Evolving Babies - Semantics

[SteveP]

According to the rulings on such cards as Rare Candy and Wally's Training, babies evolve into their respective next form while non-baby basics are evolved from.

Why the big difference? Try to explain to a little kid that Pikachu doesn't evolve from Pichu, but Pichu does evolve into Pikachu.

Sure, as an adult, I can see a SLIGHT difference on how babies evolve. Plus, I suppose a Rare Candy that lets Cleffa evolve directly into Clefable would be "broken" in unlimited (but unlimited is broken anyway).

So, are any of my fellow "older" players having a problem explaining this difference in evolution semantics to the younger players? Personally, I wish there WAS NO difference, and cards like Rare Candy and Wally's Training could work on babies. It would SURE make my job easier as a judge. JMO.

[PokePop]

PUI is taking candy away from babies!

[NoPoke]

Its worse than just the evolves into vs evolves from distinction that Steve brings up...

Nintendo's sets don't have babies at all (at least not yet!??!). Whereas Wotc sets do/er did. So we have a baby Pichu and a basic Pichu. The basic Pichu can't evolve but has a power that enables a different basic to be played on top of it.

Ah well Nintendo only sets in modified in less than a year....

[PokePop]

Well, how is that different than a Stage 2 Charizard and a Basic Shining Charizard?

Variable "stages" for Pokemon, while rare, is not a unique concept.

[babayaga]

I think it boils down to reading the actual text on the cards more, and relying less on what you "know" about Pokémon.

New Pichu doesn't naturally evolve into anything; in fact no Basic Pokémon does in the sense that you're not doing anything to that Basic Pokémon card. It's the evolution card that determines evolution path; that's the card that has the text that determines what can be done. Now, Pichu's card lists a Pokémon Power that lets it evolve into Pikachu. That's okay, because it's clearly spelled out on the card.

How to explain it to the younger kids? Tell them that's what the cards say!

[SteveP]

Yah babayaga, I know what the text on the babies say. However, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about cards like Rare Candy and Wally's Training that rely on what it means to "evolve from." Sure, I can easily tell a kid to read the baby card and they usually understand how it evolves. I just disagree with Nintendo's ruling that "evolves from" and "evolves into" are treated differently on those trainer cards I mentioned above. JMO.

[PokePop]

Steve: Well, I tend to agree with you on that point.
We brought up that issue in the rules meeting too, but got shot down.

[babayaga]

Yah babayaga, I know what the text on the babies say. However, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about cards like Rare Candy and Wally's Training that rely on what it means to "evolve from."

Well, you still read the cards here. New Pikachu doesn't say "evolves from Pichu" so you can't pull it with those cards. Now, if the trainers said, "pick one of your active Pokémon and search for a card that Pokémon evolves into," that would be a different story.

I agree that it would be good to get more standardization in the way evolution is handled, up and down the chain. Even though the game requires following the cards strictly, it would be easier if the cards followed logical rules. We know that Pichu really does evolve into Pikachu, and it's frustrating to have that prevented because the card doesn't allow it as part of the existing mechanic.

[NoPoke]

Well I for one am perfectly happy to say that I am not 100% clear on the whole 'evolves from' text that was introduced on the trainers that steve refers too.

It isn't too hard to explain what happens under simple circumstances but it gets awkward when a player wants to play rare candy or Wally on a card that they just evolved.

I suspect that questions upon the interaction of wally rare Candy and evolving will be regular visitors to the questions forums.

Oh and just for Info Pichu DOESN'T evolve in the normal rule book understanding of the word. The Nintendo Pichu is a basic pokémon without any evolutions!

[SteveP]

PokePop, it's nice to find out that the TC experts also consider this point to be peculiar. Oh well, sometimes the KISS principle is ignored by those in high places. :/

NoPoke, I can relate. The fact that a basic Pokemon on an evolved baby is not long a basic is sometimes confusing to my younger players. I had to inform a player during last Saturday's tournament that he couldn't use Rare Candy to evolve Marill to Azumarill if the Marill had evolved from Azurill (or should I say Azurill evolved into Marill). ;)

Oh well. The trickier the rulings, the more intelligent it makes us Professors appear.

[Porygon3]

to make it easyer: basic pokemon that evolve from babys dont have the "evolves from" on them, because they are basic pokemon and you would have to include text yadada... so insteed baby pokemon show a picture (umm used to show a picture) on them of what they evolve into. For those rair instances when you have to explain this to a younger kid why Pichu does not become Ratchu when you play Rair candy.... umm....
Its confusing me and I'm an adult. I dont see why rair candy shouldnt evolve a baby into a latter stage... what the bleep...?

[SteveP]

I agree Porygon3. I too think a Rare Candy SHOULD let you evolve a basic baby into it's stage 1 form. IMO, the whole baby evolution sequence gets TOO tricky when rulings like those for Rare Candy come along.

[PokePop]

A Basic Baby, or an old-style Baby?
I think the new ones with the Baby Evolution Power are clearly missing the evo chain, but the old Babies that have "Evolves into..." text could be argued for

[mtjimmer]

It's confusing. That's the easy response.

Rare Candy and Wally's Training have brought up a lot of good rules questions, both here and in Japan. What does this mean? There are a lot of possibilties - not generally a bad thing.

It does highlight different ways of thinking. We're going with that ruling to stay consistent with the game design logic that was intended. If we changed this in midstream, it could affect how future cards would be played, which could end up being bad.

[NoPoke]

Well here is my 90% understanding.

Wotc Babies, eg Cleffa, evolve into Basics.

Nintendo Babies CANT evolve.

Stage 2 Pokémon evolve from Stage 1 Pokémon

Stage 1 Pokémon evolve from Basic Pokémon.


I treat evolves from and evolves into as game text. By which I mean that they have a specific meaning that need not be exactly the same as the spoken language or even the gameboy game meaning of the term. evolves from and evolves into are similar but nontheless different! To use a game text interpretion you read the cards but watch out carefully for 'game text' definitions within the card text.

Now this game text view almost works for me. Only almost because I am currently inflexible in my belief that stage 2 pokemon don't satsfy the game text definition evolves from when using rare candy on a basic pokemon.

Now the current ruling on Rare Candy disagrees with my definition of evolves from. I resolve this by remembering that Pokemon does not require absolute consistancy and game rules can change. So my evolves from needs correcting to allow stage 2s to evolve from basics! unfortunately allowing this raises other inconsistancies.

[PokePop]

NoPoke: The way that was explained to us is that there is a valid card in existance that Rare Candy can "reference" to find the evo chain to go from the Basic to the Stage Two.
Same thing with Pokemon Breeder.

[SteveP]

ah, a good example by mtjimmer why we "lay" folks don't make rulings--they are seers into the future. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being sarcastic here. We have faith in what you say.

BTW mtjimmer, obviously a lot of thought was given to how babies were changed in Sandstorm. So, why didn't they just add "except babies" in the Rare Candy and Wally's Training game text like they did for Lanette's Net Search? That would've made lots more sense than coming up with these "evolves from" and "evolves into" differences in the rulings. Just curious.

[NoPoke]

well my 90% position is that I'm unhappy with extending evolves from to skip an evolution. Breeder was much better worded IMHO put a stage 2 pokemon that matches...'

In the Sandstorm rulebook that comes with the theme decks evolving requires you to have a card that says it evolves from so-and-so We are used to substituting card names when required in order to copy attacks.

On rare Candy we are told to chosea pokemon that evolves from that card Again the same kind of name substitution is required to use the card.

The problem I have with Rare Candy is that there isn't a single Charizard that says it 'evolves from Charmander' ie when you make the name substitution you can't find any stage 2 that can satisfy Rare candy.

However there are stage ones that count as basics while in play.

I wish Rare Candy said .....choose either stage1 or stage 2 evolution that matches that card.....much like breeder.

[ranmasaotomes]

I can see both points of view on this subject. I never thought myself that such things al slooking at the card and seeing if it can evolve with the new babies.

Originally I believed that you could evolve a baby in to a stage 1, this would make logical sence but as they are only a stage one card and its previous are basic it makes us all wonder.

Maybe if Pokemon USA do like a chat like Wizards used to we would be able to find out and ask why the mechanics have been for our localises versions.

[GuardianTIM]

The problem I find with Rare Candy is that it's
_technically_ a useless card...

Rare Candy reads- "Choose 1 of your Basic Pokemon in play. If you have a Stage 1 or Stage 2 card that evolves from that Pokemon in your hand, put that card on the basic pokemon. (This counts as evolving that Pokemon.)"

First of all, the Evo card has to be in your hand. That's a given, but if you have a Basic Poke in play, then you'd just play the Stage 1 from your hand.

For the purposes of this example, let's say the Basic was a Charmander. So we play our Charmander this turn, and we have Rare Candy, and both a Charmeleon and a Charizard in our hand. Because we just played Charmander, we can't evolve it on the same turn (simple rules), so playing the Charmeleon straight from our hand doesn't work. Also, because the Rare Candy says that it's effect counts as "evolving that Pokemon", we can't use Rare Candy to evolve our Charmander into Charmeleon on this turn either.
So, we think to ourselves - 'if we can't play Charmeleon, let's try for Charizard'. However, Charizard doesn't "evolve from" Charmander, and we still only just played Charmander, so that's no use either. ie- we still can't evolve Charmander on this first turn using Rare Candy.

2nd turn - We can play Charmeleon straight from our hand, because we played Charmander last turn (obviously). We can also use Rare Candy to evolve Charmander into the Charmeleon in our hand. Of course, what's the point? We might as well have not bothered playing our Rare Candy. Instead, how about we evolve it into Charizard? Once again, the Charizard card reads "evolves from Charmeleon", and so the Rare Candy cannot be played (you can't evolve a pokemon the same turn as you evolved it already).

Hence, there is no use for a Rare Candy except unless someone finds a Stage 2 pokemon that reads "evolves from BASICPOKEMON", where BASICPOKEMON is the name of a basic. In which case, it's the same as in my example about how we might as well have played it from our hands directly.

The only way that Rare Candy could be useful (without changing the card too much) is if you removed the part saying that "this counts as evolving that pokemon".

[babayaga]

The problem I find with Rare Candy is that it's
_technically_ a useless card...

Rare Candy reads- "Choose 1 of your Basic Pokemon in play. If you have a Stage 1 or Stage 2 card that evolves from that Pokemon in your hand, put that card on the basic pokemon. (This counts as evolving that Pokemon.)"

First of all, the Evo card has to be in your hand. That's a given, but if you have a Basic Poke in play, then you'd just play the Stage 1 from your hand.

According to a ruling on October 16, you can place a Stage 2 on the Basic. The question asked was can a Kabutops or Cradilly be placed on a Claw or Root Fossil, and the answer was that you can skip the Stage 1 with Rare Candy.

Which totally screws up the "read the card" rule, which now has to be modified to say, "read the card or any possible intermediate cards."

What it also allows you to do is evolve a Pokémon on the first turn it's in play, excepting the first turn of the game. (Don't ask me why the first turn is different, PUI says it is!)

[PokePop]

GuardianTIM: You need to check out the official rulings on how Rare Candy can be used here: http://pkcompendium.hypermart.net/compendium/rulings_compendium_ex.html#trainers
Basically, Rare Candy does everything Pokemon Breeder does and a lot more. It is far from useless.

[GuardianTIM]

I think it boils down to reading the actual text on the cards more, and relying less on what you "know" about Pokémon.

It poses the question - if you had a (if we continue to use the Char's example) Charmander and a Charizard in your deck (but no Charmeleon), if you didn't know anything about pokemon evolution lines, how exactly can you prove that Charizard evolves from Charmander? Without the Charmeleon card saying "evolves from Charmander", you have no other way of knowing whether or not you can play Charizard. Of course, to us, that's common knowledge, but it seems odd to need a level of prerequisite knowledge about Pokemon to be able to play the card game...

What it also allows you to do is evolve a Pokémon on the first turn it's in play, excepting the first turn of the game. (Don't ask me why the first turn is different, PUI says it is!)

I think the first turn rule is so that people don't knock out someone instantly before they've had their first turn. (Completely defeated by a certain Tyrogue card, of course {N2 set, perhaps?}, but the ideal remains the same.)

totally screws up the "read the card" rule
I heartily agree....

[Porygon3]

bascily since no one can evolve turn 1, rair candy and wally training let you drop evoves the next turn you go, even if you just put them into play, as for the part about it counting as evolving, i think thats for status effects, however if nintendo does not want babys to benifet from rair candy, then its a clear errata in order, as before any errata can cause some sort of problem, in this case since we do have baby pokemon in E-series that is not nintendo baby pokemon - these baby pokemon clearly tell you what they evolve into so rair candy could be used on them, but not on the ninetndo pokemon, but if they did a global effect on rair candy stating that it could not be used on baby pokemon then there current baby pokemon would have to add in a line of pretend text that identifys them as baby pokemon!
and wait, I'll find someway to break the rulling! mahaha!!

[GuardianTIM]

Thanks Pop - I always wondered where you could find the Compendium... - (Checking it now).