Swords Dance Scizor

[vaderaven]

[Set]
Scizor @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 72 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 180 Spe
Tera Type: Fire
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- Close Combat
- Knock Off

Swords Dance Scizor is a potent late game set-up sweeper and revenge killer. Scizor may come in to revenge kill fast threats like Iron Valiant with its STAB Technician boosted priority move, Bullet Punch. Alternatively, it can set-up with Swords Dance against bulkier foes which may lead to a potential sweep. Knock Off allows Scizor to cripple opposing pokemon for its teammates by removing key items such as Heavy Duty Boots or Leftovers, which can clear the way for its teammates to clean up. This also allows Scizor to hit a notable check in Gholdengo and Ghost types in General. Close Combat is Fighting-type coverage that allows Scizor to hit Steel and Dark types which resist Bullet Punch and Knock Off, respectively. Swords Dance boosts its offences to the next level and allows Scizor to be an actual offensive threat. Additionally, its superb tying along with a somewhat usable defensive spread allows it to be able to live a lot of hits and be able to switch in and set up Swords Dance on pokemon like Iron Valiant. 72 HP EV’s allow it to live Kingambit’s Supreme Overlord 5 Allies Fainted Kowtow Cleave, allowing it to kill Kingambit in return with Close Combat. 180 Speed allows it to outspeed certain variants of Kingambit and Heatran, allowing it to move first, and hit them with a Super Effective Close Combat. Tera Fire turns its only weakness into a resist and makes it immune from burn. Life Orb helps maximise its damage output because its reduced longevity due to being susceptible to hazards does not allow it to sit for long anyways.

This set best fits on hyper-offensive teams that benefit from Scizor’s late game sweeping and its ability to revenge kill faster, weakened threats. It has the potential to sweep teams as well, if the opponent does not have the necessary checks to counter it. Generally, hazard support is crucial for Scizor’s success at Stealth Rock’s chip damage can greatly help the number of matchups that Scizor can win. Life Orb Scizor is also particularly susceptible to hazards, therefore it could appreciate hazard removal on its team. One such teammate may include Great Tusk - who benefits from Scizor’s ability to kill Fairy typed pokemon, can help remove hazards, provides great utility as a secondary Knock Off user to further help Scizor beat Rocky Helmet pokemon, and it beats Gholdengo, one of Scizor’s best counters. Rocky Helmet pokemon like Skarmory and Corviknight are often hard for Life Orb Scizor to beat, therefore Scizor appreciates help beating these pokemon, with the likes of Raging Bolt, Cinderace, etc. Scizor is also generally weak to Fire-type coverage, so having teammates who can switch in to take the Fire-type movies are ideal. Cinderace is one such example, who not only resists Fire-type attacks, but is also a Will O’ Wisp absorber and has a pivoting move to get Scizor in safely. Generally, Scizor does not appreciate Water types like Ogerpon-Wellspring either, so teammates like Raging Bolt could help remove these checks. Generally pokemon like Gholdengo and Ogerpon-Wellspring could switch into Scizor relatively safely, which makes them great opportunities to switch in other sweeping threats like Roaring Moon, Gouging Fire, and Kyurem.

 

[kd458]

Hi, unfortunately we are going to have to QC reject this analysis, due to lack of metagame knowledge and a general lack of clarity / correct formatting. Just going to cover a few things where this isn't really indicative of Scizor's place in OU, or isn't really up to scratch in terms of providing a description of what Scizor does.

• Close Combat doesn't need to be described as a Fighting-type move that hits Dark- and Steel- types; instead, what does CC hit in the OU tier?
• The current Swords Dance description is unnecessary, and the typing & spread section of this doesn't really provide anything to the analysis.
• Scizor already lives that hit from Kingambit without any bulk investment.
• Outspeeding "certain variants of" something doesn't really make much sense or have much relevance, we don't EV to speed creep non-zero or non-max spreads, and 210 Speed Heatran / Kingambit does not exist. (Speed tier on this set needs changing in general tbh) Also, it doesn't need to be explained that Close Combat is super effective against these Pokemon, that's just dex info.
• What is Scizor clicking Tera Fire against, and what clicks Will-O-Wisp in OU right now?
• The Life Orb sentence doesn't really make sense or have any relevance, Scizor does care about its bulk as a (relatively) bulky attacker that doesn't usually go down in one hit.
• "Stealth Rock can help the number of matchups Scizor can win" can kinda just be said about any Pokemon in the game, is there anything in particular that this does?
• Scizor isn't super hazard weak but removal is definitely nice paired with it - Cinderace isn't typically seen on HO though, particularly not paired with entry hazard setters as were described as being good partners before. Also, Cinderace cannot switch in on Fire-types for Scizor as pretty much every Fire-type in OU beats Cinderace 1v1, particularly if Ace is trying to switch in on them.
• Skarm and Corv are good Scizor checks, but both can lose 1v1 if Scizor SDs on the switch - it's more important to talk about things that could enjoy Scizor removing these targets, having things like Bolt that can take advantage of them too is good but yeah.
• Ogerpon-Wellspring takes 80% from unboosted CC and most likely dies to the follow-up BP, it is a check but not really a massive obstacle for Scizor and it's not a switch in at all.
• No bulk Gholdengo gets OHKOed by Knock Off on the switch, and bulky Ghold is still a poor Scizor switch-in as it can't OHKO Sciz and dies next turn if the Sciz clicked SD. It's not really a switch-in and it's definitely not one of Scizor's best counters.

Apologies and thank you for your time and effort!