Skwovet – Scarlet & Violet
Date Reviewed: May 26, 2023
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 3.0
Expanded: 3.0
Limited: 4.5
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Vince
Skwovet (Scarlet & Violet 151/198) is another one of the few Pokemon that can hold its own without having to evolve it. A Basic Colorless type with 60 HP, Fighting weakness, and a retreat cost of C, it has an ability and an attack. The Nest Stash ability states that you can shuffle your hand and put them onto the bottom of your deck. If you do that, you get to draw 1 card. Bite does 20 damage for two energies and no effect.
This ability is why Skwovet is a loose staple in few decks, running at most a single copy. If your current hand contains cards that you aren’t able to make use of it, you can save it for later by putting it on the bottom of your deck. Drawing 1 card from an empty hand might seem minuscule, but if you top drew Professor’s Research and you haven’t played your Supporter yet, then you get to draw seven cards with no drawbacks! Alternatively, there are some other methods of refreshing your hand. Based on Limitless when searching for that particular Skwovet card, it was used by eight decks, six of them being Arceus VSTAR/Giratina VSTAR, one being Mew VMAX/Genesect, and one being Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR. For Arceus/Giratina and Palkia decks, having at least a Bibarel in play is mandatory as a hand refresher after reducing your hand via Nest Stash or other cards. For Mew/Genesect, while a lone Skwovet might make Genesect’s ability lower the draw yield by one, it could still get you up to five cards in your hand if the rest of your Pokemon in play are Fusion Strike Pokemon. All eight decks were used in Hartford Regionals, with the lowest placing being 91st and the highest being 28th, which is pretty good that they got placed.
Skwovet utility might prove useful aside from those decks that were publicly published. As good as Marnie was during her Standard tenure, she has just left rotation, and Skwovet seems to be picking up where she left off, albeit being one-sided; Skwovet won’t be disrupting your opponent, but your other cards – such as Judge – can. Trying to top deck something you really need after the ability resolves is very unlikely, which is why you also need other Pokemon that can provide draw power. I don’t think any Greedent cards are worth considering, but if Greedent (Sword & Shield Rebel Clash 152/192) wasn’t rotated, it might have helped you search your deck for a Pokemon Tool once per turn, but at the cost of not being able to use Nest Stash every turn.
Ratings:
Standard: 3/5
Expanded: 3/5
Limited: 4.5/5
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