Standard Deck Tech: Shiftry (Lost Box)

With the hype of the Lost Origin expansion with new “baby” Pokémon cards and the Lost Zone mechanic, there are cards that go unnoticed by the public. Like Shiftry

Deck Analysis

Here we have 4 main attackers in the deck:

1) Shiftry with its attack Tearing Gust, For one grass energy, deals 210 damage and sends itself and all cards attached to it to the Lost Zone; being raw and high damage for a "stage 2", making a Lost Zone card stack combo for Cramorant LOR 50 and Sableye LOR 70.

2) Cramorant that serves as another attacker thanks to the ability Lost Provision, which this Pokémon ignores the energy costs of its attack if there are 4 or more cards in the Lost Zone. This is one of the keys to use its Spit Innocently attack, which does 110 damage and is unaffected by weakness.

3) Sableye is the attacker who uses damage counter, making a "spread" effect thanks to its Lost Mine, which for a psychic energy, you can put up to 12 damage counters between your opponent's Pokémon.

4) And Miltank enters as a Pokémon that avoids damage from Pokémon V from the opponent's game, thanks to its ability Miracle Body, and its attack Rout, for two colorless energies, does 10 + 20 damage for each Pokémon on your opponent's Bench.

Recursive Pokémon

1) To protect your game against “Sniper” decks that can destroy your Seedot, Cramorant, Comfey and Sableye, we have to put Manaphy BRS 41, which grants protection to your Benched Pokémon if they take direct damage from your opponent's attacks.

2) Radiant Greninja ASR 46, which with its Concealed Cards ability, you discard an energy card from your hand to draw two cards.

3) Comfey LOR 79 is essential to run the process of discarding the Lost Zone with Flower Selecting ability, which if this Pokémon is the active, you look at the top two cards of the deck and chooses one for your hand and the other is sent to the Lost Zone.

Trainer Cards

- Colress's Experiment LOR 155 looks at the top 5 cards of your deck and put 3 cards in your hand and the rest to the Lost Zone.

- Boss's Orders SHF 58 serves to pull a Pokémon from the opponent's Bench to bring it as active and close with a Knockout for Shiftry to deal this massive 210 damage against the opposing Pokémon.

- Rare Candy PGO 69 is precisely the evolution acceleration key from Seedot to Shiftry, making it possible to assemble the evolutionary setup as quickly as possible and then deal damage in its final evolution with 210 damage.

- Scoop Up Net RCL 165 is used to pick up a Pokémon from your game and return it to your hand (provided it is not a Pokémon V or GX)

It is essential to have this card to loop the combo with Comfey LOR 79.

- Ordinary Rod SSH 171 is precisely the recycling of basic energy resources and Pokémon in your discard, being able to choose one of the two options or both, which are:

1) Recover two Pokémon from the discard pile and put them in the deck.

2) Recover two basic energies from discard pile and put them in the deck.

- Training Court RCL 169 serves between turns (yours and opponent's) to draw a basic energy from the discard pile and put it in your hand; thus contributing to the energy management, which has few copies of 4 different types.

Advantages

As a purely Single Prize deck, it is good at dealing with ultra-rare decks, and can respond against ultra-rare Pokémon from recently trending decks like Giratina VStar, Origin Forme Palkia VStar, Arceus VStar and among others.

In addition to the raw damage dealt by Shiftry, you have the versatility of being able to deal fixed damage with Cramorant and still deal "spread" damage with Sableye, if you have a match against Manaphy BRS 41 from an opponent's deck, which can be circumvented.

Disadvantages

The acceleration of the use of the Lost Zone without due care and which cards that can be taxed can hinder the development of the game at specific times, or even burn the deck as you reach the Late-Game and End Game not having enough to respond to some situations and being close to the deckout, considering using 4 Shiftry at once, usually losing 8 cards (if you consider having evolved from Seedot to Shiftry through Rare Candy).

It's hard to deal with decks that have "Spread" with massive damage counters like Mewtwo-VUnion, Mimikyu-VMax, Dragapult-VMax + Sableye like in this example.

Decks that have more aggressive “Spread Sniper” power like Greninja VUnion, Urshifu VMax -Rapid Strike-, Magnezone VStar are also tough.

It's a cheap deck (except for Comfey and Sableye that have increased in price recently) and great to play to know the"Lost Box" and see its potential and versatility with 3 different types of attackers in this deck.

It's worth the check and chance for this deck, which has a very aggressive and unusual proposal.