Article Flippin' Fans - A Test of Shiftry

Nice article! I've always wondered the odds of the Shiftry deck, and this covers all the details. I may be worth noting that going second could also be further affected by an N, which decreases the likelihood of getting the card that you may need. However, on the flip side, one less card opens up more potential draw from things like Bicycle and Shaymin (although you technically get the same cards in the first place, so this may not change a thing).
 
Bbninjas, I can say with complete confidence that being hit with N on your opponent's first turn has little to no effect on Shiftry. A six card hand is more than enough to execute this deck's strategy.
 
re: getting the potential Mewtwo active
I run an escape rope in my shifty deck. It serves two purposes
1) retreat an unown that I started
2) force my opponent to switch out of a wobb so I can fan it
so the potential 3rd reason could be two switch into Mewtwo.

I haven't tested with Roller Skates, but I find it interesting that you chose to not play Recycle because of coin flips, yet the skates are here. I find recycle to be way more important so you can get back those devo sprays. Recycle into trainers mail or farewell letter is so sweet when it works.
 
aeast317 said:
re: getting the potential Mewtwo active
I run an escape rope in my shifty deck. It serves two purposes
1) retreat an unown that I started
2) force my opponent to switch out of a wobb so I can fan it
so the potential 3rd reason could be two switch into Mewtwo.

I haven't tested with Roller Skates, but I find it interesting that you chose to not play Recycle because of coin flips, yet the skates are here. I find recycle to be way more important so you can get back those devo sprays. Recycle into trainers mail or farewell letter is so sweet when it works.
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Recycle is without a doubt a viable card in Shiftry, but I don't think it is necessary for the deck to still succeed. Roller Skates was very useful in drawing into cards at any stage of the game, regardless of my hand. Although it does depend on a flip, there is enough supplemental draw to cover for it in case of failure. I chose Maintenance over Roller Skates because I found myself discarding far too many cards that would allow for late game Giant Fan Abilities. Maintenance allowed me to put those cards back into my deck for later use. I firmly believe that the choice between Recycle and Maintenance is a personal one, both are good cards in this deck.
 
I think it could perhaps be worth removing a couple of Bicycle tbh, and swap them for Recycle. I found in a previous deck that Bicycle is fairly unusable at the best of times as you can't use them to not draw cards, but I'm not totally sure if that would be the case here. Actually, would you perhaps be able to recall what you often had in your dead hands? Perhaps what often turned up in those could hint at 'wasted' spaces?
 
bbninjas said:
I think it could perhaps be worth removing a couple of Bicycle tbh, and swap them for Recycle. I found in a previous deck that Bicycle is fairly unusable at the best of times as you can't use them to not draw cards, but I'm not totally sure if that would be the case here. Actually, would you perhaps be able to recall what you often had in your dead hands? Perhaps what often turned up in those could hint at 'wasted' spaces?
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I wrote my experiences with dead hands into the article. I experienced a completely unusable hand with usable cards still remaining in the deck 11% of the time. Which out of 36 games is only about three or four games.
 
Alex(charm)ander said:
I wrote my experiences with dead hands into the article. I experienced a completely unusable hand with usable cards still remaining in the deck 11% of the time. Which out of 36 games is only about three or four games.
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I mean what are the exact cards that often made a hand unplayable; I don't think you covered that.
 
Just to make sure I'm not mistakes but you can't evolve nuzleaf again the same turn you devo spray it because devo spray specifies that you can't. That is correct yes? Even with giant plant forrest
 
daviduk2000 said:
Just to make sure I'm not mistakes but you can't evolve nuzleaf again the same turn you devo spray it because devo spray specifies that you can't. That is correct yes? Even with giant plant forrest
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The text in parenthes is remider text. It is meant to remind you of general game rules. Giant Plant Forest overrides that.
 
bbninjas said:
I mean what are the exact cards that often made a hand unplayable; I don't think you covered that.
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I don't recall the exact combination of cards I had in each situation, but at one point I had a hand of zero cards. Essentially, if I could not draw, or use Giant Fan, but my deck still contained anything other than draw cards, it was counted as a dead hand.
 
Curious to ask... Do you think this Shiftry strategy is rather unhealthy for the metagame? I mean, yes, there are hard counters for it, but the curse is you have to have them out on your first turn. Even worse, those hard counters might be counter-productive against other strategies outside of Shiftry - Wobbuffet negating your own abilities, and Baltoy just sitting in your deck when it never gets used.

This is what scares me about Shiftry: The balance between winning and losing with this deck is too polarized and rigid, and the curse of trying to permanently counter Shiftry can leave your deck vulnerable to other decks not designed to counter Shiftry. I actually could see Shiftry banned from usage - or fhe Forest of Giant Plants being errata'd so the grass type effect can only work on grass type evolutions.
 
bbninjas said:
Nice article! I've always wondered the odds of the Shiftry deck, and this covers all the details. I may be worth noting that going second could also be further affected by an N, which decreases the likelihood of getting the card that you may need. However, on the flip side, one less card opens up more potential draw from things like Bicycle and Shaymin (although you technically get the same cards in the first place, so this may not change a thing).
Click to expand...

Shouldn't your opponent's N, at worst, do nothing negative to you (at least in sheer number of cards in hand), and at best, help you? When you start the game, yes, you have 7 cards, but one of them has to be a basic. If you only have one basic, N doesn't hurt you. If you have more than one basic in your starting hand, N helps you.
 
Does that mean you can evosoda/rare candy on a grass Pokemon turn one? Or is that different to the Devo spray rule?
 
Lanstar said:
Curious to ask... Do you think this Shiftry strategy is rather unhealthy for the metagame? I mean, yes, there are hard counters for it, but the curse is you have to have them out on your first turn. Even worse, those hard counters might be counter-productive against other strategies outside of Shiftry - Wobbuffet negating your own abilities, and Baltoy just sitting in your deck when it never gets used.

This is what scares me about Shiftry: The balance between winning and losing with this deck is too polarized and rigid, and the curse of trying to permanently counter Shiftry can leave your deck vulnerable to other decks not designed to counter Shiftry. I actually could see Shiftry banned from usage - or fhe Forest of Giant Plants being errata'd so the grass type effect can only work on grass type evolutions.
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I do believe that linear decks like Shiftry remove a great deal of creativity and skill from the game. So yes, I agree that Shiftry is not healthy for the metagame. Whenever a deck is this linear, it removes the enjoyment and spirit from actually playing the game. My prediction is that of those that play this deck at the Regional Championships, most will have mediocre results and hopefully move away from the deck. If this is the case it is unlikely Shiftry will be banned. There is still the possibility that TPCi may decide to conduct the remaining championship series in the Standard format.

CruelBear said:
Shouldn't your opponent's N, at worst, do nothing negative to you (at least in sheer number of cards in hand), and at best, help you? When you start the game, yes, you have 7 cards, but one of them has to be a basic. If you only have one basic, N doesn't hurt you. If you have more than one basic in your starting hand, N helps you.
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Exactly.

daviduk2000 said:
Does that mean you can evosoda/rare candy on a grass Pokemon turn one? Or is that different to the Devo spray rule?
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It is different. Forest of Giant Plants allows you to play Grass Pokemon from your HAND as often as you like.
 
Mortal_Zachary said:
Well this sucks. Its banned now lmao.
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Why? It just means that anyone that gets all "Why did they ban this? It wasn't that bad!" we still have an article that shows "Yes. Yes it is." When I first heard about the Shiftry (DEX) lists I was skeptical; I mean how many times could the Ability get triggered. As it turns out, a very relevant amount and the article provides the numbers behind that.
 
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