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Today we look at the seventh place key card we’ll lose
to rotation and that is Skyarrow Bridge. When it
was first released, we didn’t have the greatest of
Stadiums available and the format had already come to be
dominated by decks using big, Basic attackers (the
original and oft-reprinted versions of Reshiram
and Zekrom). We also had Eviolite and
Prism Energy as more Basic Pokémon support, and if I
remember correctly the previous first turn rules were
already in effect (when a player going first could also
attack). It was natural to include a Stadium that
knocked your Retreat Costs down a notch for your Basic
Pokémon, unless you had one of the few decks that
weren’t focused mostly on them (or could use another
Stadium better). You can read our original reviews
here.
By the end of its life, Skyarrow Bridge is
probably lucky it is still useful in certain Basic
focused decks that either run it in addition to another
Stadium or on its own. There are some potent Stadiums
available right now; many decks like Tropical Beach
for helping with early game set-up and countering an
opponent’s use of N late game or Virbank City
Gym (usually along with Hypnotoxic Laser or
don’t focus on Basic Pokémon enough not to help another
deck more than itself by running Skyarrow Bridge.
There are also so many other options for lowering the
cost of retreating (or bypassing manually retreating in
its entirety). Still VirGen decks are known to
sometimes run it, as it drops the already single Energy
Retreat Cost of both Virizion-EX and Genesect-EX
down to zero.
I honestly worry now that I overrated this card on my
own list; I tended to favor more generic cards over more
specific ones, but forgot that while almost any deck can
use this for a little bit, most have something better to
use instead. Still it will be missed, especially by
VirGen decks. In Expanded, I think it will retain its
niche usage, but that’s pure speculation on my part as I
haven’t been testing or even read any well documented
results of testing in the format… actually any results
at all. In the unlikely event you’re able to
participate in a Limited event with BW: Next
Destinies packs, take it! Even in a +39 deck you
might need to knock out a Pokémon Center.
Ratings
Modified (NXD-On):
3/5 - It just isn’t as important as it once was, though
it is still a solid card that sees play in the right
decks… or at least deck.
Modified (BCR-On):
N/A - As is the point of this week, this card won’t be
legal for this format (but leaving this section out
annoys me, hence this comment).
Expanded (BW-On):
3/5 - Still niche; I am playing it safe and scoring it
the same as for NXD-On, but I suspect it to be
effectively as useful, with differences averaging out.
Limited:
5/5 - I think I underscored it before, forgetting that a
counter-stadium is a must, and as this set features two
generic Stadiums, even if one suits you better most of
the time you might still need to discard it… so if you
get both run both.
Summary:
Skyarrow Bridge is no longer as impressive as it
once was; there are just so many useful Stadiums right
now (with some really obvious superstars) and so many
players trying to avoid purely Basic builds thanks to
various factors. It still has its place in Standard…
until rotation.
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