Friday, February 19th – The recent Extended Grand Prix in Oakland showcased that the format is incredibly healthy. Brian Kibler, winner of the Extended Pro Tour in Austin, picked the Zoo strategy once more, but found that the format had evolved in response to the menacing menagerie. Today, he shares his thoughts on the strategy going forward, along with a report on his performance…
Friday, February 19th – Grand Prix: Oakland was a monumental failure, in almost every aspect of the word. I went to the event with what I felt was a nicely tuned, semi-rogue deck that I felt had the ability and power to breakout. Unfortunately, things went differently. However, I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s start where all things start; at the beginning…
Friday, February 19th – Earlier this week, Antoine Ruel locked metaphorical horns with his brother in an Extended battle of Bant versus Zoo. Antoine piloted the menacing menagerie, while Oli picked up Manuel Bucher’s Bant build. Today, Oli shares his opinions on the matchup from the Bant perspective, and suggests ways in which to make the results turn in Bant’s favor…
Friday, February 19th – Travis Woo first thought that the Living End Combo deck was relegated to the Extended Joke folder, but after a sterling Top 4 performance at Grand Prix: Oakland, he’s definitely changed his mind! Today, he talks about his tournament success…
Thursday, February 18th – Antoine Ruel returns to play out an important Extended matchup once more, this time piloting Tribal Zoo against his brother’s Bant. With the PTQ season continuing apace, articles such as this (and Oli’s companion article coming tomorrow) are invaluable to everyone looking to pick up a blue envelope…
Thursday, February 18th – Cedric Phillips practiced hard for Grand Prix: Oakland, and it paid off for him in fine style. While he didn’t quite crack the final table, he came as close as he could, and started his season off with a strong performance. Today, he shares his story…
Thursday, February 18th – When the format becomes dominated by combo decks, control decks trend towards the forefront as it’s often better to try and interact with a combo deck by means of control spells than by the “brute force” method of the attack phase. Even Tomoharu Saito benched his Wild Nacatls for Grand Prix: Oakland, following the old adage of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
Thursday, February 18th – Hello everyone, and welcome back to Constructed Criticism. I’m a bit late this week due to the fact that I was in attendance at Grand Prix: Oakland. It was a great time, with awesome new friends and old friends alike…
Wednesday, February 17th – With Worldwake making a splash in many a Constructed format, it seems that Extended has its fair share of new card goodness. OR does it? Adrian examines the results from the recent Oakland Grand Prix and Roanoke PTQ, with an eye to the impact made by the fresh set…
Wednesday, February 17th – Extended is proving to be a fresh hunting ground for innovative deck design. It seems there’s space for people with a plan, and the Hurterator deck, designed by Tobias Henke, certainly has that. Manuel Bucher throws the new deck through a collection of queues on Magic Online, recording the play-by-play results.
Tuesday, February 16th – With the first results from the post Worldwake Extended events starting to trickle in, we put the TMI microscope over the PTQ in Roanoke. Many of the Online trends have filtered into the real world with a Thopter Depths mirror in the finals, but did Worldwake make an impact?
Tuesday, February 16th – Grand Prix: Oakland proved that the Extended format is versatile, intriguing, and fun. A massive seven distinct archetypes rocked the Top 8, including two decks that truly define innovation. Patrick Chapin discusses the strategies, and suggests how the format may evolve…
Tuesday, February 16th – At last weekend’s Grand Prix: Oakland, Sam Black piloted Faeries into Day 2 play before a slew of Zoo decks brought him down. Today, he recaps the highlights of his tournament, and discusses some of the stronger decks to succeed at the tournament. He also makes a few suggestions regarding the metagame going forward.
Friday, February 12th – With both Grand Prix and Pro Tour tournaments looming large, testing time has been split across multiple formats. Even so, Brian Kibler is doing his best to bring down strong results at both events. Today, he shares his thoughts on the Extended metagame going into the Grand Prix, and suggests some powerful builds of established archetypes.
Thursday, February 11th – Yesterday, Antoine Ruel brought us the Thopter Depths perspective on the Extended battle with Domain Zoo. Today, it’s Manuel Bucher’s turn to set the record straight on behalf of the dedicated aggro menagerie. With Zoo a main player in the format, and Thopter Depths the deck to beat, this article is great preparation for GP: Oakland!
