Ruling Energy Evolution Vs. Freezing Gaze

jessalakasam

jessalakasam

Floette is love Floette is life
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While I was playing TCGO with Glaceon something interesting happened. I went first and used energy evolution for the turn 1 Freezing Gaze. My opponent starts his turn, and activates Energy Evolution. He searches his deck and finds an Espeon GX. The Espeon GX is revealed to me and then immediately shuffled back into his deck (due to Freezing Gaze) Is this correct? It's definitely an odd case, as the Espeon is Energy Evolution. Any thoughts?
 
Freezing Gaze would have no effect on the interaction of energy evolution. Eevee is not an EX or GX Pokemon so it should evolve successfully as the effect happens while the card is eevee. Espeon Gx does not have an ability at all.
 
jessalakasam said:
While I was playing TCGO with Glaceon something interesting happened. I went first and used energy evolution for the turn 1 Freezing Gaze. My opponent starts his turn, and activates Energy Evolution. He searches his deck and finds an Espeon GX. The Espeon GX is revealed to me and then immediately shuffled back into his deck (due to Freezing Gaze) Is this correct? It's definitely an odd case, as the Espeon is Energy Evolution. Any thoughts?
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Now, I'm not completely sure about this, but I think I can explain why this happened. On the text for Eevee's (SUM) Energy Evolution Ability, it says...

"When you attach a basic energy card from your hand to this Pokémon, you may search your deck for a card that evolved from this Pokémon that is the same type as that Energy card and put it onto this Pokémon. (This counts as evolving this Pokémon.) Shuffle you deck afterward"

... the text that is in bold is the problem I believe. Once Eevee searches for the evolution, the ability isn't finished as it becomes a new Pokémon (in this case an Espeon GX) and then has to shuffle the deck. When Eevee evolved, it became the GX which means Eevee's ability is now Espeon GX's ability since Eevee isn't part of the field anymore. This means that Glaceon GX's ability shuts down that one part of the ability, and if you can't finish all of the ability, then you can't reach the final outcome. Now this is just my theory, but it is the only possible way that I can think of besides just an malfunction on PTCGO this can happen. Hope this helps!
 
I'm 99% sure that it's simply a bug in PTCGO.
 
FrostBiter12 said:
Now, I'm not completely sure about this, but I think I can explain why this happened. On the text for Eevee's (SUM) Energy Evolution Ability, it says...

"When you attach a basic energy card from your hand to this Pokémon, you may search your deck for a card that evolved from this Pokémon that is the same type as that Energy card and put it onto this Pokémon. (This counts as evolving this Pokémon.) Shuffle you deck afterward"

... the text that is in bold is the problem I believe. Once Eevee searches for the evolution, the ability isn't finished as it becomes a new Pokémon (in this case an Espeon GX) and then has to shuffle the deck. When Eevee evolved, it became the GX which means Eevee's ability is now Espeon GX's ability since Eevee isn't part of the field anymore. This means that Glaceon GX's ability shuts down that one part of the ability, and if you can't finish all of the ability, then you can't reach the final outcome. Now this is just my theory, but it is the only possible way that I can think of besides just an malfunction on PTCGO this can happen. Hope this helps!
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But the "(this counts as evolving this Pokemon)" comes before that text, so the Pokemon's already evolved before the Ability ends. This has to be a bug.
 
Yeah, I agree with the above statements, you're using the ability of Eevee which couldn't be shut off. And Espeon GX indeed doesn't even have an ability (and if it has, like Leafeon GX, it should still evolve but then the ability would be shut down).

So given that he indeed did find his Espeon GX, that has to be a bug in the game. I don't think the fact that you can't reach the 'final outcome' does matter, since you can play for example Guzma if your opponent has a benched Pokemon, even if you don't (only having 1 Pokemon active and no bench). You however can't play Guzma to switch your Pokemon if your opponent has no benched Pokemon, so the order of the text does matter.
 
gumball51321 said:
But the "(this counts as evolving this Pokemon)" comes before that text, so the Pokemon's already evolved before the Ability ends. This has to be a bug.
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Yeah, this was the part I wasn't really sure about. I agree with you about it probably just being a bug, the "shuffle your deck afterward" idea was the only thing that I could think of that would work in favor of this scenario. Thanks for the thoughts @gumball51321!

lukas2aces said:
Yeah, I agree with the above statements, you're using the ability of Eevee which couldn't be shut off. And Espeon GX indeed doesn't even have an ability (and if it has, like Leafeon GX, it should still evolve but then the ability would be shut down).

So given that he indeed did find his Espeon GX, that has to be a bug in the game. I don't think the fact that you can't reach the 'final outcome' does matter, since you can play for example Guzma if your opponent has a benched Pokemon, even if you don't (only having 1 Pokemon active and no bench). You however can't play Guzma to switch your Pokemon if your opponent has no benched Pokemon, so the order of the text does matter.
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Agreed, though reaching the final outcome in the effects of a card does actually mean that everything on the card has to occur in order for the effect to reach the final outcome (unless stated otherwise). For instance, you can't Ultra Ball without discarding two cards from your hand or N and not shuffle your hand into your deck (even if you don't have any cards in your hand, you still have to shuffle your deck). If Guzma was worded the other way around you would be able to switch your Pokémon first, but if you can't, you can't switch your opponent's Pokémon around. So order does matter as it determines which part is completed, but I guess it sometimes doesn't effect the total outcome (as in Guzma's case). On the other hand, Eevee's case is probably a glitch. I would like to see if it goes through and what explanation Pokémon would have in favor of it though. Thanks for the thoughts @lukas2aces!
 
In any case, Energy Evolution shouldn't be affected by Freezing Gaze since Freezing Gaze only affects EX and GX abilities.

I've never faced it online, so does Freezing Gaze otherwise work correctly?
 
I've had the same bug, only difference is my opponent was Leafeon to my Glaceon. His card appeared on Eevee for a microsecond then jerked off into the nether.
 
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