TagExtended

Flores Friday – Re-positioning Linear Designs and Hybridizing Strategies: Two Ways to Cheat

The Extended metagame rumbles on, and many of us are looking for that elusive edge for our next PTQ tournament. As usual, Mike Flores may have the answers we seek. Today’s Flores Friday examines a fascinating tactic available to us, a tactic that could inform our deck-choices come Tournament Day. Is an exploration of linear card design the key to building a format-warping deck? Mike constantly redefines the metagame… maybe this view of Magic deck-building and design could see us do the same.

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8-Post: I Would Qualify If I Had Time To Play

After going 25-0 with a budget build of the Cloudpost/Vesuva deck, Ben began working on the deck for competitive play. After a month of testing and hundreds of playtest matches, he’s come up with a deck that he feels is a winner. Unfortunately, he has no time to attend PTQs. Will you be the one to pilot his deck to a Pro Tour slot?

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Deconstructing Constructed – Innocent Wails: Death of a Metagame Breaker

Today I want to talk about the trails and tribulations of breaking a splintered metagame. First you may ask yourself what the heck I’m talking about and mutter something about all metagames being equal. Here’s the thing… usually semi-coherent metagames are shaped pretty early in a format’s life-cycle. You know X and Y are going to be the “best” decks and somewhat popular, while Z is good and even a bit more popular for some reason (Easier to play, easier to make, etc.). Then you have the rest of the letters filling out the rest of the metagame. Arrogant and / or confident players may be labeling all of these as byes…

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Ask The Drama – Musings on the Rock in Extended

As everyone knows, Jeroen Remie loves the Rock. It came as a great surprise to many when he walked away from Pernicious Deed and friends at Worlds 2006, choosing instead to play Boros Deck Wins. Today’s edition of “Ask The Drama” brings us a couple of Rock-based questions for those aspiring Green/Black mages among us, and also tackles other points including the cost of being a pro and Remie’s view of TEPS.

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Yawgmoth’s Whimsy #162 – Sideboarding Extended

Pop quiz time – The article begins with a massive list of Magic cards. Over 150 in total. What do they have in common?

“They all have capitalized letters?”

Oh, you are so clever. Here’s a clever little thing you can do with your deckbox. Sideways. For everyone else… well, the title of this article is a clue…

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The Beautiful Struggle – The Extended Perfect TEPS Primer

You don’t play TEPS because it beats every deck. You play it because it puts pressure on every deck. Most keepable hands win very early in the game, so by playing TEPS you force every opponent to win or find an answer in five turns or less. Also, you have a Burning Wish package such that even if the opponent should come up with something, you can find a bullet to deal with it. Many PTQ decks, and a great many more PTQ players, operate much worse under that kind of pressure.

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Deep Analysis – Big Mana Blue

Despite taking on many forms, it’s safe to say that Big Mana Blue – be it U/W Tron or U/W Vesuvapost – is one of the more powerful control options in the current Extended metagame. Today’s “Deep Analysis” examines its position in the Grand Scheme, and looks at how it can be improved to shore up those tricky matchups. Personally, I think this is the best deck in the Extended field, and I hope everyone plays it at my next PTQ. Then again, I play Boros Deck Wins…

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The Combat Phase – Mono-Black in Extended

Having abandoned his G/W Extended deck from last week, Jamie faced a quandry. Where now for the archetypal Green mage? Thankfully, there are more strings to Jamie’s MTG bow than meets the eye… Mr Wakefield put down the Forest and embraced the power of the Swamp. Jamie also shares the tale of his Planar Chaos prerelease, and laments the brute power of Mind’s Desire in Extended… something we can all understand.

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Flores Friday – Shark Hunting II: Week Two

With Week Two results from the Extended PTQ season slowly filtering in, Mike takes a long look at the Oklahoma City results. Their Top 8 featured a number of decks that were off the radar going into the event. Can such off the wall metagame-specific choices bring success across a wider field, now that the decklists are in the public domain?

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Chatter of the Squirrel – Extended Musings

Apparently, I am one of the lucky ones to have shotgunned a position for a weekly in time to actually get one. While in many ways this is akin to saying, “I’m one of the lucky ones to have shotgunned a position in the eighth-annual Beale Street Bleach Drinking Extravaganza,” it does mean that at least until I resume my usual slacklerly tendencies (which will probably be in and around Tuesday of next week) I get to wax melodramatic about the present Extended season.

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Exploring Desire in Extended

For his first article for StarCityGames.com, John Fiorillo takes a look at Extended’s most successful Combo deck – The Extended Perfect Storm, or TEPS for short. As a self-confessed Combo Junkie, John loves the deck… and his tips may be the link you need to gain success at your next Pro Tour Qualifier. Planning on running Boros Deck Wins? Never fear… John has some words of wisdom for you too.

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Deconstructing Constructed – Exploring Extended: I Need Therapy

The Extended Pro Tour Qualifiers continue apace, and many of us are trawling the sites for the top tech that’ll bring home the Blue Envelope. Today, Josh brings us a fascinating look at the role of the many faces of B/W discard in the format. It’s true that discard is one of the stronger strategies available… so how can we maximise its strength?

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Ask The Drama – Beating The Decks That Beat The Metagame

Jeroen’s back, with a new column title for the New Year! As before, he answers reader-posed questions with candor and fun. Today’s batch of posers include how to get the edge in the Extended metagame – just how do you beat the Boros deck that’s teched-out to beat Boros? Jeroen also lets fly with his opinions of Planar Chaos… and as usual, he pulls no punches. If you have a question for Jeroen, send them to [email protected]!

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Extended 2007: Week One, Part Two – Mock Tournament Strikes Again

With MagictheGathering.com concentrating on all things Planar Chaos, today’s Flores Friday brings us the tournament lowdown from last weekend’s round of Extended PTQs. Mike breaks down the numbers from all the results that are in so far, sharing some of the winning and high-performing deck builds. He takes a long look at why they won, and makes his own personal suggestions for those hoping to succeed in Week Two of the PTQ roller coaster.

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Extended 2007: Week One, Part One

Going into the PTQ weekend, Mike had two choices: U/G or G/W. He told the world that if he rocked the mock tournament with U/G, that’d be the deck for him. If not, the G/W machine would be his weapon of choice. True to his word, Mike took his innovative G/W anti-Boros anti-TEPS Extended deck to his local PTQ… and as suspected, it rocked the house against the good matchups. For the story of both tournaments, and both decks, read on…

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