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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

aroramage

So this is an interesting card. Yeah, Reverse Valley is another of those two-sided Stadiums, but it's got some...niche potential, I suppose.  The last time we saw this, it was with Parallel City, which had at least 1 powerful effect to slow things down for your opponent while the other could either impede them or not affect you at all. Here though, Reverse Valley only has two effects, and neither is particularly great. On the one side, you've got the effect of reducing any damage your Steel-Types - or your opponent's, depending on how you play it - by 10 damage. That's not bad, but Steel doesn't really play around that defensively last I checked. I don't even know of any major Steel Pokemon that get played outside of Bronzong and maybe Dialga-EX and Aegislash-EX. And those guys used to see play all the time! Then again, maybe this is something for Scizor-EX?  On the other hand, you've got the ability to give Dark-Types on whichever side of the field the other half faces an extra 10 damage on all of their attacks. This is arguably the better end of the deal, given the way things have gone, but I don't seem to recall too many Dark decks showing up either. Obviously, there's the new Darkrai-EX, but he works better with All-Night Party than this card. I suppose Yveltal-EX and M Tyranitar-EX wouldn't mind the damage, though in the latter's case it doesn't matter that much at all, and in the former's case he's on-and-off in terms of relevance.  So Reverse Valley is a bit of an indifferent card, not even able to be the graceful one-shot that Parallel City was except in a couple of decks that probably could use the space for something better. Not entirely a bad card, mind you, but not a magnificently great one either.  Rating  Standard: 2/5 (it's okay, I wouldn't say it's that great though)  Expanded: 2.5/5 (like, it could go well with the extra Dark support in the format)  Limited: 3/5 (but aside from that, it doesn't do much for a lot of decks)  Arora Notealus: Reverse Valley does what Parallel City did, only to a much lesser extent. Seeing as this is the second set in a row that we've gotten one of these in, I'm guessing the trend is to continue into the foreseeable future. At the very least, they do bring an interesting dynamic to Stadiums!  Next Time: The great protector of the Northern Wind rides again!

Otaku

Reverse Valley (XY: BREAKpoint 110/122) has taken so long to reach you may have thought we forgot about it!  This is (still kind of) new Stadium is like Parallel City in that the card’s position determines which of two effects is applied to that player.  If the card is rightside up from your perspective, your Darkness Type Pokémon do an extra 10 damage to your opponent’s Active, and before you apply Weakness or Resistance.  This is a solid effect: Fighting Stadium has been amazing due to its +20 damage bonus that only works against Pokémon-EX.  Half as much of a bonus that works against everything won’t always matter, but I would say the odds are in your favor that it will at least from time to time.  It can, for example, allow a Basic Pokémon sporting Fighting Fury Belt to hit as hard as if you had Muscle Band attached while still enjoying that +40 HP.  It even applies before Weakness so against Darkness Weak Pokémon it is good for a +20 bonus.  So what if Reverse Valley is upside down from your perspective?  Then your Metal Type Pokémon will take 10 less damage from attacks by your opponent’s Pokémon, but sadly it is after Weakness and Resistance are applied.  This can still be helpful, increasing the protection Metal-Types often already enjoy from their own card effects or Shield Energy, it is just defense is usually inferior to offense in a game like Pokémon and applying after Weakness means it will still only block 10 damage, unlike how the other side gets it bonus doubled when it attacks into Weakness and can still help a card punch through Resistance.  There is one potential exception where these effects will cancel out: Darkness Type Pokémon versus Metal Type Pokémon.  The Darkness Types will hit for 10 more and the Metal Types will take 10 less.  No Metal Types I could find are Darkness Weak, though should one be printed then the net result would be 10 more damage for the Darkness Types (10 x 2 - 10).  The Metal Type hasn’t been a major force in the game for a bit, outside of cards that rarely attack such as Bronzong (XY: Phantom Forces 61/119; XY: Black Star Promos XY21), Jirachi-EX, and Aegislash-EX.  Still if someone revives them, Reverse Valley would be a Stadium to at least consider.  The Darkness Type is doing well and so that should consider Reverse Valley.  In fact I’d say this becomes the new default Stadium unless the deck requires something more specific, such as Sky Field for a deck that needs to expand its Bench size.  In Expanded, you might still favor Virbank City Gym; even with only so many uses of Hypnotoxic Laser the bonus Poison damage will usually be twice what you would get from the damage bonus from Darkness Types.  It also won’t care if you have an off Type attacker.  There are also two existing Stadiums in Expanded and Standard that favor Darkness Types and Metal Types (one for each).  Shadow Circle technically works for any Pokémon with a source of [D] Energy attached, but that can be pretty important as popular Darkness Types tend to have popular (and dangerous) Weaknesses to Types like Fighting or Lightning.  If my Darkness deck doesn’t expressly need yet another Stadium, I would be tempted to run both Reverse Valley and Shadow Circle.  Same goes for the Metal Type specific Stadium called Steel Shelter: it blocks your Metal Types from being poisoned which tends to be either awesome or useless.  So while not revolutionary, Reverse Valley has its place in Standard and Expanded.  What about Limited?  If you have Darkness or Metal Type Pokémon it is a must run, but it is actually something to strongly consider regardless.  Unless you pull a card like Delinquent you won’t have a way to deal with an opponent’s Stadium.  Normally if there are two Stadium cards in the card pool for Limited, I recommend taking whatever Stadium is there in case you need to discard your opponent’s.  Sometimes this means using a Stadium that doesn’t benefit you at all or even can cause you issues in some situations; you just make sure you only drop it when the net benefit is greater than that of leaving the current Stadium in play.  XY: BREAKpoint only has one other Stadium though - All Night Party - and that just doesn’t seem as big of a deal to discard from the field.  Ratings  Standard: 3.25/5  Expanded: 3.25/5  Limited: 3.25/5  Summary: Increasing or decreasing damage only truly matters when it alters the pace at which KOs are taken, give or take a few effects that depend on the amount of damage in being done, in play, etc.  10 more or less damage isn’t a huge shift and sometimes it will be worthwhile, sometimes it won’t.  The score may seem low but I have lowered it a little as it isn’t a generic Stadium likely to benefit most decks and there is significant competition both for Stadium cards in general and a Stadium for each of the Types affected by Reverse Valley.  Reverse Valley took 17th place in our Top 20 for XY: BREAKpoint (we only did a top 10 for the CotD series).  It had five voting points and was tied with Raticate BREAK/Raticate (XY: BREAKpoint 88/122), which took 18th place.  It wasn’t a three-way-tie per se; Raticate BREAK and Raticate (XY: BREAKpoint 88/122) were nominated as a pair.  It was part of a fairly close finish as Darkrai-EX only secured 16th place with six points while Bursting Balloon and even Slowbro (XY: BREAKpoint 20/122) managed four voting points so that they tied for 19th and 20th place respectively.  On my own list, I awarded it 11th place.  I think this was about right; while there are some cards that aren’t as good as it that made our list, that are (regrettably) some good cards that ought to have made our list or made it far higher than didn’t and the net result is Reverse Valley just making or just missing the list.