I guess I am in the minority but I think that the present Extended – or at least the pre-Planar Chaos Extended, as the “present” Extended might actually end up being a real pickle – is one of the easiest formats we have ever had to figure out. The entire format is just a list of comparative clocks. Winning involves hitting your Fundamental Turn before the opponent does, and building your deck in such a way as to ensure that that will happen.
This format is really not complicated. If your opponent plays Seat of the Synod and passes and you put him on “Affinity” you are just not very experienced, and you deserve to lose to his NO Stick deck (that, or he mulliganed to four). Conversely if your opponent plays a first turn Ancient Spring, there is really only one reasonable reaction, being “If I am lucky, I have four turns to stop that.”
“Stopping that” can come via one of several methods. You can win more quickly (for example you played a Tinder Farm, going first). You can (probably) add a turn to his clock with a Duress. You can add two full turns with Rule of Law or Trinisphere. You can add two or more turns, a great many turns and probably “enough” with a Destructive Flow, provided it is fast enough, and positioned in the right deck. Molten Rain is probably about one and a half (don’t forget you get to piggyback two points of burn).
In this most simplistic sense, the entire format is less about matchups specifically and at its core about challenging Fundamental Turns. You either pre-empt with an actual victory, or you tack turns onto the opponent’s Fundamental Turn until his is higher than yours so that you win by default. I know this is not a perfect definition, but I call the latter “interaction.” Bluffing is interaction. Forcing the opponent to discard a key combination piece is interaction. Shattering a Chrome Mox is interaction. Making a confusing Fact or Fiction split is the same. All of these things, correctly executed, seek to make the opponent win the game more slowly. It is very rare that a single Duress will beat a good combination deck all by itself. Shattering a Chrome Mox is usually “card advantage,” but again, by itself, when was the last time someone beat a reasonable draw with nothing but a Stone Rain? Shaheen Soorani once told me that he didn’t have to play Wrath of God in his U/W deck because the opponent would assume he had it, and would hold back himself.
I know that Richard Feldman was operating tongue-in-cheek in his 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… 12, 13, 14, 15 list of decks in “The Rules of Engagement,” so it is hard to tell if Richard was trying to be serious; either way, I don’t think the system is not particularly applicable for the current format. Selecting a good deck in this format isn’t matchup-driven; having a large number of good matchups is instead just a by-product of playing a good deck.
A good deck can be a good top-down deck, a deck that can implement one or more powerful plans that are either faster than the opponent’s plan, or go over the top of his strategy. Richard’s Tenacious Tron, left unchecked, will present a very powerful array of threats and answers, from the disruptive Chalice of the Void to the protected Platinum Angel.
Boros and TEPS are – or at least were – the poster children of top-down Extended. Neither deck presented many main deck answers. Boros was – and is – the culmination of more than ten years of Red Deck technology, the marriage of the best creatures and the best burn spells. TEPS was (is?) simply the best top-down combination deck we have ever seen (it’s not the best combo deck ever in the abstract because, unlike Trix or High Tide, TEPS can’t defend itself, but neither of those decks were as quick, consistent, or purely lethal in their forward momentum as is TEPS).
I do think there is such a thing as a Rule of Engagement for the present Extended. Mine is essentially perpendicular to Richard’s:
“Play in such a way as to deny your opponent interactivity.”
Personally, I love interactivity. I never play combo decks. I often play methodical mid-range creature decks that plan for intricate victories turn ten or later. I love figuring out how my opponent’s deck works, and playing in such a way that I will dominate the matchup no matter what either of us draws. By the same token, I don’t like it for people to do that to me, which is why I always play these weird, you know, methodical mid-range creature decks (that no one would take seriously, let alone test against before the tournament).
Haterator is an interesting model for good deck design in this format, and also illustrates an important lapse – and eventual success – elsewhere in the environment. I personally lost with Haterator, finishing 5-3 in the one PTQ where I played it. Julian Levin, my protege and predecessor as the New York State Champion, finished 6-1-1, out on breakers; elsewhere, the deck qualified in a field of largely easy matchups and realistic decks, Boros, TEPS, Trinket Angels, etc.
One of the main things I did putting together Haterator was obviously to bias it against what I perceived as the preseason Decks to Beat (TEPS and Boros), with minor side attention paid to flashy Tier 2s like Flow and Trinket Angels. The deck attacks these four decks in about three very different ways. Haterator beats Boros on the fundamentals. In that sense it is a perfect “Flores” deck. Billy Moreno and I were comparing deck design philosophies the other week over hot dogs. Billy wants to play something significantly worse than his opponent will play three turns later. I want to play something slightly better than my opponent plays each turn. Note that Billy’s philosophy is specifically geared towards speed and mine is geared towards attrition and exhaustion over a long game. Haterator plays a million Exalted Angels, Jittes, and Hierarchs, drawing important fire with Boreal Druids, creating small inefficiencies and difficult barriers for Boros. Boros is designed to quickly deal twenty damage, but each Sudden Shock or Lightning Helix directed at a Llanowar Elves steals a point or two. In this sense, Haterator denies the interactivity that Boros is trying to generate (increasing Haterator’s clock by slowing down its development of fatties) by tacking additional half-turns onto Boros’s own clock by “wasting” burn points. On top of both of these top-down strategic advantages, Haterator adds a de facto soft lock with Troll Ascetic plus Worship.
The TEPS matchup is very different. In this matchup, Haterator must approach from Richard’s “play a deck that is at least powerful,” presenting a clock that is comparable to Levy Rock, not the best, but respectable given the context and positioning of the deck. Haterator will only beat TEPS on the fundamentals if the stars align themselves improbably, but the presence of Gilded Light or Orim’s Chant (or other potential and as-yet unexplored spoilers like Trinisphere and Chalice of the Void) allows the deck to smash TEPS machinery and generate significant resource advantage with a single card. In this matchup, unlike Boros, Haterator is favored but draw-dependent. Against Boros, Haterator can draw essentially any distribution of lands and spells and start off ahead; against TEPS, Haterator will win most games in the long run, but have wildly different game-to-game results based on both players’ draws.
Compare these breakdowns with Trinket Angels and Flow. These are decks that simply can’t beat Haterator unless it is massively manascrewed or plays very foolishly. Trinket Angels relies on Counterbalance and the ability to flip up one- or two-mana spells. Haterator’s one-mana spells are best before Counterbalance is online, and are therefore a non-issue; the deck only plays two total two-mana spells, which is good in the sense of blanking Counterbalance but less good in that these cards start with “Umezawa’s” and end with “Jitte”, and the opponent will only ever win if he has Jitte advantage. Flow is a fundamentally weak deck in the same way that Haterator is a fundamentally strong one, but makes up for that with a single strategic card that can consistently win blowout games from turn 2. Haterator can dodge the Destructive Flow, and plays trump at every drop as long as the Flow is not keeping the deck manascrewed. Unless Trinket Angels establishes Jitte advantage, it can’t really win because it has no sevens. There’s Exalted Angel, and everyone else will eventually fall to Eternal Dragon (just like when they fought in Onslaught Block).
At the PTQ where I played Haterator, I lost to three NO Stick decks. NO Stick is among the weakest decks in the entire format on the fundamentals, and has been revealed to be essentially unplayable as the format has become more sophisticated. I tested NO Stick before Worlds because Osyp and Chapin had versions with Teferi for the hard lock, which is of course very exciting, but I kept losing to even the proto-Aggro Loam decks online. I lost to everything. NO Stick is kind of a fake combo deck that has a potential Fundamental Turn of two (ooh la la) but folds to correctly positioned interactivity. We were all naive in Week 1, and didn’t think broadly enough about where we wanted to put our Ancient Grudges. People didn’t play Ancient Grudge in Loam… It’s not a sorcery! Of course we just play the one Hull Breach! People didn’t universally splash Ancient Grudge in any deck with Green or Red as they do today (Trinket ‘Tog will sometimes run the double splash!). I am fairly certain that NO Stick is a long run dog against any kind of a reliable deck that packs four Ancient Grudges after sideboarding. In the first week, I didn’t have Ancient Grudge, and not enough other people were playing good enough versions of their own decks (meaning playing G/R decks with Ancient Grudge) to hold down local hero NO Stick, which really has no place as a default Tier 1 deck in this format. You can make whatever arguments you want about NO Stick’s side plans (Angels after sideboarding, Fact or Fiction feeding permission, Wrath of God against creatures) but go back to my Rule of Engagement:
“Play in such a way as to deny your opponent interactivity.”
I don’t ever want to be on the side of the table where I keep a perfectly reasonable two land or land / Mox hand and I can’t possibly beat my opponent because, Scepter or no Scepter, he can levy two or four or even more Sinkholes and one-sided Razes my way at a stage of the game where I can’t reasonably protect myself.
In my entire career, I’ve only ever played The Deck to Beat once. I played Affinity during Mirrodin Block because it was right. Mirrodin Block at equilibrium would have been about 75% Aether Vial Affinity. Even late in the season (circa GP: New Jersey) there were still dissenters with Paradise Mantles in their decks! Yes, there were Affinity hate decks, but the concentration of Affinity decks was not actually high enough to keep them from eliminating each other. Think back, you Freshmaker and U/G players. How many times did you end up sitting across from your opposite number, scorning the main deck Oxidize in your hand as your opponent summoned an Arc-Slogger or entwined Rude Awakening? The math of Mirrodin Block – restrictive as the format was – was that you would theoretically be a coin flip from winning or losing a mirror, that the Red Decks either didn’t have hate cards main (you won, and they tried to be hate decks after sideboarding) or they did and you won about half the time, and the U/G and G/R decks could theoretically beat you but on the numbers you won about half the time in practical terms (every Molder Slug player has a horror story about an opponent controlling three copies of Disciple of the Vault). Affinity was right because the mirror rewarded skill and preparation, and there were too many predators for efficient hunting.
Just look back on Jeroen Remie‘s deck from the Top 8 of Grand Prix: New Jersey to see how layered mind games can be even when playing an archetype deck:
Affinity
Jeroen Remie
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Tree of Tales
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
3 Great Furnace
1 Glimmervoid
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Frogmite
3 Atog
2 Myr Retriever
4 Aether Vial
3 Cranial Plating
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Thoughtcast
Sideboard
4 Oxidize
3 Viridian Shaman
3 Shrapnel Blast
3 Moriok Rigger
1 Myr Retriever
1 Glimmervoid
Knowing that Day 2 players would generally be loathe to spend Shatter on a land, he saved sideboard space by playing Tree of Tales over Darksteel Citadel, but retained the ability to side in a hate package of Oxidizes and Viridian Shamans.
Point being, I really like Affinity. In playtesting, I never lose with Ichorid. Like never. I play a boring last year’s Ichorid with two Wonders and Careful Study, no Dread Return combo, none of it… Never lose Game 1. Ever. It goes beyond personal preference for me. No matter how many Top 8s Affinity scores, I don’t think I could win a PTQ with that deck. Ichorid is even worse, no matter how well it tests.
“Play in such a way as to deny your opponent interactivity.”
To win a PTQ, assuming I made Top 8 with Affinity, I would assume that I had to beat as many as 24 Ancient Grudges. Now given the fact that I don’t think that I can beat one Ancient Grudge in a deck that isn’t manascrewed and also not a joke, I don’t like that math.
I have a winning record in testing Ichorid versus Tormod’s Crypt, but I still have to respect it, and at the very least, slow myself down for a Pithing Needle; no amount of testing and learning will ever make me comfortable playing against someone I would consider a weaker player who had the right tools. I tested the U/G deck (see Mark Young article earlier this week) versus Manning Bot, and won every game from the U/G side. He couldn’t beat Trinket Mage, the one Crypt, and the Wishes (which can get Eternal Witness for Crypt in graveyard, Trinket Mage for Crypt in library, or Loaming Shaman for Pithing Needle on Crypt in sideboarded games). Am I so great I can’t beat someone, anyone, drawing the relevant spells to trump my linear theme?
Wouldn’t I instead play a deck that isn’t vulnerable to Tormod’s Crypt?
Sometimes people wonder about some of my deck implementations. Beasts? Really? What was with that Domain deck? I’ll let you in on a little secret: You should probably be playing a linear deck, because R&D packs extra juice into the linear mechanics, and more than that probably be playing a hybrid linear deck, because… That’s another article. Ultimately most of the linear decks are about the same power level, even Affinity at this point. They vary in speed, but can be positioned to control time with the right cards. When I showed Chapin my Domain deck, he had an interesting response. “These cards are all powerful, but I’m just not sure why you would want to play these particular powerful cards instead of a different suite.”
Then I asked him if he had ever untapped with a Bringer in play.
Jim Davis just pulled off the biggest swindle in Magic since Pierre Canali at Columbus. Goblins? Really? The real question should be why haven’t more people been playing Goblin linear tribal decks? Goblins is among the most decorated linear options in Extended since Onslaught Block. Jim played it in a weekend where Black control elements got better for Extended, knowing in his heart of hearts that he would probably face zero copies of Engineered Plague! Nice Top 8.
My real answer to Chapin is that I just want to play a linear that no one is hating out. Is Domain “better” than Affinity? It sure beats the pants off of Affinity! It isn’t top-down better; it’s different, and wins the game on different terms. However, Domain doesn’t pack to Ancient Grudge. It is, on the other hand, one hundred times more interesting and fun than Goblins, which is like the Mark Herberholz of Red Decks.
Jon Finkel and I were talking last night, and he said that no matter how apparently diverse the format is, there will still be three best decks. In some formats, you have a deck like Critical Mass that is 70% against the field, or you can play Napster the week of Regionals and have more than 90% against the field. This Magic isn’t like that. Jon says that the fact that Deck 1 is 54% against the field and Deck 24 is 48% against the field doesn’t change the fact that Deck 1 is a better choice. I think that even in our current format we have a front-runner, and that it would be silly to call Aggro Loam anything but the Deck to Beat. I think the implication is that you shouldn’t be playing Deck 24.
BDM pointed out that he was the first person to publish that it was the best deck (even if he stole the opinion from one of the Japanese), and this was the latest in a long line of the mock tournament being right (Sadin won our first one of the season with Loam over my Haterator).
Do you know why Loam is the best and not Affinity?
The answer is simple.
People aren’t willing to play the cards that hold Aggro Loam in check. NO Stick would be a dominant deck instead of a Week 1 has-been if people didn’t all jump on the Ancient Grudge bandwagon. This was a splash that really hurt Affinity. I firmly believe that if there were no Ancient Grudge, Affinity would be the format leader because Boros is just not performing to expectations in this diverse format, and adding Kataki, War’s Wage does not exactly stiffen the terrible Loam matchup.
People aren’t willing to play the cards that hold Aggro Loam in check.
“Play in such a way as to deny your opponent interactivity.”
Loam is playing arguably the most powerful linear in Extended, as Life from the Loam is arguably the most powerful card, and no one is stepping up with their proactive interactive elements. Yes, Flow has a matchup against Loam. Yes, Opposition has a really nice matchup. In both cases these Blue Envelope-winning decks beat Loam on the fundamentals. They are not dedicating Worships and Starstorms, let alone Tormod’s Crypts and Chalices, because they don’t have to. Part of the problem is that I was wrong in my initial assessment back from the first mock tournament: Tormod’s Crypt is an issue for Loam only when played in an aggressive deck (that can get past the 0/5 Walls). Chalice of the Void is no longer a lock because of the recent Loam addition of Engineered Explosives… Chalice players are in increasing numbers finding themselves in the triple Worship dilemma against the first Ray of Revelation. How do you play when you are already winning but you don’t have inevitability?
It wasn’t my intention to write this article as a rebuttal of Richard’s “The Rules of Engagement,” but I actually read a forum post with an alternate Prime Directive that I really disagreed with:
“Card Choices Need to Be as Versatile as Possible.”
I think this is a horrendous rule for Extended. Jon Finkel thinks that Magic is a game of options, and that Magic well played involves keeping one’s options open. He used this argument for fuel in his never-ending tirade against Constructed and validation for his love of draft.
In Extended, card choices actually need to be surgically narrow. All the top decks are defined by doing one thing really, really, well. Life from the Loam… Destructive Flow… Seething Song… Urza’s Power Plant… These are versatile cards? The most versatile card you will see in Extended is Vindicate, and it is present almost exclusively as a Pillage or Molten Rain replacement in a deck that is already geared towards eight Stone Rains for possible manascrew victories. Obviously Vindicate has an upside against Jitte, Teferi, or Counterbalance, but unlike previous formats, its presence would not be justified if there weren’t already a land destruction sub-theme to the including deck(s).
At the same time, the aggressively reactive interactive cards that are buying Blue Envelopes in this format – the Worships, Ancient Grudges, and Global Ruins – are all present for specific situations and matchups. No one is saying you can’t Starstorm away Jim Davis Goblins at the end of turn, but that card wouldn’t even have been present in the Top 8 and qualifying Bests decks had a deficiency in specifically the U/G Opposition matchup not been identified; in fact, multiple players have voiced an interest in Slice and Dice instead because it can’t be countered (and you get to draw a card). The best example might be Gilded Light. I wanted to play Gilded Light because it counters Gifts Ungiven and Shrapnel Blast. The decks that finished ahead of me and actually qualified playing Haterator switched to Orim’s Chant, which always beats TEPS. To death. With no alternate option of the Warrens kill.
Quick question:
What’s better, Boros with Sinew Sliver and Cautery Sliver (and maybe Sedge Sliver), or Boros with Samurai of the Pale Curtain, Eight-And-A-Half-Tails, Kitsune Blademaster, and Patron of the Kitsune (ting!)?
No, seriously.
LOVE
MIKE