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413
- ↓ 0.50
- ꩜ 0.75
- ↑ 3.49
{C}{C}{C} → Rainbow Burn : 30+
This attack does 30 more damage for each type of basic Energy attached to this Pokémon.
illus. Aya Kusube
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It will reveal itself before a pure-hearted Trainer by shining its bright, rainbow-colored wings.
Jiří z Poděbrad
Lost Thunder was the first time Colorless-type Ho-oh *and* Lugia appeared in the same set!
Ambassador
Neo Relevation Ho-Oh (the card this is a spiritual reprint of) could do a maximum of 30+(10*6)=90 damage, as there were only 6 Basic Energy in the Neo era. Whereas this Ho-Oh could do a maximum of 30+(30*9)=300 damage, since Darkness and Metal were demoted to basic Energy, and Fairy Energy existed in the SM era.
Did this card not see any play? Even if you’re not bothering to run 9 different types of Energy in a deck, being able to start swinging for 120 damage off of 3 Energy and gradually building that number up into the 200s off of a single prizer sounds like something you could’ve toyed with with in 2018.
Tatu chín đai
Great points! I’d never considered this card as competitive, but I feel like I overlooked it.
Double Colorless Energy was also printed three times in 2017, but you wouldn’t be using it for a card like this.
Ambassador
Why is this card stating the attack does more damage for “each basic Energy” attached, rather than for “each basic Energy card”? I assume the intention is to exclude a card from Aurora Energy from being able to count towards additional damage, but that could’ve been better handled by going with the latter phrasing. The TCG has, since day 1, made a point of clarifying things are very different when a card talks about “Energy” vs “Energy card”, so “basic Energy” seems odd to me.
It isn’t a one-off typo or anything, either, as it’s shown up on every card with Rainbow Burn since DRX Ho-Oh EX. At that time, a ruling was issued that suggested Special Energy couldn’t count, but attached older cards where the text said “basic Energy card” and seemed to answer the question as if DRX Ho-Oh EX also said that*. I’m of the opinion they’re relying on a legacy thing here, with an old WOTC ruling regarding whether Rainbow Energy could provide Darkness and Metal Energy or not – it could, and they said it was not to be confused with the ‘Special’ Darkness and Metal Energy, but stopped short of saying whether the Energy being provided were Special or Basic (or some nebulous third kind**?)
pokemon-card.com’s Q&A had nothing on this or any cards I could think to check rulings for that might be related. IMO the JP text is similarly vague-ish. I’ve actually already gone and asked a Q&A about this on PokeGym because I think the situation needs clarification. IMO the answer is that – for example, cards like Aurora Energy are effectively providing “Special Grass Energy” but have no additional effect, i.e. the player cannot decide “well, since I’ve chosen it to provide {G} and it’s Special, it now has the effect of Aromatic {G} Energy” or heaven forbid go even more off-the wall and start trying to argue they can choose for it to provide Herbal Energy, etc.
I will not be surprised if the question is blown off – this is, effectively, one of those unwritten rules everyone understands and there’s probably some unanticipated headache that arises if you propose the hypothetical existence of “Special Energy with no effect”. But, hey. Apparently Ho-Oh V isn’t doing too good in the meta right now, and while the solution I suspect they’ll arrive at won’t help it out, maybe it could get a bank error in its favor.
* https://compendium.pokegym.net/ruling/564/
** https://compendium.pokegym.net/ruling/689/
Twylis
I think you’re overcomplicating it. A basic Energy is simply a unit of energy provided by a basic Energy card. Damage calculation based on attached basic Energy cards would be a different thing — because a card is a card and no effect will change that, but a basic Energy can be altered by effects such as Shining Legends Venusaur‘s Jungle Totem. If effects like this specified per Energy *card*, then Jungle Totem would not increase the damage of, say, Shining Genesect — but it does, and it’s supposed to.
Aurora Energy is a Special Energy card, and provides Energy of every type — but that doesn’t mean *basic* Energy of every type, because the only thing that provides basic Energy is a basic Energy card. However, it also obviously doesn’t mean it can provide every single type of energy to ever be printed, because it’s using “type” in the game mechanic sense (i.e. Fire, Water, Psychic, etc) and not the literal sense. Your description that it’s providing “Special Grass Energy” with no additional effect is a pretty good summation — and I don’t think there’s really any ambiguity to that.
If we got a Special Energy with no additional effect, and just provided Grass, then it still wouldn’t increase Rainbow Burn’s damage because the Energy provided by a Special Energy card isn’t basic — even if there’s nothing actually special about it.
I would also emphasize that with effects like Rainbow Burn, limiting the damage boost to basic Energy is a purposeful decision. This could be for balance reasons or just for flavor — the point of a Rainbow is to have a bunch of different colors, like you would see with multiple types of basic Energy, and just loading up on Aurora Energy or Rainbow Energy doesn’t really have the intended vibe. Note how Shining Genesect has no such limit — Herbal Energy and Aromatic Energy *do* contribute to its damage (though Jungle Totem would not increase the amount of energy they provide, because again, they’re still not providing basic Energy).
Ambassador
I do agree I’ve over-complicated it. But I don’t think either ruling was what it needed to be to not make the question fair game to come up again.
· The WOTC ruling on Rainbow Energy is not unlike a ruling where the Question is “So does A do B? (And what does that imply in terms of C, D, and E?)” and the answer comes back “Yes, A does B.” and sidesteps the complications. There’s a reason rulings are like that – never volunteer more than you need to because you never know if you say something you want to take back, and if hiccups come down the line for lack of clarity on this answer, handle them then. And that’s what they did there. When I read “For the purposes of paying the cost of an attack, yes. Though the additional effects will not be provided.” I’m reading someone who knows there’s bigger implications to the question they’re being asked, even if the person asking it doesn’t immediately realize it. But they’ve still typed an answer that’s as short and brief as possible. “Someone else can deal with the implications I’m deliberately skirting, if and only if someone asks about them later on.”
· Ho-Oh EX just isn’t a good ruling imo. It’s following the same ‘answer as directly as possible and only elaborate as much as you need to’ but in focusing on brevity it comes across incorrect. It’s linking to versions of Rainbow Burn with the wrong text, and it’s answering the question based on the wrong text. The person answering the question seems to know there’s a bigger question at play here – “Is there any particular reason Rainbow Burn has had a wording change out of line with the rest of the wording changes we’ve seen?” and doesn’t answer that, either.
The simple question “Can you actually answer the question about the Gen 5 print of Rainbow Burn, instead of pretending you were asked a question about Gen 3 Rainbow Burn?” but it’s no longer limited to Rainbow Burn anymore, because there’s at least one other attack now – EVS Wishiwashi‘s Schooling Shot – that raises the same question. So it seemed fair game to shoot for the big prize – pointing out that while the old WOTC ruling on Rainbow Energy served its purpose for well over 2 decades, a little bit of elaboration on that response is now required.
Ambassador
The conclusion to this mini-essay is what you probably would’ve expected – no bank error in Ho-Oh V’s favor. It doesn’t look like they think some of the compendium pages need to be fixed, which is something I wholesale disagree with – I stand by my conviction the DRX Ho-Oh EX compendium page is not answering the question it has been asked, but ok. I did at least get an official acknowledgement of the hypothetical “Special Grass Energy” (and so on) out of all this?
https://archive.ph/wip/uzDOI
Twylis
One aspect here that may help make sense of it: if Rainbow Burn read as “each type of Energy attached” rather than “each type of Basic Energy” attached, then with an Aurora/Rainbow it would deal damage as if it had 8-11 different types attached (depending on how Colorless, Fairy, and Dragon are handled). The “basic” specification is necessary to prevent that.
(side-note: Rainbow Energy providing “1 energy at a time” means it provides 1 *unit* of energy at a time, not type of energy)