This is the second in a series of articles recapping past Extended seasons. (Here’s a link the first.) Since all Extended seasons follow similar paths, this history is prequel to the new season. It is also interesting, in and of itself. Enjoy.
A quick Summary of the 2000 – 2001 Season
Legal sets: Ices Ages block through Odyssey (but before Torment); Dark Ritual and Mana Vault were banned
Pro Tour Kick-off: NY Masters*, Sept. 29-Oct 2, 2000. Top four Masters decks were 5-Color Green, Counterslivers, Tradewind Survival and Stasis.
The Defining Decks: Trix, Survival variants, Pandeburst
Also of Note: Three Deuce, Stasis, Countersliver, PTJunk, Sligh, Turboland, Oath, NecroStorm
New for the Season: Pandeburst, Turboland (breakout season)
Early in the Season
The metagame was, at least initially, based on the results of the Masters – the only high-profile tournament played in the format prior to the PTQs. Tradewind Survival decks were the most common, with one fourth of the field running some variant. Most were the “Wheaties” version, which included the Enduring Renewal / Goblin Bombardment / Zero-mana creature combo first seen in Fruity Pebbles** decks. Five players ran Trix, which was essentially the same deck as the previous season, but with Mox Diamonds and some additional lands replacing the Mana Vaults and Dark Rituals. Four players ran Special K (decklist below.) No one ran the powerful Maher Oath deck from the season before, but part of that was due to the different metagame expectations at the Masters. Control decks appeared, with two people each running mono-Blue Stasis, U/W Control and Forbiddian. The field finished up with a lot of one-offs: Stompy, Secret Force, Legion Land Loss, Counterslivers, Turboland, Sligh and “Curious Squid.”
Here’s the decklist for Special K, as played by Justin Gary. Rob Dougherty and some other YMGers also played versions of the deck.
Special K
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Duress
3 Goblin Bombardment
1 Pattern of Rebirth
2 Saproling Burst
1 Shield Sphere
1 Enduring Renewal
4 Academy Rector
4 Phyrexian Ghoul
2 Krovikan Horror
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Wall of Roots
2 Llanowar Elves
1 Quirion Ranger
4 Bayou
4 City of Brass
4 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Taiga
2 Gemstone Mine
4 Savannah
Sideboard
2 Coercion
1 Ebony Charm
4 Pyroblast
3 Spike Feeder
2 Uktabi Orangutan
2 Monk Realist
1 Aura Fracture
This deck has the traditional “Pebbles” combo, which can sacrifice the Shield Sphere to Goblin Bombardment and recovering the Sphere with Enduring Renewal to do infinite damage. That is only one combo, however. The deck is powered by Academy Rector, which can find a combo piece or Survival of the Fittest, if necessary. The Academy Rector can be sacrificed to the Krovikan Horror, the Goblin Bombardment or the Phyrexian Ghoul. The Rector also powers the more powerful combo, which goes as follows.
Turn 1: Forest, Birds.
Turn 2: land, Phyrexian Ghoul.
Turn 3: land, Rector, attack with Ghoul. If it is not blocked, sac Rector to the Ghoul. (Ghoul is now 4/4.) Use Rector to find Pattern of Rebirth and put it on the Birds. Sac the Birds to the Ghoul (Ghoul is now 6/6.) Get Rector #2 (via the Pattern) and sac it to the Ghoul (Ghoul is now 8/8.) Get Saproling Burst, make creatures and sacrifice them to the Ghoul. Ghoul ends up a 20/20. The kill was unexpected early on, and in those days (before Reanimator decks got Akroma and Rorix), it was the fasted creature-based kill that didn’t involve Hatred (the card, that is.)
Special K was a surprise at the Masters. It appeared at a number of PTQs throughout the season, but it wasn’t as powerful once players learned that you always blocked the Ghoul. Eventually, the Pattern Rector deck evolved and started running more control elements, like Pernicious Deed. Pattern/Rector decks have never been dominant, but they have has remained on the fringes of the format ever since – most recently on Day 2 of Pro Tour: Columbus.
Maher Oath may have shaped the format in the previous season, but at the Masters, Bob Maher ran a 5-color “Toolbox” Survival deck designed (IIRC) by Brian Kowal. It had creatures with comes-into-play abilities that could answer any problem and was an amazingly flexible deck. It was also quite difficult to play, because you really had to know what an opponent could / would do and be ready for it. Although toolbox Survival decks did see play in the PTQ season, and won some qualifiers, they were less common than two simpler Survival versions: Tradewind Survival and Sol Malka’s G/B Survival. Both these decks were two-colored, making them more resistant to mana issues, and had a more focused – but less versatile – control element.
Tradewind Survival ran a reasonably heavy counterspell suite, including Force of Will, and could win either with Morphling or by bouncing all an opponent’s permanents with Tradewind Riders. Here’s a typical decklist. This one was played by Scott Johns to fourth place at GP: Phoenix
Tradewind Survival
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Mana Leak
2 Impulse
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Land Grant
4 Wall of Roots
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tradewind Rider
1 Squee Goblin Nabob
2 Quirion Ranger
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Spike Weaver
1 Gilded Drake
1 Monk Realist
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Morphling
1 Savannah
5 Islands
6 Forests
4 Tropical Islands
Sideboard
3 Emerald Charm
1 Aura Shards
1 Spike Feeder
1 Bottle Gnomes
1 Monk Idealist
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Peacekeeper
1 Masticore
1 Uktabi Orangutan
4 Back to Basics
Sol Malka popularized a G/B Survival version. It’s disruption suite centered around Duress, plus Wastelands and Dustbowl and a full suite of utility creatures. Black also allowed the deck to run Vampiric Tutor, which allowed for a number of silver bullets like Recurring Nightmare and Living Death. Against the many multicolored decks in the format, you usually Vampiriced for Wastelands – then locked out the opponent by Recurring Cartographer. Oath of Ghouls and Living Death could beat the control decks, Quirion Ranger beat Stasis, and so forth. At least, it did for me. This version got me T8 pins in two consecutive PTQs; and I would have won one PTQ if I hadn’t screwed up in the finals.
Malka’s Version Didn’t Run That, Did It?
4 Bayou
4 Wasteland
5 Swamp
10 Forest
4 Duress
4 Survival of the Fittest
2 Vampiric Tutor
2 Recurring Nightmare
1 Oath of Ghouls
4 Wall of Roots
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Krovikan Horror
1 Phyrexian Plaguelord
1 Phyrexian Negator
1 Masticore
1 Deranged Hermit
2 Spike Feeder
2 Spike Weaver
1 Bone Shredder
1 Elvish Lyrist
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Yavimaya Ants
1 Cartographer
Sideboard
1 Oath of Ghouls
1 Thrull Surgeon
2 Carrion Beetle
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Dust Bowl
2 Ebony Charm
3 Emerald Charm
1 Simian Grunts
1 Bone Shredder
1 Elvish Lyrist
1 Living Death
A few cards in my build are not typical. Carrion Beetles were an attempt to fight Replenish, but were only semi-successful. Yavimaya Ants were an attempt to mess with Trix player’s math – it is a big, hasty creature that kept them from drawing five cards. I kept Living Death in the sideboard because I was facing Trix, PandeBurst and other faster decks – it would come in against control. My report on my Top 2 finish is in the Dojo archives.
One reason that Maher Oath lost popularity was that other Oath builds – ones a bit more resistant to Wastelands and Dustbowls, became popular. Zvi Moshowitz had been playing and writing about Turboland, his creation / signature deck, for a while, but it took off this season. Turboland combined the power of Oath of Druids and a full counterspell suite (including Force of Will) with card drawing based around Horn of Greed and Exploration. Turboland made strong showings in various GPs and PTQs – most notably at GP: Sydney. The new tech was splashing Red for Obliterate, and the ability – in rare cases – to pay echo on the Crater Hellion. Obliterate may seem strange in a deck that tries to power out lots of land, then wins recurring a five-mana sorcery like Time Warp, but remember that the deck relied on power enchantments (Oath and Exploration), could Gush lands back to it’s hand, and could reuse anything in the graveyard via Oath and Gaea’s Blessing. Here’s a sample decklist:
Turboland
Joe Connolly – GP Sydney
8 Island
5 Forest
4 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Mountain
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Oath of Druids
4 Gush
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Exploration
3 Horn of Greed
3 Fact or Fiction
3 Impulse
2 Obliterate
2 Gaea’s Blessing
1 Scroll Rack
1 Time Warp
1 Morphling
1 Crater Hellion
Sideboard
3 Annul
3 Back to Basics
3 Pyroblast
2 Hydroblast
1 Gaea’s Blessing
2 Spike Feeder
1 Spike Weaver
The other breakout deck of the season was PandeBurst. Pandeburst had a combo kill – it put Saproling Burst and Pandemonium into play together. Then it removed the first fading counter from Saproling Burst to create a 6/6 creature, and used Pandemonium to deal six damage to the opponent. It repeated that with the next counter, to make a 5/5 and deal five, and so on. The combination could deal 21 points. What made the deck function was the ton of search cards, including Intuition and Frantic Search, coupled with Force of Will and Duress to force the combo through. Replenish brought the combo into play, often on turn 3 thanks to City of Traitors and Ancient Tomb. The combo was difficult to combat, since Replenish often brought back multiple combo parts. With multiple Bursts or Pandemoniums, the combo could often go off with one or even two well-timed Disenchants on the stack.
Here’s the version that Gordon Lin used to win GP Sydney.
PandeBurst
Gordon Lin
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Tundra
4 Underground Sea
3 City of Traitors
4 Duress
4 Brainstorm
4 Replenish
4 Force of Will
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Frantic Search
4 Intuition
3 Demonic Consultation
3 Saproling Burst
3 Pandemonium
Sideboard
4 Annul
4 Pyroblast
3 Hydroblast
4 Phyrexian Negator
How the Season Evolved:
The PTQ season ran through November and December of 2000. There were six Extended GPs in that period. Here are the venues, and the T8 decks at each.
Phoenix, USA (Nov. 11-12, 2000): 3 x Counterslivers, Maher Oath, Sligh, Tradewind Survival, 2 x 4color Control
Kyoto, Japan (Nov. 11-12, 2000): 2 x Trix, Counterslivers, Pandeburst, Toolbox Survival, Tradewind Survival, Maher Oath, Stompy
Sydney, Australia (Nov. 18-19, 2000): 3 x Trix, Counterslivers, 2 x Turboland, Pandeburst, Tradewind Survival
Buenos Aires, Argentina (Nov. 25-26, 2000): 2 Pandeburst, Trix, TS, Sligh, Ponza, White Weenie
Florence, Italy (Nov. 25-26, 2000): 4 x Trix, Pandeburst, Toolbox Survival, Three-Deuce, Maher Oath.
Singapore (Dec. 8-10, 2000): 3 x Trix, Oath, Pandeburst, Countersliver, Necrostorm, Ponza
Despite the DCIs’ efforts to contain it, Trix was still a dominant deck. Other decks adapted to beat it. Control decks splashed Red and ran four Pyroblasts maindeck. Counterslivers maindecked not only Seal of Cleansing, but occasionally Annul as well, and has Pyros in the sideboard. Nearly every Blue deck ran some maindeck Annuls. Green decks had Elvish Lyrists and Emerald Charms – and sometimes more. Gordon Lin’s PandeBurst deck brought in 12 cards against Trix, and could bring in the Hydroblasts as well, if Trix was running Firestorm and Pyros. However, even with all that hate, Trix still kept racking up the wins.
A few other decks appeared during the season, and kept posting PTQ T8 appearances. The format was actually quite varied, despite the power of Trix and Pandeburst. Theron Martin posted the following breakdown late in the season, based on the T8 lists he could find:
Deck Type | #Top 8 | #Winners | Previous Rank |
Trix | 37 | 8 | 1 |
Sligh | 30 | 3 | 3 |
Trade-Survival | 22 | 2 | 2 |
Counter-Sliver | 17 | 0 | 4 |
Pandeburst | 12 | 3 | 7 |
Three-Deuce | 9 | 0 | 6 |
Stompy | 8 | 2 | T8 |
Turboland | 8 | 2 | T12 |
Counter-Oath | 8 | 0 | 5 |
PT-Junk | 7 | 2 | T17 |
Forbidian | 7 | 1 | T12 |
Rec/Sur | 7 | 0 | T14 |
6 | 2 | T8 | |
WW | 6 | 0 | T8 |
Squeebind | 5 | 1 | T17 |
LLL (green LD) | 5 | 0 | – |
3 | 1 | T17 | |
5cGreen | 3 | 0 | T8 |
Elf Block Party | 3 | 0 | – |
Secret Force | 3 | 0 | T17 |
3+ color control | 3 | 0 | T14 |
Fish | 2 | 1 | T17 |
2 | 1 | – | |
U/G recursion control | 2 | 0 | T17 |
Blue Beatdown | 2 | 0 | T17 |
Full English Breakfast | 2 | 0 | – |
Wheaties (R/S combo) | 1 | 1 | 16 |
Elfball | 1 | 1 | T17 |
G/R LD | 1 | 0 | T17 |
U/W control | 1 | 0 | T17 |
Monored LD | 1 | 0 | – |
Neo-Sligh | 1 | 0 | – |
ROGUE | 5 | 0 |
Three-Deuce and most of the other significant decks listed above were covered in the last article, but a few need some discussion.
Sligh was omnipresent at PTQs throughout the season. As Oath decreased, Sligh reverted to the three B’s: cheap beats, burn and Ball Lightning. Viashino Sandstalkers vanished, but the deck still had the dreaded “Cursed Scroll you naming Fireblast” finish.
Sligh
Robert Swarowski, Fifth-Place GP Phoenix
4 Jackal Pup
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Patrol
3 Fireslinger
4 Ball Lightning
4 Cursed Scroll
4 Shock
4 Incinerate
4 Fireblast
3 Hammer of Bogardan
Sideboard
4 Pyroblast
4 Chaos Charm
3 Anarchy
2 Bottle Gnomes
2 Shattering Pulse
For those of you that prefer Green to Red, Stompy was still around. It had the small, cheap fast creatures, plus Rancor and some free combat tricks. It had next to no land and ran perfectly well under Winter Orb. Here’s the version that took Toby Tamber to the Top 8 in GP: Kyoto:
Stompy
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
10 Forest
3 Bounty of the Hunt
4 Briar Shield
4 Land Grant
4 Rancor
3 Winter Orb
4 Elvish Lyrist
4 Quirion Ranger
4 River Boa
4 Rogue Elephant
4 Skyshroud Elite
4 Vine Dryad
4 Wild Dog
Sideboard
1 Bounty of the Hunt
4 Cursed Totem
4 Emerald Charm
4 Rushwood Legate
1 Rushwood Dryad
1 Winter orb
PT Junk was originally a control deck that combined Duress, Swords to Plowshares and basic mana acceleration with efficient creatures. Seals of Cleansing appeared to fight Trix, and the creature base changed, depending on the build. Some versions ran Armadillo Cloak, because although the format had a fair amount of burn and counters, it saw very little Terror or bounce effects (other than Swords to Plowshares, the occasional Bone Shredder and Tradewind Riders.) Others ran untargetables, because of Tradewinds. All versions ran Treetop Village, a.k.a. Bobtown because it Beats On Blue. PT Junk was a very solid archetype, but it had one big Achilles heal: it’s mana. The deck did not like Wasteland or Dustbowl. Here’s Adrian Sullivan list:
PTJunk2k
3 Cursed Scroll
2 Powder Keg
3 Skyshroud Elite
4 River Boa
4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Blastoderm
4 Tithe
4 Duress
3 Demonic Consultation
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Seal of Cleansing
3 Mox Diamond
4 Treetop Village
4 Wasteland
4 Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author]
3 Savannah
2 Grassland
3 Bayou
Sideboard
3 Wax/Wane
3 Honorable Passage
3 Ebony Charm
3 Perish
3 Massacre
The other deck that debuted that season was Full English Breakfast, a deck designed and popularized by Paul Barclay, then the MTG rules net-rep and now employed by Wizards as Rules Manager. [Actually John Carter now has that job, while Paul has moved over to the business side of things. – Knut] The deck did a ridiculous number of things based on Survival of the Fittest and Volrath’s Shapeshifter. Paul made back to back PTQ T8s with the deck and published his report on various websites. Here’s a link. It is an interesting read, and includes a decklist. Here’s a sample:
On my turn, I drop the Shapeshifter, make it untargetable, Survival the Hellion for a Dreadnought, attack with the Shapeshifter-Hellion, pump it 11 times, and Survival away the Dreadnought in response. His life total goes from 18 to -5. He looks somewhat surprised.
What’s happening: Volrath’s Shapeshifter is a copy of the creature on top of your graveyard, if there is one, otherwise it is a 0/1. With Morphling in the graveyard, it is a Morphling in all respects, including casting cost, color, P/T, abilities, etc. Since Paul cast the Shapeshifter with Morphling atop the graveyard, it was a Morphling, and he could use its ability to make it untargetable. Once that resolved, he discarded Flowstone Hellion (Haste, 0: ~this~ gets +1/-1 until EoT) to Survival of the Fittest to get Phyrexian Dreadnought in hand. The Shapeshifter was now a Flowstone Hellion, which has haste, so it attacked. Once it was attacking, and after the opponent chose not to block, Paul activated the Hellion’s +1/-1 ability, and before it resolved, did it again and again, until he had 11 activations on the stack. Then he Survivaled away the Phyrexian Dreadnought, which is a 12/12 creature. Since the Shapeshifter was already in play, the Dreadnought’s comes-into-play ability (sacrifice 12 power…) did not trigger. However, the 11 +1/-1 effects then resolved, and the attacking Dreadnought became a 23/1 trampler. Lethal.
With a good draw, the deck could cast a Bird on turn 1, cast Survival and use it on turn 2, then cast the Shapeshifter and combo win on turn 3. Another favorite play was to cast Shapeshifter and get Reya on top of the library. During upkeep, the Shapeshifter / Reya would reanimate a real Reya, at which point the Shapeshifter would be something else and Reya would survive. With a little luck, Full English Breakfast could have an active Reya and Survival on the board before turn 4 – which was awfully tough to deal with.
The rules interactions were very complex, and the deck had more potential for screwing up a play than anything else I have seen. My friend Chris Browning made “Play of the Week” on Wizard’s Sideboard site with the following play. The only problem was that the play was illegal. Can you spot the two problems?
Chris was playing Full English Breakfast against a Counterslivers deck that had Worship and Crystalline Sliver in play. Chris cast the Shapeshifter with Hellion atop the graveyard, attacked with the Shapeshifter/Hellion, stacked the pumps and Survivaled Dreadnought for Elvish Lyrist. Then, with lethal damage on the stack, he Survivaled away the Lyrist, then sacrificed the Lyrist to kill the Worship and won the game.
The next week, Sideboard ran a retraction. The play does not work. First, once the Shapeshifter is no longer a Hellion, it no longer has haste, so the tap part of tap, sac for Elvish Lyrist is not possible. More importantly, the eleven +1/-1 effects remain in effect until end of turn, so once the Shapeshifter became a Lyrist, it was a 12/0 Lyrist, and should have died to state based effects before it could be sacrificed. However, neither Chris, his opponent, his friend (who sent the play to the Week in Review writer), that writer, nor the Sideboard editor noticed these problems. Like I said, this was a tricky deck.
If you could handle the rules and timing issues, Full English Breakfast was a very powerful deck. Only the fact that it appeared so late in the season prevented the deck from being more widely played.
End of the Season:
Once again, the PTQ season ended with a powerful new combo deck (Pandeburst) breaking mechanics and annoying a lot of players. Trix was also still around, and still winning, despite the loss of Dark Ritual and Mana Vault. Finally, Full English Breakfast broke Survival wide open, and created the most versatile control deck in the format with both a full counterspell suite and a turn 3 combo kill. Once again, Wizards announced a new round of Extended bannings at the end of the season. Necropotence, Demonic Consultation, Replenish and Survival of the Fittest were banned. Illusions of Grandeur was not. Was that enough? Nope. I wrote about this in YW#17: An Extended Fable. Here’s an excerpt:
The people wept, and prayed for relief. The people prayed to the gods – who are called the DCI – to ban Donations of evil, or to errata the Illusions so that it acts whenever it leaves play or the owner’s control.
And the DCI looked down, and considered.
The DCI knew that the combination of two blue cards, which won the game on their own, was powerful. But the DCI realized that it was the power of card drawing that caused the problem. And the DCI banned the evil Necropotence and Demonic Consultation that caused the problem.
Thus were Free Card Necro and CounterSlivers and many others slain, although they were guiltless.*
But still, the people find that the combination of Donate and Illusion has too much synergy. And woe and misery is still upon the land, for six of the top 8 mages at the Detroit Pro Tour qualifier last weekend did Donate Illusions unto others.
Trix started the season as dominant, but halfway through, a new deck ended Trix’s reign. I’ll explain in the next article.
* The Pro Tour – Chicago – that year was Standard format. The Masters, at the end of September, provided the basis for the metagame.
** Decks, in that period, were generally named after breakfast cereals. Fruity Pebbles, Cocoa Pebbles, Trix, Life, Wheaties, Boo Berry, etc.