Reckless Bear

Outside Information – The New Extended

For those of you “in the loop” this won’t be anything much besides my own observations, but for anyone who hasn’t fully read the changes to extended, go check this out.

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/95b.

If that doesn’t throw the format on its head I don’t know what will. Let’s take a look at what sets are going to be relevant

Time Spiral, Planar Chaos, Future Sight, Tenth Edition, Lorwyn, Morningtide, Shadowmooe, Eventide, Shards of Alara, Conflux, Alara Reborn, Magic 2010, Zendikar, Worldwake, and Rise of the Eldrazi. At least until Scars of Mirrodin comes out, then the Time Spiral block and Tenth Edition will rotate as well.

For the majority of us, we will be looking at extended as just being Lorwyn/M10 and up, since the only thing that will include TSP block in high level play is Pro Tour Amsterdam. The past four years of magic that had the new extended legal sets in them brought us some of the most interesting and hated decks I can remember, a quick glance gives us this list.

5CC
RW Cruise Control (aka Boat Brew)
Faeries
UW Fish
Planeswalker Control
UW control (all variants of)
Jund
Naya
Bant (all forms of)
RW Aggro
Time Sieve (Yeah!)
Elves (combo and BG)

That’s a lot of really REALLY good decks, and while some held their place longer than others, all of them had an impact, but seeing that list, we see a trend; of the twelve decks there, seven of them rely heavily on blue, after that the next most common color is white. What does this tell us? If you don’t have a set of Jace TMS, Cryptic Commands, and Mystic Gates, go get them. Now. Like right now. Stop reading this article and go buy them. If you don’t have them they will go up in price, and probably spike as extended season gets closer. To those of you bitching about your Goyf’s, they are still a legacy staple. If you don’t want to play Legacy, then get rid of them for cryptic commands and other cards you should be on the lookout for. Here is a great place to start

http://www.deckcheck.net/mpc.php?format=Lrw_M10_SoA

Other than that, do some research yourself on whats been good the past couple of years, it shouldn’t be too hard with the decks listed above and the deck check link. That’s all for now. As the format gets explored more and I get more relevant information, look for updates on both Standard and Double Standard (new extended).

Stephen Moss