Delphox is not Tropical Beach

As the release of the xy set gets closer, more and more articles have begun to pop up speculating on the implementation of various cards. One of the most common conclusions I have seen made is that Delphox will displace Tropical Beach, both in Ray/Boar decks, and in various stage 2 decks across the format.

There is a big thing all of these articles and forum posts seem to be missing though: a stage 2 evolution is not the same thing as a stadium.

That may sound simplistic or twee, but I swear I am saying it with every last  trace of sincerity. Furthermore, I would argue it is not any more simplistic than the following:

Beach allows me to draw until I have seven cards, Delphox allows me to draw until I have 6, therefore Delphox is a suitable sub for beach.

Let's take a step back and look at the function of each card.

Tropical beach allows a player to end any turn by drawing until he or she has 7 cards in hand.

Delphox will be available turn two at the earliest, and allows the player to draw until he or she has 6 cards in hand once during the player's turn.

Tropical Beach will displace opposing stadiums.

Delphox has an attack that is functionally equivalent to a fire Keldeo EX BCR.

Tropical Beach can be played directly onto the field, recovered by dowsing machine, and retrieved by computer search or Skyla.

To enter play, Delphox requires Fennekin to be in play for a turn, and then some combination of rare candy, delphox, and Braixen. Delphox cannot be recovered from the discard pile through any quick sequence of cards, due in large part to how many cards you may need to get it into play in the first place. Level ball, ultra ball, Skyla... Unless you play Cradily (as a lover of esoteric cards and anti-meta decks, it should tell you something that *I* think Cradily is unplayable in the current format. I will test once again as soon as I get a few evolutionary sodas on ptcgo though... But you probably assumed that).

Tropical Beach costs $200

Delphox will likely top out around $2.50

Some combination of the last and the first set of reasons explain where this idea comes from. The middle set dumps a bucket of cold water on the idea for me though. Delphox is more analogous to Electrode PLF than Tropical Beach, and even then, Electrode is a level ball retrievable stage one. Sure, you will have extra rare candies in ray/boar, but that makes one more card you need in hand to play Delphox.

Delphox has an intriguing ability, but in my opinion, using it as a sub for beach is a flawed and likely terrible idea. Using it as a sub for Electrode is more reasonable, but it seems like it would hurt consistency just as much (if not more) than it would help.