Name: High Pressure System
Set/Card#: EX Dragon #85/97
Type: Trainer
Sub-Type: Stadium

Text: This card stays in play when you play it.  Discard this card if another Stadium comes into play.

Each player pays (C) less to retreat his or her (R) and (W) Pokémon.

Attributes: Again, this is almost exactly the same thing I’ve said for the last two Trainers we looked at.  The obvious-as a Trainer card, under normal circumstances you be able to play as many Trainers on your turn as you’ve got.  This is a Stadium though, so it has some extra perks and restrictions.  First, you can only play one Stadium per turn.  Hard to believe, but some Stadiums were being moderately abused before this ruling came to be.  This is one of those rulings that may seem unnecessary now, but face it; eventually TPC would have been really drunk and released a truly broken Stadium that would have made such a ruling a Godsend.  As is, Ecogym and Chaos Gym are much harder to abuse now.  Like most Trainers, you have to Dark Vileplume and Neo Genesis Slowking blocking it.  Since it’s a Stadium, though, it is unaffected by Chaos Gym, and if a Stadium is in play, Dark Vileplume and Neo Genesis Slowking can’t affect them.  For that matter, there are very few ways to get rid of a Stadium once it enters play, aside from playing a different Stadium.  Most Trainers are one-shot deals, but Stadiums are the exception.  You can only have one Stadium in play at a time though, so unless some other card circumvents the normal rule (Dark Porygon2, for example), you’ll never have to worry about more than 2 Stadiums in a turn, and even then, the latter replaces the former.  Almost all Stadiums affect both players equally, though there are a few exceptions.  As such, a body must select a Stadium that compliments their deck while simultaneously trying to minimize the benefit given to an opponent.  I am seeing a lot of duel stadium decks because this is much harder in Eon.  Honestly, I think that Stadiums, as a whole, are the most powerful Trainers, due to their ability to be re-used.

Abilities: High Pressure System’s actually ability is short and sweet-it drops the retreat of Water and Fire Pokémon by one.  This is quite useful in Eon Modified, where free retreats are rare.  Many basics become free retreaters, as do some Evolutions.  The only downside is your opponent gets the same benefit, and if you are a Fire Deck, you do not want to be helping Water decks.

Uses/Combinations

Best when used with a deck that has both Water and Fire, and thanks to mostly Colorless Energy costs and some cards (like Salamence) that need both Fire and Water Energy, such decks are becoming a bit more common.  Otherwise, it’s a great choice for most Water decks since helping Fire retreat isn’t too bad and even a lot of Fire decks would rather have the lowered retreat for both them and their Watery foes than for neither.  Still, since it affects two diverse elements, it should probably be run along side another deck, and this is becoming a more common practice.  The real important thing is that this gives a temporary stay of execution for Baby-porter decks.  Remember, there are still some “WotC-style” Pokémon that have the Baby Power.  They aren’t so great because they lack both the good ability of (early to mid) Neo Babies and also have a retreat cost.  However, there is a Magby with a retreat of one and the Baby Rule to protect it in Expedition.  There is also a Gengar with an attack that, for (PPC) hits for 40 then makes you Switch with a benched Pokémon.  Combine the two with High Pressure System, and as stated, Baby-Porter lives again-Hit for 40, then hide behind your now free-retreating Magby.

Ratings

Unlimited: 2/5-There are a few decks that could benefit from the reduced retreat cost, but most are not mainstream.

Modified/2-on-2/TMP: 4/5-The score gets a boost since a) there are strong Water and Fire decks, b) this (combined with a Multi- or Rainbow Energy) makes the e-card versions of Entei and Suicune into 70 HP, free-retreat splashable basics, and c) revives a strong archetype long though dead (Baby-Porter).  While you could run baby-porter without the Babies having a free-retreat, it made things much harder.  The Modified variants have the same score since the only difference is in TMP, it is harder to make it work for two different decks, but also less likely you’ll help both of your opponents.

Limited: 3/5-Changing a bunch of Pokémon into free-retreaters is great, since it makes powering them and keeping them alive easier (don’t you hate it when you lose ‘because you didn’t have the energy to both retreat and power up the next guy?).  Since it only works for two energy types, the score is a touch lower than it would if everyone retreated cheaper.

Summary

This card won’t shake up Unlimited, but is fairly important for Modified, especially since I believe it and its counter-part, Low Pressure System, are the only Stadiums in the Nintendo sets so far.

-Otaku (nintendotaku@hotmail.com