New to the game...

[JonnyPhoenyx]

Hi guys,
I recently got into the card aspect of Poke'mon and am loving it! I did have a few questions though:
1) Can you discard cards at will from your hand, or can you only do so according to the text of played cards? (Ex: Can you discard 2 Psychic energy, then use Mewtwo Energy Absorbtion to attach those discarded energy to Mewtwo?)Pic of Card
2) Can you retreat your active poke'mon immediately after it attacks? (if you pay the retreat cost or you use "switch"?)
3) Is there a maximum handsize?
4) Do any status modifiers (poison, burned, etc.) affect a poke'mon when it is moved to the bench?

That's all that's cropped up rule-wise at the moment.
My roommate and I bought a slew of boosters and two theme decks. We have some cards we really want to use, but no energy to fuel a deck with. Is there another way to get energy cards outside of buying more decks and boosters?

 

[Rocket_Executive]

1. You cannot discard cards at will, there must be some sort of card or affect that forces/allows you to do so. Some cards, such as Volkner's philosophy, allow you to voluntarily discard a card from your hand, while others like Giratina lv X don't allow you to do damage unless you can discard a card from your hand.

2. Once you attack, your turn is over. You may retreat once per turn using the regular retreat method (paying the retreat cost), and if you want to retreat any more you have to use something like switch or warp point, but not after you attack. There are some cards, like Gengar from arceus, that have "hit-and-run" attacks, where the effect of the attack is that you switch the pokemon immediately after you attack.

3. There is no maximum hand size.

4. All status conditions are removed from the pokemon when it is returned to the bench. Some conditions, like paralyze and sleep, prohibit you from retreating, so if you want to eliminate the condition that turn you have to bring it to the bench through a card like switch, warp point, warp energy, etc., just not through regular retreating.

It would be a great idea if pokemon released energy packs, but as of yet the best way to get them is through buying starter decks. Honestly though, if you only plan to play with your friends, just proxy the energy cards by turning another card backwards and pretending it's an energy.

 

[donavannj]

To add to that last bit of Rocket_Executive's post, you would want to consider buying card sleeves if you're going to be using other cards to proxy as energy, just to make your games more fair and keep the element of surprise in the game.

 

[JonnyPhoenyx]

Sorry for the delay, internet's been down the past few days.
Thanks for clearing those things up! It really helped!

One more question (it popped up night before last):

Can you have more than one active poke'mon? Some card refer to "an active pokemon" or "one active poke'mon" so I was curious how this worked. Would it be a 2player-vs-2player battle, or just single players with two actives?

 

[donavannj]

I think that works as single player with 2 actives.

 

[JonnyPhoenyx]

awesome. thanks for the advice!

 

[Rocket_Executive]

Just to clarify, you can't have more than one pokemon active at a time. They probably use this phrasing on the card in case the active pokemon changes during the turn that the effect happens, and it's just so you can't somehow misinterpret the card.

 

[Airride_Master]

Just to clarify, you can't have more than one pokemon active at a time. They probably use this phrasing on the card in case the active pokemon changes during the turn that the effect happens, and it's just so you can't somehow misinterpret the card.

No, there is a second play option to have a "Double Battle" with 2 actives and 4 bench spaces.
Can't break out my old rule books to check though.

 

[Rocket_Executive]

No, there is a second play option to have a "Double Battle" with 2 actives and 4 bench spaces.
Can't break out my old rule books to check though.

There are no santioned tournaments that involve double-battles though, and tournament format specifies a single active pokemon, so I'm hesitant to believe that they would print some cards that way just in case you were playing a double-battle.

 

[donavannj]

I'm not hesitant to think so. I think it's been something they've been pushing as an option in the rulebooks that come with theme decks since 2006 or so. It's probably more popular in Japan.

 

[Rocket_Executive]

Well, I'll try to find someone who knows definitively why they're printed that way and I'll get back to this. I'm not even going to comment on Japan, their format is so weird... 30 card decks with 4 prizes :\

 

[Airride_Master]

Then why was Double full heal printed?
Or any card that says "ALL of the OPPONENTS defending pokemon?"
The Double battle thing was introduced in R/S, and it's mainly just for casual battles.