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The Rogues that Ruled Origins
By Dark Master Trainer Mike
 So, Gengar and I were at the Origins convention helping judge the Professor event. The event itself was a grueling 3-tiered monstrosity that started with 3 rounds of Draft, then went on to 5 rounds of Modified Constructed, and ended with a cut to the top 8 for a fun-filled Rochester draft for the finish. Can you say, "Takes all day?" And, by the way, did you know that you have no table space for your bench in St. Louis? Anyway, back on track.
In particular, I want to focus on the Modified rounds and show you (with permission, of course) what I thought was a pure genius of a rogue deck. First of all, I saw two rogue decks that need to be given props. One belonged to Eric Richards (Psycodad) who won the whole thing! Props to Eric and his Doom-Buzz-Muk deck! The other, however, belonged to Douglas Zuver, who took second overall. Let's take a look at Zuver's deck.
Someone once said "necessity is the mother of invention," and it has never been truer in the Pokémon Modified environment, which has been dominated by Fire and Water for a long time. Recently, Grass made quite a strong showing, and several Grass decks made top 8, while Fighting and Lightning have been at the bottom of the heap for a long long time. Well, someone finally invented a great Lightning deck and that man is Master Professor Douglas Zuver.
Not only has he invented a great Lightning deck, but also he has gone back to the beginning of Pokémon to do it. Back to Base set -- back to the Electabuzz and the Zapdos. Now I know what you are thinking: "Has the Dark Master finally lost it? Is he for real? Is this just a cruel joke perpetrated by Gengar on an unsuspecting public?" Well the answers are, respectively, "You cannot lose what you do not have. As real as real can be. This deck rocks!"
So without further ado, here it is: Douglas Zuver's Zapdos Deck.
Douglas Zuver's Zapdos Deck
Pokémon (14)
3 Cleffa (Neo Genesis)
4 Electabuzz (Base Set)
3 Pichu (Neo Genesis)
4 Zapdos (Base Set)
Trainers (27)
4 Berry (Neo Genesis)
4 Double Gust (Neo Genesis)
3 Fisherman F-47-# (Skyridge)
4 Gold Berry (Neo Genesis)
4 Oracle E-47-# (Skyridge)
4 Professor Elm (Neo Genesis)
4 Scoop Up (Legendary Collection)
Energy (19)
15 Lightning Energy
4 Metal Energy
 Simple, huh? We have Pichu for Pokémon Power decks, and Cleffa is there for draw power. Base Buzz is a great hitter and can paralyze. The Zapdos hits for huge amounts, and, with Metal Energy on it, it takes less damage from its first attack if the flip fails. Oh, and it has Resistance to Fighting, so Tyrogue does you little good against it. The Trainers are what really count here since you have to discard Energy to use Zapdos's main attack. Scoop Up gets Zapdos back to your hand after you have already discarded all your Energy using its attack. Oracle rearranges the cards you want to come up first. Fisherman puts all those cards you just discarded back in your hand! Goldberry makes either the Zapdos or the Electabuzz last longer. Berry does the same but to a lesser degree and proves handy in many situations. Elm -- well, I don't need to tell you about Elm.
So that's it. Here you have a great deck that uses only 13 separate cards to work. It worked well enough for Douglas to be in 1st place after 5 rounds of Modified, and then take 2nd place overall. He will be at Gen Con with this deck, so if you're going, I suggest you take a close look at it. Perhaps you should make your own version if you want to finish strong. At the very least, you should tech it because it could be rolling over you if you're not prepared! Thanks for the deck, Douglas!
I had a great time at Origins. Thanks again to all of you who were there. It was a pleasure to see you all again. I hope to see more of you at Gen Con. It should be a fun last hurrah for our version of the Pokémon card game!
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