Cursed Pokemon

[ravager877]

Cursed Energy
Special Energy Card
Cursed Energy cannot be attached to a pokemon with energy cards attached to it. If the pokemon Cursed Energy is attached to has any other energy cards attached to it, discard Cursed Energy. Pokemon Cursed Energy is attached to can use attacks without paying its attack cost. Pokemon Cursed Energy is attached to cannot retreat. When Cursed Energy is attached to a pokemon, put 5 damage counters on that pokemon.

Cursed Seedot.
40 HP
Basic
Type : Grass
Weakness : Fire
Resistance : None
Retreat Cost : 1
Poke-Power : Cursed Ground.
Cursed Seedot may use attacks of any pokemon card in the discard pile (both yours and your opponents). Cursed Seedot cannot use this Poke-power if it is affected by a special condition.
(Falling Strike) 1 Grass : 10 damage. If the defending pokemon has less HP than Cursed Seedot, this attack does 20 more damage to the defending pokemon and 10 damage to Cursed Seedot.

Cursed Nuzleaf
60 HP
Stage 1
Type : Grass
Weakness : Fire
Resistance : Water
Retreat : 0
Poke-Power : Debilitation
Once during your turn you may exchange the damage counters on your active pokemon with the damage counters on the defending pokemon. You can only use this Poke-Power if the defending pokemon has damage counters on it and only if Cursed Nuzleaf is your active pokemon.
(Dark Leaf) 2 Grass : Flip 2 Coins. If 1 is heads, Cursed Nuzleaf does damage to the defending pokemon equal to the damage counters on a benched pokemon you control. If both are heads, Cursed Nuzleaf does damage equal to all damage tokens on all pokemon in play to the defending pokemon. If both are tails, this attack does nothing.

Cursed Shiftry
90 HP
Stage 2
Type : Grass
Weakness : Fire
Resistance : Water
Retreat Cost : 2
Poke-Power : Cursed Strength
If Cursed Shiftry has any Cursed Energy attached to it, add 30 to all damage done by your active pokemons attacks this turn. Put a damage counter of Cursed Shiftry in between turns if Cursed Shiftry has any Cursed Energy attached to it.
(Purge) 2 Grass + 1 Normal : Discard all Energy Cards attached to Cursed Shiftry. This attack deals damage equal to the number of energy cards discarded in this way to the defending pokemon. Remove 5 damage counters from Cursed Shiftry.
(Defile) 2 Grass + 2 Normal : 20 damage. If you have any Cursed Energy in your discard pile, you may attach a Cursed Energy card onto the defending pokemon.

[pohatufan1returns]

Cursed Energy
I think most players are going to avoid this one, entirely because of that 5-damage-counter drawback. I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of Cursed Energy doing some damage to the Pokemon to which it is attached, but 50 HP worth is really too much. Think: The best Pokemon on which to play Cursed Energy is a Basic Pokemon. After all, if it's played on a Stage 1 or 2, the Pokemon will probably already have Energies of other colors attached -- since it'll have wanted to attack in its Basic (and possibly Stage 1) form. All well and good, except 5 damage counters is going to put a whole lot of Basic Pokemon -- such as your Cursed Seedot -- out of commission. And those that remain will still be so injured, in most cases, that they'll be sitting ducks for the enemy. No, I recommend taking it down to 3 damage counters. That way, only the puniest of Basics will be unable to be equipped with that Energy without getting KO'd, and it'll take a lighter toll on those stronger Pokemon that do survive. (Maybe it could be 4 or... *sigh* even 5 damage counters only for non-Cursed Pokemon, and 3 for Cursed ones? Just a thought.)

Cursed Seedot
Cursed Ground is way overpowered. I really like the idea, but for a 40 HP Basic?! Maybe you could specify "if Cursed Seedot has a Cursed Energy attached". That would mean it was close to death anyway, so being able to use all those attacks would be just a one-time deal and therefore sound much less game-ruining. In fact, I'd much rather you specify the Cursed Energy thing anyway, because then you get into all kinds of problems with, hey, if Cursed Seedot wants to use a Hydro Pump, doesn't he need four W energy attached? And so on.

As for Falling Strike... hmm. Let's talk in a hypothetical world where you really did bring it down to Cursed Energy inflicting 3 damage counters to Cursed Pokemon. Well, if Cursed Seedot had a Cursed Energy attached, it would only have 10 HP left and therefore Falling Strike would never hit a Pokemon with less HP than Cursed Seedot. If Cursed Seedot didn't have the Cursed Energy attached, things would work normally. So I guess this attack makes the possibility of not attaching a Cursed Energy to Cursed Seedot a little more attractive. It's pretty good the way it is.

Cursed Nuzleaf
I'm still thinking about how powerful Debilitation is (and therefore how possibly unfair), so let me just point out that it'd be less awkward if you just said "Once per turn, if Cursed Nuzleaf is your active Pokemon, blabbity blabbity blah on Cursed Nuzleaf with blabbity blabbity blabbity blabbity blah". As for Dark Leaf, it has the potential to be really, really destructive if there are a lot of damage counters across the board. That's basically an auto-KO in most cases. Maybe "if both are heads and Cursed Nuzleaf has a Cursed Energy attached blabbity blabbity blah, and if both are heads and Cursed Nuzleaf does not have a Cursed Energy attached, Cursed Nuzleaf does damage equal to the sum damage counters of two Benched Pokemon you control". Or something like that.

Cursed Shiftry
Cursed Strength is fairly solid. +30 damage is a lot, a lotalot, but the fact that he becomes essentially Poisoned as a result is fairly balancing. I'll let this one slide because Cursed Shiftry's attacks don't do a lot of damage normally (I am aware that this affects any Active Pokemon, not just Cursed Shiftry, but since Cursed Energy makes it impossible to retreat I find it likely that Cursed Shiftry is going to be active a lot of the time if he's got a Cursed Energy attached).

Purge... I don't know. That's obviously intended to get rid of a Cursed Energy, but is it worth it to remove a Special Energy card just to get some HP back? I guess I'll allow it. It's the player's choice, after all, and there can be no doubt that Cursed Shiftry will be suffering from the effects of his Cursed Energy card. As for Defile -- whoo! Attaching your own cards to enemy Pokemon! I'm all for this idea, especially if the defending Pokemon's attacks aren't too energy-intensive anyway. And heck, that 40-50 HP damage (assuming the target isn't Cursed anyway) might just be a knockout blow, especially coupled with the 20 damage the attack normally deals! Sure, this attack gets a thumbs-up from me. In fact, it even justifies Purge's existence a little more. Yeah. Yeah, I like the way this whole card just fits together.


EDIT: Oh, and I think this whole shebang should also include a Trainer card that lets you remove all Energy cards from one of your Pokemon and shuffle them all back into your Deck. Kind of like Mr. Fuji, except it doesn't actually shuffle the Pokemon itself back in. I don't know, maybe there's already a Trainer card that does this, but it'd be a huge help if you wanted to attach a Cursed Energy to a Pokemon that already had other Energy attached. You could call it "Curse Drain" or something.

[Whicker]

No way, no way, no way.
5 damage counters isn't enough... not near enough. Cursed Energy is way too broken. There needs to be more restrictions on what it can be attached to. Such as evolved and not EX. It makes way too many things just way too good. Anything that can handle the 50 damage will just come out way too fast.

[pohatufan1returns]

No, Whicker.

Even the evolved, non-EX Cursed Shiftry turns into a quivering, 40-HP pile of... whatever Shiftries are made out of if you attach a Cursed Energy to him. And if you attached one such energy to anybody earlier on in the line, they'd very likely already be KO'd.

I agree with you about specifying "evolved and not EX", but that isn't going to resolve your main argument, which I simply can't agree with. 50 damage is far too much. No Pokemon is going to survive for long after that, except many of those overgrown EX monsters (which is why I agree there).

All the same, I understand how you could feel that Cursed Energy is broken. Perhaps it would be possible to come up with some other form of handicap besides just pure damage dealing. There's the damage, there's the no retreat, for Cursed Shiftry there's the built-in Poison, but what else could there be so we wouldn't have to resort to just "Put a truckload of damage counters on this Pokemon"? Another status condition that kicks in immediately upon attaching it to any Pokemon (Confusion, perhaps)? The ability to only attack once every other turn? I'm just throwing out ideas here. The point is, even 50 seems like too much damage, certainly for Cursed Pokemon and pretty much for any Pokemon in general, and I'd hate to see that increased at all.

[Whicker]

Even on non-EXs. Cursed Energy is way too broke.
Think about it. I'll even give examples of some, here's two to start with:

Dark Ampharos- 70 damage out of nowhere. Mareep, Candy, Ampharos, Cursed Energy.
Dark Tyranitar (Spinning Tail)- Free Bite Off. OOOOPS, I just used a 5 energy attack for one energy! 120 to your EX!!!

[pohatufan1returns]

In both examples, you're highlighting the fact that Cursed Energy is all a Pokemon needs to attack. Changing that would be messing with the very purpose of the card. I can see how, in both cases, it feels overpowered, but only Ravager877 would be entitled to do something like change the fact that it makes attacks free. I can only suggest that more drawbacks be piled on, not call for something like that.

[Whicker]

I totally agree with you. There definitely needs to be more drawbacks.

[ZAKtheGeek]

How about, if you have a cursed energy in play, you can't draw any cards? That oughta even things out a bit. ;)

[pohatufan1returns]

I would guess that you're joking by the emoticon, but... that's not such an awful idea. Or rather, drawing only once every other turn... It's a possibility.