Wondrous Labyrinth – Team Up
Date Reviewed: August 9, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 3.25
Expanded: 3.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Wondrous Labyrinth {*} (SM – Team Up 158/181) is a Prism Star card. This is a Rule Box mechanic, and instead of giving up extra Prizes like we’re used to, Prism Star cards are restricted to one per deck and go to the Lost Zone if they are sent to the discard pile for any reason. The one copy rule is for each Prism Star, so you can run more than one Prism Star card in your deck so long as each has a different name. This is more lenient than the old Ace Spec cards, that were a flat one Ace Spec per deck. Going to the Lost Zone makes it very difficult, often impossible, to recycle Prism Star cards, and remember that this happens whether the Prism Star was discarded from the field, from the hand, from the deck, or from the Prizes.
Prism Star Stadium cards all come with a strong bonus effect: they’re unaffected by Item or Supporter cards played from hand. For example, neither you nor your opponent can use Field Blower to discard a Wondrous Labyrinth {*} from play. This protection is less in demand now in Standard, but it was a major bonus back when Field Blower was Standard-legal, and is still quite valuable in Expanded. This protection doesn’t stop your opponent from playing their own, differently named Stadium to discard Wondrous Labyrinth {*}. Effects of Stadiums, Pokémon and Energy done to Stadiums still work on Prism Star Stadiums as well.
Wondrous Labyrinth {*}’s card-specific effect is that the attacks of non-Fairy Pokémon cost [C] more. By Fairy, it means [Y] Pokémon, the type introduced in XY and used in Sun & Moon sets, but which no longer exist as of the Sword & Shield series. This is a good effect if you’re running Fairies and your opponent isn’t, but also good if your Pokémon of any type don’t attack, or attack but can easily afford to overpay. It is difficult to impossible to build a deck around one copy of a single card. Which is exactly how Wondrous Labyrinth {*} has been used, and to reasonable success. I’m not naming decks, because I don’t recall any built around Wondrous Labyrinth {*}, just enhanced by it.
There was a trick to using most Prism Star Stadium cards. Basically, do whatever you could to get your opponent to play their Stadium cards before yours, then drop your Prism Star Stadium once you think your opponent is out of their own Stadium cards. Unless they then have a non-Item or non-Supporter answer to Stadiums left, your Prism Star Stadium is going to be there the rest of the game. Wondrous Labyrinth {*} is a very good card. Even with Fairy types going extinct in the modern TCG, if Wondrous Labyrinth {*} were sticking around, it would still be valuable to certain control decks, maybe even any deck with a slow start: if you ain’t attacking yet, who cares if it costs extra?
Wondrous Labyrinth {*} is an odd bit of Fairy support that doesn’t actually rely on having Fairy Pokémon in play, and it will be missed. You can read our original review of it here, and there was even a re-review of it in 2020. I did not have this in my Top 15, but it is a card I’ll personally miss. Fortunately, it’ll still be there in Expanded, and it will still be a solid play there. At least, in the right decks.
Ratings
- Standard: 3/5
- Expanded: 3/5
Vince
Our 14th best card lost to rotation is Wondrous Labyrinth (*) from Sun & Moon Team Up expansion! This card has been reviewed twice, both being regular reviews:
While the Fairy type, as a whole, have been discontinued at the beginning of the Sword & Shield series, this Stadium itself, is still seeing some play. This is a Prism Star stadium card that makes the attack costs of non-Fairy type Pokémon cost (C) more. This creates a distraction for both players unless one manages to mitigate such an obstacle. Obviously Fairy Types aren’t affected by Wondrous Labyrinth, but Fairy types hasn’t been a showing, or rather, they tried but didn’t place. The only place where Fairy based decks appear – at least between SM Team Up to SM Cosmic Eclipse – is Gardevoir & Sylveon-GX, and even that TAG TEAM Pokémon didn’t perform that well, hence why I didn’t not have that card on my personal list.
So in effect, almost all of the Pokémon from the Sword & Shield series will suffer from Wondrous Labyrinth, where Pokémon needs to invest one more energy to meet their attack costs. However, there are ways around it. Pokémon with unlimited energy acceleration or Pokémon that have attacks that amplify their damage output based on the amount of energies attached to it (like Lapras VMAX or Centiskorch VMAX)…these are some examples which doesn’t care about this detrimental effect. Your opponent can remove that Stadium card with their own, but that means your opponent had wasted resources to counter it. Overall, this card would be missed, and if it were to stick around, it would continue to see play in certain decks that can afford to overpay certain attack costs, or that you want to overpay for a bigger payoff.
Ratings:
- Standard: 3.5
- Expanded: 3
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