If you are reading this, I forgot to
write an introduction.
Stats
Type:
Scizor is a Bug/Steel Type in the
video games, and this format is one of
the odd times when I would like to see a
Grass-Type
Scizor, as hitting Grass Weakness is
pretty sweet right now.
Still, as a Metal-Type Pokémon
Scizor will still enjoy hitting some
Weakness and no Resistance; Metal
Resistance seems to have faded from the
game in the Black & White-era.
It also allows
Scizor to tap Metal-Type support…
which technically doesn’t exist as the
new
Klinklang (BW: Plasma Storm
90/135) isn’t street legal yet.
When it is, it has an Ability
that blocks damage done to Metal-Type
Pokémon by your opponent’s Pokémon-EX!
This will be very important later
in the review.
There is some support for the
Metal Energy Type… but that isn’t the
same thing as supporting the
Pokémon-Type.
Stage:
Scizor is a Stage 1 Pokémon, which
means it does face an uphill battle.
It isn’t horrible; two cards per
copy of
Scizor isn’t an insurmountable
challenge, but Basic Pokémon have been
dominating the format, exploiting their
comparable speed (no need to wait a turn
to Evolve because they aren’t Evolving)
as well as the odd decision to give
Basic Pokémon support based on being a
Basic Pokémon (Eviolite,
Prism Energy, etc.).
Hit Points:
120 HP adequate; your opponent will have
to bring their A game to score a OHKO
against a fully healthy
Scizor, if they can at all.
It is only adequate however
because enough decks can do it, or fake
it with clever damage spread maneuvers,
and because it is a 2HKO barring
protective effects or the like.
Weakness:
Fire Weakness isn’t too terrible to have
right now; there are still some
Fire-Types out there fighting the good
fight, but they aren’t a common sight.
What is interesting is that this
is that “Fire” is the only Weakness
Scizor has in the video games, but
because it is a Bug/Steel hybrid it
actually has “x4” instead of “x2” there.
I would be somewhat interested in
seeing a more powerful
Scizor with that “x4” Weakness
printed on it.
Resistance:
Scizor has Psychic Resistance -20; a
decent Resistance to have right now.
Any Resistance is appreciated,
given how scarce it is overall.
Again I would like to reference
the video games: the Bug/Steel-Type
Scizor enjoys varying degrees of
Resistance to 10 different Types!
In fact, the break down is
Immunity (damage is multiplied by zero)
from “Poison-Type” (one of the three
Types that make up the TCG Psychic-Type)
Pokémon, and takes only 1/4th
damage from Grass-Type Pokémon (which
are one of the two Types that make up
the TCG Grass-Type).
It then takes only half damage from
Normal (half of the Colorless-Type), Bug
(the other half of the TCG Grass-Type),
Ghost (another of the three that make up
the TCG Psychic-Type), Steel (the TCG
Metal-Type), Psychic (the final piece of
the TCG Psychic-Type), Ice (one of the
two groups that make up the TCG
Water-Type), Dragon-Type Pokémon, and
Dark (the TCG Darkness-Type) Pokémon.
So all component Types of the TCG
Psychic-Type are covered in one form or
another.
An odd note to end the section
on, but I would love to see the game
experiment with a card like this by
giving it Fire Weakness x4 and then
Darkness, Dragon, Grass, and Psychic
Resistance.
Retreat:
A Retreat score of two is low enough
that it can likely be paid, and
sometimes even without seriously
compromising your in game set-up, but it
hurts enough you should be backing some
alternatives to retreating or to at
least lower the cost.
Effects
Attack#1:
Steel Slash has the relatively easy to
meet cost of (CC) and deals a slightly
low 40 points of damage, but it also
places a protective effect upon
Scizor, blocking all damage done by
Pokémon-EX.
This would be a magnificent
attack if it wasn’t so easy to bypass
it. One
Pokémon Catcher, a card pretty much
anyone who owns enough and wishes to be
competitive runs at a three or four
count.
If you haven’t been paying attention,
you’ll also know that
Escape Rope (BW: Plasma Storm
120/135) has finally been released (in
Japan
it came out in their set equivalents to
BW: Boundaries Crossed).
It has the effect of a
Switch plus a
Pokémon Circulator, that is to say
the old effect of
Warp Point.
I expect it to at least see play
as a poor man’s
Pokémon Catcher, and many decks will
likely benefit from it.
Then there is the already infamous
Hypnotoxic Laser (BW: Plasma
Storm 123/135)/Virbank
City Gym (BW: Plasma Storm
126/135) combo if a deck that only had
Pokémon-EX to attack with (or at least
at the moment), could fall back on.
Triple Poison and even the chance
at Sleep would again disrupt
Scizor walling with Steel Slash; 40
points of damage from Steel Slash versus
three damage counters between turns (six
if you don’t shake the Poison or discard
the Stadium) is going to lose when it is
a 120 HP
Scizor versus almost all Pokémon-EX
going head to head.
Which means this attack is going to
become even less effective.
Attack#2:
Slashing Strike hits for 100 points of
damage for a cost of just (MCC), but
that
Scizor can’t use it again next turn.
This is most disappointing.
Before the effect, this attack
was good-going-on-great; the going
successful return for a three Energy
attack with no effect is really about
90, because that allows you to 2HKO
anything in the game without protection…
other than
Wailord (BW: Dragons Exalted
26/124).
So when you first see that 100 points of
damage, it is exciting; that is enough
to 2HKO not only
Wailord (which I don’t believe sees
competitive play), but also a Pokémon-EX
with 180 HP, even if it has
Eviolite.
A full 40 points of damage worth
of “protection” can be bypassed with two
100 point whacks.
That still wouldn’t take down a
Tornadus EX (BW: Dark Explorers
90/108, 108/108) with
Eviolite and
Aspertia City Gym or various effects
that zero out damage, but it would still
have been great.
Would have been; the clause just kills
this attack.
Steel Slash was only useful for
trolling Pokémon-EX that lacked
appropriate support, and while most
decks rely on Pokémon-EX for their
primary assault, not all decks do and in
fact many pack countermeasures for
similar effects.
So Slashing Strike needed to be
as good or better, and instead it is
worse.
The only upside is that some
decks could push to OHKO
Scizor after using it, at which
point the restriction wouldn’t matter.
I will end this section on a positive
note; when dealing with non-Pokémon-EX
attackers, a Steel Slash into a Slashing
Strike totals 140 damage, often enough
for a 2HKO.
This isn’t great, but it isn’t
bad, either.
The Energy costs are also
compatible with a variety of Energy
acceleration, and structured to easily
build up from Steel Slash into Slashing
Strike, even if you are just using
Double Colorless Energy.
Usage
Card Family:
There are currently only two options for
Scyther and no other
Scizor that are Modified legal.
Already, that is something of a
pity since
Scyther and
Scizor are dual-Type Pokémon (Scyther
is a Bug/Flying hybrid; as repeatedly
stated
Scizor is a Bug/Metal one); as the
TCG has abandoned dual-Typed Pokémon
again, the best way to represent this is
to release compatible, alternate
Evolutions.
So we have
Scyther (BW: Dark Explorers
4/108) and
Scyther (BW: Boundaries Crossed
7/149).
Both are Grass-Type Basic Pokémon
with Fire Weakness, no Resistance, and
require but one Energy to retreat.
Flying-Types are usually
represented as Colorless, so there
wouldn’t have been anything to really
gain from making one
Scyther that Type (my earlier
comment was addressing the lack of a
Grass-Type
Scizor).
BW: Dark Explorers
4/108 has 80 HP and can do a quick 60
for (CCC) and an Energy discard.
This isn’t good per se, but
especially in a deck with the right
acceleration wanting to splash in a
Grass-Type that hits hard without
strange conditions, there aren’t a lot
of other options.
BW: Boundaries Crossed
7/149 just does 10 for (C) or 20 for
(CC), plus it only has 70 HP.
The former isn’t likely to attack
in most decks, but the latter doesn’t
have attacks that are really worth
worrying about, so I would go with
BW: Dark Explorers 4/108 due to the
HP.
Modified:
I’ll begin this confession by pointing
out what irks me; this
Scizor should either have been
released much sooner or not at all in
without serious changes.
Klinklang [Plasma] could not have
been a surprise to the designers.
Not just here, but also in
Japan
it was released as part of the next set
in both
Japan
and elsewhere.
Klinklang [Plasma] has an Ability
that already prevents damage done to
your Metal-Type Pokémon by Pokémon-EX.
Yes, you could run
Scizor on its own but realistically,
another anti-Pokémon-EX card was
questionable, and one so poorly suited
the metagame feels almost insulting.
If
Scizor had an Ability that allowed
it to also count as a Grass-Type, even
leaving Slashing Strike alone it could
have been handy for countering
Blastoise (BW: Boundaries Crossed
31/149),
Keldeo EX (BW: Boundaries Crossed
49/149, 142/149),
Terrakion (BW: Noble Victories
73/101, 99/101), and
Terrakion EX (BW: Dragons Exalted
71/124, 121/124), including in a
Klinklang [Plasma] deck.
As is, you really will need to run
Scizor on its own; if you are
running it, you are running it to cash
in on Steel Slash.
When I say “on its own”, I am
thinking almost literally.
If you have a Bench, your
opponent can too easily bypass the
effect.
A deck built entirely around
Scizor, maxing out disruptive cards
like
Crushing Hammer and probably running
a significant amount of healing.
I can’t say I expect success with
such a deck, but perhaps it can at least
be “fun”.
Unlimited:
The protection of Steel Slash is too
specialized to really matter here; even
if you just insist on using
Scizor, I would stick to the more
classic options.
Limited:
Scyther is at least a decent
“filler” Basic Pokémon; neither large
nor small, and with simple attacks, but
capable of using any Energy Type.
Scizor does require you run
Metal Energy, but it only needs a
single copy so it is still quite
splashable.
Slashing Strike will often result
in a OHKO, even when you aren’t facing
Pokémon you can use Steel Slash every
other turn, averaging 70 points of
damage.
When your opponent does show up with a
Pokémon-EX (especially if it is the
infamous 39 Energy and 1 Pokémon-EX
build), if you can get
Scizor out with two Energy and
attack, you will probably win.
It isn’t guaranteed as some of
the Pokémon-EX this set can inflict
Special Conditions or hit the Bench, but
the ones that can’t have to pray you
deck out while the ones that do have
options still suffer.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1/5
Modified:
2/5
Limited:
4.75/5
Summary
Scizor
truly is a missed opportunity.
Released earlier, despite it
flaws it might have seen some serious
play, but with what Creatures, Inc. had
to know it was releasing it is annoying
they went with what would ultimately
seem like a redundant protective effect
in the light of
Klinklang [Plasma].
Serious players can probably skip
it.
