Extended PTQs: The Developing Metagame

Hello again everyone, this is Russell back with more Extended PTQ coverage. We’re now halfway through the season and the metagame has matured at an astonishing rate. The amount of data available for MTGO tournaments and the speed with which it propagates to every corner of the community means that everyone has access to the latest tech, and the best players try to play one week ahead of the metagame, building the deck to beat the ‘best deck’. Let’s take a look at how things evolved and where they now stand, and how the MTGO PTQs did or didn’t affect GP Oakland this past weekend. Finally we’ll see what effect Oakland will have online, and where the metagame is headed from here.

In the beginning…

The start of the year saw a couple of surprising decks smash through the Austin/Worlds based meta, with Doran and Affinity taking down the first two PT invites of the season. A lot of people stuck to the pro-advocated decks like Dark Depths and various sizes of Zoo, but rogue concoctions including a bizarre RWB Aggro deck featuring eight slivers (!) amongst its creatures made Top 8 as well. The overwhelming popularity of Burn saw it score two Top 8 places in the first PTQ, however the success of the Red menace was far less than one might expect based on its proportion of the total entrants.

January 10^th is the first week we have the Top 32 decklists for, and we see the emergence of two of the key decks that have defined the season so far: Thopter Foundry Control, which scored the win, and Scapeshift which had the largest number of Top 32 placings. This was also Burn’s most successful week with 4 of the Top 32, in following weeks the refinement of the more complicated decks meant Burn had less easy victims to prey on and it has dwindled to a mere blip on the metagame radar. This was also the point when people realized Hypergenesis wasn’t even making a dent on Extended, despite its stellar performance at Austin and apparent ease of play.

Defining decks: Burn, Scapeshift

Mountain to the Dome

These early results really set the scene for the rest of January. Scapeshift saw a wild surge in popularity following its strong showing on January 10^th, putting 12 decks in the Top 32 on the 12^th and really stamping its authority on the format. Thopter Foundry Control also made a significant showing with 6 decks, though the format was wide open beyond these two Top dogs. Dredge, Martyr, Faeries, Dark Depths, and White Weenie all performed well, and Big Zoo took down Little Zoo in the final.

The PTQs continued in a rush with number five occurring on the 14^th. Scapeshift was still the most played Top 32 deck but it didn’t get near the Top 8 — the deck was now a known quantity and people had prepared for it with counter-magic (Faeries), life-gain (Martyr) or just plain racing (Little Zoo, Dark Depths). The biggest story of January 17^th was the rogue Living End deck that claimed 2nd Place, utilizing the same cascade framework as Hypergenesis in colours that allowed a lot more disruption. Scapeshift continued its steady success here and Faeries put 5 pilots in the Top 32 off the back of its win. The winner though, was none of these decks…

Defining Decks: Scapeshift, Faeries

Rise of the Machines

Thopter/Depths took down the January 17^th PTQ. Upon discovering that Muddle the Mixture could search for Vampire Hexmage or either Thopter Foundry or Sword of the Meek, cunning players decided to mash the two Combos together and attack their opponents from two wildly different angles. Against Thopter/Depths you face the uninviting prospects of either a Marit Lage token on Turn 2, or the strongest end game in the format. To respond to the first one you need targeted creature removal or bounce; against the second one you need artifact removal or graveyard hate. This is seriously difficult for any one deck to do while under the pressure of Thopter/Depths’ threats. Despite having seven Top 32 pilots in the following PTQ though, ‘Thepths’ lost out to Big and Little Zoo. Scapeshift and Fae continued their success with multiples near the top of the table.

The last PTQ of the month saw Thopter Depths stake its flag at the top of the heap, having a massive twelve decks in the Top 32. As well as winning this event the deck also took 2nd place, and 4th, and 5th, with a non-Dark Depths version of the Thopter Combo taking 3rd! This is an astounding level of dominance for a single tournament, and despite Little Zoo’s five appearances the artifact deck was unchallenged at the turn of the month. This continued two weeks later on February 11th, when we saw Thopter Depths collect another win ahead of Big & Little Zoos, Dredge and Fae.

Defining Decks: Thopter/Depths, Faeries, Little Zoo

Right Now

Season 1 of the Online Championship ended this past weekend with the championship tournament, which coincidentally was Extended format. It virtually mirrored the last PTQ on metagame numbers, with Thopter Depths winning once again and Little Zoo also having a large number of successful pilots. This brings us up to date with the current metagame — lead by Thopter Depths, with Zoo close behind. Dredge, Faeries, Elves, and Bant are all very playable also, while you should still expect some Scapeshift, Burn, White Weenie, and rogue decks like Hive Mind.

GP Oakland

It is interesting to compare the online metagame to the paper one, especially now that online tournaments are just as significant for hopeful Pros as paper ones are. With well known players like Gerry Thompson bringing their tech to MTGO, and online players like Brad Nelson successfully making the move the other way, the lines really are blurring between MTGO and MTG overall. This is obvious when looking at the 96 decks that made day two of this weekend’s Extended Grand Prix in Oakland:

…and various one or two ofs. Comparing this to the top decks from MOCS or either of the February PTQs shows plenty of similarities — Zoo and Thopter/Depths the runaway success stories, with Faeries, Bant, Dredge and Scapeshift all having a strong presence in tournaments both online and off.

It will be extremely interesting to see how this relationship grows in the future. Magic Online is a fantastic tool for testing competitive formats as strong opponents are available any time of the day, and it’s now possible to qualify for the Pro Tour or the World Championship online, drawing an even higher calibre of player who will have reason to bring the best tech they can. This tech will then be available in a matter of days to anyone with internet access, anywhere in the world, to swipe for their next paper qualifier. This is a fantastic time to be playing constructed online, and it will only get better from here.

Of course, the traditional relationship between paper and online is the reverse- paper tournaments dictating the online metagame. This will still be the case to some degree, and there are some new things out of Oakland you should be aware of.

Hypergenesis is Back

Tomoharu Saito Top-8ed the GP wielding the forgotten cascade deck, Hypergenesis. Conley Woods put it best: in response to the question ‘What decks surprised you this weekend?’ he answered ‘Hypergenesis… isn’t that deck dead?’ Apparently not in Japan, and Saito’s new tech was the king of Worldwake fatties, Terastodon. While the colossal elephant doesn’t have any sort of evasion, the rest of the creatures in Saito’s deck don’t care at all about any number of 3/3 tokens on the opponent’s side — Angel of Despair and Bogardan Hellkite fly over the top, and Progenitus just rolls on by in his protective bubble. I’d expect more than a few people to try this out in upcoming tournaments, especially after Worldwake becomes available.

Everything New is Old Again

Extended has been derisively called “Last Year’s Standard”, but I don’t know that so many current standard decks have showed up in Extended since Mirrodin hit the scene. Aside from the Valakut-on-steroids brew that is Scapeshift, Oakland also saw two exciting new contenders emerge — Mono-Black Vampires and, incredibly, Boros landfall! Vampires has a tasty selection of card advantage tools to add to its arsenal, with Dark Confidant, Bitterblossom, Jitte and Smallpox making for a terrifying selection of 2 mana plays.

Boros is the deck everyone is talking about though, and with good reason — it’s astonishingly quick. Using the same tools as the standard version in Steppe Lynx, Plated Geopede, and a number of fetchlands this Extended brew from Aggro-savant Petr Brodzek has a number of explosive additions. Flagstones of Trokair is the key to the deck, acting as a fetch whenever you have a second to play, whenever it’s sacrificed to Shard Volley, or in a pinch when you Ghost Quarter yourself to power through a game winning alpha strike. The selection of burn spells is truly impressive with fifteen instants that deal 3 damage, often with a bonus like lifegain or killing a creature as well.

Conley Just Loves Hype

Conley Woods’ Top 8 performance announced his intention to scale the heights of the Pro player club this year and also ensured that Jace, the Mind Sculptor will hit the MTGO economy like a sledgehammer. Three of the new Blue planeswalker found their way into Conley’s innovative Bant deck and they should see an up-tick in demand in response, much like Lotus Cobra following his Worlds standard performance. Watch this card carefully at San Diego next week.

Elves Deck Wins

Of course, the winning deck deserves some praise and this time around it was Elf combo piloted by Matt Nass. Elves is sure to spike in popularity in Daily and Premier events over the next fortnight, though whether it will reach the numbers that Thopter/Depths and Zoo have been putting up, I’m doubtful. The deck has a very complicated combo win that makes finishing games within the time limit online difficult without a lot of practice. That said it is certainly a genuine contender and you’ll need to be aware of it as part of your preparations.

Where Now?

So, that is the shape of Extended PTQs so far. The next online PTQ is not until the second half of March, so now is the perfect time to practice in smaller events with your deck of choice, and keep your ear to the ground for new tech from paper qualifiers. I’d expect to face a lot of Thopter/Depths and a lot of Zoo — probably half the metagame between them — as well as a considerable number of Bant, Elves and Faeries. Some brave souls will return to Hypergenesis, and I expect still more will take advantage of their existing standard decks and port them over to Extended Vampires or Boros. This metagame is wide open and any of the decks noted in this article will allow you to be competitive, so choose a deck you’re comfortable with and try and practice against as many different decks as possible. Let me know what deck you’re planning to battle with in the upcoming events, what you think of the new relationship between online and paper metagames, or anything else you feel like talking about in the comments below!

Regards,

Russell Tassicker