Juniper can't be used when decked out?

[Rolci]

Suppose you have a night march deck and you have one more pokemon left to knock out to win. You have no cards left in your deck. You need to discard one more pokemon with NM, which is in your hand along with a juniper or sycamore.  I apologise if my recollection of the game I just had is incorrect, but I could swear I hadn't used a supporter in my last turn of the game. (Different scenario but irrelevant.) I had no cards left in my deck but had Juniper, but playing it was not an option. I am fairly certain you can use Juniper and Sycamore when you have less than 7 cards left in your deck, same goes for Dedenne GX. I do not see why a no-cards-left situation should be any different.

 

These cards do not say "if you have no cards left you cannot use this card/ability". Usually if such is the case cards stipulate clearly, as in the case of Kahili: "If you have no cards in your deck, you can't play this card." Juniper has no such commentary. I have been trying to find the relevant ruling on this but found nothing. Is this a bug or intended? Or had I just played a supporter that same turn and have false recollection?

 

Thanks for any clues.

Edited July 26, 2019 by Rolci

[XK920XK]

Per Rules Team.

 

Q. Can you use Professor Juniper or Professor Sycamore with no cards in your deck, just to discard your hand?
A. No, you cannot. Discarding your hand is a cost not the effect, and you cannot play Trainer cards for no effect. (Apr 27, 2017 TPCi Rules Team)

[Rolci]

Sorry to beat this dead horse, but you like to differentiate between cost and effect. Juniper reads: "Discard your hand and draw 7 cards". You are saying that discarding your hand is the cost and pulling 7 cards is the effect, right? Juniper works when you have 6 cards in your deck. It also works with 5. And so on. 0 should be no different, 0 is as different from 7 as is 6 or 5, in that it is not 7. Note that the card is explicit - it does not say "draw up to 7 cards". It says "draw 7 cards", which is strictly the effect as you like to explain. If there is less than 7 cards left it should not work. If it does - and it does - then it should work equally well for 6, or 5, or 4, or 0 - neither are 7.

 

To further support this I would draw your attention to Unown (Ancient Origins 32/98) whose ability reads:

 

"Once during your turn (before your attack), if this Pokémon is on your Bench, you may discard this Pokémon and all cards attached to it (this does not count as a Knock Out). If you do, draw a card."

 

Cost? Discarding it. Effect? Drawing a card. Notice it does not say "you may draw a card". It says "draw a card". Guess whether it works or not when you have no cards left in the deck. That's right, it sure does. Explain that please.

[Chasista]

I'm not an expert but, pile is kind of an "unknown space".

 

You can use Pokemon fan club to search for a couple basics because the cards in the pile are unknown. I mean, even if you know your deck has only 5 basic and you pulled it all out, YOU know, but it's not a think that everyone can know, like Discard. Same with Ultra ball, you can esarch but find there's nothing to pick. Otherwise, you could not use Pokémon fan club if the card were: 'Search for 2 Basic pokémon from discard and put it into your hand', with no Basics in discard because you can check Discard before playing the trainer, so, you know and would be a 'no effect'.

 

I think it works a bit like, we don't know how much cards are left in pile (in the online game is clear but in real life, is there a counter? IDK). You can use Juniper/Sycamore because there are cards left. But you can't use it with no cards because you, opponent, judge, spectators, everyone can see there are no cards left.

 

I was thinking about Welder. You can't use Welder with no Fire energies in hand just to draw because that's the cost. You must attach energies. But can you play it with Fire energies in hand but no cards left in pile? Because drawing 3 is the effect, right? So would be a NO. I'm not sure if works that way.

 

The wording is so important and is commonly so vague... 😔

 

Edit: BTW, referring to Unown AOR 32, you can't play TRAINER cards for no effect is what the Rules team states. Unown is not a trainer card. I guess that's a huge difference for the Ruling team. We should know if you can use abilities for no effect.

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by Chasista
The example