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Pojo's Pokemon Card of the Day

 

Shiftry Lv. 55

Rising Rivals

Date Reviewed: 06.11.09

Ratings & Reviews Summary

Modified: 2.90
Limited: 2.75

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being the worst. 
3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating.

Back to the main COTD Page

Jigglypuff13

6/11 Shiftry Lv.55 (RR)

Hello, welcome to Thursday's COTD, and today, we have a Pokémon that, shock, isn't an SP Pokémon! No, it's the new Shiftry, as you may already have been able to guess. It's received a fair bit of hype, and, as you'll be able to find out, it deserved it for it's Poké-Body, but does that mean it's any good? Well, I'll talk about that later. First of, it's the basics of the card. 130 HP on a Stage 2 Pokémon is roughly average, but I wouldn't really expect any more, since Shiftry is normally quite a fragile card (I think). +30 Weakness to Fire may seem strange on a Dark Pokémon, until you remember that it's also part Grass in the games, then it makes more sense. Oh, and apart from against the odd Infernape 4 Lv.X (RR) deck, it won't really be a problem. -20 Psychic Resistance is standard on a Dark Pokémon, and good since, as always, there are plenty of popular Psychic attackers around. 1 Retreat Cost is better than average for a Stage 2, but if you want to reduce it, you could always use Moonlight Stadium.

Abilities now, and time for the frankly ground breaking Poké-Body, Unlucky Wind. Whilst Shiftry if you active Pokémon, all coins flips your opponent has to make during their turn tails. This sounds brilliant, and you now want to find a way of breaking the cards, and you don't care how. However, you have to remember about the subtle words that are used in the Poké-Body. First, active, and second, opponents turn. I've seen a lot of people want to make a Sleep lock deck with this card, or auto-KO deck with Darkrai Lv.X (GE), and both of those words stop it completely. Still, it can make a nice Confusion lock sort of deck.
Still, you really need a good attack on this card to inflict Confusion to make the lock work, and this card has it. Conform, for DC, does 40. Not a brilliant start, but Special Darks boost the damage output if need be. However, it's the effect that makes it great. If you have the same number of cards in your hand as your opponent, the Defending Pokémon is automatically Confused. OK, sounds a little situational, but there are ways of making it happen, and then, your opponent has to Retreat, or take Confusion damage. Evil, and brilliantly simple.
So, what will you do if you've already Confused the Defending Pokémon then? Well, for DCC, Shiftry has another attack in the form of the 60 damage Seal Off. Again, 60 is quite low, but again, Special Darks can be used to increase the damage. Anyway, it has the nice effect of stopping the Defending Pokémon from using any Poké-Powers or Bodies during your opponents next turn. It's nice enough, and while there are a lot of Pokémon with a Poké-Power or Body, the turning off part will not always cause as much disruption as you may like or think it will. Still, it can be useful.

As I've already hinted upon, the main combo for this card is to make a Confusion lock. Of course, the easiest way is to use Conform. To make the effect easier to happen, TGW, Looker's, Giratina (PL Let Loose), and even the standard Claydol's (GE) and Uxie's (LA) can be used to equalise the hand sizes. Of course, it may mean you end up with a card in your hand that you'd like to use, but can't, but that's one of the hazards of using such a card. However, the thing about Confusion is that it's very easy to get out of, simply Retreating will do. To encourage your opponent to keep their Confused active, er, active, you could use cards like Ariados (MT) and Dugtrio (PL) to increase the Retreat Cost of your opponents Pokémon, or for their active to take damage when they Retreat. Memory Berry is also nice so Shiftry can use the RR's Nuzleaf attack, Blind, which is a Smokescreen kind of attack. Basically, it means your opponent can't attack every time to you use Blind, which is a great stalling tactic for until you get Conform powered up, or a good bench set-up.

Counters, and there are many surprisingly simple ones. First up, it's the obvious Dialga G Lv.X (PL), who shuts off the brilliant Unlucky Wind. Stopping that makes Shiftry next to useless, so is really the best counter. However, if you deck can't afford to run a 1-1 Dialga G Lv.X line, there are simple alternatives. First up, there's the surprisingly simple Switch or Warp Point. Gets your Confused Pokémon back to the bench, breaking the lock. Brilliant, especially when you consider most decks will run at least 1 or 2 of them anyway. Other ways include, but are not limited to, giving your Pokémon free Retreat Cost (such as with Flygon (RR)), or have Poké-Powers that Switch, like with Palkia Lv.X (GE).

Ratings:

Modified: I love this card. Unlucky Wind is great, no denying that, and it can create a brilliant lock thanks to Confusion. However, it's Confusion inducing attack is a little unreliable, and it's second attack doesn't really help at all. Also, it would be so much better if it wasn't so easy to get out of. I'm just annoyed I can't really give it a higher mark. 2.75/5

Limited: OK, there are less ways of getting out of such a lock here, but there are also less flips that your opponent will actually care about (apart from Confusion flips), so unless you Confuse your opponents active, I doubt anyone could care less about Unlucky Wind. Seal Off is better, not because turning off Poké-Powers/Bodies is that much better here, but simply because it's more likely to actually KO something. 3/5

Baby Mario
Top 4 UK Nats

Shiftry

 

Shiftry is a REALLY interesting Pokémon which could be used in some nasty decks.

 

The PokeBody, Unlucky Wind, makes any coin flip your opponent makes during their turn tails. Please note that this does not work for flips your opponent makes on YOUR turn (like with Dialga LV X GE’s Time Skip) or BETWEEN turns (for Burn damage and Sleep). So what does it affect? Well, obviously it prevents the effects of attacks that need a coin flip to succeed (like Paralysis on Drapion SF’s Scorpion Grapple), and it also stops Pokémon Powers that need to flip heads to work (like Garchomp LV X’s Dragon Pulse), and flippy attacks like Machamp’s Hurricane Punch. Probably the most important, though, are flips for Confusion. A Confused Pokémon that is faced by Shiftry will not be able to attack (it will just damage itself), and has no choice but to retreat.

 

By a strange coincidence, Shiftry has an attack that inflicts Confusion if you and your opponent have the same number of cards. There are ways of managing this, such as Lookers Investigation and Claydol, so it shouldn’t be too difficult. The second attack, Seal Off, is like a weakened version of Gardevoir SW’s Psychic Lock: 60 damage and the Defending Pokémon cannot use PokePowers and PokeBodies on the next turn. Unfortunately, the effect is cleared if the Pokémon retreats to the bench.

 

So, with a reliable way to Confuse the opponent’s Pokémon, Shiftry could do some damage (Gengar GL and Bronzong SF come to mind as they don’t need coin flips). Beware, though: Shiftry’s Body is shut down by Dialga G LV X. This fact, together with its relatively low damage output (for a Stage 2) and Confusion not being the greatest of status effects, means that Shiftry probably isn’t going to be a top tier deck unless someone can really find a way to make the most out of its interesting Body and attacks.

 

Rating

 

Modified: 3 (interesting, but just falls short)

Limited: 1.5 (a Stage 2 with low damage output? Blah)

 

Steel_Winger

Welcome back to the Pokemon COTD!

 

As I'm sure most of you are aware, we are going to stay with the DP-On format for another year! I think it's a great move by the people at POP, and a big relief for those worried about Claydol (GE), Sceptile (SW), and Weavile (SW) being rotated out, amongst countless other cards.

 

Now, let's get on with the review.

 

Shiftry is a Stage 2 Dark-type with an above average HP of 130. It also has a +30 Weakness to Fire-type Pokemon. Infernape 4 LV. X (RR), a somewhat damaged Arcanine (RR), and Houndoom (LA) can OHKO this guy in one hit, so watch out for them. A -20 Resistance is good. Gallade 4 can't cut as deep, and the Toxitank combo will lose a bit of its effectiveness. Finally, a Retreat Cost of 1, pretty average, really.

 

Shiftry has a Poke-Body: Unlucky Wind treats any coin flip results as tails duing your opponent's turn for as long as Shiftry is active. Not many people play with cards that require flips, but there are some noteworthy ones such as Houndoom (LA), Life Herb, Time-Space Distortion (MT), Pokemon Contest Hall (RR) and Drapion LV. X (PT). It's not bad, but in hardcore compertitive play it won't see much use.

 

Shiftry has 2 attacks. Firs off, for a Dark energy and another Energy of choice, Conform deals an average 40 damage, and if both players have the same amount of cards in hand, the Defending Pokemon is Confused.  To me, it's not as good of an attack as it seems. For one, pepole can simply switch with Warp Point and the like to retreat a Confused Pokemon. And SP Pokemon can use Poke Turn.

 

The second attack, Seal Off, is a great attack for 3 Energies, one which muct be a Dark Energy. It deals an average 60 damage, but the Pokemon that's hit by it can't use it's Powers or Bodies on your opponent's next turn.Try hitting a Claydol with this attack, and watch your opponent despair as he or she can't cycle through the deck for one turn. It also cripples quite a few Pokemon, such as Porygon2, Houndoom, or almost anyone else that doesn't have a one-shot Power.

 

Ratings:

 

Modified: 3/5 Shiftry isn't a bad card to use, I feel. There's not much buzz about him at the moment thanks to the SP Pokemon, but that could change.

Limited: 3.75/5 If you pull the whole set in Limited, like I did, then you're going to use it. Seal Off counters Mamoswine GL and the ever-popular Flygon.

 

This is Steel_Winger, until next time! 


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