Hey everyone!

I don't know much about what tomorrow may bring, but I have been able to 
muster enough ESP to make this interesting article about where the TCG is 
going, and what the enviroment will look like.

First of all, some good news. Following the release of the Harry Potter TCG, 
Pokemon is no longer the New Game on the Block, and people start taking it 
seriously and not as part as the Pokemon fad that will burn out soon. This 
takes some pressure off of Wizards, and people soon play Pokemon with the 
same pride as they would with Magic.

As for our dear old pal Sneasel, he's done. The novelty wore off and people 
lost interest in it. Pretty much the whole idea of using a big bench to 
attack is done, because the archetype for Bench Destruction exploded. People 
took a look at the game and saw it as the final frontier to explore. The 
deck, as it is now, was very slow and didn't work until a Basic Pokemon was 
released that could hit the Bench using 1-2 Energy. Some hit 1 Pokemon for 
20, other 2 Pokemon for 10 each. Both forms, however, also hit the active at 
the same time, and this made the idea great. You could now hit the Bench 
with Basics and evolutions.

Muk makes a HUGE comeback, too, after people decided they were through being 
annoyed with PPs like Slowkings and went to the extreme by shutting off ALL 
powers. Grass Pokemon make their comeback with Muk leading the way into the 
mainstream. They have very little opposition: Typhlosion/RK9 was shut down 
by Muk, and Neo 3 Entei tried to help it, but once again, he needed his 
Power to be useful. On the Psychic front, Dark Alakazam didn't apply 
Weakness with his one attack, and once you got him down to 20 HP, you could 
just get rid of the Rocket's Hideout stadium and kill it like that (R'H and 
Dark NRG sparked interest in the Rocket cards again). This should be the 
easiest prediction to swallow because it's already begun.

Haymaker is still good, as it always will be, but that's because people 
realized it isn't an archetype. It's really more of a deck style. People 
will forever prefer Basics that can dish a lot out ASAP and take a lot back 
in some decks. Even right now, standard Haymaker doesn't even contain the 
Pokemon that founded it (Hitmonchan, in particular).

Pretty much all the types are doing well, except for Colorless and Fire (and 
you know why). Water finally came around with some solid evolutions, so good 
news W fans!

That's pretty much it. Bye bye everybody!

Jeff "Tangela Kid" Betten
simpson_fan21@hotmail.com

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp