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"There will be a significant change to the Extended tournament format..."
- Kyle Murray, Magic Brand Manager
Wizards seems to have a knack for understatement, don't they?
In case you hadn't noticed, the DCI decided to actually carry out the long rumored Extended Rotation. Since the format's inception, only one other rotation has occurred - and that one took out 4th Edition, Fallen Empires, and some other stuff, but left in the dual lands that gave us the format we have played for several years. That rotation was believed by some to mean that the format would periodically rotate, but in the time since then, we had been lulled into the notion that Extended was, like Type I, the permanent receptacle of all cards older than two years.
We were wrong.
Without a doubt, there will be a long and heated debate about this topic; after all, everything Wizards or DCI does receives extreme scrutiny by the Internet magic community. But there isn't any point in arguing the merits of things like keeping in the dual lands or slowing down the rotation or asking for certain cards to be reprinted. Wizards won't listen. But if you're still reading, then you're listening to me. I will try not to bore you with my opinion about something that I have no power to change.
I will instead try to stick to what people can actually use: Strategy. In particular, this is the beginning of what (hopefully) will be a series of articles about our new format. So let's get to the meat of this article: Bring Out Your Dead!
Seven sets are rotating out of Extended: Ice Age, Homelands, Alliances, Mirage, Visions, Weatherlight, and Fifth Edition go, along with the dual lands have made up the old guard of the format for almost its entire existence. That's more sets than are legal in Standard right now. This shift will affect every deck in the format. A few decks won't lose much of anything, but will still be radically altered by the absence of former enemies. Some decks will a take a hard hit, but mutate, evolve, and comeback swinging. A lot of decks, though, are dead.
For this article, I will go, archetype by archetype, through the old Extended. We're going to put the dead into a mound we can burn later, and hopefully we can save a few that are still breathing.
First on our little path of annihilation: Sligh. Sligh came in as many forms as there were players willing to say"Mountain, Pup, Go." This little beater of a deck takes a solid hit, though, losing Fireblast, Ball Lighting, and Incinerate. Additionally, with no decks having the"all non-basics" mana base, Price of Progress is going to drop in power a great deal. Anarchy, Pyroblast, and Pyrokinesis leaving the sideboard are not insignificant either.
Still, there is plenty of burn to go around. Incinerate has decent, if not great, replacements in Volcanic Hammer, Urza's Rage, and Hammer of Bogardan (which was reprinted in 6th). Ball Lightning has a pseudo-replacement in Reckless Charge - but Fireblast really was a unique burn spell. The finishing power that once let red aggression win on turn 4 or 5 reliably is mostly gone. The deck may end up having a change in attitude towards the midgame, wanting to actually have some gas left after turn 6 now. But perhaps more important than anything else to red mages of the world, Illusions of Grandeur is gone. For better than two years, that (combined with Donate, of course) has been making Sligh a bad metagame choice. Now, even though it can't finish as quickly, little red dorks and random burn spells can't be simply made irrelevant by two cards any blue deck might have. This deck is one of the survivors. As long as there are tolerable creatures and decent burn, people will play Sligh.
Next up, let's see how Stompy, a.k.a. 10 Land Green, is doing. Well, it lost Rogue Elephant, Elvish Spirit Guide, Winter Orb, Bounty of the Hunt, and Briar Shield... That's a lot of cards to be losing. Those first three cards have no realistic replacements either. It doesn't seem like this deck is going to make it. I won't say that aggressive green creature strategies won't work now, but this particular aggressive green creature deck didn't survive the rotation.
Sticking to the green creature theme, examine, if you will, Secret Force. Jamie Wakefield's baby loses its best card: Natural Order. All the other cards lost have decent replacements. If Secret Force is to survive, it will now likely need to play out more aggressively. Without the ability to randomly make a Verdant Force, this deck will probably need some disruption. I see this deck and the old Trinity Green deck sort of merging. It won't be the deck it once was... But people can still play with large green men.
There is another deck in Extended that used to randomly make Verdant Forces though - and this deck can still do it. It is called Reanimator, or Benzo if you like. Looking over the deck, you'd see that it only loses Animate Dead and Krovikan Horror. Using more Squees can reasonably approximate Krovikan Horror, and Animate Dead could be filled in by a number of things. Life/Death costs the same and would bring in the same creatures - just with some pain involved.
More important than what Benzo lost is what it no longer needs to fear: Force of Will, Swords to Plowshares, and Phyrexian Furnace are all gone, and Benzo just loves it. Expect this deck to be much greater force in the new Extended, as it didn't lose much and gained a lot from seeing its enemies die. The sideboarded Null Rod is also gone, but that isn't too big of a deal.
The other deck with large black men in Extended is The Rock and His Millions. This deck loses a paltry three cards from the main deck: Wall of Roots, Phyrexian Furnace, and Bayou. Wall of Blossoms is still legal if the deck wants a wall; otherwise there is green mana acceleration aplenty. Phyrexian Furnace is not an insignificant loss, but black has other graveyard hitting cards. Rapid Decay comes to mind. Bayou is a little painful loss, but Llanowar Wastes leaves the mana base intact and rearing to go. The sideboard loses some options... But then again, the decks those sideboard cards were aimed at are now gone. The sideboard now has room to maneuver.
The new metagame is unsure, but the Oath decks that used to spank The Rock are gone (hopefully). This should leave The Rock hard at work. It was always one of Extended's most versatile decks, and that same versatility will serve it well in a new, open metagame.
The other versatility deck of the format, PT Junk, didn't fare so well. Almost its entire mana base is gone, in addition to the fairly important loss of Swords to Plowshares. This deck has been done in by its own stretching to three colors. A format without duals does not reward players trying to play three main colors.
What I just said about three colors also applies to Three Deuce. This deck also has no manabase left. If one of the colors were cut, the deck might survive; the green is too important to cut, which leaves red or white. If someone cuts one of those and can still honestly tell me the deck works, I'll say it might live. Right now though, it seems Deuce is dead.
Deuce was interesting because it was born three colors and needs to scale back to two to survive. Super Gro, on the other hand, was born as Miracle Gro and added a color. Don't think for an instant that Super Gro lives. It can't play Swords to Plowshares anymore, nor Force of Will. The mana base is trashed. Extended's dominant deck has rolled over and died.
But, like I said, it was born as Miracle Gro. This deck loses access to Force of will and Tropical Island; more importantly, it loses Winter Orb. Static Orb is not a good replacement. Will this deck survive is the question?
I can't really say for certain. More Foils, Thwarts, and Dazes might leave the deck still packing some counter power. Circular Logic, to madnessed with Merfolk Looter, Wild Mongrel, and Waterfront Bouncer, would also provide ultra-cheap countering power. However, the first few turns of safety that Force once provided are gone - and the extra turns of attack phases that Winter Orb allowed for are a thing of the past. It would seem that using Foil, Merfolk Looter, Wild Mongrel, and Waterfront Bouncer one could supply plenty of outlets for madness. I think that the deck will evolve in this direction if it survives, because Miracle Gro like Mike Long played at Sendai has been stripped of too much.
Speaking of forms of insanity, anyone saying Donate isn't dead needs to see a psychiatrist immediately. U/B/g control used way too many dual lands and is also dead; thus allowing me to have dealt with two control decks in two sentences. If only control were so easy to handle in sanctioned play.
The last control deck standing in Extended gets more than a sentence though, and that's Oath. Make no mistake: Oath of Druids itself is still legal, though Force of Will, Gaea's Blessing, and the dual land mana base aren't. But Spike Weaver, Morphling, and whatever else you may desire to Oath up are still available.
Certainly, if it survives Oath is going to be strictly U/G. Don't think that just because Gaea's Blessing is gone that Oath is unusable. In Tempest Standard through Urza's Legacy Standard there was a little deck known as Suicide Oath. The idea was to Oath up a Thorn Elemental and race against aggressive decks while powering to victory against control with a multitude of man-lands. This strategy seems to remain entirely viable, and there are plenty of good man-lands and fatties left. Counters are still plentiful as well. Oath may have gotten a nine-millimeter round to the stomach - but like all true psychopaths, one shot to the gut is almost never enough.
The other deck in extended with Oath of Druids in it is Turbo-Land. I'll leave up to Zvi to say what (if anything) is left for this deck to do without Gaea's Blessing. Certainly the idea of"just stick in Dwell on the Past" won't work. I will say, however, that I do know of another U/G deck with Time Warp. I'll be talking about that one next time.
The last deck I feel the need to touch on is Tinker. Tinker has had a rough time recently, what with Force of Will and Null Rod making life rough and all. But it loses only Winter Orb from this rotation - which doesn't really even hurt, since Mishra's Helix could cut off the opponent's mana just as effectively. On the other hand, Upheaval is insane in Tinker. It isn't too hard to go"Upheaval, lay Grim Monolith, lay Voltaic Key, lay Thran Dynamo, drop Masticore, drop Island, your turn." Of all the decks in Extended, this one lost the least and had the most to gain (aside from maybe Benzo). Look for Tinker to be solid, and possibly a powerhouse, in the new Extended.
So that's it. Donate, Junk, Three Deuce, U/B/g, Super Gro, and 10 Land Green are out of here! Sligh, The Rock and His Millions, Secret Force, Oath, and Miracle Gro look to be alive, though changed. Tinker and Benzo are sitting pretty. If I missed deck it was probably a rather obscure one, but you can still feel free to flame me. Or you can send me comments or questions or whatever you feel like. If anyone doesn't know a deck I talked about, feel free to e-mail me and I'll give you a listing. Of course, you could also find it right here at StarCity.
If you skipped right down here to the end looking for a decklist, too bad. You'll get one next time, I promise.
Later...
Tim Gruneich
timpg10865@aol.com
