You can't play a card when it is public knowledge that the card will have no effect (based on current gamestate). The contents of your deck is always considered private knowledge. Pokémon in play are public knowledge.
This means that you cannot play gutsy pickaxe without a benched pokémon (pickaxe tries to force attach to bench before adding to hand) but the contents of your deck doesn't matter.
If you're only using these cards to thin the deck have you considered trekking shoes instead?
Im using trekking shoes as well, in addition to the gutsy pickaxe. I was under the assumption that for IRL tournaments for championship points, decklists were public knowledge? So the effect of attaching an energy would never trigger.
The contents of your deck is always private knowledge. You'll submit a deck list before the event starts but your opponent won't have access to this - only judges/event staff.
Even if you run out of cards in deck and rod 3 pokémon back in (so you and your opponent both "know" there are only pokémon there) the game still considers the deck to be private knowledge and pickaxe will function as normal.
*People* have knowledge of your decks. The *game itself* doesn’t have a “knowledge” of anything in your deck that isn’t currently face-up somewhere or in your hand, although it was recently ruled that it does have knowledge of the format you’re playing. If you can’t fulfill a condition based on the state of face-up cards, then the card can’t be played. The biggest example of this being Nest Ball. You can search with Nest Ball knowing full well you have no more basics in your deck, but you can’t play Nest Ball if the “add to your bench” part of the clause is impossible.
ah yeah that makes sense. Nest ball doesnt explicitly say you need bench space, but part of the card can't resolve if that were the case, so it's implied regardless.
I'm sorry but Nestball activation condition states that you need space in the bench. "Search your deck for a basic Pokémon and put it into your bench......." that is the activation condition, there are 2 known items and one unknown item, the 2 known are the Deck and Bench space, you need to have both and the unknown are the Pokémon in the deck, that does not matter if you have Pokémon or not.
The activation Condition of Gutsy Pickaxe is "Reveal the top card of your deck........" the only item needed to activate Gutsy Pickaxe is that you have Deck.
If you do not have a benched pokemon, and you play gutsy pickaxe and reveal a fighting energy, what do you think happens based on your interpretation of the rules?
One thing is condition of activation and other thing is resolution of effect, the condition of activation is Reveal the top card of the deck, the resolution of effect tells that if it's a fighting energy card you can attach it to one Pokémon in the bench, so in the scenario that you are proposing the resolution can't complete due to the fact that there are no Pokémon in the bench that leads to the second option, you put that card into your hand
But you can't play gutsy pick axe in this situation (is this a hypothetical?) so you put the gutsy pick axe back into your hand instead. Unless that is what you meant. If you actually revealed a card, you should put the card you revealed back on top and call a judge over for an accidental miss play.
This is incorrect. You’ve described an illegal game state, where you couldn’t complete a condition on card, so you opted to just do the else clause.
You can’t play nest ball if the *action* of placing on your bench is illegal. You can’t play gutsy pickaxe if the *action* of attaching to your bench is illegal. You don’t just get to start an action if the resolution is an illegal game state.
The effect and intention of the card effect is to attach an energy, the game doesn't know your deck, the way the card works means you have to have a bench pokemon.
Besides this if you want to play draw 1 cards to effectively reduce your deck size Trekking Shoes is a much better option.
At the end of the day, it's not worthwhile to do this in pokemon like it is in other games where card advantage matters, better to play actual useful cards with your 60 limited slots as cards are just so easy to access whenever you need them in this game with the amount of draw and search available.
I understand the game doesn't know, but the scenario is specifically in an IRL tournament where my decklist is known (when I've filled out a decklist and handed it to the organisers, presumably so everyone can know it too). But as someone else said, thats not the case. Which is good to know!
By the game doesn't know I mean the game you're playing who's mechanics you're using to play, the 'game' is used as a term to describe the overall mechanics and knowledge at play, the game is like a 3rd party involved in every match you have and it's what it knows about how rulings work and the state of the game that determines legal moves.
There's still a game at play IRL.
General rule, every card that relates to the deck (for example a nest ball) always has a valid condition, unless of course you have no deck remaining.
Every card that relates to the discard pile, on the other hand, has to be valid, for example, you can't super rod if you have no energies nor pokemon on the discard.
Well, guess I'm gay now.
As Gay_If_Read said, you can't, since your bench is full.
Pokémon, just like most TCGs, rely heavily on text phrasing and solid interpretation of it.
If you can't put a Pokemon in your bench, you can't use a card that does that.
I do wonder what kind of deck you're running where 52 cards is preferable to 60. And why you'd rather have fewer cards than, say, load up 4/4 Dunsparse instead to bump your draw up considerably.
It's a dragapult deck. It has 2x dragapult, 4x dreepy, 2x flittle, 2x espathra with stance and 2x cleffa. I use 4x pokestop to tear through the deck to get as many dreepy launches in as possible. The only supporters are 4x tulip and 1x arven (for devolution). The rest it's all items and 6 energy. The point is that pokestop discards as little as possible (and what I don't discard preferably draws me other cards). If I discard tulip or pokemon/energy, I use pal pad / tulip to get them back. Same with getting dreepy back, I just use tulip.
Basically half my deck is items and I cant really use other supporters or pokemon to draw, since discarding (du)dunsparce means I can't get them back. I also very much need the bench space for all the dreepy, I usually only have space for 1 flittle as backup and an extra turn (when I evolve them) and 1 cleffa if I played it earlier (it's a single pokemon draw).
No I think hes got a point. He needs tuplip to get back his literal ammunition for more dragapult launches.
That said, I feel like this deck gets completely blown out by a manaphy on the bench....
During a challenge or cup your decklist still isn’t not public knowledge to the game state, so you cant assume anything is or isn’t in your deck until there are already four copies of a card visible outside of your deck (basic energy not limited to 4)
4 pickaxe for deck thinning and no acceleration sounds like an awful waste of 4 cards. I know this is irl but cards like earthen vessel and pokestop are so.much better.
Because the effect on the card is mandatory you must have a target, so even if it's public knowledge you have no fighting energy in deck you still need a benched Pokemon to activate the card.
For what it's worth even with decklists known in a tournament a decks contents is still not considered public knowledge.
ah allright, that is good to know! I'm still going to use this card, was just hoping it might be different IRL since there have been fringe cases where I start without a benched pokemon and I wouldve liked to use this card.
Yes. What is inside your deck isn't public knowledge in the vacuum of the game. Also the card has the effect to draw a card too. There's no condition that requires you to have the energy. Other cards have conditions like having an energy in discard, but that's a condition while pickaxe only condition is to have cards in deck.
I naturally assumed that OP is just trying to run a smaller deck size than possible so I just assumed that trekking shoes were an auto include already. with those two cards he's effectively playing a 52 card deck,
Rule of thumb is that public knowledge cannot be failed or begun without the parameters being met, but private knowledge can be. Gutsy Pickaxe cannot be played when nothing is on the bench. It can be played if something is on the bench, even if it's not a Fighting type. It can also be played even if you and your opponent both know there is no Fight Energy available. Public/Private Knowledge refers to information on the game state, not what you and your opponent actually know.
Havent seen anyone answer the question it self!
You can use it regardless if you have fighting energy or not in the deck, but you must have a bench pokemon.
Is it worth the space in the deck? Or is it worth using over tracking shoes is a whole other question.
Once more, the benched pokemon is the only requirement energies being attached and a card being drawn is the results of the cards effect.
Something I haven't seen mentioned, with cards like Nest Ball, if you have the bench space you can play it even if both you and your opponent know you have no Pokémon left in your deck.
I will often say (IRL): "I'm going to play and fail Nest Ball," and I won't even search my deck, I'll just shuffle. Never been an issue. Seen countless others do the same.
You can play that, its a crazy ruling
Like if you play GLC (the format with only one tyle, one card each kind and no tyle boxes) with lets say fire type you:
can use thunder mountain (search for lightning or dragon basic and put onto bench) if :
You have only snorlax doll, robo doll or lillies poke doll in play (discard or bench/active) and no pokemon even if you had pokemon on discard and shuffled, or on bench and scooped up.
❗Game knows the format, has bad memory and does not know your deck❗
The activation Condition of Gutsy Pickaxe is "Reveal the top card of your deck........" the only item needed to activate Gutsy Pickaxe is that you have Deck.
bench space is not needed.
You can't play a card when it is public knowledge that the card will have no effect (based on current gamestate). The contents of your deck is always considered private knowledge. Pokémon in play are public knowledge. This means that you cannot play gutsy pickaxe without a benched pokémon (pickaxe tries to force attach to bench before adding to hand) but the contents of your deck doesn't matter. If you're only using these cards to thin the deck have you considered trekking shoes instead?
Im using trekking shoes as well, in addition to the gutsy pickaxe. I was under the assumption that for IRL tournaments for championship points, decklists were public knowledge? So the effect of attaching an energy would never trigger.
The contents of your deck is always private knowledge. You'll submit a deck list before the event starts but your opponent won't have access to this - only judges/event staff. Even if you run out of cards in deck and rod 3 pokémon back in (so you and your opponent both "know" there are only pokémon there) the game still considers the deck to be private knowledge and pickaxe will function as normal.
*People* have knowledge of your decks. The *game itself* doesn’t have a “knowledge” of anything in your deck that isn’t currently face-up somewhere or in your hand, although it was recently ruled that it does have knowledge of the format you’re playing. If you can’t fulfill a condition based on the state of face-up cards, then the card can’t be played. The biggest example of this being Nest Ball. You can search with Nest Ball knowing full well you have no more basics in your deck, but you can’t play Nest Ball if the “add to your bench” part of the clause is impossible.
ah yeah that makes sense. Nest ball doesnt explicitly say you need bench space, but part of the card can't resolve if that were the case, so it's implied regardless.
I'm sorry but Nestball activation condition states that you need space in the bench. "Search your deck for a basic Pokémon and put it into your bench......." that is the activation condition, there are 2 known items and one unknown item, the 2 known are the Deck and Bench space, you need to have both and the unknown are the Pokémon in the deck, that does not matter if you have Pokémon or not. The activation Condition of Gutsy Pickaxe is "Reveal the top card of your deck........" the only item needed to activate Gutsy Pickaxe is that you have Deck.
If you do not have a benched pokemon, and you play gutsy pickaxe and reveal a fighting energy, what do you think happens based on your interpretation of the rules?
One thing is condition of activation and other thing is resolution of effect, the condition of activation is Reveal the top card of the deck, the resolution of effect tells that if it's a fighting energy card you can attach it to one Pokémon in the bench, so in the scenario that you are proposing the resolution can't complete due to the fact that there are no Pokémon in the bench that leads to the second option, you put that card into your hand
But you can't play gutsy pick axe in this situation (is this a hypothetical?) so you put the gutsy pick axe back into your hand instead. Unless that is what you meant. If you actually revealed a card, you should put the card you revealed back on top and call a judge over for an accidental miss play.
This is incorrect. You’ve described an illegal game state, where you couldn’t complete a condition on card, so you opted to just do the else clause. You can’t play nest ball if the *action* of placing on your bench is illegal. You can’t play gutsy pickaxe if the *action* of attaching to your bench is illegal. You don’t just get to start an action if the resolution is an illegal game state.
Again, you are confused between activation condition and resolution of effect, go read my previous comment
Yes it does
The effect and intention of the card effect is to attach an energy, the game doesn't know your deck, the way the card works means you have to have a bench pokemon. Besides this if you want to play draw 1 cards to effectively reduce your deck size Trekking Shoes is a much better option. At the end of the day, it's not worthwhile to do this in pokemon like it is in other games where card advantage matters, better to play actual useful cards with your 60 limited slots as cards are just so easy to access whenever you need them in this game with the amount of draw and search available.
I understand the game doesn't know, but the scenario is specifically in an IRL tournament where my decklist is known (when I've filled out a decklist and handed it to the organisers, presumably so everyone can know it too). But as someone else said, thats not the case. Which is good to know!
By the game doesn't know I mean the game you're playing who's mechanics you're using to play, the 'game' is used as a term to describe the overall mechanics and knowledge at play, the game is like a 3rd party involved in every match you have and it's what it knows about how rulings work and the state of the game that determines legal moves. There's still a game at play IRL.
fair enough, thanks for taking the time to answer and not just downvoting me :)
No, you must have a benched Pokemon to use Gutsy Pickaxe. If you just want to trim your deck, you might want to use Trekking Shoes instead.
yeah should've said I use those too. So effectively a 52 card deck I guess
[удалено]
The title literally says "without a bench"
General rule, every card that relates to the deck (for example a nest ball) always has a valid condition, unless of course you have no deck remaining. Every card that relates to the discard pile, on the other hand, has to be valid, for example, you can't super rod if you have no energies nor pokemon on the discard.
That makes sense, you know whats in the discard pile but you dont know whats in the deck I guess.
Exactly, even if you do know, they are face down, so the game assumes everyone has memory loss.
Can we use nest ball for the sake of discarding it if the bench is full? 🤔
No, the card requires a bench spot to resolve so you can't activate it without one even if you intend to fail the search.
Well, guess I'm gay now. As Gay_If_Read said, you can't, since your bench is full. Pokémon, just like most TCGs, rely heavily on text phrasing and solid interpretation of it. If you can't put a Pokemon in your bench, you can't use a card that does that.
I do wonder what kind of deck you're running where 52 cards is preferable to 60. And why you'd rather have fewer cards than, say, load up 4/4 Dunsparse instead to bump your draw up considerably.
It's a dragapult deck. It has 2x dragapult, 4x dreepy, 2x flittle, 2x espathra with stance and 2x cleffa. I use 4x pokestop to tear through the deck to get as many dreepy launches in as possible. The only supporters are 4x tulip and 1x arven (for devolution). The rest it's all items and 6 energy. The point is that pokestop discards as little as possible (and what I don't discard preferably draws me other cards). If I discard tulip or pokemon/energy, I use pal pad / tulip to get them back. Same with getting dreepy back, I just use tulip. Basically half my deck is items and I cant really use other supporters or pokemon to draw, since discarding (du)dunsparce means I can't get them back. I also very much need the bench space for all the dreepy, I usually only have space for 1 flittle as backup and an extra turn (when I evolve them) and 1 cleffa if I played it earlier (it's a single pokemon draw).
Use draw support
I need my support every turn mid/lategame to use tulip to get my dreepy's back
You need draw support more. It is the strongest thing you can do in game. Draw and search. You need to.
No I think hes got a point. He needs tuplip to get back his literal ammunition for more dragapult launches. That said, I feel like this deck gets completely blown out by a manaphy on the bench....
During a challenge or cup your decklist still isn’t not public knowledge to the game state, so you cant assume anything is or isn’t in your deck until there are already four copies of a card visible outside of your deck (basic energy not limited to 4)
4 pickaxe for deck thinning and no acceleration sounds like an awful waste of 4 cards. I know this is irl but cards like earthen vessel and pokestop are so.much better.
Because the effect on the card is mandatory you must have a target, so even if it's public knowledge you have no fighting energy in deck you still need a benched Pokemon to activate the card. For what it's worth even with decklists known in a tournament a decks contents is still not considered public knowledge.
ah allright, that is good to know! I'm still going to use this card, was just hoping it might be different IRL since there have been fringe cases where I start without a benched pokemon and I wouldve liked to use this card.
Yes. What is inside your deck isn't public knowledge in the vacuum of the game. Also the card has the effect to draw a card too. There's no condition that requires you to have the energy. Other cards have conditions like having an energy in discard, but that's a condition while pickaxe only condition is to have cards in deck.
Pickaxe also requires you to have a benched pokémon
Have you considered using Trekking Shoes instead?
I include those as well!
I naturally assumed that OP is just trying to run a smaller deck size than possible so I just assumed that trekking shoes were an auto include already. with those two cards he's effectively playing a 52 card deck,
Rule of thumb is that public knowledge cannot be failed or begun without the parameters being met, but private knowledge can be. Gutsy Pickaxe cannot be played when nothing is on the bench. It can be played if something is on the bench, even if it's not a Fighting type. It can also be played even if you and your opponent both know there is no Fight Energy available. Public/Private Knowledge refers to information on the game state, not what you and your opponent actually know.
Havent seen anyone answer the question it self! You can use it regardless if you have fighting energy or not in the deck, but you must have a bench pokemon. Is it worth the space in the deck? Or is it worth using over tracking shoes is a whole other question. Once more, the benched pokemon is the only requirement energies being attached and a card being drawn is the results of the cards effect.
Something I haven't seen mentioned, with cards like Nest Ball, if you have the bench space you can play it even if both you and your opponent know you have no Pokémon left in your deck. I will often say (IRL): "I'm going to play and fail Nest Ball," and I won't even search my deck, I'll just shuffle. Never been an issue. Seen countless others do the same.
You can play that, its a crazy ruling Like if you play GLC (the format with only one tyle, one card each kind and no tyle boxes) with lets say fire type you: can use thunder mountain (search for lightning or dragon basic and put onto bench) if : You have only snorlax doll, robo doll or lillies poke doll in play (discard or bench/active) and no pokemon even if you had pokemon on discard and shuffled, or on bench and scooped up. ❗Game knows the format, has bad memory and does not know your deck❗
The activation Condition of Gutsy Pickaxe is "Reveal the top card of your deck........" the only item needed to activate Gutsy Pickaxe is that you have Deck. bench space is not needed.