- ↓ 0.09
- ꩜ 0.66
- ↑ 4.98
{C} → Strike and Run
Search your deck for up to 3 Basic Pokémon and put them onto your Bench. Shuffle your deck afterward. You may switch Dunsparce with 1 of your Benched Pokémon.
{C} → Sudden Flash : 10
Flip a coin. If heads, each Defending Pokémon is now Paralyzed.
illus. Mitsuhiro Arita
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Mantidactyle
4 per deck :P
I miss the days where some of the best cards were commons…
Cabd
Emolga Dragon-set-thingie only wishes it was this cool. 10/10
Curtis
If we end up in BW-on in the next 6 months or so, he may be the ideal start for most decks, so, undeservedly, he’ll be following in Dunsparce’s legacy.
Samuel Woofter
We need a reprint of this in one of the new sets
Otaku
It took about 6.25 years, but your wish has been granted! I think it is even a legit reprint and not an update…
WilliamH.
I to use the crap outta this card before I got my hand on some Pokémon Collector and Lanette’s Net Search.
reshikrom64
Finally! A COTD!
Adam Capriola
Yup! COTDs are back (at least for a few weeks). No idea when I’ll get the new rating system in place though. I started working on it, then 6P got hacked, and I’m still trying to get 6P back to normal, a month later.
Curtis
But, hey. At least we got sexy new forums out of it.
Adam Capriola
Hah yea, that’s the biggest positive to come out of all of it. If we never got hacked, then I probably never would have upgraded to the slick new software.
WilliamH.
Dunsparce rating higher than Darkrai EX’s. :P
coolestman22
It should be, too.
Mantidactyle
Found the issue !
Otaku
Just noticed a minor typo in the text spoiler: “Strike and Run.” instead of “Strike and Run:”, which is really hard to notice since it is a period versus a colon. Just one dot off! XD
Adam Capriola
Yep, great catch! That one dot is important. Thanks, Otaku!
JP
Looks like this card was mistranslated! Strike and Run in Japanese is “自分の山札から「たねポケモン」を3枚まで選び出し、自分のベンチに出す。その後、その山札を切る。ベンチに出した場合、のぞむなら、自分を自分のベンチポケモンと入れ替えてよい。” Google Translate has this as “Select up to 3 Seed Pokémon from your deck and place them on your bench. Then shuffle the deck. If you place it on the bench, you may replace it with your benched Pokémon if you wish.” So you shouldn’t be able to switch if you fail the search! (I don’t speak Japanese but I’ve gotten a Japanese native speaker to confirm this is correct.)
Note that this is functionally the same as the way Dunsparce CES words this part: “If you put any Pokémon onto your Bench in this way, you may switch this Pokémon with 1 of your Benched Pokémon.”
1. Dunsparce came out in Japan in Magma vs Aqua (10/24/2003) and in English in Sandstorm (9/18/2003–over a month earlier!) so maybe this affected the quality of the translations?
2. Dunsparce CES and Dunsparce SS were ruled as different cards in English, which made sense because of the apparent difference in effect of Strike and Run. But Dunsparce CES is ruled as a different card than Dunsparce SS in Japanese too… probably because the old print’s Sudden Flash attack refers to each Defending Pokemon (for double battles), and on the later print Sudden Flash only refers to the opponent’s Active Pokemon (singular). They are also possibly different because the SS print lacks a height and weight, which affects its interaction with Cedric Juniper (which cares about the printed height on a Pokemon in your hand).
3. The mistranslation means that https://compendium.pokegym.net/compendium-ex.html is wrong regarding switching if you fail search (well, wrong to the Japanese text; it’s correct wrt the translation).
> Q. When you use Strike and Run, I know you can select 0 Pokémon to get, but are you allowed to select 0 and then switch Dunsparce with another Pokémon on your bench still? I would think so because it doesn’t say “After doing so you may switch dunsparce” it just says “You may switch Dunsparce with 1 of your benched Pokémon”.
A. That is correct; you can still switch the Dunsparce even if you select zero Pokémon (Apr 8, 2004 PUI Rules Team)
Ambassador
I submitted a Q&A to PokeGym about their past comments on CES Dunsparce, relative to SS Dunsparce, and got an interesting response[1];
“The Compendium collects and publishes rulings that have been either originated by R&D or OP or have been approved by them.
The Rules Team very rarely gets any background info on why anything is ruled the way it is.
We cannot begin to address the depth of the questions you are asking.
Generally all we can say is “this works” or “this doesn’t work”.”
You can read through the post to understand the how and why of what’s going on here – some of what JP outlined above applies, but basically, back in 2018, PokéGym gave a completely incorrect explanation as to why CES Dunsparce didn’t make SS Dunsparce legal to play, and it ends up revealing in its own way. I’m not sure when the cut-off or change in approach happened[1], but it currently seems like in some point in Organized Play history, the English ruling team stopped being able (wasn’t allowed?) to make rulings or have the final say on certain things. Rather, what seems to be happening now is that the JP ruling team will give them the right answers, but won’t necessarily give them the rationale as to *why* that’s the right answer. So there’s still merit in asking them stuff, but there’s not necessarily any point in trying to understand the rationale because they might’ve made it up..?
(BTW, there is more to this card ..but I’m working on it.)
[1] My guess is sometime during Gen 4 or Gen 5 – with the benefit of hindsight, it’s obvious that Gen 3 was still giving incorrect answers, but during Gen 4 we start to see “right answer, despite wrong rationale”, with Gen 5’s completely nonsense rationale for the Computer Search vs. Computer Search Ace Spec being the pinnacle of this. Since they’re still giving incorrect rationale as late as 2018 and the response to my enquiry doesn’t suggest the approach has changed..