Help Hustle belt ruling

[FoREVer]

So, say i have a Mamoswine from Crimson Invasion at 120 HP and a Hustle belt attached. I use his 2nd attack:
''Forceful Tackle
90+
You may put up to 9 damage counters on this Pokémon. This attack does 10 more damage for each damage counter you placed in this way.''
I put 9 demage counters on the mamoswine. Now he has 30 hp left. Does hustle belt work here? When the attack was initiated momoswine has 120 hp so hustlebelt doesnt work, but when the damage on the opponent is calculated mamoswine only has 30 hp left. So then it would work.
Would also be appriciated if you can link me to where you found the answer, becouse i tried a while to find it but cant seem to.

 

[AlphaVoxel]

Hey FoREVer!

To answer your rulings question, no, Hustle Belt would not work in this situation, as the conditions are not met when the attack is declared. When declaring an attack, the following steps should be followed:

1. Announce the Attack
2. Check for effects that might cancel the attack.
3. Make choices, but don't perform them yet. (This is where you would chose whether or not to place damage counters on Mamoswine to do extra damage, and if so, how many).
4. Calculate Damage.
---a. Calculate Base Damage (in this case, a base of 90 Damage).
---b. Apply effects on the attacking Pokemon (this is where things like Hustle Belt/Choice Band would come into play, provided the conditions are met).
---c. Weakness.
---d. Resistance.
---e. Apply effects on the defending Pokemon.
5. Place Damage.
6. Perform attack effects (this is where you would place the damage counters on Mamoswine)
7. Resolve effects triggered by attacking.
8. Check for KOs.
9. Resolve effects triggered by the KO(s).
10. Perform KOs.

I hope this clears things up for you! If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to ask!

Cordially,
-Alpha

 

[snoopy369]

Hi FoREVeR!

To add the resource link to AlphaVoxel's great answer, you can find the rules that affect this, particularly the list AlphaVoxel spelled out (in a slightly simplified form), here:
https://assets.pokemon.com//assets/cms2/pdf/trading-card-game/rulebook/sm9_rulebook_en.pdf

It is on page 20 of the PDF.

Note the "F: Apply any effects that happen before damage, then place damage counters, and then do all other effects"; this is what's important. The Hustle Belt's effect happens during the damage counter stage, since it defines the damage dealt. (This is #2 of the second list on that page.) The "all other effects" stage is where your 90 damage is done to Mamoswine; that's after the damage is calculated.

This is fairly similar to the Shuckle/Necrozma question, as they both have the same timing issue - you're deciding to do something that alters the game state, which altered state would impact damage dealt.