We open the week looking at
Aspertia City Gym (BW: Boundaries
Crossed 127/149).
…
No witty (or even lame) jokes to open
with this time; “Sorry” or “You’re
welcome!” (whichever is appropriate).
Stats
Aspertia City Gym
is a Stadium, one of the major divisions
of Trainers that was “spun off” as an
entirely separate form of cards, before
being returned to the umbrella of
Trainers yet again.
I prefer they avoid having more
than the three core categories of cards
(Pokémon, Trainer, and Energy) so I was
happy to see that revert.
Stadiums are special in Pokémon; like
your Supporter usage, you are only
allowed to play a Stadium once during
your turn, but you also cannot play a
Stadium with the same name as a Stadium
already in play.
This likely occurred because at
one time neither of the preceding
applied, and besides “flavor” issues,
some Stadiums proved quite potent if
they had a non-continuous effect you
could reset (by playing the same card
over again) and thus stack, or access
and then prevent your opponent from
using it by playing a second, different
Stadium.
Stadiums have the mixed blessing of
staying in play; this can be good if it
allows you to tap a beneficial effect
more than once, but can be a hindrance
if that effect is no longer beneficial
to you and/or your opponent can access
it.
Stadiums also are hard to discard
from play; only cards that specifically
target Trainers in play or Stadiums
themselves can discard them.
As such, the best method of
dealing with a Stadium is to run your
own and play it to discard the offender.
Effects
Aspertia City Gym
has a continuous effect; as long as it
is in play, Colorless-Type Pokémon
receive +20
to their HP scores; this is a solid
effect but can be hard to predict its
exact usefulness.
The reason for this is that it
actually is dependent upon your
opponent; attacks that already hit for
20 or more points of overkill aren’t
going to care.
With single attacks that may be
unlikely, but once you have something
hitting twice, well a lot of attacks do
risk overkill.
There is also the question of whether or
not your opponent runs a counter-Stadium
or one of the few cards that can discard
a Stadium from play via an effect.
If they can, it will be rare that
you really enjoy that bonus; most
attacks are going to KO you after your
opponent attacks, which means said
opponent will be able to drop his/her
own Stadium and you’ll never truly enjoy
that +20 HP.
Those concerns being stated, not every
deck runs its own Stadium card, and
there are some basic combos that will
increase your odds of that extra 20 HP
coming in handy.
Usage
Ideal candidates for use with
Aspertia City Gym are massive
Colorless Pokémon that can be used with
Eviolite (if Basic) or
Giant Cape; for a single hit, either
means it will take a hit equal to the
cards base HP score plus 40 to score
that OHKO (barring Weakness or
Resistance).
The first candidate to spring to mind is
Tornadus EX (BW: Dark Explorers
90/108, 108/108); while big (110+
damage) Lightning-Type attacks are still
a OHKO, most other types will struggle
to score 210 points of damage in one
shot and Fighting-Types will need to hit
even harder (230)!
Few cards can do that, so most
decks will need to total 230 points over
two attacks with Fighting-Types needing
to score 250 over two attacks;
Eviolite will keep absorbing 20 each
turn it is present.
Aspertia City Gym also will trigger
the extra damage clause for its “Blow
Through” attack.
Regular
Tornadus (BW: Emerging Powers
89/98, 98/98) also becomes more
impressive; its 110 HP (often a tricky
OHKO) was already a great HP score for a
Basic Pokémon that isn’t worth two
Prizes (like Pokémon-EX are) and
Aspertia City Gym bumps it up to
130.
130 HP is hard to OHKO, and
combined with
Eviolite only the biggest attackers
can deal the 150 points of damage needed
for a OHKO (unless they are
Lightning-Types).
Fighting-Type Pokémon-EX aren’t
going to like having to deal 170 points
of damage in one hit or 190 over two!
Bouffalant
(BW: Dragons Exalted 110/124)
sports a good 100 HP (that
Aspertia City Gym bumps up to 120)
and also enjoys the “Bouffer” Ability
that soaks 20 points of damage (after
Weakness/Resistance) when it is
attacked.
Slap on an
Eviolite and it will take 160 points
of damage to OHKO it (though
Fighting-Types can do it for 80 points
of damage).
Bouffalant still has Gold Breaker,
an attack that does 60+ for (CCC); the
plus only kicks in against Pokémon-EX
but since it adds another 60 points of
damage (totaling 120) and the format is
full of Pokémon-EX, that’s great!
There are a lot of decks that can use
these three, and that is important;
despite what you might think, you don’t
need to be running a pure Colorless deck
in order to take advantage of
Aspertia City Gym, at least in this
format.
There simply aren’t a lot of good
Stadium cards for decks to run, and
thanks to
Skyla plucking a
TecH
Aspertia
City
Gym
can work even if you’ve only got a few
Colorless attackers, so long as you rely
heavily on them.
Even a deck just running
Tornadus EX could probably justify
more than TecH; two or three copies
Aspertia
City
Gym.
Prospects are not as hot for Unlimited,
as there you’ll have access to the most
potent Stadiums ever printed.
Given their number, even a
mono-Colorless deck would be hard
pressed to fit
Aspertia City Gym into it, plus
there are anti-Colorless-Type cards
available in Unlimited.
For Limited, it all depends upon
what you pull; as the only Stadium in
the set, only
Swanna (BW: Boundaries Crossed
43/149) can discard Stadiums so once you
drop
Aspertia City Gym, it is almost
certainly there to stay.
If you are running more (or the
most useful) Colorless Pokémon, that’s
great… but if your opponent has more,
that can backfire horribly!
The set has a good selection of
Colorless Pokémon for Limited, as well.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1.75/5
Modified:
3.25/5
Limited:
3.5/5
Summary
Aspertia City Gym
is a welcome addition to our Stadium
options for Modified.
It gives just enough of a reason
to at least test running a deck that is
heavy with Colorless Pokémon, including
a few Pokémon that until now have been
near misses.
It isn’t perfect but since most
decks are struggling for space and lack
a standout Stadium to run, it is a good
card and I ranked it as the 14th
best card of the set.
Having finally given it a full review, I
fear I did players a disservice by not
ranking it higher; if I am
overestimating it,
Aspertia City Gym probably deserved
to at least take the 10th
place slot, and I could realistically
see it proving to be upwards of the 6th
best card.
