Pokémon Reversal

What the card does

Pokémon Reversal forces a coin-flip repositioning swap on the opponent's side. The Expedition wording had the player choose one of the opponent's Benched Pokémon and, on heads, switch it with the Defending Pokémon. Ruby and Sapphire's rewrite handed the switch to the opponent, who picked which of their own Active and Benched Pokémon traded places; an errata later made it play more like the Expedition card, with a small adjustment for 2-on-2 play. The FireRed and LeafGreen wording reflects that: the player picks the Benched Pokémon and the opponent picks which Defending Pokémon leaves. HeartGold SoulSilver simply swaps the chosen Benched Pokémon with the opponent's Active Pokémon.

Printing history

The card first appeared in the WOTC era in Expedition Base Set, then returned across three EX era sets, Ruby and Sapphire, FireRed and LeafGreen, and Unseen Forces, each of those three illustrated by Hiromichi Sugiyama. Its fifth printing came in HeartGold SoulSilver with new artwork by Wataru Kawahara. Our catalog lists 5 printings.

Trivia

The HeartGold SoulSilver wording ended up matching the errata'd effect of Pokémon Catcher, a card later released in Emerging Powers. Before its official English release in Expedition, the card first appeared in the Japanese Pokémon VS expansion and in an unofficial English Tyranitar Half Deck made for the 2001 Tropical Mega Battle, where it carried the tentative name Pokémon Reverse.

Cards to know

• Pokémon Reversal (Expedition Base Set #146)

  The Expedition Base Set printing is the card's first official English release, letting the player pick the opponent's Benched Pokémon to swap in on heads

• Pokémon Reversal (Ruby & Sapphire #87)

  The Ruby and Sapphire printing introduced the reworded effect that was later reined in by an errata

• Pokémon Reversal (HeartGold SoulSilver #99)

  The HeartGold SoulSilver printing carries new artwork by Wataru Kawahara and an effect that matches Pokémon Catcher's errata