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Finishing out our
first, four card week of runner-up cards is M Scizor-EX
(XY: BREAKpoint 77/122, 120/122). It
managed to take an effective 16th place in our extended
Top 10 Cards of 2016 list. Though we aren’t
officially re-reviewing it, I’ll also address Scizor-EX
(XY: BREAKpoint 76/122, 119/122). To begin
with I’ll link to the original reviews; M Scizor-EX
was our
10th place pick for the best from its set, while
here
is where we looked at Scizor-EX. I’ll
(re)run through these cards before explaining why they
made the list, which is basically me sharing their 2016
performance. Just to give you the heads up ahead
of time, I’ll be referencing Scizor (BW:
Boundaries Crossed 94/149) just because it’s the
only contemporary regular Scizor in the card
pool, and even then it’s only legal for Expanded play.
It received a fairly accurate review (for the time)
here
for the curious. It wasn’t pure filler, but it
wasn’t a particular competitive card; fortunately being
mediocre for competitive play doesn’t preclude it being
a good benchmark for measuring its gimmick enhanced
successors.
Both of these cards
are Metal Type Pokémon-EX with Fire Weakness, Psychic
Resistance, and Retreat Cost [CC]. Being a
Pokémon-EX is actually a neutral aspect; a card
potentially gains access to great stats and effects, but
that doesn’t always happen. What does always
happen is the card gives up an extra Prize when KO’d and
has to deal card effects that punish Pokémon-EX usage;
either through excluding them from beneficial effects,
hitting them with detrimental effects, or both.
Being a Metal Type is solid (embrace the pun. All
Fairy Types are Metal Weak as are some Water Types while
Metal Resistance exists on Lightning Types (barring
BW-era ones). Metal Pokémon Type specific support
isn’t massive, but includes some useful tricks, as does
Metal Energy Type support; there are also some
worthwhile members of the Metal Type card pool that
aren’t limited to helping out their own Type, but which
naturally work better under such circumstances.
I’ll save specifics for when we address the actual
performance of Scizor-EX and M Scizor-EX.
The Fire Type has either been hot or not throughout most
of the year; right now (and for the last part of 2016)
it was, making the Fire Weakness a real problem.
Resistance is usually unimportant, but not only has the
Psychic Type fielded some strong, important attackers
throughout the entire year, but as we will address later
in this review, for Scizor-EX and M Scizor-EX
is has a better chance of mattering. What also
matters more than normal is the Retreat Cost of [CC].
Usually it isn’t too big of an issue; while it is high
enough you’ll feel it when you have to pay it, it is
still low enough you often can pay. Except again
due to specifics with these cards and how they’ve been
used, it has actually mattered.
So far this is all
inline with that one regular version of Scizor
with which we can compare. The first big
difference is Stage; being a Basic is better than being
a Stage 1, though being a Stage 1 is better than being a
Mega Evolution as it doesn’t require a Spirit Link
card to avoid ending your turn from Evolving. Scizor-EX
enjoys 50 more HP than regular Scizor, a nice
bonus and it enables Scizor-EX survive
attacks fairly often. M Scizor-EX steps this up
by another 50 HP, with 220 HP usually surviving a
hit, and with some help, it might even survive two. Scizor-EX
has two attacks, the first being “Steel Wing” for [M];
this does 20 damage and also allows Scizor-EX to
soak 20 damage from attacks during your opponent’s next
turn. For [MM] Scizor-EX can use “Gale
Thrust” to do 50 damage, which does an extra 60 (totally
110) if that specific Scizor-EX was on your Bench
during the turn. These attacks aren’t quite good
enough to make Scizor-EX a deck focus on its own;
for [M] “Steel Wing” does 20 damage while allowing
Scizor-EX to soak 20 damage during your opponent’s
next turn, while for [MM] “Gale Thrust” does 50 damage
that jumps by 60 to 110 if it was on your Bench
at some point during your turn. M Scizor-EX
brings “Iron Crusher” and it also only costs [MM],
making is nice and affordable. It hits hard enough
to score 2HKO’s against most targets, doing 120 damage,
and its effect allows you to discard either the
current Stadium in play or an Energy attached to
the opponent’s Active. This is good, but in a
metagame dependent kind of way; when OHKO’s are required
it just can’t cut it, but when 2HKO’s will do it can
really mess with your opponent.
If you went back
and read the older reviews, you’ll notice I had some
problems with both Scizor-EX and M Scizor-EX.
At first I was so impressed I expected to see not only
an M Scizor-EX deck doing well in competitive
play, but variants either mostly or totally focused on
Scizor-EX as well. What did I miss?
Basically the metagame for most of 2016. I mean
scoring OHKO’s against smaller targets doesn’t mean much
when - as with Night March - those smaller targets are
scoring OHKO’s (worth twice as many Prizes) right
back. Good disruption doesn’t mean much against
great disruption/control decks. Did I mention
these decks were just as fast as M Scizor-EX,
sometimes faster? That was then, and “then” lasted
until a little after set rotation. Expanded still
seems inhospitable to M Scizor-EX and Scizor-EX,
but they have carved out a niche in Standard
play. It has to do with what else is at the top;
M Scizor-EX does score OHKO’s against
Fairy Types, so the rise of M Gardevoir-EX (XY:
Steam Siege 79/114, 112/114) has certainly helped
it. While it is easier to reclaim Special Energy
cards now than earlier in the year, we are seeing decks
that aren’t completely dependent upon them but which
lose their edge when an opponent is able to discard them
turn after turn, like Yveltal-EX. M Scizor-EX
decks which I have seen do well are backed by
Garbodor (XY: BREAKpoint 57/122), which
should come as no real surprise; while some Abilities
could be useful for enhancing an M Scizor-EX
offensive, denying them to your opponent hurts them much
more than it would yourself… and of course you can still
run things like Shaymin-EX (XY: Roaring Skies
77/108, 106/108) and just try to use them before
you get “Garbotoxin” up and running.
So why didn’t M
Scizor-EX make the actual Top 10 list if it has a
strong deck right now? To begin with, as stated
this is a somewhat recent development, and it only
applies to a single format. The other is that the
kind of list that seems to work with M Scizor-EX
doesn’t have room for any real extras, at least in terms
of Pokémon. As an example,
here
is the list Devon Tilson used to take seventh place at
the Fort Wayne Regional Championship back in November.
I’ve also seen a deck built around M Scizor-EX
and Raticate (XY: Evolutions 67/108) and
another simply referred to as M Scizor-EX/Red
Card listed among top finishers over on
The Charizard Lounge, but I don’t recall running into them myself on the PTCGO so the
best I could do is Google for them, maybe see if someone
posted a video of them (either from the PTCGO or the
events in question) on Youtube… and you may as well do
that for yourself if you’re interested. These
variants didn’t win their events, and some were from
smaller venues like League Challenges, so your mileage
could definitely vary… and I doubt any has a solution
for I believe is really keeping M Scizor-EX down;
its Fire Weakness. Volcanion-EX decks aren’t the
top thing in Standard right now, but they are a thing,
often showing up in the Top 8 and even winning some
League Challenges. It is a deck that may be
enhanced by its Abilities and Stadium, but is not
dependent upon them and also doesn’t even bother with
Special Energy cards. The Donphan in the room I
haven’t mentioned is that as a Fire deck, it slags M
Scizor-EX pretty bad. This deck easily OHKO’s
either Scizor-EX or M Scizor-EX while its
Abilities are up and running, and even without them
Volcanion (XY: Black Star Promos XY145;
XY; Steam Siege 25/114) can use its first attack to
prep Volcanion-EX or more copies of itself to use
bigger, three Energy attacks. It is also one of
the few Ability heavy decks that can actually counter
Garbodor via Lysandre and KO, because again,
it can reliably and with reasonable speed power up
attacks that hit for 100+ damage even without Abilities.
I don’t think the Raticate and/or Red Card
variants are going to help here either.
Still this is a
solid deck for Standard play, and one I recommend
trying. If M Gardevoir-EX decks are the
wave of the future, this is a hard counter for it.
If Volcanion-EX decks start winning events
reliably, that is why I said “trying” and not “Run this
for sure at your next tournament!”. It is possible
that M Scizor-EX is just waiting on the right
partner; personally I’ve got a hankering to give
Zoroark (XY: BREAKthrough 97/162) a try,
helping with the Retreat Cost a bit more and providing
an alternate attacker against Volcanion-EX.
The problem there is that it precludes running
Garbodor, and while it can attack with any Energy,
stuff like Shield Energy and Mega Turbo
will have to be replaced with either more Basic Metal
Energy, Rainbow Energy (in case I also add
Zoroark BREAK), or Double Colorless Energy
(which doesn’t help Scizor-EX or M Scizor-EX).
Might let me work in Magearna-EX, though, and
Reverse Valley might become a good
additional/alternate Stadium under such circumstances…
but yeah, all I have for you there is some
brainstorming. It also is the best I can give you
for Expanded play. Limited Format decks are 39
cards, assembled from what you are given at the event
(usually booster packs and basic Energy), and only play
with four Prizes. In Limited play, the old +39
strategy does not work for Scizor-EX,
which means it doesn’t work for M Scizor-EX
either; if you aren’t familiar with the notation is
means running a single Basic Pokémon with 39 other
non-Basic Pokémon cards. This guarantees you open
with said Basic but also that you lose when it is KO’d.
Well worth it for certain big, Basic Pokémon but not in
this case. While Scizor-EX and M Scizor-EX
only use Metal Energy, the costs are low enough
that working them into most other decks you might build
should be a successful endeavor.
Ratings
Standard:
3.35/5
Expanded:
3/5
Limited:
4/5
Summary:
M Scizor-EX is a pretty good card but it it has
issues with the current metagame. It relies on
more technical feats than brute force, whether in terms
of raw damage output or disruption/control elements; at
the time when it could be rewarded for such things,
another strong deck (Volcanion-EX) is there and
it isn’t reliant on the stuff M Scizor-EX can
punish and instead punishes M Scizor-EX
for its Fire Weakness. It is still far from
hopeless, just also a bit far from doing more than the
occasional top cut at tournaments. I ended up
giving it the same score as I originally did in Standard
and Limited play, though I bumped it up just a bit for
Expanded; this owes to the shifts in the Expanded
metagame.
M Scizor-EX
scored three voting points, and they all came from me as
it was my eighth place pick. I had been trying the
deck out around the time we were composing our lists,
and as I should have allowed for I simply was having a
lot of beginners’ luck with it. That isn’t to say
it doesn’t deserve to make our Top 10 list, just that a
few cards that clocked in below it like M Gardevoir-EX
and Bursting Balloon should really be above it.
Even though Scizor and Scyther aren’t my favorite
Pokémon, I guess I still have a soft spot for them.
Yes, I know Scyther wasn’t involved in this CotD at all.
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