The New World of Extended

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27 December 2010

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Table of Contents

Intro
Worlds “They were who we thought they were!”
Hawt Nu Tek!
Something’s Missing
Other Fun Decks to Consider
So what is a good deck to play

Intro

January is coming and with it comes a whole new world of Extended PTQ’s and Grand Prix. For those who might be wondering what I’m talking about. Extended is a format with a larger card pool than Standard, this year we’ll be using the blocks of Lorwyn, Shadowmoor, Alara, Zendikar, Scars of Mirrodin as well as M10 and M11. And PTQ stands for Pro Tour Qualifier. Pro Tours are major events that are invitation only. Unlike a Grand Prix where anyone can play and absolute beginners can play against seasoned pros Pro Tours are a sampling of Magic’s best and brightest stars all going head to head for a whole weekend and battling in a couple of different formats. PTQ’s are day long tournaments held in larger cities around the world almost every weekend, with the simple idea that if you win, you’re in! You receive a blue envelope with an invitation to the next Pro Tour (in this case everyone will be trying to qualify for PT Paris).

Anytime a format rotates it’s card pool there is a whole lot of excitement and brewing going on. New decks emerge, new strategies and combos are tried, old favorites are tweaked and tuned and there is very little information on an expected meta (decks people expect to be powerful and popular in their area). Thankfully the pros took on the format first during Day 3 of the most recent World Championships. Most pros, as they tested for worlds, spent a majority of their time tuning their standard decks since those would be needed the most and be the format for the top 8, also being Day 3 there were several intentional draws to keep hopes alive of making the Top 8 so decks with the highest point total were not necessarily played by the top 8 competitors but there were still some ridiculously good players putting up great results with fun decks.

Heading into worlds some things were known or assumed. WW won the most recent Pro Tour which highlighted extended and it didn’t lose many of its key cards. Doran, the runner up at PT Amsterdam lost a few key cards but still had the best mana base and could still play its rock strategy. Faeries were expected to make a comeback after being a non-factor at PT Amsterdam because of the Punishing Fire, Grove of the Burnwillows combo. There will always be people playing Jund as long as Shards block is legal no matter what the format is. And it seemed likely that 5CC (Five Color Control) could make a comeback.

Worlds “They were who we thought they were!”

Faeries had a strong showing. It had 3 players taking it to a 5-1 or better record on Day 3 with Top 8 player, Jonathan Randle, piloting the deck to 6-0.

deck-large:Jonathan Randle - Faeries

The base of this deck didn’t change much from it’s original Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block deck. New additions would be some lands in Creeping Tar Pit, Darkslick Shores, Tectonic Edge and a few spells like Inquisition of Kozilek and Mana Leak. The deck did get a fairly large boost from arguably the best 4 drop ever printed Jace, the Mind Sculptor. All in all this deck plays some very powerful cards and has great synergy. Its not easy to disrupt and has counter magic for those spells that would disrupt it. The sideboard is where Scars really makes its presence felt. Ratchet Bomb does a great job of clearing a whole mess of tokens for just 2 mana as well as being more versatile if needed. Wall of Tanglecord simply is a huge butt to sit in the way of all the aggro/midrange fatties. And Wurmcoil Engine is simply Wurmcoil Engine, hard to remove, destroys aggro, and easy to cast since it doesn’t have a color requirement. At its heart this is a control deck but with Bitterblossom churning out the dudettes and Mistbind Clique waiting to pounce it can finish off an opponent quicky. Because of the pseudo split between control and aggro strategies I suggest playing with this deck a lot before taking it to a tournament.

5CC or Cruel Control also had a very strong showing with 5 decks 5-1 or better, 2 of them unbeaten, and also the choice of this year’s World Champion, Guillaume Matignon. However it was Luis Scott-Vargas of the USA who took his 5CC build to a perfect 6-0.

LSV - 5CC

Legacy crossclimber

1849 VIEWS

This deck is based around keeping the opponent in check until you can resolve a Cruel Ultimatum or a Jace, the Mind Sculptor and essentially lock them out of doing anything else for the rest of the game. When someone pointed out that there were very few win conditions in the deck LSV "countered" that the win condition was to get the opponent into a position of not being able to do anything for the rest of the game. This deck also makes use of Jace, tMS and Scars standout Wurmcoil Engine but otherwise not much is changed from the former standard list. One of the best things this deck has going for it is adaptability. It can change and shape itself into a deck that can handle any and every threat. This comes from its ability to cast any color spell thru the 9 Vivid Lands and 4 Reflecting Pool. It also gets even more flexibility from cards which provide options like Cryptic Command *list*, and Esper Charm as well as from search engines like Jace and Preordain. Sideboarding with this deck isn’t that hard either with several one and two of’s in the deck that can easily be pulled for cards better suited to the match up. As the season rolls along I'm sure this deck with morph and turn with the meta and will always be among the top decks. Control players are very very happy right now.

Jund was also well represented among decks posting good results at World’s with 3 decks that went 5-1.

Sureyya Dipsar - Jund

Legacy crossclimber

961 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Not a whole lot to say about this deck. It’s lands got a boost from the new duals in scars of mirrodin Blackcleave Cliffs and Copperline Gorge. Which really helped speed the deck up. Other than that it maintains its awesome card advantage with several two for ones. A few things I like about this particular list is the Anathemancer main which is a huge amount of damage whenever it hits and the Demigod of Revenge which is so hard for many decks to beat as there wasn’t a huge amount of graveyard hate out there.

Hawt Nu Tek!

The above 3 decks and lots of others from Worlds were just iterations of standard decks that had little tweaks to give them a boost but were comfortable decks for their pilots because of prior experience in former Standard. However, there were some seriously awesome new decks to come from world’s as well. Decks that really took the time to blend the blocks and find new synergies. My personal favorite was from the Canadian team which Pascal Maynard piloted to 6-0. I think its called Steel Artifact (NOT Affinity).

Pascal Maynard - Steel Artifact

Legacy crossclimber

1426 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

This deck has a ton of synergy blending Scars of Mirrodin's artifact bias with the Esper Shard for some crazy awesomeness. The deck dumps a bunch of creatures onto the battlefield quickly and they get huge fast thanks to Tempered Steel, Master of Etherium and Steel Overseer. It’s a little light on the mana but uses Mox Opal and Springleaf Drum to power fix colored mana and add speed. With just a Tempered Steel in play Ranger of Eos can drop 9 power onto the table for just 4 mana, those are almost Tarmogoyf numbers only this is spread across 3 bodies so its often much harder to deal with. The deck's creatures quickly move out of range of Disfigure and Volcanic Fallout and it doesn’t take much for them to move out of Firespout and Lightning Bolt range. Add in the disruption of Tidehollow Sculler and Thoughtseize and you can get some pretty large and fast swarms winning games in short order. Thopter Foundry also provides some card advantage when an opponent tries to kill your creatures you can just sac them for new ones. Pascal even said that the Leonin Arbiters in the side were not even relevant because he was beating people too quickly.

The next deck I want to mention I had to look at 3 times (because I tend to be a bit slow). I saw Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and Scapeshift and thought I had it but then there wasn’t a single mountain in sight?!?! It looked like some Bant control build, but with a scapeshift combo that had no targets.

Ryo Tasaki - Scapeshift

Legacy crossclimber

757 VIEWS

Prismatic Omen is the key here. With Prismatic Omen on the table and 5 lands the deck can Scapeshift getting 4 valakut and one other land to deal something like 80 damage! Simply fetching 3 Valakut can get you to 27 damage (again assuming 2 other lands are already in play). The rest of the deck is built to find and protect the combo. Wargate works almost like a Demonic Tutor if just a little harder to cast. This is a hard combo to interact with especially when its backed with 7 counters (2 more in the side). Combo/control. This deck can win out of nowhere. If you have the ability to bluff a counterspell against this deck you better do it! If you don't then you better win before they get to 5 land!

Elves also had a good showing. It could be the most explosive deck in the format but is also easily disruptable, making it a gamble to play. Can you go off before the opponent has a chance to stop you? The combo is based around Heritage Druid and Nettle Sentinel to power out a bunch of elves at once with the card drawing power of Regal Force and then Joraga Warcaller gives the team a boost out of range of most removal. It also has Fauna Shaman, Ranger of Eos, and Primal Command to find key pieces to the combo. Typically this deck goes off on turn 3. Sometimes on a bad draw it can take 4 turns. If you keep them in check to turn 5 you're probably going to win the game.

Max Lehtinen - Elves

Modern* crossclimber

515 VIEWS

Another big splash was the new iteration of the Mythic deck. This deck's philosophy is, "If you’re playing creatures why not play the best ones in the game and if they’re expensive then just run a bunch of ramp to get them out quicker." The deck also has ways of cheating the awesome beasties out with the hideaway lands and Summoning Traps. This is a deck that plays the high end cards but at mid-range speed. Another way to think about it is if they play one of their many big creatures you can be sure it is better than anything you have on the table and probably in your deck.

Samuele Estratti - Mythic

Legacy crossclimber

982 VIEWS

Something’s Missing

With all of these decks that did well there were a few that were missing. WW and Doran were expected to do well having lost very little from the last Pro Tour and having done so well there. But they were nowhere to be found among the top decks. One player took Doran to a 4-1-1 record which is respectable to be sure but I could not find a WW deck with a record better than 4-2. We can learn a few things from their absence. Sometimes it isn’t only what a deck losses or gains as a format shifts but what other decks get better. Both Faeries and 5CC were non-existent at PT Amsterdam both of which well and truly hose WW. With their re-emergence as powerhouse decks other decks have to adjust as well. WW couldn’t do it. WW had no great match-ups but no bad match-ups and let truly skilled pilots simply play good magic on an even playing field and the results spoke for themselves. Now WW has two horrible match-ups and no really good match-ups. See the diffenence?

Doran is a bit different. It still has the best mana base in the format with 8 fetches to get Murmuring Bosk. It did lose Tarmogoyf which gave the deck more diversity and another big body on the cheap and Putrid Leech is not a replacement. Here I think there is a bit more of a known deck being tested against and prepared for. I think this is a deck or at least a mana base that can be tinkered with and a synergistic powerhouse deck can be found.

Other Fun Decks to Consider

Conley Woods has made a name for himself by building and playing rogue decks that regularly take the field by surprise. So when you turn a guy like that loose on a new format you get something like this!

Conley Woods - Ooze and Oz

Legacy crossclimber

SCORE: 1 | 1700 VIEWS

Seemingly infinite ways to go infinite! The deck runs off of Necrotic Ooze and with a Fauna Shaman in the graveyard and just a couple of open mana the deck can get infinite mana, get a creature infinitely large and hasty and trampling, kill an infinite number of creatures, and even do a ridiculous amount of damage to an opponent's head. Then with on top of all that it has a “land death” package and lots of disruption going on which buys time until it can get its combo online. I'm not going to take the time to go over exaclty how all this works here because ... well ... Conley had to make cheat sheets for the pros to be able to play this deck so if you choose to go this route playtest like a madman (or woman) and do so with a friend looking over your shoulder to help you figure out what the best plays are. Is this one of the best decks in the format? Probably not yet and maybe it won’t ever get there, but is it fun to play? HECK Yeah!

One last deck to mention because I'm sure you'll see it as this deck has always had fans. Polymorph made a comeback and it did really well in the Magic Online World Champs extended portion and AJ Sacher ran the deck to a 4-2 record in the non-cyber toury.

deck-large:AJ Sacher - Polymorph

This deck is also pretty strong as it has a lot of ways to protect it’s combo of tokens plus Polymorph into the only true creature in the deck Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and it has a lot of ways to find its combo.

So what is a good deck to play

With all of these options there is the large question of “What do I play?” In all honesty most all of the decks I’ve posted here have a chance of winning on any given PTQ day. Feel free to test and tweak as you see your metagame. By testing you find which decks suit your style and what decks you have trouble playing. In the end you’ll play better with a deck you enjoy playing even if it isn’t the “best deck in the format”. And to be honest I’m not sure there is a best deck right now. Pat Chapin has said, “Its like the old days, no one has good decks!” Personally I’d put 5CC, Faeries, Steel Artifact, and Scapeshift as the best decks right now. As to what I’m playing I’m going with Steel Artifact right now even if it is a bit risky when you don’t draw the best cards. But it does have “I win” opening hands which I love getting.

It should be said that this format is still brand new and there are lots of unexplored idea and combos that just haven’t found the right framework to be competitive so keep brewing. The next “best deck” is out there. I’m currently testing a rock deck that uses the Doran mana base. I’ll share it here but know that this deck is a work in progress and should not be seen as on a level with any of the above decks. I welcome any comments about this deck or any other in the forums. Until next time happy brewing!

deck-large:New Rock