Mike Donais Looks at Extended Mike Donais Extended is at its best right now. There are no overpowered decks right now like when Time Spiral was dominating and the wide selection of cards makes many different decks viable. This means that you can bring a well-tuned deck based around almost any theme and do well. The players that know their decks well and play them well are doing the best no matter what they play. Cards that have never seen play before in extended are making top 8 around the world. The extended Pro-Tour in Chicago had 7 different decks in the top 8. The only 2 that were even similar were two very different versions of Oath of Druids Control. Everyone is happy that they don't have to devote a large portion of their deck or sideboard to beating one deck. People are now adding more interesting or creative cards to their decks instead. This was arguably the best format and the best Pro Tour ever. - Zvi Mowshowitz about Pro Tour Chicago (Extended) I was thinking about what has made extended so exciting right now. The banning of all the best combo cards has certainly slowed down the format and made a lot of decks viable that were not before. Also the rotation of sets has forced people to find substitutes for old favorites. One of my old favorite deck types 'Necro' is popular again, and as always new twists are being added to deal with the current field. People love to draw cards and Necropotence is one of the best card drawers of all time. Keep banning cards until Necropotence is good, then ban Necropotence. - Words of wisdom from David Price I am going to focus on the Necropotence deck first because I am convinced that it will be the most popular deck in the upcoming qualifier season. The version of this deck that made second place at PT Chicago was very well designed. As the metagame changes though, the Necro decks must also change to keep up. There are two main decisions that people make when designing the Necro deck. Deck-builders must decide what creatures to use and how many Disks or Powder Kegs to use. I am going to tell you what my decisions were when building my Necropotence deck and more importantly, why I chose what I did. First of all I chose to play Skittering Skirge over Masticore, this was after much debate and testing. You have to consider what the top decks are and which is better vs. each deck and how much better it is vs. these decks. Well I listed out the top 10 decks and 6 were combo or control and 4 were fast creature beatdown (including slivers). Versus the combo or control decks getting out a turn 2 Skirge or even first turn Skirge was always amazing - much better than a turn 4 attempt at Masticore. The Skirge often came out before a strong mana base was established and could be casted without as much chance of being Countered or Treacheried. The early damage could even hurt opposing Necro decks or Necro-Pebbles decks enough to limit their ability to use Necropotence. Skirge clearly had the advantage over Masticore when playing vs. combo and control decks. On the other hand vs. the slightly less popular beatdown decks Masticore had some clear advantages. The 4 defense and the ability to ping creatures (assuming no Crystalline Sliver) is amazing. On the other hand versus a very fast offense it is nice to be able to cast a blocker on turn 2 even if he dies right away. Often he will die in a trade with an attacking creature with 2 power. That is a trade I will gladly take. So overall Masticore is a little better versus the fast creature decks but not that much due to his high casting cost, and the fast creature decks are slightly less popular overall; this leads me to believe that the Masticore is not the best choice for the Necro deck. Three more things have to be considered before we decide which is better though. One is the deck synergy - almost every card in the Necro deck is good against creature decks. Only the Duress spell is weak versus those decks. Because of this we can afford to choose the creature that is slightly weaker vs. creature decks but significantly stronger vs. combo and control decks. Secondly, once Necro is out you will be able to draw as many cards as you want but you can only cast what you have mana for. This means everything should cost as little as possible to cast. The last point is that Necro decks generally have a high win percentage against creature decks. The majority of losses in my testing were to combo decks or control decks. This again leads us to the conclusion that the Skittering Skirge is the best choice of a creature for the Necro deck. Skittering Skirge is also much better in the mirror than Masticore. Note that Contagion kills both, but Skirge only costed one card and 2 mana to put out, Masticore costed 4 mana and 2 cards (it will be Contagioned after you pay the upkeep cost). The second big decision for Necro players is how many Disks or Powder Kegs to play. I have been a big fan of disk in the past, and still like it but it's a little slow and it comes into play tapped making it very vulnerable to removal. The first Necro deck to not use Disks was Dennis Bentley's 1996 US Nationals winning deck. He once told me that with all the cards he was drawing he could just win instead of worrying about the Disks, and indeed he did exactly that. A deck with no disks must be slightly more aggressive though than a deck with disks. I decided to go this route and with the empty slots that I gained from not running disks I maximized my damage sources. I decided to put in a full set of 4 Drain Life, 4 Corrupt and 4 Skittering Skirge. The high amount of damage sources is also important when running 4 Demonic Consultations. I can consult away most of my library and still have enough ways left to kill my opponent. I have seen many games lost because of people consulting away all of their victory conditions. After much testing I have been very happy with this risky yet consistent setup. Sure, once in a while I would like to have a disk but that is a trade off that you have to make. Playing zero Disks weakens the deck most against Tinker decks because they tend to have a lot of permanents to disk away. If Tinker gets more popular then Disks will have to be added to deal with it. I don't think that it will continue to get popular though because it can sometimes be inconsistent and it takes some time to learn to play well. Most people testing it will not know how to play it perfectly right away and will pass on it because it doesn't beat the decks that they know how to play better. Finally, running no Disks or Kegs makes the deck very strong in the mirror match against a Necro deck that takes out some of the key cards to put Disks or Kegs in. (Two weeks later) I tested my Necroptence deck in this configuration for a little while and found that I didn't like the Wastelands and in some matches, Nevinyrral's Disk would have won me the game. This was enough to justify making some changes to the deck. I removed all 4 Wastelands and added 2 Swamps and 2 Disks. The final version looks like this: //NAME: Diskless Necro // By: Mike Donais // Mana 22 Swamp // Low cost spells 4 Dark Ritual 4 Contagion 4 Unmask 4 Duress 4 Demonic Consultation // Victory conditions 4 Skittering Skirge 4 Corrupt 4 Drain Life // Core cards: 2 Nevinyrral's Disk 4 Necropotence // Sideboard SB: 3 Null Rod SB: 4 Spinning Darkness SB: 3 Dystopia SB: 2 Nevinyrral's Disk SB: 2 Vampiric Tutor SB: 1 Powder Keg One other difference between this deck and the deck that got second place at PT Chicago is the high land count. I find it essential to begin casting big Drain Lifes and Corrupts as early as possible. If you miss a single land drop then you are giving the opponent a free turn. Also I like to be able to use my Wastelands on the opponent and not have to save them for mana most of the time. Finally Consults are sometimes counted as land. I have enough other things to do with consult I would rather just draw land. I am very happy with the current mana base though I have considered removing the Wastelands entirely and just running 22 Swamps. Wastelands have won me many games though so it is difficult to do that. Consult plus Wasteland can often win you the game if you notice the opponent misses a land drop. Notice that once you start Necroing only 8 of the 60 cards cost more than 2 mana. And only 4 of the spells cost 2. All of the rest are one or less mana to cast. This keeps the deck going at full speed and lets you Necro very aggressively. The idea was to be able to cast a victory condition and still be able to cast hand or creature destruction. Well I could go on and on explaining the process of creating the sideboard and what decks each card is for but I have a lot of other things to cover. After deciding that Necro would be the most popular deck in the PTQs (but just by a little) I decided I needed to find a deck to beat Necro most of the time. I was hoping to find a deck that Necro would be scared of. I needed not only individual cards that were good against Necro but entire archetypes that would cause Necro players to run away screaming! J Well I determined that Necro was a very mana intensive deck so cards like Winter Orb and Armageddon would hurt it a lot. Even targeted land destruction like Thermokarst or Stone Rain would be a threat. One problem was that these cards could easily be discarded by Duress or Unmask. So I tried to figure out what would be good against discard. Well emptying your hand very quickly is good. Disrupt is also very good versus first turn Duress or Unmask (though Unmask can play around Disrupt fairly easily). Necro also used life as a resource so any kind of fast damage would be good. Finally Forsaken Wastes stood out as a card that would deny Necro its essential life gaining. White and Green also get numerous sideboard cards specifically to hurt black decks that may work well. My personal favorite of these is Karma because Dystopia doesn't stop it as well as it stops the other cards. So here is a list of decks that would be good against Necro: White Beatdown with pro-black creatures and Armageddon Black Beatdown with no Spinning Darkness targets and Winter Orb Red Beatdown with Raze or Stone Rain Green Beatdown with Thermokarst and Plow Under Some spells that could be splashed or added to any of these decks are Shock, Incinerate, Disrupt, Duress, Forsaken Wastes, Winter Orb, and Armageddon. All of these spells are particularly good against Necro. I designed a mostly black Winter Orb deck first. It turned out that Winter Orb was amazing versus Necro but first turn Duress or Unmask could very often take the only Winter Orb and turn the deck into a fairly standard black beatdown deck. Though it was a very fast one since it included Rancor. Here is the list I used for testing: // Rainbow Suicide // Mike Donais Dec 99 // 16 Spells 4 Duress 4 Rancor 4 Shock 4 Winter Orb // 23 Critters 4 Dauthi Horror 4 Dauthi Slayer 3 Skittering Skirge 4 Mogg Fanatic 4 Sarcomancy 4 Carnophage // 21 Lands 4 Wasteland 4 Undiscovered Paradise 3 Gemstone Mine 2 City of Brass 4 Badlands 4 Bayou After some testing I started to think that mono-black would be just as good because the little that was gained from the off color spells was lost in mana consistency. After building a mono black beatdown deck and testing it I found out I was right. My mono black deck was beating my Necro deck despite me not using any Spinning Darkness (which are wasted vs. black). Here is the list I used to test black beatdown: //NAME: Black Beatdown // Mike Donais, Dec 99 // Land 4 Wasteland 17 Swamp // Spells 4 Winter Orb 4 Duress 4 Dark Ritual 4 Bad Moon // Creatures 3 Skittering Skirge 4 Phyrexian Negator 4 Sarcomancy 4 Carnophage 4 Dauthi Horror 4 Dauthi Slayer I decided a deck with a lot of protection from black creatures may do well versus Necro. Here is a list of what it might look like: //NAME: Anti Necro White Beatdown // Mike Donais December 99 // Lands 20 Plains // 24 creatures 4 Paladin en-Vec 4 White Knight 4 Order of the White Shield 4 Soltari Monk 4 Death Speaker 4 Mother of Runes // Buffs 3 Glorious Anthem 4 Crusade // Spells 4 Armageddon 3 Swords to Plowshares 2 Disenchant The 20 pro-black creatures are sure to give any black deck fits. The Armageddon ensures that Necro can not race the deck using life gain spells. Finally the Swords and Disenchants stop Masticores and Disks from ruining the plan. This seems like a good deck choice for someone expecting to face a lot of Necro. The sideboard should contain cards to deal with other decks like more Disenchants and Swords to Plowshares. In a balanced field, Soul Warden would be a better choice than Death Speakers for the 1 casting cost slot. The last Anti-Necro deck that I will mention is another type of Necro deck. One of Necro's worst match ups is the Enduring Renewal + Goblin Bombardment deck that runs its own Necropotences to help it find its win cards. From http://www.wizards.com/sideboard I got the deck of Top 8 PT Chicago finisher Tony Dobson. Deck Name: Cocoa Pebbles Deck Designed by John Ormerod, Warren Marsh, Ben Donaldson, Tony Dobson CREATURES (10) 4 Academy Rector 2 Phyrexian Walker 4 Shield Sphere SPELLS (28) 1 Aura of Silence 4 Dark Ritual 4 Demonic Consultation 4 Duress 3 Enduring Renewal 4 Goblin Bombardment 1 Mana Vault 3 Mox Diamond 4 Necropotence LAND (22) 4 Badlands 4 City of Brass 4 Gemstone Mine 3 Peat Bog 3 Phyrexian Tower 4 Scrubland Note that after sideboarding this deck can have 4 Aura of Silence and 4 Duress to protect itself against any disks that Necro might use to disrupt the combo. The reason that many people feel this deck will win game one is because if Necropotence hits the table on turn 3 the deck will often win on turn 4. This deck has shown to be both fast and consistent allowing it to beat Necro fairly often. The disadvantage of the deck is that it does require a combo and discard or Disks can hurt it very badly. One Disk can be used to kill both the Enduring Renewal and the Goblin Bombardment if played patiently. Another possible weakness of the deck is that it uses all non-basic lands so a land destruction deck that includes Wasteland and Dust Bowl could shut it down. Even with only one or 2 lands in play this deck could win if it gets Mox Diamond and Dark Ritual though. One problem that a lot of people are having is finding cards that hurt the deck badly. Well aside from the obvious Counterspells and discard spells, enchantment removal like Tranquil Grove or Nevinyrral's Disk hurt this deck a lot. Whatever you decide to go with, make sure you know the deck well and enjoy playing it. Check back at Http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/ for my next article that will cover Counterspell decks and Oath of Druids decks in as much detail as this article covers Necro. Good luck to you in your Grand Prix, Pro Tour Qualifiers and anywhere else you play MTG. Mike Donais. (Mike_Donais@yahoo.com)