Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Anyone else eyeing the new Shiftry?

M

Mewtral

New Member
Preparation:
Shiftry – Darkness – HP130
Stage 2 – Evolves from Nuzleaf

Ability: Giant Fan
You can use this Ability 1 time when you play this card from your hand to Evolve a Pokemon. Flip a coin, if heads choose 1 of your opponent’s Pokemon. Return that Pokemon and all cards attached to it to your opponent’s deck, then shuffle the deck.

[D][D][C] Whirlwind: 60 damage. Switch your opponent’s Active Pokemon with 1 of his or her Benched Pokemon. (Your opponent chooses the Pokemon to bring Active.)

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
Resistance: Psychic (-20)
Retreat: 1


The ability really excites me. (My focus). Thinking that Seeker + Driftblim's Take Away attack + Giant Fan could spell disaster! (oh and ditto if needed.) Because the combo could take away 2-4 in a single turn if played right!

Or What about partnering up with Weavile, who already bites the opponents hand. Weavile can't take out heavy health points, but Seekers with Giant Fan would really hurt the opponent!



... It looks like a straight up Shiftry deck could even be strong. Potentially moving a Vileplumes trainer lock, or Stoping that energy accelerated Embroar, etc etc. And with Catcher, I think I just might faint.

Yeah yeah, it's flippy, but the gamble is to great not to play, eh?
Also Twins Engine would work here. Just sayin
 
It's a great ability (particularly with Fliptini), but everything else about this card is terrible, and it's difficult to just view it as a potential tech since it's a stage 2, unfortunately. So for now, I don't see it doing much.
 
Fliptini is for attacks, not abilities.

Sounds fun in theory, but any deck based on flips is destined to fail....unless, of course, you can abuse Fliptini....
 
chrataxe said:
Fliptini is for attacks, not abilities.

Sounds fun in theory, but any deck based on flips is destined to fail....unless, of course, you can abuse Fliptini....
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Ah ok.

Well, that's kinda the nail in the coffin for me, then. I really don't think this card works. Sure, if it's attacks were good then I'd be interested, but it's not, so. . . yeah.
 
I don't think this'll work on the basis that it relies on you having to have evolved him on the same turn, meaning each Shiftry put in play has one shot to do it. If you fail it, then he's just a useless Stage 2. If, perhaps, Shiftry did not require that coin flip, then yes, he would be pretty awesome, if not somewhat broken as some sort of monstrous Dusknoir redux tech.
 
I wish, but I don't see it. You need them to have at most 2 Benched Pokemon (Seeker, Power) and then the Active with Drifblm. I don't see that happening too often. Game Over won guaranteed if it flipped double heads and had the setup. Oh how I loved that deck... Your opponents face...Priceless

Which is why I kinda have to at least TRY to make Shiftry work, though I think its useless...
 
I dunno if benching your opponent out would be a successful strategy this format.. you can't clear a field of 6 as quickly as you could last format. Even if you get rid of 2 - 4 Pokemon, it's likely your opponent would be able to rebench them before you can get rid of another 2 - 4. Clearing your opponent's field so much can help them bench Pachi/Shaymin/etc too.

I think you hit Shiftry's coolest feature though... the ability to get rid of Vileplume without even attacking. It also appears to have a favorable match-up with Gothitelle.. resistance, getting rid of a stage 2, breaking the lock, etc. IMO in a match-up like that you would be able to win on prizes instead of benching them out.
 
The first translation didnt have the coinflip, looked interesting. With Coinflip its just another binder card :(
 
I don't really see how this strategy was broken before the coin flip.

Opponent has 6 pokemon
Ditto = 1
Seeker = 1
Drifblim = 1

That's still 3 left. What are you going to do? Evolve three shiftry in the same? Good luck with catcher. Maybe it could work, but I'm not sure it would be broken with how difficult it would be to pull off.

Now as a tech before that, yeah it's pretty good. Without the coin flip you could wreck havoc with disruption, maybe even something like gengar prime. With the coinflip, I'm just not sure it's worth it.
 
It's not about th number of Pokemon returned, it's about the quality. How many of those 6 Pokemon you think would be fully charged and ready to runt hrough you? How many are evolved Pokemon? With a 1 turn RC wait and no BTS, it'd be enough to clear an emboar. And the Pokemon go into the DECK. You have to research them, can't re-search an rare candies you used, and it messes with the 2 fossil pokemon badly as well.

But seriosuly. You drop Pachi/Sahymin/Zekroma nd Ko something. Your Zekrom gets re-decked. Now you need access to another Pachi and Shaymin and to get Zekrom back. And that's in one of the fastest decks int he format.

It's a good card. The format probably won't let it shine.
 
Shino Bug Master said:
It's not about th number of Pokemon returned, it's about the quality. How many of those 6 Pokemon you think would be fully charged and ready to run through you? .
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Yes, but keep in mind, if you're investing allot of your resources into dropping multiple shifty, ditto, seeker, and drifblim, what are you really going to be attacking with? The next question I have, is if it's really worth the investment? Don't get me wrong if it works it definitely is, the ability to immediately remove a pokemon from the field is huge. My problem is you could get seadot, rare candy, shiftry, and nothing. Right there that's allot of work for a whole lot of nothing. I'm just not sure it's worth it, especially since shiftry's attack is terrible. I'm not saying it's a bad card, don't get me wrong, but the flippyness of it would definitely have me worried.
 
I never implied one should be puttign effort into Driflbim Ditto and Seeker. I just said Shiftry's ability to put away good Pokemon is good. Play it in Reshiboar/ReshiPlosion. In the mirror, you can up and steal their Emboars/Typhlosions then overpower them with Reshiram. Or remove a benched Vileplume to free yourself from trainer lock in a deck that needs trainers. I think its even a viable tech card, since its got enough HP to survive at least 1 attack. And fi they need to Catcher + PP it, then they are wasting resources on a tech that's already had a 50/50 shot at changing the gamestate drastically. It reminds me of Dusknoir DP more than anything, and that was a GREAT card. Albiet it no flip, but it needed a lot of benched Pokemon.
 
And then you have to consider that you're running what 2-1-2 shiftry? That's 5 less cards you have in your build then your opponent, and you're that much more inconsistent. I'm sorry, but adding 5 cards for a 50/50 chance at disrupting my opponent a bit just doesn't seem completely worth it. Maybe in a deck focused more around disruption, but it's going to hurt your consistency any time you add in a stage 2 line to your deck, and when it comes to bigger tournaments like regionals, and nationals, you're going to have to buckle down on consistency more than anything else.

Not to say this is bad, but the when you have to spend a minimum of 5 cards, take the time away from setting up another typhlosion to get a shiftry out, and then flip tails I just don't see how this could be worth.
 
SuperWooper said:
Remember how good Dusknoir DP was? This card is better - on a flip.

It may see some competitive play.
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That was when we had an un-nerf'd rare candy, and no Catcher. Both of those make a big difference. Also, a flip is really not something you want to base a deck on right now, for sure.
 
If the card was a stage 1 or didn't need a coin flip, then it would see serious play. ATM it's just binder material.
 
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