Items, Tools, Stadiums and Energy: The Other Trainer Cards

By CardSpicy Founder · September 29, 2026

A Pokémon card does not have to show a Pokémon to matter. Eighty-six cards in Simplified Chinese are neither a character nor a promo — they are the items, tools, stadiums and energy the game is actually played with, and this is the whole list.

Open any deck list and the Pokémon take up about a third of it. The rest is the machinery: the ball that finds a Pokémon, the tool that keeps it alive, the stadium that changes what everyone at the table can do. Those cards are reprinted constantly, played until they are worn, and almost never graded — which makes them an odd corner of a collection and an interesting one.

Eighty-six of them have been printed in Simplified Chinese. They are collected here in one list, ranked by what a graded copy actually sells for where a sale exists, and by the recorded raw price where it does not.

Quick answer

CardSpicy’s list covers six kinds of card: Items, Pokémon Tools, Stadiums, the two basic and special energy groups, and Supporters that name a role rather than a person. Trainers who are a named character are not here — they have their own ranking — and neither are character cards or promos.

Of the 86 cards, 30 have a graded sale on record and 56 do not. That gap is the single most useful fact on this page: these are cards people play with rather than store, so a graded copy often does not exist to be sold.

What is in the list

Every card here is a Trainer card in the game’s terms, which splits into the six groups below. The split matters because the groups behave differently as collectibles.

The full list

All 86 cards, ranked. Where a graded sale has been recorded the value is a PSA 10 price; where none has, the card is shown at its recorded raw price and marked as such. The set and number are the printed Simplified Chinese code.

The energy cards

Basic Energy is the strangest group here, because it is the one card type that is not optional. No deck can be built without it, it is printed in every set, and for most of the game’s history it has been treated as packing material rather than a collectible. In Simplified Chinese the basic energies arrived inside the Gem Pack volumes, which is why the set code on them reads Gem Pack rather than a main-set code.

Special Energy is the harder half to complete. It provides more than one type or carries an effect, so each one is unique rather than interchangeable, and the group is printed in far smaller numbers. If you are collecting this corner of the format, the 5 Special Energy cards on the list are the ones that will take longest to find.

Why most of these have no graded price

56 of the 86 cards carry no graded sale on record, and it is worth being clear that this is not a gap in the data. Grading costs money and takes weeks, and it is only worth doing when a card is scarce enough that a graded copy sells for more than the raw one. A stadium that has been printed four times and costs three dollars raw does not clear that bar, so nobody sends one in, so no graded price exists to record.

The practical consequence is that for most of this list the raw price is the real market. Where you see a PSA 10 figure on the list, it belongs to a card that is genuinely scarce in Chinese — usually a Special Energy or a stadium with a short print run.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between an Item and a Pokémon Tool?

An Item is played from your hand on your turn and does its job immediately. A Pokémon Tool is attached to a Pokémon and stays attached, so it keeps working. In Simplified Chinese the two are tracked as separate groups here because they are printed in quite different numbers: 27 Items against 0 Pokémon Tools.

Why are there no named trainers on this list?

Because named trainers are ranked separately. A card that shows a character such as Cynthia or Lillie belongs to the trainer ranking. This list keeps only cards that name a role rather than a person, so no card appears twice across the two pages.

Is a stadium card worth collecting in Simplified Chinese?

Stadiums are the smallest group on this list at 5 cards, and they stay in play and change the rules for both players, which makes them memorable to anyone who plays. Because they are reprinted heavily they are rarely expensive, but they are also rarely graded, so a graded Chinese stadium can be harder to find than its price suggests.

Why do some cards say PSA 10 and others only show a raw price?

Because grading is only worth doing on cards where a graded copy is worth more than the raw one. 30 of the 86 cards here have a graded sale on record and 56 do not. Where none has, the recorded raw price is the only market that exists.

Which set are the Simplified Chinese basic energies from?

The Gem Pack volumes. Basic Energy was not part of the main Simplified Chinese set releases; it came through the Gem Pack line, which is why the set code on those cards reads Gem Pack rather than a numbered main set. The Gem Pack volume guide covers what is in each one.

Sources

Related reading

The other half of the Trainer card world is in the trainer ranking. For the card codes on this page, the set code guide decodes them end to end, and what a gold UR means covers the rarity that sits above these.

Explore graded Simplified Chinese cards

These are playable cards, and playable cards get handled. If you are keeping a set of them intact, the card protection guide covers sleeves and storage, and the matte premium sleeves are the ones we use for a working set.

Where to go next

• The CardSpicy card index — every card we track, with its PSA 10 population and market history (195 cards).
• The illustrator index — every artist behind those cards, card by card (110 artists).