About Joel Calafell
Joel Calafell
Joel is a Level 4 Pro Player from Spain who helped develop well-known decks such as Cephalid Breakfast, Cascade Swans or most recently Jacerator, he loves playing almost every format and has a number of high-profile finishes under his belt:
- Top 8 Pro Tour Kuala Lumpur
- Winner Grand Prix Barcelona
- Three Grand Prix Top 8
- 70 Lifetime Pro Points
- Level 4 Pro Players Club member
Dissecting the New Extended
Hey
everyone!
Last week,
I presented to you my first peek into the new Extended format:
Joel Calafell outlines the new Extended format
and discusses some of the most promising strategies. He also shares his list of
format defining cards and focuses on new additions from Rise of the Eldrazi and
specifically M11.
First of all, and after reading your feedback on
my last article, I would like to apologize because I think I missed some important
cards in the top 15 of “best cards in Extended”. That said, it is
obviously not easy to include the whole format in just that number of cards,
assuming you only want to include the most representative cards of each
strategy, and considering you find yourself in a completely new and mostly
unexplored format.
But even so, you were right; I totally forgot
about Cryptic Command and it should have definitely been on the list. Ancestral Vision was also a candidate to be on the list, but I think the presence of Cryptic Command shows the strength of control decks. I wanted the list to be
more like an archetype representation, and the blue Command is actually the
paradigm of those decks, and Ancestral Vision is not. Still, the card will
obviously be played a lot, but it is just not as representative.
On the other hand, there was also another big
name missing: Figure of Destiny. I expect this card to be very good in the
format if aggro becomes popular, and I’m not even sure if Goblin Guide is
better on average than the hybrid creature. Because I’m not sure about which
one will be better in the end, or if they will become important pieces for
different decks, this time I’m going to put both of them on the list!
Another discussion was whether Punishing Fire
should be on the list or not. But I beg to differ here. Sure, it forms part of
a combo that gives you a very powerful weapon against aggressive decks.
However, the difference between Punishing Fire/Grove of the Burnwillows and the
other combo cards that were present on the list, like Heritage Druid, Living End or even Seismic Assault, was that the former isn’t really a combo on its
own, but more like a card-advantage engine, or a lock against creature decks.
Thus, I don’t expect this combo to rule the format on its own. But it doesn’t
really matter and we could add it to the list as well. I just wanted to explain
the reason why I didn’t include it at first.
With that out of the way, here’s my updated
list of cards to watch in the new Extended:
- Bitterblossom
- Cryptic Command
- Bloodbraid Elf
- Mana Leak
- Seismic Assault
- Goblin Guide
- Jace, the Mind Sculptor
- Wall of Omens
- Mystical Teachings
- Punishing Fire
- Vengevine
- Tarmogoyf
- Baneslayer Angel
- Heritage Druid
- Living End
- Fauna Shaman
- Knight of the Reliquary
- Figure of Destiny
Now it is time to find out which decks might be
good in the new format. Some days ago I took a look at interesting interactions
of recently released cards, but today we are going to find out which decks will
be the top contenders. I’m going to discuss the best card choices, the future
of each strategy, the ways the decks can be built and even analyze some possible choices
in the maindeck and in the sideboard.
Let’s start with the lists!
Faeries
This deck forms part of my feature article:
Joel Calafell outlines the new Extended format
and discusses some of the best strategies. He also shares his updated list of
format defining cards and presents 8 promising decklists!
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 2 | 16 |
|---|
| 3 | 7 |
|---|
| 4 | 8 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Basic Land | 11 |
|---|
| Creature | 15 |
|---|
| Enchantment | 4 |
|---|
| Instant | 12 |
|---|
| Land | 14 |
|---|
| Sorcery | 4 |
|---|
This deck is supposed to rule the
new Extended format after the rotation, just because it is one of the most
solids decks available, and with some of the most powerful cards in the
format. But in such an undefined format,
it’s still hard to determine whether this strategy will triumph or not:
historically, Faeries has been good in formats full of control, and amazing if
the dominant deck was an easily disrupted combo deck. Thus, with not many
combos available, and still with a very limited selection of control decks
showing up at the moment, it’s still unclear whether this deck will be able to
adapt. Or, on the contrary, will the other decks be the ones forced to adapt? Playing Bloodbraid Elf, Great Sable Stag, Volcanic Fallout and even Cloudthresher in
other strategies might be a good way to adapt.
I’m not sure if this is the best
list for the archetype considering the format, but something tells me that the
best approach is to just turn the deck into more aggro-control, and not so
control. This means that playing the full amount of both Scion of Oona and Mistbind Cliques is probably the way to go, as you can get some unbeatable
hands with those in your 60, no matter what you are playing against. Why worry
about what can you counter and what not in a long game, when you can just
easily race your opponent to death in three turns from 20 to 0? Such is the power
of Faeries and Bitterblossom openings… Something that only Scion of Oona can
exploit to the limit. But there’s nothing new to see here, except for the loss
of Spell Snare. Only time will tell if this deck is still as good as it used to
be.
Either way, this deck will be one
of the best. It probably won’t rule the
format, but it will be a top contender. The Bitterblossom - Mistbind Clique - Cryptic Command combination will still win many, many games before it says
goodbye next year.
Mystical
Teachings
This deck forms part of my feature article:
Joel Calafell outlines the new Extended format
and discusses some of the best strategies. He also shares his updated list of
format defining cards and presents 8 promising decklists!
| Colors |
|---|
| Black | 2 |
|---|
| Blue | 18 |
|---|
| Gold | 4 |
|---|
| Land | 25 |
|---|
| White | 11 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 1 | 4 |
|---|
| 2 | 11 |
|---|
| 3 | 4 |
|---|
| 4 | 10 |
|---|
| 5 | 5 |
|---|
| 6 | 1 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Basic Land | 10 |
|---|
| Creature | 9 |
|---|
| Instant | 24 |
|---|
| Land | 15 |
|---|
| Planeswalker | 2 |
|---|
Another expected top tier deck: Teachings. Bitterblossom will be its major enemy, and its future in the format depends on
the Faeries predominance. Thus, it might be possible that Teachings ends up being
just a metagame deck, depending on how the format shifts. Even then, it seems
to have the tools to compete against pretty much everything, with both very
solid disruption and counterspells and the very best removal in the form of Cryptic Command, Mana Leak, Path to Exile or mass removal. It even has some chances against
the fastest aggro decks with the Kitchen Finks and Baneslayer Angel package.
The problem with Mystical Teachings
and cards like Teferi is that they are too easily disrupted by a fast curve and
some well placed counterspells. Even a simple creature like a Vendilion Clique
cast when you are tapped out and taking away your only Path to Exile can spell
A LOT of trouble. The deck has several solid answers and can gain access to a
lot of removal given enough time, but the problem comes when you get this
entire tempo disadvantage against aggro-control decks: First, you need to tutor
your answer with Mystical Teachings, and then you need to resolve the removal,
which is not always easy. Cards like Bloodbraid Elf can trump your Cryptic Commands and you have a hard time racing those kind of decks
anyway. But not everything is bad news, there’s actually a very, very good card
for this deck coming from Rise of Eldrazi: Wall of Omens will probably be the
reason why this deck is playable. Now tell me if there’s a better card that could
be printed that helps to get to the late game, absorbs quite a lot of damage in
the process, and can be cycled against everything else!
Living End
This deck forms part of my feature article:
Joel Calafell outlines the new Extended format
and discusses some of the best strategies. He also shares his updated list of
format defining cards and presents 8 promising decklists!
| Colors |
|---|
| Black | 7 |
|---|
| Gold | 21 |
|---|
| Hybrid | 4 |
|---|
| Land | 20 |
|---|
| Red | 8 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 0 | 3 |
|---|
| 3 | 16 |
|---|
| 4 | 4 |
|---|
| 5 | 12 |
|---|
| 6 | 5 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Basic Land | 6 |
|---|
| Creature | 29 |
|---|
| Instant | 4 |
|---|
| Land | 14 |
|---|
| Sorcery | 7 |
|---|
This is probably the best combo in
the format right now. It is solid, it is fast, and it can go off at instant
speed, thanks to Violent Outburst. Its ability to blow up the board and then fill
the battlefield with enormous creatures (ok, maybe not that big, but still)
makes Living End an incredibly powerful and versatile card that can trump other
creature strategies, including other combo decks, like Elves, based on
creatures, while at the same time, the deck is able to generate an immediate
win condition after that. Monstruous Carabids and Minoutaurs will jump out of the
graveyard, and it will take them two or three turns to finish the job. Of course, that’s not too fast when you think about it, and it won’t
help if you are facing any kind of combo deck that doesn’t even care about
creatures. That’s definitely one of the strategy’s biggest weaknesses.
But now let me talk about its
strengths: There are 12 cycling cards in the deck, plus some disruption in the
form of Fulminator Mage and Avalanche Riders, which usually gives you enough
time to ALWAYS find your cascade spell. But not only one cascade spell, even
some additional copies to securely resolve one against counterspells. Actually,
getting to cycle throug your entire deck is one of the most powerful things
this deck can do, and something that control decks won’t be happy to see. Even
against cards like Vendilion Clique or Thoughtseize, the cycling process takes
only one turn or two until you find another Cascade spell. Ricochet Trap and Magus of the Moon, in the sideboard are amazing tools against the most
disruptive decks.
UGW Fauna
This deck forms part of my feature article:
Joel Calafell outlines the new Extended format
and discusses some of the best strategies. He also shares his updated list of
format defining cards and presents 8 promising decklists!
| Colors |
|---|
| Blue | 6 |
|---|
| Gold | 4 |
|---|
| Green | 22 |
|---|
| Land | 24 |
|---|
| White | 4 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 1 | 8 |
|---|
| 2 | 12 |
|---|
| 3 | 4 |
|---|
| 4 | 6 |
|---|
| 5 | 4 |
|---|
| 6 | 1 |
|---|
| 9 | 1 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Basic Land | 12 |
|---|
| Creature | 32 |
|---|
| Instant | 4 |
|---|
| Land | 12 |
|---|
Survival of the Fittest is back! And there’s
something I love about this deck: It has utility cards against the whole
format, and you even have the ability to search for them, silver bullet style.
The problem is that if Fauna Shaman gets killed the deck becomes just much, much
worse. But still, the deck packs a lot of solid creatures that can win the game
on their own, like Vengevine, Knight of the Reliquary, Tarmogoyf or Baneslayer Angel. When looking at that list it’s easy to recognize that this deck is just
playing the very best creatures in the format, and that it is solid even if Fauna Shaman isn’t on the board.
But if the Shaman gets active… you can do some
crazy things: The first and probably simpler one is to just search for multiple Vengevines to trigger them all on one specific turn. Ok, that’s good, but it’s
probably not the most awesome thing ever. Another option is to crush control or
combo decks with multipleGlen Elendra Archmage, or even Vendilion Cliques. But
the best thing you can do has something to do with Body Double. OK, maybe
you won’t be doing this earlier than turn 5, but how cool is it to search for Iona,
discard it and then copy it with Body Double? You are only playing one copy of
each, but just the fact that you can do this if necessary makes it totally
worth it.
Elves!
This deck forms part of my feature article:
Joel Calafell outlines the new Extended format
and discusses some of the best strategies. He also shares his updated list of
format defining cards and presents 8 promising decklists!
| Colors |
|---|
| Green | 36 |
|---|
| Land | 20 |
|---|
| White | 4 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 0 | 4 |
|---|
| 1 | 16 |
|---|
| 2 | 4 |
|---|
| 3 | 5 |
|---|
| 4 | 3 |
|---|
| 5 | 5 |
|---|
| 7 | 3 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Basic Land | 6 |
|---|
| Creature | 32 |
|---|
| Instant | 4 |
|---|
| Land | 14 |
|---|
| Sorcery | 4 |
|---|
The Standard elf deck will
obviously make an appearance in the new Extended format as well. With Glimpse of Nature gone, this
deck will probably not be as broken as it was before, but it will still be one
of the top contenders when it comes to combo archetypes. Regal Force combined
with a lot of acceleration is also a pretty respectable engine, especially when
cards like Heritage Druid make it look so easy. But it is the tutor capacity
this deck has what I really like about it: With 4 copies both of Summoner's Pact and Primal Command, this deck can turn on the engine sooner than you might
expect, and even in a world with a lot of removal and Volcanic Fallouts, this
deck can survive thanks to the help of cards like Ranger of Eos (and one of its
very best friends, Burrenton Forge-Tender) and a good sideboard package.
You might have noticed that Cloudstone Curio is not present in the decklist, that’s because I don’t think
it’s needed. The deck is solid enough with only the Regal Force plan, and,
ironically, Cloudstone Curio makes the deck less consistent. I’m not saying
the card is not good, but probably not powerful enough when it comes to winning
as fast as possible.
Watch out for this deck, as has
probably one of the best engines out there at the moment.
Junk
This deck forms part of my feature article:
Joel Calafell outlines the new Extended format
and discusses some of the best strategies. He also shares his updated list of
format defining cards and presents 8 promising decklists!
| Colors |
|---|
| Blue | 9 |
|---|
| Gold | 4 |
|---|
| Green | 8 |
|---|
| Hybrid | 4 |
|---|
| Land | 27 |
|---|
| Red | 8 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 1 | 4 |
|---|
| 2 | 12 |
|---|
| 3 | 7 |
|---|
| 4 | 10 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Basic Land | 7 |
|---|
| Creature | 19 |
|---|
| Instant | 12 |
|---|
| Land | 16 |
|---|
| Planeswalker | 2 |
|---|
| Sorcery | 4 |
|---|
This is a good example of a good stuff deck. It
is just packing some of the very best cards in the format. Cryptic Command, Bloodbraid Elf, Punishing Fire, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Tarmogoyf… They are the stars
in Extended, and they should be able to win some games here and there just because
of their inherent power.
But what happens when look at the amazing
synergy between some of the cards? Check this out: If you cascade into Ancestral Vision with Bloodbraid Elf… you can just draw 3 cards for free! Isn’t
that unfair? But what I love the most about this deck is its versatility and
its ability to fight both control and aggro with its tools. Lightning Bolt and Punishing Fire/Grove of the Burnwillows can be very good burn spells against
control, but they are also a good way to control the board against creature
decks when needed.
All in all, this deck seems to have very good
cards against pretty much everything, but only time will tell if this deck is
powerful enough to compete against the top contenders. Power is not missing,
but maybe, like any other “fish” deck, it’s lacking the consistency other decks
have. Drawing Cryptic Commands and Ancestral Visions when you actually need
your Lightning Bolts and Kitchen Finks can be something that happens from time
to time in this kind of deck.
Seismic Swans
This deck forms part of my feature article:
Joel Calafell outlines the new Extended format
and discusses some of the best strategies. He also shares his updated list of
format defining cards and presents 8 promising decklists!
| Colors |
|---|
| Black | 2 |
|---|
| Gold | 10 |
|---|
| Green | 1 |
|---|
| Hybrid | 4 |
|---|
| Land | 39 |
|---|
| Red | 4 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 3 | 4 |
|---|
| 4 | 11 |
|---|
| 5 | 6 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Basic Land | 1 |
|---|
| Creature | 8 |
|---|
| Enchantment | 4 |
|---|
| Instant | 5 |
|---|
| Land | 38 |
|---|
| Sorcery | 4 |
|---|
And here it is again. It is still very hard to tell how good this deck
is going to be, but something tells me that it can compete in this format with
the right configuration. So far, there are very few changes that you can make
from the old Standard version. Basically, some land tweaking, like the
inclusion of Raging Ravine, or some sideboard changes. One of the cards that I
think will work best from the sideboard is Baneslayer Angel, especially if you pair it with Countryside Crusher, as they are both amazing alternate win
conditions that help assembling the combo at the same time. The angel can
easily assure victory with a little bit of help from Seismic Assault
against any aggro deck, while the Giant seems better in combo matchups that
bring in some disruption against you. It also gives you a non-land draw every turn,
so it almost feels like having a recursive Cascade ability on it…
Another option could be sideboarding the Punishing Fire/Grove of the Burnwillows package, but I don’t think that’s really good, even if it works
with Swans of Bryn Argoll. Cascading into Punishing Fire will be only good from
time to time, and Volcanic Fallout is probably just better.
You might wonder about the Faeries matchup though. It is rough
pre-board, but I know for a fact that it improves A LOT after board with Countryside Crushers, the full package of Bituminous Blast (which is amazing
against Mistbind Cliques) and, of course, the very best possible solution: Vexing Shusher.
Sure, you also cascade into it, but does that even matter when a card
can give you such an easy win just on its own? It’s actually a good thing that
you have the possibility to cascade into it… Because you will definitely need
it first before trying to go off against all those control decks.
That said, I
think this deck will have moderate success, at least until decks like Mystical Teachings
or Faeries disappear.
RDW
This deck forms part of my feature article:
Joel Calafell outlines the new Extended format
and discusses some of the best strategies. He also shares his updated list of
format defining cards and presents 8 promising decklists!
| Colors |
|---|
| Hybrid | 12 |
|---|
| Land | 22 |
|---|
| Red | 26 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 1 | 12 |
|---|
| 2 | 14 |
|---|
| 3 | 12 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Basic Land | 12 |
|---|
| Creature | 20 |
|---|
| Instant | 14 |
|---|
| Land | 10 |
|---|
| Sorcery | 4 |
|---|
And finally, here we have it: Goblin Guide and Figure of Destiny have become very good friends indeed. It might seem that Wall of Omens is very bad news for you, but I am not that sure about it: Ashenmoor Gouger gets past the 4 toughness, and so do Plated Geopede or Figure of Destiny. Kargan Dragonlord can just fly past it, and that leaves only Goblin Guide behind the Wall… and you could still cast Searing Blaze after it gets
blocked!
On the other hand, this deck will eat Bitterblossoms for breakfast, and I it seems to have a lot of solid creatures
and burn, so I’m assuming it will do pretty well against the rest of the format
too. Will mono red become the new Zoo of Extended now that the Dual Lands are
gone? I guess the same might happen here: This deck will be very good as long
as Faeries, Fauna Shaman decks or Mystical Teachings rule the format, but will
probably disappear as soon as combo decks gain in popularity.
That’s right; this deck has almost zero
disruption against combo… But still, Goblin Guides will be swinging here and
there for some time until that happens, I’m sure.
Joel
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Blue
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Green
Red
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curio isnt in new ext.
to the Teaching list::
-1 deprive
+1 Logic Knox
Swans would be such a beating; it almost makes me happy (not really) that faeries is around to keep it down.
I am definitely going to play that list with 8 tarmogoyfs ;)
Junk list doesnt have Cryptic Command like you stated. Still a fun list
What about 5cc? I've seen tons of deck lists and articles trying to guess the meta and it's all pretty much a repeat of what we've already seen, the issue I have is why is there a giant absence of 5 Color Control? The deck was bigger than Fae towards the end of the Lor/Shards/M10 and with it's extreme flexibility and the possiblity to adapt the deck to any meta because of it's mana base I'd say it's an optimal choice for going into the format blind.
Fixed the 8 Tarmogoyf no Cryptic Command issue.
Thanks for pointing it out.
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