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726
- ↓ 0.54
- ꩜ 1.48
- ↑ 2.99
Poké-BODY ⇢ Stages of Evolution
As long as Wobbuffet is an Evolved Pokémon, your opponent pays {C} more to retreat his or her Active Pokémon.
{C} → Grind : 10×
Does 10 damage times the amount of Energy attached to Wobbuffet.
{P}{P}{C} → Shadow Tag
Put 7 damage counters on the Defending Pokémon at the end of your opponent’s next turn.
illus. Kouki Saitou
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Adam Capriola
This card was brutal with Pow! Hand Extension. So easy to get like 2 or 3 in play and lock stuff.
tfw
over the past couple of weeks, there’s been a heated argument concerning Basic Pokemon that have evolved from another Basic Pokemon via the effect of Baby Evolution (like this Wobbuffet here if it had evolved from Wynaut using Wynaut’s Poke-Power) in the EX era and their interactions with cards that specifically affect Basic Pokemon, like Space Center, Flygon-ex’s Sand Damage, or Swoop! Teleporter. one side argues that this specific group of Evolved Basic Pokemon should not be affected by such cards as they are Evolved Pokemon, and the distinction between “Evolved” and “Evolution” technically is not outlined by any official source until Diamond & Pearl. the other side argues that this system of “Evolved” and “Evolution” should apply to the EX era as the text on cards such as Professor Elm’s Training Method (Evolution) vs Solid Rage (Evolved) supports the (retroactive…? more on this later) existence of this system in the EX era.
tfw
the four states of evolution as we know them from the Diamond & Pearl era onwards are as follows, and EX era card text supports the existence of the first three, and kind of… loosely… supports the existence of the fourth:
• a Basic Pokemon (たねポケモン) is a Pokemon that has “Basic” written as its stage on the left side of the card. cards like Great Ball and Space Center check for this state. you can set a Basic face down as your starting Pokemon during setup and can play Basic Pokemon from your hand onto your bench during your turn.
• an Evolution Card (進化カード) is a Pokemon that has “Stage 1” or “Stage 2” written as its stage on the left side of the card. cards like Professor Elm’s Training Method and Dark Dragonair TR 31 check for this state. English cards with devolution effects like Espeon-ex, Ancient Technical Machine [Rock], and Surprise! Time Machine refer to this state, (“remove the highest Stage Evolution card from that Pokémon”) but it’s important to note that this is a mistranslation and the Japanese text makes no effort to distinguish “Evolved” from “Evolution” for this specific type of effect.
tfw
• an Evolved Pokemon (進化ポケモン) is a Pokemon in play that has been manually placed on top of another Pokemon to evolve it. cards like Scramble Energy and Latias HP 11 check for this state. it is outlined in a Japanese EX era Q&A that a Pokemon that has evolved from another Pokemon via the effect of Baby Evolution is considered an Evolved Pokemon. (but no mention on whether that Pokemon is still considered a Basic Pokemon or is now considered an Evolution Pokemon… link to that Q&A here: https://web.archive.org/web/20060217011347/http://www.pokemon-card.com:80/play/q_and_a/adv2_qa.html)
the last state is technically called for in the EX era by Scramble Energy and Boost Energy, but only in English. the distinction of “Unevolved” makes its first appearance in Japanese on DP3 Shining Darkness Stantler.
• an Unevolved Pokemon, or “Pokemon that isn’t an Evolved Pokemon” (進化していないポケモン) is a Pokemon in play that does not have a Pokemon underneath it that it has evolved from. cards like Snowpoint Temple and Mewtwo LV.X check for this state.
tfw
with all of this in mind, it would seem like this case would be pretty cut and dry. although EX era rules never explicitly state it, we know that this system would be officially spelled out shortly after EX, so what’s the issue in assuming we can safely backport it to EX? a couple of things:
the player who beat Wailord-EX in the finals of US Nats 2015, Jason Klaczynski, who also just happened to be an attendee of 2006 Worlds, mentioned that in 2006 no one played as if Space Center shut off Wobbuffet’s Body.
“If it worked as you describe, Space Center would also shut off an evolved Wobbuffet. Space Center would have seen way more play in 2006.”
“Even though TPCi still got a few rulings wrong around this time, Wobbuffet and Jynx were both popular enough cards where I feel like we’d have heard from Japan if we had been doing it wrong.”
these are fair points, and provide insight into how judges & other officials ruled this historically. these weren’t exactly unheard of or rarely played cards. Wobbuffet and Jynx were popular in Mewlock, and Space Center was already popular in countering both anti-Pidgeot Lunatone/Solrock locks and the evil Jirachi hater, Girafarig LM 16. this being said, I’m not totally convinced they had it right back then just because everyone agreed it worked one specific way.
he also argued that “Often in this game we have to determine what the intention of a card is rather than go by the literal text.”
I fear that this could open up an endless can of worms, but make of this what you will
tfw
another weird snafu is the conditional text on the three tool cards released in Unseen Forces- Curse Powder, Protective Orb, and Solid Rage:
“Attach [tool] to 1 of your Evolved Pokémon (excluding Pokémon-ex) that doesn’t already have a Pokémon Tool attached to it. If the Pokémon [tool] is attached to is a Basic Pokémon or Pokémon-ex, discard [tool].”
If we assume Wobbuffet here is both Evolved and Basic as it would be under modern day rulings, would that mean you would be allowed to attach one of these three tools to it and then be forced to discard it instantly afterwards? it’s a weird little interaction that makes you wonder if they’d ever actually rule it like that. it seems like they wanted to go for the same type of discard interaction that happens when a Pokemon with Boost or Scramble Energy attached gets devolved, but that begs the question, why not just copy the text on Boost or Scramble energy!? they were released before and after these tools came out, right around the same time, and the text on those cards would be perfectly applicable here!
tfw
the arguments that are in favor of Wobbuffet being an “Evolved Basic” end up being pretty interesting too. after all, if this Wobbuffet isn’t to be considered a Basic, then what is it? theres no text that states that it magically become a Stage 1 (we know definitively that it doesn’t become a Stage 1 thanks to a similar compendium ruling on Omastar), even though its an Evolved Pokemon. are the people that are against Baby Evolution evolved Pokemon being considered Basic trying to pass off the idea that there is now this unique fourth group of Pokemon that aren’t Basics, Stage 1s, or Stage 2s?!
to wrap things up, I want to clarify that I believe this Wobbuffet, if evolved, should still be affected by cards that interact with Basic Pokemon in play. even though there is no official ruling on this system in the EX era, if we take the text of cards literally, it aligns with what we know to be correct from DP onwards, and I think that ends up being the most important factor. theres nothing that states that an evolved Wobbuffet isn’t a Basic Pokemon, (unless you believe there to be no difference between “Evolved” and “Evolution” in EX, and if you believe that being an Evolution/Evolved Pokemon is mutually exclusive with being a Basic Pokemon) and there is a bare minimum amount of text supporting the idea that this evolved Wobbuffet is a Basic Pokemon (literally just the word Basic on its card). after all, nowhere in the game does it state that being Evolved overrides the text of a card.
tfw
if anyone can find anything else from an official source about how this system works in EX, it would be really helpful. many people have tried and came up with next to nothing, which is really weird to me. I also would like to apologize for how confusing this all must sound if you aren’t knee deep into this stuff. thank you for reading my wall of text
Twylis
One aspect I think worth noting is that in the EX era, the “Baby Pokémon” stage ceased to exist, meaning if Wobbuffet remains a Basic, then you have a Basic evolving into a Basic. Which feels kinda conceptually weird.
The other thing that I think is worth noting is how early in the franchise, “Basic Pokémon” and “Evolution cards” were often framed as distinct, mutually exclusive categories. Not 100% sure when the Japanese cards stopped using the phrasing (iirc sometime during Gen 2), but the English TCG was still using “Basic Pokémon or Evolution card” on its universal pokémon search cards like Poké Ball during this time (as opposed to simply “Pokémon card”). I think the intent with Evolved Basics may very well have been for them to be “stageless” — obviously not a Stage 1, but not Basic either. I think “Basic” was primarily used to simply designate a pokémon that can be put into play directly, as opposed to being a distinct stage unto itself (arguably reflected by the fact that in Gen 1, Japanese cards didn’t even denote Basic status).
While stage designations on the cards nowadays are pretty definitive, I think the line of reasoning that Wobbuffet would remain a Basic even when it’s an Evolved Pokémon is predicated on a lot of well-established modern card categorization norms that simply weren’t as definitive back then. “Basic” back then was more just a designation of how you play the card, rather than an innate quality of the card.
tfw
you’re right in saying that “Basic or Evolution card” was phased out terminology in Japan by the time of Gen 3. I should’ve mentioned that. I think designating these Pokemon as “stageless” could be a fair interpretation, BUT if this was the case I can’t imagine that there would just be no official rulings of any kind for it. as such, I feel like that might end up causing more problems than fixing them… (having to add a new term for this new type of Pokemon stage to existing card text would just be the least of our worries)
also, there is actually sufficient evidence that “Basic” is a specific quality of the card by the time of EX. there were a few random & complex cards that allowed you to “cheat” non-Basic Pokemon into play via an effect, like Archie, Maxie, Lileep and Anorith’s Influence, Kabuto and Omanyte’s Team Assembly, Strange Cave, and Holon Fossil. these cards come with a specific condition at the end of their effects: “Treat the new Benched Pokémon as a Basic Pokémon”. if we’re to “treat something as a Basic”, that implies that it’s also going to be affected by everything that references in-play Basic Pokemon specifically by their stage. (and it’s true! we know that Sand Damage will place a damage counter on a benched Team Aqua’s Walrein that has been put into play with the effect of Archie)
Twylis
Oh, the “Treat the new Benched Pokémon as a Basic Pokémon” is actually a very good point of reference for this distinction, I think. Since in the cases of Strange Cave etc., that treatment as a Basic has an implied “instead of a Stage 1 Pokémon”, or more pertinently, “instead of an Evolved Pokémon”.
Applying that logic to Wobbuffet and Wynaut, Wobbuffet’s phrasing of “As long as Wobbuffet is an Evolved Pokémon” arguably has an implied “instead of a Basic Pokémon”. If we accept that Basic Pokémon and Evolved Pokémon were being conceived of as distinct and mutually exclusive categories, then something that enters play through evolving wouldn’t be a Basic during that era.
I recognize my reasoning is a bit circular here, since it basically boils down to “if you assume it isn’t a Basic Pokémon, then logically it isn’t a Basic Pokémon”, but it feels internally consistent if Basic is simply being used to mean “enters play without Evolving”.