any time they are in your hand (unless you have a full bench, of course). In our Standard format, we have Nest Ball, Buddy-Buddy Poffin, and Ultra Ball, which cover a lot of ground together. Also just introduced in our format is Tera Orb, a clean one-for-one for Terastalized Pokémon. You still want to use these resources wisely, because getting an Item card back from the discard pile is an extremely rare effect.

  • 1.5. Energy

    • This one is kind of tricky if we rank it, because it varies so much from deck to deck. It's usually a part of item cards, but we can also look at something like Chien-Pao ex, which can just rip two Water Energy right ouf the deck. Couldn't ask for much more than that! Earthen Vessel, meanwhile, is so strong that it sort of warps this whole category. There's also stuff like Mirage Gate, which gets two different Basic Energy cards out of your deck and onto your Pokémon. That card will leave Standard at some point in 2025, but you can see how there's a variety of effects that deal with Energy.

  • 2. Items, Tools

    • Item cards will usually make up the majority of a decks composition. Naturally, you are more likely to simply draw into them. There's no limit on many Items you can play in a turn, but trying to find a specific Item you want is rare. This is an effect that's usually left to Supporters (Arven), good Abilities, or niche Attack effects.

    Beginning with Scarlet/Violet, Tool cards are now a separate type of card from Items. I won't go in depth about that split, and I'll simply group them together in terms of searchability.

  • 3. Supporters

    • Supporters are some of the strongest cards in the game, but are among the hardest to get on command. Makes sense, right? Pokégear 3.0 is a decently common include in many decks to help increase your chances of getting the Supporter you want, when you need it. You really don't have a ton of sway in here.

With that in mind, we can see how a card like Pidgeot ex and its "get ANY card out of your deck, into your hand" is very valuable. Gee, I would totally win this turn if I had my Boss' Orders!

That's the general state of searching in the Pokémon TCG. It's fairly sensible, and with strong options for early game draw that don't throw away resources like Iono you can hopefully get out of a bad start.

Are Evolution Pokémon Still Viable?

This is a topic that is discussed all the time at almost all levels of play. I will try my best to explain it without getting to the massive scope of everything that goes into this question. But, in my opinion, yes, they are viable.

This seems to be a design goal of the Scarlet and Violet era, which reintroduced evolving ex Pokémon that are of the appropriate evolution stage. You must evolve Pidgey or Pidgeotto into Pidgeot ex. Same with Charizard ex, Dragapult ex, and Gardevoir ex. Of course, there are still Basic ex cards as well, like the Paradox Pokémon, any Ogerpon ex, Terapagos ex, you get the idea.

In the Sword/Shield era, of which we will still have cards from until that 2025 rotation, there were Pokémon V, VMAX, and VSTAR. Pokémon V are all basic two-prizers, regardless of if it's an Evolved Pokémon or not. Notice here how Beedrill V is a Basic. VMAX and VSTAR evolve from their respective V. Which style of multi-prizer is in the format has a lot of design and gameplay implications, and it's something they go back and forth on. Black/White and XY have this style of "Big Basic" two-prize Pokémon that don't match the evolution stage. But Ruby/Sapphire, Diamond/Pearl, and Sun/Moon (at first) had evolving multi-prize Pokémon of the correct stage.

Right now, I would say that "Big Basic" (including VSTAR) and "Evolution" decks are living in relative harmony, though that might undersell the current power of decks like Regidrago VSTAR and Lugia VSTAR. Rotom V is an important feature in Charizard, many decks run Lumineon V, etc, etc.

Naturally, in this game, you want to be set-up and taking Prize cards as soon as possible. That will never not be the objective, unless you play a Stall deck. The less set up work you have to do, the faster you can start winning. Speed is a big deal in Pokémon (and also, its own complicated topic), and you can't really design this objective out of the game. As competitive players, we're naturally inclined to decks that can perform quickly and without much hassle.

The big Stage 2 ex Pokémon that are in the format are worth the extra hassle and deck space. Charizard ex is an enormous Pokémon that can be hard to knock-out at times, and becomes stronger as the game goes on. Gardevoir's Ability to accelerate Energy is crazy. Dragapult can set up it's own 4 prize turns.

I, personally, think that the evolving ex format brings interesting gameplay and design opportunities. I would kill to be a fly on the call at the Creatures Inc office and wonder what they think. But things like a good Charmeleon or a Ralts that can stall just aren't fun things that come up when the other style of Big Basic is involved.

If you think it doesn't matter, last weekend I watched my friend Knock Out a Raging Bolt ex with this exact Pidgey and Radiant Alakazam. It added up to the 40 Damage he needed for the final, game-winning knockout, and he didn't have another Dragapult ex set up. The other Pidgey doesn't have an attack for one Energy, so yeah. Things like that can happen sometimes! I love when your single prize Pokémon choices matter, even if it's unusual, clutch situations.

It is really hard to say what will happen in formats going forward. Not all Evolution ex and Basic ex Pokémon are made equal. That alone is going to be a big factor in what gameplay looks like. We don't know what cards are coming. When we lose all Pokémon V, it's thought that the format could slow down at least a little bit, which may allow for more Evolution strategies to enter the metagame. But a deck like Raging Bolt ex doesn't really lose anything in rotation, one of the biggest, baddest, fastest Basic decks of all. Miraidon ex will still be with us, and we'll still have our supporting Basic ex cards like Fezandipiti ex and Squakabilly ex. Roaring Moon ex will lose Dark Patch in that rotation, but we'll see if it's able to adapt. Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex will be available for pretty much any deck to use, if the player deems it fit.

Also a part of this conversation are cards like Cursed Blast Dusknoir. This is a Pokémon you usually wouldn't attack with (unless you wanted to? Gardevoir ex exists.), but does a Stage 2 Pokémon that exists almost entirely for utility and KOs itself count as a "viable evolution"? What about the cool new Quaquaval that probably pairs pretty nicely with Quaquaval ex? That would probably count, since a big Stage 2 of the same line is also your attacker. I'll let you ruminate on this question, now that you've learned so much about Pokémon!

But I believe it's fair to say, looking at the Standard format now, that Evolution Pokémon are viable. They're here right now, and have some chance to become more prominent going forward. Stay tuned!

Going Wide Vs Building An Ace

This one is a bit simpler to answer, but I don't want to discourage anyone from trying their 'Box' style ideas. Most of the time in the Pokémon Trading Card Game, you are building around one particular attacker or otherwise important Pokémon.

Pokémon's general "color pie" (as you might say in Magic the Gathering) is not nearly as concepted or designed as other games with colored Mana/Digimon/whatever. That is to say, there's not really a "Grass" playstyle, a "Fire" playstyle, or a "Metal"*** playstyle, with which you slot in your favorite Pokémon of that type into a support shell. This aspect of the game has varied somewhat over time, and there's some nuance to the idea in our game today.

There are cards that do interact with one Pokémon type or on Energy type. One of the best examples would be Janine's Secret Art, which attaches Dark Energy to Dark Pokémon from the discard pile. This is useful for any Dark deck, as is Dark Patch. This card seems like it was primarily designed for the Loyal Trio deck, but there's absolutely nothing stopping you from using it with something else. Baxcalibur gets the classic "Rain Dance" effect that is often a staple of Water in the game. Electric Generator and especially Miraidon ex defining Electric gameplay. So it's not like they don't pay any attention to types having a gameplay identity or themeing.

But not every type in the game gets a Janine or Dark Patch, or at least they don't get cards that strong. This can change very drastically with just one or two new cards in a set, so I don't want to single out any particular type today. I do recall that Grass and Grass Energy were considered somewhat pitiful for a while until the release of Teal Mask Ogerpon ex, having mostly just the merely solid Gardenia's Vigor.

Recall what we discussed earlier about A) Deck space really mattering and B) Tech cards really mattering. These conditions mean that running a backup or secondary attacker can be tricky, unless it turns a losing matchup into a winning one, which it can. If you were wondering what this Slither Wing was doing in Raging Bolt, it's to not get hosed by Iron Thorns ex. So, any attacker that isn't your main one has to justify its existence in some way, which can be a fun challenge in deckbuilding.

A big exception to all this is Gardevoir ex. Because of its Ability, the deck can pretty much tech or build around ANY Psychic Pokémon it deems useful at the moment. Recently, that's transformed into Banette ex, a cool card that massively slows down your opponent with an Item lock effect. Similarly, the aforementioned Baxcalibur and Chien Pao could tech in all kinds of attackers, because the Water Energy can be applied anywhere. This allowed it to include Iron Hands ex, a potentially devastating card against single-prize or evolution decks, if you were cracked.

Another roadbump here are Terastalized Pokémon, which, like the game, can shift their type into another. For those that do, In the TCG, they keep their original Energy requirements, but gain the new attacking type and weakness. Notice how Charizard ex is weak to Grass and became a Dark type, but still attacks with Fire Energy. In Charizard's case, it probably enables more Fire decks to exist, if someone wanted to use it for that, because it's such a strong Ability. There are also Stellar Tera Pokémon, which have challenging mixed Energy requirements for their powerful attacks. So, what does Pikachu ex running Grass and Metal Energy mean for your concept of a Lightning deck? Do Magneton, Miraidon, and Pikachu count as close enough?

So, it's still complicated. Another aspect of gameplay is making sure that you do have attackers ready, assuming your first one will be knocked out. It's great if it isn't, but you've gotta keep it moving as best you can. Is having a second Charizard or Dragapult ready to go "wide"? Is having Slither Wing ready "wide"? I'm going imagine that for most people's ideas, it's not. But those examples are still worth bringing up.

Fair enough to say, Pokemon decks are based around an ace, with ocassional options for backups or secondary attackers.

***Types in the TCG don't always share names with game counterparts. You get used to it. Electric is called Lightning, Steel is called Metal, and Dark is called Darkness, officially. Everyone just calls it Dark anyway, though.

Okay, I think that covers all the ground I wanted to, as far as those four specific questions go. There's so, so much more about this game that I haven't gotten into today. As I've always said, it hides a ton of depth and strategy behind an approachable framework. It's also really fun to mess with decks off-meta and experiment with what's possible! A lot of cool cards have hidden potential!

If you want to play the Pokémon TCG yourself, the fastest and easiest way is Pokémon TCG Live. I don't love this game, it's pretty buggy, but it's the official simulator where you can craft cards and play online. This is a great place to try out some underutilized cards and have fun. You and a friend may also be able to use LimitlessTCG's tabletop mode and some Discord screensharing for playtesting. A fan made simulator has been in developement, called Twinleaf, but we don't know when it will be made avaliable to the public.

If you ever have any questions about this game, or just wanna chat about it, you can hit me up on Bluesky.

Oh, the thumbnail for this article is Surging Sparks Gholdengo. I just thought it would look nice, and it's a modern Pokémon.

Card images are used courtesy pkmncards.com and LimitlessTCG.

See you later!

- Jane