With Worlds firmly behind us, all eyes now turn to Extended. The qualifier season for Pro Tour: Hollywood is gearing up, and tournament players across the land are looking for those edges that could bring home the Blue Envelope. Adrian takes a look at the metagame and makes some suggestions, before bringing us an interesting and powerful rogue deck that could make quite a splash at your next PTQ…I’ve been spending a lot of time talking about Extended with a host of people. Back in the day when I used to hang out in #mtgwacky on IRC, we’d called Extended “1.x” (pronounced one-ecks), and it was pretty easy to test out games with someone like Kai Budde or other very entrenched pros on Apprentice. These people were friendly acquaintances, and sometimes friends, but interestingly, the lack of available places to congregate for information made it very easy to actually build relationships with other players from far away.
These days, I spend my time testing on MTGO or in real life far more often than I used to. More often, though, I find myself simply talking Magic. Some of my StarCityGames.com co-columnists can be invaluable when trying to work out an idea, or more importantly, when looking for reasonable criticism. Many of my old friends from Cabal Rogue, members like the largely retired inventor of the tournament report, John Shuler, or Rock innovator Sol Malka, can occasionally offer some really substantive insight into Magic over the phone, but really, John is often going to be far more interested in talking about good times. Locally, there is a whole heck of a lot of talent, which can be incredibly useful, but still, this is a different world than it used to be.
As Magic has gotten bigger, the Magic world has gotten smaller. I think it is probably close to a fair bet that you, reading this, or someone you test with, is friends with or tests with a StarCityGames.com columnist, or at the least someone that playtests with that columnist. Think about the PTQs that you go to, and how many years you’ve probably known the other players. For most of you, it will be however long that you’ve been playing tournament Magic.
One of the results of this degree of small-worldedness is the extent to which large, rich formats like Extended get explored. Take a look at this metagame breakdown from the last Extended tourney, Valencia:
Enduring Ideal — 10, and 2nd
Gifts Rock — 7, and 6th
Goblins — 7
U/x Tron — 5, and 4th/8th
Gaea’s Might Get There — 5, and 5th
Dredge — 5
Affinity — 4, and 7th
“Sligh” — 4
ChaseRare.dec — 3, and 1st
“Psychatog” — 3
The Rock — 3, and 3rd
Cephalid Breakfast — 2
TEPS — 2
Rock and Nail — 2
Scepter Chant — 2
I’m using a pretty broad pen to put some of these things together (Ruel’s Tombstalker control deck I have lumped with “Psychatog,” and pretty any Red Deck Wins style deck I have listed as “Sligh”), but regardless, it still remains that there are fifteen archetypes that made Day 2 of Valencia with more than one copy. To my mind, Rock and Nail is probably the most innovative deck, though the various “good stuff” decks like champion Fortier’s “ChaseRare.dec” also go a long way down that path. Even with the huge variety of decks, I think that Zach and co.’s innovations are not the end of what can be successfully explored in Extended. I’m willing to bet that Lorwyn and Morningtide are not likely to massively shut out any particular archetype, whether they provide any fodder for new archetypes or not.
So, what makes a deck the “good” deck to play?
Honestly, the first thing that a deck has to do is pass the bar of rationality. If a deck can “make sense” on its own merit, even without thinking about the metagame, you’re a long way towards clearing that bar. Next on the list might be seeing exactly how the deck compares to the metagame at large, a task that is no mean feat. How many decks is it that you want to be testing against? Ideal, sure. Gifts Rock, yes. Aside from those two, I think you’d probably want to definitely test against at least six other archetypes, just to be safe. But what versions? Gods alive, the options and the work are so vast!
The truth of the matter is that any deck that is reasonably powerful in its own right and can get decent results versus some number of these decks is the right call. Until a deck stands up and demands that every other deck in the room pay attention to it, that is going to be the case. It’s possible that one of these decks is that deck, or that a small innovation on one of these decks will make it that deck. Once that happens, what will happen to the metagame is the same thing that has happened to every metagame in history: it will shrink. So many of the nice little violets will not be able to stand up to the deck, and will thus disappear, perhaps freeing up other archetypes to be playable, but generally creating a much smaller metagame.
Until that moment, there is not a “correct” deck to play. Instead, there is choosing a base-level rational deck, metagaming for the moment and the area (hard work, indeed, filled with educated guessing), knowing your deck through and through, and potentially the tiniest of innovations to give you an edge.
Choose a deck you like. Get good at it. Tweak it, depending on what you want the deck to do. Fix it, based on testing. That’s what you can do.
Or, maybe get a little crazy.
I played a very rational Rock deck (much like the Top 8 list played by Italy’s Giulio Barra) in Valencia. While I didn’t do as well as I’d like (fueled largely by my own grotesque errors), I’d play the deck again in a heartbeat. I was handed my first loss in round 1 to a crazy little Swede, Samuel Korsell, playing a Staff of Domination combo deck of his own devising.
I am pretty sure that I cost myself this match on turn 1. I cast a Duress. My notes are clear — his hand was Overgrown Tomb, Swamp, Polluted Delta, Staff of Domination, Duress, and two Haunting Echoes. Looking at his hand, and looking at him, I guessed that is was his first Pro Tour (it was), and he had made a home-brew kind of control deck. His Duress would strip my Pernicious Deed from my hand, so I grabbed it away, and my hand felt solidly aggressive enough to take him out long before a card like Haunting Echoes would ever matter. He stripped away my Goyf with a Smother, and I Extirpated his Duress before feeling the horror of looking through his decklist. This wasn’t just a simple control deck. It was a combo deck too.
I dropped another Goyf with my Deed. He dropped a Deed and popped away everything I had. I dropped a Baloth, which hit him once. He ramped up his mana with a Coffers, and dropped the Staff. It fueled him with so many good control cards that he blew up and made me discard everything reasonable that I had going on. I almost got him in the second game, but a combination of Stomphowler and Bane of the Living wore me down, and he simply cast a Maga into me to knock me to one. I killed it with Deed, leaving me with a solid defense, but he tutored for a Natural Affinity to simply attack for the kill on the subsequent turn.
I felt pretty crushed. The Haunting Echoes had misled me into believing he was simply a pure control deck with some poor card choices, rather than a deck that I should be paying attention to. Clearly, there were some problems with his list, I thought, but there was definitely a shell of something to pay attention to, here.
Here’s Samuel Korsell’s list:
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Duress
3 Distress
3 Smother
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Staff of Domination
3 Dimir Machinations
1 Krosan Grip
1 Natural Affinity
4 Damnation
2 Haunting Echoes
4 Living Wish
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Cabal Coffers
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Forest
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Polluted Delta
10 Swamp
Sideboard:
1 Bane of the Living
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Cabal Coffers
2 Cranial Extraction
1 Indrik Stomphowler
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals
2 Moment’s Peace
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Yixlid Jailer
There are some clear problems with this list, if you ask me. Distress is simply far too inefficient. Haunting Echoes, similarly, is woefully uninspiring. The Wish targets strike me as needing some work. But there is definitely something interesting to work on, here.
If I were to remove the offending cards from the deck (Distress and Echoes), this would leave the deck with five slots to play with to try to make the deck a little stronger. One of the things to look for might be a new card from the available pool, or perhaps another way to go is to simply find some room for cards that might just make the deck perform better in a vacuum. This second option, merely strengthening the core of the deck, seems really valuable to me.
Two things that I would want immediately done to the deck would be to include a single main deck Maga to the deck as a tutorable kill card, without requiring the Living Wish to get to it. The next thing that I would do is try to increase the deck’s capacity to “go off,” either by increasing the deck searching capabilities of the deck, or increasing the actual or virtual numbers of Natural Affinity.
Sensei’s Divining Top seems like a natural choice for the deck. As a more controlling deck, two seems like an almost perfect number. An additional Maga makes three cards. An Eternal Witness and a second Natural Affinity give us the full complement of five cards. This is still problematic, though. The deck really does want to have a fairly copious amount of discard.
To me, the verdict is still out between Therapy and Thoughtseize. Thoughtseize is dangerous. It’s all too easy to start a game at 15 life and lose as a result of it. That said, Thoughtseize doesn’t miss, and there are all too few creatures to really make Therapy a consistently successful card to flashback. Still, running some number of Thoughtseize really does demand an increase in early elimination. Four Smother seems to be very reasonable for this, especially in a world of Dark Confidants. Where are we going to get these three slots, though?
My first thought has to be the Damnations, followed by the Deeds. How many total sweep do we really want, though? My gut says that in the metagame that we’re looking at, having access to a full set is probably going to be huge. But main? I’m completely uncertain. For now, I’m going to split them between side and main.
Here is the next stage of the list:
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
4 Smother
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Damnation
3 Staff of Domination
3 Dimir Machinations
1 Krosan Grip
1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals
1 Eternal Witness
2 Natural Affinity
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Living Wish
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Cabal Coffers
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Forest
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Polluted Delta
10 Swamp
Putting in some testing, an interesting thing happened. The Eternal Witness was solid, but it suddenly occurred to me that with the Sensei’s Divining Tops and the split of cards in the deck, there might be a better recursion card for the deck: Holistic Wisdom. A quick switch did some exciting things. Krosan Grip was turning into Smother. Duress was turning back into Damnation. Damnation was turning into Living Wish. In addition, Sensei’s Divining Top was making it easier to find early land, but becoming less interesting towards a late game, when you were simply drawing a ton of cards. Future testing might make exploring reducing the land count by one or removing the Tops an option, but for now, things seemed pretty good.
Meanwhile, the board needed to be doing some things. The deck clearly needed Boseiju, Coffers, Maga, Urborg, Bane of the Living, and Yixlid Jailer. All of these cards did exactly what they needed to do. There did seem to be a place, however, for other cards as well.
One of the first cards that it seemed clear that the deck could benefit from was simply Eternal Witness. Being able to tutor up a Regrowth was simply too useful to ignore. I contemplated other cards, like Hypnotic Specter, Stinkweed Imp, Undead Gladiator, Dosan the Falling Leaf, and others as potential sideboard cards, and I think they are still worth thinking about for the future.
What gaps is Samuel trying to fill with some of his board? His 4 Leyline speak largely to a need to address Dredge. Cranial Extraction certainly seems to be aiming at combo and counters. Moment’s Peace is definitely there for the beatdown, but we still need to fit in those Damnations from the main. Some kind of Naturalize creature should probably be in the mix, but which? One of the key things to remember, is that you really want to be able to preemptively get a creature that can break you out of Enduring Ideal’s lock with Dovescape. To my mind, for this deck, that would mean either Stomphowler or Nantuko Vigilante. The Stomphowler is bigger, certainly, but the Vigilante can actually be used at odd times to cause problems. This also makes me think about Elf Replica as a decent tutor target to board in and fetch with Machinations to break out of the Dovescape lock.
The tentative board is this:
1 Bane of the Living
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Cabal Coffers
2 Damnation
1 Elf Replica
1 Eternal Witness
1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals
1 Nantuko Vigilante
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Yixlid Jailer
This leaves only four slots, and still leaves a whole of sorts in the Dredge matchup. Something reasonably dedicated to the matchup should definitely be included, especially if it has reasonable application in other situations. Personally, I have always found Leyline of the Void to be a bit lacking. Of all of the dedicated graveyard attack, I’ve found Extirpate to be the most problematic. Three copies sound like a potent minimal amount to begin slicing and dicing away at that matchup. One of the things I particularly like about Extirpate is that it can be very, very impressive against a deck like Tron, Ideal, or CounterTop (which tends to lose a ton of gas if it doesn’t actually have Counterbalance or Top). While a part of me really wants to include a single Shimian Specter in the board as well, I’m pretty sure that the deck would be better served by something else. My initial thought is that fourth Pernicious Deed, serving as a great potential catch all.
This gives us this for a main deck and sideboard:
Creatures (5)
Lands (24)
Spells (31)
This deck is not the clear deck to dethrone all of Extended. As of right now, I’m not sure that such a deck exists. But what it is is a solid, rogue choice to play. There are a lot of ways that one could tweak this deck do accomplish slightly different things, or stay with the same focus.
One could, for example, abandon the idea of maintaining the deck as a control deck, and instead try to speed up its ability to deliver the Coffers/Urborg/Staff/Affinity draw. To me, this seems like a pretty poor direction to go, given all of the parts involved, but for someone looking to simply make the deck more impressive and fun, it might be a path worth developing. Alternately, one could simply remove the capacity for the combo altogether, and instead run other sinks for the mana that this deck is capable of generating, perhaps turning it into a Black/Green-based “pseudo-Tron” deck.
Ultimately, testing some version of the deck may show that it simply can’t perform well enough, regardless of tweaking, versus enough of the fifteen decks to be able to warrant more effort. However, given the nature of the cards in the deck, I’m completely confident that it can be pushed one way or another to deal with a lopsided metagame. Depending on what the metagame might be locally, the essential nature of the deck could be shifted to deal with, say a control-heavy metagame, or a beatdown-heavy metagame. Getting it competitive versus the whole swathe of the metagame might be a real challenge, potentially an insurmountable one.
That’s kind of part of the point, though. Look at that list of probably viable decks up there. That’s fifteen decks that can be said to have some kind of pedigree worth paying attention to. Most likely, there are even more beyond that. Trying to come up with something to simply beat them all is not something that seems likely. Most decks in the current Extended are like Samuel Korsell’s Staff of Domination deck: they can be tweaked to beat most anything. The trick is going to be to tweak it and to know it so intimately that you can win versus enough decks to bring home a PTQ win.
I know I’ll be plugging away. Good luck to you early birds who are trying to get that same edge in Extended I’m looking for.