How GOOD was Scyther ACTUALLY? - History of Scyther in Competitive Pokemon (Gens 1-7)

Scyther is this week’s Pokemon for our competitive history series! Join False Swipe Gaming in this brief overview of Scyther in competitive Pokemon!

The Official False Swipe Gaming Twitter:

0:00 - Intro
0:54 - RBY/Gen 1
2:02 - GSC/Gen 2
3:26 - ADV/Gen 3
4:49 - DPP/Gen 4
6:50 - BW/Gen 5
8:17 - XY/Gen 6
9:38 - SM/Gen 7
10:28 - Outro

Directed by Kellen

Edited By CDK

VFX Intro By
Ryan Gonzales

Written By
Kevin aka BKC

Sound Designed by
Ryan Gonzales

Game Capture Artist:
Jago

FULL RESEARCH SOURCES HERE:

DISCLAIMERS ON FORMATS COVERED:
Notice I said POPULAR formats, meaning a format where there is a significant amount of people who compete in it for tournaments and so on and so forth. Now Popular does not mean official even though two of the formats I will be covering were official formats being Japan Nintendo Cup and VGC, but it is an indicator of what a good portion of competitive players thought was “optimal” at the time. Also sometimes the Pokemon Battle Historia doesn't provide enough information to talk about certain Pokemon so I add Smogon analysis to make sense of it. This is pretty rare though.

To the people asking why I don't cover Smogon Singles for Gens 1 and 2: It wouldn't really be a history video if I covered those because online Smogon gen 1 meta to my knowledge wasn't actually played until late 2000s. I wanted to cover tournaments/competitive battling that was actually played during the early years of Pokemon (late 90s).

To the people asking why I cover Smogon at all for singles: To my knowledge, Smogon was the most popular format for Gens 3-5 and held a number of tournaments throughout the years. As for Gen 6, I am not covering Battle Spot Singles because there is more information and explanations about sets being used relative to their own meta on Smogon. In other words, there are few written analyses about Battle Spot Pokemon besides the Top tiers and I would like to avoid theorycrafting because it may have a hint of bias (though I theorycraft if I REALLY couldn't find information on a certain Pokemon). The keyword here is explanations. Though I did find statistics of most Pokemon used and most moves used, there wasn't really any explanations on why. Also the few Pokemon I did find analysis of for Top Tier Battle Spot Singles had very similar move sets to the Smogon OU sets anyway.

For the record, I do not care what rules or formats people play their battles by nor am I saying these formats are the only formats that should be played. The way you play Pokemon is between you and your opponent and I will not fault you for using evasion or whatever, I just like examining popular tournament formats.

Songs Used (List of ALL Songs used for this series. Some may or may not make it into the video):

My Twitter:

Resources and Historical References

Smogon University:

Maikiri

Aaron Cybertron Zheng:

Pokeaim

Pokemon Battle Historia:

Nintendo Cup 2000 Team Construction:

Nintendo Cup 2000 Tier List:

Pokemon Japanese Battle Wiki:

Sprites From:

[voltingmaster]

Scythers been blessed with Stab Technician Dual Wingbeat and is carrying Heavy Duty Boots Protecting it from Stealth Rocks.

[sayvionwashington]

Update on Gen 8. They gave it a move called Dual Wingbeat, which with the Technician boost is basically a Brave Bird that hits twice and a 10% chance to miss. Oh and Heavy Duty Boots is cool too.
Edit: Legends gave the Scyther line Close Combat. Scyther fans have been fed this gen.

[drybowserman]

Dual Wingbeat: I’m about to start this mantis’ career.

[Epzilon]

Dual Wingbeat is a hell of a drug, welcome back Scyther.

[federicopalacios]

Scyther still can be happy knowing it is the equivalent of an Uber Legendary for Litlle Cup, since its stats are just too gigantic for the tier.

[nikohoshikuzu]

I've always loved how Scyther sounds in the anime. SCY

[BlargMuffins]

Honestly after watching a lot of these video's underused sounds exponentially more interesting than overused.

[seanoodles]

I love how Heavy-Duty Boots and Dual Wingbeat have made Scyther amazing in Gen8 now. Jumped back in to UU.

[gengarzilla]

And now it's got a base 40 physical Flying move that hits twice. Scyther's only just returned to the competitive scene and it's already been banned from NU.

[aminadabbrulle]

Complete FSG evaluation so far:
1. Charizard - pretty decent
2. Venusaur - consistently good
3. Unown - I don't know, who cares
4. Blastoise - very, very mediocre
5. Dragonite - incredible
6. Starmie - great
7. Snorlax - edge early on, but later dropped off
8. Gengar - phenomenal
9. Alakazam - great start, but later pushed down
10. Gyarados - pretty good
11. Chansey/Blissey - one of the best Pokemon
12. Machamp - decent
13. Arcanine - wasn't a bad Pokemon, wasn't a top threat
14. Lapras - not that good
15. Articuno - even more not that good
16. Zapdos - pretty damn good
17. Moltres - better than I expected
18. Tauros - it were rough two decades for him
19. Aerodactyl - decent
20. Nidoking - pretty good
21. Scizor - great
22. Tyranitar - was and is amazing
23. Rhydon/Rhyperior - decent, at least for a bit
24. Shuckle - bad, until maybe gen six
25. Heracross - honestly, it was pretty good
26. Smeargle – pretty good
27. Skarmory - amazing, in singles
28. Golbat/Crobat - OK
29. Slowbro - pretty good
30. Wigglytuff - outclassed
31. Porygon/Porygon2 - Porygon sucked, but Porygon2 was pretty good
32. Porygon-Z - OK
33. Seadra/Kingdra - hard to say, OK, I guess? Seadra just kinda sucked, really
34. Onix/Steelix - Onix was outclassed, Steelix started out well, but never really got anything
35. Azumarill - certainly wasn't a Pokegod, but once it got its combination, it was terryfying
36. Magneton/Magnezone - pretty good, especially after evolving
37. Sneasel/Weavile - Sneasel was pretty bad, but Weavile was pretty good
38. Poliwrath - not great
39. Espeon - hard to say, potentially one of the strongest non-uber Pokemon
40. Umbreon - pretty decent
41. Ampharos - wasn't that good
42. Cloyster - pretty damn good
43. Houndoom - a little underwhelming
44. Togetic/Togekiss - Togetic f**king sucked, but Togekiss was pretty damn good
45. Pikachu - pretty bad
46. Raichu - pretty bad
47. Breloom - pretty amazing, to be honest
48. Garchomp - in a word, amazing
49. Gardevoir - up and down
50. Gligar/Gliscor - Gligar wasn't great, but Gliscor was awesome
51. Feraligatr - it depends, kinda well, not great, but certainly not atrocious
52. Typhlosion - not great
53. Quagsire - man, I don't f**king know
54. Meganium - sucks
55. Dunsparce - sucked
56. Donphan - pretty dang average
57. Jolteon - for most of its life, really good
58. Vaporeon - pretty good
59. Flareon - sucked and still sucks
60. Metagross - incredible
61. Salamence - amazing
62. Swampert - good
63. Blaziken - probably best starter of all time... for now
64. Wobbuffet - hard to say
65. Sceptile - pretty below average
66. Clefable - dramatically shifting its whole life, nowadays strong placement
67. Tentacruel - OK, for a while
68. Jumpluff - honestly not very good, but better than you might expect
69. Exeggutor - steepest decline of all covered Pokemon
70. Mewtwo - you're kidding, right?
71. Mew - really good
72. Lucario - really strong
73. Kangaskhan - OK
74. Flygon - never face of the tier, but always important and defining
75. Milotic - proud representative of its kind
76. Dugtrio - once it gain Arena Trap, it become the force
77. Suicune - as good as it is regal
78. Raikou - pretty good
79. Entei - not that good
80. Marowak - had a bone or two to pick
81. Ninetales - not very good at all
82. Gallade – pretty decent
83. Tangela/Tangrowth – Tangela was among the most forgettable Pokemon, but once it evolved, it become the damn important pick
84. Electabuzz/Electivire – for the most part, quite bad
85. Magmar/Magmortar – not good, like, ever
86. Misdreavus/Mismagius - OK
87. Pidgeot – bland, until mega made it viable
88. Persian – sucked after first generation
89. Roselia/Roserade – pre-evo wasn't great, Roserade was
90. Weezing – always decent, at least in the lower tiers
91. Ledian – one of the worst Pokemon of all time
92. Muk – pretty alright
93. Delibird – one of the worst competitive Pokemon in history
94. Piloswine/Mamoswine – Piloswine was underrated, but since it evolved, it become the wrecking ball
95. Froslass – definition of a specialised Pokemon
96. Beedrill – until it got mega, one of the worst Pokemon, but after, one of the most important in UU
97. Celebi – great, great Pokemon
98. Aggron – pretty much on the below average side
99. Lugia – every bit as good and some as in other media
100. Infernape – overall, pretty good
101. Sandslash – went from being decent to despondent
102. Empoleon – pretty great
103. Ho-Oh – pretty good
104. Mawile – for its first three generations, seriously awful, but then become one of the biggest threats around
105. Torterra – wasn't fantastic
106. Golem – not all Pokemon can be amazing, and it is a prime example
107. Shedinja – honestly pretty terrible
108. Rayquaza – only superlatives describe how powerful it was
109. Ditto – may not be the best in the older games
110. Scyther – in the grand scheme of things, awful

[Mswordx]

"Red threw a rock." 4x weak lmao

[mewtationssb]

Wow, I was wondering if this day would ever happen. Glad it did though, Scyther is sick!

[ettfdf]

Remember the times Scyther wasnt banned in LC?
Ah, great times, trying to kill scyther in stadium 2 was ridiculous, it just killed everything.

[SportsFan]

"Sythers decent attack stat"
110- am I a joke to you?

[thundereagle]

The funny thing about Scyther is that it has the same base stat as Scizor. The base stats are only divided differently.

[BlueWolfZero]

Isle of Armor blessed Scyther with Dual Wingbeat.

[asm]

Scyther isn't the best Pokemon, but I've always loved his design, especially how he looked in hgss

[ruben.worthington]

Just wanted to say, I really love your videos, Kellen. I've been watching for over a year now, and seeing this channel grow and mature has been an utter joy. I love each and every one of these break downs, and it's even inspiring me to get into VGC when the next year's format comes around (I'm just training up for now!)

Thanks for putting a smile on this Pokemon lover's face.

[lithonianinja]

I loved using Eviolite Technician Scyther in the ORAS Battle Resort! He reaped so many souls!

[NanaKyoto]

This gives me new appreciation for Scyther.
Even if it did keep falling through the tiers.