Competitive Pokemon History - Scizor Quiz

Answer: It had a terribly small movepool

Scizor's puny movepool did have two genuinely appealing options- Swords Dance and Baton Pass. That said, it couldn't threaten Skarmory, Suicune or Steelix at all, causing them to easily switch in on it, use Whirlwind or Roar, and remove any Swords Dance boosts it had accumulated. Scizor wasn't as vulnerable to being phazed out by Raikou, since a Swords Dance boosted Hidden Power Bug or Silver Wind would hurt a lot, but its advantages over the competition end there.

It was ultimately outclassed on Baton Pass chains by the likes of Jolteon and Ariados, who had ways around being phazed and could more reliably get off Baton Pass.

Answer: Swarm

Swarm boosts the user's Bug type moves when they reach 25% HP or lower. This ability has situational merit, and can make a Swords Dance boosted Scizor quite powerful, but it's not consistently useful, and thus, does not seriously move the needle for Scizor.

Sadly, Scizor is still not the strongest Pokemon around. It did not receive the 3.41% usage statistics required to be OverUsed by usage statistics. As it was banned from UU play, it would reside on UnderUsed's Banned List for the third generation. Unfortunately, its movepool was still paltry, not affording it many useful options. It would try out a Double Dance set featuring Swords Dance, Agility, Silver Wind and the user's choice of Steel Wing or Hidden Power Rock. While not totally pathetic, it was usually outclassed as a sweeper by the likes of Tyranitar and Salamence, who had bigger movepools and better offensive typings to work with.

Answer: Strong priority move

Bullet Punch would become a staple on Scizor sets for many years to come, giving Scizor an excellent STAB move that had plenty of offensive utility. U-Turn was also another fine move, both strong and offering utility of pivoting a teammate in for free. Scizor also gained access to Pursuit, letting it trap Pokemon it forced out, including dangerous threats like Latios, Latias, Gengar and Alakazam. Scizor also finally gained a Fighting type coverage move in Superpower, enabling it to actually threaten Steel types, including Skarmory to an extent. Combined with its new ability, all of which complemented its excellent stats, Scizor finally became the top tier threat it had always had the potential to become.

Answer: Technician

Technician boosts the base power of moves with 60 or less power by 1.5 times its original power. This gives Bullet Punch and Pursuit a nifty boost that makes them far more threatening, and considering Scizor sets always used the former to a deadly degree, the synergy should be fairly obvious.

Answer: Ten

Scizor was immune to Poison, resisted Bug, Steel, Dark, Dragon, Ghost, Ice, Normal, Psychic, and had a 4x resistance to Grass. This meant it could generally afford to switch in to moves with these typings at least once, courtesy of its solid 70/100/80 bulk. If running Roost and perhaps a bulky EV spread, Scizor could even afford to switch into these types of attacks more often- just be careful of Fire type attacks, which hit for 4x super effective damage, and usually OHKO!

Answer: The Red Menace

The Red Menace would be a tough test for teams of all archetypes, as it boasted the raw strength to heavily damage defensive teams, while also having extremely strong priority to help deal with offensive teams. Technician and Choice Band boosted Bullet Punches would practically always at least 2HKO anything that didn't resist it, making them hard to deal with!

Answer: Technician

The exact same ability as base Scizor does, Mega Scizor was quite clearly just a massive upgrade, thanks to getting vastly superior stats across the board. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Answer: Defense

While Mega Scizor's Special Defense gained a nifty bonus from 80 to 100, its Defense leaped from 100 to 140. As a point of reference, Mega Scizor had 5 more base HP than Skarmory while matching its Defense stat, and having a massive Base 150 Attack stat to work with. Pretty scary, huh? These excellent stat boosts served to keep Mega Scizor near the top tier of standard play.

Answer: Yes

Mega Scizor actually has quite a few consistent counters, as well as Pokemon who can situationally counter it. Skarmory and Toxapex consistently counter all Scizor sets, able to endlessly take hits from them while tossing entry hazards in its face and, in the case of the latter, able to fearlessly try to burn Mega Scizor with Scald.

Zapdos is also a sturdy counter, resisting both of Mega Scizor's STAB moves along with Superpower, and not taking a whole lot of damage from Knock Off or Quick Attack. While Zapdos would be hindered by losing its Leftovers to Knock Off, it could easily Defog away entry hazards in Mega Scizor's face, then 2HKO it at worst with Heat Wave.

Magnezone is close to being a counter, but it cannot reliably switch in to Superpower and win. It can switch in on any other move, stop Mega Scizor from manually switching out thanks to Magnet Pull, and generally OHKO with Hidden Power Fire.

Heatran can also easily defeat Mega Scizor one-on-one, as it destroys Mega Scizor with any Fire STAB move, while 4x resisting both of Mega Scizor's STABs. However, like Magnezone, there would be complications if Heatran caught a Superpower as it switched in. It also cannot stop Mega Scizor from manually switching out, though it can do an excellent job of punishing the switch in very hard most of the time.

While Mega Scizor has a rather large list of counters, it should be noted that the trainer can predict these switch-ins, use U-Turn, and bring in a check to all of them. Heatran can be trapped and removed by Dugtrio, while Shed Shell-less Skarmory could suffer a similar fate at the hands of an allied Magnezone. Shed Shell can even be removed by a timely Knock Off, making Skarmory extremely vulnerable to Magnezone for the rest of the game. Because of this, simply switching a counter in on Mega Scizor without thought can backfire- think a little more carefully.

Answer: Xerneas

The Primals would both defeat Mega Scizor one-on-one fairly easily. Kyogre would take good damage from U-Turn and wasn't the best switch in. Primal Groudon, however, resisted both of Mega Scizor's STABs, had very high Defense to easily take any other move, and could destroy it with a Fire type move, or respond by boosting with Swords Dance, Rock Polish, or setting Stealth Rock. This made Primal Groudon into a Mega Scizor counter, which was a troubling relationship to have with the best Pokemon in the tier by a mile.

Xerneas, however, had to be careful in the presence of a Mega Scizor. Unboosted Bullet Punch easily 2HKOed, while a Swords Dance boosted Bullet Punch just about always OHKOed. Mega Scizor resisted Moonblast, and could take any coverage move apart from Hidden Power Fire reasonably well. However, the key ingredient for Mega Scizor to distance itself from other Xerneas checks was access to instant, reliable recovery in Roost, letting it switch in on Xerneas without Hidden Power Fire quite frequently. Even HP Fire variants could be revenge killed by Bullet Punch. This meant that sweeping with a Geomancy Xerneas against teams featuring Mega Scizor would be incredibly difficult, giving Mega Scizor a solid niche as a Pokemon who stopped this volatile Fairy legendary from cleanly winning the game on its own.