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Welcome to a new edition of Ask the Drama!

Last week we took a little break with Planar Chaos related questions, and went deep into the new set. Of course, it seems y'all don't really care that much about that format. As a matter of fact, almost all the questions I seem to be getting on JeroenRemie@gmail.com seem to be about Extended. Everyone is looking for the Holy Grail... and no, I can't give you a guaranteed winning deck, or complete optimal lists of every deck around. What I can do is help out with problems you might have, and give you tips, pointers, and some insight into what I will be playing.

Come Saturday and Sunday we'll be having our first PTQs of the season, and I'll be attending. I haven't been able to test as much as I'd like to for the tournaments, as my playtest team are all Pro Tour players and, well... they don't need to test Extended any more. This means that all I know is basically what I learnt off the Internet, coupled with what I have been able to process during my personal playtest sessions and my Worlds testing. I've decided that, since I won't be able to test every deck out there, I'll be sticking to my style of play, which leaves me with three possible decks: Boros, Aggro Loam, or a Rock deck involving Destructive Flow. I'll probably pick one the day of the tournament, and see how we do. Wish me luck!

Like I said, there's a lot of Extended stuff in today's column, which means I'd like to start with the one question I could find that's not about the format. Ray Bechtel sent me this one...

I did a couple of drafts on Magic Online earlier today. I thought the decks I drafted were solid, and figured I would at least get to Round 2. However, I never made it quite that far. I lost both drafts in the first round.

I'm not sure what's wrong with me... I'm no good at drafts on MTGO. I always THINK I have a pretty good deck, but it never pans out. Here are the decks I drafted. Can you tell me, based on the lists, what went wrong?

Triple 9th Draft Deck
1 Aven Cloudchaser
1 Aven Flock
2 Pegasus Charger
1 Anaba Shaman
1 Orcish Artillery
2 Master Decoy
1 Hill Giant
1 Infantry Veteran
1 Phyrexian Hulk
1 Venerable Monk
1 Goblin Chariot
1 Sandstone Warrior
1 Shock
1 Volcanic Hammer
1 Pacifism
1 Chastise
1 Lava Axe
1 Holy Strength
1 Warrior's Honor
9 Plains
8 Mountains

Sideboard:
1 Bog Imp
1 Enfeeblement
1 Festering Goblin
1 Ravenous Rats
1 Rogue Kavu
3 Shatter
1 Lightning Elemental
1 Goblin Chariot
1 Demystify
1 Mending Hands
1 Holy Day
1 Levitation
1 Wanderguard Sentry
1 Weird Harvest

I thought this deck was fine, but I keep drawing lands during topdeck mode. I won the first game, but the second I was overwhelmed by his higher quality fliers. It didn't help that I kept drawing land after land after land. Game 3, I had to mulligan to four. I kept ripping lands though, and I really had no chance in that game. A Master Decoy and an Infantry Veteran aren't all that impressive on the sixth turn.

You can't really expect to win when you mulligan to four. That is bad luck, I guess, but game 2 can be explained, as can some of your deck's flaws.

It has no card advantage. Even worse, it has a bunch of card disadvantage cards. That is fine in a format that is all about tempo, but not in triple Ninth Edition, which is really all about economy. Grey Ogres and Holy Strengths are just close to unplayable in the format, and seldom should make your deck. Cards that are actually fine are Mending Hands and Lightning Elemental, because they have a bigger effect and are not guaranteed to lose you economy. That is why most pros will tell you that Blue is the way to go in triple Ninth, as it has cards like Sift and Thought Courier to get you through land patches.

Your deck should do fine if it draws the right cards, or draws them in the right order. If that doesn't happen, 2/2s for three are guaranteed to lose you the game.

Triple TSP Draft
3 Corpulent Corpse
1 Magus of the Mirror
3 Pit Keeper
1 Skittering Monstrosity
2 Trespasser il-Vec
1 Kaervek the Merciless
1 Assassinate
1 Dark Withering
2 Strangling Soot
1 Sudden Death
1 Sudden Spoiling
1 Lightning Axe
1 Dread Return
2 Mindstab
1 Chromatic Star
1 Foriysian Totem
10 Swamp
5 Mountain
1 Urza Factory

Sideboard
1 Detainment Spell
1 Cancel
1 Eternity Snare
1 Telekinetic Sliver
1 Tolarian Sentinel
2 Dredge Reavers
1 Evil Eye of Urborg
1 Psychotic Episode
1 Smallpox
1 Sangrophage
1 Traitor's Clutch
1 Ironclaw Buzzardiers
1 Mogg War Marshal
1 Aetherflame Wall
1 Strength in Numbers
1 Jhoira's Timebug
1 Venser's Sliver
1 Dementia Sliver

I know this one was very short of creatures... But I thought I had enough removal that it wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, Empty the Warrens says otherwise. Both games my opponent beat me with Empty the Warrens for four tokens.

Empty the Warrens is the bane of a deck like this. Not only can you not compete with the card advantage by killing every guy, but the goblins also trade with most all of your guys. Pit Keeper is actually horrible in this deck, as its effect will almost never happen (since you are very short on guys and will never have four in the graveyard for most games). It's merely a 2/1 for two in a deck that cannot win on tempo. This means you should probably swap some of them out, and make sure you put in more lands. Sixteen land in a deck that needs to get to the late game to win with its bombs like Kaervek, Urza's Factory (which is perfect for the deck) and Flashed-back Strangling Soot is asking for trouble.

Sure, Empty the Warrens will still suck, but right now you are just risking getting screwed as well as running some bad men.

Now we head for Extended, with the first question by Manuel Lopez:

I really like your article about Flores's build of The Rock, and I tried it out in a tournament yesterday. It was okay, but nowhere near the original Rock. I missed the hand hate so much...

My email concerns the Aggro-Loam deck. I really love this deck, and have done since its origins in the CAL deck, to the new build that brings fresh air to this archetype (and we'll see Extirpate next month...)

However, what color should we splash? I've tried both builds, with B and W, and found that the Boros matchup was a walk, Solution was more or less favorable, but aggro-CAL almost concedes against control and, of course, TEPS.

I was also thinking about the sideboard. I found some solutions, like Rule of Law and Pyrostatic Pillar, but I never considered Gilded Light. I must try it and see.

What do you think is the better build? Do you agree with having B splashed (Putrefy, Cabal Therapy, and Duress) and a single W dual for Gilded Light sideboard tech?

Finally, what do you think about Extirpate? Will it break the format? What about Extirpate for aggro-loam?

Extirpate certainly sucks for a deck like this, with it nuking the main card in the deck, but does need to be drawn very early. Later in the game you'll be happy to see them draw Extirpate instead of Crypt when your Terravores get in there for the maximum. That's why I don't really think that Extirpate will be that bad, although it will be annoying. You always have Burning Wish to get everything back.

It does, however, maybe make for a fine sideboard card of your own. I really prefer the Black splash, with Cabal Therapy being insane (of course), and the other cards help as well. I think this is the best plan you have versus TEPS and the like, in combo with Devastating Dreams, and it adds something else you don't talk about:

Dark Confidant.

Adding this guy means you get a better matchup versus control, which you are currently sweating against, and is also great in the deck since everything is cheap anyways. I have seen a lot of lists with rotating two drops around, and I think this guy is the way to go if you are expecting a very controlish field.

Next is a question by Alan Mattiassi:

I am looking at the Extended metagame and raising some questions:

Since Destructive Flow is the trump against so many decks, what are the decks in which the Flow shines? Flow Deck Wins (played at Worlds) is an obvious one, but people are hybridizing it with Gift Rock and Macey Rock, so I think the original configuration - with one-drops and a very aggressive mindset -- is no longer the best choice...

I still think that Flow Deck Wins is the best version in which to run Destructive Flow. Not only do you pose a problem for your opponent in Flow, but you also put a lot of pressure on them early game, which is great. Flow is still a great and versatile answer card in the format in other decks, though. It is simply very good against a lot of decks right now, which is why it sees play in more decks. I just like the aggro decks best....

Since the metagame is so wide, and contains so many different avenues of attack, can Solitary Confinement be a catch-all card? I'm aware of the omnipresent Krosan Grip in sideboards, so which is the deck that can use it best? CAL, the version of G/W Slide Osyp posted, or any other deck?

With so many Krosan Grips around, you will generally get hit by the splash damage. Thanks to all the great enchantments and artifacts around, you can be sure that everyone has an answer to Solitary Confinement. This means that, to me, it is not worth it. It was good when people didn't have answers, but now that everyone has answers, it just isn't... which is why it disappeared.

With the addition of a new set (Planar Chaos), what do you think is the best strategy:

(1) Picking up new cards for old decks to fight bad matchups, and changing a deck to fight the new expected cards? (I'm thinking about Extirpate and the like, so I think that the graveyard will be even more hated out. Is it a good strategy to pick up Extirpates in Counterbalance decks, and change Loam decks and Ichorids to fight it, even if I don't think there is an easy way?)
(2) Shifting decks completely so you don't fall to new hate? (In this case, if I was playing Ichorid, I'm not confident any more, so should I shift to Boros or something else?)

Like I said before, while Extirpate is a good card, it merely replaces Tormod's Crypt in most decks, and it will not be that much worse most of the time. Sure, Ichorid will definitely not feel great about the card, and will generally lose to it, but other Graveyard decks don't really care that much. Not every deck runs Black, and they still need to draw Extirpate early if they want to beat you. Not only that, but you also have a back-up plan... right? Never quit playing a deck just because of some hate cards.

You need to play against it, they need to draw it, and then they still need to draw other cards to not lose to your back-up plan, like the Psychatogs in Ichorid. Sure, you might lose a round, but losing more through hate is not very likely. Hate needs to be drawn in time, which has been true forever. Affinity was still the best deck, even in a format full of hate.

Volostrigov Bogdan hits us up with this week's last question:

I am set in playing Boros for Extended PTQs this season (not that many options here, as this is the only deck I took with me when leaving for studies from Moscow to a non-Magic-infected town. Also, it is the deck that I am the most comfortable and most successful with). I have all the cards for both "Dutch version" (with Kird Apes) and straight R/W version. The PTQ in Oslo, Norway that I am going to attend is on February, 24 and 25 - so Planar Chaos will be already legal. Also, I have not the slightest idea of local metagame (having never been to Oslo before, obviously). And I must add that a number of circumstances prevent me from testing, either with people (lack of playtest partners) or on MTGO / MWS (university firewall), so I have to mainly theorize. That's the context.

If we look at Planar Chaos spoiler, we can see, that Boom / Bust seems like a perfect inclusion in a Boros deck. Not only is it a two-mana land destruction spell, it has great synergy with fetch lands (making playing it painless on turn 3). It is also unbelievably powerful with Flagstones Of Trokair.

The questions are:

1) If I incorporate Flagstones in my manabase, will it be able to support a Green splash, or will I have to abandon it? Is it possible to squeeze Flagstones in without losing a splash?

No. To me, I don't think the manabase can just flat-out run what essentially amounts to four more Plains without suffering from manascrew a lot more. Sure, the R/W version could probably manage with only minimal amounts of trouble, but the splash will not be as efficient anymore. Note that you probably have to cut a bunch of fetchlands to squeeze them in.

2) Will the metagame run a "full circle" until 24-25 of February? Will it return to the point where Boros is a strong choice again? I mean, right now Boros is somewhat hated out due to the upsurge of midrange decks (G/W, Aggro-Loam, etc) - so in upcoming weeks we may expect Big Mana Blue decks to gain popularity - a great time for Boros.

To be honest, I just don't know. This is very dependant on your local metagame, and what people tend to do there. Keep a look out for Frank Karsten's articles on MagictheGathering.com, and Blisterguy's weekly MTGO column, both of which tend to have the latest updates in the MTGO metagame. They should help you a little.

I know for a fact though that here in the Netherlands the local metagame tends to be different, just because people like to play different decks, and this is the case almost everywhere.

3) What is the correct direction in which to tune the list? If you played a Boros deck this late in the season, would you abandon your anti-mirror paranoia, and stick to anti-control build?

Boros basically does what it does to control, and there is not a whole lot that can be done about it in terms of anti-control. The mirror will be less frequent, this is true, but since there is not a whole lot you can board against the control matchups, since they are already fairly good matchups anyway, you might as well keep focused on the Boros mirror and other creature decks in general. Such decks tend to appear at every PTQ.

4) Is it possible for a modern Boros deck to run eight land destruction spells without compromising its strategy?

Yes, though I am not sure Boom / Bust is the card you are looking for. Boros's plan is to play some early guys and then start disrupting, which means that three-mana land-kill spells are fine. There are versions out there that do run eight land-kill spells, with Vindicates on top of the usual Molten Rains.

5) If I stick to the two-color version, is there a way to remedy the mirror match-up, and somehow gain advantage over splashed version, having lost Armadillo Cloak, Thornscape Battlemage and Kird Ape? Will there ever be replacements for these slots?

Jitte is the first card that springs to mind, and one that can always be played to trump anything else. You can also look at things like Pyrite Spellbomb to beat the pro-Red guys, and huge Fledgling Dragons that'll be good in the mirror. You might be a little behind, but these cards all work fine in their own way.

6) How many sideboard slots would you dedicate to anti-combo hate? Are four slots enough? What is better: Orim's Chant, Rule Of Law, or Pyrostatic Pillar?

I like Pillar because it helps you with your own game-plan of killing them as soon as possible. Other than that, all of them have their advantages and disadvantages. It depends on what you want to bring them in against, i.e. whatever is the current combo deck of choice. Four to six hate cards should be more than enough.

7) Will Sudden Shock still be a strong contender for a maindeck slot? If not, what is the best replacement for it, in your opinion?

Sudden Shock is one of the main reasons to play Boros, and this will stay this way. I would never cut them, ever.

That's it for this week's edition. Make sure to send your questions to jeroenremie@gmail.com, and please try and send me some stuff that doesn't involve Extended. The format is about to end, and I'll have trouble getting to all of the questions. Next week I'll also let you know how I did at two PTQs, as well as share what I played. See you then!

Hugs,

Jeroen