Wyndon Stadium – Vivid Voltage
Date Reviewed: January 31, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 2.00
Expanded: 1.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Wyndom Stadium (SW – Vivid Voltage 161/185) is a Trainer-Stadium with an effect that triggers when you go to evolve one of your Basic Pokémon V into a Pokémon VMAX, during your own turn. When you do, you heal 100 damage from that Pokémon (or all of it, if it has less than 100 damage on it). Healing 100 damage is – in general – good, but not great. Think of it this way; OHKOs to your Basic Pokémon V can still happen. Everywhere else, it depends on your opponent’s next attack. Pokémon VMAX have printed HP scores of 300 to 340 at the time of writing this. I consider 120 or less damage to be a “small” attack, and if that is all your opponent can muster for the next few turns, a (minimum) 3HKO has become (at least) a 4HKO. That sounds more impressive than it is; your opponent was already in a bad way, and now they’re in a really bad way.
However, if (next turn) your opponent is about to bust out a bunker-busting OHKO attack that could OHKO your Pokémon VMAX anyway, you only really accomplished something if you were trying to trigger or avoid triggering damage-dependent effects. Most of the time, you’ll probably be dealing with situations in the middle; you’re probably getting an extra turn of life or forcing your opponent to expend more resources for the KO, and that’s still a good thing. What is more, Wyndon Stadium can trigger multiple times, even in a single turn, though what kind of situation are you in when you’ve got multiple damaged Basic Pokémon V, Wyndon Stadium in play, and Pokémon VMAX into which you need to evolve? Also, unless you can devolve, you (at most) can heal something once through Wyndon Stadium’s effect. This means it might be pretty useless even by midgame, and often by late.
The biggest blow to Wyndon Stadium may be other Stadium cards, or the lack of them seeing play. While all four decks at the Players Cup II Global Finals had at least one Stadium card, only one of those decks was running something other than Chaotic Swell. We see something similar in the results from the Players Cup II Regional Finals; there is a little more variety, including some decks going without any Stadium at all. However, this is all pretty much bad news for Wyndon Stadium. You have a Stadiums that are important to your deck’s main strategy so it cannot really be spared, like Giant Hearth in Blacephalon (SM – Unbroken 32/214). You have the consumate “anti-Stadium” Stadium. Or you have the slots you’d would use for a Stadium reallocated elsewhere.
There is still a little more to discuss. Wyndom Stadium was actually supposed to have been reviewed earlier, because I already had us review League Staff. That Supporter draws two cards, four (two plus two) if you have Wyndom Stadium in play. Drawing four cards off of a Supporter isn’t good enough to run Wyndon Stadium over something like the Stadiums mentioned above, but it is a nice “bonus” if you’re already taking advantage of Wyndom Stadium for its own sake. Things don’t get better for Wyndon Stadium in Expanded. Not only are there better Stadium cards, but better healing. This is the cardpool that still has Max Potion, as well as VMAX-compatible bounce effects. I realize you won’t always be able to afford discarding or having to re-attach Energy… but between the two, I see no room for Wyndom Stadium.
Ratings
- Standard: 2/5
- Expanded: 1/5
I thought much more highly of Wyndon Stadium when I first saw it, and it is still a better card than I would have expected. Maybe I’m just jaded, but this kind of effect normally works for anything but the largest Pokémon, severely limiting the usefulness of the healing. If it had to be restricted to one Stage, VMAX was the correct one. Still, things don’t look good for Wyndon Stadium unless League Staff was just the first of multiple bits of support.
Vince
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