Ruling on accelgor please.

[PokePharos]

Accelgor with 60 HP uses deck and cover on a pokemon that has Rock Guard attached to it.
I've read in a previous post that accelgor is NOT KO'd because it needs to finish all of the effects of his attack before damage is dealt. Fair enough.

BUT

rock guard states that you put the damage on the "attacking" pokemon after the damage is dealt.
If the ruling doesn't change because of this then it should be reworded to "If the pokemon this card is attached to is your active pokemon and is damaged by an opponent's attack (even if that pokemon is knocked out) put 6 damage counters on the pokemon that attacked" That would make more sense to everyone I believe.

So that means if you did an attack which had the effect of switching your opponents active with a benched.. the pokemon with rock guard would no longer be active after the attack and rock guard specifically says the pokemon its attached to has to be active.. so it wouldn't add the damage then too, how silly is that?

Here's how I think of it..
They say you can't add extra damage to an attack with effects if the attack didn't do damage already.. so you would think the damage is the first thing that happens.

So does the ruling stay the same? Does Accelgor get KO'd or not?

 

[ApachePrime]

You don't check for knockouts until after all effects of an attack have completed. Therefore, timing of the Rock Guard placement does not matter. The Accelgor is shuffled before the knockout is checked for.

 

[cabd]

Ask otaku about wording. The only justification is sometimes "because japan says so" but in this case the basic rulebook makes the steps clear. If there's no target, the damage counters can no longer find their target, so the effect ends. It's just like the old Uxie vs Gengar fainting spell issue.

I'll break it down step by step, just to be clear. Player A is the player with the accelgor with 60HP remaining. Player B has the rock guard attached to their active.... Let's call it a mewtwo EX.

Player A declares he is going to use "Deck And Cover"
(At this point, the game has entered the attack phase of player A's turn, and player A cannot exit attack phase without B's consent.)

The game checks that Player A's Accelgor has enough energy attached to fulfill the requirement to use Deck and Cover.

The game state passes the attack phase into the next step, damage calculation. Since mewtwo neither resists nor is weak to accelgor, the damage is resolved as written on the card.

We place 5 damage counters on mewtwo. Note that even if this exceeds his current HP total, the counters are still placed.

Next, we resolve any other effects of the attack. We place a poison marker on mewtwo, turn it sideways to indicate it is paralyzed, and as per the wording of deck and cover, player A shuffles accelgor and all cards attached to it into his or her deck, and immediately places a new active pokemon.

Next, we resolve any other effects. In this case, we need to activate rock guard. Rock guard goes to place 6 damage counters on the "attacking pokemon". However, pokemon that attacked mewtwo is no longer on A's playing field. Therefore under the "do as much as you can" meta rule, rock guards effect processing stops here. There is no valid target, so it fizzles.

Lastly, the game state checks to see if anything was knocked out. At this point, if Mewtwo has more damage counters than hit points, it is knocked out and player B places a new active immediately.

Edit for clarity:

Had we used something like Kyogre Ex's "Smash Turn" even though it went to the bench, the game state still recognizes it as the pokemon that was the attacking pokemon, so it gets 6 damage counters.