Shiftry ex Porygon2 (2007)

If you ever had an interest to jump and enjoy playing the original ex formats (2003-2007) perhaps you already know what deck you want to try out first. Some decks from the era do have a famous reputation after all, even after all this time. Maybe you know one of your favourite pokemon had a strong print in the era you could utilize; not unheard of, since many pokemon had their best prints in the ex era and it is one of the most balanced pokemon tcg eras no question. If that isn’t the case however, fear not, as there is a number of good and easy “beginner” decks that happen to be very effective too. Don’t misunderstand the “beginner” term. That is only characterized to imply that a deck is more straightforward to use and as a result simpler to pilot. A deck built around Shiftry ex from ex Crystal Guardians is one such example. That is because the card is perfectly equipped to thrive in the ex era all on its own without needing any particular combo between a number of pokemon. In fact, if it makes any combo it does it all on its own, hence why the card is so simple to use. Without it being an absolute rule, you could say the ex formats are all about decks exploiting strong poke-powers or stopping them. Once again, there’s certainly a lot more variety in strategy than just that but it’s an easy pattern to notice if you’re familiar with a lot of decks from the era. Shiftry ex falls in stopping category, but instead of negating poke-powers it punishes pokemon that use them. Let’s finally look at my deck list and the cards themselves:

Shiftry ex x4 Nuzleaf x1 Seedot x4 Porygon2 x2 Porygon x2 Absol ex x1 Absol x1 Lickitung x3

Crystal Beach x2

Sidney’s Stadium x1

Rare Candy x4

Master Ball x1

PokeNav x1

Pokemon Retriever x1

Pow! Hand Extension x1

Windstorm x2

Holon Transceiver x4 Holon Mentor x2 Holon Adventurer x1 Holon Scientist x1 Steven’s Advice x2 Rocket’s Admin x3 Professor Elm’s Training Method x2

Darkness Energy x4 Multi Energy x4 Psychic Energy x6

This card is your win condition through and through carrying the punishing Dark Eyes poke-body as well as being your main attacker. Every time your opponent’s pokemon uses a poke-power it takes 2 damage counters. If you have multiple of these cards out the effect will stack making it extremely deadly almost granting an auto win against decks that are fully reliant on poke-powers. Target Attack allows you to pray on these pokemon even more, doing 30 damage to one of your opponent’s pokemon and will turn into 50 if they already have any damage counters on. Blade Arms is your strongest conventional attack doing solid damage if you have enough time to power it but you’ll usually try and make sure your other Shiftry ex are ready to use Target Attack. The strong combo between Dark Eyes and Target Attack is pretty transparent which is exactly why this deck is very easy to use and powerful. In regards to stats there isn’t anything to complain about besides the double weakness and it’s balanced out by the appealing and uncommon free retreat.

Out of the different Nuzleaf cards you can use in the era, this one from Legend Maker is favoured being able to attack for one energy for a solid 20 damage and having a good 2 for 30 attack that will discard all trainer cards on the defending pokemon before doing damage. Other options have 80 HP but worse attacks and keep in mind special darkness energies will boost your attacks even more giving you another reason to favour this particular Nuzleaf.

No Seedot in the ex era goes over 40 HP but out of the ones available this one from ex Deoxys lets you draw cards with Collect and will at least aid you in gathering your pieces if you have to attack with it.

If you’ve read my Firestarter Blaziken deck article you know what I think of this card but to summarize, most decks need an additional source of draw or search and Porygon2 is one of the best cards for that task in the ex era. Again, many players would probably use Pidgeot over this card but I would rather use this card instead. Porygon2 will let you draw until you have 6 cards in hand helping you dig through your deck and giving you a lot of value when you’re low on hand size.

Same as in the Firestarter Blaziken deck ex Firered and Leafgreen Porygon is the best one to use on the off chance you can draw some cards with Delta Retrieval.

Absol ex serves as an additional attacker that combos well with Shiftry ex’s capable damage spreading. It’s Cursed Eyes poke-power also gives you the chance to manage some of those damage counters letting you move 3 of them from one of your opponent’s pokemon to a different one enabling for some additional strong combos and helping not waste any excess damage on their pokemon.

While not paramount to have, non ex regular pokemon are handy to have in case your opponent is using an ex wall pokemon. All of our main attackers in this deck are pokemon ex so if that situation comes up this regular Absol card can help. Stats are solid for a regular pokemon that doesn’t evolve and can also serve as a decent opening pokemon with its Bad News attack discarding cards from your opponent’s hand. Prize Count will do 40 for 2 if you’re behind in prizes, very solid damage for a regular pokemon and also enough to 2 hit KO said wall pokemon, Wobbuffet and Ninetales. It carries the least deck space investment as opposed to running another stage 1 pokemon and is the best one out of other basic pokemon as far as I’ve researched.

This card gives you something to use at the start of the game where you can’t do much without Shiftry ex instead of being fully passive. Delta Mind is very strong against other Delta Species pokemon for just a one energy attack letting you put 3 damage counters on them or you can also use Pap Up if you think you need to draw more cards. Placing damage counters on any pokemon once again will combo with your main attackers Shiftry ex and Absol ex.

Mentioned as an additional card or tech in my Firestarter Blaziken deck, this time we run it as our best option for a stadium here. Acting as a counter stadium to other stadiums that can really hinder us, Crystal Beach also serves as some good defence against some of the strongest special energies in the era, Scramble Energy, Double Rainbow Energy or Boost Energy.

Since I want to have 3 stadiums in this deck instead of running a third Crystal Beach I choose to have Sidney’s Stadium for some protection against status conditions on our darkness pokemon. This card can also prove handy since we don’t have any Switch or other switching outlet in this deck.

Standard card for a stage 2 deck, Rare Candy will help us get to our stage 2 and even stage 1 pokemon easier and faster.

The idea with PokeNav is similar to Master Ball; this is a card that can grant us any pokemon or any energy card and arrange the left out cards on top of the deck how we see fit. Once again, there is a chance you won’t reveal anything to grab with this card; but this loss is small as this is only a trainer card and also combos with Porygon2 like Master Ball.

Master Ball helps us get our pokemon including evolution pokemon and pokemon ex without using a supporter card. It pairs up well with Porygon2 as well, since if we don’t find anything to grab with its effect it only thins our hand for an additional draw with Porygon 2.

Best card to use for some pokemon recovery back to the deck or just to straight up add a pokemon from your discard pile to your hand.

For amazing consistency and supporter recovery this card is still our best friend and it’s maxed out in the deck no question.

This card grants a little bit of disruption if we’re behind in prices and since Shiftry ex spreads damage steadily as opposed to get big OHKOs with strong attacks you’ll usually find enough opportunities to use it. It works really nicely when you consider we can move an energy from the defending pokemon to a different pokemon on the bench we planned on finishing off anyway with Shiftry ex or Absol ex. The forced switching effect can also be pretty handy.

Certain key stadium cards will be quite problematic for our deck; obviously we have our counter stadiums for this purpose but Windstorm gives us even more insurance. It will also remove your opponent’s pokemon tools.

Straight draw is good after we’ve drawn some cards with Porygon2 and thanks to Holon Transceiver we can reuse this card and discard extra Lickitungs for the additional draw bonus.

Seeing this or grabbing it early with Holon Transceiver ensures quick and good acquisition of our basic pokemon. Remember, the more Shiftry ex you have out, the riskier it is for your opponent to use poke-powers considering all the free damage counters you can inflict. And for that we need to get a lot of Seedots first, make sure we get Porygon for Porygon2 etc.

Not as consistent as Holon Adventurer but always carrying a chance to be better; I wouldn’t blame people for dropping this for another card but keeping one copy isn’t so bad.

Holon Ad

Powerful straight draw you usually can’t go wrong with Steven’s Advice will be your strongest supporter card in a lot of situations.

Your friend in the early game and even a better friend in the late game thanks to Porygon2. Even if we’ve drawn a lot of prize cards ourselves Porygon2 can make it so we don’t get affected when using this card while we attempt to hinder our opponent’s hand. The only bad thing about this card is having to use it when your opponent has a low hand size in the early game and giving them free cards with your effect.

This supporter card only grants us one evolution pokemon but it is a handy and direct method to get both Porygon2 and Shiftry ex. Even using this early game with a low hand size is fine and won’t be slow if we can grab a Porygon2 and use that pokemon to draw cards for the turn.

Necessary energy for Shiftry ex and Absol ex to attack while also making their attacks even stronger.

Another very necessary energy to have in this deck given one of the only few flaws of the gen 3 ex era. Without any basic darkness or metal energies we need this card to meet the darkness energy cost of our pokemon so maxing this out kind of makes it that we have 8 darkness energies in the deck.

Finishing off the deck with a few basic energies, we need to have a few of these too as 8 energies aren’t enough and since Lickitung needs psychic energies to attack obviously might as well pick psychic as opposed to another type.

Just like with Firestarter Blaziken Pidgeot is a more popular support pokemon than Porgon2 and can be incorporated into this deck in place of Porygon2.

There isn’t any good way to incorporate other Shiftry cards into the deck without sacrificing consistency but if you’re willing to swap one Shiftry ex or just another card you can include a regular Shiftry stage 2 with this ex Legend Maker one as a good candidate. This card’s poke-power will allow you to scoop up one of your evolution pokemon (except Shiftry) and all cards attached back into your hand and can also be used as non pokemon ex attacker; stronger than both ex Dragon Absol or Holon’s Magneton with Cross-Cut dealing 70 damage to any evolved pokemon. The drawback with including a regular Shiftry in place of Shiftry ex is your Dark Eyes spread won’t as efficient or consistent having one less Shiftry ex in the deck but there are obviously some niche benefits to having this card in the deck too, such as if you don’t play against a poke-power heavy deck, multiple Dark Eyes poke-bodies won’t mean as much. Having said that this is a very particular occurrence though, this is why it’s probably better to go all out with Shiftry ex.

That about covers Shiftry ex from Crystal Guardians! As explained at the start of this guide, this deck is one of the simplest decks to use in the ex era while being one of the stronger ones given how many other decks aim to utilize poke-powers. There is a bit of urgency on your part to start spreading damage quickly enough with Shiftry ex; not necessarily to get quick prizes but to apply that damage since as a pokemon ex Shiftry ex carries a bigger burden when knocked out. Thanks for reading and have fun punishing all the poke-power decks with Shiftry ex!