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Pojo's Pokémon Card of the Day

 

Aether Paradise Conservation Area
- S&M: Guardians Rising

Date Reviewed:
June 12, 2017

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Standard: 2.75
Expanded: 3.35
Limited: 3.88

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being horrible.  3 ... average.  5 is awesome.

Back to the main COTD Page


aroramage

Man, could you have a card with a more pompous sounding name? I PLAY THE STADIUM AETHER PARADISE CONSERVATION AREA, NOW PROTECTING ALL MY POKEMON!! Now go take care of the gardens, you will not be needed here, PEASANT!! 

...I feel like I'm forgetting something-oh right the review. 

The Conservation Area isn't as conservative as its name would imply. It does provide a shielding of 30 damage from opposing attacks...provided your Pokemon are Electric or Grass. Now Grass decks, for the moment, might not want to indulge with the Conservation Area right now while Forest of Giant Plants is in the format, but Electric decks I'm sure will love to use it. I mean, tacking on an additional 30 damage more that the opponent needs to deal in order to OHKO? Or at the very least make it harder for 2HKOs to happen! There's certainly a spot for it in decks. 

It's hard to tell for now though what impact the Area's gonna have on the game. It might not be an immediate splash, but it might be the go-to choice for anyone running Vikavolt or perhaps Tapu Koko-GX even! Only time will tell how great the Conservation Area will be. 

Rating 

Standard: 3.5/5 (preventing damage is still a pretty crucial effect to have) 

Expanded: 3.5/5 (since it forces the opponent to play around it more) 

Limited: 4/5 (I'm sure it'll be something that appears on occasion)  

Arora Notealus: Man, how would you even abbreviate this? APCA? Just Area? Conservation Area? Aether Paradise? Although I dunno if you could do that, they might come out with some other Aether Paradise Stadium...hmmmm... 

Next Time: So much Poison for such a quaint GX.


21times

Aether Paradise Conservation Area (Guardians Rising, 116/145) is the second Stadium card we have reviewed from the Guardians Rising expansion set that was released last month.  This Stadium card benefits both Grass and Lightning types, reducing damage done to them from attacks by thirty points.  Unfortunately, this is a defensive stadium card – meaning that your opponent will always have the opportunity to knock it off the board by playing either Field Blower (Guardians Rising, 125/145) or a stadium of their own.  Therefore, if you choose to play this Stadium, I have little doubt that it will only benefit you a part of the time you actually get to play it.  For a reduction of only thirty points, this seems hardly worth it to me.  Considering it will probably be a “dead” much of the time you play it, it doesn’t really provide much of a benefit.

Also, Grass types almost universally run the Stadium Forest of Giant Plants (Ancient Origins, 74/98), and it’s hard to commit more than four of your sixty cards to Stadiums.  Also, Lightning types benefit from the Stadium Rough Seas (Primal Clash, 137/160), which, if you hold it until your turn, guarantees that it will see at least one use and provides thirty points of healing to all of your Lightning Pokemon.  To me, both of these Stadiums would take preference over Aether Paradise in most situations.

Rating

Standard: 1.5 out of 5

Conclusion

Aether Paradise Conservation Area has the misfortune of being a defensive Stadium in an era where almost every deck plays at least a couple of Stadiums and / or other Item cards that will discard this Stadium from play before you can see the benefit of it.  It also is clearly inferior to other Stadiums that would provide more value to Grass and Lightning Pokemon, and I would not recommend running this Stadium in any of your decks.  Plus, if you’re taking it to a tournament, you have to actually write out the full name.  At thirty characters, Aether Paradise Conservation Area is worse than Battle Compressor Team Flare Gear (Phantom Forces, 92/119) which has 29 characters. 


Otaku

We begin the week with our 20th place finisher, Aether Paradise Conservation Area (SM: Guardians Rising 116/145).  This is a new Stadium that reduces the damage Basic Grass-Type and Basic Lightning-Type Pokémon take from opposing attacks by 30, before Weakness and Resistance.  Helping out Basic Pokémon is… a surprisingly neutral trait.  As far as Pokémon Stages go, being Basic is best because they require minimal deck space, can be directly played to the Bench, can function as your opening Active, and tend to make use of certain forms of general support better directly because they are Basic Pokémon.  To clarify the latter, search out a Basic Pokémon and you’re done but search out an Evolution and you’ve only got one piece of the puzzle, or bounce a Basic and you can probably Bench it again right away, but bounce an Evolution and you’ll need Evolution acceleration or a ready-to-Evolve copy of its lower Stage already in play.  So how can this be neutral?  Basic Pokémon already have a decent amount of things going for them, but especially when the entire deck is not an Evolution, adding in Basic support can be a very inefficient use of space. 

Right now, I’m not 100% certain about how beneficial it is focusing on the Grass- and Lightning-Types; Raikou (XY: BREAKthrough 55/162), Tapu Bulu-GX, and Tapu Koko-GX are a few of the appropriately-Typed Basics it can benefit, and have seen some competitive success (though I don’t think they have in the same deck).  They also tend to have some Evolutions supporting them in the places where I have seen them place in the Top 32, further diminishing the return.  So is -30 damage worth it?  That’s a decent dent in damage done, but remember changes in damage done only matter if the shift the number of turns it takes for a KO or the (relatively rare) triggering of certain effects.  This is really going to vary based on the specific matchup, but if you can keep Aether Paradise Conservation Area in play, repeatedly soaking 30 damage, that -30 becomes -60 maybe even becomes -90, and those numbers should matter.  Regrettably, it does not apply to self-damage; as the Lightning-Type has a long history with that sort of drawback, it becomes well worth noting.  Finally, it applies after Weakness and Resistance.  The former is definitely a concern; while you’ll still soak 30 damage that otherwise would have hit, with the damage being doubled beforehand it is less likely to save your Pokémon from being quickly KO’d.  The latter is a benefit, though more for Lightning-Types than Grass-Types, as the latter typically have Metal Resistance; -50 damage, even in a specialized match-up, is appreciated. 

In the beginning, I intentionally glossed over this being a Stadium; why deviate from my normal pattern?  Being a Stadium at this point really hurts this card.  Not that it should be something else, just that the-powers-that-be really must want to make Stadium cards weaker.  As one Stadium card discards another, they are all counters to each other.  This is something I rather like, and how I wish some other TCGs I played - like Yu-Gi-Oh! - would approach the matter.  The more “other” methods of discarding them, the more potent they have to be as they are less likely to last.  Right now, we have Delinquent, Field Blower, and Paint Roller for additional, Trainer-based methods of discarding Stadium cards from play.  Delinquent includes a vicious three-card discard from your opponent’s hand, Field Blower can hit a Tool at the same time or two Tools instead of a Stadium, and Paint Roller lets you draw a card; the first two are quite competitive and combined with your opponent’s own Stadium, means you need Stadium effects that benefit you on your turn.  If it works at another time, there is a good chance you won’t be able to claim the benefits.  It isn’t absolute, if you can avoid them getting hit at the same time, sometimes the best way to combat removal effects is to just have too many targets to efficiently remove.  So this is a nice option to have for Standard and Expanded play, but don’t expect it to be the Grass/Lightning-equivalent of Rough Seas.  It is harder to deal with in Limited, and it provides a way to deal with your opponent’s Stadiums, so even if you can’t use it, you still might need to run it there. 

Ratings 

Standard: 3.25/5 

Expanded: 3.15/5 

Limited: 3.75/5 

Conclusion 

Preventing damage is better than healing, and only working on Basic Grass-Types and Lightning-Types makes it less likely you’ll accidentally help your opponent, but the timing means that Aether Paradise Conservation Area can’t try to live up to something like Rough Seas.  Which does not make it bad, it just makes it decent… and decent means you’ll want it in case you figure out a killer deck that uses it.  As opposed to wanting it because there already is a killer deck utilizing it. 

Aether Paradise Conservation Area took 20th place with one less voting point than last Friday’s Brooklet Hill and tying tomorrow’s 21st place finisher.  The tie was broken by rolling off if you were wondering.  Aether Paradise Conservation Area didn’t make my own Top 15 list.  Or my Top 20.  I never got around to carefully ordering past that point, so it technically clocks in as my 36th place pick just base on how my greatest to least filter placed it.  If this card had released even a few expansions ago, I think it could have shocked us, maybe even flourished.


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