aroramage |
HOLY COW I REMEMBER THIS CARD
Throwback Thursdays hit the
nostalgia button on an old card from nearly 20 years
ago...or, actually 20 years ago if we're looking at the
Japanese release. Energy Removal is a card from a
different era. Back then, there weren't any of these
crazy EX and GX Pokemon running around, no Tools to
power up, no Abilities...well, okay, they had
Poke-Powers, but they function very differently. The
game was simpler, HP capped at around 120, and the only
thing limiting you from drawing cards was how many Bills
or Professor Oaks you were running.
But I digress. Energy Removal is a
staple card of its time, and with good reason. As its
name would imply, it removes an Energy from your
opponent's Pokemon. I'm sure if the card was reprinted
nowadays, it would be guaranteed to see a ton of play,
making cards like Vileplume and Seismitoad-EX all the
more powerful, ESPECIALLY given all the Special Energies
we've gotten in recent years. Keep in mind this card was
never limited in what type of Energy could be discarded.
It was the first step to tripping
your opponent up and giving yourself the fighting
chance. Take out their Energy, attach your own, and keep
smacking them around until they've got nothing to show
for it. That's all Energy Removal was and is. Simple
bliss.
Rating
Standard: N/A (in its time, 5/5. if
it were around today, 5/5)
Expanded: N/A (as it were, though,
it hasn't seen another printing since Base Set 2...and
that's probably for the best)
Limited: 5/5 (because there are so
very few cards of its kind, and it's probably for the
best that it doesn't come back)
Arora Notealus: Can you imagine
trying to fill your deck with 4 of this, 4 Professor
Oaks, 4 Bills, and then all the other cards you need to
run? I mean this is already 12 cards right there, and
that's not even including Computer Search! Different
times man.
Next Time: He will teach you the
ways of the draw.
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Otaku |
This Throwback
Thursday we are going way back, to the days of
Base Set. There are many Trainer cards
released in this set that would shape the game until
their eventual rotation with the implementation of the
original Modified (Standard) Format. In a sense,
their influence extends beyond as many later
cards (including some used in most decks today)
are just nerfed versions of what players enjoyed (and/or
cursed) back in the day. In most cases, losing any
one of them would noticeably alter how the game played
back in the day, and some would affect the Unlimited
Format even today if they suddenly were banned. I
still lack a good source for contemporary Unlimited
Format expertise, but I’ll do the best I can with the
bits I have found here and there. Our first
subject is a card that is a bit easy to shortchange; not
in terms of it having been a great card back in the day,
but in exactly how much significant a role it played in
shaping early Pokémon metagame, and even our thinking
for years later. Today we look at Energy
Removal (Base Set 92/102; Base Set 2
119/130), a Trainer card that discards an Energy card
from one of your opponent’s Pokémon. At the time
it releases, there was only one kind of Trainer, which
behaved like present-day Item cards; in fact, when using
older cards you now treat Energy Removal as an
Item card. This means you’re discarding a
potentially once-per-turn resource for something that
can be played as often as you like per turn. There
was also Super Energy Removal, which required you
discard an Energy card from one of your Pokémon in play,
but it allowed you to discard two Energy cards
from one of your opponent’s Pokémon. As you can
imagine, that is going to be a lopsided trade under most
circumstances, though not all.
Let us start with
the card’s historical usage, as I think that will give
us the best idea of how to use this card, and why it was
so important to how that history unfolded. Base Set
included no anti-Trainer effects except Lass,
which forced both players to reveal their hands
to each other, then shuffle away all Trainer cards found
therein. For Trainer support, it had Item
Finder, which allowed you to reclaim a Trainer from
your discard pile at the cost of discarding two
additional cards from hand. Doesn’t sound too bad
or too good, but this was a time of incredible draw and
search power, so it was quite easy to get an Energy
Removal or two into your hand. Don’t believe
me? Take two of the best Trainers in the
Expanded play cases and make them better;
Professor Oak works just like Professor Juniper
or Professor Sycamore, except it was a “normal”
Trainer (worked like an Item). Computer Search
was originally another “normal” Trainer (Item) in
Base Set and didn’t become an Ace Spec until being
re-released years later. Players didn’t have
Pokémon-EX or Pokémon-GX back then, but what we did have
were “big, Basic Pokémon.” The name is a bit misleading
as it wasn’t just about having a lot of HP but having
solid, single Energy attacks. In fact, the big,
Basic Pokémon usually had only about 70 HP, at a time
when they could have had up to 120, but damage output
was much lower and even with cards like PlusPower,
70 was usually safe from being OHKO’d… because of
Energy Removal and Super Energy Removal.
Thanks to there
being easy, inexpensive options for discarding Energy
cards in play, it was very difficult for anything to use
an attack that costs more than an Energy, barring those
strategies with effective Energy acceleration. If
an attack couldn’t make use of Double Colorless
Energy or take advantage of Blastoise (Base
Set 2/102; Base Set 2 2/130) and it’s “Rain
Dance” Pokémon Power for Energy acceleration, it needed
to cost just one Energy or it probably wasn’t getting
used. This basically included all the attacks on
Pokémon other than big Basics which could KO big,
Basic Pokémon. Evolutions already had it rough, as
the best of the big, Basic attackers could use
PlusPower and Gust of Wind (Lysandre
as an Item) to KO an Evolving Basic; you pretty much
had to Bench two of whatever Pokémon you needed to
Evolve so that one would survive, at least until you had
a threat your opponent couldn’t ignore. The reason
why I tend to fixate on Energy Removal and
Super Energy Removal is because there actually was
an answer to speedy Basic attackers in Base Set:
Electrode (Base Set 21/102; Base Set 2
25/130); its Pokémon Power “Buzzap” allowed you to KO it
(your opponent would still take a Prize) and then
Electrode would become an Energy card that provided
two units of Energy of your choice. You chose what
Type when you activated Buzzap; both units of Energy
became and stayed that Type until discarded.
Which is where
Energy Removal and Super Energy Removal threw
things out of whack. With that Electrode,
included as a 1-1 to a 3-3 line, various Evolutions
capable of scoring a OHKO against big, Basic Pokémon
attackers could get the boost they needed.
Haymaker, the most iconic of the big, Basic decks, could
score a OHKO against either a Voltorb or the
Basic Stage of your Evolution, so it was pricey as you’d
want two of each to be safe and you’d be down two
Prizes even if your Stage 1 or 2 Pokémon started taking
OHKO’s the next turn, but those big, Basic Pokémon
lacked a means of OHKOing your Evolution back. At
least, that is my theory, based on trying it out with
the cards myself years later. Please keep in mind,
I was playing the game when all of these were new, but
my local high school metagame is hardly the same as
playing in competitive tournaments of the day. I
do know that a player of questionable skill such as
myself was able to dominate for quite a while with
Haymaker until I made too many changes to it. The
conjecture is with Electrode possibly giving more
Evolutions a fighting chance had Energy Removal
and Super Energy Removal not been there to
immediately strip them away, buying Haymaker decks time
to chip away at your Evolutions; the rest is what
actually happened. Over time, more counters to
Energy Removal and Super Energy Removal were
released, but it the institution of the original
Modified (what we now call Standard) Format that did
them in as they weren’t in any Standard-legal sets.
For some more
conjecture, Energy Removal would be insane if it
were reprinted. Crushing Hammer, Enhanced
Hammer, and Team Flare Grunt are all nerfed
variants on the premise introduced by Energy Removal.
There are enough budget attackers and methods of Energy
acceleration that not every deck would max out on
Energy Removal, but I’m thinking most would pack one
or two. So how does it work in the modern
Unlimited Format? From what information I’ve been
able to gather, there are a few serious decks that
include it, but the big issue is that this format
contains decks which win on a player’s first turn, some
even if it is the very first turn of the game (so they
win without attacking). Others don’t win outright,
but effectively win as they set up some nasty
lock. This is why, when I explain “broken” cards,
I will emphasize they come in a range and the more
broken cards, combos, and decks may crowd out those
which are less broken, but still by no means balanced.
If you somehow are using this card in Limited play, stop
throwing money away!
Hypothetically, if
we somehow got a re-release of either Base Set or
Base Set 2, Energy Removal would be a very
valuable pull you absolutely should run. If you
face off with Theme Decks in real life - they don’t have
anything older than the HS-era releases on the PTCGO -
the original 2-Player Starter Set, Brushfire, Blackout
decks from Base Set contain it, with Blackout
having a full playset! The 2-Player Starter CD-ROM
Starter Set, Grass Chopper, Hot Water decks from Base
Set 2 also contain at least one Energy
Removal. The Misty and Lt. Surge starter decks
from Gym Heroes contain Energy Removal.
The Koga and Giovanni starter decks from Gym
Challenge sport them as well. If I counted
correctly, that means you’d have 10 different decks that
include Energy Removal, and usually several other
good, classic Trainer cards. It actually makes me
want to hunt these down (or the singles to build them)
and try it out for my nostalgic Pokémon TCG fix.
Anyway, while harder to fetch from the deck or reuse
with either Limited or Theme Deck play, that also means
most decks are going to have a harder time recovering
from the Energy loss unless they’ve already
reached the point where losing one Energy won’t matter.
Ratings
Standard:
N/A
Expanded:
N/A
Limited:
5/5
Unlimited:
3.5/5
Theme:
5/5
Summary
Energy Removal
is one of the cards that demonstrates how all broken
cards are not equal. In Unlimited, unless the
format is very different from what I could find (stuff
from two or three years ago), it is just used in a few
key decks because a few other competitive decks still
attack without having an easy time resupplying
the lost Energy. It makes this review feel a bit
anti-climactic, and I now realize I probably should have
picked more of the supporting cards for the format
before looking at this one.
Which is why this
wasn’t a two-in-one review with Super Energy Removal,
so we can look at that one once I think I’ve got the
formula down. Alternatively, once we have some
other, more competent reviewers for the Unlimited
Format.
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