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It finally happened; Extended got a rotation policy. And what a policy! For both of you who missed it, two blocks and a base set are leaving Extended when Onslaught rotates in this autumn. That means Ice Age, Homelands, Alliances, Mirage, Visions, Weatherlight and Fifth Edition are all going. Oh, and they are taking the dual lands with them. Then, three years from now, Tempest block, Urza block and Masques block go, and with them Sixth Edition.
Wow.
This morning I saw that an announcement about Extended rotation was due that same evening, my time. I did think the dual lands were leaving, since we now have painlands for all ten color combinations. I even thought that Ice Age block was leaving. After Friday Night Magic (I didn't play, since I've spent most of this week fighting off a virus infection and was only there for the social interaction, which one sorely misses after having been alone all day and all night for a few days in a row), I was sitting with a couple of friends at a local diner, and I brought up the subject of the Extended rotation. We agreed that the dual lands and Ice Age block were probably leaving. Someone mentioned Fifth Edition. I laughed. Why would they rotate out Fifth Edition? They wouldn't.
Or so I thought.
I get home, tune into the Sideboard, and there it is. Not only the dual lands, not only Ice Age block, not only Fifth Edition - the possibility that I had laughed off fifteen minutes earlier - but Mirage block as well, a possibility that hadn't even been considered around that table.
I just had to take a look at what cards were leaving.
The dual lands
Obviously the first cards we have to look at. I think this means Miracle Grow is dead. It can no longer use Land Grant to find blue mana. It can no longer return Tropical Islands to hand for Daze or Thwart or Gush.
Illusions of Grandeur
Death to Trix, obviously. Unless, of course, it decides to become Delusions-Donate rather than Illusions-Donate, in which case it will have to go off twice and still lose to lifegain. Not likely.
Force of Will
The mother of all counterspells - no, I lie. The mother, brother, uncle, distant cousin, lawyer, prodigal son, and illegitimate granddaughter of all counterspells. Will Extended ever be the same? This changes many decks. Miracle Grow needs its free counterspells. Trix needs its free counterspells. Every blue deck in Extended needs its free counterspells. Force of Will was the best of the bunch.
Swords to Plowshares
The mother of all removal spells - no, I lie. The mother, brother, etc. This card handles everything short of a Morphling or Knight of Stromgald, and the offending creature is gone forever; no cute Oath of Druids/Gaea's Blessing tricks or reanimation antics could bring it back. Now nothing can bring Swords back.
Gaea's Blessing
Gaea's Blessing is leaving. Allow me to reiterate: Gaea's Blessing is leaving. That is huge. Oath is dead, unless it decides to drastically change its strategy, and how would it do that?
Natural Order
Jamie's ghost is crying tonight, friends. Secret Force, Magic's Graceland, isn't working anymore. Jamie was with us for a long time, but come November 1st, he's gone.
Pyroblast, Hydroblast
I still remember the cries of sorrow when Pyroblast left Type 2, and people lamented the fact that red wouldn't stand a chance against blue anymore. Now it's leaving another format. What will Sligh sideboard against blue now?
Stasis
There goes another archetype. Sure, Stasis has been on life support for some time now... But this is it. A classic deck takes its last few steps into the grave.
Emerald Charm
The green one-mana Disenchant that gave Miracle Gro a shot against Oath. Since it
Tithe
Sort of pointless without the dual lands unless you're going monowhite. Which could be cool.
Ophidian
Forbidian is just going to have to start playing Shadowmage Infiltrator instead. I don't quite get why they weren't doing that already, but now they have no options.
The Tutors
Vampiric Tutor was played, so was Mystical Tutor; no more. You're going to have to draw the cards you want, the hard way. Merchant Scroll goes into this category as well, but that card was only played because Trix was so broken it could play with Homelands cards and win.
Phyrexian Furnace
It was in every sideboard last season. Extended has been a graveyard-intense format for a long time, and Phyrexian Furnace made an obvious inclusion. Will decks be playing Morningtide? Stay tuned.
Animate Dead
Just today, I read on the judge list about the Entomb - Worldgorger Dragon - Animate Dead combo. For those of you who haven't heard of it yet, you put a Worldgorger Dragon (Judgment creature, 7/7 flying, when it comes into play you remove all other permanents you control from the game, when it leaves play you return them) into your graveyard turn 1 with an Entomb. Turn 2, you play Animate Dead. Worldgorger Dragon comes into play. Your two lands, as well as Animate Dead, are removed from the game. As Animate Dead leaves play, Worldgorger Dragon goes to the graveyard, which returns your permanents. Untapped. Animate Dead pulls your dragon back up, you tap your lands in response, and you have an infinite mana combo turn 2. One of the cards in your hand is Whispers of the Muse, which you start playing with buyback until you have a kill condition in your hand. Then you play Stroke of Genius or Ghitu Fire or Death Grasp or whatever for the win. Someone asked on the judgelist whether this combo was actually legal and worked, and got the answer that they weren't that worried about it, since there were no black instants that could kill directly. Well, this is Extended. We have dual lands. We can kill using any color we feel like.
The real answer, of course, was that Animate Dead is leaving Extended.
Nevinyrral's Disk
The original reset button, gone for good. Black's only way to deal with enchantments. It looks like Pernicious Deed just got a whole lot better, and it was already one of the top five cards in Extended.
Winter Orb
The polar bears finally bit the grass. Fish and Miracle Gro lose the lockdown.
Impulse
I guess everyone will have to start drawing cards some other way.
Fireblast, Ball Lightning, Incinerate, Viashino Sandstalker
Sligh staples leaving. Can Sligh survive without Ball Lightning and Fireblast? Not that it was all that healthy with them, but towards the end of last Extended season, it was on the rise. This was largely due to the success of Miracle Gro, which will in all probability be gone in the new format.
So what will be played in the new Extended format? Well, first of all I'm not all that familiar with the old Extended format; besides, I'm notoriously bad at figuring out new formats. When Odyssey was released, I thought Stompy would be big in Type 2. With Judgment, I think a Sligh-like red deck with punisher cards is going to be big, which is probably a pretty good indicator it won't be. But what I feel like playing in Extended right now is white weenie.
Cards it lost: White Knight? Swords to Plowshares, there's one. That's gonna hurt.
Cards it still has: Crusade, Mother of Runes, the shadow guys. Maybe even Rebels.
No more Force of Will means a lot less countering. No more Force of Will means your opponent cannot both do something else and counter when you want to drop a creature. No more Swords to Plowshares means your guys get through. No more dual lands means that all the other decks will be taking pain, but your monowhite deck won't. White Weenie decks sometimes splashed blue for Meddling Mage and card drawing - but now that we can't find Tundras with Tithe anymore, that's probably a bad idea.
Rough decklist off the top of my head:
4x Mother of Runes
4x Soltari Monk
4x Soltari Priest
4x Soltari Trooper
4x Crusade
4x Cursed Scroll
4x Ramosian Sergeant
4x Steadfast Guard
4x Armageddon
This gives us two-mana, two-power shadow creatures, twelve one-drops (including Cursed Scroll), a small Rebel chain, and a big hole in the 3-mana slot, which we'll just have to try and live through.
But, you say. If white weenie works, why wouldn't black weenie? And you're right. Black weenie lacks a Crusade (Bad Moon is leaving) and lacks a Mother of Runes, but it does have removal coming out of its ears, and its creatures are just as good as the white ones. Sarcomancy, Dauthi Horror, Dauthi Slayer, Spineless Thug, Foul Imp, Nantuko Shade. I'm seeing a deck. It might just be the tequila.
So white has Crusade and black has removal. What about black-white weenie? The problem is, of course, consistency. A lot of white's best weenies cost WW and a lot of black's best weenies cost BB. Without Scrubland, we have to look to other sources of mana. Caves of Koilos is a pretty obvious inclusion, but it is painful. City of Brass is even more painful. But what about Dromar's Cavern? This is, after all, a deck that can operate on two lands as long as we can survive without playing Armageddon. I don't know if Gemstone Mine might be worth considering. This may seem like running a lot of multicolor lands for a two-color lands, but without its consistency, weenie is dead.
What else is there? My fevered mind touched Slivers for a while... But slivers sorely needs the dual lands. It cannot afford taking pain every time it wants to bring out a Sliver. CounterSliver also needs Force of Will. Without Force of Will, at least it needs Daze and Foil and Thwart - and it cannot use them, since there are no dual lands anymore. A Yavimaya Coast is not an island. Tough luck.
Stompy will survive, since it basically only loses Bounty of the Hunt. Sligh can always continue burning, although the loss of Ball Lightning and Fireblast really hurts. I think Sligh will live, at least until 2005, when Tempest block rotates out. I'm not going to worry about that now. Basically, I think Extended will be less control-based and more creature-based, now that Force of Will and Gaea's Blessing are leaving.
Cards I used to hate:
There's no reason to hate Oath of Druids anymore. That's how big an impact this rotation has.
E-mail address provided below; please flame liberally.
Patrik Linell
pls@claymore.nu
