From: Brian Brokaw To: James Chuang x3102 Subject: Re: Your Metronome answers Date: Wednesday, October 13, 1999 8:02 PM > Here are some examples: > Charmander's Ember attack move: If Charmander does NOT discard > a Fire Energy card, Charmander cannot use this attack. Discarding a Fire > Energy card is part of Ember's COST. So Metronome does NOT copy > this discard. > > Moltres' Wildfire attack move: Discarding Fire Energy cards are NOT > required to use this attack. You are allowed to use Wildfire without > discarding Fire Energy cards (it simply will have no effect). So, > Metronome DOES copy Wildfire's discard portion. > > Why wouldn't Charmander's Ember move do the same as Wildfire? You need 1 > colorless and 1 fire energy to to the Ember attack. That is the "Cost", > and Clefairy and Clefable can ignore that. However, the Discard is NOT a > cost, but an effect of the attack, just like Wildfire. So if you cannot > Discard a Fire energy, then Ember does NOTHING, just like Wildfire! > > So in effect, you need at least 1 Fire Energy on Clefairy to be able to > Metronome an effective Ember, since without the discard, you do nothing! > > Please pull your strings inside WotC and see if you can get this clarfied a > bit. As it stands, I can't see your answer as being consistent. Hi James. I think you are confusing COST with ENERGY REQUIREMENT. Ember's ENERGY REQUIREMENT is 1R (1 colorless and 1 Fire). But this ENERGY REQUIREMENT is only part of Ember's COST. A "COST" is ALL things that must be satisfied IN ORDER TO use the attack. So Ember's COST is 1R and Discard R. Robert Gutschera described it to me this way back when we were all fighting about Metronome (in the early days). Hope this helps, Brian Brokaw