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- ↓ 3.17
- ꩜ 3.85
- ↑ 10.90
This card provides {C}{C} Energy. You can attach this card to your Pokémon that has basic Energy cards attached to it.
When you play this card from your hand and attach it to 1 of your Pokémon, return a basic Energy card attached to that Pokémon to your hand.
illus. Shin-ichi Yoshikawa
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Cabd
By far the WORST energy ever printed. It’s so bad, even the rules team summed up questions about it by saying:
“we don’t give advice here, but don’t play bounce.”
Ambassador
I mean, combos exist. Bounce Energy + Juggler + SK Electrode (Plasma) was one that first came to mind, and after a bit of digging I suspect this card is probably meant to work with SK Politoed¹. I’m also frowning at SK Starmie, in a sense of “I feel like these two cards might work together somehow, but I’m not sure from which angle it ends up more opportune to do so.” It’s a card with counterintuitive utility, but that doesn’t make it bad. One of the problems, I think, is that the western audience didn’t realize this card was never supposed to be in the same format as DCE, so they immediately jump to that comparison and see it as strictly worse. (n.b. I don’t think, as Twylis suggests later on in these comments, that this is meant to be an attempt at a balanced DCE. I think it’s just an experimental card to throw out there and see what it ends up enabling either in the current format, or maybe down the line. For my money, a card that enables interesting options that don’t otherwise exist cannot possibly be the “worst”.
¹ “What about Boost Energy?” Suppose you want to use SK Politoed to power up your benched Suicune or Articuno by attaching {W} Energy to them from Politoed, rather than direct attachment from your hand. They actually only need so much {W} Energy and Bounce Energy can help fill the {C}{C} cost of their attacks; as Basic Pokémon, neither of them can have Boost Energy attached. And even for Politoed itself, Bounce Energy is *still* providing you some options – Bounce vs a bunch of {W} Energy? Sure, more {W} Energy is preferable with Politoed, but maybe you want to slot something into your deck and don’t have room for it? Swapping out some {W} for a Bounce gives you some flexibility. Bounce vs Boost? Bounce doesn’t have to get discarded at the end of the turn, and Boost stops Politoed from retreating.
Krisi92
Why would anybody play this? It’s strictly worse than any basic Energy card. By far.
feyblade
You could use this to attach 3 energies to a Pokémon using only two cards. You have more freedom with discard than you would if you just attached three separate energies in a row, and you are more likely to have the resources to gather three energy in the first place. You can also take the energy that is now in your hand and attach it to another Pokémon on the next turn. You can also ensure three energy drops, even when only having two energy in your hand (there was never a format where any landfall equivalent dominated, though, keep in mind) That’s pretty much all of the good things I can say about this awful card.
Double Colorless energy basically does THE SAME THING WITH ONE LESS ENERGY DROP without the associated drawback
[w]>[bounce]>[w] to give a Pokémon [WCC] or one pokemon [W] and the other [CC]. You have used two cards. and taken three turns
[w]>[double] accomplishes the same thing. You have used two cards and taken two turns
This would probably have been at least “acceptable” if it provided the same type of energy as the energy you bounced. It would have actually been worth fielding if you chose an energy type before bouncing your energy and had to stick with it as long as it was attached to the Pokémon. Even if it provided double rainbow energy, it would still not be “too good.”
Krisi92
Yeah, I fugured it out after I posted this that it CAN give you 3 energies with only 2 cards, but that’s all. The other “benefits” of it are pretty much non-existent.
Also, you can’t play it if it’s the only kind of energy in your hand. Or if you only have basic Energy cards there. Holon’s Electrode, Magtenon, and Castform were much better in every way: they could be used as actual Pokémon if you needed them, were much easier to search for, provided 2 RAINBOW, and not colorless energies, and you could return a special energy card if you wanted to. So yeah.
Adam Capriola
I guess it would sorta combo with Blatoise’s Rain Dance or Emboar’s Inferno Fandango. But not really.
HEZ
Eurg! What were they thinking? Should have given 2 colours of your choice with that drawback. The “Bounce/Karoo lands” from Magic give 2 colours for the same drawback and even they’re seen as kind of bad due to Land Destruction 2 for 1ing you. Same here but worse, an Energy Removal on this thing is crippling.
Anyway I didn’t need to tell you this is bad… just use Holon’s Castform!
No Name
Weird card. I wonder why it was made?
C.Ezra.M
Double Colorless Energy is strictly better than this, but at the time when Bounce Energy was printed, Double Colorless Energy was not in the Modified format (2002-03).
Double Colorless Energy as just a Special Energy card would not return until the HeartGold & SoulSilver series.
Guest
A lot of the comments on this page are about how Double Colorless Energy isn’t strictly better than this card.
Twylis
There was definitely some weird thinking going on with energy cards in general during this time. The legendary birds in this set don’t let you attach their type of energy from hand, and the beasts in Aquapolis/Skyridge require you to discard an energy for every attachment of their type.
I have no idea what caused it — maybe they were trying to make basics weaker? And this energy was a poor attempt to make a “balanced” DCE? Baffling.