Sceptile (Ninja Referee)

[Ninja Dewott]

[OVERVIEW]

• Unburden. A great ability which makes it easy to double your speed. Sceptile, with its excellent offensive stats, makes great use of it
• This set shows that Physical Sceptile, and also the Red Card, are viable
• An unexpected set which can win many games

[SET]
Name: Ninja Referee
Move 1: Swords Dance
Move 2: Leaf Blade
Move 3: Earthquake
Move 4: Rock Slide
Item: Red Card
Nature: Adamant
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 74 HP / 252 Atk / 184 Spd

[SET COMMENTS]

• Swords Dance as your opponent hits you, using up your Red Card, thereby giving you a +2/+2 Sceptile (and possibly bringing out something that can't touch Sceptile, granting you another Swords Dance on the switch) meaning you are ready to sweep with your great coverage moves
• The Given EV spread allows Sceptile, after the unburden boost, to outspeed practically everything in the tier (except other, faster Unburden Sceptiles) even, but by no means limited to, +3 Speed Boost Sharpedo. Blink and you'll miss it.

[Additional Comments]

• Watch out for Honckrow! Unless you're behind screens, this annoying Mafia Bird can revenge kill. It's an option to put the 74 HP EVs into defence to help prevent this
• One other option is to replace Rock Slide with Night Slash, to hit ghosts, but generally, Rock Slide is the better option
• Best used behind double screens, to ensure Sceptile survives the hit which uses up its Red Card
• This set is better than sets that use an Element Gem for the Unburden boost as you either don't have to sacrifice extra coverage for Fake Out or don't have to use a certain move to gain it. You just have to get hit.
• Removing Ghosts prior to attempting a sweep is greatly helpful, as even a +2 Night Slash (should you opt for that) doesn't OHKO most sets, at which point said Ghost can burn you with Will-o-Wisp. Alternatively, setting up plenty of hazards may move those Ghosts into KO range

 

[Komodo]

I don't see the point in this set. The one on site uses Acrobatics with Flying Gem because most of Sceptile's common switch-ins are Bug-types, which it'll hit super effectively. Fire-types also switch into Sceptile, and it won't survive a STAB Fire-type move anytime soon. Sceptile shouldn't really be taking hits, and it's just a pointless item in general. If anything, it's Other Options material.

 

[erisia]

Firstly, this is basically the set online with a different item, which could just be mentioned in AC at best. Second, do you expect Sceptile to take a hit? What's going to happen is either...

1) Sceptile gets destroyed.
2) Sceptile doesn't get hit, and thus the item doesn't see use.
3) Sceptile gets hit and survives, and promptly gets killed by priority.

Either way, this is probably worse than the standard set with a Life Orb or Flying Gem.

 

[PK Gaming]

Yeah i'm afraid i'll have to reject this for the reasons outlined by the above posters. (We already have a set onsite thats identical to this one / this set is bad)

QC REJECTED (1/3)

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Seconding PK (again :p) I don't see the viability of this set.

QC REJECTED 2/3

 

[Ninja Dewott]

Hmmm... Ok. I thought I'd argued my case well enough, but w/e.

Still despite this, it remains one of my favourite sets that I'll keep using in RU.

And you did read the bit about the screens, right? o.0

 

[Upstart]

QC REJECTED (3/3)

 

[Komodo]

You say 'you just have to get hit'. That isn't a good enough arguement, and this set it just bad. Moving.