Sorry about my 3 month absence, I’ve taken a bit of a break from the game. In the past few weeks though, I’ve seriously focused on Pokemon, and I’ve gained an understanding of Modified again. I will return to the COTD crew, and I’ll also try to get you an article every couple of weeks. 

Skyridge was just released in April, and we now know that will be the last set released by Wizards. What does this mean? It means the environment is set for us, folks. We don’t have to worry about last minute changes or anything before Origins or GenCon. We will have ALL SUMMER to focus on decks, tweaking them, etc. 

Modified has changed a lot in the past couple months, and I dare say for the better. There are so many combo decks now. Almost anything can work if you build it right, and it’s great. Some of the top archetypes out there are well-known, like Scizor/Furret, Feraligatr/Parasect, and Beedrill from Skyridge. There are also some rogue decks that flat out WORK, like Jumpluff/Flareon/Vaporeon, Venusaur/Starmie, Crobat/Scizor, Ampharos EX/Ho-oh, and more. It’s unbelievable. You can honestly play ANYTHING and win. It’s all about skill now. 

One of the best decks in Modified right now, at least the most feared, is Scizor/Furret. Furret has a pokemon power that allows you to search your deck for ANY energy card, and put it in your hand at the cost of 2 cards shuffled in. Wow. Scizor, has the ability to do TONS of damage through heavy metal, and be a wall at the same time. It’s nearly unstoppable without using fire, it’s weakness. 

Scizor will seriously affect how people build their decks, and what they play. You have to be able to beat this deck consistently to be able to win a tournament now. It’s probably the MOST PLAYED archetype of Modified.

Then of course, there is Feraligatr/Parasect. This deck was brought about by Dylan Austin and Matt Moss. It’s also unbelievable. It’s nearly as good as the original Feraligatr deck back in Old Modified, and it’s as big of a threat. If you can’t stop this deck, you MAY be able to win a tournament, but it honestly depends on where you play. However, it’s a threat. Because of this, grass will begin to rise up… which brings us to…

Beedrill. Beedrill is quite possibly the biggest buzz of the format right now. It’s power allows you to paralyze and poison your opponent JUST by evolving into beedrill. Not only does it do that, it has an attack for only CC that can allow you to do up to 100 damage. Not bad? I think not.

Of course, there are tons of other rogue decks in the format that will do well. If you can find a rogue deck that can beat the three decks I mentioned above, though, you’re doing REALLY well.

Origins and GenCon will be really fun, not to mention that Nintendo plans to have a summer OP “series”. No info on that yet, but we may see some in the near future…

Enjoy the time we have left guys. Will the game continue? I hope so. But I think we’ve started to realize that it could end at any time, and we need to enjoy EVERY ounce of fun we have.

~ RaNd0m

AIM: JonSchweppe

Email: PojoRaNd0m@hotmail.com