energy

[redrocker]

first let me say, my son absolutely loves pokemon the card game. my son is 7 and has been playing magic for about 6mos. he builds his own decks and has beaten several times.

Here's what I see as a very big problem with pokemon (very frustrating). The complete lack of access to enough energy to play and build decks. With magic, they practically give lands away because they want people playing. I can't find any appreciable amount of energy for sale unless I go through what some folks have collected over time using ebay.

not sure why this is. with magic, I can pay $20 for a fat pack and get a plethora of lands. I don't find any similar offering from pokemon.

so, in addition to the overall rant, why is energy so freakin difficult to get a hold of?

 

[Salahra]

I haven't really done anything with the trading Card game since the original '90s craze, so I'm way, way out of the loop, but perhaps I can provide a little insight anyway. :) If starter packs still exist, then they ought to be (or at least used to be) filled with energy cards, generally matching the theme of the pack. Energy used to be maddeningly common (maddening at least for non-playing collectors like myself), but does seem to be disappearing from ordinary booster packs. Perhaps the market is shifting away from the players and toward the collectors? At the very least, a lot of older collectors probably have a massive number of energy cards that they will give away for practically nothing. (Oh, and colorless energy was always impossibly rare. I remember a friend trading one for a holographic card.)

 

[donavannj]

@ Salahara: Actually, the market's been shifting toward what the players want for the last 3-4 years, since the hardcore collectors largely have all the cards they want already.

In response to the OP's question: I have no idea. I'm pretty sure it was this way to begin with, since it was probably thought that getting more Pokemon instead of a guaranteed Energy would cause more kids to buy packs. Nintendo probably thinks that selling energy individually wouldn't sell well enough amongst their target market (kids), even if it would sell amazingly well amongst those who play the game competitively.

To solve this issue, look for theme decks that have the right kinds of energy you want, since basic energy cards stay legal no matter what set they're from. And you get some really good trainers and supporters in a couple of the recent theme decks, too. The decks themselves aren't very well built when compared to the decks that most players play themselves, but they're worth it if you've got no energy of a type you're looking for or some really good trainer or supporter that you're looking for that the deck has hasn't been appearing frequently enough in the packs you buy.

 

[Rocket_Executive]

I have to disagree with you on this one Donavannj, I think the market is aimed more towards collectors than players, and this trend is on the rise. I don't know where the original statistic is (sorry), but TPCi has proven that collectors are more proliferant than players, and they design their market strategies accordingly. This is how you can account for all the things they release that are useless to play with but are collectable, such as tin promo cards, alternate artwork, black star promo's, etc. They will never make a luxray lv x tin, even though that's what players want, but they are making legendary dog tins that will have no play value, because they're valuable to collectors.

On topic, this relates to your lack of energies. A game like MTG is totally focused on players, with a small minority of collectors. There is demand for a pack of lands, so they make them. TPCi will only run one set at a time that contains energies (the current one being HeartGold SoulSilver), and none in the other sets. The only way to aquire energies is to either buy packs of HeartGold SoulSilver (not recommended), or like the others said, get theme decks. They are always rediculously full of energies.

Another great option is to find a local card shop, they will sell them for between $0.05-0.20 cents

 

[spastman]

If you need more energy of a kind, the most simply ways are e-bay and other online shops, or you can always buy a Theme deck with the kind of energy you need.