How GOOD was Shiftry ACTUALLY? - History of Shiftry in Competitive Pokemon

now we have a somewhat spooky pokemon for october because now we have shift tree otherwise known as hashtag as that is shift 3 on a keyboard this shifty tree is the counterpart of ludicolo and has been around since generation three those who played ruby sapphire and emerald will remember sydney's shift tree with great irritation as it spans the infuriating combination of double team and swagger today we'll examine shift tree's impact on the competitive scene and so we asked how thrifty was shift tree actually but before we start once again we have a video that is sponsored by the vpn service that i already use daily expressvpn whenever you find yourself on an unencrypted connection you send out countless pieces of information for everyone to see this could happen of course while connected to public wi-fi's but even while you're at your own home as your own internet provider is also able to see what websites you visit however a vpn provides a private connection and a virtual server that prevents anyone like governments isps and people connected to the same network as you from taking a look at the info you're sending out into the world wide web expressvpn is the number one vpn service because of their ease of use and tons of premium servers located in many countries and this feature in particular is very useful because some content like streaming services are blocked depending on where you are in the world for example hulu is only available in the us but with expressvpn you can just watch shows on hulu like one of my favorite exclusive solar opposites even when you're in another country you can do this and more when you sign up with expressvpn find out how you can get three months free by clicking the link in the description box below expressvpn.com fall swipe gaming and in this video we'll be going over these competitive formats a typing full of weaknesses alongside poor bulk did not necessarily mean a pokemon couldn't succeed in ou for example nobody would consider blaziken a defensively sound pokemon but between its good enough speed and brutal offensive power it carved out a niche shift tree had blaziken's exact speed stat but its offenses unfortunately fell short of making it worthwhile in the standard metagame as it was too slow to effectively swords dance and it wasn't nearly threatening enough without a source dance besides explosion but a non-boosted explosion pokemon wasn't hard to come by thus shift tree dropped to yuyu its lack of useful physical moves and underwhelming speed combined with its frailty which was preyed on by common pokemon like kangaskhan and scyther led it to shun choice band and source dance sets instead opting for a sunny day chlorophyll set which allowed it to bypass its speed issues and use its grass stab which let it destroy common pokemon like wall rain and golem while threatening defensive vileplume with sun boosted hidden power fire with explosion it could still take out just about anything especially since the tier's normal resists were frightened of solar beams shift tree's main issue was that it offered very little in the way of defensive utility making it difficult to fit on teams needing a free turn to set up its sunny day could also be exploited since grass week pokemon wouldn't be immediately threatened out by it nevertheless with team support such as being fit on a team with other sunny day users like offensive vileplume combined with heads up play shift tree could pose a massive threat shift tree also had a small niche in uber's chlorophyll abuse was a lot easier when the sun was permanent and was set up by the amazing groudon with sun active it outspent the entire tier even the occasional deox's speed and threatens several of the metagame's most dangerous pokemon with its choice band shadow balls including diox's attack mewtwo and the lady twins its powerful explosion removed even the bulkiest neutral targets such as lugia ho-oh and diox's defense as well as kyogre attempting to replace the sun with rain now shift tree had its issues like massive frailty and struggling against the many bulky steels popular in the tier necessitating either magnetron or lures like overheat groudon and hidden power fire latios but it was quite decent all in all the fourth generation brought a bevy of gifts for shift tree the new physical special split allowed it to use its stabs off of its superior attack stat gen 4 also provided sucker punch as shift tree's physical dark stab who provided crucial priority in addition to power shift tree priced this greatly as it allowed it to surpass its often middling speed stat furthermore gen 4's addition of life orb was a blessing giving shift tree the extra strength it soul needed to one hit kale as much as possible shift tree didn't just receive physical buffs though on the special side it received the brutally powerful leaf storm for a pure wall breaking set as well as nasty plot gas knot and dark pulse for special sweeping now it wasn't enough to leave any impact on oyu and it struggled to switch in safely in yuyu with just about everything being able to hit it really hard however in nu it was incredibly dangerous as a chlorophyll wall breaker or sweeper on sun teams its stab leaf storm was one of the few attacks in the tier that could actually one hit ko regirock it's dark stab terrified hypno both of its stabs ripped through slow king and it was generally difficult to avoid losing at least one pokemon thanks to its sheer power to say nothing of its set versatility for example in a worst case scenario it could explode on vileplume porygon 2 or red ice to pave a sweeping path for its teammates in a best case scenario it could one hit ko then with a nasty plot or swords dance boosted attack and continue trucking through the opponent's team of course they didn't even need to set up since it naturally one had killed so many of the metagame's defensive staples and could be quite content to simply throw around its powerful attacks becoming even more dangerous with the extra coverage it could afford shiftry was still decent outside of sun especially as its swords dance boosted sucker punches ripped through faster pokemon like charizard and monetric but in the sun was where it truly shone pun intended and it was a cornerstone of sunny day teams and gen 4 enu once again shift tree also had a small niche in ubers stabbed dark pulse was nice for cleaving through the many ubers weak to it such as the lady twins giratina origin lugia and mewtwo while grassnot crushed kyogre and opposing groudon explosion would remove any blissey hoping to wall its nasty plotted boosted attacks as well as immediately threaten pokemon like pokja and darkrai that could take unboosted hits shift tree certainly had its issues as his frailty made it tough to get on the field and it was completely walled by dialga and heatran unless it ran the vastly inferior swords dance set which used seed bomb for grass stab and could no longer immediately one hit kale groudon nor could it fit explosion this made for some debilitating trade-offs no matter what set it chose however shift tree was still an enu pokemon that was also viable in ubers that in and of itself was an impressive achievement and honestly there aren't many cooler things in pokemon than mewtwo getting completely crushed by shift tree despite black and white bringing permanent sun to ou shift tree shared the same fate as many other chlorophyll grass types having to suffer the indignity of watching venusaur also get the ability and tower over everyone else shift tree's ability to instantly threaten the lady twins was unique among chlorophyll pokemon but it wasn't enough for it to see any usage thus it tumbled through the tearing rung down to nu once again where it was absolutely terrific even better than the previous generation it really hated the 5th generation's explosion nerf but funnily enough it was easier to fit onto teams this time around it wasn't restricted to use on sun teams sure it was good on those but its ability to fit on other kinds of teams and not need sun to set up for it was one of the things that made it excellent both mix and sword stance sets were quite difficult to handle shift tree was initially dismissed for completely being walled by manda buzz but it dipped into its move pole and became a terrific man the buzz lure mixed sets could run hidden power ice over nature power and two hit kale the buzzard on the switch with stealth rock up while swords dance sets could blow past it with a boosted rock slide being a grass type that could crush man the buzz was a trait unique to shift tree as was its sucker punch to prevent revenge kills from scarfers for example cacturne could do the latter but not the former and sasebok wished it could do either shift tree was criminally underrated in gen 5 nu and if the tier had had a longer lifespan it almost surely would have shown why its untiered placement was a huge mistake many top players were making use of shift tree's talents at the end of the generation which didn't leave enough time for the rest of the player base to catch on however when it was used shift tree proved it was a complete terror swords dancing as a loma mola ran in fear then rock sliding the man the buzz and sucker punching the charizard was a thing of beauty almost as satisfying as leading off with leaf storm and koi'ing the ilomomolo staying in and trying to toxic on the swords dance while still limiting faster pokemon's ability to revenge kill thanks to sucker punch the sixth generation brought fairy types which was one more annoying thorn in shift tree side but on the other hand it brought a massively buffed naca which shift tree loved both for its power and the fact that it can now use it to hit those pesky steel types shift tree's access to the fog also expanded its utility as it can now clear the field of hazards for its teammates yes namely charizard that means shift tree did end up in nu once again but that was just fine because once again it was an excellent pokemon its primary set was the offensive defogger which immediately threatened a vast amount of the tier with leaf storm and knockoff including crucial defensive staples such as rydon and lantern as well as offensive pokemon like samarat and rotom once it hit the field it could either capitalize on the switches and forced to clear hazards or if that wasn't required it could simply spam its stabs and punch holes in the other team either with the power of leaf storm or with the item removing effect of knockoff which still hit quite hard as always sucker punch prevented faster pokemon like swallow from comfortably revenge killing it shivtree didn't even need to run the fog if its team didn't require it for example if it was used on a garbador spike stacking team and could instead run explosion which was still quite powerful but whose main purpose was to block opposing the fog thus preserving the entry hazards that his teammates garbador laid down basically that last slot was either using the fog or preventing defog shiftry had expanded its game to become a critical part of the entry hazard war and this increased utility meant it was used on more teams than ever before now while the offense of the fogger or exploder was its primary set it certainly wasn't the only one the swords dancer had never been more powerful as in addition to knockoff as dark stabbed its sucker punch was no longer resisted by faster seals like cling clang shiftry could also run a solid's choice scarf set which had terrific surprise factor it could outrun and rockslide an unsuspecting charizard or scyther or destroy unwitting jinx or miss maggias with knockoff although the set being surprising was potentially game breaking it wasn't just good because it was surprising its increased speed meant it had more opportunities to threaten the opposing team it also had the opportunity to use the more powerful leaf blade instead of seed bomb as its grass stabbed which it couldn't on the source dance set since it was incompatible with sucker punch scarf explosion was also incredibly useful in threading healthy pokemon that would otherwise take a hit such as liligan magmortar and tauros overall ores and u-shift tree fit onto many a team with its terrific utility in either using or preventing the fog and pose an offensive threat with many different sets as a result it was one of the best pokemon in the tier shift tree's a curious little fellow in doubles just as in singles there's no denying that shift tree is a distinctly mediocre chlorophyll sweeper it's base 100 attack is good but not great and its terrible bulk leaves it incredibly weak to spread moves such as blizzard and heat wave however shift tree is able to carve out a remarkably small niche for itself as the potential fastest fake out in the west under sun nothing can really outgun shift tree giving it a potential to disrupt the field with a consistency that can't be beat aside from that shift tree comes packing a nice little swiss army knife package of support tools such as tailwind and knockoff shiftery thus can fit a curious role a pokemon who uses sun to be an additional auxiliary support for its team while still threatening some pressure purely by merit of its speed shift tree hasn't seen much top tournament usage in vgc history largely owing to the superior options for a sun abuser such as venusaur and the difficulty of pulling sun off in general nevertheless it has a sparse few accolades to its name steven brown iii ran a sun team for the spring portion of the 2015 season placing fourth in the us in the february international challenge and barely missing out on top cut at georgia regionals as he bubbled due to opponent's win percentage key to his strategy was pairing shift tree with nine tails as opposed to the powerhouse mega charizard y turn one sun was vital for fake out pressure that boost would then allow steven's huge powerhouses such as mega salamence mama swine and porygon z to fire their artillery liberally making for a hyper offensive playstyle the next year nick yoroma managed to put shiftry to the test in the unrestricted format as well utilizing it with the ever-present groudon nick's team was a balanced mix of offensive threats such as mega salamence and yaveltol along with other support mods to ensure his son could stay on the field such as crobat and gastrodon shiftry appreciated being used alongside develtol where the latter's ability dark aura could actually make an impact on the field and boost shiftry's own offensive powers other than that however shift tree has stayed in the shadows even when sun is viable shift tree isn't really where anyone's mind goes immediately and it's hard to blame them [Music] shift tree brought its three gen six and new sets over to gen seven pu despite being a tier lower gen seven's power creep was fairly extreme and thus shift tree wasn't able to significantly impact the metagame's landscape z-crystals made absorbing knock-off easier and sucker punch's power nerf was not helping things however despite his shortcomings shiftry was still a decent pokemon avoiding knockoff's item-removing effect was still not easy for most teams and leaf storm was as strong as ever especially with how most of the tier's grass resists didn't want to eat a knockoff it was a solid offense of the fogger since it threatened common stealth rockers in mudsdale and regirock it could also ditch the fog and function as an excellent alolan sand slash lure with low kick the set's main issue was strong competition with skunk tank the tier's premier offense of the fogger who didn't pack knock off or scare stealth rockers like shift tree did but brought an absolute ton of utility to its team with pursuit the ability to check the excellent victory bell and the nasty parting gift of aftermath chef tree's advantages were still useful though it just wasn't as easy to slap on a team as skunk tank was as a swords dancer shift tree struggled to stand out in the tier packing the mighty absolute and his choice scar set was also largely outdone by skunk tank as a result tree dropped to un-tiered this was probably a little on the harsh side seeing as shifty was perfectly usable but those are the cruel whims of the tearing rung for you at the time of this video shift tree is an r-u-b-l it was among the first wave of bands in ru when the tier was still in its fledgling stages as it was an absolutely ferocious sun sweeper generation 8 gave it two incredible moves the first was solar blade a physical solar beam counterpart that was even more powerful at a shocking 125 base power the second was heatwave whose scorching power and coverage complemented shift tree's stabs beautifully in addition the lack of z-crystals and megas made its knock-off even more brutal topping this monstrous set off was growth which was a simultaneous source dance and nasty plot under sunlight and allowed shift street to shred through teams with absurd ease leading to its swift ban shift tree has shifted its sun sweeping focus to yuyu as it can be quite threatening but it also has several notable struggles its solar blade can be interrupted by gigolos sandstream meaning it has to either risk that or downgrade to leaf blade it also has trouble fitting all its moves it needs focus blast as it's otherwise completely walled by incineroar but also means it now has to choose between growth or heatwave without growth it will struggle to achieve the one-hit kills in needs against common pokemon like sylveon but without heatwave it is completely blank by gallerium wheezing as well as a scavalier that said shift tree is still a terrifying threat if it gets going as it naturally cleaves through a large number of common defensive pokemon such as the slow twins rotom wash and celebi as well as naturally destroying common defensive pokemon like keldeo tarakyon and golurk it's not quite good enough to be a legitimate yuyu pokemon but it has its place in the tier and that's it so how good was shift tree actually well it's been a lower tier lifer brandishing its fierce offensive capabilities its defensive drawbacks were debilitating but it was worth using in spite of them thanks to its excellent blend of power and coverage especially under sunlight it's threat level under sun gave it a niche in ubers a couple of times as well the eighth generation buffed it enough to where it enjoyed being too powerful for a tier for the first time as it completely dominated are you for the short duration it was allowed see game freak sometimes all it takes are a few new moves all in all shift tree has been a good pokemon but not exactly a spooky one since it gets more powerful in the sun whatever it's a dark type thanks for watching everyone and as always if you liked the video and you want to see more be sure to subscribe to false white gaming for more weekly pokemon content and in the comments i want to know what you think about competitive shift tree what would you give it to make it oh you for example or to give it something over venusaur also thank you so much to our patrons for continued support of our videos and thank you to everyone else watching as well [Music] [Applause] and follow my crew on these social media platforms and that's all i got see you next time everyone [Applause] you

Channel: False Swipe Gaming

Views: 292,702

Keywords: Pokemon, Shiftry, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Pokemon Black, Pokemon White, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire, Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon, Pokemon Sword, Pokemon Shield, Competitive Pokemon, Smogon, VGC, False Swipe Gaming

Id: GPAAnG1fosQ

Length: 17min 11sec (1031 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 25 2020