“Hey! Learn our syntax here.”
- zoom
- jpg (126 KB)
- cred: P.P.
948
- ↓ 0.68
- ꩜ 1.40
- ↑ 4.99
Pokémon Power ⇢ Shock Blast
If Lt. Surge’s Electrode is your Active Pokémon and gets damaged (even if it’s Knocked Out), flip a coin. If tails, this power does 20 damage to each Active Pokémon. This power works even if Lt. Surge’s Electrode is already Asleep, Confused, or Paralyzed when it takes damage.
{L}{L}{C} → Power Ball : 30+
Flip 3 coins. This attack does 30 damage plus 10 more damage for each heads.
illus. Ken Sugimori · LV.33
External: Bulba ↗ · Shop: TCGplayer ↗, cardmarket ↗, eBay ↗
feyblade
As AWESOME as it would be otherwise, Shock Blast cannot trigger another Shock Blast, due to errata. What a shame.
Ambassador
” Important Errata for this card. Damage from Shock Blast will NOT trigger any Shock Blast Pokemon power (either its own ora defending Lt. Surge’s Electrode or Ditto as Lt. Surge’s Electrode). (May 3, 2001WotC Chat Announcements)”
The errata was necessary due to a mistranslation. The Power originally specifies that it is triggered when this Pokémon is damaged due to an *attack*. That means it was also insufficient. Shock Blast should not be triggered as a result of Trainer cards (e.g. Digger), other Powers (e.g. Final Beam), Energy Cards (e.g. Rainbow Energy), or anything other than an attack.
I’m not sure WOTC even realized the problem was due to a mistranslation, I think they just noticed they had created a Shock Blast infinite loop and tried to patch that up. So as late as 2001 they might’ve been issuing errata without consulting PCL or looking at the original text of cards.
Blob Takeshi
Wait, so for once TAILS is good?!
100000Volts
I thought that started in the Team Rocket. Dark Dugtrio for example.
Nos
Is the damage from this Pokemon Power affected by Weakness and Resistance?
Twylis
I don’t know of any actual rulings to back it up, but I’d say no, since weakness and resistance are game mechanics connected specifically to attacks. Even if a Power/Ability/etc did damage, since it’s not an attack, I don’t think it would use weakness or resistance.
Though I did discover that Neo Destiny’s Unown C tells you to use weakness and resistance on its Power, despite the fact that that’s impossible since it only places a damage counter rather than doing damage. Probably forgot the “do not” I guess?
televisionnation
I was curious so I looked up the original Japanese text for Neo Destiny’s Unown C. The “Apply Weakness and Resistance” is not in the Japanese text, it was erroneously added in the English translation.
An errata was issued to exclude the line: https://compendium.pokegym.net/compendium.html
Nos
I wasn’t sure, since Dark Golbat from Team Rocket actually does typed damage with its Pokemon Power (to the bench no less, talk about abnormal). So I thought maybe this would be the same. Though Dark Golbat specifically mentions it (though like I mentioned, it can target the bench, so that kind of clarification would be needed since Weakness and Resistance aren’t usually in play for benched damage)
Nos
Doing a little more research, the Japanese print of Dark Golbat specifies not to apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokemon, making me think that damage from Pokemon Powers is affected by W & R. Not many cards actually do real damage from Pokemon Powers/Poke-Powers/Abilities. So it’s not easy to find modern equivalence.
televisionnation
The Japanese Dark Golbat doesn’t say anything about benched Pokémon, it just says not to apply W&R in general. Both it’s attack & Pokémon Power have the same phrasing of “choose one of your opponent’s Pokémon”.
I’m going to say that Pokémon Power damage is not affected by Weakness & Resistance given how clearly it’s spelled out on Base Set Machamp (the Japanese version of Base Set Machamp also says not to apply W&R). This was at a time when this extra ruling info was printed on cards to be helpful since people wouldn’t necessarily know to not apply W&R for Pokémon Powers or attacks hitting the bench.
Lt. Surge’s Electrode may be lacking the text to not apply W&R (in Japanese as well) because at the time the gamemakers are assuming players knew the rules, but I would guess it’s a matter of saving space since the text is already long. The Unown C & Dark Golbat both having similar translation errors is still interesting.
Ambassador
Following from my comment on Dark Gyarados and referring to the card’s original JP text [no instruction to not apply W/R], I would suggest damage from this Power is affected by W/R.