Brock’s Pewter City Gym – Hidden Fates Pokemon Review

Vince

As part of a two-fer reviews due to cards being related one way to another, Brock’s Pewter City Gym is a stadium card which only works for Onix-GX, and it makes that card take 40 less damage from attacks. So far, Onix-GX is a decent card that can be focused upon or used as tech trying to exploit weakness against certain types, easing certain matchups. While the damage reduction is good, it can only be useful as to shift OHKOs into 2HKOS, or 2HKOs to 3HKOs. If an attack lands 2HKO plus overkill, Brock’s Gym probably won’t save you. And we haven’t factored in Stadium removal or other stadiums giving competition. While Onix-GX and Brock’s Pewter City Gym is meant for each other, that Pokémon doesn’t have to only use this; it might benefit from other stadiums.

-Martial Arts Dojo: As long as non Ultra Beast Pokémon has any basic Fighting energies attached to it, it gets to deal 10 more damage, or 40 more damage if you have more prizes than your opponent.

-Power Plant: This makes EX/GX Pokémon have no abilities, which Onix-GX doesn’t care. This can help Onix-GX overcome some Pokémon that might otherwise wall from this Pokémon such as Keldeo-GX.

-Viridian Forest: This helps you fetch some basic energy cards so that you can use it as your manual attachment or forced attachments due to other card effects like Welder.

That’s pretty much what I can think of in terms of competition that Onix-GX would enjoy besides Brock’s Gym, but it isn’t without merit.

• Standard: 3/5
• Expanded: 2/5
• Limited: N/A

Otaku

This week, we’re counting down our Top 4 Picks of Hidden Fates, a “bonus” set that both bigger and smaller than it looks because of its unusual composition: a 69-card “main” set plus a 94-card subset (the Shiny Vault).  The Shiny Vault are all Alternate A reprints of cards that are not Standard-legal, and even the 69-card set still includes some reprints, Full Arts, and even a Secret Rare that dramatically reduce the effective size of this expansion.

Brock’s Pewter City Gym (Hidden Fates 54/68) is did not place on our countdown.  Onix-GX is our 4th-place pick, and you can see its review here.  Brock’s Pewter City Gym is a Trainer-Stadium and its effect is that Onix-GX takes 40 less damage from attacks, after Weakness and Resistance.  That’s it.  It is possible we’ll receive a future Onix-GX or some other card that expands upon this one’s usage, but for now, we’re only giving it a review because we can’t properly review Onix-GX without it… and doing two-in-one can get really messy.

Onix-GX, as stated in its own review, seems to be a tank.  You can ignore its attacks to use it as just a wall as well, or settle for just using its inexpensive “Bind” attack to improve your stalling.  These are the circumstances where Brock’s Pewter City Gym is hard to beat, though you still might benefit more from Power Plant disrupting your opponent, Viridian Forest helping with your Energy needs, etc.  In a deck where you’re also concerned with Onix-GX damaging your opponent, or where Onix-GX is a minor presence, there’s more competition.  You still might need something like Power Plant, but Martial Arts Dojo can help Onix-GX’s offense; coupled with a Diancie {*} on your Bench, Onix-GX’s attacks finally hit some key numbers.

In both cases, there another drawback to Brock’s Pewter City Stadium; barring running Onix-GX with an attacker that hits its own Bench, your opponent always has the chance to discard Brock’s Pewter City Gym before it can do its thing.  Fortunately, we’re living in a time of Stadium wars, so quality and quantity of Stadiums aren’t our only concerns; something niche-but-good can be a great pressure card.  If your opponent uses up their Stadium counters on it, no problem; you’ve got something just as good or better.  If Brock’s Pewter City Gym is the last Stadium standing, Onix-GX can enjoy the damage reduction and odds are it does nothing for your opponent

Ratings

Standard: 3/5

Expanded: 2/5

Limited: N/A

The value of Brock’s Pewter City Gym depends on Onix-GX, and Onix-GX seems good but not great right now.  Even in its niche, it isn’t the best option, but I think it does enough to still warrant an average score… in Standard.  In Expanded, there is a lot more competition, but Onix-GX isn’t hopeless here so I’m giving it a lower (but far from minimal) score; it is still decent.  I don’t believe Hidden Fates is Limited-legal, but if it is, you might run Brock’s Pewter City Gym just to discard another Stadium found in this set, so it oddly might be a must-run.  If you’re wondering, Brock’s Pewter City Gym wasn’t even a runner-up for our countdown, as it appeared on no individual lists.