I had a chance to play a handful of games against Ian last night. I messed around with Sceptile AR while he used Flygon / Machamp a couple games and then a straight Nidoqueen deck the last few.
I honestly didn’t like Sceptile that much, though it can do a ton of damage once set up. Tried different things in it like 1/1 Shaymin LV.X (+40 HP Poke Body one), 2/2 Shaymin LV.X, 4 Super Scoop Up, some PlusPower, and then finally Poke Healer +. I felt that Poke Healer worked best.
I thought about trying Tangrowth LV.X AR in the deck too, but it was honestly hard enough to get both Sceptile GE and Sceptile AR out. Adding anything else was just going to bog down consistency.
Anyways here is the list I pretty much settled upon:
|
Pokemon-19 4 Treecko SF 2 Grovyle AR 3 Sceptile AR 1 Sceptile GE 2 Baltoy GE 2 Claydol GE 2 Unown G GE 1 Azelf LA 1 Uxie LA 1 Chatot LA |
Trainers-29 4 Roseanne’s Research 3 Bebe’s Search 1 Luxury Ball 2 Cynthia’s Feelings 4 Rare Candy 1 Broken Time-Space 4 Poke Drawer + 4 Poke Healer + 3 Warp Point 2 Expert Belt 1 Night Maintenance |
Energy-12 8 Grass Energy 4 Call Energy |
This list is obviously not perfect. I should have tried going 2/2 on the Sceptiles, but never did. I think 1 Spiritomb AR would be a welcome addition also. I don’t really know why I used 3 Warp Point either, but you are going to need some kind of switching ability in this (maybe Switch or Warp Energy would be better).
This is deck is pretty much going to fold to Luxray GL / Blaziken 4 because of Blaziken’s ability to OHKO you. The fact that they could (and should) be playing Dialga G LV.X also does not bode in your favor.
If your opponent can’t OHKO you however, and you can draw your Healers when you get damaged, Sceptile can draw prizes fairly quickly. If you get both Sceptile out and 3 Grass Energy and an Expert Belt on Sceptile AR, you’re going to be doing 140 a turn with 140 HP.
Maybe someone else can work with this to make it better. I do think Healers are probably the way to go because Shaymin LV.X is just another Pokemon to get out, and while +40 HP is good, healing 80 is probably better. I think playing a Spiritomb or two would give you time to set up. I really should have tried it out.
One problem I feel with the deck is just that it takes a lot of resources to get going. You need around 3 energy on Sceptile AR and you need Sceptile GE out too, which is not so easy to do. I don’t know if you’ll ever get more than 2 Sceptile AR out and attacking, so that’s why I think you need to keep the ones you get out alive as long as possible.
As far as Ian’s decks go, I don’t have his lists, but I’ll tell you basically what he played.
The Flygon / Machamp build was pretty straightforward. I lost every game against this, but with a better Sceptile list it might win. These were the first games I used Sceptile, so I was doing a lot of tinkering each match.
The Nidoqueen deck consisted of Nidoqueen RR with Moonlight Stadium, Expert Belt, 1/1 Cresselia LV.X, 1/1 Blissey PL, and 2 Spiritomb AR I think. Not sure about the Queen line; it was probably 3/2/3 or 4/2/4. The deck seemed decent, but Sceptile was able to beat it because I could OHKO everything and he couldn’t OHKO me. I would just drop Healers after he damaged me and it swung the game in my favor every time.
How do you guys think I could fix the Sceptile list? Leave me some comments. :)
