I played in an Osaka PTQ on Saturday, placing 15^th with a 5-2 record. Before anyone gets too excited, I went 1-2 before winning four straight matches, so I was never in contention after round three.

Still, considering I spent a week preparing for the format, more or less borrowed a deck that isn't considered a good choice, and now have a lifetime record of 5-2 in Extended sanctioned play, I feel pretty good about it (the 40-50 point gain in rating is pretty nice, too).

I played Goblin Sligh, which is similar to regular Sligh, but utilizes Goblin Lackey and Goblin Mutant along with other more conventional quick creatures and burn spells. The deck does better against control than regular Sligh, because a lot of control decks don't deal well with creatures that can come into play without being cast. Still, I knew coming in that my odds of winning were pretty much zero. I don't own any Extended cards, and pretty much borrowed the deck from Brent Heaser (as far as I know, the Lackey/Mutant combo is his creation), though I did try to tweak it to the best of my abilities. A decklist can be found at the bottom if you care about such things.

Some thoughts I have about the weekend:

1) Extended is more fun that I thought it would be. Not having the cards has been a big reason I have stayed away from Extended, but the format is better than I thought it was. At the Minneapolis PTQ there were dozens of different builds brought by the 84 players in attendance, and I faced a far more diverse field than I ever encountered in Invasion Block Constructed.

2) Borrowing cards is good. I'm glad I managed to put together a deck without feeling restrained by the cards I could get my hands on. I saw more than one deck where card choices were based as much on what was available than what was ideal. Magic players are notorious for putting together decks the night before a tournament or trading for cards at the site. I'm glad I'm not one of those people (I planned ahead!).

3) Playing in the two-loss bracket is fun! I decided to stay in after going 1-2, telling myself that if I lost one more I'd head home and spend some of my Saturday with my girlfriend. As it turned out, I didn't lose a match after that, though I know that the strongest players there tended to drop out after getting two losses. The matches I played were still somewhat serious, but the mood was lighter after my second loss, and the pressure was off. I really have no intention of spending the cash to go to Japan anyway, so winning the PTQ wasn't even a hope of mine coming in.

4) I've grown a lot as a competitive Magic player in six months. My 5-2 15^th place finish is following up a 5-3 25^th place finish at States. I still need to get some Top 8 finishes under my belt to be a top player, but I feel like I've arrived at the second tier of competitive play in the region. With continued work and practice, I should be able to start breaking the Top 8, and hopefully build my rating to the point where I can get a bye or two at the next GP I attend.

Thoughts on Sligh:

Don't play it if you want to win the tournament. It's a strong, consistent deck, but it has definite weaknesses. I feel like I hit some good matchups for it:

Rd. 1: Stasis, Win (Not an optimal build, he made some play errors)
Rd. 2: Cradle-Elf, Loss (Really close match, 1-2 with all three games coming down to the wire)
Rd. 3: Counter Sliver, Loss (Crystalline Sliver wrecked me; my only 0-2 of the day)
Rd. 4: U/W, Win (Odd build that relied on Man-Lands for the win, and Teferi's Response maindecked to protect them)
Rd. 5: U/G Opp-Orb, Win (Seemed almost like I was facing a Type II deck with Force of Wills, etc)
Rd. 6: R/U Counter-Burn, Win (He built the deck the night before, and it was pretty solid; just a little too slow against me. We went 2-0-1 after he cast Earthquake game 2 and I burned him in response, so we both died.) (No, actually, if yours resolved first, he died if I'm reading the game state correctly - The Ferrett)
Rd. 7: Miracle Grow, Win (A good matchup for me, yet I somehow lost game 1)

No Donate, no Rock, no Junk, no Three-Deuce. Still, it's pretty obvious that in extended right now most decks are either playing Blue or Green. Four Pyroblasts in my sideboard was a smart move on my part, as they came in six out of seven matches.

Oh yeah; if you didn't know, Sligh normally gets solid opening hands. I didn't Paris once, running twenty-two lands, and never really felt mana-glutted.

There's an Extended PTQ in Madison in January. By then, the metagame should have stabilized some, and I probably won't be running Sligh. But it treated me well this weekend, so I might not abandon it just yet.

Decklist
18 Mountain
2 Barbarian Ring (Probably should have been three; it's amazing in this deck)
2 Wasteland (Not as useful as I'd hoped)

4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Lackey
3 Goblin Mutant (Four seemed to give me too many bad starting hands)
4 Mogg Flunkies
4 Ball Lightning
2 Jackal Pup (I might take these out for more burn spells, or even maindeck Pyroblasts)
4 Fireblast (insanely good)
4 Incinerate (Just as good)
2 Firebolt
1 Reckless Abandon
3 Cursed Scroll
3 Price of Progress (Given that it was a PTQ and average players don't have access to dual lands like the pros do, this may have been suboptimal maindecked)

Sideboard:
4 Pyroblast
1 Ruination
1 Boil
1 Price of Progress
2 Pyrokinesis (should be three or four)
3 Anarchy
1 Bottle Gnomes
2 Phyrexian Furnace