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- ↓ 24.10
- ꩜ 34.94
- ↑ 74.69
Pokémon Power ⇢ Mind Games
Whenever your opponent plays a Trainer card, you may flip a coin. If heads, that card does nothing. Put it on top of your opponent’s deck. This power can’t be used if Slowking is Asleep, Confused, or Paralyzed.
{P}{P}{P} → Mind Blast : 20+
Flip a coin. If heads, this attack does 20 damage plus 10 more damage and the Defending Pokémon is now Confused. If tails, this attack does 20 damage.
illus. Ken Sugimori · LV.39
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When its head was bitten, toxins entered Slowpoke’s head and unlocked an extraordinary power.
reshikrom64
10/10 before I found about mistranslation…-2/10 afterwards.
Warnock 2022
Even the original (Japanese) version of this card isn’t bad! It kinda resembles Honchkrow-𝙂𝙓.
Mantidactyle
BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN
Curtis
Technically never received errata. I’d say it should be banned from Unlimited until it does, but that format has much more broken cards to worry about.
coolestman22
Oh god the Sneazel Slowking format was broken. Glad I didn’t play then!
Oh wait. I played during the SP era. That was almost as bad. And now the EX era.
I wish we could just ban ND and go back to Cities format. That was fun.
Mantidactyle
You’re harsh.
SP was nowhere as bad as Slowking – Sneasel – Murkrow.
Imagine playing 8 battles in a row in a National having to flip like 10 coins every turn… :D
NicholasInzeo
broken! yet he looks so innocent
charzbarz
if both card effects are a chance of working right, how is this broken? its a chance card that can be one shot by most basic pokemon?
i havent been playing for long so bare with me if theres something about this card i dont know.
coolestman22
First of all, there were no EX’s, Pokemon Catcher, or basics with 130 HP back then. 1 for 20 was considered good.
Second of all, if you set up four Slowking, your opponent has to flip four coins, and if even one is tails the trainer doesn’t go through. Imagine having a 6.25% chance of being able to play a Junk Arm, then even if it went through you’d have a 6.25% chance of it working. That’s about (my math might not be 100%) a 1.0375 chance of it working.
Chuck Rancor
Well back when this is a card, at least if my understanding is right, 80 HP is a bit harder to one shot. Today, you’d still need either Catcher(which Slowking can prevent), or a pokemon with an ability, that brings to the active. Either way, you have a card that’s denying half of the opponent’s trainers and piling them up on top of his deck.
Curtis
So because this Power was mistranslated as stackable, people got out multiples at a time, that much I understand. But did battles ever break down to Slowking trades? Eventually you’d probably KO whatever else they had, especially at the molasses pace the game had been reduced to. Seems like you’re almost forced to be prepared to attack with it.
Twylis
The fact Wizards banned Sneasel before this mistranslated monstrosity still bothers me. Sneasel was strong, sure, but the also-broken trainers of the era provided strong counters to it (especially the Energy Removals). Couldn’t rely on them with this thing in existence, though.
Lends credence to the theory that Wizards mistranslated this on purpose because they didn’t like the fast-paced trainer-driven gameplay.
Twylis
Looking into it further, to call this a mistranslation is itself rather misleading. The card was translated correctly, there was just an entire line left out:
“You may use this Power if Slowking is your Active Pokémon.”
So unless they just didn’t understand the game well enough to know what that meant and were trying to save on card space, this “mistranslation” was 100% deliberate.
I hate Wizards.
Ambassador
Absolutely, yeah. An omission is an error, intentional or not, but mistranslation sounds like an “a word was confused for or another one or the nuances of a statement got lost in the way we decided to phrase it” – not that entire sentences are omitted. Some web searching shows that word had actually gotten out that WOTC had completely butchered the effect of the power, and people were disgruntled by the decision to ban instead of errata.