Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Mew EX Versatile ability. Here we go again.

Furvur

New Member
I played pokemon back when the Jungle deck first came out, then put the cards away once Neo Genesis hit. I've never known a Pokemon to come up THIS OFTEN in debates about rules. Well, the Birthday Pikachu was interesting, but nobody gave it any real weight.

1. It is stated in the rules that an ability can be used once every turn before an attack. Does this mean I can use Versatile and then an attack, or is Versatile the attack?

2. This is one question I've never seen asked. If I have something like a Voltorb that does 80 damage for self-destruct and the special condition says "also does 80 damage to Voltorb", that would knock Voltorb out. It is a text-book self-destruction. But, if my mew is active and Mew uses Voltorb's self destruct, does that mean Voltorb on my bench is knocked out, or does that mean that I apply 80 damage to Mew? So Mew can self-destruct without knocking itself out?

3. When Charmeleon uses Flamethrower, it says to "discard one F attached to Charmeleon". So if Mew has three energy, does Mew discard one F or does one F need to be attached to Charmeleon to discard?

I haven't played the game in many years and finally pulled out my old Jungle/Fossil/Base decks and played against my friend. She destroyed me with her modern pokemon, so I bought a Legendary Treasures booster and there was Mew EX, full-art holo in all it's beautiful glory!

Thanks.

I'd post scans if I knew how to.
 
One reason I'm confused is because, per the Rule Book, it says:

"Abilities aren't attacks, so you can still attack if you use and ability. You can use abilities from both your active and benched pokemon."

Does this mean Mew can attack from the bench, and then the active pokemon can attack too? So confusing.
 
most of the answers to this can be found in the compendium, but more specifically

1. versatile is one of the abilities that is normally always on while in play, as it's always on you don't have to declare your use of it, you just declare which attack you're copying when start your attack.

2. •Prior to the "Black & White" series, when a Pokemon refers to itself by name, interpret that card as though the text reads "this Pokemon". This has the practical effect of not including other Pokemon of the same name; if a Pokemon copies that text, it refers to itself, not the original Pokemon. Beginning with "Black & White", when a Pokemon refers to itself by name, this extends to other Pokemon of the same name; if a Pokemon copies that text, it refers to other Pokemon of the same name. Also, when a Pokemon refers to "this Pokemon", this has the practical effect of not including other Pokemon of the same name; if a Pokemon copies that text it refers to itself, not the original Pokemon. (Apr 17, 2008 PUI Rules Team; May 16, 2013 TPCi Rules Team)

3 as per the previous one the reference to charmeleon in the flamethrower attack is changed to refer to mew, so mew would be the one doing the discard

4 only the active pokemon may attack.
 
That's a lot of info and answers all questions but one.

2. This is hard to follow. Playing with current rules, who receives the damage if the card says:
A. "This Pokemon does 20 damage to itself"
B. "Magneton does 20 damage to itself"
C. "Put 2 damage counters on Machoke"

Mew, or the Pokemon that the attack was copied from?
 
I assume those are all self damage attacks if so
for A,B,C if mew is copying those attacks mew would take the self damage.
 
It is stated in the rules that an ability can be used once every turn before an attack.

hold on. where in the rules does it say this?

nowhere, that's where.

Abilities are only limited to once per turn if they say so on the card itself. Although in mew's case, the ability is always on and just grants Mew the ability to use other pokemons' attacks.

2. This is hard to follow. Playing with current rules, who receives the damage if the card says:
A. "This Pokemon does 20 damage to itself"
B. "Magneton does 20 damage to itself"
C. "Put 2 damage counters on Machoke"

Per the rules cleanup, these attacks would say

A. This pokemon does 20 damage to itself
B. This pokemon does 20 damage to itself
C. Put 2 damage counters on this pokemon.

Note that this doesn't change how any of these attacks actually function (self-referencing attacks have always worked this way going all the way back to Base Set Clefairy's Metronome attack), but it makes the interaction more clear.
 
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