One of the few decks I have been playing with includes one that centers around my all time favorite, Shiftry! When Shiftry first came out, I think everybody tried to look for ways to abuse it’s power and well, make a good deck out of it.
Sadly, the fact that the power only works DURING your opponent’s turn is a big downfall. No auto burn? :S His power “Unlucky Wind” states, As long as Shiftry is your active Pokemon, whenever your opponent flips a coin during his or her turn, treat it as tails. This means, no Pokeballs for your opponent; a bummer considering the article describing how it might be better than Dusk/Quick ball.
Shiftry has two main attack. One being “Conform” for DC. It does a not too shabby 40 damage and possible confusion if your opponent has the same amount of cards in their hands as you do. This can be raised from Special Darkness Energies. As you may have already realized, Confusion would mean no attacking for your opponent’s Defending Pokemon unless they manage to retreat or switch.
His second attack is “Seal Off” that does 60 for DCC.When used, the Defending Pokemon cannot use any Poke-Power or Poke-bodies during their next turn. It has limited use, but it is extra damage and it can be useful. Sometimes.
As for its basic frame, it has a not so spectacular 130 HP for a Stage 2, 1 retreat cost. +30 to fire, -20 to psychic. If I had to choose the average stats for a Stage 2 Pokemon, I don’t think this can fit any better. Although +30 to fire can hurt as Infernape 4 LV.X can OHKO this. Resistance is always welcome, and Psychic is super nice.
I do know that this is a deck analysis, so it is time to talk about the strategy with this deck. (Blame Soul on the long analysis since I tried to format my article towards his.)
Your main attacker will be Shiftry (obviously). Do your best to match your hand with your opponents with Claydol’s “Cosmic Power”, Looker’s Investigation, or even Cynthia’s feelings. Next use “Conform” to confuse your opponent and now they can’t attack. Simple, right?
Well, of course they can retreat! This is where Ariados MT comes in. It’s Poke-Body, “Sticky”, adds 1 retreat cost to all Pokemon, excluding Ariados. If you can get around 2 in play, then retreating will be a heavy cost for any Pokemon not under the influence of Flygon’s power “Rainbow Float”.
Claydol is there for draw support. Bench Shield could be added in to protect it. If you wanted to do so, – 1 Memory Berry for it. Sableye is a good starter in this deck and you may even get a lucky donk. Spiritomb is a tech that will always be useful with “Keystone Seal” to shut of trainers. It also has an attack to evolve your Pokemon.
As for my favorite, Speed Stadium no longer helps your opponent out. :)
Finally, to point out a major weakness to this deck, it is the Dreaded Dialga G LV.X. Shutting down powers means, well the whole deck isn’t working properly. Although, Shiftry can still do a mean 80 damage with Expert Belt, or even 110 with 3 Special Darkness Energy and Expert Belt so it is by no means a helpless Pokemon.
While Flygon may prove to be troublesome with it’s Rainbow Float, it is normally the main attacker of the deck so Flygon itself won’t have free retreat. Mind you, they will run out of Poke Turns or Warp Points eventually and there are plenty more Shiftry to come.
I hope this article will help Shiftry see a little bit more play. (It is close to nothing at the moment.) This is a deck list that I made.
|
Pokemon: 24 4 Seedot RR 78 3 Nuzleaf RR 75 4 Shiftry RR 13 3 Spinarak MT 103 3 Ariados MT 20 2 Baltoy GE 60 2 Claydol GE 15 2 Sableye SF 48 1 Spiritomb AR 32 |
Trainers: 25 Trainers: 8 4 Rare Candy 1 Time-Space Distortion 2 Warp Point 1 Luxury Ball Supporters: 11 4 Bebe’s Search 1 Palmer’s Contribution 4 Roseanne’s Research 2 Cynthia’s Feelings Pokemon Tools: 3 2 Memory Berry 1 Expert Belt Stadiums: 3 3 Speed Stadium |
Energy: 11 3 Call Energy 4 Darkness Energy 3 Special Darkness Energy 1 Warp Energy |
