Otaku |
Welcome readers to XY: Primal Clash Grass Week!
There are 19 different Grass-Type Pokémon in this set,
and we are trying to separate the wheat from the chaff:
every card this week was selected because it looked like
it had potential, or was at least “interesting”. Of
course if this week ends up being lame, its on me
because I was allowed to select the cards. In general,
Grass-Types have a growing level of direct and indirect
support that has some great entries (like Virizion-EX)
but that so far have resulted in only one strong
Grass-Type deck: VirGen (Virizion-EX plus
Genesect-EX). Grass-Weakness returned to prominence
thanks to Seismitoad-EX, and XY: Primal Clash
has added some more enticing targets (some
Fighting-Types, some Water-Types).
Our second candidate is Sceptile (XY: Primal
Clash 8/106). It is a Stage 2, and as I laid it out
yesterday this is unfortunately a big hurdle for a card
to overcome; you have to invest twice as many cards to
get a Stage 2 into play than a Basic as well as wait an
extra turn. Historically a couple methods have been
tried to balance this out, but the one with the most
promise (better Evolving Pokémon so you get a return
before you reach the final Stage of Evolution) doesn’t
get used too often. Even ignoring this, having a larger
investment of cards tends to go hand in hand with being
more reliant upon Items; even skipping Rare Candy
still tends to leave a Stage 2 badly hampered by the
likes of Seismitoad-EX and its Quaking Punch.
Sceptile
sports 130 HP - this is enough to be a little more
likely than not to survive a hit, but especially with
recent releases and developments many decks either just
hit really hard or use a variety of direct and indirect
“buffs” to increase actual (or effective) damage. Fire
Types will enjoy their lesser attacks sufficing for the
OHKO and/or needing less resources for their “big”
attacks (so not needing a Muscle Band, not
needing an optional Energy discard, etc.), as most of
their heavy hitters are already at least coming close to
130 damage. The lack of Resistance isn’t really a
drawback because Resistance isn’t all that common in the
overall game. The two Energy Retreat Cost isn’t good
but neither is it bad; its pretty much the middle ground
as it is low enough you’ll be able to pay it and more or
less recover from the loss but high enough that you
really won’t want to if you can avoid it. The metagame
is such that most decks need something to aid in
getting something to the Bench, either lowering Retreat
Costs or bypassing manually retreating in the first
place, with both being preferred if a deck has the
space; this means good or bad, the Retreat Cost is
either a small positive, negative or neutral trait.
Sceptile
has one Ability (Nurture and Heal) and one attack
(Jungle Edge). Nurture and Heal allows you once per
turn (before you attack) to attach a [G] Energy card
from your hand to one of your Pokémon in play plus
if you do this heals 30 damage from that Pokémon. The
Ability is worded so that if you have multiple copies in
play, you can use each once per turn. Before
anyone gets excited, while it doesn’t specify “basic”
Energy, Herbal Energy doesn’t count as a [G]
Energy until it is attached to something in play (same
for Rainbow Energy and all of which I can
recall). Jungle Edge does a simple 70 for [GCC]; this
isn’t a good attack in and of itself, but even without
the Ability it isn’t too bad to power-up and it hits
just hard enough that if you slapped a Muscle Band
on it, you could 2HKO many commonly played Pokémon-EX.
Should you be attacking with it? Only if you have no
other choice; Nurture and Heal is why you should even
consider running this, and it looks like a useful
support Ability as it provides healing (normally not too
effective) with Energy acceleration (usually quite
useful it not format defining).
Before we get into combos and usage, let us cover our
bases by seeing the rest of the Evolutionary line.
There are just three different Treecko cards
available and the two most recent are alternate versions
of each other: BW: Plasma Freeze 6/116, XY
Black Star Promo XY36 and XY: Primal Clash
6/160. Both are Basic Grass-Type Pokémon with 60 HP,
Fire Weakness, Retreat Cost [C], no Abilities and no
Ancient Trait. BW: Plasma Freeze 6/116 enjoys
Water Resistance (dropped from Grass-Types for the
XY-era) with two attacks: Pound for [C] which does 10
damage and Reckless Charge for [GC] which does 30 and 10
to itself. XY Black Star Promo XY36 and XY:
Primal Clash 6/160 have no Resistance and just one
attack: Quick Attack for [G], good for 10 damage plus
another 10 on a successful coin toss. Grovyle
just has two options: BW: Plasma Freeze 7/116 and
XY: Primal Clash 7/160, both of which are Stage 1
Grass-Type Pokémon with 80 HP, Fire Weakness, Retreat
Cost [C], no Abilities, no Ancient Traits and two
attacks. The older version, BW: Plasma Freeze
7/116, again enjoys Water Resistance and its first
attack is Pound for [C], though it hits for 20 this
time. For [GC] it can use Cut for 30. XY: Primal
Clash 7/160 has no Resistance but it too has Pound
as its first attack! This version requires [G] but
still only hits for 20, though its second attack is
Agility for [GCC] and good for 40 damage, plus the usual
protection from the effects and damage of your
opponent’s attacks during your opponent’s next turn.
Lastly there are two other Sceptile - BW:
Plasma Freeze 8/116 and XY: Primal Clash
9/160 - both of which are Grass-Types with Fire
Weakness, Retreat Cost [CC], no Abilities and two
attacks. BW: Plasma Freeze 7/116 has 130 HP
(like today’s version) and Water Resistance. For
attacks, it can use X-Scissor at a cost of [GC] for 30
damage plus another 40 if you get heads on the coin
toss. For [GGC] its Energy Bloom attack hits for 80
while healing 20 everything else you have in play with
an Energy attached. X-Scissor isn’t bad but isn’t worth
the hassle of running a Stage 2, while Energy Bloom is a
good example of not thinking things through (or just
wanting an attack to look like it might have had
potential while actually being poor). The format isn’t
one of mostly spread, this card is from the set that
contained an answer to most spread anyway, Mr. Mime
(BW: Plasma Freeze 47/116) and its pretty
fantastic to have spare Energy attached to things just
so you can heal. As for XY: Primal Clash 9/160,
we won’t be going into much detail because surprise!
This is tomorrow’s subject. Without spoiling too much,
in a deck focused on today’s it might be a nice TecH
attacker, and we’ll discuss if it can be the focus with
today’s version backing it up in tomorrow’s review (and
why for both matters). So using today’s Sceptile,
I’d favor the older, Water Resistance lower Stages
because you aren’t going to be attacking with them
unless you must and no version has very good attacks.
So… is today’s card worthy of running in a deck? Yes,
but I’m not sure what kind: serious or casual or
something in between? Just a single copy adds a small
speed boost (plus healing when applicable), but this
isn’t Deluge or Inferno Fandango; you’ll prefer to get
multiples on the Bench since they stack and you can’t
count on these to just rain down Energy anytime you need
to, so it isn’t a surprise that I haven’t heard of
anyone even trying this on the competitive scene. Maybe
some have tried it and haven’t gotten it to work so far,
maybe no one has even bothered. Even that single Energy
attachment gives some nice options. So what am I
thinking of? It might be useful as a new take on
Genesect-EX; space would have to be amazingly tight
but if you get a good set-up, it might actually be
faster than the VirGen decks. The new Trevenant-EX
(XY: Primal Clash 19/160, 145/160) might actually
live long enough to build to OHKO status with this
behind it. Mewtwo-EX can still do its thing,
even if it can’t ramp up to OHKO levels immediately. If
you want to get really daring, there is M Heracross-EX:
its Big Bang Horn may fall short against some of the
other Mega Evolutions that see play, but its still a
good deal against all other Pokémon-EX (and even some of
those Mega Evolutions). Remember, we are hitting for
Weakness on things like Wailord-EX, Primal
Kyogre-EX, Primal Groudon-EX and probably
some others that currently escape me.
Another interesting combo is that while you probably
won’t want to discard all Energy for Max Potion
(which also makes the healing effect of Nurture and Heal
go to waste), Super Potion is an interesting
partner: you break even in attached Energy but heal 90
this way, which is enough to zero out the damage from
some attacks and blunt most others. You would also
still have your manual Energy attachment for the turn
available to build up your next attacker… though
obviously you’ll also need a means of reclaiming spent
Energies, and the game provides several: Energy
Retrieval and Superior Energy Retrieval have
you covered for the short term. Right now, all of this
sounds fun but not exactly competition worthy. Of
course, it might be because I’m being too hidebound with
my choices; Landorus-EX and Crobat (XY:
Phantom Forces 33/119) didn’t exactly seem like
natural partners and neither did Seismitoad-EX
and Slurpuff (XY: Phantom Forces 69/119).
Ratings
Standard:
3/5 - Perhaps I am being optimistic; this wouldn’t be
the first Stage 2 Energy acceleration that failed to
deliver. Remember Chandelure (XY: Plasma
Freeze 16/116)? I wouldn’t be surprised if you
don’t as what I don’t remember is it ever doing well.
At the same time, Sceptile might have more going
for it in terms of what the rest of the game is doing
(and not potentially being shown up by Colress
Machine and Plasma Energy, later by
Blacksmith).
Expanded:
3/5 - Perhaps a bit foolhardy, but I think the diversity
of this format could help rather than hurt… or more
accurately, that again I suspect things will mostly even
out.
Limited:
4.5/5 - Probably a must run unless you get a big, Basic
worth building a +39 deck around or you have bad
luck and can’t get enough Grass Energy compatible
Pokémon for it to anchor a deck. The latter can be
really hard to justify if you’ve just got a 1-1-1 line,
after all.
Summary:
I am not sure why, but I think I like this card. As I
like submitting a Top 15 or Top 20 list to Pojo in case
we need some tiebreakers or honorable mentions, this did
make my own Top 15 list but since that is all the higher
I placed it, I understood why it didn’t make the lists
of baby_mario or aroramage since they - ya know -
actually followed instructions and submitted just
Top 10s. I think there is some hope for this card in
competitive play, but just “some”. Try to get a playset
so you can experiment, but only if its a good deal.
|
aroramage |
Sceptile is the final Stage 2 evolution of the
ever-popular Treecko! Huh? Huh? No? Where's the love for
this guy? What, Ash uses him for an anime, and he's now
no longer cool without that stick in his mouth?...fair
enough.
The Treecko line have always enjoyed a certain amount of
popularity, whether from the anime or from Pokemon
Mystery Dungeon 2: Explorers of Time/Darkness. It's just
that in the competitive side of things, Sceptile
has...well, the short end of the stick. Blaziken bruises
at high speeds with his Speed Boost, and Swampert has
exceptional typing while Sceptile is denied his
Dragon-type till he Mega Evolves - which makes him
REALLY good!...in Underused.
Whatever, maybe his cards have proven better! This is
one of two Sceptile cards in the set (the other of which
we'll look at tomorrow), and he's...well, okay. His only
attack is the 3-for-70 Jungle Edge, which as cool of a
name as that sounds leaves a lot to be desired from a
Stage 2. As with most Stage 2s though, you play them for
their Abilities, and this Sceptile has Nurture and Heal,
which lets you shrug off 30 Energy by playing a Grass
Energy from your hand via this Ability.
...wait. You mean this turns all of my Grass Energy into
Herbal Energy? Basically, yeah, but those crafty
designers made sure to limit it to only the Energy
played by the Ability. Still, this can give you 2 Energy
to put down each turn, which might come in handy! But
healing 30 damage...well, that could be the difference
between a OHKO and a 2HKO on your next turn, but other
than that, it's only okay.
So he's...not that great, but he could be a potential
energy accelerator! Sorta...kinda...not as good as
Blastoise or Emboar, but maybe better than Landorus. Oh,
but definitely no Bronzong or Eelektrik, that's too much
praise!
Rating
Standard: 2.5/5 (he's...okay, good for acceleration and
some healing, but not much else)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (decent still)
Limited: 4/5 (hey now, here he can shine! It'll take
some time, but here he can really lay down the law! Or
something...)
Arora Notealus: He leaps around the jungle slashing at
things with his leaves. Dude's got leaf blades on his
arms. HOW COOL IS THAT?! I mean come on, he's like the
jungle version of Batman! Only with more leaf blades and
less Batmobiles.
Next Time: Part 2 of the Sceptile Saga!!
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