Metronome/Ember FAQ

Q: I have a Pokémon that can copy an attack/use another Pokémon’s attack as its own (which we’ll call “Metronome”). I choose to copy an attack that discards an Energy attached to the user (which we’ll call “Ember”). What happens if the Pokémon using Metronome doesn’t have any of the specified Energy to discard?

If Clefairy with no Fire Energy attached uses Metronome to copy Charmander’s Ember, what happens?

A: It depends on the format.

• From BLW onwards, Metronome copying Ember succeeds, unless Ember specifically states that it will fail if Energy is not discarded (e.g. Lugia-EX’s Plasma Gale).

• Before BLW, Metronome copying Ember fails if you are unable to discard the specified Energy, even if it doesn’t say so on the card.

The basic principle from BLW onwards is that discarding Energy from yourself is an effect, and you “do as much as you can”. Before BLW, it was more of a cost or requirement, and if you weren’t able to do it, the attack would fail.

More Questions

Post-BLW

• Q. What if I copy an attack that makes me discard 2 Fire Energy, but I only have 1 Fire Energy attached?

A. You discard 1 Fire Energy and the attack still succeeds.

This just means that if you can’t do something, you “do as much as you can”, not “do nothing at all”.

• Q. What if I copy Electrode TM’s Lightning Strike without any Lightning Energy attached? Can I do 40+60 and discard nothing?

A. Yes.

The cost is doing more damage, the effect is discarding Energy. You can pay the cost, so you will get the effect. The effect will do nothing, but under post-BLW rules, this doesn’t make the attack fail.

Note that this is not true for Lanturn CES’s Lightning Strike. On Lanturn, Lightning Strike is worded such that the cost is discarding Energy. If you can’t pay the cost, you don’t get the extra damage.

Pre-BLW

• Q. What if I copy an attack that only makes me discard Energy if I flip heads/tails?

A. You can copy the attack, but if the coin flip results in an outcome where you have to discard Energy and you are unable to do so, the attack fails. (The attack does no damage, not even the “base” damage if you had gotten the result that didn’t need a discard.)

• Q. What if I copy an attack that says “discard all Energy”, but don’t have any to discard?

A. The attack fails. You must be able to discard at least 1 Energy for it to succeed.

• Q. What if I copy an attack that says “you may discard all Energy”? Can I get the bonus damage/effect for discarding Energy if I don’t have any to discard?

A. No, you must be able to discard at least 1 Energy. However, you can still get the base damage.

• Q. What if I copy Electrode TM’s Lightning Strike without any Lightning Energy attached? Can I do 40+60 and discard nothing?

A. No. (Unlike post-BLW!)

The effect is still “related to your Energy” (this is a DP-specific idiosyncrasy, which we’ll get into later). Since you can’t follow it, you can’t get the extra damage.

• Q. What if I copy Latias ex δ’s Power Crush without at least 2 Fire Energy attached, and do enough damage to KO the Defending Pokémon?

A. The attack fails; you don’t do any damage, and don’t discard any Energy.

(My suggestion: imagine Power Crush was worded as “If the Defending Pokémon would be Knocked Out by this attack…” instead, like Dragonite ex δ’s Dragon Roar.)

• Q. What if I copy Dark Houndoom’s Dark Fire without any Darkness Energy attached?

A. You do 30 damage, and don’t discard any Energy. It was not mistranslated. (Mostly…just ignore the reminder text. If you discard a Rainbow Energy, you don’t get 10 more damage; it assumes, incorrectly, that a Darkness Energy card with the buff for Dark Pokémon will be discarded.)

• Q. What if I copy Lumineon’s Reverse Stream without any Water Energy attached?

A. It doesn’t fail; you do 30 damage.

It might seem, based on Infernape’s Flare Blitz, that since the attack would fail if you can’t discard for “discard all Energy”, it should also fail if you can’t return for “return all Energy”. However, the key word here is “Then”; if you can’t add damage, the part after the “Then” gets ignored and you don’t have to do it, saving the attack from failure.

Related rulings:

Ruling for Lairon’s Mend, explaining the significance of the phrase 「その後」(“then” or “if you do” in English).

Ruling for Vibrava’s Energy Typhoon, confirming that if no damage is added, the rest of the effects are ignored (in particular, shuffling the opponent’s deck).

Format Agnostic Stuff

• These rulings also apply to attacks that copy attacks from Pokémon in other zones, not just in play. Example: Skill Hack (opponent’s hand), Re-creation (opponent’s discard pile).

• These rulings also apply to attacks that move Energy from the user to somewhere other than the discard pile, such as to a Benched Pokémon, to your hand, or to the Lost Zone.

Example: to a Benched Pokémon.

Note that, pre-BLW (at least from DP onwards), if you have at least 1 Benched Pokémon, but not enough Energy to move, the attack will fail. However, if you have no Benched Pokémon, the attack will succeed, regardless of Energy.

History of the Rule

Base-Neo

On Japanese cards, most Ember attacks have reminder text which translates to “if you can’t discard, this attack does no damage”. Metronome says that you must “meet any other necessary conditions (such as discarding Energy cards)”. Thus, if you were to Metronome Ember and not have the Energy to discard, it’s pretty clear that the attack would fail.

「トラッシュできないとき、このワザのダメージはなくなる。」

「そのワザを使うのに必要なエネルギーがついてなくてもかまわないが、ほかに必要な条件(エネルギーカードをはがしてすてるなど)がたりないときには使えない。」

I say “most Ember attacks”, because at this early phase of the game, phrasings were not consistent. For example, here is the Japanese Base Set Charmander, which does not have reminder text on Ember:

How was Ember handled in English? Inconsistently, that’s how, more so than in Japanese. In increasing order of wrongness, we have:

• “...or this attack does nothing”. This wording is the best; it’s pretty close to how it’s written in the present day (“if you can’t discard, this attack does nothing”).

• Not having any reminder text for what would happen if you can’t discard Energy. The Japanese Cyndaquil below tells you that Fireworks does no damage if you can’t discard Energy. The English Cyndaquil does not, and leaves you to figure it out yourself.

• “...in order to use this attack” or “Use this attack only if there are any Fire Energy cards attached to [this Pokémon]”. The problem with this wording is that it prevents you from Metronoming Dark Flareon’s Playing with Fire if you have no Fire Energy attached. If you were to play by Japanese rules instead, you could Metronome Playing with Fire and try your luck; if you flipped heads, it would do 0 damage (because you can’t discard Energy), but if you flipped tails, you don’t need to discard Energy, so you’d get to do 30 damage.

Notice Flareon’s Flamethrower changed from JU to LC.

• Implying that the attack would succeed even if you can’t discard Energy. Entei N3 is the most egregious offender: Mega Flame’s English text tells you to discard Energy “if it has any”. The Japanese text has the standard “if you can’t discard, this attack does no damage”.

What about Metronome? The English translation was about as spotty as Ember’s — on Clefairy BS and Clefable JU, instead of saying that you did not need to meet Energy costs but needed to discard Energy, it said that you did not need to meet Energy costs nor discard Energy. This mistake was also present on Smeargle N2’s Sketch. On the other hand, Togetic N1’s Super Metronome and Togepi WBSP’s Mini-Metronome had correct translations.

e-Card and EX

During this time, the “if you can’t discard, this attack does no damage” reminder text was dropped from Ember. (In the EX and DP eras, it remained on attacks like Fire Spin, which told you to discard “cards”, not just “Energy”.)

Don’t worry, these cards were translated correctly.

However, the rule itself remained in effect, even though it wasn’t present on card text. In the “Pokémon Card Game Official Guide 2003”, an example with Blaziken’s Flamethrower was given, stating that if you were unable to discard Energy, the attack would fail.

Thanks to coconutlacroix for the scan.

So that was Ember, what about Metronome? Well, on English cards, Metronome now consistently stated “You must still do anything else in order to use that attack”, so that’s an improvement. In Japanese, this was phrased as needing to “follow the effects of that attack”.

However, the English-speaking world did not get the memo on Ember, and played it wrong for a long time. Here is an (incorrect) ruling involving the two:

• Q. If I use "Metronome" and copy Lugia-EX's "Elemental Blast" attack, do I have to discard a Fire, Water and/or Electric energy if I have any of them attached?

A. Yes, when using Metronome in this fashion you do as much of it as you can. So if Clefable-EX only has two Water energy attached, you have to discard one of the Water energy cards (but not both). And if you have a basic Water Energy and a Rainbow Energy attached, you would have to count the Rainbow as one of the other types and discard both cards. (May 4, 2006 PUI Rules Team)

This came to a head when Shiftry ex PK was released, culminating in a long PokeGym thread with two sides arguing whether copying an Ember-like attack would fail if you couldn’t discard the Energy. Eventually the Japanese rule was adopted and added to the Compendium:

• If an attack has an energy discard requirement, a Pokémon copying that attack must also be able to do that discard in order to copy the attack. (Mar 15, 2007 PUI Rules Team)

DP

In DP, reminder text remained absent from Ember, even on Japanese cards. However, Metronome’s wording was changed: instead of requiring you to “follow the effects of that attack”, now, it required you to “follow the effects related to your Energy” (meaning, Energy attached to the Metronome user).

「自分のエネルギーに関係する効果にしたがえないなら、このワザは失敗。」

Note that this change was only present on Japanese cards. English DP-era Metronome still used the EX-era wording. If Metronome/Ember came up, there were new rules in the Compendium specifically for those situations, so everything should be fine. Right?

As you might have expected by now, not quite! There were attacks that moved Energy to Benched Pokémon, to the hand, or to the Lost Zone (which was introduced that generation). Under Japanese rules, copying those attacks would fail if you couldn’t “follow the effects related to your Energy”, wherever the destination of that Energy was. The English Compendium was silent on these issues.

HS

In HS, there are no Pokémon with Metronome-like attacks. Mew TM can use the attacks of Pokémon in the Lost Zone, but it needs the necessary Energy to use each attack. It can’t use Ember and not have Fire Energy to discard, since Ember would have at least one Fire Energy in its cost.

BLW to Present

BLW represented a fresh start for the game: Rare Candy got nerfed, Potion got buffed, Poké-Powers and Poké-Bodies were consolidated as Abilities, etc. Anyway, relevant to the topic at hand is that Metronome changed its wording again. Metronome no longer “copied the attack” and had the user “perform that attack”; now it just “used [the other attack] as this attack”.

BLW was also the point where “requirements” for attacks were phased out. Now, effects are just effects, and you “do as much as you can”. If an attack really did not want you to be able to “cheat” on one its effects, it would have the phrase “if [condition is/isn’t met], this attack does nothing”.

Open Questions

Does moving attached Energy to hand or to a Benched Pokémon count as a cost/requirement pre-DP?

We know that during the DP era, the movement of Energy in “Energy Loop” and “Reflect Energy” attacks is a cost, in the sense that if you try to copy those attacks and can’t move the required type/quantity of Energy, they will fail. Is this also true pre-DP?

In Base-Gym or older, the significance of this question has to do with Confusion (instead of Metronome). In those formats, you pay for costs before flipping for Confusion. So if your Pokémon is Confused and you try to use Energy Loop, should you return the Energy to hand first, then flip for Confusion, or the other way around?

Personal opinion:

For consistency with DP, I hope they are costs.

When can you ignore the effect of Milotic ex EM’s Reflect Energy?

「つけ替えられないなら、この効果はなくなる。」

Japanese Milotic ex’s Reflect Energy has reminder text, which translates to “ignore this effect if you can’t move the Energy”. The question is, what exactly is implied by “can’t move the Energy”? Does it mean:

• You do not have any Benched Pokémon. This is similar to what’s written on Luxray DP’s Lightning Star.

• You do not have any basic Energy attached to Milotic ex. So, without even involving Metronome, if Milotic ex doesn’t have any basic Energy attached to it, you still get to do 70 damage, and not move any Energy. Unlike the example with Blaziken’s Flamethrower, not being able to move Energy for Milotic ex’s Reflect Energy would not cause it to fail.

Personal opinion:

The former only, i.e. if Milotic ex has no basic Energy attached to it, Reflect Energy will fail.

Two reasons I believe this is so:

• In e-card, Reflect Energy only had a provision to ignore the effect if you didn’t have any Benched Pokémon, like in DP. (In fact, the exact same wording is used in the Japanese prints.) It would seem strange for Reflect Energy to change just for one card in EX, when it functions differently in the blocks directly before (e-card) and after it (DP).

「自分のベンチポケモンがいないなら、この効果はなくなる。」

• Other attacks that tell you to discard “cards” will do nothing if you are unable to discard them. Milotic ex’s Reflect Energy also specifies “card”, so it should work the same way.

One thing I should mention is that Reflect Energy changed from moving “basic Energy card[s]” in e-card and EX, to moving “Energy” in DP and HS. Why this happened, or whether it was intended to fix a certain issue, I am not sure.

A possibility to consider is that moving Energy to Benched Pokémon might not have been a cost/requirement in e-card and EX. If so, it wouldn’t matter that the reminder text was different or that the words “basic Energy card” were used, you “do as much as you can”. It kind of makes sense from a balance perspective: Ember and Energy Loop both reduce the amount of Energy on the field, but Reflect Energy doesn’t, so they might have decided to let it slide if players tried to cheat on the less harsh drawback (if you can call it that) of Reflect Energy.

Electric Current (which is Reflect Energy, but for Lightning Energy) used to be harsher in Base-Neo. If you didn’t have any Benched Pokémon, you’d have to discard a Lightning Energy instead. In DP, the effect is ignored. (It’s not on the English print of Electivire FB above, but it’s on the Japanese print.)