Wizards of
The Coast Era

Metronome was mistranslated on both Clefairy and Clefable. While it does allow you to copy an attack without needing the Energy required, you must still do anything else required to use that attack, such as discarding Energy cards. For example, if you copy Charizard's Fire Spin, your attacking Pokémon still has to discard two Energy cards (if your attacking Pokémon did not have two Energy cards attached, the attack has no effect). It's also worth pointing out that when Metronome copies an attack that requires a player to discard all of a specific type of Energy, such as Dark Ampharos's Shock Bolt, you must discard at least one Energy of that type.

Dark Vileplume should be weak to Fire, not Fighting (the holo version has the correct weakness).

Eevee's Chain Reaction can only be used on your turn when one of your Pokémon evolves. It cannot be used when the opponent evolves.

Energy Charge must choose 2 Energy cards (not up to 2) in the discard to shuffle back into the deck (you may only choose 1 if there is exactly 1).

Energy Flow can return only Basic Energy cards to the owner's hand.

Feraligatr's Riptide will only deal additional damage if the Water Energy cards are shuffled back into the deck. This clarification exists on the Japanese version of the card. The distinction is important because it means that Parasect's Allergic Pollen prevents Water Energy from being returned to the deck, resulting in a Riptide attack that will deal only 10 damage.

Both Focus Band and Fortitude should only trigger when these Pokémon are knocked out by damage from an opponent's attack. This means that attacks that place or move damage counters will bypass them.

The original Japanese texts of Goop Gas Attack and Magby's Sputter only affect Pokémon Powers that are already in play at the time of use. Any Pokémon that would come into play could not have been in play at the time when Goop Gas Attack or Sputter were used, which means those effects would not affect the new Pokémon. This applies to "come-into-play" Pokémon Powers (like Dark Crobat's Surprise Bite) as well as "regular" Pokémon Powers (like Blastoise's Rain Dance). Additionally, these effects apply to both players equally - for example, if you used Magby's Sputter, and on your next turn evolved an Ivysaur into Venusaur, you would still be have access to Venusaur's Energy Trans.

These concepts evolved from botched rulings from the Wizards era.

Metal Energy should only reduce damage from attacks. This means Pokémon Powers like Dark Golbat's Sneak Attack or Elekid's Playful Punch should not have their damage reduced by Metal Energy attached to either them or attached to the Pokémon receiving damage.

Psyshock should leave the Defending Pokémon Paralyzed, not Confused.

Feint Attack's damage should not be affected by effects on any of your opponent's Pokémon, not just the Defending Pokémon. For example, if you used Feint Attack on a Benched Pokémon with a Metal Energy attached to it, the Metal Energy would not reduce Feint Attack's damage.

PlusPower will increase damage done to both Active Pokémon. This means attacks that damage the attacking Pokémon (like Arcanine's Take Down) will have the damage dealt to themselves increased.

Though most people familiar with retro Pokémon already knew this, Potion and Super Potion should technically remove exactly 2 and 4 damage counters, respectively, not up to these amounts. Only when less than these specified amounts of damage counters are present will these Trainers remove less than the indicated amounts.

Professor Elm technically does not allow you to play Trainers until the end of your opponent's next turn. While the term "play" is deliberate, meaning you can still use Trainers your opponent failed under Chaos Gym, there is one situation in which the Trainer limitation extending until your opponent's turn makes a difference: when you use Professor Elm under a failed Chaos Gym attempt from your opponent, you will still be bound by its no-Trainer clause when your next turn begins.

The amount of damage counters was omitted on the English version. It should read “…put 2 damage counters on that Pokémon.” A small percentage of these cards from a later print run do actually have the correct text.

Slowking's Mind Games Pokémon Power should only work when Slowking is Active. If you play this card as written, it becomes one of the strongest (and most oppressive) Pokémon cards of all time.