Posts tagged Extended

Extended – Running The Gauntlet

2
1 year ago
by James F'n X in

It's time to apply the lessons learned in searching for the best deck and use those lessons to build a testing gauntlet for the Extended PTQ season, at least as it stands right now.  While only scattered information has come out on the paper PTQ season so far, we have a lot of information from the two Magic Online PTQs and several Daily Events.  What the data bears out is one deck is at the top of the heap in terms of results, and a few others are on the outside looking up.  I hope you like flying blue creatures.
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Living End

2010 Magic Headlines – Extended on a Diet

0
1 year ago
by James F'n X in ,

As 2010 comes to a close, Still Had All These would like to take a look back at some of the headlines that affected Magic: The Gathering in the past year.

Extended Format Becomes 'Double Standard'

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A Few Brief Words on New Extended

1
1 year ago
by James F'n X in

It's hard to grasp what the heck just happened to Extended. Not only have we seen the last Extended PTQ with Chrome Mox, Chalice of the Void, and Engineered Explosives, but also Umezawas Jitte, Tarmogoyf, Lightning Helix, Living End and shocklands. The next time we play Extended to get onto the Pro Tour, the format will look like:

  • Lorwyn
  • Morningtide
  • Shadowmoor
  • Eventide
  • Shards of Alara
  • Conflux
  • Alara Reborn
  • Zendikar
  • Worldwake
  • Rise of the Eldrazi
  • Scars of Mirrodin
  • Set 2 of the Scars block
  • M10
  • M11

Obviously Faeries will be a major power in this format, with Scapeshift, Scapeshift Zoo, and Traditional Zoo close behind.  Reveillark control decks (not combo style, sorry, Body Double!) will be big, and people will get to dust off their playsets of Figure of Destiny and Reflecting Pools.  Vivid manabases will be the norm for the next season and any deck that can efficiently attack that manabase (Spread 'Em with Fulminator Mage?) or battle back with extreme consistency in its mana (Kithkin, Faeries and dedicated burn decks) will have to be good enough to overcome the sheer card quality of the 5CC Control and Cascade decks.

There are definitely upsides and downsides to the new Extended format.  I wish there was something in-between, like the rumored OverExtended format (Mercadian Masques and up) or something more like classic Extended, which rotated sets out every two years and gave some cards (dual lands, anyone?) special dispensation.  I just feel that the new Extended is far too close to Standard, and the room for innovation isn't really there - much like Standard used to be the best block decks against one another until Wizards did a better job of making block themes interact, the new Extended may turn into the best Standard decks from the past three years battling against one another.  We'll see how it goes, but I really hope the next announcement from WotC is a new format (and not one that involves four booster packs and 30 card decks).

Chalice of the Void

The End of Another Season

3
1 year ago
by James F'n X in

Well, here we are at the end of another constructed season, and the Still Had All These team acquitted themselves fairly well... except for yours truly, of course. G Pelly had two top 8 finishes, including a final, and Dwayne and Kasey both got to the top 8 in Portland. Dwayne also had a cash performance in GP Houston. I cubed a lot and played a lot of Catchphrase.
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