New Modified Format Announced! Opinions?

[Raikou Trainer]

From Pokemon.com:

New changes have been made to the Modified format for Organized Play tournaments.

In the interest of maintaining a healthy tournament environment, Pokémon Organized Play removes older sets from the Modified format at the beginning of each new tournament season. Each rotation challenges existing players to create new strategies while enabling new players to get into Organized Play with a minimal investment.

Last year we announced that our goal was to have a Modified format that starts with 9 regular sets at the beginning of the season and ends the season with about 13 regular sets. Now that we have achieved that goal, we will continue to rotate sets each year to ensure that our Organized Play environment remains healthy and vital moving forward.

The Modified format for the 2010-2011 season will consist of the following sets:

Diamond & Pearl—Majestic Dawn

Diamond & Pearl—Legends Awakened

Diamond & Pearl—Stormfront

Platinum

Platinum—Rising Rivals

Platinum—Supreme Victors

Platinum—Arceus

Rumble

HeartGold & SoulSilver

HS—Unleashed

HS Trainer Kit

Black Star Promo Cards numbered DP22 and higher and Black Star Promo Cards numbered HGSS01 and higher.

In addition, future Pokémon TCG sets will become legal as they are released, per the Pokémon Organized Play Tournament Rules.

So now we know that next season's Modified format will be MD-on, starting on September 1st, 2010. Key cards that will be rotated are the following:

-Claydol (GE)
-Dusknoir (DP)
-Unown G (GE)
-Roseanne's Research (SW/POP8)

In my opinion, I really don't like this move. This will only make SP's more overpowered than they should be. Even though Machamp will still be around, it will be way too slow to stop SP's, since the only reliable draw power left will be Uxie. Claydol was what made Stage 2 decks more consistent. Without Claydol or a more reliable source of draw power, most Stage 2 decks won't stand a chance against SP's.

This rotation will also mean that the price of Luxray GL lv. X will only continue to go up. It actually wouldn't surprise me if it ended up hitting well over $100. If you're a serious tournament player and you don't have any, get your playset of Luxrays now while they're relatively cheap.

So what does everyone else think of this rotation?

 

[Setosama]

Claydol made A LOT OF DECKS consistant. Trainer Lock is gonna be the problem next format, once Vileplume hits.

I should also remind you that SPs abuse Rossanne as well as THEY ARE ALL BASICS!

Dusknoir was annoying and I'll miss him... Claydol I will miss less (HE finds his way into some SP Decks too)

So while SP decks are still fast, THEY ARE LOSING SOME OF THIS SPEED AS WELL!!! They still have the pixies, but that's ALL they got! They lost consistant ways of GAINING advantage off the minuses from cards like Bebe's, SP Radar and the likes. They also lost G so Machamp will RAPE THEM ALL!

My only complaint is that Gliscor inflicting burn and poison will still be around, and Fainting Spell GENGAR is still around as well! THAT CARD IS A *****! And there is NO WAY of stopping Shadow Room now! NO G!

 

[Bingo3000]

Oh Wow. I would of never expected the next format to be MD-on.
But I can't say that i don't love the fact that Claydol is gone!!!

 

[donavannj]

Roseanne's may be gone, but Pokemon Collector and Pokemon Communication, as well as Interviewer's Questions, are actually quite prepared to take its place. And there's still Energy Search to fill the gap as well as actually running more energy.

As for Power-based draw power, Ninetales and Noctowl from HGSS are actually going to be fairly effective in Claydol's place.

 

[Rocket_Executive]

Will roseanne's be gone even though it was an OP promo that was released in between legends awakened and stormfront, which are both modified?

I am really surprised at this decision, I thought for sure we would be stuck with platinum onward. I guess pokemon inc. is afraid to take the metagame away from the players, except for claydol. I wouldn't be surprised if they found a way to rerelease it though, the players really demand it. I don't think any SP decks other than luxchomp and sablock will see much play, but those two will probably dominate even more thoroughly than before. Jumpluff is good because it's fast, but I think fire decks will see a come-back now that the only decent draw-engine is ninetales, and you need a fire deck for that. That will put jumpluff at a type disadvantage, but it may be fast enough that it doesn't matter. The other thing is that gyarados and cursegar will get to stay around longer, though the gyarados deck will have to adapt to the fact that felicity's drawing is out, and personally I think it will, it's still the best counter to donphan.

 

[donavannj]

From the discussion I heard at my BRs, I don't think Roseanne's will be legal.

 

[Rocket_Executive]

That sucks! I hate Energy Search, what a waste of space. We're going to end up going back to the old ways of cluttering our decks with energys again!

 

[donavannj]

That sucks! I hate Energy Search, what a waste of space. We're going to end up going back to the old ways of cluttering our decks with energys again!

Not necessarily. There's a Pokemon Communication (?) equivalent on its way for energy, I do believe, and Interviewer's Questions could work quite well, from experience.

 

[Rocket_Executive]

I havn't used interviewer yet, but I probably will once roseanne is gone. There must be some combination of rearranging the top cards of your deck with a pokepower or something and then using interviewer?

 

[donavannj]

Platinum Delcatty would certainly work well with it for recovery, and, if nothing else, it'll reshuffle your deck if you get nothing.

 

[Raikou Trainer]

The only real loss that Gyarados has is Felicity's Drawing, but it can still use cards like Volkner's Philosophy and Regice (LA) to discard Magikarps, so I actually think that Gyarados might survive post-rotation. To be honest, I think SP's will still be more dominant.

 

[Rocket_Executive]

Yeah I think gyarados will survive, there's regice and lunatone which lets you discard one card per turn with its power. If you get both of those onto the bench, you can discard magikarps faster than with a felicity's, as you're discarding all three instead of just two. I've found that I end up with a big surplus of felicity's when I run both of those, and end up using them just for the draw power.

 

[Raikou Trainer]

Actually, Lunatone will be rotated as well, as it's from Great Encounters.

 

[Rocket_Executive]

Oh shoot that's right. Well... I will have to find something else then :S

 

[FurretFTW!!1!]

We lose:

Dusknoir DP
Azelf MT
Gardevoir/Gallade SW
Roseanne's Research SW
Night Maintenance SW
Beedrill GE
Claydol GE
Unown [G] GE!?!? Wasn't that the reason for no rotation last format...?
Felicity's Drawing GE

Any more good stuff, just put it on the first post ;P And after losing Felicity's, I really doubt Gyarados is worth playing.

 

[MagmaGrowth876]

Platinum Delcatty would certainly work well with it for recovery, and, if nothing else, it'll reshuffle your deck if you get nothing.

Platinum Delcatty doesn't reshuffle your deck at all. One thing i think may work in fire decks, but may end up being too clunky is this: Rock 2 HGSS Ninetales, 2 PL Delcatty, and 2 Pl Manectric. Get 2 energy into your hand, discard both with 2 Roast Reveals, Power Circulation them to the top of your deck, then Interviewer's Question them into your hand. Maybe use energy search to obtain them originally, or an Uxie drop. Just something that I was thinking about. Dunno how practical it'd be since it takes up most of your bench space. Oh well.

 

[Rocket_Executive]

Yeah I think that may take up too much bench space, ninetales hgss is crucial for fire decks but there aren't too many of those out there.
TPCi knows that the SP decks will gain the advantage after rotation, and I think what they're doing to offset that is introducing more powerful Legend cards. The first two were not even worth playing, but if you take a look at the scans and translations of the newest set out in Japan, you'll see that the Legends there seem extremely overpowered. They've also been releasing T/S/S specifically designed to support Legends, so that will help that part of the format as well. As for stage 2 decks, the only one that still seems viable is gengar, and it has spiritomb to slow down SP deck's that rely on trainers to set up while getting gengar set up faster. There are also a few stage 1 decks like donphan that will definitely see play, and a lot of people are excited for the new primes like mew and gengar.
SP decks will probably dominate until they're rotated or something comes out to specifically stop them, but in the mean time a lot of other things are coming out that seem really interesting and exciting. We didn't always have claydol; it'll just go back to being a slower format like it was before lol.

 

[donavannj]

Platinum Delcatty doesn't reshuffle your deck at all. One thing i think may work in fire decks, but may end up being too clunky is this: Rock 2 HGSS Ninetales, 2 PL Delcatty, and 2 Pl Manectric. Get 2 energy into your hand, discard both with 2 Roast Reveals, Power Circulation them to the top of your deck, then Interviewer's Question them into your hand. Maybe use energy search to obtain them originally, or an Uxie drop. Just something that I was thinking about. Dunno how practical it'd be since it takes up most of your bench space. Oh well.

Whoops. Completely forgot what Delcatty did there for a moment. XD;

Probably wouldn't wanna have that much on your bench, since you don't need the draw engine too often once you reach the later stages of the game.