Top 10 Best Stadium cards in Pokemon TCG

Hello to all. I'm Rodrigo, bringing news, curiosities and information about Pokémon TCG.

When we look at all the cards that were released for Pokémon TCG, there are those who marked us for generations – ever since the early days on Wizards of The Coast's Base Set, the Ruby/Sapphire days. Then to Diamond and Pearl and the consolidation, at the time, of the Expanded format, now from Black/White era onward, with our emotional memory and also the memory of Expanded format decks which can wreak havoc with combos, or that play with the help of a very different deckbuilding.

Down below I write down my Top 10 Best Stadium cards that I consider relevant, both for their power level and playability, as for the memories they filled.

10 - Broken Time-Space

Though this card isn't part of the Expanded format, it is strong because at the time of Diamond/Pearl: Platinum era it was very potent, with the Gyarados SF 19 deck that had the most highlight with the use of this Stadium.

It has as its role to be able to advance the evolution turn of Basic Pokémon you played in that same turn, increasing the value for stage 1 and 2 cards which are quite forgotten and don't have much value in most of the Standard meta games (save for very rare exceptions), but that in Expanded can have a lot of space, such as Greninja BREAK BKP 41.

And with Scarlet/Violet's next set coming up soon to this TCG in 2023, they came back with the EX card mechanic respecting their evolutionary line like the first EX in Ruby/Sapphire were.

Maybe, who knows, Pokémon Co. can reprint this card to bring it back?

9 - Sky Field

This one had a historical factor due to the M Rayquaza-EX ROS 76 that expanded the Pokémon's damage because of its effect, that is, this Stadium amplified the slots in the bench from 5 to 8 Pokémon, so Mega Rayquaza-EX could deal 30 x 8 damage at the time, dealing 240, which was devastating at the X/Y era.

This reasoning with this damage got a rebuild with Snorlax VMAX SSH 142 and Sky Field was very useful to it.

Now with Regigigas ASR 130's family and its ability that if Regice, Regirock, Registeel, Regieleki and Regidrago are on the bench, Regigigas can energize any 3 energies you want (including special ones) to your Pokémon in any way you want. So in Expanded, they use Sky Field ROS 89 to increase your slots, placing 3 new attackers that will receive this Regigigas charge with special energies, the most common being Mewtwo & Mew-GX UNM 71 and "Single Prize" decks with Mew FCO 29 to copy attacks.

8 - Training Court

This is in essence a "reprint" of the old Stadium from Power Tree LM 76's time in Ruby/Sapphire: Legend Maker which recycled energies from the discard piles, only if there was a special energy in the pile, the player couldn't recycle basic energies.

So, Training Court RCL 169 is an enhanced version of Power Tree. It simply gets a basic energy from the discard pile and places it in your hand.

This Stadium that came in Sword/Shield: Rebel Clash had a "boom" in prices for their demand and their potential to be fit in decks, and it gained some value in the second semester of 2022. It is a good acquisition for the Stadium catalogue in the Expanded format, which will be useful.

7 - Lost City

Coming back with Lost Zone's tendencies, Lost City LOR 161 has the effect of making any Pokémon that was knocked out in the game, yours or your opponent's, and all their connected cards go to the Lost Zone.

It is an extremely strong card that for sure will create synergies with Expanded card mechanics such as Lost March.

6 - Martial Arts Dojo

For Fighting type decks, this Stadium is essential.

The description is as follows: Pokémon that have basic energies of the fighting type (except Ultra Beasts) gain 10 more damage to their attacks (before weakness and resistance are applied). But, if you're close to losing the game, with more Prize cards than your opponent, the damage will increase to 40 instead of 10.

So for the fighting archetype, this stadium is a must, as it has damage amplifiers such as Regirock-EX FCO 43 and Diancie ◇ FLI 74, besides special energies that increase damage such as Strong Energy FFI 104.

5 - Dimension Valley

Another card that seeks to help Pokémon of a certain archetype. Here it comes in to help psychic types, in which when played, it acquits the cost of each psychic energy attached to the Pokémon (be it basic or special), removes one cost of colorless energy from the tribute cost of an attack.

To sum up, supposing we have a psychic Pokémon that uses 2 psychic energies and two colorless ones: if you place this Stadium and have two psychic energies, the cost of the other colorless ones is zeroed.

The decks that use this Stadium the most besides the most common Tag Team GX are Mewtwo & Mew-GX UNM 71, Gengar & Mimikyu-GX TEU 53 and Trevenant & Dusknoir-GX PR-SM SM217, and the most common "Single Prize" card is Gengar BKT 60.

4 - Silent Lab

This deck serves to lock down basic Pokémon that use abilities, be it the ones universal recursive choices such as Lumineon V BRS 40, Crobat V DAA 104, Eldegoss V RCL 19, Dedenne-GX UNB 57 and Jirachi-EX PLB 60, besides harming mostly the Mew VMAX FST 114 decks that depend a lot on drawing power with Genesect V FST 185's abilities and decks that have Mewtwo & Mew-GX UNM 71.

Silent Lab is practically made for a Ultra Necrozma CEC 164 Garbodor BKP 57 deck, as in the article we talked about the Supporter Guzma & Hala CEC 193, it searches for a Stadium and it is precisely Silent Lab that shines in this deck matching with locking the opponent's abilities, such as Garbodor.

3 - Chaotic Swell

This Stadium goes into this position because besides being a card that plays in Mewtwo & Mew-GX UNM 71 decks precisely to be an answer against Silent Lab PRC 140, it also doesn't affect your ability of copying EX and GX Pokémon attacks from the discard pile, being an essential card for this strategy.

Besides that, with the arrival of Path to the Peak CRE 148 in Expanded, it is a way of canceling out the Stadium and overwriting it.

Its effect is canceling out the Stadium that will cover it, that is, supposing that your opponent will try to break Chaotic Swell with the other Stadium, and instead of it taking its place, it will be discarded alongside Chaotic Swell.

That's good also for decks that depend on recursive Pokémon abilities such as Lumineon V BRS 40, Crobat V DAA 104, Eldegoss V RCL 19, Dedenne-GX UNB 57 and Jirachi-EX PLB 60.

2 - Giant Hearth

This card serves to help mostly the fire archetype with charging. You discard a card from your hand to look for two fire energies.

And from then on, everything flows for this Stadium's synergy: the combo using Welder UNB 189a, or some type of tribute to apply a Quick Ball FST 237 discarding another fire energy to create Quick Ball's combo, or maybe a Ultra Ball BRS 150 tribute to discard these two energies and search for a recursive Pokémon such as Crobat V DAA 104, Dedenne-GX UNB 57 ou Jirachi-EX PLB 60? Using a tribute for a Computer Search BCR 137 using these two energies?

The sky's the limit with this Stadium, which by giving you these energies, it helps A LOT your game development and the tribute paying system, charging, etc. It's all that's good and nice and mostly: it can be adequate in almost any deck that can mix up practical charging roles that depend on a lot of colorless energies to pay some attack cost and even decks that depend on fire energy to pay for these tributes.

1 - Path to the Peak

Path to the Peak is a disabler to the abilities of Pokémon that have "Rule Box" in their body, that is, the abilities of Pokémon EX,GX, Tag Team GX, V, VMax, VStar, VUnion, Prism Star and Radiant don't work if this Stadium is in play.

It is basically an enhanced and very efficient Power Plant UNB 183 that for sure is a headache for the Expanded format, and for that, it gets first place in the podium!

Heat Factory Prism Star

This is one of my favorite of all Prim Star Stadiums, as with it you have an absurd "Drawing Power" which by paying tribute with one fire energy for the Stadium's effect discard, you draw 3 cards, complementing at times even the drawing power of fire decks that use Welder UNB 189a, being able to draw up to 6 cards per turn.

This is something way too powerful and useful for decks of this kind.

Life Forest Prism Star

This is for the grass type archetype, which besides healing 60 of your Pokémon's damage per turn, it withdraws all their special conditions, in case they have some.

For a type like this one that ends up being fragile, Life Forest becomes a conditional that makes it solid in defense and healing, being also essential to use.

Black Market Prism Star

Here the matter is to delay your opponent so they can't draw Prize Cards for each of your Dark Pokémon's knockouts, so if an opponent destroys one of your "Single Prize" cards, instead of them drawing a Prize card, they get no cards.

By defeating an EX, GX or V/VStar Pokémon, they draw only one instead of two Prize cards. And if they knockout with a Tag Team GX, VMax, it draws only two Prize Cards instead of three (and this in fact helps a lot throughout the game, believe me).

What about you? Which were the cards you found most relevant? Comment down below your personal list and share your opinion.

See you next time!