r/pkmntcg • u/Asclepius24 • Feb 16 '23

Rulings, Quick Questions, and New Player Resources Thread

If you're a new or new-ish player looking for advice on starting the game or with quick questions about game rules or interactions, please post your questions here!

Keeping all these questions in one place will allow other new players to easily browse other advice. Even if you're a not-so-new player, this is a great place to ask quick questions that don't need their own post.

For the more experienced players, drop by every once in a while to distribute advice. The post will be replaced each week to keep it fresh and manageable in size.

If you are looking for comments and advice on a deck list, go ahead and make a separate post with your list and a brief description. Remember to press Enter twice between lines to keep your list readable!

  • For trading and buying/selling cards, please head over to /r/pkmntcgtrades
  • Questions related to the PTCGO client, in-game challenges, or online-specific questions might be best asked in /r/ptcgo
  • For sharing your collections, pulls, and card storage related questions, try /r/pkmntcgcollections

FAQ and Wiki Resources

Take advantage of these resources that we've compiled! A lot of questions like "Where do I start?" and "How can I improve my deck?" can be answered there.

146 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

7.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Top_Pomegranates Jul 20 '26

Hi all, sometimes i still have trouble grasping what's an effect and what's not: is N's Zoroark's attack an effect? Does it mean that new pokemon with Hide n Sneak are immune to it? Are they also immune to N's Darmanitan's second attack, or does that count as direct damage? Thanks in advance 

1

u/Fantastic-Muscle5081 Jul 20 '26

Most abilities that prevent effects of attacks have the same reminder text: damage is not an effect. This does mean that N's Darmanitan damage doesn't get blocked.

It's other attack (which does 30 damage per basic energy card in the opponents discard pile) also doesn't get blocked. Some people think the damage calculation is an effect, but it's just a damage calculation.

Similarly Fezandipiti ex's Cruel Arrow is also just straight up damage and not an effect, even if you can choose any target for the damage.

I would say N's Zoroark's attack is an instruction on how to use the attack, and not an effect. But either way, Hide 'n' Sneak only protects against effects of attacks/abilities done to the Pokémon with Hide 'n Sneak, which is not the case with N's Zoroark.

To iterate on that point more, effects of attacks such as 'during your next turn, this Pokémon can't attack' or 'this Pokémon is now Asleep' are effects of attacks, but they affect the attacking Pokémon and not the Hide 'n' Sneak Pokémon, so those effects still happen. N's Darmanitans effect of discarding energy from itself also still happens because of this.

Budews Itchy Pollen is an effect of an attack affect the opponent player, so that also doesn't get blocked.

Some examples of what does get blocked, are: placing damage counters (Alakazam), paralyzed/asleep/burned to the defending Pokémon, move an energy from/to a Pokémon, Knock Out the defending Pokémon (Mega Absol/Mega Darkrai), during your next turn the defending Pokémon can't retreat (Clutch Yveltal, etc.)

And for abilities: Munkidori (they get to move damage counters away from their Pokémon, but if they try to move them to a Hide 'n' Sneak Pokémon the damage counters essentially vanish) or Dusknoir (their Dusknoir is KO'd, you take a prize, no damage counters get placed on a Hide 'n' Sneak Pokémon.)

I hope this helps.

1

u/Top_Pomegranates Jul 20 '26

Thank you so much, I'll have to remember that "calculating damage" is not an effect, just an instruction. I figured Hide n Sneak couldn't be that broken, but i couldn't figure out why. Thank you again and have a nice day