aroramage |
Ahhh yes, Scizor-EX, the great and
noble mantis, first of the Bug/Steel types - and
probably one of the coolest Pokemon ever! But let's not
dilly-dally too much, let's get right into the meat of
this card!
...which being a Bug-type, there
won't be much, am I right?
Well Scizor-EX is like many of the
Mega-Evolving Pokemon-EX in that he has a couple of
attacks that are...okay. Steel Wing's not too bad, at a
1-for-20 that prevents up to 20 damage from hitting
Scizor-EX. Damage reduction is always better than
healing, in my opinion, and even though it's only a
small amount, it means it takes a bit more than just
dealing 170 HP to Scizor-EX to do enough damage to KO
him.
And then there's Gale Thrust, which
I'll admit is an interesting attack to say the least.
It's a paltry 2-for-50 hit, but if you switched Scizor-EX
out into the Active slot from your Bench the same turn,
it deals an extra 60 damage! Course 2-for-110 is FAR
better, but the trick with Scizor-EX would be switching
him around enough to make it work - Switch and Float
Stone are probably the easiest ways of doing it, though
if you're playing in Expanded you could use Keldeo-EX's
Rush In to switch around even easier. You'd want to
avoid manually switching, since that would remove the 2
Energy Scizor-EX needs to use Gale Thrust in the first
place, and you'd need Bronzong (PHF) to make up for it.
So all-in-all, Scizor-EX isn't too
bad. He's not amazing or anything, and he's more of a
stepping stone to M Scizor-EX, but he's not terrible
either. It'd take some work to make Gale Thrust
threatening enough every turn, but at least Steel Wing
will be constantly usable. Now if only his Energy costs
had some Colorless Energy in them instead of just
Metal...
Rating
Standard: 2/5 (he's got some good
stuff, though I wouldn't call him "main attacker"
material)
Expanded: 2/5 (at least he's not
the worst EX ever)
Limited: 3.5/5 (no one can be that
level of bad...)
Arora Notealus: Scizor - he's just
super cool! I kinda wish they designed his Mega form a
little differently though. Feels more brutish than sleek
and elegant, ya know?
Next Time: The power of fairies
compels you to FLYYYYYY!!
|
Otaku |
So we go from “The Baconator”
to “The Waspinator”.
…
That isn’t a good
description for Scizor-EX (XY: BREAKpoint
76/122, 119/122) as it is clearly not based on a wasp,
but I’m a Transformers fanboy and a former “Wendy’s”
employee with a weird sense of humor, so just go with
it. Scizor-EX is a Metal Type, so it can hit
some Water Type and all Fairy Type Pokémon for double
damage thanks to Weakness and has to deal with
Resistance on XY-era Lightning-Types. Explicit
Metal counters aren’t a thing, but there are a few cards
that specifically support them: Klinklang (BW:
Plasma Storm 90/135) provides total immunity to
damage from attacks by Pokémon-EX to your Metal Type
Pokémon, Reverse Valley has one side that drops
damage done to Metal Types by 10 (the other side
increases the damage done by Darkness TYpes), Steel
Shelter prevents (and if already afflicted, cures)
Special Conditions for Metal Types, and Shield Energy
allows Metal Types to soak 10 damage from attacks by the
opponent’s Pokémon. Not strictly limited to Metal
Types but favoring them are cards like Bronzong (XY:
Phantom Forces 61/119; XY: Black Star Promos
XY21), which can accelerate [M] Energy from the discard
pile to your Bench, and Klinklang (Black &
White 76/114) can move [M] Energy around on your
side of the board. Plus there are some key Metal
Type attackers like Aegislash-EX, Cobalion-EX,
Cobalion (BW: Noble Victories 84/101,
100/101; BW: Legendary Treasures 91/113), and
Heatran that can all deliver some solid damage or
have useful effects. This Type actually has a lot
going for it, but so much can be used by other Types.
Scizor-EX
is *gasp* a Pokémon-EX, so it gives up an extra
Prize when KOed, is the target of some detrimental
effects, and excluded from a handful of beneficial one.
These are guaranteed unless the card itself includes
something to overwrite these as the first is part of the
standard Pokémon-EX rule text while the last two are
part of the existing card pool. Pokémon-EX get
better attributes and often better effects than if their
non-Pokémon-EX counterparts, but Scizor-EX also
gets to enjoy being a Basic Pokémon instead of a Stage 1
as (so far) the only Evolve forms for Pokémon-EX are
Mega Evolutions. Being a Basic is the best as it
is the most efficient in terms of deck space and speed,
plus it has some other less obvious benefits. Even
though there are anti-Basic effects (a few like
Jolteon-EX that are pretty good), they don’t
overcome the inherent benefits. There is also
Basic Stage support, but I think every Stage has some
form of Stage support so that is actually a neutral
thing.
Scizor-EX
has 170 HP, the lower of the two common scores, but it
is still enough to often survive a hit, and that is
about as good as you can hope for right now. Fire
Weakness can be dangerous, but mostly isn’t; the Fire
Type - even with Flareon (XY: Ancient Origins
13/98) to allow any Stage 1 to fake being Fire - isn’t
seeing heavy play and where we do see it, the Weakness
just makes the OHKOs a little faster or more reliable,
but they would still happen even without Fire Weakness.
Psychic Resistance would normally just be a nice little
bonus, but thanks to all the other damage reducing
tricks, could actually matter. The Retreat Cost of
[CC] is low enough you probably can pay it, but high
enough you’re better off it you don’t. Peeking
ahead, you’ll definitely want a trick to easily get
Scizor-EX into or out of the Active slot.
Scizor-EX
has no Ancient Trait or Ability, but it does have two
attacks. The first (Steel Wing) does 20 damage
while reducing damage done to “this Pokémon” by attacks
during your opponent’s next turn. Like all the
other damage reducing effects we’ve mentioned so far,
this is after applying Weakness and Resistance,
so it is far less effective against Fire Types, but even
then it helps. Against non-Fire Types (and
especially Psychic Types) this can completely mitigate
lesser hits, and makes OHKOs difficult. For
example, if Mew-EX is serving as the main
attacker in Night March, Steel Wing plus Resistance
forces Mew-EX to use Night March for 210 in order
to score the OHKO. It isn’t an impenetrable wall,
but it can help you survive while dealing a little
damage. For [MM] Scizor-EX can use its
second attack (Gale Thrust), which does at 50 damage
base. If Scizor-EX moved from your Bench to
the Active position at least once during your turn, then
the attack does an extra 60 damage, for 110 before other
modifiers. This is enough to 2HKO most of the
format; the exceptions are cards that are instead OHKOed,
cards with some form of protection, and those with 230+
HP (210+ if Metal Resistant). Fighting Fury Belt
narrows the field a little more while Muscle Band
leaves only those cards with some form of protection.
Well, and the stuff that is OHKOed, but that is a
positive. Even without fancy tricks, this can be
an option anytime something of yours is KOed. With
tricks, you should be able to pull this off every turn.
Scizor-EX
can Mega Evolve into M Scizor-EX; besides
changing its name and Stage, the only other differences
are it has 220 HP and a different attack (Iron Crusher).
Iron Crusher even has the same [MM] attack cost as Gale
Thrust, but it does 120 damage and gives you the option
of discarding a Special Energy card from the opponent’s
Active or a Stadium card in play, should either be
present. You can also choose to do neither, which
is good if the opponent has no Special Energy attached
and you want to keep the current Stadium. We
reviewed M Scizor-EX
here as the 10th
place pick for our Top 10 cards of XY: BREAKpoint
countdown. It… hasn’t really accomplished anything
in competitive play, at least based on my searches.
On paper it looked good, but apparently it just wasn’t
worth using. I haven’t used it much on the PTCGO
either, and once the initial newness wore off, haven’t
encountered it very often either. As a guess, it
might be because not only are there impressive lock and
OHKO decks competing with it, but now that some of the
BREAK Evolutions have made good, M Scizor-EX
won’t pull off that OHKO it really needs against
non-Pokémon-EX.
So while it can
Mega Evolve, it might not do Scizor-EX much good;
at the very least if you’re focused on Scizor-EX
instead of M Scizor-EX. So while I haven’t
seen any Scizor-EX decks either, let’s discuss
how you’d do it if that was your goal. In
Standard, Zoroark (XY: BREAKthrough
91/162) can use its “Stand In” Ability to promote itself
to the Active position once per turn. In Expanded,
you could use it or go with Keldeo-EX and its
“Rush In” Ability. Either of these paired with
Float Stone provides an efficient means of getting
Scizor-EX out of and/or into the Active slot.
You would still want some other options as while that
combo is great, if Abilities or Pokémon Tools are shut
down, so is the combo. Bronzong and its Metal
Links can help attach Energy from the discard pile to
your Pokémon, and this makes it much easier to get by
with manually retreating or using AZ to
bounce. If Abilities and Items are down, just
having a spare Scizor-EX already prepped allows
you to keep up the pressure.
Mostly though this
looks like Scizor-EX and M Scizor-EX are
going to be too competitive for casual play and too
casual for competitive play in Expanded and Standard.
Expanded has a few additional decks I suspect will give
either of these problems, so even though it also
provides more support to push for a OHKO, I think it is
a net loss for their chances. For Limited,
Scizor-EX is not the card to use for a +39
build. Sure you are guaranteed to open with
Scizor-EX if it is the only Basic Pokémon in your 40
card Limited deck, and you only need to take four
Prizes, but Scizor-EX has the opposite problem of
most of the Pokémon-EX in this situation; it powers up
quickly but can’t deliver strong blows. Without
any other Pokémon you have no Bench, so Gale Thrust can
only do 50 each turn. Unless your opponent has a
really bad deck, this is probably just enough for a
string of 2HKOs. You might be able to alternate
with Steel Wing to lessen the damage Scizor-EX is
taking every other turn if your opponent is stuck
sending up 60 or 70 HP Basics, but if it is all 2HKOs
(or more) your opponent gets about eight attacks to mess
with you. Scizor-EX isn’t able to use off Type
Energy except to retreat, but as it only needs two [MM]
at most Scizor-EX is still a reasonable inclusion
in a two or three Energy Type deck.
Ratings
Standard:
3/5
Expanded:
2.5/5
Limited:
3.5/5
Summary:
Scizor-EX actually has solid attributes and
attacks, but it can’t carry its own competitive deck,
M Scizor-EX can’t carry its own competitive deck.
Since it is a Pokémon meant to Evolve, I’d prefer
it focused more on aiding M Scizor-EX in its
setup but if M Scizor-EX were better, this
card would certainly be up to the task of acting as an
opener, spare attacker, and Evolutionary stepping stone.
As such I am not going to score this below a three out
of five; it isn’t “bad”, nor is it “good”, but it seems
“adequate”. Compared to the filler we’ve seen in
many of the Generations Pokémon-EX, I’ll take it.
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