Yo, hello everybody and welcome to the Pokemon TCG Overview. We got the poke ball pokemon today, there’s nobody quite like em not even 5th generation mushrooms, Voltorb and Electrode. Now these guys actually have a crapton of prints and promos so bear with me here but it’ll be worth it. A lot of people both new and old fans like to hate on pokemon like these saying they’re unoriginal, uncreative, rushed or any other negative adjective and I’m here to say I disagree. At least for these guys. If there’s a reasonable explanation or you can think of a reasonable explanation for them to make sense then it’s good for pokemon as the mystery aspect is always around. Gen 1 is all about science where there are many pokemon that were born from inanimate masses or objects or pokemon that evolve with multiple heads possibly due to some energy that’s been exposed to the environment, that’s what I like to think and you’ll find lots of theories about stuff like this if you look online. Not my favourite electric types but with the faces they respectively make they’re cool OG pokemon I’d say.
Voltorb cards from the ex era (2003-2007)
Okay, if you’re at least a tiny bit familiar with these pokemon you know that they’re all about blowing up and taking you with them but it actually took Voltorb to go all the way to gen 4, Secret Wonders to have a Selfdestruct/Explosion type of attack where you do lots of damage but usually kill yourself too. Surprisingly enough I wasn’t expecting that. In fact this one along with Roaring Skies Voltorb are the only ones with a self blow up attack.
He also gets an exclusive Extended Sheet Japanese promo and 2 owner’s prints by Lt. Surge, not really surprising and a Holon’s card in ex Delta Species. Holon pokemon were pokemon that you could play as special energy too.
I’d say its biggest honour would be getting a shiny version secret rare in Stormfront, only a few pokemon can say they have that in the tcg. Ex Firered Leafgreen Voltorb has a poke-body that gives it free retreat if it has an energy, nothing game breaking but better than nothing. The effect can come up but XY Voltorb has an ability that on a coin flip can make a big difference in a game. When Voltorb gets KOed by an attack if you flip heads, boom, 5 damage counters on the attacking pokemon. Not bad, but it gets even crazier with Electrode. You’ll be seeing a common theme; Electrode blowing up to bring your other guys energy. High risk, high reward it’s what this guy has always been about.
Base Set immediately gave Electrode this role since with Buzzap you could KO him to provide 2 energy to any pokemon of any type, clearly something with potential but Base Set format, you know. Jungle Electrode’s 90 HP was kind of nice for stage 1s back then but Chain Lightning needed to do more base damage without the effect to even be considered good. Even if your opponent had 3 pokemon of the same type to the bench you were doing 50 damage total for 3 and Dewgong did that consistently better and had Blastoise support too.
Laboratory Electrode, a Japanese exclusive wasn’t good at all besides the 2 for 30 attack which was decent at best since it couldn’t hit for weakness. It only appeared in the original GB Color game as an English card. In Team Rocket of course Electrode would get a Dark card which was crap with 60 HP even though Energy Bomb’s effect is interesting and could maybe mitigate the low HP but with the nature of the format it wasn’t getting any help. Art is kind of legit.
Lt. Surge’s Electrode is the first and only Electrode card that has a 2 retreat cost on a pokemon that should have always had zero. 70 HP is still incredibly low especially as time goes on and Power Ball is an ass attack. And for the final nail in the coffin Shock Blast. Even though it would have been mediocre and unreliable requiring a coin flip it could at least have been something, but no even if you’re lucky you’re hitting yourself as well. Most terrible Electrode card, it really sucks for Surge fans.
Let’s finally get into some good stuff now. The Aquapolis print is also not reliable requiring a coin flip but if you flip heads it’s basically a free energy from the discard pile and you can try this every turn if he’s active. Again you have to be active and flip heads, but it’s lightning energy acceleration to any pokemon. Swift isn’t the greatest attack but compared to the other crappy ones it’s like it’s amazing. Not a great card but a step in the right direction.
After all these prints it took Skyridge for Electrode to finally get his signature attack, blow up and do craploads of damage. Selfdestruct did 100 damage and 20 to every other pokemon besides Electrode who ate 100 self damage. Not a good attack normally but I’m sure in some situations an extreme attack like this can be useful. Very few though. Plasma while not doing much damage has the potential to fuel Electrode’s Selfdestruct so you can have some fun with that and speaking of fun, if you scan this card in the e-reader it gets a poke-power too and it’s a useful one, letting you move energy from him to your benched pokemon. It’s a shame he doesn’t have this on the actual card, he would have been much better this way.
The ex and D/P era featured a lot of Electrode cards (6 each) and you’ll see why this is good soon. ex Hidden Legends one of my favourite sets starts things off with a real bang for Electrode with a good card. 70 HP is very low and no free retreat is lame but both attacks are great. Swift doing one for 30 is almost unheard of for back then and while it won’t hit for weakness you ignore any other nuisance too making this a great fast attack. Mass Destruction knocks both pokemon out but sacrificing Electrode to instantly kill something like Nidoqueen or other stage 2 pokemon. The biggest trade-off obviously would be to kill a big or any ex for that matter giving your opponent a prize while you just got two so easily. The attack cost is honestly very reasonable too, costing 3 colorless energy but note the attack won’t do anything if he has special energy on him. Great Electrode card for sure and sweet holographic art.
Now for one of the more iconic prints, ex Firered and Leafgreen gave us Electrode ex. His bottom stats are pretty normal, again free retreat would be cool but doesn’t matter much. 90 HP is low for an ex but that doesn’t matter much either since he exists mostly to blow up and fetch lots of energy. His power Extra Energy Bomb let’s you kill him and grab ANY 5 energy cards from your discard pile and attach them to non ex pokemon any way you like. The obstacles and risks are pretty transparent. You need to make sure you have the energies you want in the discard pile and instantly giving your opponent 2 prizes is a big deal. At the same time though the ex era had the most diverse and crazy special energies we had in any format and you could grab 5 of them no problem. If Electrode ex was the focus of your strategy there were also cards to take advantage of the fact you were behind prizes so it’s possible to build a deck around his power. In fact with Exeggutor from the same set there was a deck around these 2 cards mentioned by Pooka from the Top Cut in his favourite decks video. Naturally there’s a lot of attackers you can power this way but no matter what this is truly a high risk high reward tactic. His attack Crush and Burn is one of those attacks that have an unlimited ceiling as long as you have energies to discard so it isn’t exactly useless but I’m sure it’s clear if you use this card it’s probably going to be for its poke-power.
ex series Dark Electrode essentially does what the original one wanted to do but better. That is attack and save the energy on the bench in case you die. There’s some very good synergy with Darkness Navigation and the attack as you grab a Dark or Dark-Metal Energy, manually attach a lightning one, attack and then move the energies on your benched pokemon in any way you like. Rinse and repeat until Electrode gets KOed. He is also better because he is dual type Lightning and Dark meaning more coverage to hit for weakness. The HP is still low but this is a great Electrode card no matter how I look at it.
Emerald Electrode is a regular generic card but Holon’s Electrode from ex Delta Species is special. Special Energy to be exact. Like his Holon pre-evolution this Electrode can act as a double rainbow energy without a decrease in damage but the downside is you have to return an energy attached to the pokemon to play this so it’s not really double. He also finally gets free retreat which he’ll keep around until we get to Rising Rivals. With ex Legend Maker he gets his last print for this era besides the free retreat it is also generic like the one in ex Emerald.
D/P was also very good for Electrode starting with his representation in Secret Wonders. While 80 HP may seem low it’s not all that bad once you understand this card. Energy Shift transforms Electrode into a special energy card that provides all types when he gets knocked out and gets attached to one of your pokemon. This power goes excellently with Ion Blast an attack that is decent doing 2 for 40 if you wish but you can do a whopping 100 for 2 if you choose to do 100 to Electrode. This would more than likely knock him out, but he gets to become energy, once again keeping that theme of high risk high reward. Metal resistance and free retreat are very welcome and all these aspects together make this a very good card.
Stormfront is honestly going to go as one of the most broken and complete sets ever and even the Electrode here reflects that. The first one anyway. Radiance is a broken poke-body putting 1 damage counter on ALL of your opponents pokemon every time Electrode is active and gets hit. This is incredibly fantastic regardless if Electrode won’t take many or even 2 hits. Low Current is a swift 1 for 30 attack that paralyzes the opponent if you get hit. This works even if they switch the pokemon they have giving this attack great disruption utility. Swift is pretty a average but is there if you want to use a more pressuring attack that works with DCE too. With 90 HP and some good bottom stats as well this is the best Electrode from this era stat wise, another very good card. The other Electrode from this set is crappier only because Secret Wonders and the other one in Stormfront are so much better. Electro Diffusion is risky and even though it’s an open attack for unlimited damage it’s not a good one to use.
This guy gets an SP print next being owned by Cyrus but it doesn’t live up to the other great cards we’ve seen. Reckless Bomb’s spread attack is not good enough for such a severe drawback even if it did 30 damage to each of your opponent’s pokemon. Even more so when this format was one of the worst to try spread tactics and attacks. And Reflect Energy is just an average attack. Not much to say here, despite getting the benefits of SP this card is outclassed by other SP pokemon and Electrode cards.
And last but not least is Triumphant which gives us Electrode Prime and the usual left out brother of the Prime. But fair to say Lightning Strike isn’t a completely bad attack. Now to the main attraction, Electrode Prime is like Electrode ex, one of the more famous prints and one of the prints that saw competitive that went somewhere thanks to the power Energymite. Electrode basically blows up to get energy again but this time from the top 7 cards of the deck and not the discard pile. This is even more high risk and high reward because depending on your luck or how you control the cards on top of your deck you could get more than 5 energies than Electrode ex but you could also pull 1 or even none! If we’re being realistic here though Electrode ex was a better grabber in his formats but Electrode Prime only gives 1 prize not 2 so, yeah. I can’t forget a big drawback though, and that’s the discarding of the rest non-energy cards. Ooooh…. This card certainly isn’t for everyone but it’s also certainly a gateway for crazy strategies.
Boundaries Crossed Electrode is completely generic and deserves no more than this sentence so now we go to Plasma Freeze. It’s a slightly weaker Octillery that came before it but draw until you have 4 is still draw so he’s neat. That 1 extra card though makes a big difference because Octillery sees some play when this card didn’t do anything. Not bad by all means. It can still help against N. XY goes back to giving Electrode crap because he only has a Crushing Hammer Energy Removal 2 for an attack and a 2 for 40. Roaring Skies gives us gimmick Victini Electrode but there are better gimmick attacks for that although Energy Bomb is a bit decent. If only it did 90 damage at least.
Electrode’s remake from Base Set is also a great Electrode energy provider that actually does what Electrode Prime is supposed to do safer. Buzzap Thunder knocks you out but transforms Electrode to a special double lightning energy card to one of your lightning pokemon. Even though it’s limited to lighting pokemon and is vulnerable to Enhanced Hammer it’s still safer to use not ditching cards from your deck and not even coming from your energy count with Electrode acting as energy. That’s how he does his energy trick this era. And freaking finally Electrode from our latest set Shining Legends just has a 1 for 60 attack that’s not affected by anything including weakness. Decent but not decent enough.
God, so this troll face is probably gonna invade your dreams after this article; before I decided to cover him I never expected him to have so many prints. If you were paying attention though bar a few exceptions, solid at least prints here and there, Electrode’s best cards and formats are in the 3rd and 4th generations of pokemon. It truly is a sacrifice for energy support pokemon and has surprisingly a lot of good prints. When they don’t print him as filler he usually has a good ability that’s straightforward or has a concept you can get creative with. He’s never been the star of his own ass whooppings but the provider for other pokemon to kick ass. Alright, this was a long enough read, hope you guys enjoyed this long-ass walk down the memory lane for this troll ball and do share this article on your social media for other pokemon fans to see. If you don’t like the ball duo then do it for my balls, I mean my sake instead. Thank you for reading and Whaaatup!!
Originally written in 2017
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