Dimension Valley – Pokemon Throwback Thursday (2014)

Otaku

Today’s subject is Dimension Valley (XY – Phantom Forces , a Trainer-Stadium card that reduces the Energy costs of Psychic Pokémon (either player’s) by [C].  This is a very simple but very powerful effect, letting you access attacks more quickly, and that can double as doing more damage as a more damaging attack is suddenly available for the Energy (and Energy attachments) of a less expensive one.  Cost reduction is a form of Energy acceleration, though it may not help in instances where the raw amount of Energy is what matters: paying discard costs, effects that count the amount of Energy in play, etc.

The review crew first reviewed Dimension Valley as a runner-up from our Top 10 countdown of its set, XY – Phantom Forces.  Dimension Valley could easy have been the top card of its set… if its set hadn’t been XY – Phantom Forces.  While it is better than some of the cards that made the actual Top 10, for as amazing as Dimension Valley is, it can’t really compete with cards like Lysandre’s Trump, Battle Compressor, or VS Seeker (not that VS Seeker was eligible, at the time).  Dimension Valley should have made our countdown for XY – Phantom Forces, but even in hindsight, the highest it ought to have ranked was 4th-place: the set is just that amazing!

The second time it was reviewed, it was as the 7th-place finisher in our countdown of cards lost to that year’s rotation.  While Dimension Valley was still a metagame defining card at this point, it lost to things like Battle Compressor, Seismitoad-EX, Muscle Band, Night March, Startling Megaphone, and Trevenant (XY 55/146).  I’m not going to mention all the past Psychic decks that made good use of Dimension Valley, because I have five that are were seeing success in Expanded as recently as the Regional held in Collinsville, IL back on February 29th:

• Garbodor/Alolan Muk
• Mew Box
• Mewtwo & Mew-GX
• Night March
• Trevenant

I don’t have room to detail all of these, but many should be familiar if you were playing Expanded at the time… and probably if you’ve been playing it recently, or played it during the last few years.  You can find all these lists – and for most of the other decks in the top cut – here, at LimitlessTCG.  I am a bit surprised Garbodor/Alolan Muk, as we’re talking Garbodor (SM – Guardians Rising 51/145, 51a/145) and Alolan Muk (SM – Team Up 84/181).  Guess it is for some of their backup in the deck.  The rest should be pretty easily understood, with many [P] Types reducing the cost of their own attacks or those they’re copying from something else by [C].

If I have still failed to impress upon you how great Dimension Valley is, consider Thunder Mountain {*}.  Even though it is a Prism Star card, restricted to one-per-deck and going to the Lost Zone instead of the discard pile, it is one of the things that makes modern [L] decks.  It is also Dimension Valley, but for Lightning Types.  You can argue its actually better than Dimension Valley, because it reduces the attack costs of [L] Types in play by [L] and not just [C] and enjoys the protections afforded Prism Star Stadium cards… but it is still a Prism Star card.  Still, I think the existence of Thunder Mountain {*} all but confirms the powers-that-be think Dimension Valley’s effect is too good for a four-per-deck card.

Not that any of us are likely to get the chance to test Dimension Valley in the Limited Format anytime soon, yes, it is a great pull here.  A lot of the great cards I mentioned – like Night March – are in this set.  There are some more great [P] Types I did not mention that are here as well.  Even if you fail to pull any of them, or just cannot afford to run what you did pull, Steel Shelter is in this set, it blocks Special Conditions for [M] Types, Special Conditions tend to be important in the Limited Format, and the [M] Type is also strong in this set.  So… yeah, you might need Dimension Valley as a counter-Stadium.

Ratings

• Standard: N/A (would be 4/5)
• Expanded: 4/5
• Limited: 4/5

Four-out-of-fives across the board and I’m worried I scored Dimension Valley too low.  Reducing Energy costs via a Stadium is good.  The Psychic Type tends to receive attack copiers.  It is mostly bad timing that we don’t have a bunch of World Championship decks preserving Dimension Valley’s greatness.  We’ve had – and continue to have, in Expanded – great decks that are made by Dimension Valley, but by the time the World Championships would roll around, everyone was countering those decks (like Night March and Trevenant).