PT Chicago Preview

Randy Buehler

The new Extended looks like a really interesting environment and that means Pro Tour Chicago should be a lot of fun. Several sets are gone and one new one is in. The consensus is that Mercadian Masques won't have much of an impact on Extended, especially compared to all the other changes that have happened since Worlds, but only time will tell. I've stopped making such blanket statements ever since I said that Carnophage was the only constructed caliber card in Exodus. Anyway, my goal in this preview is to tell you everything you need to know in order to be prepared to watch and enjoy Pro Tour Chicago. If you're going to be in the Chicago area on December 3rd, 4th, or 5th then drop by the Hyatt Regency and check things out. If you aren't, then you can still follow along on the Internet. The Sideboard, among others, will have constant updates all weekend, including my debut as a Sideboard reporter.
The Environment

Extended went through it's first set rotation on October 1st and Pro Tour Chicago will be the first real workout for the new format. Revised, Fourth Edition, The Dark, and Fallen Empires are no longer legal. That means no more Hymn to Tourach, High Tide, Savannah Lion, Lightning Bolt, Mishra's Factory, or even Serra Angel. In addition, a number of cards were added to the Banned List at the same time. Yawgmoth's Will is gone and so are Earthcraft, Mind over Matter, Lotus Petal, and Dream Halls. Finally, the recent erratum to Thawing Glaciers changes the environment even more.

The net result of all these changes is that no one is quite sure what's good anymore. That makes Chicago a really exciting Pro Tour to play in or to watch! No one can copy any decks off the Internet simply because there aren't any (yet). That should reward players who do a lot of testing, like Zvi Mowshowitz. According to Mowshowitz, "The changes to Extended were a huge improvement. Testing is going better than I could have hoped."
Players to Watch

Jon Finkel - Finkel is always one of the players that everyone has their eye on. He reigned supreme as the consensus "best player in the game" for over a year, but this Pro Tour is a little bit different. In London, Jon missed Day 2 for the first time since ... anyone, anyone? ... Since Paris! (It was also the first draft Pro Tour where Jon failed to make the top 20 since ... well, ever. Think about that - Jon had made 3 straight top 8's and 6 straight top 20's at limited Pro Tours. Wow.) It will be interesting to see how Jon reacts now that actual evidence exists pointing to the fact that he's human. Will he rededicate himself and practice a lot for this Pro Tour or will he continue to try to get by on skills that might be beginning to erode? Even without any practice or playtesting sessions, Jon still might be the best player in the world. However, the gap between him and the rest of us is starting to narrow.

Mark LePine - Mark owns Extended the way I used to. He finished 3rd at the last Extended Pro Tour and he ran the table on Day 3 of Worlds to put himself into the top 8 (where he eventually finished 2nd). Mark does not have a reputation as a great deck builder, but as long as his friends keep him well stocked with good decks, look for him to make a run at the top 8 on Saturday.

Kai Budde - There's always a chance that Kai's various obligations will force him to miss a Pro Tour, but there's been some such rumor about him at every Pro Tour since he burst onto the scene last winter and he hasn't missed one yet. If he continues at his current pace, the reigning World Champion and Player of the Year may soon supplant Jon Finkel as the consensus "best player in the game."

Tommi Hovi - Tommi won the last Extended Pro Tour and placed in the top 32 at London. At this point there can be little doubt that Tommi is one of the best players to ever pick up a deck of Magic cards, much less examine the back of it.

Nicholas Labarre - When he finished 2nd in Rome, a lot of people thought Nicholas got lucky pairings and that his Merfolk deck was only good against Academy. But at the next constructed Pro Tour - New York 4 - Nicholas also made the top 8. Some people think he got lucky there too because he ran into nothing but green decks in a field that was mostly red/blue. Chicago will give him an opportunity to finally silence all his doubters.

Erik Lauer - The "Mad Genius" was on a roll at this time last year. He finished 15th, 7th, and 15th at the first three Pro Tours last year, with his top 8 coming in Rome with an Academy deck. Since then, however, he hasn't finished in the money of any major event except Grand Prix Vienna. In addition, my move to WotC has left Team CMU in a bit of disarray. It'll be interesting to see whether Lauer has still got those mad deck-building skills or whether, perhaps, the rest of the world has caught up with him over the last few years.

William Jensen - "Baby Huey" is on a hot streak right now. He just followed up his first PT Top 8 (in London) by winning his first Grand Prix - last weekend's Grand Prix San Diego. Jensen is definitely one of the rising stars of the game right now. London and San Diego did use different sets of cards, but they were both booster draft events. We'll find out in Chicago if Huey can play constructed too.

Darwin Kastle - Speaking of hot streaks, Darwin finally won a Pro Tour when he helped Your Move Games win the first team Pro Tour back in September. Then he made his 5th Pro Tour Top 8 in London and followed that up in San Diego by putting yet another Grand Prix Top 8 on his resume. The Boston area is one of the hot places to play Magic right now. In addition to Darwin and Billy Jensen, keep an eye on Boston area players Justin Gary, Dave Humphreys, and Rob Dougherty. Interestingly, Bostonite Tom Guevin will be missing from only his second Pro Tour ever, though his brother Pete is qualified to play.

Zvi Mowshowitz - Zvi has had respectable showings in the major events held over the last 5 months, but he hasn't returned to the Top 8 since his PT New York and US Nationals runs last summer. Chicago may be the tournament where Zvi finishes establishing himself as one of the game's top players. While Zvi has done reasonably well at the recent draft events, constructed events are Zvi's forte and Chicago is the first constructed Pro Tour since New York. New York was where Zvi made top 8, was favored to win it all, got cleaned up by beautiful Russian women, and then got knocked out by eventual champion Casey McCarrell. Don't be surprised if most of that happens again.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of players who might do well in Chicago or of interesting storylines to keep an eye on. Jason Opalka invented High Tide the last time the Pro Tour format was Extended. Was it a fluke or will he break another format? Kyle Rose didn't go to Rome, but he did make the top 8 of his last Extended Pro Tour (Chicago I) and he just won Pro Tour London. Can Kyle become the first person ever to win back to back Pro Tours? Philadelphia has suddenly become a hotbed of Magic talent. Will someone from the City of Brotherly Love make the top 8 and shift the balance of Pennsylvania power out of Pittsburgh? Will the Germans continue their dominant run? Will Gary Krakower finally make his first top 8? Or perhaps it's time for Mike Turian or Donnie Gallitz to break through.

As you can probably tell by now, I really enjoy the entire context that surrounds major Magic events. In addition to the players, there are also a lot of questions about decks that will be answered in a few short weeks.
Decks to Watch

Sligh - Ah, Sligh. You know you've got a chance to win whenever you shuffle up Mountains, Jackal Pups, and Fireblasts. Sligh lost a turn of speed now that Lightning Bolt, Goblin Grenade, and Fork are gone, but it's still blisteringly fast and it should do well unless the field is dominated by Survival/Recur. Do not feel sorry for the red mage - all those card losses really mean is that he now must start former benchwarmers like Hammer of Bogardan, Cursed Scroll, and Incinerate. In a weird way, the recent errata to Thawing Glaciers might make Sligh more popular. Players who don't have time to fully test the new Extended might be tempted to play a more straightforward strategy and this is almost certainly the best beatdown deck.

Survival/Recur - A lot of players were surprised that Recurring Nightmare was not banned in the flurry of bannings that shook up Extended a few months ago. Recur has been banned in Standard for some time now, so it seemed natural to ban it when most of the other cards that have been banned in Standard were banned from Extended. However, Recur and Fluctuator dodged the axe. And if you think about it, that decision makes sense. Neither Recur decks nor Fluctuator decks have ever dominated the Extended environment. Recur more or less rolls over and dies whenever it runs into a combo deck and there are ways for other archetypes to fight it as well. "Survival for my Ashen Ghouls" is quite powerful, but also somewhat slow. Will this be the Pro Tour where Survival/Recur decks finally take over this environment? I don't think so. I think Survival of the Fittest will be one of those cards that defines the environment and thus everyone must be prepared to face it, but everyone will be prepared to face it and so it won't do all that well. Good players could do well with it and one might sneak into the top 8, but (in a prepared field) I doubt this is the best choice.

Oath of Druids - I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Oath decks ever since I ran that Mulch/Scroll Rack/Oath deck at US Nationals two summers ago. There's no easy way for creature-based decks to deal with Oath of Druids and in Extended you get dual lands and Tithe, which means you can run three colors and include enough permission to have a good fight against control decks and combo decks. It's really tricky to tune an Oath deck such that it'll be effective against both creature decks and creatureless decks, but if anyone can pull this off then there could be a top 8 spot waiting for them in the Windy City.

Necro - A little over two years ago I felt Necro decks were clearly the best decks in Extended. Then Tempest came out and re-wrote the power curve of the game. Suddenly the weenie swarms were faster, everyone had access to Cursed Scroll, and Wasteland made it really hard to build a consistent 3-color mana base. Wasteland, in particular, destroyed the deck I used to win PT Chicago I. Necro decks were still powerful enough to put Andre Konstanczer in the top 8 of Pro Tour Rome, but they are no longer the class of Extended. The recent shake-up of the format took away Hymn to Tourach and Yawgmoth's Will, but it also slowed down Sligh by a turn and Necro decks have certainly won without Hymn to Tourach before. Paul McCabe won Dallas with access to only one Hymn and Necro dominated Regionals last spring without access to any. As long as the skull is legal there will be players who win by trading life for cards.

Pox - Pox decks, on the other hand, really are dead. Without Yawgmoth's Will, Hymn to Tourach, or even The Rack I don't think anyone can build a consistent, effective Pox deck.

Combo - Extended has been all about the combo decks for over a year now, but I think that run is finally over. One result of all those bannings and set rotations is that Fruity Pebbles is once again the class of the combo decks. Pebbles is certainly good enough to play, but it didn't dominate the scene 2 years ago and it shouldn't dominate now. Replenish based combo decks are also good enough to see some play in Chicago, but they aren't much different than the Standard Replenish deck from last summer, which didn't exactly dominate Nationals or Worlds. I'm not saying that no one will play combo decks. One of these might be a good call if you expect a heavy Survival/Recur presence. But I am saying that combo has been beaten down to an acceptable speed and power level.

Mono-blue/Forbidian - Mark LePine had the best record on Day 3 of Worlds, (which was Extended). He ran a mono-blue "Forbidian" variant similar to the deck that put Chris Pikula and me into the top 8 of Grand Prix Kansas City last April. His deck used Powder Keg instead of Nevinyrral's Disk, which allowed him to be much better against weenie decks than previous versions of this archetype. Mark Gordon and his Goblins knocked both Chris and me out of that Kansas City Top 8. LePine's deck no longer has access to Mishra's Factory and I don't think there are as many combo decks in the environment (which would be easy wins whenever he draws Force of Will). However, there wasn't a huge amount of combo at the top of the Swiss at Worlds yet Mark still went 5-0-1. Apparently, mono-blue is a more resilient and versatile deck than we all thought at first and it should show up in force in Chicago, even without the Thaw trick.

PT Jank - Jank should be dead what with the loss of Savannah Lion, Lightning Bolt, and Mishra's Factory (or it should at least be on life support and having meaningful talks about euthanasia). However, white weenie will never die. If there was a nuclear holocaust all that would be left are cockroaches and white weenie decks. Olle Rade made the top 8 of each of the other two Extended Pro Tours with white weenie variants. I don't know if he's planning to attend this one, but he did qualify (on rating) and if he shows up I won't be at all surprised to see him and his Plateaus in the top 8.

Counter-Sliver - At first I thought Counter-Sliver was just a fad, but it refuses to go away. Fueled in part by the nearly obsessive interest in it of many top Boston players, Counter-Sliver has become a fixture in the metagame. And it's a neat deck from a theoretical point of view. The idea is to get down one or two solid creatures and then trade counterspells for time advantage. Despite the heavy permission content, Counter-Sliver decks never try to "gain control" of the game. They just want to hold you off long enough to kill you with slivers. That makes it quite similar to a Merfolk deck. The main difference is that Counter-Sliver trades an inconsistent mana base for better creatures. The inherent mana problems have always scared me away from this deck type, plus I've always preferred card advantage to time advantage. Nonetheless decks of this style are increasingly becoming part of the game. Con-Troll is very much a UBC Counter-Sliver deck and the original Counter-Sliver could make an appearance on Sunday in Chicago.

With all these decks to choose from, Pro Tour Chicago should really reward players who do their homework, or at least players who know players who do a lot of testing. In addition to trying to find useful Mercadian Masques cards, players must assess the exact impact of all the changes that took effect October 1st. As far as I can tell, no one knows exactly what to expect. According to Team CMU co-founder Mike Turian, "The meta-game seems wide open and extremely diverse. There seems to be a fall out of playable decks with the new 1.x. No one is really sure about how good each other deck type is and therefore it makes it hard to judge what exactly will be played."

Ready or not, Chicago is just a few weeks away.