But is it really that bad?
yes, it really is that bad.
Are there cases where even the lowly Scout shines?
no, there are very, very infrequent edge cases where it is the right buy though
When Scout is Good
basically never, even in the cases you note its still, the vast majority of the time, not even worth it.
The problem with scout is that, even if your deck is 25% green, it's probably still an actively bad card for your deck. In the sorts of alt-vp/vp heavy strategies that, ideally, scout would shine it, it's still basically never going to get you more than 1 and a half cards, and very infrequently even that. Furthermore, if you are playing that green a deck, there is almost certainly a green card you want more than scout. Sure ironworks/greathall/scout might be marginally okay if nothing else is on the board. But a card whose ideal three card combo's are still really meh is not a card that I want. For comparison, compare scout to caravan and apothecary. Note that apothecary increases your likelihood of getting cards WITH value into your hand. It comes with a free can-trip, and you start with 7 of the findable cards, a number of green cards you are unlikely to get until late game. Even with this apothecary isn't an ungodly strong card because of the 2p cost. Also compare to caravan, another 4 cost cantrip which (ideally) increases hand size. Note that you would need a 50% green deck for scout to gain as many cards as caravan. Even in the situations where scout does gain a lot of cards, they tend to be weak cards, victory cards, even on a board with kingdom victory cards, tend to be weaker than your non-victory cards.
