IMO sceptile ge is turning into one of those cards that looks great, i mean archetype great, but in practice it just doesn't make the cut. when it came out i thought it was the prevalence of fire decks (magmortar, skittles) which kept sceptile/tangrowth from succeeding. but now with the new set and fire more on parity with water decks, which theoretically should only be to sceptile's advantage, it still isn't working, not even with leafeon/sceptile, and this disappoints me a great deal.
i think it is a combination of small factors which coalesce to undermine sceptile decks effectiveness. i think the 100hp and 3 retreat cost are both a little low and a little too high respectively. if it had 110hp and a 2 retreat cost it would be much more sniper proof and would be able to retreat for the cost of a single grass energy. alas this is not the case.
a more subtle failure is built into the very thing which potentially could make it great, sceptile's Wild Growth poke-body. Wild Growth is very powerful but very limiting and this is the crux of the problem. any deck anticipating taking advantage of Wild Growth won't want to run any energy other than basic grass. likewise, since sceptile is only an average attacker whatever other line of pokemon which sceptile is operating in support of will have to be a grass line which likely means all fire weakness as well as limited viable options. so these two factors mean that odds are sceptile decks won't be running any of the very advantageous special energies (call, DRE, scramble) nor any other pokemon which could help accelerate set up (claydol, furret, etc.). couple these disadvantages with the fact that sceptile is a stage 2 and it's subordinate forms are totally useless until it becomes sceptile and i think you can see why the cumulative effect is so ineffective.
there may be people who will argue that leafeon/sceptile is viable, but i think leafeon lvl x can achieve the same effect (boosted damage from the number of energies in play) with DREs and scrambles with any non-grass line. maybe after worlds when those energies are rotated out then leafeon/sceptile will finally get its' chance. but right now sceptile reminds me of another great grass pokemon failure: dragonite ex df.
i think it is a combination of small factors which coalesce to undermine sceptile decks effectiveness. i think the 100hp and 3 retreat cost are both a little low and a little too high respectively. if it had 110hp and a 2 retreat cost it would be much more sniper proof and would be able to retreat for the cost of a single grass energy. alas this is not the case.
a more subtle failure is built into the very thing which potentially could make it great, sceptile's Wild Growth poke-body. Wild Growth is very powerful but very limiting and this is the crux of the problem. any deck anticipating taking advantage of Wild Growth won't want to run any energy other than basic grass. likewise, since sceptile is only an average attacker whatever other line of pokemon which sceptile is operating in support of will have to be a grass line which likely means all fire weakness as well as limited viable options. so these two factors mean that odds are sceptile decks won't be running any of the very advantageous special energies (call, DRE, scramble) nor any other pokemon which could help accelerate set up (claydol, furret, etc.). couple these disadvantages with the fact that sceptile is a stage 2 and it's subordinate forms are totally useless until it becomes sceptile and i think you can see why the cumulative effect is so ineffective.
there may be people who will argue that leafeon/sceptile is viable, but i think leafeon lvl x can achieve the same effect (boosted damage from the number of energies in play) with DREs and scrambles with any non-grass line. maybe after worlds when those energies are rotated out then leafeon/sceptile will finally get its' chance. but right now sceptile reminds me of another great grass pokemon failure: dragonite ex df.
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