Pokémon Energy Types

What are the Pokémon TCG types?

There are 11 types: Grass, Fire, Water, Lightning, Psychic, Fighting, Darkness, Metal, Fairy, Dragon and Colorless. Each Pokémon card shows its type as a symbol at top right, and every attack shows its cost as the same symbols. Fairy is the exception today. It was dropped when the Sword & Shield series began in 2020, and Fairy Pokémon from the video games, such as Sylveon, are now printed as Psychic.

Mega Venusaur ex

Mega Evolution #3

Grass

Mega Charizard X ex

Phantasmal Flames #13

Fire

Greninja ex

30th Celebration #21

Water

Pikachu ex

30th Celebration #53

Lightning

Mega Gardevoir ex

Mega Evolution #60

Psychic

Mega Lucario ex

Mega Evolution #77

Fighting

Mega Absol ex

Mega Evolution #86

Darkness

Steven's Metagross ex

Destined Rivals #145

Metal

Dragapult ex

Twilight Masquerade #130

Dragon

Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex

Twilight Masquerade #141

Colorless

The card game uses fewer types than the video games' 18, so several video game types share one card type. A Fire-type Pokémon is Fire in both, but a Ghost type is usually Psychic (Gengar and its line are Darkness), a Rock or Ground type is usually Fighting, a Normal or Flying type is usually Colorless, and an Ice type is usually Water. That folding is why the Weakness chart below is not a copy of the video games' type chart.

Basic Energy and Special Energy

Basic Energy cards exist for eight types: Grass, Fire, Water, Lightning, Psychic, Fighting, Darkness and Metal. Each provides one Energy of its type, and a deck can hold any number of them, which is the one exception to the four-copy rule. Basic Fairy Energy was printed while Fairy-type cards were, and is not used by any card legal in Standard.

Basic Fire Energy

Mega Evolution Energies #2

Basic: no copy limit.

Basic Psychic Energy

Mega Evolution Energies #5

Basic: no copy limit.

Prism Energy

Black Bolt #86

Special: every type, but only on a Basic Pokémon.

Special Energy cards say "Special Energy" at the top and have an effect of their own. Prism Energy provides Colorless Energy on most Pokémon and every type on a Basic Pokémon, one Energy at a time. A deck can run up to four of each Special Energy by name, and a few are ACE SPEC cards, limited to one per deck.

How Colorless and Dragon Energy work

Colorless and Dragon are types with no Basic Energy card. A Colorless symbol in a cost can be paid with Energy of any type, which is why it is the most common symbol on attacks: 51% of the Energy symbols in attack costs on Standard Pokémon are Colorless. A Colorless-type Pokémon such as Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex usually costs only Colorless Energy, so it fits in a deck of any type.

Dragon Pokémon pay with other types instead. Dragapult ex's Phantom Dive costs one Fire and one Psychic Energy, and Raging Bolt ex's Bellowing Thunder costs one Lightning and one Fighting, so a Dragon deck usually runs two kinds of Basic Energy. In exchange, no Dragon Pokémon in Standard has a Weakness.

Dragapult ex

Twilight Masquerade #130

Phantom Dive costs Fire and Psychic.

Raging Bolt ex

Temporal Forces #123

Bellowing Thunder costs Lightning and Fighting.

Pokémon TCG Weakness and Resistance chart

Weakness doubles the damage an attack does when the attacker's type matches the Weakness printed on the Defending Pokémon. Resistance takes damage off, almost always 30. In the card game these are printed on each card rather than fixed by a chart, so the table below counts what is actually printed: every Pokémon legal in Standard on October 15, 2026, each card counted once however many times it was reprinted.

The main pairs are steady. 233 of 235 Grass Pokémon are weak to Fire, and 167 of 171 Fire Pokémon are weak to Water. Every Weakness in Standard is ×2, and Weakness and Resistance only apply to the Active Pokémon. A Benched Pokémon hit by an attack takes the printed damage with neither one applied. How damage is worked out, step by step →

Why some types have two Weaknesses

Where a type splits, the split follows the video game type the Pokémon came from. That makes a Weakness easy to guess once you know the Pokémon.

Flying is the one pattern that crosses card types. A Flying Pokémon of almost any card type is weak to Lightning and resists Fighting. That explains the Lightning Weakness on the Grass, Fire, Lightning, Darkness, Metal and Colorless rows above, and most of the Fighting Resistance outside the Psychic row.

Choosing types for your first deck

Start with one type, or one type plus Colorless Pokémon. A deck's attacks can only be paid for with the Energy in it, and you attach just one Energy a turn, so every extra type makes it more likely you draw the wrong one. Two types work when the deck needs both, as Dragon decks do, or when a card such as Prism Energy pays for either.

Weakness matters when you pick a deck, but it rarely decides a game on its own. Doubling damage can turn a two-hit Knock Out into one hit: Mega Lucario ex's 130-damage Aura Jab becomes 260 against Pikachu ex, which has 190 HP. Your deck still has to play every other matchup, which is why a deck built around one attacker often carries a second attacker of another type. How to build a Pokémon deck →

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