Now that we have rulings back from PUI and posted in time for City Championships, let’s take a quick look at a few things that could come up and would be good to have worked out ahead of time.
Gengar
This beastie’s Poké-POWER, Fainting Spell, is going to be one you will encounter and need to be sharp about. In no particular order:
- Psychic Lock doesn’t interact with Fainting Spell anymore than it did with Phoenix Turn.
- Fainting Spell is not turned off by special conditions.
- Fainting Spell is not triggered by:
- being devolved
- KO by special conditions
- KO by placing damage counters
- It is NOT a mandatory game action (no POWER is)
- watch out for rushing by the opponent to short-circuit the activation
- don’t force it to be applied or rewind to it when someone legitimately forgot to apply it
Tyranitar
Ttar’s Poké-BODY, Darkness Drive, happens AFTER the effect of any Poké-POWER, so of course it can pick up a Darkness energy discarded from your deck by a POWER.
Type Casting
As you know, Stormfront Infernape and Torterra don’t get the benefit of abilities like Wild Growth and Heat Metal because of their type… until they level up. The Lv.X card’s type applies when it is in play.
Our old friend Charizard, in like manner gets the benefit of Heat Metal when it is Fire type, even if the attached energy is natively, say Darkness type. However, if you change Charizard’s type, say with Weavile, then you can’t get the benefit of Heat Metal.
1 time, 2 times and half a time
Luxury Ball can’t be used if another copy is in the discard. Using the effect one time is good but using the effect of a second copy is bad. You might want to huddle up with the HJ & TO and decide your approaches to this, if it happens. In my opinion, it’s not quite as game breaking as past abuses, such as a double Quick Search or POW! Hand Extension while ahead on prizes. It is kind of on the order of leaving a Protective Orb on a basic while you Rocket’s Admin… a little *illegal* edge.
Raichu’s Link Lightning let’s your players attack twice in a turn. Players can use Voltage Shoot twice, if they have the requirements. However, if there are two KO’s from the attacks, the opponent replaces his or her active after the first KO and the Raichu player takes a prize before the second attack!
The Poke … + cards — Healer, Blower, Drawer — can be played for ‘half the effect’. Again, what if a player drops one Poke Blower + and summons his opponent’s Pokemon from the bench? This is something, like flipping cards for Gallade’s Psychic Cut, which needs to be done all at once. Again, you might huddle up ahead of time and decide how you’re going to work through the situation if it comes up… either accidentally or on purpose.
If you want to follow up on any of these things, look up the italicized terms in the index of the Rulings Compendium LvX and reference the cards themselves in the Researching Tower.
