OK, this sounds stupid, but people are bashing
Scyther, and I would like to set this straight.  This
is mostly in response to "Scyther vs. Charmeleon" in
July (recommended reading...for an example of a badly
founded article...)

Now, every major advantage by itself isn't that
much...

Free Retreat:  So does Rattata
Resistance to Fighting:  Same goes for Charizard
70 HP:  Dark Gyarados
Colorless Attacks: Every colorless pokemon

But, the thing is, if you look...these four things put
together are what makes it great!  Free retreat has
always been a good point with me, but almost all of
the other free retreat pokemon are weak, with the
exception of the Fossil ghosts and some flying Stage
2s.  Free Retreat, combined with the High HP, makes
Scyther an awesome starter.  After all, you don't want
to start with an electabuzz only to find out your
opponent started with Hitmonchan, or start with MP
Mewtwo only to find your opp started with Jigglypuff,
do you?  But, unlike with puny free retreat pokemon
like Rattata or Diglett, he's not going to be knocked
out first turn without quite a bit of trainer
intervention.

All of this, and we haven't even gotten to attack!
Now, admittedly, 30 damage isn't that great.  But, if
you put it into perspective, for 3 colorless energy,
that's par.  Personally, I rarely attack with Scyther
out of anything but desperation; I use him for a wall,
or to forestall deciding which active I put out after
a KO (that beginning of turn draw may change my mind
about which poke I want active).  But still, 3 for 30
can be useful at times, especially since it still
takes advantage of weakness (it's the color of the
Pokemon, not the energy requirements that matters)

Next, we have Resistance to Fighting.  Scyther is
Hitmonchan's worst nightmare, in case you haven't
noticed.  Assuming they both have enough energy to
attack (which Scyther can power up faster with double
colorless), Scyther takes 3 turns to take out Hitmo (2
with PlusPower) and Hitmo takes 7 turns to take out
Scyther.  This mattered a lot right after Base Set
because of the power of fighting back then.  Even now,
it helps against people who metagame fighting against
Wigglytuff, or still enjoy Hitmonchan's speed against
other stuff.  Even if your opp. is using Fire pokemon,
Scyther takes no energy to get out of dodge, whereas
most good fighters have a retreat cost...

Now, to point out how asinine it is to compare this
guy to Charmeleon.  First of all, there's the free
retreat issue (handled above).  Note that our friend
doesn't seem to care about weakness and resistance,
nor does he care that Charmeleon has to be evolved, or
that 1 Scyther, 1 Grass Energy, and 1 DCE is easier to
get than 1 Charmander, 1 Charmeleon, 1 DCE and one
energy of any color.  And he goes further by not
caring that 60>40.  *shrug*

"I hate you you (censored) moron" stuff goes to Xhad
at cmiller@ossm.edu...but don't expect me to be kind
if you flame me badly.  I've already given enough
responses to flames about my "Dark Gyarados sucks" and
"Mr. Mime + Defender does not equal Invulnerability" articles...

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