The general trend with a new block entering the world of extended is a host of new deck appearances, with last year being no exception. The power of dredge from Ravnica and the Odyssey block graveyard interaction gave birth to a host of new decks, including the infamous friggorid, which, harnessing the power of heavy dredgers like Grave-Troll and Stinky Pimp, could kill before you could say ‘damage on stack discard a card to wild mongrel’. Since Richard Bland’s all-singing all-dancing extended primer, the extended section of MtgTwincast has been looking a little bleak, and so I thought I’d give a brief run-through of what’s hot and what’s not after Time Spiral. Extended being the next constructed PTQ season, it’s time to get those extended thinking caps on and delve into a world of nostalgia, ready to storm the ptqs with a brand spanking new combo set. This article won’t really teach you anything new, and isn’t so much a strategy article as such – just a database to find any decklists for inspiration or netdecking, with decklists and a brief description of how the deck wants to win.
The Combo Decks
The recent extended section of Worlds revealed some rather odd-looking decks, the first of which I had to puzzle over for quite a while, trying to work out exactly how it won. It wasn’t until I watched the ‘deck breakdown video’ that I realised how it managed to win as early as turn three, with what looked like a load of harmless little eggs! Designed and pioneered by the French team, and carried to a 5-0-1 performance by Bastien Perez, the deck looks something like:
“Sunny Side Up” |
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5 Island 20 land 2 Cunning Wish |
4 Conjurer's Bauble 40 other spells
1 Seedtime |
1 Angel's Grace 15 sideboard cards |
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Completely creatureless, the deck aims to build up a board of artifacts, then cast Reshape to search the library for a Lotus Bloom. At this point, it can sacrifice all its ‘eggs’ (the Chromatics are referred to as eggs as well, as they do exactly the same thing), sac some lands (to Ghost Quarter and Archaeological Dig), float some mana, and cast Second Sunrise, bringing everything back. At this point the deck has enough mana to make Hearbeat proud, and can dig through the deck with all its newly found eggs, until it finds another sunrise and goes infinite and eventually ends up with 0 cards in the deck. It can then sac Pyrite Spellbomb, sac Bauble to put sunrise on the bottom of the library, draw sunrise off an egg and recur infinitely. The deck can fizzle though if it doesn’t find another Sunrise or Teachings, so it makes me wonder why it doesn’t put one in the wish board – a possible improvement for the PTQ season n’est-ce pas?
Another equally rapid Combo deck that sprung up at Worlds was a Mind’s Desire, which unlike the various popular Desire decks run last year doesn’t run heartbeat, but instead goes for the kill with rituals, making it 1-2 turns quicker, which can be crucial in matchups vs decks like Boros which just kill mercilessly by around turn 5. The deck went 5-1 at Worlds, in the hands of Jelger Wiegersma
Mind’s Desire Combo |
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4 Geothermal Crevice 21 land 4 Cabal Ritual |
4 Seething Song 39 other spells |
4 Defense Grid 15 sideboard cards |
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Unlike the old version which used heartbeat of spring and mana fetchers to build up a huge land count then cast Early Harvest to rinse and repeat, this deck sets up an early threshold with the sac lands, gets rid of any permission spells with Duress, then casts a pumped cabal ritual into mind’s desire. It can then, either with mana floating or off the top of the deck use Sins of the Past to reuse Mind’s Desire, all the time building up the storm count, then eventually Tendrils of Agony the opponent for a lethal storm. The Burning Wishes give further win conditions in case the storm dies down, like a Mind’s Desire and Tendrils in the board, or Empty the Warrens against Wrathless decks.
Another deck which popped up at Worlds was the ‘Dirty Kitty’ designed by Billy Moreno, which could technically be classed as aggro. I, however, have put it in the combo section because without the actual combo cards (like Fecundity, Prospector), it’s basically a sub-par build of a goblin deck. The deck ended up doing worse than 5-1 at worlds (it wasn’t on the ‘top extended decks’), but it seems like it could be a great competitor for PTQ season.
“Dirty Kitty”Designed by Billy Moreno |
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4 Bloodstained Mire 19 land 4 Skirk Prospector |
1 Goblin Sledder 22 creatures 4 Seething Song 19 other spells |
4 Clickslither 15 sideboard cards |
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If you still don’t know, the name of the deck derived from a comment at Worlds by a spectator watching Ben Stark puzzling for minutes trying to work out whether or not he could kill his opponent that turn. "It is like watching a monkey wash a cat," he declared. "It looks like something a human would do, but it's just wrong." Hence the name, Dirty Kitty.
To win, the deck basically drops a Fecundity as early as possible (turn 2 off a rite of flame), then combos out turn 3 or 4 by laying Prospector and another critter like Mogg War Marshal, sac the other goblins, draw a lot of cards, cast some Rituals, play some more goblins (Empty the Warrens Preferrably), sac more goblins, draw more cards, build a storm Count and Grapeshot them out. If it doesn’t manage to draw the grapeshot, it can always manage with a mix of Warchief, Emptied Warrens, Piledrivers and Sharpshooters. Though the deck failed to post a stellar performance at Worlds, it seems explosive enough to be broken by the PTQ season.
One deck that didn’t make an appearance (or at least not a significant one) at Worlds was Tooth and Nail. Though this deck was never seen as one of ‘the best’ extended decks, it is still fairly viable and has okay matchups against the majority of decks, its only problem being that though it plays more for the long game than most combo decks with the ability to hardcast creatures and clear the board with Oblivian Stone, it goes off a couple of turns later. Here’s a list that top 8ed a PTQ at Kobe:
Tooth and NailDesigned by Satoshi Ohmura |
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3 Forest 22 land 4 Wall of Roots |
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker 10 creatures 4 Sensei's Divining Top |
3 Moment's Peace 28 other spells
3 Defense Grid 15 sideboard cards |
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The concept of the deck is fairly simple: ramp up the mana and stall the ground with Walls into an entwined Tooth and Nail to search for 2 of many uber-synergistic creatures, like Vampire and Triskelion to Wrath your Opponent’s board, or Titan and Kiki to strip their manabase. One thing this deck is missing to last year’s builds is the almighty Darksteel Colossus, which gives a 2-turn kill clock, but instead plays 2 Decree of Justice as alternate uncounterable win conditions. Is it the Better option? You decide!
Another old favourite from last year, that forced nearly all decks into running some sort of graveyard hate is Friggorid. Like Dirty Kitty this deck could be seen more as aggro, but the fact that it has fewer win conditions than a Kobold deck puts it under Combo in my books (generally this could put it in the Control group too, though this deck runs neither removal nor permission). It was thought going into Worlds that with Tormod’s Crypt now in the format, any deck with an ounce of graveyard interaction would be dragged down and forced to stay in the bottom tables. It seems though that everyone was prepared for the double bluff and hardly any, if any of the extended decks are actually running crypt. Because of this apparent lack of preparation Ryo Ogura managed a 6-0 performance with this deck:
FriggoridDesigned by Ryo Ogura |
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4 Polluted Delta 18 land 4 Putrid Imp |
2 Wild Mongrel 25 creatures 4 Chrome Mox |
1 Tolarian Winds 17 other spells 3 Firemane Angel 15 sideboard cards |
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The deck being designed to absolutely hammer control, which has no way of dealing with recurring creatures or uncounterable dredges, practically the whole sideboard is designed to beat aggro, like Firemanes to gain any life lost back. A potential strong competitor a year after it dominated the format?
Aggro
Whew. We’re finally out of the world of decks where you have to actually think about your plays (I know, crazy), and into the house of creatures and burn. Aggro has always been a personal favourite of mine, and the recent Worlds shows that pros don’t half hate it either. Out of 300 players in the extended section, a whopping great 94 of them were running Boros – that’s almost a third of the field. An Affinity-esque domination shows that Boros is certainly going to be the deck to beat come the PTQ season, with its consistent consistency and truckloads of burn, it’s certainly difficult to keep up with and counterattack once it gets going. Though 4632 Boros decks were played, only one managed to 6-0, and here’s the deck:
Boros Deck WinsDesigned by Vasily Tsapko |
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4 Sacred Foundry 22 land
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4 Savannah Lions 20 creatures 4 Lava Dart |
4 Molten Rain 19 other spells 3 Pyrite Spellbomb 15 sideboard cards |
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This deck is pretty much a standard build, though personally I’d like to see a couple of Sudden Shocks in there – though Mongrels and ‘Togs are no longer the huge threats they used to be, sudden shock can have its uses in nearly all matchups, including the mirror where it can take out a Legionnaire before any ‘damage on stack’ shenanigans can take place
Another deck that sprung up towards the end of last year’s PTQ season and never really had the chance to shine is Aggro Loam, a deck that was thought to be the favourite going into Worlds, though only 5 People ended up running it. Despite this, the deck was the best average performer, closely followed by Trinket Angels. Here’s a fairly standard version, run by Kaupo Iher and taken to a 5-1 performance at Worlds.
Aggro LoamDesigned by Kaupo Iher |
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2 Barbarian Ring 26 land 1 Genesis |
2 Eternal Witness 15 creatures 4 Seismic Assault 19 other spells |
3 Krosan Grip 15 sideboard cards |
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The deck is surprisingly quick, and works on the basis of chucking a load of lands into the yard with sac lands or Mongrels, making a Terravore, casting Devastating dreams as a pseudo-Armageddon, then swinging with the beefed up Lhurgoyf for a lorra damage. The deck also runs on a Seismic Assault – Life from the Loam engine, which with cycle lands means:
The next deck I’m going to show cropped up at Worlds and went 5-1, but seems like the kind of deck a new player would bring to an extended PTQ. Packed fulla Giant Growth style cards and working on a multicolour theme, it’s kind of a ‘teched out zoo’
Weird ZooDesigned by Christian Flaaten |
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4 Wooded Foothills 20 land |
4 Kird Ape 24 creatures 4 Gaea's Might |
2 Lightning Helix 16 other spells
3 Disrupt 15 sideboard cards |
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With a massive 12 fetchlands fetching for only 8 ‘normal’ lands, the deck seems fairly desperate to fetch out exactly the lands it needs, which I suppose it is, considering after boarding it can go right up to 5 colours. It does seem though that a stone rain would completely screw the manabase. The Chant from the board is presumably to be brought in against combo decks, to be played halfway through them comboing out, say in response to a ritual, and screwing over their plan completely.
For the last of the aggro deck I’m going to go to a deck taken to a 6-0 at Worlds by fellow Countryman Stuart Wright – Flow Rock. Considering every single deck uses Nonbasic lands (what with Heartbeat going out of fashion), Destructive Flow seems quite techy, and Stuart’s stuck on an extended version of ‘Dark Zoo’ to give the deck some beef.
Flow RockDesigned by Stuart Wright |
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4 Bloodstained Mire 20 land 4 Kird Ape |
4 Elves of Deep Shadow 24 creatures 2 Call of the Herd 16 other spells |
4 Cabal Therapy 15 sideboard cards |
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The fetchers in the deck reduce the need for a huge number of other non-basics, and there are also the Elves in the deck to provide consistency, though 1 of each Rav dual in the deck’s colours offer a fallback should both the colours of mana be needed. Other than the Flow theme, the deck is basically a standard aggro, with the best black creature ever printed (Bob) and other card advantage generators like Call, topped off with bucketfuls of burn.
Aggro-Control
We’re now officially out of the world where thinking has been made redundant, and into the world of decks you play if you’re not aggressive enough to play aggro, and not intelligent enough to play control (joke) (sort of). I’ll start on the same theme that I left aggro with – an evolution on the once-popular Rock deck. This time it’s splashing blue for Gifts and white for Life-gainy hephalumps.
Gifts RockDesigned by Gerardo Godinez Estrada |
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2 Forest 21 land 1 Genesis |
3 Loxodon Hierarch 19 creatures 2 Vindicate 21 other spells |
1 Cranial Extraction 15 sideboard cards |
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The deck has the full anti-aggro package, with Walls of Roots to gum up the ground, Hierarchs and Baloths to jump in the way of little men and gain back life when times are hard, and Pernicious Deed to reset the board, or selectively kill anything with CMC lower than your witnesses and 4/4s. The Duress also can also stip crucial combo cards or annoys control players, and the Gifts engine helps you search for answers when you need them.
From an old favourite to a new kid on the block, we move to Trinket Angels. Played by Gabriel Nassif to a 6-0 performance at Worlds, the deck looks both fun and competitive, and definitely something I’ll be considering for the upcoming PTQ season. The main idea of the deck is to lock down the opponent with a variety of cheap artefacts fetched off a Trinket Mage, and stopping combo decks from combo-ing with Meddling Mages.
Trinket AngelsDesigned by Gabriel Nassif |
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1 Great Furnace 23 land 4 Meddling Mage |
3 Exalted Angel 14 creatures 1 Pyrite Spellbomb |
1 Pithing Needle 23 other spells 1 Disenchant 15 sideboard cards |
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The deck also runs on a Divining-Top Counterbalance lock, being able to counter most cards currently defining the format, including the swarm of Boros creatures that will come flying at the deck. The maindeck Stifles are great considering nearly every deck will be playing sac-lands (including the Invasion ones played in Desire and Egg combo), and the Trinket Mage engine means anything can be searched for based on what the player needs, from Spellbomb to deal with a tricky pro-red creature, Needle to lock down and opposing Psychatog, Crypt to hose a graveyard, or Explosives to clear up the board.
After a brief dip in the pool of the decks what sit on the fence (I’m a scientist, who needs good grammar), we’re into the final sub-group of top extended decks in the current format - the control decks. This section is for those who prefer to think their plays through, rather than just seeing how fast they can empty their hand, and instead of trying to get the round over and done with so they can fit a food break in before the next round.
As I started the Aggro-control section with an old favourite, I shall do so now too. The first control decklist is a deck that once defined the type 2 format, and has been lurking around in extended since: Mr Teeth! (Psychatog for those of you who don’t speak 1337). The following deck went 4-1-1 at worlds in the hands of the Japanese titan Mori.
Classic TogDesigned by Katsuhiro Mori |
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2 Vault of Whispers 23 land 4 Psychatog 5 creatures |
1 Smother 32 other spells |
1 Commandeer 15 sideboard cards |
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The deck seems rather odd – all the 1-ofs would point at a Gifts Ungiven engine, but the only signs of that are as a Wish target out of the board. Other than that it’s pretty much a standard ‘Tog, with Togs, Wonder to give him wings, and a bucketful of counters.
Another form of Tog, which I couldn’t see in the Worlds decklists, but one that I think is deserving of a mention, is Counterbalance Tog.
Counterbalace TogDesigned by Nicola Labarre |
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4 Polluted Delta 19 land 4 Psychatog 9 creatures |
4 Sensei's Divining Top 32 other spells |
4 Duress 15 sideboard cards |
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This version is less of a ‘draw-go’ deck than the other one, with Dark Confidants, which don’t really let you hang around doing nothing, as they may finish you off before you finish your opponent. The Divining Tops do, however, help fix the draw immensely, reducing damage taken off Bob and making sure you can Balance anything your opponent can throw at you, with spells with CMCs ranging from 1 to 5, all inclusive.
The next deck is one that I would certainly like to try out myself in the upcoming extended season. Though it was around last year, it never really became that popular and failed to rack up any big wins like affinity was doing.
No StickDesigned by Roel Van Heeswijk |
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1 Academy Ruins 23 land |
1 Exalted Angel 4 creatures 4 Spell Snare 33 other spells |
1 Fact or Fiction 15 sideboard cards |
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The concept of the deck is fairly simple – stick a cheap instant on an Isochron Scepter, then proceed to control the board – Fire/Ice on a stick lets you either use it as a cantrip Icy Manipulator or shoot down 1 or 2 lil creatures each turn; Counterspell on a stick gives the deck its classic name ‘no stick’, and Orrim’s Chant on a stick, the main theme to the deck, will lock down nearly all decks. Moxing out a turn 1 Chant on a Stick will leave and Combo or aggro decks without instant-speed artefact hate dead in the water, and will leave Boros needing to win purely with Burn. I’m not too sure on this build, as I am a fan of putting Helix on a stick to make boros players cry, and though Teferi wrecks some decks, 3 of them seems a bit clunky to me. It would be fun, however, to get Teferi and Chant on a stick out, meaning your opponent can never play anything, ever.
Much like Boros, a deck that did well in the Type 2 section of Worlds, Pilotted my Mori, is one that also picked up a 5-0-1 record in the Extended section, in the hands of Shaheen Sorani. With the addition of some extended toys to abuse the Tron, such as Mindslaver and Decree of Justice, and Fact or Fiction to ensure the Tron comes out, the deck can become quite powerful.
UW TronDesigned by Shaheen Sorani |
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1 Academy Ruins 23 land 2 Solemn Simulacrum |
6 creatures 2 Renewed Faith 31 other spells |
3 Sphere of Law 15 sideboard cards |
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Apart from the ‘sub-combo’ of Mindslaver and Academy Ruins, depriving your opponent of any future turns, the deck generally does what any self-respecting control deck does: It builds up mana, counters spells, draws cards and makes the odd large creature (or bazillions of small soldiers). The main problem of the deck is having to deal with an early swarm of little creatures, which is why Sun Droplet and Sphere of Law come in after boarding.
*takes a moment to breathe*
Well that’s the all-new all-singing all-dancing over and done with. I hope it’s given you an insight into the world of extended, and if you’re the type of player that generally sticks to type 2 and refuses to even glance at any other format, you may be reformed by the prospect of all those shiny new (or old) cards. If there are any lists I’ve missed off which you think are strong competitors in the current format, then keep it to yourself – no need to add it if you already know it… Alternatively you could post it on the forum. From this article it’s apparent that the field is huge and diverse, and though Boros swarmed Worlds with sheer numbers, the millions of other decks are all strong competitors in the current field.
Now I’m off for some well-deserved rest.
Signing off,
Matteo