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Bastiodon Ancient Bulwark and energy discard attacks interactions
Bastiodon [PBL 062] has the Ancient Bulwark ability saying:
As long as this Pokémon is on your Bench, prevent all damage done to each of your Pokémon by attacks from your opponent's Pokémon that have 2 or less Energy attached.
Some pokémons discard energies to attack. But according to the rules, the discard/effect happens after the attack (after the Ancient Bulwark check)
Exemple: Raging bolt ex [TEF 123] with 3 energies,
Bellowing Thunder 70×
You may discard any amount of Basic Energy from your Pokémon. This attack does 70 damage for each card you discarded in this way.
This attack works as the selection is done first, then the attack and damage are applied accordingly and only after the damage is done is the energies discarded.
But there is an issue with other types of attacks on PTCG Live.
The following pokémons:
Kyurem [SFA 047] (used in slowking decks)
Trifrost
Discard all Energy from this Pokémon. This attack does 110 damage to 3 of your opponent's Pokémon. (Don't apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokémon.)
MEga-Skarmory ex [POR 055]
Sonic Ripper
Shuffle all Energy attached to this Pokémon into your deck, and this attack does 220 damage to 1 of your opponent's Pokémon. (Don't apply Weakness and Resistance for Benched Pokémon.)
Both of those attacks on PTCG Live discards the energy before the damage step and therefore deals no damage when Ancient Bulkwark ability is checked.
I have a question:
Is it a bug on the damage step for this interaction on PTCG Live?
Or is it a ruling that Make "Discard all Energy" different from "discard any amount of Basic Energy" that need to be considered.
I would love to know the exact ruling before going to turnaments with Bastiodon, and to be sure it is correctly applied on PTCG Live for training.
Best regards,
