Pokémon TCG Pocket decks
Ten energy types, ranked by what the cards actually print. No tier list and no opinion: every number here is damage divided by the turns it takes to deal it, counted from the card.
Pick a type
Grass
180 cards90 damage on turn 2 · Leafeon
4 cards accelerate it.
Grass trades raw damage for healing and staying power — the cheap attackers are ordinary and the payoff is a board that will not die.
Fire
99 cards250 damage on turn 4 · Mega Charizard Y ex
10 cards accelerate it.
Fire is the acceleration type. It has more ways to put energy down early than anything else in the game, and the biggest numbers to spend it on.
Water
205 cards150 damage on turn 3 · Mega Swampert ex
11 cards accelerate it.
The deepest pool in the game, and the most acceleration to go with it. If a card exists that does what you want, Water probably prints it twice.
Lightning
90 cards120 damage on turn 2 · Heliolisk
9 cards accelerate it.
Lightning hits first. The attacks are cheap and fast, and the type lives or dies on whether it closes before the board fills up.
Psychic
168 cards130 damage on turn 3 · Team Rocket’s Mewtwo
8 cards accelerate it.
Psychic pays for its damage somewhere else — discarding its own energy, hurting itself, or asking you to set up first.
Fighting
153 cards50 damage on turn 1 · Hitmonchan ex
3 cards accelerate it.
The most attackers of any type outside Water, and the least help getting them online. Fighting is fast hands and few tricks.
Darkness
127 cards130 damage on turn 3 · Hydreigon
2 cards accelerate it.
Darkness plays for damage over time — poison, self-damage counters and attacks that get better the longer the game runs.
Metal
80 cards140 damage on turn 3 · Tinkaton
4 cards accelerate it.
The smallest type, built to survive. High HP, damage reduction, and attacks priced to be paid for slowly.
Dragon
44 cards180 damage on turn 3 · Dragonite ex
No acceleration exists for this type.
Dragon is the one type you cannot build around cleanly, and the reason is not opinion: there is no Dragon energy. Every Dragon attack is paid for in two other colours, and nothing in the game accelerates it.
Colourless
150 cards180 damage on turn 3 · Lugia ex
5 cards accelerate it.
Colourless is not a deck type — you cannot choose it in the energy menu. It is the cards that fit in every deck you do build, which makes this the most reusable list on the site.
What a damage number is worth
What a number is worth, counted across every Pokémon in the game rather than guessed. The ex column is the one that decides games.
| Damage | One-shots any Pokémon | One-shots an ex |
|---|---|---|
| 60 | 24% | 0% |
| 100 | 63% | 1% |
| 120 | 75% | 5% |
| 150 | 92% | 51% |
| 180 | 98% | 84% |
| 200 | 99% | 90% |
How this is ranked
Ranked by damage per turn: the earliest turn an attack can be used, counting evolutions as well as energy, because a Stage 2 costing one energy still needs two turns of evolving first. One energy attaches per turn and one evolution happens per turn, and they run in parallel, so the wait is whichever takes longer.
Attacks whose damage is a coin flip, a multiplier or conditional on the board are left out of the ranking — a card printed “50×” does 50 per heads, not 100, and sorting it as 100 would put it above cards that beat it. They are still real cards; they are just not comparable to a flat number.
Current as of Team Rocket’s Ambition. Every number recomputes when an expansion ships.
Building any of these means pulling the cards first. See the accounts for sale