Gen 1 special conditions

1

Im not sure whether to call this a bug report or not, I was just hoping to get a rules clarification. It was my understanding that being poisoned turned off abilities that read so and so doesn’t work when it is asleep, confused or paralyzed. However in the attached game below, FO 18 ditto didn’t function as I anticipated. On turn 21, I used a switch to switch to scyther, disabling my opponents copy of my sticky goo ability, I then retreated for free into my dark muk and proceded to poison the ditto. On the following turn, my opponent used a the double colorless energy attached to their ditto to use sludge punch. Am I missing something in this interaction? Thank you for any help.
@JasonKlaczynski (since you seem to know the rules of old gens well)

Turn 10 begins

● Player A drew 1 card

● Put Hitmonchan onto bench

● Attached a Fighting Energy to Electabuzz.

● Electabuzz used Thunderpunch

● Coin flip result: HEADS

● Electabuzz did 40 damage to Dark Muk

● Dark Muk was knocked out

● Grass Energy (BS 99) was discarded

● Grass Energy (BS 99) was discarded

● Player A took one prize card.

● Scyther is now active

● Between turns

● Electabuzz got 10 damage due to poison

● Turn 11 begins

● Player B drew 1 card

● Attached a Double Colorless Energy to Scyther.

● Scyther used Slash

● Scyther did 30 damage to Electabuzz

● Electabuzz was knocked out

● Fighting Energy (G2 127) was discarded

● Lightning Energy (G2 130) was discarded

● Electabuzz is no longer poisoned

● Player B took one prize card.

● Scyther is now active

● Between turns

● Turn 12 begins

● Player A drew 1 card

● Between turns

● Turn 13 begins

● Player B drew 1 card

● Put Grimer onto bench

● Attached a Grass Energy to Grimer.

● Scyther used Swords Dance

● Between turns

● Turn 14 begins

● Player A drew 1 card

● Put Ditto onto bench

● Player A played Super Energy Removal.

● Fighting Energy (G2 127) was discarded

● Double Colorless Energy (BS 96) was discarded

● Grass Energy (BS 99) was discarded

● Between turns

● Turn 15 begins

● Player B drew 1 card

● Grimer evolved into Dark Muk

● Player B played Item Finder.

● Restored a Bill to hand.

● Player B played Bill.

● Player B drew 2 card

● Attached a Double Colorless Energy to Scyther.

● Scyther retreated.

● Scyther is now active

● Scyther used Slash

● Scyther did 30 damage to Scyther

● Between turns

● Turn 16 begins

● Player A drew 1 card

● Scyther retreated.

● Hitmonchan is now active

● Between turns

● Turn 17 begins

● Player B drew 1 card

● Player B played Gust Of Wind.

● Scyther is now active

● Player B played Computer Search.

● B has shuffled deck.

● Player B played Bill.

● Player B drew 2 card

● Scyther used Slash

● Scyther did 30 damage to Scyther

● Between turns

● Turn 18 begins

● Player A drew 1 card

● Player A played Computer Search.

● A has shuffled deck.

● Player A played Professor Oak.

● Player A drew 7 card

● Player A played Bill.

● Player A drew 2 card

● Attached a Fighting Energy to Ditto.

● Player A played Super Energy Removal.

● Fighting Energy (G2 127) was discarded

● Grass Energy (BS 99) was discarded

● Double Colorless Energy (BS 96) was discarded

● Between turns

● Turn 19 begins

● Player B drew 1 card

● Attached a Grass Energy to Dark Muk.

● Scyther retreated.

● Dark Muk is now active

● Dark Muk used Sludge Punch

● Dark Muk did 20 damage to Scyther

● Scyther is now poisoned

● Scyther was knocked out

● Scyther is no longer poisoned

● Player B took one prize card.

● Ditto is now active

● Between turns

● Turn 20 begins

● Player A drew 1 card

● Attached a Double Colorless Energy to Ditto.

● Ditto used Sludge Punch

● Ditto did 20 damage to Dark Muk

● Dark Muk is now poisoned

● Between turns

● Dark Muk got 10 damage due to poison

● Turn 21 begins

● Player B drew 1 card

● Player B played Item Finder.

● Restored a Switch to hand.

● Player B played Switch.

● Scyther is now active

● Dark Muk is no longer poisoned

● Scyther retreated.

● Dark Muk is now active

● Dark Muk used Sludge Punch

● Dark Muk did 20 damage to Ditto

● Ditto is now poisoned

● Between turns

● Ditto got 10 damage due to poison

● Turn 22 begins

● Player A drew 1 card

● Put Hitmonchan onto bench

● Attached a Fighting Energy to Hitmonchan.

● Ditto used Sludge Punch

● Ditto did 20 damage to Dark Muk

● Dark Muk is now poisoned

● Between turns

● Ditto got 10 damage due to poison

● Dark Muk got 10 damage due to poison

● Dark Muk was knocked out

● Grass Energy (BS 99) was discarded

● Grass Energy (BS 99) was discarded

● Dark Muk is no longer poisoned

● Player A took one prize card.

● Scyther is now active

● Turn 23 begins

● Player B drew 1 card

● Player B played Bill.

● Player B drew 2 card

● Put Grimer onto bench

● Attached a Grass Energy to Grimer.

● Scyther retreated.

● Grimer is now active

● Grimer used Minimize

● Between turns

● Ditto got 10 damage due to poison

● Ditto was knocked out

● Double Colorless Energy (BS 96) was discarded

● Ditto is no longer poisoned

● Player B took one prize card.

● Hitmonchan is now active

● Turn 24 begins

● Player A drew 1 card

● Player A played Item Finder.

● Restored a Bill to hand.

● Player A played Bill.

● Player A drew 2 card

● Player A played Energy Removal.

● Grass Energy (BS 99) was discarded

● Player A played Energy Retrieval.

● Restored a Fighting Energy to hand.

● Restored a Lightning Energy to hand.

● Hitmonchan used Jab

● Minimize cuts damage.

● Hitmonchan did 0 damage to Grimer

● Between turns

2

compendium ruling on poison as it interacts with abilities

  • [Effective 1/17/02:] There is alsoa new Pokemon rule change that will even FURTHER give the current environment somediversity. In working on keeping the Pokemon rules as close as possible to the Japaneserules of the game, there is a new term that will be introduced in a later set thisyear. This is “Special Conditions”. Asleep, Confusion, Paralysis, POISON,and later on Burned are all defined as Special Conditions. All of these effects areremoved from the Active Pokemon if they Evolve, Devolve, Leave Play, or are Benched.They ALSO shut off ALL Pokemon Powers on the Pokemon effected by a Special Condition.This means that Poison (and later on Burned) shut off Pokemon Powers on the Pokemonaffected by them. This is a clarification of the rules for Pokemon and WILL takeplace in all of the upcoming Challenge series events and tournaments. TPC has toldus that is how it supposed to work. (Jan 17, 2002 WotC Chat Announcements & Q1280)

  • Basically any Pokemon Power on any Pokemon that says it stops working if the Pokemonis Paralyzed, Asleep, or Confused, now should ALSO include Poisoned, or Burned aswell. These 5 effects are known as Special Conditions. Almost every Pokemon powerstops working if its Pokemon has a Special Condition on it. If a Pokemon power saysit still functions if Asleep, Conufused, or Paralyzed, that also holds true for Poisonedand Burned as well. Char, while similar to Burned is NOT the same thing and doesNOT fall under this rule change. All Special Conditions are removed from a Pokemonif it Evolves, Devolves, Leaves play, or is Benched. (Jan 17, 2002 WotC Chat, Q1278& Q1284)

3

also @developers in case it is a bug

4

Makes sense, this should be changed.

5

Didn’t the developers just make a change though in one of the most recent updates to make it so that Base-Fossil, Base-Gym, and Base-Neo (i.e. PRE-LEGENDARY COLLECTION FORMATS) to keep it so that Poison doesn’t shut off Powers? (as Poison shutting off powers was not introduced until the Rocket-On format).

6

I think Poison shutting powers did not occur until after Rocket sets at the least. I do remember that Poison did not shut down Pokemon Powers and that was amended around that time. It’s been like 19-20 years ago?

7

This is not a bug. This was one of the many problems Wizards of the Coast created when they devised a format that blended the e-Card sets with older sets.

When the e-Card sets debuted, Pokémon Powers were replaced by Poké-Powers and Poké-Bodies. Poké-Bodies could always be used, but Poké-Powers were disabled by what were now called Special Conditions. Special Conditions included Asleep, Confused, Paralyzed, Poisoned and the new Burned. The Pokémon Powers of previous sets were disabled by Asleep, Confusion and Paralysis, but they were not disabled by Poison.

Since Wizards was going to mix the e-Card sets with previous sets in their Neo-On format, they wanted to keep things simple and consistent. What they decided to do was make all Pokémon Powers function the same way as these new Poké-Powers, meaning they would be disabled by all Special Conditions. This meant Poison (and the new Burn) would now turn off Pokémon Powers. As they prepared to release the first e-Card set, they changed the text of Pokémon Powers on reprinted cards (Venusaur, Charizard, Alakazam, etc.) to read “This Pokémon Power cannot be used if [Pokémon] is affected by a Special Condition.”

The thing is, these original cards were never meant to have their Pokémon Powers disabled by Poison, and if you’re well-versed in the old formats, you can kind of understand why; it’s pretty easy to inflict Poison, so being able to permanently disable a Power by poisoning is a little too strong.

If you play the Neo-On format, you can use this ruling, but no formats before that should function this way, as it goes against the way these cards were intended to function. It’s just another example of Wizards going rogue and screwing things up.

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