My head is in a bit of a jumble right now, having successfully done mediocre at the only PTQ within four-hour driving distance (The ones in LA and SD being six and eight hours respectively). For me, the season is now over, past helping some of my friends in other locales. So today’s article will be a big of a grab bag of Extended topics.
I’m not going to waste anytime on a tourney report, but I’ll mention that almost all my opponents at the PTQ were great sports and good opponents. The Aggro Loam player who knocked me out, Bill, gave me one of the best matches I’ve played in quite some time, so props to him. Anyway, let’s begin.
Impressions of What I Played
The deck I chose to throw down with was Richard Feldman and Zac Hill U/W Gifts Tron deck. If you’d like more information about the deck, its general matches and sideboard then read their respective articles on it.
Hill (Freebie)
Feldman (Premium)
My first impression of the deck: “Wow, a Tron deck actually fully abuses Gifts Ungiven and Academy Ruins. Chalice of the Void in the maindeck… Counterbalance has been put to shame.”
My impression after the PTQ: How can I put this eloquently… Gifts is freaking nuts.
Originally I had believed Chalice of the Void to be the strongest card in the deck, but I was constantly impressed at Gifts in testing. At the PTQ I was consistently picking up Gifts piles that put me in an excellent position to win the game. Gee, your aggro deck can’t beat the Platinum Angel, Sundering Titan, Razormane Masticore and Academy Ruins pile? Bad times if you plan on the game lasting until turn 6 or later. I need a win condition ASAP? Set ourselves up the Slaver lock. If you want to win with this deck, learn your Gifts piles inside and out.
Gifts Ungiven is by far the best card in the deck, followed up shortly by Repeal and Academy Ruins. I’m of the firm belief at this point that Academy Ruins is the best land, outside of the fetches, in the format. The ability to recur such a wide array of answers and threats at the expense of three mana (counting the land itself, of course) and a draw step is just amazing. Meanwhile, Repeal buys you a huge amount of time against every aggro deck, while staying useful against other decks.
Moving on, I did make a few changes and cuts from the builds presented. The following are the cuts and adds I made to the maindeck of the Feldman listing.
-1 Remand
-1 Wrath of God
-1 Platinum Angel
+1 Plains
+2 Razormane Masticore
I felt that a single Plains would help against Ghost Quarter and Destructive Flow, while also helping the deck reach the crucial four mana mark, where it can start making relevant plays on the board. A single Remand was cut out, because it was one of the weakest cards in the deck against about half the field that wasn’t a singleton. Many times I’d be casting the counters early just to make sure I hit all my land drops in the first place. Big Plats and the third Wrath weren’t pulling their weight, while Razormane along with Repeal were the constant MVP in every single aggro match. Hence, I decided to bite the bullet and just run the cards that were easier on the mana, yet doing more for me.
Now that I’ve gotten more games and tournament experience with the build, I can safely say that two Core is great and three is probably a bit of overkill. Considering they’re a mulligan until you reach the mid-game, their necessity is lessened in the grand scheme of things. I’d use the extra slot to instead add in the third Repeal or a Tormod’s Crypt to help against Aggro Loam and other decks using Academy Ruins.
My sideboard was this:
3 Disenchant
2 Repeal
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Platinum Angel
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Trinisphere
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wrath of God
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Tormod’s Crypt
Most of the choices are the same as the previous builds, but I felt I needed more to combat Destructive Flow while having answers to annoying permanents. Enter Disenchant, which was nothing less than insane for me against Midrange Flow decks; constantly hitting Flow itself, or equipment that weakened my Wraths. In addition it was another tool against Affinity, which is a bit of a coin flip match, and helps curb Seismic Assault abuse against you.
The rest of my board performed admirably overall. The only changes I’d probably make is cutting a single Angel and Repeal (Since I’d be adding the third one to the maindeck) and making room for another Crypt and an Ensnaring Bridge. Both are to help with Aggro Loam, but Bridge can help in a number of aggressive matches. Unlike most control decks, Tron can easily fall to 2-3 cards in hand and stay there for most of the match due to replaced draws, Razormane upkeeps and just various expenditures. Not to mention all the discard hanging around the environment. As a result Bridge ends up working quite well at keeping the hordes at bay.
The key with Bridge is it stops the huge ground pounders many aggro decks have. Take Affinity for example: the biggest ground threats in Arcbound Ravager, Myr Enforcer and any guys with Cranial Plating are completely shut off. They need Ornithopter or Nexus to even contemplate attacking you; and then they need to have Plating and BB to switch at instant speed, or attack and then sacrifice Ravager for a one-time shot at you. The point is not to lock them out; it’s merely to stall them for a while until you can find Tron, at which point a Slaver win becomes an effective option.
One final note, I’m still on the fence about Wrath of God #3 versus Mindslaver #2, so that’s your call to make depending on the metagame.
Impressions of the Field and Where Tron Stands
I think Tron is one of the top three choices for a PTQ run. Maybe not the absolute best, but anyone taking this deck won’t feel underpowered in any match. The two problem matches that I’d focus any future deck changes around is better matches against the newer Aggro Loam builds (See the LA PTQ Top 8 Vargas and Iain lists) and midrange Flow decks. Although I think with Disenchant or Sacred Ground in the board, the Flow decks get much easier to beat and you can in fact smash their heads in for games they don’t draw the Flow.
That being said, if I were to run the PTQ over again against new random opponents, I’d probably end up going with Aggro Loam. In fact, U/W Tron, Aggro Loam, or a modified U/G/X Trinket Mage deck (Sanchez’s build with more basics, for example) would be my top three choices* and I wouldn’t have a problem running any of them. However, there are at least eight or nine decks I can see making a run through the PTQ with a bit of luck and solid play.
*If I had to pick from the rest of the tier 1.5 decks, then I’d roll with U/G Opposition, hope not to run into control and just take favorable or even matches against the rest of the field. The Wizards deck might work too… go go Patron Wizard! In all seriousness, the Wizards deck is surprisingly awesome, because by the mid-game is can essentially script all of the opponent’s plays for you. At which point it’s merely a point of drawing some semi-relevant cards and dominating the opponent.
This season, moreso than the last couple of seasons, is all about the match-ups. Just about every deck loses to something in the metagame, so the key is to either outplay the opponent (if possible, it really depends on your deck) or simply eat the single loss and hope for the best. Even the amount of coin-flip matches is staggering, since the base power level and “answer” decks are in a sort of equilibrium with one another. However, this also means the decks with more options will have a better shot at performing over the long haul than the more straight-forward ones (see Affinity).
Those observant among you might notice a theme in my deck choices. I’m picking decks specifically running the best draw / search cards in the format. Not only do these give the decks a greater sense or resiliency and power, but they also allow for the maximum benefits in mirror matches.
- Tron can abuse Gifts Ungiven, which when combined with Academy Ruins is the best search engine in the format.
- Aggro Loam abuses Life from the Loam, which when combined with cycling lands, is the best draw engine in the format.
- Decks that run Trinket Mage and its little artifact ensemble have access to the best singleton tutor in the format.
In fact, I even witness a deck this weekend that combined all three and made for a very interesting shell for a deck, which I’ll get into a little later.
For reference, I’m calling the equipment, Therapy, aggro men, Flow build Midrange Flow. There are legitimate Flow Rock (Genesis, Living Wish, Baloth, etc.) decks running around.
Data on the Bay Area PTQ
For reference: 150 people, 8 rounds, this data was taken during the 7th round.
| Table # | Deck #1 | Deck #2 |
| 10 | Midrange Flow | Scepter Chant |
| 9 | Gifts Rock | GU Opposition |
| 8 | Scepter Chant | WU Tron |
| 7 | Aggro Loam | WGU Control |
| 6 | Aggro Loam | Aggro Loam |
| 5 | Midrange Flow | BWU Aggro |
| 4 | Affinity | Locket Combo |
| 3 | Affinity | RWU Aggro |
| 2 | Aggro Loam | GWU Aggro (Sanchez build) |
| 1 | BW Aggro | Aggro Loam |
I was leaving as the Top 8 was about to get underway, so I unfortunately didn’t see the specifics. Decks I know that got in were the B/W Aggro build, 3 Aggro Loam, Affinity, and Locket Combo. I also believe the G/W/U Control deck got in, but I’m unsure.
This gives us a breakdown of:
5 Aggro Loam (Almost all Vargas / Iain builds)
2 Midrange Flow
2 Affinity
2 Scepter-Chant
1 G/U Opposition
1 Gifts Rock
1 Locket Combo
1 G/W/U Aggro
1 B/W Aggro
1 R/W/U Aggro
1 B/W/U Aggro
1 W/U Tron
1 G/W/U Control
From what me and my friends saw of the odder decks rounding out the Top 20…
The B/W aggro deck was running stuff like maindeck Descendant of Kiyomaro, Shining Shoal, Dark Confidant, along with some amount of discard. It resembled more of an Orzhova / Ghost Dad deck from the past Standard season than the random B/W resource drain decks floating around.
The B/W/U aggro deck resembled Trinket Angel, but had cut the weak Red portion out for Cabal Therapy and Vindicate. Unfortunately I only caught a glimpse, as the match was ending and didn’t get to see more of it.
The G/U/W control deck, along with Locket, were by far the most interesting decks in the top twenty. I got to see a full game of the deck play out, and I took down various notes on what it was running. The deck seemed to be a hybrid of Trinket-Post and CAL. It had a collection of the best cards in the environment sewn together with Solitary Confinement and Mindslaver.
The cards I know for sure that were run: Gifts, Eternal Dragon, Confinement, Engineered Explosives, Sensei’s Divining Top, Trinket Mage, Ghost Quarter, Academy Ruins, Reclaim, Life From The Loam, Mindslaver, and Remand, along with cycling lands and Signets.
Here’s a list I pieced together, although it’s probably much uglier than the real list.
Creatures (7)
Lands (27)
Spells (26)
If the person who was running the deck (Or somebody that knows him) would chime in, that’d be great.
Meanwhile, the other really interesting contraption in the Top 8 was the Locket Combo deck run by Jonathan Pearlman. From what I saw, it was close to standard, but had a couple of interesting card choices like Steel Wall to slow down a bunch of the aggro in the environment (especially because the burn packing versions have dropped dramatically). Other notable inclusions are Thoughtcast for additional drawing power, along with Lotus Bloom to increase the number of turn 4/5 kills the deck is privy too.
The deck won entirely through the infinite storm into Brain Freeze plan; while using Engineered Explosives to clear any annoying permanents in play that could stop combo. Using Chromatic Star it was possible to get the Engineered Explosives set up to 4-5 if deemed necessary, removing the need for a bounce spell or alternate kill in the maindeck.
The deck was very impressive to watch function, as Artificer’s Intuition just turns the entire deck into a tutoring machine. With many decks relying on a slower kill and more disruption, most of which doesn’t do a whole lot to Locket, the deck seems like a viable choice. It certainly has a bit of a surprise factor going for it in game 1, and getting a freebie win in this format is huge.
Unfortunately, despite talking to Jonathan for a bit, I don’t have his list at this very instant for public consumption. Hopefully I’ll get it soon and post it in the forums, or Craig can edit it in or some brilliant solution. [Come to our aid, forum-folk! – Craig.]
The End
Unfortunately for me, this PTQ was the only one within reasonable driving distance, so I’m pretty much done with Extended. Since I still have to help friends Q, I’ll still cover Extended for a bit longer and then move on to… well, I’m not sure exactly. According to my very scientific scheduling process of guesswork, and having no idea what to write about at times, it looks like after Extended I’ll try to finish up my Yomi series that got put on hiatus due to Extended. Still, by Mid-March or April I’ll need a new format to talk about. This is your chance to chime in and help me decide on a format to focus on, although I’ll probably talk a little bit about all of them.
Your choices are simple:
Standard
Time Spiral Block
Vintage
I don’t plan on doing any Legacy articles in the near future, save maybe one or two joint articles I was considering doing with the new parade of Legacy writers for the site (Grats guys!). So let me know!
Josh Silvestri
Team Reflection
Email me at: joshDOTsilvestriATgmailDOTcom