Hello, and welcome to Tuesday and a new Stadium card
from Rising Rivals, yes, as you've already guessed, it's
Sunnyshore City Gym! It's a simple card, so it'll be a
short review today. If you have played any of the newest
games (DPPt), then you may be able to guess that this
card helps Lightning Pokémon, and it does that quite
well. What it does is allow all Lightning Pokémon in
play to ignore Resistance when they attack, and make all
Lightning Pokémon in play have no Weakness. Simple, yet
effective. Ignoring Resistance is useful since Flygon
(RR), the main Pokémon with Lightning Resistance, is so
popular at the moment. There are other Lightning
Resistant Pokémon as well, but none are quite so well
played. Getting rid of Weakness is also, and obviously,
brilliant. This means that your normal fear of Fighting
Pokémon is gone, which is great. This card does help
your Lightning Pokémon alot, but it also helps your
opponents, so you may want to bear that in mind if you
are building a deck which contains Lightning Resistance
or Fighting Pokémon in combination with Lightning
Pokémon. Of course, there aren't many decks that will
combo those sorts of Pokémon together, with the main
Lighting Pokémon being played today being Luxray GL (and
it's Lv.X), and that probably isn't comboed with either
of those two too often.
Of course, while Sunnyshore City Gym does sound nice and
tempting, but there are a couple of things to bear in
mind. First of all, it will only help Lightning Pokémon.
Obviously this will limit it's playability, but if you
didn't realise this already, then you should learn to
read the card. Then, if you are playing Lightning
Pokémon, then it's most likely to be Luxray GL (and Lv.X),
at which point, there are other, probably more helpful
and possibly more disruptive stadiums you could use,
like Galactic HQ or Snowpoint Temple, or even Conductive
Quarry. Out of that lot, Sunnyshore Cty Gym doesn't
really seem that great. Even if you are using a
different Lightning Pokémon, then Broken Time Space is
probably going to be a lot more helpful than getting rid
of Weakness or Resistance. Also, Fighting Weakness might
be annoying due to Machamp, but other than that, there
aren't that many Fighting decks about, meaning there
isn't much point in getting rid of the Weakness in the
first place.
Ratings:
Modified: It seems nice, but really, most of the time,
there are going to be more useful stadiums. Helping set
up (Broken Time Space), disrupting your opponents
(Galactic HQ), or whatever else you could use are almost
definitely going to be worth the space more than
Sunnyshore City Gym. No matter what deck, I'd leave this
card alone. 1.25/5
Limited: There are several Pokémon that benefit from
this card (Kecleon springs instantly to mind), so it
becomes a bit more viable. However, while it does seem
helpful, it is again a double-edged sword (again,
Kecleon springs to mind), but it probably will be worth
it since there are a lot of Fighting Pokémon in the set,
thus they will see a lot of play, meaning you can
protect your Lightning Pokémon from them with this card.
I suppose the only thing lacking is a lot of Lightning
Pokémon in the set. Still, get any, and this card will
probably be useful. 3.25/5
Baby Mario Top 4 UK Nats
Sunnyshore City Gym
This is a card that Lightning decks have needed for a
long time.
The effect of Sunnyshore City Gym is very simple. When
it is in play, Lightning Pokémon have no Weakness, and
their attacks are not affected by Resistance on the
defending Pokémon. As many Lightning types have low HP
and are weak to the popular Fighting type, this Stadium
gives a real boost to cards like Ampharos PL, Luxray LA,
and Raichu SF . . . all of which are potentially good
Pokémon that are hurt by their Weakness to Machamp.
The Resistance-cancelling effect is less useful. Decks
featuring Gastrodon, Rhyperior, or Mamoswine are pretty
rare. Hippowdon sees some play, but largely as a support
Pokémon. The most common Pokémon with Lightning
resistance is Flygon, but playing this Stadium will
actually help them, as Flygon’s Sand Wall attack will
discard your Stadium and give Flygon immunity from
attacks on your turn.
If you want to build a deck around one of the neglected
Lightning types I mentioned earlier, then Sunnyshore
City Gym is a must. Whether it is quite enough to make
these decks competitive is another matter.
Rating
Modified: 2.5 (welcome boost for a currently weak type)
Limited 3 (if you pull some Lightning Pokémon, it will
be helpful)
Steel_Winger
Welcome back to the Pokemon COTD!
Today's card is the second of the two new Stadiums from
Rising Rivals: Sunyshore City Gym. This Stadium
eliminates the Weakness of all Lightning-type Pokemon in
play and also ignores any Resistance from their attacks.
This card is excellent if your deck is packed with
Lightning-types. How?
It can get rid of the x2 Weaknesses of Luxray GL LV. X
and Raichu GL.
Flygon (RR), Hippowdon (RR), and their LV. X forms have
-20 Resistances to Lightning-types; this Stadium will
even the playing field against them.
Machamp (SF) will find it a bit harder to OHKO some of
the evolved Lightning Types with Hurricane Punch.
The new Rotoms (RR) won't have to fear any Dark-type
Pokemon.
Almost all Lightning-type Pokemon have a Weakness to
Fighting-types. Machamp (SF) is still taking Basics out,
Hippowdon (RR) is still looking for the spotlight, and
Flygon (RR), even though it's not a Fighting-type, is
teched in a lot of decks. Rampardos (PT), Armaldo (LA),
and Nidoking (RR) even make an unexpected appearance
once in a blue moon. If these guys give you trouble, I
recommend Sunyshore City Gym. It has its uses, but don't
expect to see a lot of this card for the simple fact
that Lightning-exclusive decks are uncommon at the
moment. It may be a bit of a choice between this and
Conductive Quarry (SF) since Lightning-types tend to
discard energy as much as Fire-types do, however.
Ratings:
Modified: 2.75/5 If it's not named Luxray GL (LV. X),
Raichu GL, Manetric (PT) or Pachirisu (GE), it's a
Lightning-type that isn't seeing much play at the
moment. This Stadium does deserve some consideration,
though.
Limited: 3/5 There are plenty of Pokemon that resist
Lightning-types here, and even fewer Lightining-types
themselves grace this set. If you do decide to roll with
the guys in yellow, make sure you pack a copy or 2 of
this card.
