So first time I kept it short and sweet. Time to go into some detail looking at some of the points others have brought up.
I say Parallel City is the better stadium. Because It's more than just a disruptive stadium. (or an anti M-Rayquaza/Raichu stadium.) You can use it to get rid of your own pokemon. For example Hoopa and Shaymin EX, they are useless when already placed on the bench. They only get in your way if your opponent plays Lysandre. You can limit your own bank and get them into your discard pile. You can also get rid of pokemon with low HP that would be knocked out otherwise. This is price denial. And I guess there are many more uses for Parallel City yet to be seen.
It's my side now. I like the Parallel City now so it is my best card, not I say that I don't like Sky Field because I use it on my TCG ONE battles using M-Rayquaza,Florges,and Raichu related decks. Parallel City will probably the best weapon against Raichu (XY),and if you're using a non-Grass,Fire,and Water decks like M-Tyranitar, you'll be not be affected on the other effect of this card. So for those using Raichu decks,this will be your pain! Hahaha!
So,that's all.
Whatever term you wish to use to distinguish them, it is important to note the difference between major versus minor benefits of a card, primary versus secondary (or even tertiary) uses. I'm probably misreading things, but the way the thread wraps up it almost acts like this trick is the super-special-awesome reason for running
Parallel City, but it ignores other aspects of game play. So let us really work through it.
So yes, you can use it to discard some of your own Benched Pokémon and
sometimes that will be a nice trick.
Shaymin-EX (ROS) and
Hoopa-EX mean a lot of decks will have one or two targets they either want gone or can afford to discard. Something injured but on the Bench can provide another target you wish to discard. It is important to remember that this is going to apply more to some decks than to others (not a problem as generic Stadiums that work for everything tend to be weaker). Some decks will
not want to discard
Shaymin-EX but rather keep it in play because they'll bounce it with another card to use it over and over again, or they have a strategy that will on occasion want to attack with it. Much less deck specific though is that few decks
want a three Pokémon Bench. Even when I wish I could get rid of a
Shaymin-EX on my Bench, if is often because I wish to Bench something else instead. I am not sure which is more likely.
If this is your main reason for running
Parallel City, you still have the option of playing it facing the other direction for when you really need your opponent's Bench to shrink instead of your own, though if your deck uses Fire-, Grass- or Water-Type attackers you'll blunt your damage a little. I am more concerned that I am not gaining any of the many potent benefits available from other Stadium cards. No damage bonus from
Fighting Stadium. No extra damage counters from
Virbank City Gym or
Faded Town. No blocking Abilities on Basic Pokémon through
Silent Lab. Etc. In business, there are things called "Opportunity Costs". They are useful elsewhere; life is full of choices that are "either/or" and not "and/also" and with 60 card deck sizes every card you choose to run is in place of something else.
Parallel City isn't just competing against other Stadiums but anything else your deck could benefit from in its "slot".
None of this invalidates using
Parallel City to discard your vulnerable Benched Pokémon to act as Prize denial, but it does help put it into perspective. I have found discarding potentially easy Prizes from Pokémon I could afford to discard to be quite useful already... because
Sky Field allows it going the
opposite way. Instead of playing a Stadium to reduce myself to three Benched Pokémon, with
Sky Field you often have an opponent that will happily discard it for you, usually after you have in some way benefited. If not, you may be able to do it yourself with your own secondary Stadium,
Paint Roller or
Lugia-EX (AOR). Again we are talking about tertiary/minor benefits: this should not be the main reason to run
Sky Field (or those other cards) either, but it is usually the drawback I encounter when discarding an opponent's
Sky Field. Both
Parallel City and
Sky Field need
another reason to be in your deck.
Raichu (XY) almost always
needs Sky Field, unless it is exploiting Weakness. Maybe I'm just ignorant that this is not the case. There is also the problem that while you can indeed use this against
Raichu, if they have sufficient Pokémon in reserve (or can recycle and reclaim the discarded Pokémon) then the
Raichu player will just try to put another
Sky Field down. That is still better for the person trying to counter
Raichu than having played no alternate Stadium at all and it disrupts the
Raichu (or Colorless
M Rayquaza-EX or whatever is counting on
Sky Field) player more than just getting rid of
Sky Field alone would have done.
So in the end, if I have to choose one or the other,
Sky Field still wins. Few decks cannot benefit from an enlarged Bench but many decks can make do with one of reduced size or overcome a -20 to damage done. If your own deck
only needs to stick it to the decks that are seriously impaired by one effect or the other of
Parallel City (and are unaffected or can deal with the effect it will have on your own side of the field) then it might be the better fit, but
in general I am seeing more use for
Sky Field and when we do get down to the specifics, I am seeing more decks that are
made by
Sky Field than by
Parallel City.
) is that Sky Field is ultimately the better of the two, though both hold much promise. Sky Field can be dropped on your own turn so that you can fill up your Bench and we have many effects that work well with a large Bench. Parallel City either causes -20 damage for Grass, Fire and Water-Types or shrinks the Bench down to three places, depending upon which side of it you sit. Generally speaking, decks that make use of Sky Field do so for their own benefit while decks that use Parallel City are going to be trying to mess with opponents, so in the end I have to favor Sky Field.
