Metal Scizors For Knockout

[Cetra]

You say he is prejudice towards Luxchomp, do you feel like your prejudice towards Gigas and Scizor?
/

First off doesn't prejudice define you don't like the thing?

On the gigas side, gigas just BEATS luxchomp. That shouldn't be an argument...

On the scizor side? Jerin can beat luxchomp. Amelia B picked the list up during a test match just picking the list up vs here luxchomp build. From OUR testing, our numbers work and that's what im trying to get at. Am I biased toward scizor? Iin this matchup I'd say sure, but you can't deny our numbers over the last few months.

I look forward to seeing what eric gets from testing.

 

[eriknance]

Game 1 - Luxchomp won. Scizor had a pretty slow start and couldn't really get out of it. Garchomp X KO'd a Scyther before it could evolve. Game went downhill afterwards.

Game 2 - Scizor won. Luxchomp started with a Garchomp C, attached Lightning and passed. Extremely good start for Scizor, with a Scyther and Skarmory in opening hand. Also used Unown R and drew a Collector going second. Benched three Scyther and used Steel Coat to put a metal on one (basic metal in anticipation of the Garchomp KO). Garchomp later stormed with an Expert Belt and no special energy to KO the first Scizor and moved pretty fast from there. Skarmory helped set up a new Scizor with an Expert Belt. Black Belt was pretty crucial in KO'ing the belted Garchomp. Luxchomp had to do some tricks, including pulling up a benched Scizor with no energy and poisoning it with Toxic Fang. The belted Scizor got KO'd after a clean Dragon Rush and a Flash Impact with a couple of Crobats. This game came down to Scizor nabbing the last prize by playing all 4 PlusPower and an Expert Belt on an Uxie to KO something after using a Warp Point. Giratina was played to get the energy needed for Psychic Restore.

Game 3 - Luxchomp won. Scizor missed an energy drop first turn. Luxray X with Expert Belt took down the first belted Scizor, but got return KO'd by an Uxie and Black Belt. Afterwards, Scizor didn't have much of a setup and Luxchomp sped through it.

Game 4 - Scizor won. Don't really want to count this but I have to. Luxchomp had an awful start and passed 5 times in a row until it lost.

Game 5 - Luxchomp won. Luxray KO'd the Scther before it could evolve and Scizor had no Collector in hand, so it fizzled out pretty quickly. By the time Scizor could drop some basics, Garchomp was ready for the KO on the Scythers. One Scizor made it out, but it was already too late.

Game 6 - Luxchomp won. Scizor pulled a Pokemon Collector off a last Unown R to save itself from an early loss. Luxray X with an Expert Belt pounded down on one of two Scythers played. Two Scythers were prized, but I took one out for sake of the game. A Scizor got in play, but got hit before it could attack, leaving it within KO range. The Luxray X with an Expert Belt avoided the KO, and between Garchomp healing and Poketurns, was able to drag out the other Scizor before it could get rolling. Cheap prizes were taken shortly afterwards.

Game 7 - Luxchomp won. Scizor dodged a donk because Luxchomp drew bad off 2 Uxies going second. Later, Scizor might have had a shot if it topdecked either a 4th PlusPower or Blackbelt off an Uxie drop, but it failed to. As such, it missed the KO on a belted Luxray, and the second Scizor went down shortly after (Bronzong an energy to Garchomp and did a clean Dragon Rush).

Game 8 - Luxchomp won. Scizor had the bad start this time, drawing only both Interviewer's Questions as Supporters the entire game.

Game 9 - Luxchomp won. Scizor flipped over an Unown Q and passed to Luxchomp's Uxie. Energy gave Luxchomp the win.

Game 10 - Luxchomp won. Both decks had good starts, with Scizor having an amazing start. The second turn Luxray really bit into Scizor's strategy, however. An missed energy drop mid-game hurt Scizor as well. I made a video of this and might post it on Youtube or something if anyone's interested. Pretty bad video but whatever.

__________________________________

A few notes. First, my Luxchomp build is still (at least from what I can gather) different than most, with Expert Belts and no Call Energy. The Expert Belts are in there because they're awesome, while the Call Energy should be in there... but I just don't play SP anymore and normally test against my brother's version anyway. The lack of Call Energy and the addition of Expert Belt both make the Scizor matchup easier to take on. Second, I consider myself to be fairly good with Luxchomp, so it's no surprise that my testing showed an advantage for Luxchomp. Last, please don't make the mistake of taking the testing I've done here and saying that it's a 20-80 matchup for Scizor. I can easily see where, with a different Luxchomp build being played by a different player, the Scizor deck may have an easier time. That being said, I don't think that this matchup is in Scizor's favor, especially as Luxchomp players get used to playing against Scizor. As I neared my 10th game, I had gotten pretty used to the strategy needed to beat Scizor.

All in all, I think this is about as good as Scizor can be currently. I really like the Expert Belts, Black Belts, PlusPowers, as they can easily help swing the game in Scizor's favor. A lot of players won't really know what to do when you drop the Expert Belt, Black Belt, and KO the Luxray, leaving them with a Garchomp forced to attack the bench and then get OHKO'd (unless it magically has only basic energy on it). The thing that gives Luxchomp the advantage here, however, is the early KO's in addition to the ability to KO Scythers before they even evolve. I don't think BTS can fix this, as it's way too much to get into play within 2 turns or so.

Hope this helped...

---------- Post added 01/04/2011 at 11:12 PM ----------

Just a few more thoughts on the Luxchomp matchup for Scizor...

One thing I noticed in playtesting is that Scizor really forces the Luxchomp player to think ahead and be careful on almost every single turn. Playing Luxchomp is second nature to me by now, so it wasn't hard for me to avoid those game-changing mistakes. I can see where playing Scizor against mediocre Luxchomp players would prove effective. That is, a mediocre Luxchomp player may already have some fatal flaw in their build (such as an extremely low amount of basic energy), or perhaps they do a bad job of conserving those basic energies. I can easily see where one mistake on the Luxchomp player's side may end up in a game loss. As I said before, there's also the chance that the damage variation trainers/supporters (Black Belt, PlusPower, etc.) may be too devastating a surprise for the casual Luxchomp player.

In testing, I really think that the Expert Belts in my build hurt Scizor immensely. Putting 3 PlusPower in my Steelix deck for Worlds turned the Luxchomp matchup into a near-autowin, so I don't see why 2 Expert Belts here may be doing the same thing.

A final point - my Luxchomp didn't have a 1-1 of either a Dialga G or Blaziken FB, both of which can be very troubling against Scizor.

 

[Jaeger]

Major credit Erik for taking the time to test the match up.

---------- Post added 01/04/2011 at 10:47 PM ----------

First off doesn't prejudice define you don't like the thing?

On the gigas side, gigas just BEATS luxchomp. That shouldn't be an argument...

On the scizor side? Jerin can beat luxchomp. Amelia B picked the list up during a test match just picking the list up vs here luxchomp build. From OUR testing, our numbers work and that's what im trying to get at. Am I biased toward scizor? Iin this matchup I'd say sure, but you can't deny our numbers over the last few months.

I look forward to seeing what eric gets from testing.

I still have a hard time believe that a deck "straight up beats Luxchomp" expecially since its a deck that see almost no play.

 

[Cetra]

Major credit Erik for taking the time to test the match up.

---------- Post added 01/04/2011 at 10:47 PM ----------



I still have a hard time believe that a deck "straight up beats Luxchomp" expecially since its a deck that see almost no play.

Please don't tell/me you're questioning my gigas knowledge...in tournament over the last year and a half I've only lost to luxchomp twice and one was a donk...and I've played against A LOT of luxchomp...

If I'm jumping the gun and you're. Talking about scizor then that's fine. You don't have to believe anything

 

[Jaeger]

Relax man, I'm not calling you out here. Actually looking for your opinion here, if Gigas autowins agaisnt the BDIF than why doesn't it see more play?

 

[Cetra]

Relax man, I'm not calling you out here. Actually looking for your opinion here, if Gigas autowins agaisnt the BDIF than why doesn't it see more play?

A few reason. Most popularly probably because of its dificulty vs champ and gengar. I play russian rullete everytime I walk into a tourney on grounds of how many ppl are playing brown and how much vilegar is in the room.

Second to that I have no idea. I always rock with it nand people in my area see that...so why am I the only person playing gigas that I see in the pacific nw? Howshould I know. Maybe its too complicated to play in the current format and my exp is what nets me wins I can't say for sure.

I know a major physical dificulty is getting the cards for the deck. When your main attacker is a 30$+ promo that makes your dreams of playing it HARD. I know I'm the onlyone in my area with more than 3 draqg off and only a handful I know even have a single copy

 

[Jaeger]

Yea the $30+ main attacker would kind of halt a few people since they aren't readly available either and hard to find people with them. I would like to think I have access to almost any card if I needed it but I have 0. I can see Gigigas being a favorite when it had the AMU Lock, I would think without it the Luxchomp match up wouldn't be nearly as solid and be sitting more in the favor of Luxchomp I really couldn't see either deck "dominating" the match up. But hey you've played it more than I have I would be happy to sit down at Nats or Worlds and play a handful of games with you.

 

[chriscobi634]

where is conductive quarry?

 

[Cetra]

where is conductive quarry?

Unnecessary. I think I've seen Jerin lose 2 scizor out of 4 on average in his harder matchups. He usually can plow through everything else with one, or manipulate his energy with shaymin making quarry just a counter stadium. Interviewer's usually dos the job just fine

 

[rocketprof1287]

i found in my testing that bts, scizor md and belts help with donk potential... i know this isn't meant to be a donk deck but being able to swing hard with only one energy against something with a special energy is well worth it, plus you have a hard time working around umbreon when moonlight fang pops up

 

[MyName]

Someone likes to ride some luxchomp disco stick -_-'

Someone likes to ride some Scizor disco stick -_-'

And IMHO, a LuxChomp disco stick > Scizor disco stick. At least I'm riding on a stick that has more win than Scizor ever dreams to be.

Moral of the story: You have chosen poorly, my young Padawan.

One liners like this does nothing for the discussion, if your going to make an arguement present them and than use facts to back it up.

This. Props to Jaeger for pointing that out in the face of someone who wrote an entire article about the deck and is now reduced to producing ad hominem attacks a la one liner mode.

You're right and I'm just annoyed now, but here's my argument. He says HE doesn't loe to luxchomp and as such the deck can't beat what he think is the bdif.

What are you, Russian? Didn't I just say, and in English too, that 1) HE (meaning me and my LuxChomp deck) doesn't lose to Scizor Prime, not LuxChomp, and more importantly, 2) that while Scizor Prime has an unfavourable matchup, and it is definitely not the case of Scizor Prime NOT BEATING the BDIF in the absolute sense that I was speaking of. I guess in Soviet Russia, Scizor Prime writes Cetra article -_-'.

MY argument is that we don't play a deck unless it can 'go toe to toe' with the 'bdif'. He's WON with it, tearing through 3 luxchomps the tournament he won and a good hnandful since then with his only actual loses being to donks. OUR testing shows that even against good players his list can do more than just hold it's own; he can kick it around no contest. Argue however you want, say our luxchomp players suck, but the point is that we've done the testing with reliable top tier players and our results are valid.

Very nice, and a Mewperior deck took Cities because some LuxChompers the deck took on wasn't hard ***-ed enough to include a 1 - 1 Dialga G Lv. X line. Isolated examples like these do not, and I repeat, do not qualify for a valid matchup analysis. That it doesn't sir. What I, and later in the thread, the reknowned Erik Nance, tested, goes against the vein of what you have just playtested with those friends of yours. Top tier they might be, but how can I take your word for it? That is the question. I have my explanation on the numerous routes LuxChomp can take to counteract Scizor Prime's onslaught. which was greeted by ad hominem one liners instead of valid responses. It is no theorymon my friend, it is a very typical blueprint of what a LuxChomp deck easily does because it is meant to do so. Erik Nance's playtesting is validated by his top-tierness to ensure high quality playtesting and a good detailed report on each matchup to assure us his playtest was there and done. It's your turn to justify your so-called "top tier" LuxChomp playtests.

Luxchomp isn't some unbeatable god deck, and like I said, this is exactly what happened in my last article with gigas. How'd THAT turn out -_-'

Don't make me throw another English illiteracy jibe at you for epic failure in interpretation, because I didn't claim LuxChomp to be an "unbeatable god deck". At most I claimed it was BDIF, which is still beatable, but still has good matchups most of the time. Your flawed interpretation of my case, let alone my supporting points, probably led you to post one-liners that say much about your questionable level of intelligence. Good job, sonny. Nice try.

One more thing, Gigas =/= Scizor Prime. Don't lean upon the laurels of previous successes and try that in your new deck idea, you ain't a WWII hero.

First off doesn't prejudice define you don't like the thing?

Prejudice? No. Playtesting? Yes. Get the facts, deal with the real.

On the scizor side? Jerin can beat luxchomp.

Jerin =/= all the Scizor Prime in the world. Can beat =/= Not a favourable matchup.

Amelia B picked the list up during a test match just picking the list up vs here luxchomp build. From OUR testing, our numbers work and that's what im trying to get at. Am I biased toward scizor? Iin this matchup I'd say sure, but you can't deny our numbers over the last few months.

@ Bolded: Pwn't. Prejudice ruins your case, sonny. Sorry about the so-called numbers you accumulated, prejudice throws your statistics into suspicion.

Blah blah. Senseless claims and more pointless throwing around of the names of reknowned players. Please indicate more detailed findings from your playtesting or you won't convince many others, who like me, believe LuxChomp has the favour in the matchup. Not that you are doing a good job of it of course. Perhaps you don't care? Good, then that shows your matchups section is indeed problematic, point proven.

And you sure can't deny Erik Nance's numbers.

I look forward to seeing what eric gets from testing.

I looked forward to it as well. Seems like I did so for a good reason: I was vindicated, by a top-tier player no less.

P.S. Props to Jaeger for asking questions relevant to prying into the truth behind his flawed matchups, and Erik Nance for doing a solid playtest of a good 10 games with what "little bit of time" he has, then writing a detailed report about it. Inspires me to keep playtesting with renewed vigour, and motivates me to play matches with a new level of frequency in order to keep my skills sharp.

 

[chrataxe]

You are not doing Garchomp C Lv. X, arguably the best attacking card in the format right now, due justice. Skiploom for a Garchomp C Lv. X? Pffft, talk about flawed analogy being flawed. Just because you cannot nail a Dragon Rush on the main attacker, Scizor Prime, with the shortcut DCE or occasional Call/Warp, doesn't mean Garchomp C Lv. X is useless in the matchup. Healing from Garchomp C Lv. X, in tandem with Poke Turns, will deny prizes for LuxChomp to win in the prize exchange before Scizor Prime gets pimped up to go OHKO mode. And living up to LuxChomp's standard "cheap and easy" prizes policy makes it a prize grabbing machine. It's not about hammering Scizor Prime, rather its about obliterating the numerous techs and support that makes for the stepping stones to victory for LuxChomp. Skiploom does none of the above mentioned.

With your flawed analogy out of the way, and your ludicrous comparison of a prize taking, prize denying monster to a NFE cotton candy, I have proven Garchomp C Lv. X to be invaluable and shown LuxChomp to be better than what you have made it out to be, that is, your rendition of LuxLoom/SkipRay, an outright scrub deck in it own right, which you sacrilegiously compared the BDIF to, which is ridiculous.

As for the notion that "many things have favorable matchups against Luxchomp but don't fair well against the rest of the field", really? That many? You must be kidding if the deck with the most wins in Cities and just about every other event in recent history of competitive play will succumb to the likes of just any other rogue. You will almost always meet a form of rogue if you top that many Cities, and sent most of them under in the earlier Swiss Rounds to get to the top. LuxChomp does not buy that. What is it about complaints of SP engine being too fast, and laying waste to any potential creative deck idea that's kicking around? Those complaints are understandable. LuxChomp wrecks many decks, not the other way around.

Moreover, I did mention that his other matchups were "off tilt". Scoring "evens" and "favourable" across the board against the top 5 (LuxChomp, Gyarados, Gengar, DialgaChomp and Machamp), with only one guaranteed "unfavourable", the lesser played (as of recent) DialgaChomp, means a meteoric rise of the deck, as with Gengar trainer lock. But we don't see that. In fact the first and only instance of a Scizor Prime deck winning Cities that I came across was upon reading this thread. I don't buy the "less played, less won" argument either. I have read too many Cities report in my leisure time (trust me, I have many of those) to know the rogue Scizor Prime deck that always gets kicked out round 2 or 3 by the author's metagame deck, most notably LuxChomp. It's not something that could go toe-to-toe with the BDIF, let alone the Big 5, unlike what the thread starter is insinuating by his matchup analysis with them. Flawed matchups are flawed.

You have not addressed the cheap prizes and relative speed aspect of this issue. You might want to. Leaving such points unaddressed, much less points that are the forte and the claim to fame of LuxChomp gives me so much room to continue expending on LuxChomp's rightful advantage over Scizor Prime in this matchup. I haven't even gotten to a more in-depth elaboration of why common addtions Drifblim UD and Blaziken FB Lv. X make the matchup even more LuxChomp favoured. Seeing your lack of attention to that means those points still stand as well.

I think you are missing something somewhere.....like, most of the posts in this thread. I think I've been more critical than anyone about the match ups. But, I think the Luxchomp matchup may be fairly accurate. While I do agree its not possible to have as good of matchups across the board as Cetra claims against T1 decks, I don't think the LC match up is too terribly bad. You say you will win by sniping pixies....thats because you assume they will drop the Pixies for you to snipe. You also assume they will drop Scythers to be sniped. I say its easy to drop Scyther after a judge with an active Garchomp and no Garchomp on the bench and be relatively safe that it won't be sniped. I know this to be quite true from running Steelix. If I want to drop Chansey or Onix, I wait until I'm fairly certain it can't be sniped....of course, that assumes I don't WANT it sniped. Another thing that LC players don't seem to get is that just because you GOT a prize, doesn't mean you TOOK a prize. I can EASILY give up 5 przies to LC with my Steelix deck and still steam roll LC. The key is, the only prizes you get are the ones I give you. Now, that works a bit better with Steelix because Steelix and Blissey both have high HP and I can heal both with Herbs and Nurse Call. While Scizor doesn't have that advantage, it still has the ability to bait you into taking prizes they WANT you to take while leaving alone their Scizor. And, I realize you will most likely reply with some witty comment about how great you are and how well you've tested, but I can also attest to many different matches against many different LC players, they ALWAYS go for the easy prizes. Burn Crobats and Poke Turns to get 3 KO's, lets see how many more prizes you can take when you are getting OHKO'ed and not taking any KO's since you expended all of your resources. All I meant by my ridiculous scenario was, the match up isn't that bad, late game, Garchomp won't take any prizes when there is only 2 Scizors in play.

 

[MyName]

You say you will win by sniping pixies....thats because you assume they will drop the Pixies for you to snipe. You also assume they will drop Scythers to be sniped.

It is indeed safe to assume they would drop Pixies for the sniping. Artisan Beagles too. Or else what? Top deck everything to match LuxChomp's speed? Deck stack? Nice one, but not happening. Pixie drops are part of the game, Uxie and Azelf are notable paratroopers in this sense. And LuxChomp thrives on this norm, making it a deck for the format.

BTS doesn't show up all the time. Scyther might be laid down in the meantime. Being too conservative cramps Uxie drop potential and leaves your energy attachment a turn behind, which is possibly fatal since you're not a single energy maestro like Machamp. We will see many stray Scythers for not only the sniping, but also for dragging up and a cheap flash impact smackdowns by our metal-resisting friend, the Luxray GL Lv. X. No energy discards or Double Dragon Rush manoeuvring required. Clean and simple.

I say its easy to drop Scyther after a judge with an active Garchomp and no Garchomp on the bench and be relatively safe that it won't be sniped. I know this to be quite true from running Steelix. If I want to drop Chansey or Onix, I wait until I'm fairly certain it can't be sniped....of course, that assumes I don't WANT it sniped.

I say its easy to get a Judge in the opening hand, when disruption is ideal to stop the early game sniping, when the Scizor Prime list actually has a grand total of one judge? Nice one man, check the context. This ain't Steelix Prime where you can open with your favourite Sableye and chain hand refreshes in the form of Judge to get your beloved Metal Snake out. Not happening with this Metal Mantis, not happening.

One more thing, it's harder to snipe Chansey and Onix for the OHKO, not without a Crobat G drop, an uncommon gift this early in the game. Unlike Pixies, they morph into higher hps versions readily and easily as opposed to the occasional post KO Uxie Lv. X front and back sequence, lessening your ability to steal back a prize once you've missed it. Pixies, Smeargles, and the odd Skarmory make for tasty treats not only for Garchomp C, but also accessible goodies for Luxray GL, thanks to their lower hp, giving you more options to take easier prizes even post-Judge, as compared to Steelix, where benched stuff are hardcore. Remember, it's just a Scizor Prime deck, not a Steelix Prime deck.

Another thing that LC players don't seem to get is that just because you GOT a prize, doesn't mean you TOOK a prize. I can EASILY give up 5 przies to LC with my Steelix deck and still steam roll LC. The key is, the only prizes you get are the ones I give you. Now, that works a bit better with Steelix because Steelix and Blissey both have high HP and I can heal both with Herbs and Nurse Call. While Scizor doesn't have that advantage, it still has the ability to bait you into taking prizes they WANT you to take while leaving alone their Scizor.

Look, this is how it pans out. Once upon a time, I ran a Gyarados deck against my friend John who ran a Steelix Prime deck. I run no Warp Points, no Pokemon Reversals, no access to the bench whatsoever. I outsped Steelix Prime and took 5 prizes.Then he curbstomped me the next 15 minutes. He lived happily ever after. The End. Now try this. Once upon a time, I ran a LuxChomp deck against my friend John who ran a Scizor Prime deck. I outsped his deck and disrupted his set up and took 5 prizes. Then he took a belted Scizor Prime with 4 Special Metal Energy and KO-ed my Garchomp C Lv. X. I took a Luxray GL Lv. X out with a Bright Look and a Thrash Bolt to the face of a poor Uxie. I lived happily ever after. Moral of the story: tanks hate snipers, draggers and the like.

Another thing, Steelix has Life Herbs, Moo Moo Milk, heavy duty Onix, Steelix, Chansey, Blissey, Nidoqueen, and everything in between that makes easy prizes difficult. This costs us a few valuable prizes which can throw big wrenches in "six prizes in six turns" LuxChomp. We don't see that in LuxChomp. Erik Nance, who championed Steelix to be an effective anti-LuxChomp, has clearly drawn the line and indeed said that Scizor Prime will have problems with LuxChomp, underlining the difference. And in many of his 10 games, u see dead Pixies, Scythers and everything in between. Consistent with what I have playtested.

Your only out is to have two fully charged Scizor Prime on the field, ONLY. Are you going to get that when LuxChomp keeps disrupting you? Unlikely. And that is what makes the matchup unfavourable. Any wayward Scizor Prime on the OHKO path with be poisoned, taken away, or jet shoot-ed for the greater good, while Luxray GL Lv. X takes multiple prizes while tanking with metal resistance as you slowly accumulate energy for the OHKO potential. Complete with Poke Turn and Healing Breaths, as well as the possible instant KO Blaziken or instant solution Drifblim UD, I don't see why "leaving alone their Scizor" would be in the best interests of the Scizor Prime player. In fact it would be advantageous for the LuxChomp player.

And, I realize you will most likely reply with some witty comment about how great you are and how well you've tested, but I can also attest to many different matches against many different LC players, they ALWAYS go for the easy prizes. Burn Crobats and Poke Turns to get 3 KO's, lets see how many more prizes you can take when you are getting OHKO'ed and not taking any KO's since you expended all of your resources. All I meant by my ridiculous scenario was, the match up isn't that bad, late game, Garchomp won't take any prizes when there is only 2 Scizors in play.

Going for the easy prizes is what the deck does. It is an effective strategy. And unlike Steelix Prime, burning bats and turns to ensure that is less usual, owing to poor bench sitters. Poke Turns are used to deny prizes in fact, making the use of it less frequent, and goes a long way to conserve resources for the late game, unlike what you envisioned. Scizor Prime will take a long time to go OHKO mode, especially against a metal-resisting 110 hp Luxray GL Lv. X supplemented by healing breath and poke turns, enough to take a significant lead to be safe in the more perilous late game, where the playing field might be levelled, but it is a case for a "little too late". That's not even talking about Drifblim UD and Blaziken FB techs, which I'm sure will make the late game a great waste of the Scizor Prime player's earlier efforts. Your supposed matchup mentions of LuxChomp players you have seen actually helps me to explain in greater depth, the effectiveness of LuxChomp against this matchups by defining some of the traits that make LuxChomp, LuxChomp. And how it works against Scizor Prime no less.

Moreover, your scenario of only Scizors on the field is ridiculous and ideal, and it is not something you can weigh matchups objectively by. Face it, you won't get this every time, or even 50% of the time in playtesting, or in competitions that matter. That isn't going to net you a favourable matchup. It's going to scream "unlikely" and "improbable", and consequently "unfavourable" for the deck.

 

[chrataxe]

well, its obvious to me that you are in love with luxchomp. maybe you should get a room for this PDA. I've seen people get banned on the gym for things less pornographic than this.

this deck plays 4 collectors and 1 giratina, its not hard to set up disruption.

I'm not sure were we split, I agree with just about everything you say. infact, on the bdif thread, said luxchomp will remain bdif as long as pixies are around. I even went on to say it will be bdif as long as people play any pokemon lower than 90 hp. but, the point you keep missing is YES, you will snipe their pixies, they concede that when playing them. good luck winning if they don't drop 6 of them. you assume your opponent is stupid, that is the flaw in your argument. yes, you WILL win if you snipe\bright look 2 uxies, an azelf, and 3 scyther. the point is, why would I let you do that? that is just plain stupid. I think it is safe to assume this deck will be able to get 2 collectors off, giving them 2 uxie, 3 scyther, and giratina. if we assume you snipe 2 scyther and both uxies, where does that leave you? I only run 1 uxie in my deck for this very reason. my deck also plays jirachi rr. I will gladly give up 3 jirachi in 1 game, its actually quite the luxchomp counter. my point is, anyone playing this deck will take luxchomps strengths into account and will play that specific match up. I play against LC different than I play againgst dialgachomp and even play different against gyarados and fire decks.

you also said having 2 scizor is ideal and near impossible but think you will always have the resources you need after a judge. for whatever reason, your own logic doesn't seem to apply to you. I would venture to say that 90 percent of all of my matches (especially luxchomp) end up with nothing but two stage 1 pokemon.

so, to reiterate, I don't think the given matchup is correct. I don't think it is as bad as you say. I'm sure its somewhere in the middle.

 

[jerin]

You seem to forget about blackbelt good sir. Even nance dsays you'll be very surprised when I drop my blackbelt expbelt and ko you for 2 energgys. That's all itl take to ohko your luxray after you take your so called cheap prizes. Your luxray will die I assuere you that. It doesn't take that long to go ohko mode. You forget I also run pp.

 

[Cetra]

My biggest issue right now is that I keep hearing all this talk about sniping but didn't anyone bother to notice that there are only 2 uxie in this deck for a pixie count, and after that you get the scythers that DON'T get evolved and shaymin if when/if it's dropped late game? I never drop more than 1 uxie in a match unless I'm playing gigas. You can only KO 1 scyther at a time, so what's to say I'm not able to lock down what you can snipe by my 2nd-3rd turn (3rd being you sniping scyther first and uxie t3)?
Regardless the differences in our views, I feel chrataxe is somewhat starting to understand things. If I'm wrong so be it...


Now some things I've been holding off on for a bit...

I applaud Erik for his testing. His results clearly show that HIS luxchomp deck will beat scizor. But he also mentions that his list is different, running no call and additionally having e. belt. The loss of special energy (assuming he's replacing them with basic energy) hurts scizor in this matchup A LOT. The simple fact is that Luxchomp would have a lot more maneuverability in this matchup. Now depending how many energy Nance runs to begin with, you should be able to see a problem off the bat. In our area and with most luxchomp decks I've played, You only have 3-6 basic energy in your list with 4 dce, 3-4 call and 0-2 warp (depending if you run dialga) and 2-4 thunder and 1-2 psychic energy. Tell me how a LC deck plans to beat a deck that locks down special energy using attackers when your deck runs like 5 basic energy and discards to attack? Eventually you'll have to take down scizor itself and when you start running low on your resources you'll be in a hole like everyone else.
Tack on E. belt in this specific matchup and it may not be THAT big a deal with PP and Black belt, but I could see it being annoying particularly early game. When we're calculating in sp. metals, it's usually a 2-3 hit. E. Belt will negate sp. metals and could potentially get you an OHKO, or ensure a 2hko. but whose to say I can't just return the KO with a black belt and or a couple plus powers.

Next up is that even though Erik sees the matchup being in luxchomps favor, he clearly says that he can see a different list having more difficulty.

To wrap up, did Erik's testing prove anything? For his list and lists like his, YES, it did prove something. But for our current argument, a traditional luxchomp deck (not BLG, not some randomly teched LC sp hybrid) has not been tested. This point basically makes what Erik did moot for the discussion, unless MyName also runs no call or a boosted basic energy count or some other uncommon list tweak.

The next argument has to do with player skill level. Eirk is how good? And how long has he been playing LC? I don't have an exact number but I can guarantee pretty accurately that it's been a WHILE...After playing Gigas for a year and a half, I can pretty much take any matchup and swing it in my favor just because I know how to manipulate my deck. Could a skilled luxchomp player do this vs scizor? Of course. To say not would be stupid of me. My thoughts are that if you have your average sp player, sit him across the table from this list, he has a pretty decent chance of walking away with a loss. This opinion is boosted by the fact that Jerin has taken this list and beaten every top LC player in our area, some of them multiple times.

I don't believe the decks mechanics are being fully realized here. What do you do when your Cyrus chain gets broken in half by Giratina or I swarm multiple scizors. So what if you KO one of my scythers early game? People that have done this in the past usually come face to face with a 2 energy scizor/blackbelt combo. I haven't heard much about shaymin's ability to help energy manipulation both for recovery and swarm, I haven't heard much about Tina's disruption and all I've been hearing about scizor are things like it getting sniped as a basic before it evolves. Really?

Someone mentioned Drifblim...
A 2 turn counter, once I see it hit the field, of course I'm going to focus setting up a second scizor, and/or drop shaymin to lessen the take away. I know it's difficult for some people to grasp that I'll have multiple scizors in play but truth is I'll have at least 2 and they aren't THAT hard to get out even if you ARE sniping at my bench...

Someone mentioned judge...
You can use portrait during a cyrus chain to search it out, Is portrait sprayable? Of course it is, but that just kills one of your sprays.

To sum up some stuff before I end.
-Erik did a great job testing his variation of luxchomp but since his list is different by a decent degree paired with is level of skill, I can't accept the results for a traditional luxchomp build which means we're still arguing the same point back and forth.
-Jerin's willing to agree to a 50/50 vs luxchomp to give credit to better players and I can agree with this, but this doesn't negate the fact that he's torn through all but a couple of his luxchomp matchups due to the deck or his skill with the deck.
- I don't think people are giving enough credit towards scizor's mechanics. I think that with a little legitimate practice against a variety of different meta decks, you could learn the ins and outs to better play it. Things like Shaymin just don't seem to get the recognition they deserve. Your main attacking stage 1 doesn't even seem to get credit for it's speed -_-'

Hopefully some of this gets somewhere. My only real goal is to get this deck out there as a viable play in the metagame with solid matchups.
I feel that a lot of the points you could argue in favor of scizor will be shot down now because of Erik's testing given that he's a top tier reliable player, but people really should reread his matchups and his analysis.

From here on I'll take questions on the list itself, but I'm kind of through arguing the same points over and over with the same people -_-'

 

[Mama_Luigi]

So you're saying that the testing doesn't count because his list had a slightly better natchup because of no call and 2 belt?

 

[jerin]

Your making it black and white. There are many cards that can sway matchups. I don't feel that his testing fully reflects sizors abilities. Nance him self says although he still thinks it'd be in luxchomps favor he could see how a different luxchomp build by a different play could have a hard time. So my point is that its untested<by you I've beaten it> with a more regular luxchomp list that sizor can hold its own. I realy believe it might just be the belt I've never tested against luxchomp with belt before.my point is that you can tech things to make a matchup better.

 

[bullados]

So you're saying that the testing doesn't count because his list had a slightly better natchup because of no call and 2 belt?

Probably a better verbiage would be "informative but inconclusive". LuxChomp isn't a deck (like Kingdra or VileGar) so much as it is an idea. That idea being to combine two (or more) of the biggest, fastest, SP snipers that you can find, and surround them with cards that maximize their potential to beat your current metagame using your own play style. There are more builds of LuxChomp than any of us can possibly count, and most of them are competitive, at the very least.

What Erik's testing proves is that a LuxChomp utilizing fewer Special Energy and an Expert Belt has an advantage over Scizor. I think that even those championing the deck will agree to that.

What has not yet been proven independent of those championing the deck is what happens when it goes up against a LuxChomp with more Special Energies (such as Call) and no Expert Belt.

Keep in mind that the myriad of TecHs that can potentially go into LuxChomp make the deck virtually impossible to 100%. Any of those TecHs can turn virtually any matchup, but there are only so many TecHs that you can throw into a single deck. So, posting a LuxChomp matchup on a deck article is the very definition of a futile exercise. LuxChomp is a very loosely defined deck that can hit in too many ways to adequately keep track of, and subsequently can overcome virtually any matchup with the right TecHs and a good player to back it up.

 

[Cetra]

So you're saying that the testing doesn't count because his list had a slightly better natchup because of no call and 2 belt?

If you wanna make it cut and dry, then in a sense yes that's what I'm saying,

Nance's testing DOES count. It shows a build that can easilly take down scizor, but what you have to understand and think about is WHY his list beats it easier than a regular build would. You have to think and understand that even though this scizor build isn't made to hide behind its body constantly, Red Armor helps a lot against Luxchomp. When a luxchomp build has more basic energy in its list than it usually would, it has an easier way of getting around red armor without using up all of its resources vs having to think hard about planning where to set yoru resources and for what.

As stated a lot in the last few points, Erik himself admits to running a different list than most, admits that he's an above averagely skilled luxchomp player and admits that a different build AND player would pry have a harder time vs scizor regardless of whether or not the match is in scizor's favor.

That's all I'm trying to say if it makes any sense.