# Why some PTCG English Tranlation is not very well? A case about "Your opponent shuffle their deck"

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When my **Trevenant & Dusknoir-GX** use the Attack "Night Watch", choose 2 cards from my opponent's hand and shuffle these card to their deck, which player will shuffle the 2 cards to deck?
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I just post this quiz(or I should say that is a survey) on X in three different language, English, Japanese, and Traditional Chinese.

You can also think what is your answer, but before we talk about this issue, let me discuss an intuitive unwritten rules.

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**Basically, player who uses the attacks or card effects do the operations.**
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## Player Who Uses The Effects Do The Operations

Let's think about another question:

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When you use **Crushing Hammer** to discard an Energy from 1 of you opponent’s Pokémon, which player will discard the energy card?
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Even though I didn't do the survey about this question, but I can expect that most players' answer will be yourself rather than the opponent. Or I think somebody will say it doesn't matter to who discards the energy.

*Indeed it doesn't matter.*

Even though most player will discard the energy card when they use Crushing Hammer, but I think nobody will stop their opponent to help themself discarding the energy card. That's why it really doesn't matter.

But we still can confirm "Basically, player who uses the attacks or card effects do the operations." is correct, just check the card text "Flip a coin".

If there is no text telling you who flips the coin, that will mean you should flip the coin by yourself, right?

So "Basically, player who uses the attacks or card effects do the operations." exists, or I will say it's the basic logic in game rule.

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## Target of Effect

Next, we need to discuss another concept about "Target of Effect".

**Target** is the object affected by an effect. If the target attached a "Prevent Effect" effect(e.g. Mist Energy), the target won't be affected.

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So we can list some example like:

* The target of **Crushing Hammer's** "Discard Energy" effect is **Pokemon**.
* The target of **Shiftry's** "**Expelling Tornado**" is **Pokemon**.

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Wheather **Crushing Hammer** or **Expelling Tornado**, we can understand that discarding or shuffling cards is a part of the effect rather than considering that there is a part of effect will affect player(consider player as a target).

And all these effects we just said are not assigned who to do the operations. So according the basic rule logic, if we normally explain these effect, we should say that they will be operated by the player who uses them. Or we can say that they are effects just need to do these operations(doesn't assign an executor), if we don't consider the operational habits or consensus of players, then who is the executor doesn't really matter.

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## Effect Makes Another Player To Do Something

The effects we just discussed are no-assigned executor or the effects that target is not player.

Now, let's talk about some different case.

### Effect That Target Is Player And Assigned The Executor

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**Avery's** "*your opponent discards Pokemon from their Bench until they have 3*" is an effect that the effect target and executor are your opponent.

So if your opponent has "Prevent Effect" effect like **Milotic's** "**Dew Guard**", your opponent won't be affected and doesn't need to discard pokemon.

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We just show an example about effect that target Is player and assigned the executor. I think that we can know how the effect that target is player and assigned the executor will be looked like.

Now, we need to talk about a mistranslation case.

## Is All "You May Have Your Opponent Shuffle Their Deck" Effect's Target Are Player?

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The effect target of **Lanturn's** "**Swirling Flow**" is your opponent. This effect will make your opponent to shuffle their deck.

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So if your opponent has the effect like **Marowak's** ability, "**Bodyguard**", your opponent won't shuffle their deck.

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**Mischievous Tail**'s text is also "you may have your opponent shuffle their deck". Is the target of this "you may have your opponent shuffle their deck" effect from Mischievous Tail your opponent?

If you just check the English text of Aipom, you definitely will say yes. But in fact, there is probably some mistranslation.

Let's check the Japanese Mischievous Tail:

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The Japanese text of **Mischievous Tail** is:

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**相手の山札を上から1枚見て、もとにもどす。のぞむなら、その山札を切る。**
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Just translate it directly:

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**Look at the top card of your opponent's deck, shuffle the deck if you want.**
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Now if you check the effect of Mischievous Tail in Japanese. You will say that your opponent is not the target and also doesn't assign the executor.

And we can also make a double check by cehcking **Swirling Flow** in Japanese.

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The Japanese text of **Swirling Flow** is:

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**のぞむなら、相手に相手自身の山札を切らせる。**
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Translate it:

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**You may have your opponent shuffle their deck.**
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Now, you will find that Swirling Flow and Mischievous Tail are actually different effects in Japanese, but having same text in English.

So the English text of Mischievous Tail is actually a mistranslation. If we according the Japanese text, your opponent's deck will still be shuffled even though your opponent has the effect of "Bodyguard". And we can know that the text "You May Have Your Opponent Shuffle Their Deck" in English is not credible.

Unfortunately, these kind problem may exist around the whole English Pokemon TCG Card because a "just shuffling" effect in Japanese may be rewritten to be a "make your opponent shuffling" effect in English.

OK, after all these long description, we finally can go back to the original question.

## The Trevenant & Dusknoir-GX Problem

Maybe you already guessed it. Trevenant & Dusknoir-GX's "Night Watch" also has this problem like Aipom.

"Night Watch" doesn't make the opponent shuffle cards to deck in Japanese.

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So the answer of "Who will shuffle the deck?" will be "your opponent" in English, and having a different answer "yourself" in Japanese.

That's why the result of these survey so different in Japanese and English. (Even though the respondents are few)

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The results are almost the opposite.
It's interesting, isn't it?

That means players no matter Japaense or English user will think this question by following the basic logic "Basically, player who uses the attacks or card effects do the operations except if a executor is assigned.".
And the factor making the answer different is the card text with opposite meaning.

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The result in Traditional Chinese is different to Japanese or English even though the answer "me" is slightly more than "my opponent"(※).

I think the reason is that there is playing English cards before Traditional Chinese card released in Taiwan and Hong Kong, so maybe some old player or player learning this game from old player remembered the result from English version.

## Conclusion

Just as I said, maybe it doesn't really matter about who shuffling the deck in Trevenant & Dusknoir-GX case. Because it's an effect that just need to shuffle the deck (Of course it doesn't include the part of card selection effect).

But in the cases like Lanturn and Aipom, "Is the effect's target(that have to execute the operation) your opponent?" is important.

So the reason we need to make it clear in different languages is just to know what's the target of this effect because that will affect how we give the ruling. And for those effects don't assign the executor that just need to shuffle, just need to discard something...who is the executor? 

*Indeed it doesn't matter.*

## Epilogue

It's not the first time we find the mistranslation makes problem or mistake. 

Erika's Hospitality, Aipom's Mischievous Tail, Garbodor's Garbotoxin...

That's why some PTCG English Translation is not very well. Some rewritting in English is indeed better than Japaese, it can fix the unclear expression in Japanese. But when some rewritten translation can't express correctly, these kind problem will be found again and again.

I know that translation is not a easy job, so I don't mean that English version use rewriting method to traslate cards is a mistake.
But perhaps when these translation problems occur, officials can have more specific solving.