Help What are Pokémon Abilities in the TCG Most Like?

Blob55

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Are they usually more similar in mechanics to Poké-Bodies or Poké-Powers? I'm wondering, since Bodies and Powers had clearly different mechanics, while "Abilities" just sounds like a generic feature.

IMO, they should have re-named Bodies and Powers to Body Ability and Power Ability, that way there'd still be a clear difference instead of having to read the card to find out if it's aggressive or passive (presumably).
 

crystal_pidgeot

Bird Trainer *Vaporeon on PokeGym*
Member
They have been making things more and more like the video games to make things simple. I much rather prefer Poke-Power and Poke-Body since they were easy to work with. To be honest with you though, I don't have a problem with Abilities. The activated Abilities are Poke-Powers and the passive or static Abilities are Poke-Bodies. Vileplume would be a Poke-Body and and Shaymin-EX would be a Poke-Power.

To make things easier, if it says "Once per turn" or "as often as you like/want" its a activated ability and if it doesn't, it's a passive ability.
 

Blob55

Aspiring Trainer
Member
They have been making things more and more like the video games to make things simple. I much rather prefer Poke-Power and Poke-Body since they were easy to work with. To be honest with you though, I don't have a problem with Abilities. The activated Abilities are Poke-Powers and the passive or static Abilities are Poke-Bodies. Vileplume would be a Poke-Body and and Shaymin-EX would be a Poke-Power.

To make things easier, if it says "Once per turn" or "as often as you like/want" its a activated ability and if it doesn't, it's a passive ability.
I still think they should have made the distinction between them clear, as all Abilities in the video games are passive, so having active Abilities be a thing in the TCG, with the same name as passive is dumb. :/
 

crystal_pidgeot

Bird Trainer *Vaporeon on PokeGym*
Member
I still think they should have made the distinction between them clear, as all Abilities in the video games are passive, so having active Abilities be a thing in the TCG, with the same name as passive is dumb. :/

They should but that isn't entirely true. An Ability like Politoad's Drizzle is an activated Ability since it causes an effect when it enters battle and a Ability like Mega Pidgeot's No Guard is a passive ability since it doesn't requires interaction from the player. There are some examples like Oricorio's Dancer Ability which is an active-passive effect since it triggers when a dance move is used.
 
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