A fundamental rule in the Pokémon TCG is that you can only play one Supporter and one Energy per turn. Playing too few Supporters or Energy in your deck causes you to miss out on those precious once-per turn opportunities, while playing too many leaves you flooded with Supporters and Energy that rot in your hand (when they could have been other playable Trainers or Pokémon instead), or prevent you from using Steven's Advice. What is the sweet spot for Supporter/Energy count?

The magic number is 15, give or take, for both Supporters and Energy. Of course, this is only a guideline, and some decks stray from that count.

How'd You Arrive At 15?

Well, looking at public tournament decklists, that's about how much they use. But I can offer a mathematical explanation (of perhaps questionable credibility): suppose the average Supporter draws you three cards (Mary's Request, TV Reporter, and Holon Adventurer all adhere to this rate). You also draw one card at the start of every turn, so that means you see four new cards per turn. If you want an average of one Supporter and one Energy in those four cards, that means your deck should be roughly one-fourth Supporters and one-fourth Energy. One-fourth of 60 is 15, so there you go: 15 Supporters, 15 Energy. 🤯

I Swear, This Works for Magic, Too...

If you play Magic: the Gathering, you might be familiar with the idea that the average 60-card deck should play 24 lands. Can the above explanation work for this other card game too? Why yes, it can. Suppose the Magic deck in question wants to hit all its land drops for the first 4 turns. Additionally, assume that the deck's only way of getting new cards is from draw steps; no cantrips, no ramp spells. If you are on the play and don't mulligan, or if you're on the draw and mulligan once, you will see 10 cards by turn 4. If you want an average of 4 lands in those 10 cards, your deck should be roughly 40% lands. 40% of 60 cards is...24 cards. 🤯

Supporters

You should count Holon Transceiver and VS Seeker as Supporters.

Mr. Briney's Compassion

Mr. Briney's Compassion is a bit of an odd duck. It doesn't draw or search for cards, unlike almost every other Supporter in the format. It's more like an Item that they decided to print as a Supporter for balance, much like Boss's Orders in later formats (or Acerola or Penny, if you want a closer analogue to "Supporter Scoop Up"). Thus, your "true" Supporter count is a bit lower than you might be led to believe if Briney is part of it. To compensate, decks that play Briney usually have some kind of Pokémon search on their Evolutions, e.g. Dark Dragonair, Nidorina, Meganium δ.

Energy

You should count Holon's Pokémon as Energy.

The question of "how many Energy should you play" can be interpreted in two ways:

How much Energy do you need in order to consistently hit your first Energy drop?

This question assumes that your deck cares about hitting manual Energy attachments every turn. Decks with acceleration can afford to miss an Energy drop early, because they'll make up for it later with Poké-Powers. Decks with Double Rainbow Energy may miss their first Energy drop, but evolve on the second turn and attach Double Rainbow Energy, which is almost as though they played a single Energy on each of their first 2 turns.

The answer to that question varies slightly, depending on whether you have Supporters like Castaway that search the deck for Energy. If you don't have any such Supporters, 16 is a good number, not counting bounce Energies since you can't use those as your first Energy attachment. Arcanine ex and Mewtric, two quintessential aggressive decks with zero or limited acceleration, both play 16 Energy, excluding Holon's Electrode/Magneton.

If you do have Energy-searching Supporters, then you can afford to go lower, but relying on Supporters to hit your first Energy drop can be volatile, since you can't use them if you go first. 14 is a good number: Jason's Camler and Tord's Rayler both play 14 Energy with 4 Castaways (Rayler also has 1 Mr. Stone's Project), and Kanten's Banette ex plays 12 Energy, 2 Holon's Magnemite, with 4 Holon Transceiver and 4 Holon Mentor.

How much Energy should your deck have access to for the entire game?

This question focuses on the long term, asking whether you play enough Energy in your deck to not run out. 

Have you ever wondered why we don't just cut 4 basic Energy for 4 Energy Search in all our decks? The answer is, while the consistency of hitting the T1 Energy drop wouldn't change, the total amount of Energy available in our deck would decrease. As an extreme example, consider Blastoise ex. That deck runs 5 Water Energy. What happens if you take out 4 Water Energy for 4 Energy Search? Well, you end up in awkward situations where you draw Energy Search, but the lone Water Energy is Prized, already attached to a Pokémon, or in the discard pile. It's of little consolation that the 4 Energy Search setup gives you 5 "effective" Water Energy, when what you really want is 5 honest-to-goodness Water Energy.

When counting up the total amount of Energy in a deck, I'll be using the following rules:

• Each Energy card counts as the amount of Energy it provides (so Double Rainbow Energy counts as 2 Energy), with the following exceptions:

  • Energy that discards itself at the end of the turn (R Energy, Boost Energy) counts as 1.

  • Scramble Energy counts as 1, more out of simplicity than anything else. I will note how many copies of Scramble Energy decks run, if you would like to assign your own point value to it.

• Holon's Voltorb/Magnemite count as 1 Energy each. Holon's Castform/Electrode/Magneton count as 2 Energy each.

• Cards that search the deck for Energy (e.g. Castaway, Holon Mentor) don't count.

• Mr. Stone's Project counts as 2 Energy. In general, cards that recover Energy from the discard pile should count, but other than Mr. Stone's Project, they are really hard to quantify. Attacks, Poké-Powers, and Stadiums can be used repeatedly (other than Extra Energy Bomb, which is only usable once, but even then it gets a variable number of Energy cards back). Pokémon Retriever and Holon Farmer can recover Holon's Pokémon as Energy, but can get anywhere from 1 to 3 Holon's Pokémon, and Holon's Castform is worth 2 Energy, so how do you assign a point value to that? Super Scoop Up and Mr. Briney's Compassion should count too, but again are hard to quantify.

For cards whose effects on Energy count are hard to quantify, I will note their presence in a deck when I feel it's significant enough to warrant mention. A lot of decks play 1 Pokémon Retriever, so I won't be pointing out every single time it appears, but I might if it plays 2 or more and the deck clearly relies on using Retriever to recover Holon's Pokémon as Energy.

So, how much Energy should your deck have in total? Unfortunately, that is a question without a fixed answer, as decks have widely varying Energy requirements. Looking at the decks below, a good first guess is 17 Energy in total, assuming absolutely nothing about the deck in question. If your deck has Scramble Energy, cheap attacks that cost 2 or less Energy, or lots of recovery elements, then you could consider using a lower total Energy count. If your deck uses attackers that require 4 or more Energy, or attacks that discard Energy, then you might want to go higher (or play more recovery cards).

Bomb Decks

Other than Bombchamp, all these decks run 4 Scramble Energy.

• Traditional Bombtar runs 16 Energy total. Frosty's build (with heavy Warp Point) runs 12.

• Kanten's Bombchamp runs 12 Energy total, with 1 Mr. Briney's Compassion.

• Jason's Scrambled Eggs runs 19 Energy total (DRE counts as 2). While Big Eggsplosion is nominally a 2 Energy attack, you'd need to put a lot more Energy on Exeggutor for it to KO stuff with that.

• Tomiokaka's Bombcatty runs 15 Energy total. LittleRiver's build (with Sableye, no Magneton) runs 16.

Stantler Decks

• Tord's Rayler runs 16 Energy total (Mr. Stone's Project counts as 2), with 4 Super Scoop Up. This list also has 2 Mr. Briney's Compassion. Rayler's attacks only cost 1 or 2 Energy.

• Jason's Camler runs 14 Energy total. Kanten's build runs 12, with a 1-1 Raticate line, 2 Mr. Briney's Compassion, and 4 VS Seeker. Camler has attacks that discard its own Energy (Kindle) and get Energy back from the discard (Back Burner).

Stage 1 ex Aggro Decks

These decks' main attacks cost 2 Energy.

• Traditional Banette ex runs 15 Energy total. Kanten's build (with both Mews) runs 14, and also has 1 Pokémon Retriever, which you don't see very often in aggro decks.

• Arcanine ex runs 18 Energy total. It has Flame Swirl, which discards Energy, and also the nonbo of Crystal Beach with its own 1-of Holon's Electrode.

• Mewtric runs 18 Energy total. Like Arcanine ex, it has an attack which discards Energy (Mega Shot), and Crystal Beach + 1 Holon's Magneton.

• Scizor ex runs 17 Energy total, counting Boost Energy as 1 each.

Stage 2 Decks

• Erik's Gardevoir runs 17 Energy total.

• Traditional Dragtrode runs 17 Energy total, counting R Energy as 1 each, with 1-1 Briney-VS Seeker.

• Nidoqueen runs 17 Energy total, with 1-1 Briney-VS Seeker and 1 Scramble Energy. Nidoqueen does have a fairly damaging 1-Energy attack in Toxic.

Basic-Heavy Decks

• Destiny runs 17 Energy total.

• Chiro Special runs 19 Energy total, with 2 Pokémon Retriever. A lot of its Pokémon's attacks discard Energy.

• Quad Rayquaza δ runs 17 Energy total.

Decks With Heavy Recycling

When you see a deck with a literal Energy count in the single digits, all is not what it seems. These decks often use Holon's Pokémon and some kind of repeatable Energy recycler, so their effective Energy count is higher.

• Meganium (9 literal Energy) runs 18 Energy total, with lots of 1-of recovery cards: Chimecho δ, Holon Farmer, Briney, VS Seeker. Occasionally the deck plays attackers that discard Energy, like Latias ex δ, Latios ☆, Steelix ex.

• Flygon (8 literal Energy) runs 17 Energy total, with 1 Chimecho δ.

• Blastoise ex (5 literal Energy) runs 14 Energy total, with 1 Chimecho δ, 2 Power Tree, and 3 Pokémon Retriever. All this heavy recycling allows the deck to function despite the low literal Energy count, and attackers that discard Energy (Lugia ex, Kyogre ex).

• Sceptile (4 literal Energy) runs 11 Energy total, with a 1-1 Team Magma's Camerupt line and 2 Pokémon Retriever. Even with those recovery elements, the total Energy count is low, but Sceptile excels at conserving Energy: it can Energy Trans Energy off heavily damaged Pokémon before they're KOed, or Energy Trans Energy onto them and heal them with Green Heal.

• Japanese Gardevoir builds (4 literal Energy) run roughly 10 Energy total, with 2 Pokémon Retriever, 1 Beating Wings Pidgeot, and 1 Celebi ex (the infinite recycling combo).

• Rat Lock (6 literal Energy) runs 7 Energy total, with a 3-2 Raticate line and 2 Briney. Most attacks from that deck cost 1 Energy, some 2, and only if you're attacking with Sceptile ex δ will you need 3.

• Dodrio Fossils (2 literal Energy) runs 8 Energy total, with 4 Pokémon Retriever and 1 Rocket's Wobbuffet (which can shuffle 3 Retrievers from the discard pile into the deck). Like Rat Lock, most attacks from the deck cost 1 Energy, and attacking with Sceptile ex δ costs 3. Dodrio's Smash Turn also costs 3 Energy, but Scramble Energy can pay for it if you're behind in Prizes.