Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Can you throw away trainer cards?

A

Adv1sor

New Member
No answers here yet and Gardevior Ex is looming large,
http://www.pokegym.net/showthread.php?t=3517

Please, I am looking for any links to official rulings.

Are you allowed to use a trainer card even if you know it will not produce anything just to get the card out of your hand?

For example,

If MewTwo Ex were my active Pokemon, could I play Wally's training? (Wally says search your deck for an eveolvement, it doesn't say you have to find one!)

Or, say I used an energy search last turn and found that no more basic energy was in my deck. Could I still play an energy search next turn?

What about using a Full Heal on a pokemon not affected by any special conditions?

You get the picture, any answers?
 
Well... it seems more to be depending on the wording of the card.

Only a few cards have been ruled that you can't.

check with you Tournaments Judge if need be.
 
Adv1sor said:
No answers here yet and Gardevior Ex is looming large,
http://www.pokegym.net/showthread.php?t=3517

Please, I am looking for any links to official rulings.

Are you allowed to use a trainer card even if you know it will not produce anything just to get the card out of your hand?

For example,

If MewTwo Ex were my active Pokemon, could I play Wally's training? (Wally says search your deck for an eveolvement, it doesn't say you have to find one!)

Or, say I used an energy search last turn and found that no more basic energy was in my deck. Could I still play an energy search next turn?

What about using a Full Heal on a pokemon not affected by any special conditions?

You get the picture, any answers?
Click to expand...

I don't know what Nintendo thinks, but the Compendium says you can play potion if there's no damage on your side of the field, so I'd say yes, definetely for the full heal, I dunno about Wally's Training, probably not.
 
New rulings tonight. Can't play a Trainer card when you know it's effect can't happen. Check the ATMT forum tomorrow or so
 
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SuperWooper said:
I don't know what Nintendo thinks, but the Compendium says you can play potion if there's no damage on your side of the field, so I'd say yes, definetely for the full heal, I dunno about Wally's Training, probably not.
Click to expand...

Note that Potion has been reworded since that ruling and it no longer applies.
 
Pokemon Chat Report - Thursday said:
master_trainer_mike presents the speaker with question #13 from yoshi1001:Suppose I am instructed to search my deck for something only to find it's not there. Do I have to show my deck to my opponent to prove this?
master_trainer_mike says, "When some effect tells you to search your deck for something, you can always choose to NOT find it or not take it."
master_trainer_mike says, "For example, you play an effect that says search your deck for an energy card. Even though you have them, you have the option to not "find" one."
master_trainer_mike says, "This covers the type of situation you mentioned above."
Click to expand...

Does this statement still hold true?
 
If you can't find something, call over a judge to verify. It is a different understanding from the earlier program.

Finding nothing, when you can find something, doesn't follow what is written on the card, or what has been printed in the rulebook.
 
Man, I'm getting my games mixed up here. In LOTR, you can always pay the cost to play a card if the effect can't be achieved for some reason. In fact, in many situations, you can choose to get partial effect if the entire effect can't be achieved. And finally, like MTM's ruling, there are many cards that can be played (and the cost paid for) where the player chooses NOT to get any of the desired effect. IMO, this should also be the case for Pokemon.

For example, you should be allowed to play Bill and Bill's Teleporter if you have less than the required amount of cards to draw.

Nevertheless, in LOTR, cost is very well defined. In Pokemon, it's not, so I can see many cases where opting not to apply the effect just won't work, especially if the effect involves something that might benefit your opponent.

For example, going back to Bill and Bill's Teleporter. You can't play Bill and Bill's Teleporter, then choose to draw less/no cards to prevent yourself from being decked.

So, I don't think we can make a "blanket" statement that you "can't play a trainer if the effect can't be achieved." It all depends.
 
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So, here's the ruling,
== ENERGY SEARCH (Fossil; Expedition; EX:Ruby/Sapphire)

Q. If you use an Energy Search and don't find any Basic Energy, do you
still discard the Energy Search? If so, can you then play another
Energy Search, even though you know it will fail?
A. You would still discard the first one. However, unless the contents
of your deck change before playing the second one it would not be
allowed. In other words, if you already know there isn't any energy in your
deck, you really shouldn't play the second one. (Jan 15, 2004 PUI Rules
Team)
Click to expand...

you really shouldn't play the second one
So, does really shouldn't mean not allowed?

If so, then what's with this ruling?
Q. What happens if a free retreater with Balloon Berry attached
retreats? Does Balloon Berry get discarded in place of 0 cards?
A. Even if you have no retreat cost, you must still discard the Balloon
Berry when retreating. (Jan 15, 2004 PUI Rules Team)
Click to expand...
This would seem that you are allowed to attach Balloon Berry to a free retreat pokemon.

This really doesn't answer my question on the fruitless use of trainer cards.
:(
 
Yoshi, the first ruling doesn't prevent stalling...

a player who wishes to stall would be ill advised to try repeat searching and would probably get disqualified when they argue with the judge that what they are doing is anything other than an attempt to stall.

As to why you might wish to do this... you have just played pokenav and don't like the next two cards. Energy search allows you to shuffle your deck and maybe get a better draw next turn!.

I am all in favour of simplifying the game but not if it also means dumbing down by constantly removing little bits of strategy.
 
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Today at our tournament, I issued my first-ever penalty for stalling. Here's what happened. This player had about 3 minutes left before time would be called. The prize count was even. This was a best-of-3 match and this player had won the first game. His active Pokemon was poisoned, didn't have the ability to KO his opponent, couldn't retreat (it was asleep), and would get KO'd itself next turn. This player then proceed to do deck searching for Pokemon and played PokeNavs which had no value other than to draw out his turn (he didn't have Warp Energies in his deck and he knew it). Additionally, he counted and looked thru discard piles, and slowly read his opponent's in-play cards. All this went on while I watched him. When time was called, he still hadn't passed. I immediately then called him for stalling and gave him a game-loss for the first game of the next round, and warned him that further stalling would result in a match loss or possibly a DQ. He put up no argument.

Stalling is a very subjective call. If the actions taken by the player provide no benefit other than to draw out the time and get the win, IMO, that's stalling. Sure, you can legally do those actions, and there's the paradox. Neverthess, I've seen many of the younger players do the same thing, but many are clueless that they're stalling. In those situations, I most likely would NOT give a stalling penalty. JMO.
 
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"Wally's Training" reads: Search your deck for A CARD THAT EVOLVES FROM YOUR ACTIVE POKEMON (choose one if there are two) and put it on your Active Pokemon. (This counts as evolving that Pokemon.) Shuffle your deck afterwards.


No, you can't even play it with Mewtwo ex as it does not evolve. You can't search for more than one Pokemon, hence the word "a". You can't search for other Pokemon that appear later on in the evolution chain, you can only search for a pokemon that directly evolves from your Active Pokemon.
 
Silver Chaos said:
"Wally's Training" reads: Search your deck for A CARD THAT EVOLVES FROM YOUR ACTIVE POKEMON (choose one if there are two) and put it on your Active Pokemon. (This counts as evolving that Pokemon.) Shuffle your deck afterwards.
Click to expand...

Yes, it says search your deck for the card. It doesn't say you have to find one or that such a card has to even exist.

My reason for asking the question was to find a way to lessen Gardevoir's Feedback attack, not to try to stall.

We already have rules against stalling.

What I would like to see from POP is a ruling that either says you can play trainer cards whenever you like or one that says you can only play trainer cards when they have a possibility of doing what they are supposed to do.

What about using full heal on a pokemon that is not affected by special conditions?
 
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The ability to search your deck is very usefull to any player. I advise all my players and especially my son to examine the contents of his deck carefully the first time a search is legally available. I hope that the reason why you would wish to do this is obvious to all....


I'd have to be quite desperate before I used a wally up on an active MewTwo EX but I see no reason why this should not be a legal play.

We will get into all sorts of mess if we end up with a game rules guideline that says that you cannot perform an action if you are either unable to or already know that you are unable to complete all the actions required of a power, trainer, or attack.
 
I'd love to start a poll against the new rule on trainers... that is that you can't play a trainer if you know that you cant complete all the actions.

This has sweeping implications for the game.. apart from all the cards that now work differently there are those grey cases such as when a player has established that there is no evolution in their deck. Is this now cheating since it is a deliberate misplay?

You can play an energy restore if your discard pile is tidy and its not obvious that there are no energy cards held within. However you can't if it has been established that there are no energy cards to restore? Suppose you forget?

You can't play NGR if there is nothing in your discard pile. You can play NGR if you don't know that your discard pile is nothing but trainers and special energy. You can't play NGR if you know that your discard pile has nothing to restore.

Lass when you know you have no other trainers in your hand? Blaine when you know that you can't make use of the additional energy attachment. Friend Ball when you pick a colour that you know you don't have. How is you opponnet supposed to know that you are cheating? Heck, how are you supposed to remember?

sorry I'm in danger of ranting and raving against this one.....

I'll bet there are others.....
 
NoPoke said:
I'd love to start a poll against the new rule on trainers... that is that you can't play a trainer if you know that you cant complete all the actions.
Click to expand...

I totally agree
 
NoPoke said:
I'd love to start a poll against the new rule on trainers... that is that you can't play a trainer if you know that you cant complete all the actions.
Click to expand...

Please do.
We told PUI that players wouldn't be happy with this change in play. The feedback would be useful.
 
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