The Extended metagame is constantly changing, as if it were actually a living thing. When you find some card or deck that’s amazing and continually bash people with it, they tend to change their strategy to even the odds. This was true at the beginning of the Extended season with Combo Elves. In Berlin, SIX out of the Top 8 decks were Combo Elves in some form or fashion. While a few varied on their win conditions, most had the same engine of Glimpse of Nature + cheap green dorks that produced incredible amounts of mana, and could win as early as turn 2. Many players (including myself) felt that this deck was too powerful for the metagame and deserved some sort of banning. But we were probably wrong, and most people believe that Elves is no longer the top dog. This is true for a multitude of reasons, one of which is the growing popularity of Faeries.
When a deck dominates a Pro Tour like Elves did in Berlin, or Tinker did in New Orleans back in 2003, people tend to change their decks in significant ways to beat these strategies. As for the format featuring Tinker, there wasn’t much to be done outside of maindecking Annul, or my very own super secret tech in the card Foil from Mercadian Masques block. It was a pseudo Force of Will against Tinker, as they usually sacrificed a card or went all-in on one huge spell with their infinite mana sources. Free counterspells are good against this strategy, and I ended up playing a Psychatog deck with Annul and Foil to combat those monstrous robots, doing reasonably well. That being said, I felt as if I had changed my deck accordingly to combat the format, as I faced down Tinker decks on a very regular basis (literally 80% of the time). The important thing here is that I found a way to best the big problem at hand, but it was irrelevant. Wizards of the Coast thought Tinker was too good, and found a much more efficient way of beating it: bannings. The same could be said for cards like Night of Soul’s Betrayal had they banned some of the more problematic cards in Elves, but this is not the case.
Looking back to PT: Berlin, Elves dominated the format and you can literally see history starting to repeat itself. However, Elves did not receive any sort of bannings, leaving the player base to come up with a way to combat the little pointy-eared dorks. A short time later at Worlds the players did find new and different ways to beat Elves. These ranged from Night of Soul’s Betrayal, Darkblast, Ethersworn Canonist, Engineered Explosives, Shadow Guildmage, to even reverting back to maindeck Seal of Fire and Mogg Fanatic (which the Zoo decks had previously cut in Berlin). Since Worlds 2008, there have been plenty of PTQ’s around the world, and Elves has put up pretty pathetic numbers is comparison to the Pro Tour. With so much hate, and players being prepared for the deck, I don’t forsee them winning a PTQ anytime soon. On top of that, Elves is an extremely complicated deck, and probably too difficult for your average PTQ player to pilot perfectly and do well (myself included, as I’ve made 100’s of mistakes in playtesting). I think it is generally the wrong deck to choose for an upcoming Extended PTQ unless you know some secret that I don’t, or your name is Luis Scott-Vargas (but even he has abandoned the deck for two other Extended tournaments). It was great in Berlin as a “surprise,” but many decks have altered their strategy to beat Elves. In the aftermath, and without any bannings, another deck has risen to top: Faeries. Oh those tiny little pixies; can’t they just stay away from one format? Apparently not. With an incredible match win percentage against the majority of the field, including the notorious Elves deck, it is hard to justify not playing them. Faeries is one of the main reasons why the Elves deck isn’t as powerful and on top of the metagame as it once was, similar to how Psychatog could have surpassed the Tinker deck in time, given the player base decided to start dedicating their time, sideboard, and even maindeck cards to beating the strongest archetype in the field. You would have seen more blue decks playing Annul, and random aggressive strategies playing cards like Damping Matrix. This is similar to Faeries maindecking Engineered Explosives and other decks maindecking Darkblast (or Slice and Dice).
With Faeries clearly coming to the forefront of Extended, I feel it necessary to give it a little spotlight. It seems like every week at least one Faerie deck wins a PTQ, and rarely are two copies the same. However, with two wins last week from nearly identical maindecks (shout to Owen Turtenwald with the original win in Madison earlier this season) in different parts of the United States, as well as David Irvine piloting a similar copy to the Top 4 of the Richmond PTQ, I think it is safe to say that the core cards for the deck have been established. If you compare the decklists together, you can see that there is a distinct pattern.
Here is the Noah Schwartz decklist from the Michigan PTQ on Feb 22nd:
6 Island
4 Mutavault
3 Polluted Delta
3 Riptide Laboratory
4 River of Tears
4 Secluded Glen
1 Watery Grave
3 Sower of Temptation
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Vendilion Clique
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
4 Ancestral Vision
2 Cryptic Command
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Mana Leak
4 Spell Snare
3 Stifle
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
Sideboard:
3 Damnation
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
3 Negate
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Thoughtseize
1 Threads of Disloyalty
One potential eyesore is the absence of Glen Elendra Archmage. Recently, most lists have cut Archmage in favor of the long time champion of Standard: Cryptic Command. I had been previously against cutting Archmage, but was persuaded otherwise. It was explained to me that Archmage was great in the mirror match when everyone played Vedalken Shackles, and only okay to fair in other matchups. However, more and more people are cutting Shackles for Sower of Temptation, which makes Archmage significantly worse. Not to mention that getting your Archmage stolen by a Sower of Temptation when you have mana available can be pretty awkward (especially if you have an Ancestral ready to come off suspend). That being said, Archmage also seems fine in other matchups but doesn’t stand up well to Cryptic Command in comparison. She’s okay against TEPS, but generally taps you out and leaves you vulnerable to being combo’ed. If she is Remanded, or your opponent uses Gigadrowse in response to tap all of your lands, you have virtually handed the game to your opponent. It will be hard for them to lose with a window big enough to drive a truck through.
With Archmage being mediocre at best in two of the matchups where she is supposed to be amazing, I can safely say that Cryptic Command is a better card in more matchups. Against Zoo, you can tap opposing attackers to prevent upwards of 5-10 damage for a turn, drawing a card all the while. Against combo, you can counter a crucial piece of their puzzle, or bounce their charge-land sitting on infi counters. Against slow control decks, Cryptic Command is the best counterspell ever, being able to swing games entirely in your favor unlike Archmage. The only matchup where I really miss Archmage is the Loam matchup. But, that is such a narrow portion of the field that Cryptic gets the nod, as most lists have already made the switch and have proven to do well.
Looking back at Owen Turtenwald list from the Madison PTQ before Conflux, you can see most of these lists are almost identical. With 3 wins from vitually the same deck, I can safely say this is as good of a starting point as any when preparing to play with Faeries at an upcoming PTQ. This manabase was chosen specifically to combat Boil and Choke, while still maintaining enough Islands to fight against a resolved Blood Moon effect. It was also chosen to play sideboard cards like Thoughtseize and Damnation, which are fair against a metagame full of combo and aggro decks. However, I don’t feel as if you need a manabase this extreme to combat Choke or Boil, as those cards are fairly narrow and generally bad against a prepared Faerie opponent. In testing, Secluded Glen seemed to come into play tapped a bit too much, as you only play 11 Faeries in the deck. River of Tears was also bad when trying to suspend Ancestral Vision, or sometimes when casting a Vendilion Clique on your own turn while your opponent was tapped out. Also, I am a huge fan of playing 8 fetchlands and utility sideboard cards against your more questionable matchups, so I decided to try some changes. It seems to me that the only card Owen had for the sideboard against Affinity (your worst matchup) was Damnation, which is usually a turn too slow to keep you from actually dying but still a potent weapon if resolved. You are also in desperate need to draw two black sources of mana to cast the spell early, and that doesn’t always happen before turn 4. So, I decided to change the manabase a bit, and try out some new sideboard cards. Here is the list I played in a few Magic Online Daily Events this past weekend.
Creatures (13)
Lands (26)
Spells (21)
- 2 Umezawa's Jitte
- 4 Mana Leak
- 2 Stifle
- 3 Engineered Explosives
- 4 Spell Snare
- 4 Ancestral Vision
- 2 Cryptic Command
Sideboard
The difference maindeck is slight, with a change to the manabase and adding a 26th land in favor of cutting a Stifle to the sideboard. I felt as though it was the most narrow card in the deck, and having more anti-combo cards in the board would be fine. I am always a fan of adding lands to a control deck, and feel it necessary for this deck to hit 4 mana.
The biggest difference, and I believe the best case for playing this version, is the sideboard. While having more fetchlands in the deck makes you slightly more vulnerable to red-based strategies, the upside is absolutely incredible. You gain 3 of the best tools for fighting the format’s top decks: Kataki, Ethersworn Canonist, and Path to Exile. These three cards should be reason enough to play White as your splash color. I noticed that when playing red as a splash color, the only time I sided in more than 1 or 2 Ancient Grudge was against Affinity, and often I would remove Firespout from my sideboard completely as it couldn’t kill Tarmogoyf. And, traditionally, Kataki obliterates Affinity. They can’t really deal with him without losing a few permanents and getting timewalked in the process. Plus, if they side in something as narrow as Darkblast against you, you have lots of ways to counter it. That also means they have to leave mana open on your turn to avoid getting completely blown out, giving you free tempo at the cost of them knowing you have an incredible weapon to fight them.
With White, you also gain Path to Exile to fight Affinity, All-in Red, Zoo, Bant, or other aggressive creature-based strategies. All of these decks require 1-2 threats to gain a huge advantage, and having an efficient removal spell can shut them completely out of the game (especially AIR and Affinity) until you establish control. With access to 4 Kataki, 3 Path to Exile, and 3 Sower of Temptation after sideboarding, Affinity becomes an easily winnable matchup! That is something I can’t necessarily say for the UB version, and something I am very happy about. I hate robots…
Another card that may seem out of place is Ethersworn Canonist. Believe me when I say that this card is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. It is absolutely the best reason for to play White at all. While most lists play Trickbind or Thoughtseize, I discovered that these were good against TEPS but not great against Elves, which is starting to see a small resurgence. Trickbind has virtually no effect on Elves, and is an extremely narrow sideboard card. Canonist is a strict upgrade in the board to fight other matchups, but still has a ton of value against TEPS. Here it acts as both a clock (which is very important), as well as a means of keeping them from comboing. With 4 Vendilion Clique and a slew of countermagic to protect him, it shouldn’t be too difficult to stick and keep an Ethersworn Canonist on the table against TEPS. Even if Canonist only buys you a few turns, that is still usually enough for you to squeak out a victory. I, for one, am not a fan of sitting on Stifle effects until my opponent has critical mass to Gigadrowse my entire board, and then combo me out.
The positive EV you gain from having a sideboard card that is useful in two or more matchups as opposed to a card that is only useful in one matchup is incredible. Canonist also makes for a pretty decent sideboard card (along with Kataki) against Burn Deck Wins as a way to disrupt their early development. With Canonist, you can effectively counter every spell they play each turn because they generally draw 2-3 lands, and can’t play more than 1 spell a turn. If they waste a burn spell on Canonist, then that is one less burn spell going to your dome: a win-win situation if I’ve ever seen one. Kataki helps similarly, forcing them to pay upkeep for their 7 or so artifact lands they play to support Shrapnel Blast, while also being a bear to equip Jitte with, or put pressure on them while you counter their relevant burn spells. Bringing in 7-8 creatures to help you put a clock on the burn deck, or to just force them to burn your creatures, is much better than it may seem. This gives you an opportunity to side out useless cards like Sower of Temptation and Stifle. Canonist can also help a lot in the Loam matchups, keeping your opponent from using Life from the Loam with Raven’s Crime effectively (retrace counts as their spell for the turn).
With the versatility of the sideboard greatly increasing with the White splash (as opposed to Black or Red), I find it necessary to talk about some recent changes that have taken place in the format. For one, most Faerie decks have cut a lot of their artifacts, making cards like Ancient Grudge and Krosan Grip virtually dead in the opponent’s hand. Shackles was a key card for the mirror match for a long time, but it was only good in game 1. Afterwards your opponent would side in Ancient Grudge to beat your Shackles. While this plan was pretty solid, it also forced players to eventually stop playing Shackles altogether. Most of the winning lists have cut it, and I would recommend doing so as well. Against Zoo, they’ll generally side in Grudge or Duergar Hedge-Mage to combat your artifacts and enchantments, so giving them too many targets is generally a bad idea. Vedalken Shackles has been replaced (almost unanimously) by Sower of Temptation. They tend to do very similar things, but one is much more synergistic with the rest of your deck (namely Riptide Laboratory and Spellstutter Sprite).
The most likely matchups you’ll face in a given PTQ are as follows (in no particular order):
Affinity
Elves
Faeries
Loam (MJ or Death Cloud)
Zoo (Naya and five-color)
TEPS
For these matchups, my sideboard is great against all of them except for Loam. If you expect a Loam-heavy metagame, I would suggest a different sideboard:
4 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Kataki, War’s Wage
3 Path to Exile
2 Threads of Disloyalty
3 Relic of Progenitus
However, I do not expect too much Loam in the current metagame, as they are a pretty big underdog to TEPS. That being said, I don’t think Relic of Progenitus is really necessary in the sideboard. Using the sideboard listsed earlier, here is how I would side for each match:
Affinity
+4 Kataki, War’s Wage, +3 Path to Exile
-2 Stifle, -2 Venser, Shaper Savant, -2 Cryptic Command, -1 Vendilion Clique
In this matchup, you should mulligan aggressively into a hand with Kataki, or a defensive hand with Explosives and Spell Snare or Path to Exile. This is especially true on the draw, as they can get blazing fast starts that just blow you out if your hand is all mana leaks what whatnot. You side out your slow cards in favor of cheap answers for their larger threats. Cryptic Command comes out because it is only great when you can actually counter a spell with it, and at 4 mana that doesn’t seem likely against Affinity. Venser suffers the same fate, as bouncing a permanent against Affinity isn’t extremely relevant. They can usually recast the spell at very little cost. Stifle also comes out because it has very few targets.
Elves (Chord of Calling Version)
+4 Ethersworn Canonist, +2 Threads of Disloyalty, +2 Path to Exile
-2 Venser, Shaper Savant -2 Cryptic Command, -2 Stifle, -1 Vendilion Clique, -1 Spell Snare
This matchup is all about their Hivemaster and Glimpse of Nature. If you can keep your opponent off both of these cards, generally you can easily take control of the game. However, if they resolve either, then it is going to be very hard for you to win without a control magic or removal spell for their Hivemaster. Most games you can easily take control of by drawing an Engineered Explosives, but this doesn’t always happen. The same can be said for an active Umezawa’s Jitte, but if they draw a Viridian Shaman then they can blank your trump card pretty effectively, even if you get to take out a few little green dorks along the way. Generally, Spell Snare and Mana Leak are great in the early game, but rarely are they both good in multiples. Elves has only 8 targets for Snare (4 Hivemaster and 4 Elvish Visionary), so cutting 1 is fine. Canonist out of the board can shut them down until you gain control of the game, as long as you can protect it from their 1 (sometimes 2) Viridian Shaman. However, they will rarely have enough mana to Pact for the Shaman, and if they do they’ll have to tap out on their turn to pay for Pact (since they can only play 1 spell per turn via the Canonist). Canonist makes Summoner’s Pact pretty laughable. This is one matchup where your sideboard really shines.
Mirror
+2 Path to Exile, +1 Stifle
-3 Engineered Explosives
Most Faeries don’t play Bitterblossom in the sideboard anymore, so Explosives is generally bad because it kills all of your cards as well. It is also susceptible to Stifle, making it even worse when you desperately need it. Path to Exile comes into to help fight the “Sower War.” Each player will more than likely be battling over Sower of Temptation later in the game, and being able to permanently remove theirs (especially in response to Riptide Lab) can swing the game in your favor. It is definitely better than Explosives, and can even take out a Vendilion Clique with ease. It can be a huge tempo boost if your opponent plays Jitte, equips, and attacks all in the same turn, as you can virtually 4 for 1 them on mana expenditure. Sure, they get a land, but at that point in the game another land isn’t going to matter as much as the huge tempo you just gained. Stifle is there to combat a multitude of effects, but mainly to fight over their Ancestral Visions.
Loam
Against Loam, you don’t have much of a sideboard (like I said earlier). If you decide to play Relic of Progenitus over the cards suggested earlier, then I would probably side like this:
+3 Relic of Progenitus
-2 Stifle, -1 Spellstutter Sprite
However, if you do not play the Relic sideboard, then you can side in Ethersworn Canonist to prevent them from Raven’s Crime locking you mid and late game. Canonist also acts as another solid threat against their low creature count, and can carry a Jitte without fear of Darkblast.
Sideboarding here matters a lot on whether they play Tarmogoyf or not, because of Threads of Disloyalty:
+4 Ethersworn Canonist
-2 Stifle, -2 Spellstutter Sprite
More than likely they will be bringing in Darkblast (if they don’t already have it maindeck) which can make Spellstutter Sprite the worst card ever. Stifle is equally bad, as your only targets vs them are fetchlands, and the occasional cycle of a land. This matchup isn’t all that bad, as you can generally tempo them out if they don’t have Loam + Crime, and if they do you can refill easily with Ancestral Vision. Being able to put pressure on them while maintaining the ability to counter Life from the Loam is extremely important. If they play Tarmogoyf or Kitchen Finks, you can generally gain a large advantage by playing Sower of Temptation with backup protection from Riptide Lab or countermagic. When originally testing against Loam, the Faerie decks played Thirst for Knowledge instead of Ancestral Vision. This made Loam + Crime much more effective, as they could virtually Crime for infinite, and it didn’t matter how many cards you drew with Thirst because they could all be discarded by the end of the turn. With Ancestral, you get a large burst of cards around turn 5-8, and they can’t Crime you before you play your spells because Crime is a sorcery (obviously). The mana spent to play Thirst, as well as needing to play a relevant number of artifacts to discard to Thirst, made your deck significantly worse. Ancestral allows for 1 more card at 2 less mana in a reasonable time frame. I generally don’t want to be casting anything on turn 3 except a counterspell or Vendilion Clique.
TEPS
+4 Ethersworn Canonist, +1 Stifle
-3 Sower of Temptation, -2 Engineered Explosives
In this matchup, your goal in the first game is to kill them while maintaining a decent defense against their combo. This can be achieved by simply attacking for 20 points via Vendilion Clique and Mutavault, while holding back counters. If they get an early combo start, generally you can disrupt them with Explosives (for their Lotus Bloom), Spellstutter Sprite (Blooms, Rite of Flame, Ponder), Spell Snare, or Mana Leak. Drawing multiple Explosives is bad though, so siding out a few doesn’t hurt, and drawing the singleton is ok. Most players playing TEPS will try to combo out sooner than later, giving you plenty of opportunities to counter their relevant ritual effects, leaving them with only a few cards in hand with no gain. Often against TEPS, a well-timed Vendilion Clique mid-ritual can snag their Mind’s Desire and make them manaburn for a few points. At others, simply countering Manamorphose with Spell Snare can disrupt their entire game plan. Better TEPS players tend to be much more patient, though. They’ll sit back on charge lands, giving you the opportunity to blow them out with Venser or Cryptic on their charge land at their end of turn. Never tap out on your turn unless it’s for a very good reason, or very early in the game (turns 1-3). After boarding, you get the 3rd Stifle, and 4 Ethersworn Canoninst. Canonist should be a surprise to most, and they will likely have sided out their Electrolyze, Repeal, or Magma Jet. If they haven’t, then you can easily protect the Canonist, as they can only play one spell per turn. Be careful of Gigadrowse, as a well-timed one can ruin your day. You can also counter Gigadrowse’s copies that target lands you control in order to keep a few lands untapped for their turn, or just Stifle the Gigadrowse completely. However, this leaves you cold to their Desire next turn unless you have a 2nd Stifle or Canonist in play. This matchup is all about timing and getting a good draw. If you can disrupt them enough with Vendilion Clique, Ethersworn Canonist, Stifle, and countermagic, you can generally take it down.
Zoo
+3 Threads of Disloyalty, +3 Path to Exile
-2 Stifle, -2 Cryptic Command, -1 Ancestral Vision, -1 Mana Leak
With these changes after game 1, you can usually take control of the game as early as turn 1 with Path to Exile. Be wary of giving them too much mana too early, as they can potentially tempo you out. If they have turn 1 Wild Nacatl, turn 2 Tarmogoyf, turn 3 Sulfuric Vortex, and you have no way to stop any of these, then you’re toast. After game 1 this is less true, as you have Threads of Disloyalty and Path to Exile as answers. Spell Snare and Engineered Explosives are possibly the best cards you have against them, as they can make for huge tempo swings. Jitte is fairly important, though it will be extremely difficult to equip a Jitte onto a creature when they have Mogg Fanatic and Seal of Fire. Rely on your removal and control magic effects to take control of the game, and try your best to not let Sulfuric Vortex resolve unless you’ve already stolen their Tarmogoyf and can easily race them.
Overall, I would say that you are favored in most of the major matchups. Your harder matchups are Zoo, Loam, and Affinity, but all are easily winnable. This sideboard is really awesome, and I went through two tournaments with only two losses in 14 rounds of play (one loss was to 2x manascrew vs Martyr.dec and the other was Naya Zoo in a very close game 3). All in all, I would say that this sideboard is better than the UB sideboard, and the maindeck is virtually the same. There is little reason to play the UB version when you can have such diverse and awesome sideboard options for such a diverse metagame. Damnation, while being a solid card, is a bit too slow in my opinion. Thoughtseize can temporarily disable combo decks, but generally doesn’t slow them down enough. But Meloku is good in the mirror, and deserves some consideration. She is also a house against Loam, which is another of your harder matchups. Relic and Negate are two of the choices I am not too happy with, and having virtually no cards (aside from the glacially slow Damnation) vs Affinity actually makes me cringe. I know that Affinity is going to be popular because it made two Top 8s at Grand Prix: LA, and has won a few PTQs this season already. On top of that, it is super cheap to build (in comparison to the rest of Extended decks that cost $500 or so) and very powerful.
In conclusion, this is going to be the deck I battle with for the next few PTQs this season, and hopefully win a ticket to Honolulu. Things may change over the course of the next two months, but that is Magic as always. Thanks for reading, and I’m looking forward to any thoughts you may have on the deck or card choices!
Todd Anderson
strong sad on MTGO
x2jtande AT southernco DOT com