Building the New Extended: Part 3
The subject of this article is the Extended decks built around Pernicious Deed, but before I talk about that there's some other things I need to say. I touched on them in the modifications to the first article, but they need to be fleshed out. Just as it is important to know what an article is, it is also vital to know what it is not. None of the articles in this series offer decklists backed by playtesting. They were written immediately after the announcement of the Extended rotation, and there was no time. To get reasonable testing would require establishing a gauntlet of opponents, and in a format with this many cards to do that properly would take months. What I can offer are my take on what is likely to happen and my best guess on what the new decks will look like. I have written exact decklists because they allow a reader to get a better picture of the type of deck being suggested and give him something to start from. I do not expect them to be perfect - there will be mistakes. As always, all players need to do their own testing.
In addition, these articles are in no way meant to be comprehensive yet, even when taken together. A quick count of the 'guide to Extended' in the Nice Masters coverage shows that there were over 25 Extended decks good enough to make it to the Gateway. Giving each of them what they deserve and then adding those decks that have now become viable is a gigantic job. After this article, I will have dealt with thirteen decks, barely getting halfway through.
In this last Extended season, there has been a rise in the number of green-black decks. The primary reasons are Pernicious Deed and Spiritmonger, which suddenly gave the color combination two extremely powerful cards with excellent synergy. All of the decks use Pernicious Deed, but from there they quickly branch out. These decks were closer in spirit to Standard decks than Extended decks, which makes them well suited to the new format. The biggest problem they face is when they try to branch out into other colors, which has gone from almost free to much more expensive.
BUG Josh Smith: Champion, GP Houston 2002
BUG Alan Comer: 2002 Nice Masters
These two decklists have some big differences, but regardless of whether they evolved together or separately, at heart they're the same deck. Shadowmage Infiltrator is a very efficient way of winning a game through card advantage, and the rest of the deck backs that plan up. Pernicious Deed and its companion, either Edict or Powder Keg, trade off with the opponents creatures. Often Keg and Deed will take out multiple targets. Duress and the counters take out whatever is left and help protect the Shadowmage Infiltrators. Josh Smith backed up that plan with Fact or Fiction for even more pure control and card advantage, while Alan Comer played more cards that are difficult even to trade off with: Spiritmonger and Call of the Herd. These two decks are a very good representation of the philosophical debate between staying pure and on target as Smith did and going for powerful effects that the opponent will find very hard to deal with. Alan's specialty is making his opponents' life miserable.
Force of Will is gone. That's a blow, but in matchups against other blue decks, this deck is more than happy to trade its Forces for those of its opponents. Against everyone else, this is simply a loss in card quality. It doesn't threaten the deck. The more difficult issue is that the deck must move from an Extended mana base full of dual lands to a new mana base that has to generate three colors of mana consistently without them. The Standard versions of this type of deck prove that it can be done. The problem is that Counterspell itself can no longer be supported, which makes the loss of Force of Will a lot less serious. What remains is a deck that will either be Standard legal or very close to it. In fact, I see no need to build this one from scratch:
The Million Dollar Man Designed by Sol Malka (Current Standard)
Sol Malka did not go to the same deck design school I did, and we build our decks in very different ways. My reaction to a lot of the things this deck is planning to do is "that will never work", and I had to same response to The Rock, which we'll get to soon. In this case, I'm going to use a proven list. Powder Keg and probably Gainsay should go into the sideboard, and both Compost and Jungle Barrier should probably be replaced. Then the sideboard needs graveyard hate. Until the rest of the metagame takes shape it will be hard to know more. Next up is Sol's other black-green creation, a pure two-color deck whose name also involves six zeroes.
The Rock and his Millions Michael Pustilnik, 2001 Grand Prix-Las Vegas (Champion)
This main deck loses Bayou, Wall of Roots and Phyrexian Furnace. That's it. While I'm sorry to see them go, that's nothing compared to the hits other decks are taking. This particular sideboard takes a few other hits, but none of them are important. Some versions of the deck don't even use Wall of Roots, and Llanowar Wastes can stand in for Bayou. It's too bad about the Furnace, but the deck will be fine. To top the deck off, Genesis seems like it will fit in perfectly with the exhaustion plan. Every turn, a Yavimaya Elder. It ends up looking like this:
The Rock and his Several Hundred Thousands (November 2002)
Now, I know it's not particularly relevant, but I have to point out the really cool variant played in the gateway by Andrew Stokinger:
The Rock and his Millions Andrew Stokinger
It could easily receive the same upgrade as the standard Rock, although the best reasons to branch out into other colors, Pyroblast and Swords, are no longer in the format. Still, if you're going to go off recurring Yavimaya Elders, there's something to be said for taking full advantage.
PT Junk Gerrard Fabiano, 2002 Nice Masters
PT Junk Farra Dal, 2002 Nice Masters Gateway
Without Swords to rain on your parade, the Monger is back in charge.
I had to pick two decklists here. The default decklist for these articles is whichever got played at Nice Masters, but in this case it's far from normal and I don't like it. The second one is a more normal incarnation of the deck from the Gateway. Even his is a little weird with two copies of Land Grant and no Grasslands, but that hardly matters now. Those cards are gone. As with most decks, the mana base is gone. But unlike most three-color decks, this one shouldn't get into much trouble replacing its dual lands. It can no longer use its mana base as an advantage, and its curve will have to expand to replace Swords to Plowshares. That's a major blow, but there have been Standard versions of the deck sufficient to prove that it has the tools to survive. The bad news is that the deck should now be rather outclassed. The annoyance factor this deck brought to the table with its regenerators and Deeds is still there but shouldn't be as effective as it used to be. Threshold for the Mystic Enforcers is going to be harder. I don't expect anything surprising to happen here. Without Swords and with threshold harder to find, Spiritmonger should make a comeback. A sideboard turning the deck into a hybrid Suicide Oath seems overdue, since it already has Mystic Enforcers and a lot of good disruption to complement them. The end result should be something like this:
PT Junk
When looking at this and Rock, I think it is safe to say that Rock survives in a much, much better position. I would expect it to take its place as one of the top decks of the format and for the others not to make out as well. The additional colors don't make sense anymore. Of the other decks I've covered so far, I'd add to that list Sligh and TurboLand. I wouldn't count out Aluren either. As for the decks I have yet to talk about, right now I'd recommend taking the closest look at Oath of Druids, Artifact Red, Tinker and Benzo.
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