Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Scrafty
(Flashfire)
Sometimes you’ve got to love a Pokémon card for its
artwork alone. This picture of a very angry
Scrafty
headbutting his way through a bunch of rocks is
both dynamic and adorable.
So, it looks cool in the binder, but there really isn’t
any other way I can recommend this card. I do like the
retreat-lock that you get with Corner, but at a mere 30
damage, it’s only a fairly slow way of dealing with a
non-attacking Pokémon like Garbodor
or Jirachi EX. You could use
Dusknoir BCR to move the
damage around forever, but that’s much too slow to win a
game and the strategy is undone by a single Switch or
Escape Rope. Scrafty’s other
attack, Jet Headbutt, is
only an uninteresting 80-for-three vanilla effort.
That aside, Scrafty is just
a low HP Stage 1 filler Pokémon, destined to make zero
impact on the competitive scene. Not much more I can say
about that . . . just enjoy the art.
Rating
Modified: 1.5 (Corner is nice, but not enough by a long
way)
Limited: 2.5 (not totally horrible if you have nothing
better)
|
aroramage |
Hey guys and welcome back! It's another card of the
day review featuring one of the bigger Gen V Pokemon!
He's tough! He's rough! And he's packing power! It's
Scrafty coming out to rock the world!
...except that his rocking is more like a pebble
tapping lightly on a window. That is to say, he's not
gonna make a huge impact on the current metagame with
the attacks he's running. His first attack is going to
look very familiar; Corner costs 2 Energy and does 30
damage while also preventing the opponent's Pokemon from
retreating manually. Now where have we heard that
before? Oh right, Krokorok had it yesterday! At least
this one does more damage, so I can't complain about
that; still, 30 is a paltry number if you're not a
Magikarp, and I don't think I need to go over the
various other methods of switching Pokemon around.
And then there's Jet Headbutt, a 3-Energy move that
does 80 damage! You'd think that with a title like that
there'd be more to this, but sadly this is a vanilla 80.
It may not be the best attack in the world, but it's
definitely not the worst either for a Stage 1. It's just
not dominant enough to do much though, but it is at
least comparable to some Pokemon-EX's attacks. Throw in
some Muscle Band and Hypnotoxic Laser, and 80 damage
suddenly becomes 110! It's like magic!
Headbutt's aside, Scrafty's not a bad team player if
he's what you're stuck with, and he has the benefit of
being used with Evosoda to come out quicker. Who knows,
you could surprise your opponent by bringing him out a
turn earlier-pfffft, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be joking
about surprises in Pokemon! Still, he's not great, but
he's not terrible either. Just another Stage 1 filler in
the set.
Rating
Modified: 1.5/5 (if you really don't have anything
better, he's probably better to run than some options,
but you wouldn't seriously be running him)
Limited: 2.5/5 (80 damage is going to be a lot more
powerful in this format, as is preventing a switch and
dealing 30 damage)
Arora Notealus: I wonder if his head is breaking the
rock apart or if it's actually his mohawk slicing it
into chunks.
Next time: I'm in a steel case of emotion! (probably)
|
Otaku |
Scrafty
has had no luck seeing play; a Gen VI Pokémon with four
other releases since its creation, three of which are
still Modified legal and none of which have been near
misses, let alone actually competitive. There is even
another two in Japan, at least one of which is likely on
the way in XY: Furious Fists. As a
Darkness-Type Pokémon, the various Scrafty have
had access to what was the best “true” Type support in
the format, and which remains among the best in the form
of Dark Patch, as well as pseudo-Type support
like Darkari-EX and its Dark Cloak (that works
for anything with a source of Darkness-Type Energy
attached), multiple great Basic Pokémon attackers, and a
few other tricks.
Being a Stage 1 has been a problem, but the need to deal
with Pyroar (XY: Flashfire 20/106) has
given us reason to look at some Evolutions, especially
those that could work with existing decks, over again.
100 HP is a probable OHKO for most decks right now,
especially past the first two turns of the game, and
thus a definite problem; it also means you can’t use
Level Ball. The Fighting-Type Weakness is an issue;
plenty of Fighting-Types have inexpensive attacks that
when doubled, produce easy, reliable OHKOs. XY:
Furious Fists will make a bad situation worse as
Fighting-Types get even more support, and the already
available general support of things like Muscle Band
allow attackers like Landorus EX to score a OHKO
for a single Energy. At least Scrafty enjoys
Psychic Resistance; it won’t help very often but its
there. That two Energy Retreat Cost below it is an
eyesore though Darkrai-EX will usually take care
of it.
Corner does 30 points of damage and blocks manually
retreating (but not other switching out effects) for a
price of (DC) while Jet Headbutt requires (DCC) for a
straight 80 points of damage. In the typical
Darkness-Type deck, this isn’t too hard a cost to meet,
even in a single turn you can use a Dark Patch
(or two) and then take advantage of Dark Cloak to
retreat your Active (which might require your manual
attachment for the turn), or if Scrafty is
already up front, then Dark Patch plus Energy
Switch and a manual Energy attachment.
Unfortunately the damage output is a bit low and
Scrafty isn’t strong enough to take a hit; to be a
good “glass cannon” it would need to be easier to set
up, require less Energy, and have a bigger payoff.
Darkness-Type decks already nearly have that in the form
of Zoroark (BW: Dark Explorers 71/108;
BW: Legendary Treasures 90/113); while it isn’t
quite as reliable in that you need to have taken damage
or have more Darkness-Type Pokémon in play to exceed 20
points of damage for (CC) - Zoroark counts itself
- Zoroark has been used enough competitively that
this has been demonstrated to be quite reasonable; in
fact a well made deck easily fills its own Bench so that
for (CC) Zoroark hits for 120! When Zoroark
has 70, 80, or 90 damage counters on it - and a source
of (DD) - it can unleash monstrous hits of 140, 160,
and 180 points of damage, though this is quite rare.
Even though Darkness-Type decks usually are packing
Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank City Gym, Corner
just can’t compete with that and neither can Jet
Headbutt If both those attacks hit for 20 points more
of damage, it might be a different story… so another
near miss for Scrafty.
As a final note, Zorua (BW: Dark Explorers
69/108; BW: Legendary Treasures 89/113) played a
part in Zoroark trouncing Scrafty, as its
Ascension attack occasionally comes in handy, even if
only to thin the deck/force the opponent to dedicate
more resources to KOing your Active. The available
Scraggy do not directly help it Evolve, and most
have questionable attacks geared toward damage that
won’t usually take a Prize or aid them in sticking
around long enough to Evolve, let alone be worth
Evolving after taking a hit… though at least BW: Next
Destinies 73/99 has 70 HP.
Ratings
Standard:
2.5/5 - On something more durable and/or easier to get
into play or with just a little more damage, this could
have been the go-to Stage 1 attacker for Darkness-Type
decks.
Limited:
3.75/5 - Unless you either pulled a big, Basic Pokémon
so good you should be running just it and 39 non-Basic
Pokémon cards or you absolutely can’t work even a
little basic Darkness Energy into your deck or
you didn’t pull a Scraggy, you should work this
in as its HP, damage output, and effect are much better
here.
Casual:
3/5 - If you’re lacking in card selection or just want
to do a Darkness-Type deck using less than typical
options, this isn’t a bad pick, but by no means is it
the best or only choice. It being a regular Rare also
hurts a bit here.
Summary:
Scrafty doesn’t hit hard enough to be a “glass
cannon” type you can afford to repeatedly build because
you’re pulling ahead in Prizes or resources; in fact
you’ll almost certainly fall behind in one or both. It
very nearly was good for a reliable 2HKO (needed minimum
90 points of damage) and useful secondary shenanigans
(soft retreat lock on the Active). While you could
boost the damage with even a single extra card like
Muscle Band… so can the better alternatives.
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