Energize Your Game with Lightning Pokémon!

The latest TCG expansion Platinum—Supreme Victors carries a livewire assortment of Lightning-type Pokémon that all happen to work very well with each other. Several of these Pokémon rely on lots of Lightning Energy to be in play, so getting Pokémon onto the playing field as quickly as possible is the most important step.

Don't Discount the Discard Pile
You could play your hand one card at a time to load up your Active and Benched Pokémon, but when it comes to the electrifying Lightning-type Pokémon in Supreme Victors, this might not be the fastest way! Consider Electivire ’s (4/147) Dump and Draw attack, which lets you discard up to 2 Energy cards and draw four more cards (two for each discard). Or, use the Colorless-type Rayquaza ’s (8/147) Trash Burst attack to discard up to 5 Energy cards from your hand (and do 10 damage to your opponent’s Defending Pokémon for each discarded Energy at the same time). Grab the Supporter card Volkner’s Philosophy (Platinum—Rising Rivals, 98/111) not only to keep your hand full, but also to give you one more opportunity to discard an Energy card. As you can see, there are lots of ways to get Energy from your hand into your discard pile.

Clean Out the Trash
Once the discard pile is filled up with Lightning Energy cards, the next step is getting them back out and into play. Fortunately, you have several ways of doing just that. Electivire LV.X (144/147) can use its Energy Recycle Poké-Power to reclaim up to three Energy cards from the discard pile and put them directly onto your Pokémon in any way you like. (Your turn ends if you do, so use this Poké-Power wisely!) Another method for recovering Energy from the discard pile is to use Manectric 's (66/147) Energy Absorption attack, which lets you take two Lightning Energy from your discard pile and attach it to Manectric . Or, have Minun (71/147) use Trash Charge to get back a Lightning Energy from the discard pile and attach it to one of your Pokémon. The latter options aren’t quite as powerful or as flexible as Electivire LV.X’s Energy Recycle Poké-Power, but as you’ll soon see, any Energy attached to any of your Lightning-type Pokémon will be extremely helpful.

High-wire Acts
So, now that the Pokémon you have in play are loaded up with Energy, thanks to some crafty discard pile maneuvering, what’s next? Once again, you have several directions you can take, all of which will seriously shock the Defending Pokémon! If you already have Electivire LV.X as your Active Pokémon, you’re in great shape: use its Powerful Spark attack to tap into all the Energy you have in play, and deliver a high-voltage blow to the tune of 30 damage plus 10 for each Energy attached to your Pokémon—Active or Benched. Alternatively, you could short circuit your opponent with Rotom’s (82/147) Discharge attack, which forces you to discard all Lightning Energy attached to Rotom and then flip a coin for each Energy discarded. It then does a shocking 40 damage for each heads you flipped. That seemingly devastating cost for Discharge—putting all the attached Lightning Energy into the discard pile—may not be that bad after all. As you’ve already learned, there are plenty of ways to get that Energy back into play... and the cycle starts all over again.