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Ability ⇢ Cursed Land
As long as this Pokémon is in the Active Spot, your opponent’s Pokémon in play that have any damage counters on them have no Abilities, except for Pokémon ex.
{F}{F}{F} → Land Scoop : 150
Put 2 damage counters on 1 of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon.
· Pokémon ex rule: When your Pokémon ex is Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards.
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EctoCandy
I expected to hate this card due to its ability, but honestly, I think it may be among the most well-designed cards mechanically, and one of my favorites. This is for a few reasons:
Most importantly, it changes the pace of the game by actually slowing it down rather than speeding up, which from my experience is pretty rare in the PTCG. The current meta is “Use abilities to draw, get out OHKO mon, OHKO, OHKO, OHKO, maybe OHKO again if you really have to, win.” But this thing stops most common draw abilities so the opponent can’t get out their OHKO mons, and with a 150 damage move that requires 3 fighting energy to power up, it’s not getting any two-prize OHKOs anytime soon, either. The game becomes a war of attrition, with your opponent trying their best to ration their resources and break down your Ting-Lu wall while you chip away at them with half the normal speed.
It fits in with the cards around it very nicely as well. I’ve seen it played with Hawlucha SVI, Koraidon SVI, Gapejaw Bog, and Radiant Alakazam, as an engine to power up Ting-Lu and get damage counters spread across all of your opponent’s Pokémon to stop their abilities as quickly as possible. That strategy, though, is still counterable by cards that are already commonly played in the meta – Nest Ball and Battle VIP Pass ignore the effects of Gapejaw Bog by putting a Pokémon straight onto the bench, potentially buying you at least a turn to use its ability, and cards like Escape Rope, Cross Switcher, and especially Boss’s Orders can get Ting-Lu out of the active and give you a turn to breathe. All this makes Ting-Lu a force to be reckoned with, but still without requiring players of the PTCG to dramatically change their decks to play around it.
Fighting against Ting-Lu also has a sort of “flavor” to it that fits the Pokémon’s in-game role as a tank and the Treasures of Ruin quartet’s “palpable evil” theme very well – Its PTCG ex card is a tank, not because of its slightly-higher-than-normal HP, but because it wears the opposing Pokémon down so that they can’t muster the strength needed to fight back against it.