A Thorough Examination of the Top Decks In Modified
By: Noah Dreskin
This is a thorough examination of the top decks in modified. I’m going to go through them all so read the whole thing if you really want to know what, and what not to use. OK I’m going to start with one of the most popular decks I can think of in modified. Cards that are common sense to use are not included in the combo’s well with section( cleffa, double gust, focus band, professor elm, etc.)
FERALIGATR
Strategy: A good Feraligatr deck runs all of the combo’s well with cards( featured below)
And the strategy is as follows:
Turn One: Place out a Cleffa up front. Then place down a totodile on the bench, build an energy on him, use all the useful trainers in your hand to discard the rest of the water energy in your hand, and eeeeeeek.
Turn Two: Place a Croconaw on that Totodile, place another energy on the Croconaw , again use trainers in your hand to discard some more energy, and eeeeeeek.
Turn Three: Place Feraligatr on the Croconaw, and if you don’t have one use trainers to get him out while discarding energy, build an energy on Feraligatr, retreat cleffa for free, and start wailing on people with Feraligatr.
Turn Four-Infinite: Keep trying to get more Feraligatrs into play, and discarding energy.
Combos well with:
Pokemon: Suicine, and smeargle.
Trainers: Misty’s Tears, Misty’s Wrath, and Pokemon Breeder Fields
Playability: Feraligatr is a fun deck to play, but takes a somewhat skilled player to make it work right.
Pitfalls: Crobat can kill it and a focused Crobat/Murkcrow deck with chaos gym, can beat it next to always.
Rating: 8/10
TYPHLOSION:
Strategy: A good Typlosion deck will run either Magcargo or Blaines Arcanine, I prefer Magcargo so that’s whose going to be in the strategy. Now here’s the strategy:
Turn One: Put a cleffa up front, a Cyndaquil and a Slugma on the bench. Build an energy on Slugma, and eeeeeeek.
Turn Two: Build another energy on Slugma, and use a Pokemon Breeder Fields. Place a Magcargo on Slugma, and a Quilava on Cyndaquil, then play an Entei Down, and use the Howl Pokemon power to build 1 energy on magcargo and 2 on Quilava.
Turn Three: Put Down a Typhlosion on the Quilava and use Fire Recharge to place 4 fire energy’s on Typhlosion, build another energy on Typhlosionm Then come up and Flame Wheel.
Turn Four: Build an energy on Magcargo, and Flame Wheel.
Turn Five: Build another energy on Magcargo( 5 in total) and Bring back Typhlosion usind a balloon berry. And Lava Flow.
Turn Six-Infinite: Build an energy on Magcargo, and Lava Flow your way to victory. On the side keep trying to get more Typhlosions into play.
Combo’s well with:
Pokemon: Magcargo, Blaines Arcanine, and Entei.
Trainers: Super Energy Retrieval, Pokemon Breeder Fields, and Balloon Berry.
Playability: Typhlosion deck’s require a skilled player, and a little bit of luck, It is however and high damaging, and fun deck to play.
Pitfalls: Feraligatr is a very popular deck, and Feraligatr almost always beats Typhlosion.
Rating:9/10
CROBAT
Strategy:
Turn One: Place a Murkcrow up front, place on a dark energy, put down a Zubat then use Mean Look.
Turn Two: Place down a grass energy on Murkcrow, Evolve Zubat, and use Feint Attack.
Turn Three: Put down another Zubat, use a Pokemon Breeder Fields, place Crobat down on the Golbat, build an energy on Crobat, retreat to bring up Crobat and use Triggered Poison
Turn Four-Infinite: keep building on Crobat, and getting out other Crobats.
Combos well with:
Pokemon: Murkcrow, and Pichu.
Trainers: Pokemon Breeder Fields.
Playability: Crobat is one of my favorite decks to play, and is very easy to play. A Newbie could master this deck quickly and then start beating people down with it.
Pitfalls: none exept that rockets/promo mewtwo can focus against it , but murkcrows cover that.
Rating: 9/10
AMPHAROS:
Strategy:
Turn One: Start with Rockets Zapdos up front, and use trainer’s to put some electric energy in the discard pile, put an energy on R.Zapdos and a Mareep on the bench, Then use Plasma.
Turn Two: Evolve Mareep into Flaffly, play an energy on Flaffy and use Plasma.
Turn Three: Evolve into Ampharos, place a Steel Energy on R.Zapdos and use Electroburn.
Turn Four-Infinite: Keep attacking with R.Zapdos until it dies while building on Ampharos and bringing more R.Zapdos’s and Ampharos’s into play.
Combo’s well with:
Pokemon: Rocket’s Zapdos, and Raikou.
Trainers: Pokemon Breeder Fields.
Playability: This is my second favorite deck to play in modified. It is in my opinion the most fun to play. It does require some skill to make it flow correctly, but if you study the cards, and how they flow together you will have A LOT of fun playing this deck.
Rating: 7.9/10
SLOWKING:
Strategy: I know a lot may say Murkcrow OWNZ in this deck but in the strategy I’m not going to include him, instead I’m including Umbreon.
Turn One: Play an Eevee up front and a Slowpoke on the bench. Attach an energy to Eevee, then attack with Eevee for 20 damage.
Turn Two: Evolve Slowpoke into a Slowking, and use eevee’s pokemon power to evolve it into an Umbreon, attach a dark energy to Umbreon, and use Bite.
Turn Three-Infinite: keep attaching Dark Energy to Umbreon, getting more Umbreon’s into to play, and getting more Slowking’s into play.
Combo’s well with:
Pokemon: Umbreon, Espion, Rockets Mewtwo, Murkcrow.
Trainers: Chaos Gym, and Pokemon Breeder Fields.
Playability: Slowking is definitely my favorite deck to play, It’s only weakness is psychic which is covered by Umbreon.
Pitfalls: I can’t think of any if you build it right.
Rating: 10/10
HAPPY GAMING!!!!!
Noah Dreskin