aroramage |
As for this Sceptile, he's pretty good. In a manner
of speaking. His first attack is Leaf Blade - you know,
like the two he's got on his arms? - which for 1 Energy
does 30 damage. Not bad, and not too bad for flipping to
double it. If you're lucky, he'll 3HKO something, but
nothing ever survives long enough to deliver three
hits...except Seismitoad-EX, but that's cause he
stun-locks a LOT of things. So he's alright then.
Power Poison's much heftier though, and the damage
output makes me think that the designers figured if you
were going to just play down Energy turn after turn
after you've fully leveled up, this would work. I'm
talking about that 3-for-120 damage output, which
coupled with a couple of unsuccessful Leaf Blades at 30
a piece would be 30+30+120 = 180! Enough to KO
Pokemon-EX! You know what they'll do faster? Hit 140.
Alright, but that's not the only thing Sceptile's got
going for it with Power Poison. You'll have to discard
an Energy attached to Sceptile, but the opposing Pokemon
gets Poisoned instantly! Combined with Virbank, this
attack effectively deals 150 damage on its own! Add in
Muscle Band, and you've just about KO'd most Pokemon-EX!
Not too bad, eh?
Well, no, but not good enough. Omega Barrier will at
least help protect Sceptile from things like HTL, but
otherwise he's not gonna be doing too much. He's
certainly a better attacker than the Sceptile from
yesterday, but the other's much better at support than
this one. So really it's a matter of taste at that
point.
But then again, leafy lizards let loose leathery taste.
HEY-OOOOO!!
No? No? Okay...
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (he's a good attacker, but that's about
it)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (about the same here)
Limited: 3.5/5 (he doesn't have the survivability
offered by the other Sceptile, but he can deal quite a
hefty chunk of damage)
Arora Notealus: Looks like he's reflecting off some kind
of attack off the card there, what with the shiny
barrier thingie. Or maybe that's the Omega Barrier in
action? Maybe...have to take a look at some of the other
cards with these Ancient Traits. THEY'RE SO COOL
Next Time: Enough about lizards, time for a dance party!
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Otaku |
We hit the middle of our XY: Primal Clash Grass
Week. If you are just joining us, there are 19
different Grass-Type Pokémon in this set and I convinced
the others to let me pick the five that either seemed to
have the most potential and/or were the most
interesting, so if this week ends up being
disappointing, its all on me. Eep. Since the whole
week covers Grass-Types, there will be a lot of overlap.
For example, as these are all Grass-Types, that feature
is equally good or bad for all of them (at least before
other aspects of the card and combos factor in). The
Grass-Type has support, both of direct (specifically
boosts Grass-Types) and indirect (helps Grass-Types but
is not restricted to just helping Grass-Types). Some of
this support is tried and true like Virizion-EX,
an example of indirect support because its Ability
benefits any Type of card so long as it has a source of
[G] Energy attached (which can be provided by things
like Rainbow Energy) or that has either [G] or
[C] Energy requirements, or direct support like
Herbal Energy, which can only be attached to
Grass-Types but provides 30 points of healing when
attached and [G] Energy while attached (and isn’t viewed
as being all that good). Nothing currently legal has
Grass Resistance, and the Weakness seems to be on the
rise again, with Seismitoad-EX being the most
famous example.
Today we look at Sceptile (XY: Primal Clash
9/160), which means even more overlap as
yesterday
we looked at Sceptile (XY: Primal Clash
8/160). This version is the Full Art, or whatever term
is being used for them as I know they aren’t quite the
same as the traditional style of Full Art still seen in
this set; the art doesn’t extend all the way to the
border, plus the pictures shift to mono-color (well,
multiple shades of one color) about three-quarters of
the way down the card, though if you look, you’ll still
see design elements, such as the blades of grass and a
log on today’s card’s art. So what does today’s
Sceptile offer? Since I already covered the Type
we’ll cover the obvious downside: it is of course a
Stage 2, just like all other Sceptile. You’ll
need to invest three cards to get it into play, you’ll
need to take time to Evolve at least once (twice if you
don’t use Rare Candy) and whether you use Rare
Candy or not, Item lock (like from Quaking Punch on
Seismitoad-EX) is going to be a problem -
Evolutions are practically dependent upon search cards
to get all the pieces at the right time(s). Moving onto
HP, Sceptile sports 140 (10 more than yesterday’s
version). This is enough to be more likely to survive a
hit than be OHKOed, but not by a large margin (better
than the odds for having 110 to 130 HP, though). There
is also the usual issue with HP and Weakness; as this is
an even number, when it comes to Weakness there is no
difference between having 130 or 140 HP.
As stated multiple times already this Weak, Fire
Weakness isn’t “good” but its definitely not the worst;
Fire-Types tend to be about big hits so the main risk is
that they can get by with a “lesser” attack (either a
weaker attack than normal or skipping buffs) to score
the OHKO, as opposed to enabling OHKOs that had no
chance of happening otherwise. 140 is even nicely
positioned so that (as an example) Charizard-EX (XY:
Flashfire 12/106) already would have scored a OHKO
with its Combustion Blast (which does 150), but for it
to score a OHKO with its less expensive Wing Attack
(does 60 before Weakness) will require a buff. No
Resistance is typical so I won’t dock it points for that
and the Retreat Cost of [CC] is also pretty standard;
expensive enough you don’t want to pay but low enough
you often (both having that much Energy attached and
being able to recover from the discard). Plus it is
likely most decks will be packing a few switching cards
or effects that cancel out Retreat Costs or even a
combination of the two.
So we get to the first major difference from yesterday;
this card has an Ancient Trait, specifically Ω Barrier,
which keeps your opponent’s Trainers (other than Pokémon
Tools and Stadiums) from affecting Sceptile.
Sometimes it can be “indirectly” affects; if
Sceptile is Active, an opponent’s Escape Rope
has no effect on it, but if it is on the Bench, as
Escape Rope is considered to affect the Active
Pokémon, Sceptile will have to be promoted
(unless you have another Pokémon on your Bench you’d
rather promote instead). Lysandre won’t do
anything to a Benched Sceptile though while
common annoyance cards like Crushing Hammer,
Enhanced Hammer and Hypnotoxic Laser won’t
work whether Sceptile is Active or on the Bench
(not that Hypnotoxic Laser can hit the Bench
anyway). All in all, this is a solid Ancient Trait
though its less impressive than say Ω Barrage. Sceptile
also has two attacks. For [G] it can use Leaf Blade for
30 damage, with a coin flip for an additional 30 damage
(so total 60 damage on “heads”). This is a pretty good
attack; it isn’t reason enough to use the card but on
“tails” its just mediocre (I am using that word a lot
this week) while on “heads” its a great return. With a
Silver Bangle, this would threaten a Grass Weak
180 HP Pokémon-EX (like Seismitoad-EX) with a
OHKO, and regular 180 HP Pokémon-EX with a 2HKO,
provided you can get “heads” both times. Again for a
“filler” attack this is good. So what about the “big”
attack?
For [GGC] Sceptile can use Power Poison, hitting
for 120 damage plus Poison, but requiring you discard an
Energy attached to Sceptile. The wording does
not indicate the discard and Poisoning are optional.
With a Silver Bangle and Virbank City Gym,
this would threaten up to a 180 HP Pokémon with a OHKO;
against Grass Weak attackers this OHKOs anything without
some form of protection. Yeah, even Wailord-EX
would be finished off by the Poison between turns,
having taken 240 damage from the attack. Needing two of
the three Energy be [G] keeps it from taking advantage
of easier Energy acceleration like Double Colorless
Energy. Again we can’t get away from yesterday’s
version, which does off Energy acceleration albeit it
merely one [G] Energy (currently restricted to just
basic Grass Energy) from hand per turn, though
with the bonus of 30 points of healing. That coupled
with a solid single Energy attack may be just enough to
make this duo work as a deck. Before going more in
depth on that, let’s get the lower Stages out of the
way.
I say “out of the way” because it is even more redundant
than usual. For those that didn’t read yesterday’s
review and for some reason won’t or can’t, the short
version is that none of the Treecko or Grovyle
are all that great; they are just stepping stones to get
to Sceptile, as opposed to contributing something
themselves (which could really help in balancing “big”
Basics versus Evolutions). No versions are especially
great but if you really need help deciding, I think I’d
favor the older versions of Treecko and
Grovyle (BW: Plasma Freeze 6/116 and BW:
Plasma Freeze 7/116, respectively) because they
enjoy Water Resistance, which might improve their odds
of survival. Yesterday I also explained that their
set-mate, Sceptile (BW: Plasma Freeze
8/116) isn’t worth running because its basically got a
worse version of today’s card, requiring more Energy for
the first attack just to do +40 on the flip instead of
+30 and with some hard-to-use and hardly-worth-it
healing instead of Poison plus hitting for 40
less damage on the second. Sceptile (XY:
Primal Clash 9/160) on the other hand is a must run
with this card; you really need at least one on the
Bench to speed things up, with two being preferred.
In fact, you’ll probably want to run a 3-1 split with
today’s version as just an emergency attacker, if that.
Energy acceleration is going to be more valuable. Even
running today’s version alongside yesterday’s to help
with Pyroar (BW: Flashfire 20/106) doesn’t
seem like its niche; you’ll also need Weakness Policy
though with your Weakness protected (and hoping your
opponent can’t just discard said Tool), Sceptile
should easily cleave through two Pyroar. At the
same time, I am hesitant to tell you not to give this
card a try. Why? Well if you are already taking the
risk with the other Sceptile, then you may find
yourself struggling to find good, Grass-Type attackers
that really merit such a deck… at least in the current
format. Keep in mind I hope to try such things with
yesterday’s (and possibly today’s) when I can get both
the time and the cards, but I’d have scored yesterday’s
Sceptile much higher if I knew I had a good deck
waiting for it and not just high hopes. Genesect-EX
could work but it seems unlikely that this would be a
better fit for it than VirGen. Heracross-EX/M
Heracross-EX still suffers due to lack of a
Spirit Link. Tropius (BW: Plasma Blast
5/101) should actually work well, but it isn’t a good
“main” attacker. Trevenant-EX fits except its
not likely to do a better job than Genesect-EX,
unless the deck lacks room for any additional support
for the latter.
On the other hand, some of the non-Grass-Type Pokémon
might just be a solid fit. Mewtwo-EX seems to
work in anything; you won’t often be able to dump enough
Energy on it for the OHKO, powering it up while healing
a bit could work… and with off-Type attacker such as
this, that niche for “Grass-Type heavy hitter” once
again might open up. There is of course the slight
chance that simply using Virizion-EX for some
earlier acceleration (as one does in VirGen) might allow
this Sceptile to function apart from the other
(though I’d still be tempted to TecH in a copy of
yesterday’s even then), but that definitely strikes me
as more of a “for fun” idea, creating a knock-off of
VirGen that attacks with a Stage 2.
Ratings
Standard:
3/5
Expanded:
3/5
Limited:
4.5/5
Summary:
It might be surprising that I scored this Sceptile
identically to yesterday’s, even though I think the
former has a better chance of seeing competitive play.
It might simply be that right now I really, really want
to KO Seismitoad-EX. A lot. As far as Stage 2
Pokémon meant for attacking go, this one really does
come at least close to being something to really
consider. Again, try to get a few (though a full
playset is overkill) so long as the price is right. You
should at least get a good “fun” deck out of it, unless
everyone else runs Fire decks for run.
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