Extort decks, typically, don't suggest a particularly dominating offense. They're more liable to hold back, defend, and allow the damage derived from spell extortion to turn the tide in their favour. Exalted decks, on the other hand, absolutely love to attack -- but only with one creature. And that's the basis of this deck. That and the idea of mercenary knights marauding as they please.
While exalted and extort don't have much objective, technical synergy, neither mechanic interrupts the other. Furthermore, both mechanics are common to the black-white colour combination, allowing both to exist in harmony. Even the meekest extort creature becomes a pressuring threat with some exalted cards on the board.
NOTEWORTHY CARDS
Tithe Drinker is both an early attacker and an extort source. This card's lifelink is usually devalued because of its low toughness; with exalted, that's not an issue and I get a good chunk of life out of an attack.
Fiendslayer Paladin
doesn't have a place in every deck; for one colourless mana less, Knight of Meadowgrain does much the same thing without hexproof against black and red. In this deck, however, the two-drop lifelink slot is better filled by Tithe Drinker, which trades in first strike for extort. The Paladin comes in a turn later to become the deck's primary attacker, with its first strike making it costly to block and lifelink contributing to the durability of the whole deck.
Sword of Vengeance provides this deck with two game-changing mechanics -- haste and trample. Significantly, this changes the value of creatures entering my side of the battlefield and drastically increases the value of exalted. As a bonus, the equipped creature gets both first strike and vigilance, empowering an otherwise weak defense.
Archangel of Thune is the biggest threat in the deck, compounding the value of both lifelink and extort. As a result, it's often the immediate target of the removal that can deal with it. Depending on how my opponent's mana looks and the number of cards in their hand, this could be dropped onto the board later than its five-mana CMC might suggest to ensure that I have the opportunity to gain life with it on the board. Getting just a few instances of lifegain with this on the field alters how I attack -- which primarily means that I move from attacking with one creature to attacking with many of them.
SIDEBOARD
The deck uses a transformative (or semi-transformative) sideboard that can potentially change its type, depending on what's taken out of the maindeck. In this case, the sideboard moves the deck away from an aggressive beatdown and into control. Again, some notables:
Merciless Eviction -- 'nuff said.
Mind Shatter
, in my experience, is often used best around turn 5, paying 3 for X. At that point, many hands have somewhere around three cards in them anyway, so it finishes off what
Sin Collector
and Duress begin.
Sin Collector
is anti-control and, surprisingly, a somewhat decent attacker if push comes to shove. Easily taken out, but once he's down, he's done his work. Can also be used as sacrificial defense if need be, although I like him as a target for
Orzhov Charm
so I can get double value out of his EtB effect.
