Luring Flame with no Bench

[Mr. Grass]

Here's the text for the Dragon set Slugma: "Switch 1 of your opponent's Benched Pokémon with 1 of the Defending Pokémon. You opponent chooses the Defending Pokémon to switch. The new Defending Pokémon is now Burned."
I was at the Dragon Prerelease and played with this card. The situation never came up but it almost did where the opponent had no benched pokemon. If this was the case, would the Defending Pokémon be burned? Between myself and the other Professors there we came up with a 3 to 1 decision that the attack does Burn the active pokémon, but I wanted to get a few other opinions.

 

[PokePop]

I'd say not. You can't do the first thing, so you don't do the second thing.

 

[Postdog2Gengar]

I have to agree with PokePop. I mean, it does clearly state "New Defending Pokemon." I don't think that this attack can be used if your opponent has no benched Pokemon, or it should be ruled that way.

BTW, try asking this in the Ask the Masters forum, because this is a pretty serious question.

 

[sneaselsrevenge]

I have to agree with PokePop. I mean, it does clearly state "New Defending Pokemon." I don't think that this attack can be used if your opponent has no benched Pokemon, or it should be ruled that way.

BTW, try asking this in the Ask the Masters forum, because this is a pretty serious question.

I have to agree

 

[NoPoke]

Even the name of the attack : Luring Flame gives a clue that the burn't condition is associated with the lure from the bench.

For it to be optional then the attack text *should* start with 'You may', and as Postdog points out the 'new' part of the last sentance would be dropped too. There have been templating errors in the past but I see no evidence that this is one of them.

 

[Mr. Grass]

Y'all are probably right. What got me is the fact that they dropped the "If your opponent has no pokemon on the bench this attack does nothing" clause that a lot of those bench effecting moves have. I've posted this in the Ask the Masters section, so we should have a ruling soon, I hope I hope I hope.