Mt. Coronet – Ultra Prism – Pokemon Review

Vince

Mt. Coronet seems to do just one simple thing, yet the applications for using the cards you need are endless. Recovering two Metal energies from the discard to your hand via a Stadium card is a blessing. It avoids Trashalanche from racking up damage and you don’t use up your Supporter in your turn. You can use those energy cards as discard fodder, making Ultra Ball or Sophocles having no drawbacks. You could also use these energies to use certain attacks that require energies in your hand such as Alolan Dugtrio’s Gold Rush attack. And you can use them for manual/unlimited energy attachments regarding to Metal.

If your main focus is getting those energies back, then Mt. Coronet is one of the best Stadium cards for Metal decks. In Limited, this is a must run if you also pulled the 2-2-2 Magnezone line from Evolution packs or plan to use Alolan Dugtrio.

Standard: 4/5
Expanded: 4/5
Limited: 4/5

Retro

Again, we arrive in some Metal decks love with the last piece that rounds the archetype together. It’s a Stadium by the place of Mt. Coronet, and its actually a good Stadium in the meta.

Since it’s the only stadium in the set, I’ll keep this short. Mt. Coronet allows you to pick up to 2 [M] energies from your discard pile as long as it is in play. This is a great mid to late game Stadium as not only it goes live as soon as you can play it down and get the energies instantly, but also some recovery is possible when it is played. Energies are a very precious commodity which are easily discarded when a Pokemon is knocked out or a hammer is played, and having the ability to recover them is a great luxury that Metal energy-based decks have. Not only Mt. Coronet has the ability to pick up an energy after a KO, it can also be used to retrieve energies discarded when played effects of cards. For example, you can use an Ultra Ball, discard the 2 [M] energies and use Mt. Coronet to get the energies back.

The best recipient, although logic dictates that deluge decks like Magnezone decks will be the ones best suited here, as you can just use Mt. Coronet and attach both at the same time, it is also useful in decks that needs discarding Metal energies, or allows usage of energies to be used as discard fodder to be used at no cost. For example, Alolan Dugtrio’s Gold Rush damage can be continuously recycled with the combo of Mt. Coronet and Starmie, as well as Sophocles that needs to discard 2 cards to draw 4 from your deck. So technically you can discard 2 [M] energies with Sophocles and draw 4, then retrieve the Metal energies you discarded back to hand.

I’m not saying that Mt. Coronet will be the best Stadium ever. There are other stadiums better for the job and also, like Brooklet Hill it is too archetype-specific. But for Metal decks, there are no other better Stadium card for the job, and it did its job brilliantly.

Rating:

Standard: 3.9/5
Expanded: 3.5/5
Limited: 5/5

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PokeDeck
Central

Mt. Coronet (UP 130) ascends into the meta from the Ultra Prism expansion set.  This stadium allows you to bring two Metal energy cards from your discard into your hand.

Clearly, this exists to help power Alolan Dugtrio and Dusk Mane Necrozma GX.  It would pair well with Magnezone as well, and, if you Field Blower it and have another in hand, you can actually use that second Mt. Coronet to draw out another two Metal energy as well.  

It can also serve as Ultra Ball fodder – you could discard two energy to fulfill Ultra Ball’s search requirements and then bring them back into your hand.  It could also potentially see use in Colorless Pokemon decks, although there’s no Colorless deck that’s meta at the moment.  It’s a good card that will see TONS of use over the next two and a half years, and I’m sure we’ve only scratched the surface of uses that we’ll come up with for this.  I have no doubt that there will be new cards that come out that Mt. Coronet will help abuse in ways we haven’t even imagined yet.

Rating

Standard: 3.5 out of 5

Conclusion

I actually don’t run it in the Metalcrozma build that I’ve been trying recently – it’s more of a turbo build so I want energy in the discard so I can accelerate it through Solgaleo Prism or Registeel.  I used to say, “If you’re hitting for 220 that’s great, but if you only attack every other turn, that’s only really 110 per turn.”  The problem is, there are so many decks out there running Max Potion, Acerola, and Super Scoop Up … I actually ran 4 SSU in my deck at Collinsville.  I had two in hand one turn and played the first – which failed – and when I played the second my opponent exclaimed, “What!?!” in total disbelief.  And it was against a really good opponent who’s won a Regional tournament before, so that alone was worth the price of admission for me.  He ended up beating me with late N’s (yeah I’m fully aware of the irony of that but there were two other times when people played N’s and gave me a handful of cards), but anyways back to my original point: being able to OHKO your opponent is increasing in value.  If you can hit for 220 or 250 on one turn and guarantee a KO, it might be worth not doing damage in a successive turn.

Otaku

The second runner-up from our most recent top 10 countdown is Mt. Coronet (SM – Ultra Prism 130/156). It appeared on three individual reviewer lists, though only one of those was an actual top 10: three reviewers, one being myself, submitted top 20’s. This was good enough to net it 31 voting points, placing it two points above and two points below two different ties. It didn’t make my personal list, however, so let’s explore why that is and whether I made a mistake. To begin with, Mt. Coronet is a Trainer-Stadium; not a lot of effects reference Trainer cards in general, but being a Stadium marks it as a once-per-turn card that cannot be played if a Stadium with the same name is already in play. As long as the name is different and no other card effects are interfering, however, just playing it will discard an existing Stadium that is already on the field. Stadium cards usually have an effect that applies equally to both players, and which is either continuous, triggered, or reusable.

In this case, Mt. Coronet allows a player (once per turn, before attacking) to add two [M] Energy cards from his or her discard pile to his or her hand, so that means this is a reusable Stadium. The wording also means – unless you lack the Energy in your discard pile – you may use it immediately after you play it. This is important, as it allows you to generate advantage before your opponent has a chance to discard or use Mt. Coronet. Only basic Metal Energy cards provide [M] Energy while in the discard pile. This is both good and bad for Mt. Coronet’s prospects; pretty pointless to run it in a deck that isn’t built mostly or entirely around using Metal Energy cards, but that also means your opponent is much less likely to benefit from its effects. As for the quality of the effect, I was surprised how far back I had to go to find a Stadium that allowed you to reclaim Energy. I thought it was a pretty common thing, but the most recent was Burned Tower (HS – Undaunted 71/91)! Though it allowed a player to reclaim basic Energy of any Type from the discard pile, not only was it a single Energy (instead of two) but the entire effect required you get “heads” on a coin toss (“tails” did nothing). The power creep isn’t extreme, but it is obvious; normally, just getting two Energy card or not having to flip would be worth the restriction to only [M] Energy, but we get both in Mt. Coronet. Of course, I don’t remember Burned Tower being all that great of a Stadium card; take that with a grain of salt as not only has my memory failed me before, but Burned Tower released at a time when I was just returning to the game from a forced hiatus and was legal at a time when I neither had much opportunity to practice nor knew a lot of sites to learn from others.

Given the Burned Tower being both old and unreliably known, let us instead compare and contrast Mt. Coronet with something current, even if only because of errata and reprints: Energy Retrieval. This Trainer-Item allows you to add two basic Energy (any Type or combination of Types) from your discard pile to your hand. Energy Retrieval is a one-time deal, but has wider application; Mt. Coronet is potentially reusable but restricted to a single Type. Prior to the release of Field Blower, I’d have said being a Stadium was preferable save having to compete with so many other, great Stadium cards and not suffering devastating counters like Item lock, but now I’d say they even out… so yeah, if you have a Metal Energy using deck, this is a solid option. That isn’t the end of this, though; we’ve had some recent reviews that let you know we not only have some basic Metal Energy heavy decks trying to prove themselves competitive, but that specifically need Energy recycling tricks. Three cards we’ve already reviewed – Alolan Dugtrio (SM – Ultra Prism 79/156), Dusk Mane Necrozma-GX, and Magnezone (Ultra Prism 83/156) – has massive Metal Energy needs, with two of the three also involving heavy Energy discard costs as well. Mt. Coronet is a probable, if not must-run, for decks involving these three.

So… why didn’t it make my own top 10, let alone top 20? The short version is that the designers did a good thing, one that I think improves the game but makes countdowns and the like messier; whether they succeed or fail, the new crop of [M] decks don’t consolidate their power in a single card, but take several “average” to “very good” cards and benefits from the synergy between them. Alolan Dugtrio is probably the most powerful of the three I listed; calling it a glass cannon may be selling it short given the relative speed and reliability of big hits one can achieve with a good build. Dusk Mane Necrozma-GX is closer to an actual cannon; big, durable, hard-hitting… but slow, and even slower without proper support. Magnezone can fuel so many cards, but if it has to attack for itself, it is lackluster at best. Mt. Coronet is pretty niche, but that niche is in the spotlight right now. I dedicated two slots on my list – one for Alolan Dugtrio and one for Magnezone – and thought it was a bit redundant to cover Mt. Coronet. At this point, I think I focused on the wrong two out of these four [M] related cards.

Mt. Coronet is great, but only in certain decks, so it gets an above average score for Standard and Expanded play; though I am scoring them the same, what goes into those scores is different. Expanded has more competition, possibly more combos, but doesn’t really have more counters. Some of the counters and competition involve Items, however, and this format still has more anti-Item effects. I believe the differences are close enough to offset each other that Mt. Coronet is approximately as good here as in Standard. In the Limited Format, normally you always want to grab a Stadium (sometimes more than one) even if you cannot use them, simply to knock out other Stadium cards. Mt. Coronet is the only Stadium in this set, so that doesn’t apply. What does is how you might still justify including it in a deck lacking [M] Pokémon so long as you have enough [C] costs that recycling basic Metal Energy could still come in handy. If you do pull a lot of useful [M] Pokémon, of course, it is great!

Ratings

Standard: 3.25/5

Expanded: 3.25/5

Limited: 3.5/5