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Shiftry / Raichu / Roserade / Swellow

T

T4ketheShot

Aspiring Trainer
Member
So a lot of people run milotic with shiftry to power him up but it doesn't really make any sense to me. shiftry only needs a dce and a grass to attack, it's not worth giving up a prize for that. Plus he's a stage 2, so it's not like you are going to donk with him or something that you need to get the energy on him that fast. Plus you need to wait for you and your opponent to put down some bench before he's even useful anyways. And on top of that, using milotic's ability knocks it out leaving one less bench for deranged dance.

Pokemon: 23

  • 3 x Seedot
    1 x Nuzleaf
    3 x Shiftry
    2 x Pikachu
    2 x Raichu
    3 x Roselia
    3 x Roserade
    2 x Taillow
    2 x Swellow
    1 x Mr.Mime
    1 x Druddigon
Trainers/Supporters/Stadiums: 27

  • 4 x N
    2 x Colress
    1 x Juniper
    3 x Cassius
    1 x Dowsing Machine - ACE SPEC
    1 x Muscle Band
    1 x Silver Bangle
    1 x Startling Megaphone
    1 x Tool Scrapper
    1 x Switch
    3 x Ultra Ball
    4 x Level Ball
    1 x Super Rod
    3 x Rare Candy
Energy: 10

  • 6 x Grass Energy - Basic
    4 x Double Colorless Energy

Strategy:

Roserade takes up bench spaces and is an extremely useful searching card to help you get set up very quickly. Cassius recycles this ability as well as acting as a switch or putting pokemon/energys/tools back in the deck when something gets hurt or I don't need it anymore. With leaf draw, not many supporters are necessary, plus colress usually gives more than enough cards with such a large bench. Because of roselia, I am able to run a lot of tech cards, particulary raichu because yveltal will be the toughest matchup as shiftry needs 3 energy to attack, aswell as silver mirror, and druddigon. Swellow has an extremely useful effect for stalling and getting better prize trades, aswell as taking up yet another bench space. Mr. Mime is there because the deck is very susceptible to spread decks and dusknoir. I think 6 grass is enough because usually I only attach one to shiftry along with a dce, and I run the super rod just in case.

The actual strategy will depend a lot on what you are playing against. Generally getting out shiftry asap is the best option, but if you are playing something like yvetal, maybe go for raichu, dragon go for druddigon, plasma go for mirror, ect. Like I said it's very easy with roserade. Just fill up your bench as fast as you can and colress will make sure you always have tons of cards you probably won't even need to leaf draw usually. As you figure out what you are playing against, discard whatever pokemon you know you won't need. Then just try to get a shiftry in the active with a band or bangle and sweep. I run 1 toolscrapper because sometimes you might want to take off the tool on shiftry and replace it so that you can get the KO.
Sorry for the long post I just wanted to explain the logic behind everything. I have tested it a little but I'm still trying to get a few cards. Please leave any suggestions.
 
RE: Shiftry / Techs

With only 6 card-draw Supporters listed, is your deck able to run "efficiently", in your opinion? Even with Leaf Draw, it seems (to me at least) the time it may take you to "setup" could be quite inconsistenet.

Secondly, without running any Skyla, your deck lacks needed Trainer search capability.

Lastly IMHO, you will need some energy search capability too since you are running a "small" amount of basic energy.

Following are some suggested changes for your consideration:


  • -1 Roselia,
    -1 Roserade. With improved card draw support, this will not be greatly needed, IMHO.
    -1 Cassius. 2 should be sufficient IMHO. (Personally, I'd replace all of the Cassius with Professor Juniper.)
    -1 Silver Mirror. A Plasma deck player can just Scrapper this away before he/she attacks your Poké.
    -1 Colress. This is not a great Supporter to have in your opening/early game hand.

    +1 N
    +2 Professor Juniper
    +1 Professor's Letter
    +1 Skyla
I hope you find these comments helpful.
 
I see what you mean by not many supporters but the deck doesn't really seem to need them. There's a lot of balls to set up and it's a deck that mainly plays the board once you get stuff on the field. Usually, by the end of the game my hand is very large and I don't even need to play the supporters that are left. Also, roserade is sort of a replacement for a lot of them, it is better than skyla since it can search for anything and it's not a supporter. Aswell as powering up the bench for shiftry. Also, if I really need it I can use it to search for a supporter. I agree with you about colress, I have had to play some to draw only 3 or 4 cards before. But juniper discards potentially valuable cards that I would rather keep in my deck and search for them if I need them later. I see what you mean about cassius, I could get rid of one, but then I'd probably just replace it with a switch and since I run so few supporters, I don't mind keeping the cassius because of it's multiple uses.

-1 silver mirror
-1 Colress

+1 Juniper
+1 N
 
Have you really play tested this deck? cause i have play tested Shiftry a bit and it is super slow. Need 1 DCE and 1 Grass while having to get rare candy and Shiftry is quite difficult to do quickly. You may think its no big deal but it is when stuff like lysandre exists. Nothing is safe in the current format with Lysandre, so anything that takes a few turns to set up, is not great. Especially if its an attacker. Support pokemon are okay since generally they won't be targeted down since the attackers will still be around.

Supporters are super important, regardless of how many search cards you have. You can say, well i have tons of balls and stuff to search out my pokemon and what not. But without draw support you may not even draw into them. Lets say you start with a hand that is just pokemon, which is possible with your deck since a 3rd of the deck is nothing but pokemon. You keep drawing into pokemon, pokemon search, cassius or other useless stuff atm. Then you just up and lose since you can attack.

I also like Roserade in my VirGen deck. I was thinking about using Cassius. But in reality its just not useful. All it does is waste the supporter for turn, shuffle roserade back into the deck and then you have to search for it again. Instead of just searching for the cards you would get with Roserade. Now if it was Super Scoop Up then yeah i would say it was worth it. But its really not. Especially not 3 of. Maybe 1 of would be fine.
 
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