Ruling Crobat BREAK rule

[jessalakasam]

Does Crobat BREAK activate Croat PHF's ability?


The ability reads:
When you play this Pokémon from your hand to evolve 1 of your Pokémon, you may put 3 damage counters on 1 of your opponent's Pokémon.

I'm not sure if BREAKS copy abilities while they are being played or only after. Although the 'this pokemon' in the ability it makes me think maybe it does...

 

[Asclepius24]

Crobat BREAK needs to be in play to have that Ability. By the time it's in play, it has already been played from your hand and does not trigger that effect.

That's the way I think of it, at least. The official ruling is "no" via Japan.

 

[Otaku]

So far I have heard three possible justifications. What @Asclepius24 states is the most compelling reason, but I will give all three just to be thorough. One is now obsolete due to official rulings (again, being thorough). Spoiler tagging it to help those easily confused or totally uninterested in avoiding it, as it is unnecessary except for deeper discussion.

Spoiler

1. As stated, by the time any BREAK Evolution has an Ability, it is already in play. This is not wholly unrelated the longstanding ruling for effects like "Rain Dance" or "Deluge". They can attach [W] Energy cards from hand, but cannot attach anything other than basic Water Energy cards (so far) because no other Energy card counts as [W] while in hand; things like Rainbow Energy and Splash Energy don't become [W] until already attached. I am given pause by certain card effects that also trigger when something is put into play yet read the card once it is attached; I would expect BREAK Evolutions to operate in a similar manner but all the examples of this principle involve something already in play reading another card, not the card entering play (in this case Crobat BREAK) reading an already in play card.
2. Before I learned that it has been ruled otherwise, I thought perhaps Abilities and attacks of the underlying Pokémon were not reset by BREAK Evolving. Obviously, that happens with regular or Mega Evolution, where to even access the attacks from a lower Stage requires card specific effects; BREAK Evolutions are literally designed so that the bottom half of the previous Stage of Evolution is still showing, after all. Again though we already have official rulings to the contrary.
3. A simultaneously enlightening and confusing answer from PokéPop over on Ask The Rules Team suggests that for whatever reason, the Abilities in question* were intended to reference that specific Stage 2 Pokémon, so that said effect could not be copied by anything else. No idea if the Japanese card wording backs this up, or if it even could be considered an official reason.

*There is at least one other Pokémon with a BREAK Evolution - Greninja (XY: Black Star Promos XY24) - that also has a "coming-into-play" Ability and a BREAK Evolution that ought to have a copy of said Ability.