Round-winning clans have some cards with gap-making abilities, and vice versa. The problem for Skeelz is that their bonus forces them to be either a round-winner or a gap-maker, but not both. As a result, they are a clan of strong walls and glass cannons. You know what I mean, anyway.

Also (as Oracle pointed out) a heavy first round investment to beat Greem isn't that ridiculous. When my opponent leads with Greem, I just send in my own heavy hitter and make sure I win. By that, I mean I would probably pill to stop an 8 or 9 pill Greem. Worst case scenario, they have to guess which of the remaining 3 rounds you'll go all out for the win. More often than not, you'll either

a) Beat the high pill Greem and it's essentially game over, or
b) Beat the mid pill Greem, and you're opponent is still left having to guess how you split.

I know this obviously isn't the case every single time, so you don't have be like OMG YOU'RE SO INCREDIBLY WRONG. Just in my experience, it's easier to beat Greem R1 and make Sandro, Sasha etc win their rounds than risk Greem winning and having to beat Sandro, Sasha and co.

It is a problem, however, when you have to lead and don't know if Greem will be in round 1 or 2. If you guess the wrong round, then you're pretty screwed. First round coin toss.

Actually Skeelz characters are pretty simple. Since they only have 1 ability, they are always going to fall under very clear groups:

Low pill wall if they have attack manipulation (Falkenstein, Sasha, Danae, Lorna)
High pill wall if they have power manpulation (Sandro, Chiara, Belgosi, Minerva)
Bomb if they have a damage ability (Greem, Aylen, Jay, Carter, Logan, Snowflake, Zeke, Todd)
Wall/ Bomb if they have pill manipulation or high base power/ damage (Michael, Corvus, Belle, Manfred, Andy Ld, Saho, Caelus Cr)
Negater if they have DR, defeat or SOA (Redra, Deebler, Minerva, Dwan, Liam)

So they can't have a 3* hybrid wall/ bomb like Moses... the closest is Belle. Their low* characters can only be either walls or bombs but not both. That's why while Michael has obvious weaknesses, he is also really good for Skeelz because he fills that bomb/ wall need.

Current Skeelz presets are also pretty simple. You have:
1 negater: Redra (since you don't want to ever draw more than 1 negater, in case you need to win 3)
2 low pill walls: Sasha and Falkenstein
2 high pill walls: Sandro and Chiara

This leaves 11* for 1-2 bombs and 1-2 wall/bombs. You can go 5/4/2, 5/3/3 or 4/4/3.

But the staple Skeelz characters are clearly above curve or topend. Sandro and Chiara compare to Nanook. Sasha is equivalent to 2 +8 abilities. Falkenstein compares to Rowdy, except he has 7 power that you always wanted on Rowdy.

The point is, when I used Greem last week, the reponse was usually 4-6 pills. The characters that Greem couldn't handle were Mona, Nellie, Grudj and Glorg. If I saw people consistently responding to Greem by pilling 7+ pills, I would start to bluff with her more often: thank you for turning Greem into a broken Defeat: -7 opp. pills!. But that didn't happen last week. I never drew such a heavy response. I ended up beating Havoks, Cobys, Avolas, Oxens, Tremorhs, Moses, all sorts of simple -2 power like All Stars, with 4-6 pills. Sometimes I overpilled by 1, sometimes I overpilled by 2, sometimes I didn't overpill and barely won. Sometimes my opponent let me through. But those round wins with Greem all translated into easy match wins for the rest of my team. It amazed me how difficult or impossible it was for opponents to overcome the lead caused by Greem's damage.

Usually winning with Skeelz is very complicated. Sometimes you have to fury or fury twice. But when they have access to Greem, winning with Skeelz is much easier. You no longer have to calculate fury or worry about hitting with the right guy. Greem is arguably the best character unbanned in the current ELO environment. Skeelz is insane when she's not banned, only loses to Montana and Vortex. When you draw her you have an insanely high win%, When you don't draw her, nothing changes because she synergizes simply with all of the core Skeelz characters anyway.

For OVER the past year I've consistently ranked Junkz as the #1 clan in ELO. Probably for over 2 years. Overall is Junkz a better clan than Skeelz? Sure. You know what clan has a good matchup against Junkz? Well Skeelz has a good matchup against Skeelz. How about Roots or GHEIST? Skeelz has a better matchup than Junkz against them. Now that they have two topend low pills walls, their only bad matchups against the other top 10 ELO clans are Montana and Vortex.

Skeelz is good against many of the most valuable abilities in ELO: SOA, SOB, copy bonus. When they have Greem, they also have a good answer for DR and they are near the top of ELO when they have Greem. Even if you spent 8-10 pills to hit with Greem you are in a good position because of how strong Skeelz are defensively. And if your opponents begin to commit 7+ pills to stop Greem, then just adjust and bluff. Either way she's amazing.

Only a TINY handful of 5* characters have SOA or protection: damage. You can still win if Michael gets hit with a DR. Is Michael as good as Wardom or Beeboy? No. But he is a playable 5* choice for Skeelz at their thinnest rank.

Skeelz is not an easy clan to use (unless they have Greem) and you need to be really experienced with their characters to do well with them. I've played Skeelz a lot during the past 2 months and every week I get better and better at using them. If you don't have the experience to use them you aren't seeing them at their full potential.

"When they have Greem"

The point is often they don't. Take out 1 card and they fall apart like a cake without egg.

Pick a clan. In no other clan does the removal of 1 card destroy their entire game plan. (Frozen f

Look. I've never used a character that completely dominated the matches when I drew her the way Greem dominated for me last week. Spyke never dominated like this. Caelus Cr never dominated like this. Askai never dominated like this. Kolos never dominated like this. So I am quite confident in claiming that Greem supported by the right complement of Skeelz is the most OP character in the current ELO environment. When they have access to her, Skeelz are a top tier clan.

Skeelz don't "fall apart" without Greem. They simply lose the freebie wins they get with her. Without Greem, Skeelz is a hard but rewarding clan to use with some good matchups against popular clans. They've gone from a middle clan to an above curve clan. Without Greem they are upper tier 3 along with Montana, Bangers and Roots.

I think it's pointless to keep arguing about whether Skeelz are bad or not, both sides of the argument have been very well presented and supported at this point. Instead, let's all play some Skeelz in the next couple of weeks and let's see how we fare, and share the experiences here. That would be way more productive. I'm still running the Jay/Manfred deck myself, only had time for 2 more games but I feel like I'm getting more comfortable with it.

However, I did have a good think, and it might be possible to build those 3* Moses-like "threats" for Skeelz with a little careful thinking. Going to drop some of those ideas in the card creation threat in the General forums, feel free to take a look at them there.

Skeelz is being seriously underrated here. If you're trying to KO or win less then three rounds you're not playing them well.they have two of the best attack manipulator a in the game in Sasha and Dr. Falkenstien and some of the best manipulators in Minerva, Chiara Cr, Belgosi, Michael, and Sandro. They even have two of the best poisons and heals in Snowflake and Greem. The only thing they lack is damage and SoA. The former isn't a problem as only Pussycats is dangerous with damage reduction and its rather easy to win three rounds with Skeelz. If you win three rounds or even take out their two best cards you're likely to win. SoA isn't too much of a problem because Skeelz aren't affected by versing it so you and your opponent are on even ground that way.

Skeelz also makes copy opponents bonus cards near useless.