To get my mind where it needed to be, I dusted off a couple of the Extended decks that I had laying around. Turned out that they were Necro/Donate and Iron Phoenix, two decks that were staples in tournaments around the country last year. I didn’t actually use them in tourneys; they were actually decks that I playtested against. Still, they fit the most important qualification (they were, well, THERE), so I began the playtesting portion of our program with a small circle of friends (who from here out will be known as the Facgime, which is an inside joke).

The first order of business, of course, was to make the Necro/Donate legal again, since it still contained both Dark Ritual and Mana Vault. Now, it’s been covered by many many many writers in the last six months or so, but banning Dark Ritual was a bad move on the part of the DCI. What should have happened was a rewording of Illusions of Grandeur, one which would state that when the Illusions leaves your control, rather than play, lose 20 life. This wouldn’t destroy the deck entirely, but it would stop the insane drawing from the Necropotence that is a direct result of the Illusions.

Anyway, the adjustments to the Necro/Donate were finished up in short order (mixing in green provided a burst of speed that quite nearly made up for the lack of the Ritual), and it was time to get down to the playtesting itself. To be honest, both Necro/Donate and Iron Phoenix play to my weaknesses as a Magic player: they’re combo decks when you get right down to it, and combo is not a strong point of mine. Beatdown, yes, control, yes, combo, no. It was obvious within the first few hours that I wasn’t going to be doing any good with either of the two decks. That meant that I needed some new tech.

My new tech turned out to be my deck from last year’s Extended season: Three Deuce. Now, let me say this right off the bat; Three Deuce is not for everyone. It’s an incredibly difficult deck to play at one hundred percent, and although it seems simple enough from just looking at a deck list, there are intricacies that aren’t obvious. In fact, most players that first saw the deck said that it had no right winning with it’s apparently random card choices. That’s not a warning, and that’s not myself inflating my ego because I play Three Deuce well; it’s just a statement of fact. Actually, Three Deuce, RecSur, and Hatred are the only three Extended decks that I play extremely well; I can get by with the others, but don’t expect anything spectacular out of me.

So I had chosen to play Three Deuce, but I still needed to get the deck list figured out. There were a couple of different versions of the deck running around last year, and they all had their good and bad points. While the version running four maindeck Granger Guildmages was the most popular, I decided to go with Elvish Lyrist in the maindeck rather than the Guildmages. I was expecting Stasis and Necro/Donate to be the two most popular decks at the tourney, so it was more a metagame choice than anything else. It turns out that the Three Deuce deck featured in the most recent edition of The Sideboard also runs the Lyrists over the Guildmages. For the upcoming Extended PTQs, though, I’ll probably put in the Guildmages and sideboard the Lyrists. When all was said and done, this was my deck:

THREE DEUCE

Creatures
4x Elvish Lyrist
4x River Boa
4x Skyshroud Elite
4x Mogg Fanatic
2x Dwarven Miner

Other Tech
4x Cursed Scroll
3x Disenchant
4x Rancor
4x Land Grant
3x Incinerate
4x Swords to Plowshares

Land
3x Mountain Valley
3x Plateau
4x Savannah
4x Taiga
3x Treetop Village
4x Wasteland

Sideboard
4x Sanctimony
3x Aura of Silence
4x Pyroblast
2x Masticore
2x Dwarven Miner

I can’t take total credit for the deck list, as it’s based off of a version that my friend Dan created last Extended season (the one that I ended up playing after he succumbed to the evil Necro/Donate). If you don’t see much difference between this deck and other Three Deuce decks, then you’re absolutely right; you’ll see very slight modifications to the deck, but the principle will always remain almost exactly the same. Remember the old saying: If it ain’t broken, don’t change your tech, as it’s doing well against the field. That may not be the saying word for word, of course…

Arriving at the tournament about twenty minutes before it began, I signed up and went to go track down some nachos with my companion Aimee. She wasn’t playing in this tournament for some reason or another, so she was more interested in finding food than checking out the day’s metagame. It was short-sighted, I knew, but hey, I like nachos, so I accompanied her. The cheese machine wasn’t turned on, though, so we got to wait for it to warm up, and by the time that we got back to the actual tournament, I almost missed the first round postings. It was going to be five Swiss rounds, which is probably not the greatest thing to do with only 26 people entered. Still, it wasn’t my tournament, so I kept my mouth shut and sat down to my first game of the night.

ROUND ONE- Dave Smith with Stompy

This was an interesting round. It was the first time that I’d seen anyone running Stompy outside of T2 in quite some time, so I had almost nothing that I could use against it in my sideboard. However, I got to show Dave exactly why you shouldn’t bring T2 tech in against Extended tech.

Game 1- He wins the toss and decides to play, which isn’t surprising in the least. He goes Forest, Llanowar Elf, go. I stare at the elf for a little while, wondering what he’s playing, then I mentally shrug and go on with my turn. Now, here’s where Extended tech comes in handy. I dropped a Taiga, which produced a Mogg Fanatic. I then threw the Fanatic at the elf, which caused more than a few confused looks from the three people watching. My friend Chris, though, who was playing his match next to me, glanced over and nodded his approval. Until I knew what Dave was playing, I had to go on the defense for a little while.

On the second turn, I brought out a Savannah and an Elvish Lyrist, and on the third turn I Rancored it. Yes, miracles do happen, as I beat him down with an elf for the rest of the game. He got out a few minor threats, but I just Plowed and Incinerated them on the path to victory.

Game 2- My opening hand was Taiga, Savannah, River Boa, Elvish Lyrist, Mogg Fanatic, Swords to Plowshares, and Rancor. Since he went first, of course, I drew into a Cursed Scroll. Now, I don’t care what you’re playing, but it’s going to be hard for any deck to beat a draw like that by Three Deuce. He still almost beat me with a Blastoderm, but I managed to pull it out in the end with a whopping two life left. He would have won if he topdecked a Deranged Hermit, but Magic is like that sometimes.

1-0-0

ROUND TWO- Brandon Swolkey (sorry if I misspelled that) with Stasis

I don’t like playing against Stasis, and that’s with just about anything. It’s not that I have a bad record against it or anything. It just annoys me to the point of frothing at the mouth.

Game 1- Apparently Daze is going to be appearing in Stasis this season, or at least it did in this game. My first turn Skyshroud Elite was Dazed, which was an interesting move, as the only non-basic lands commonly run in Stasis are Faerie Conclave and/or Stalking Stones. I personally would have let a simple 1/1 through, but hey, I wasn’t the one playing the deck. He replayed the land and passed the turn. I laid a second land and cast a River Boa. Picking back up the Island, he Dazed for a second time in as many turns. On the next turn, I went for a Dwarven Miner, and that ran into (you guessed it!) a Daze. So my opponent was sitting at one land and still holding me off. I got a third land in play the next turn, a Treetop Village, and tried to cast the last creature in my hand, a River Boa. I nearly reached out and ripped off Brandon’s head when he played the fourth Daze. The kid had drawn every Daze in his opening hand!

The Treetop Village, though, proved to be the difference. Brandon later told me that he kept drawing lands and counters, none of which work on an active Village. At two life, he topdecked an amazing card: Boomerang. He cast it on my Village when I activated it to bounce it back to my hand, but it wasn’t enough. I just put it back on the table the next turn and won the game anyway.

Game 2- The second game was all about Morphling. In other words, he dropped a Morphling on turn four, and it went all the way. Brandon seemed to have switched his strategy to severe beatdown, which is probably a good idea against Three Deuce. I scored a couple of good hits with a Rancored Boa, but it was nearly enough.

Game 3- The third game was all about Morphling. In other words, it was all about me getting rid of both Morphlings he managed to get into play. He tapped out to play the first Morphling, which I promptly Incinerated. A few turns later, he got another Morphling into play with one untapped mana source (a Mox Diamond, I believe). I cast Incinerate, he used that one mana to make the Morphling untargettable, and I Plowed it in response. I believe that I won with a Rancored Skyshroud Elite, but don’t quote me on that.

2-0-0

ROUND THREE- Dan “Why can’t I beat Stasis?!? I should be beating Stasis!” Hoban with Jank

Hmm, let’s see here. I play Dan on an almost daily basis. With the exception of Aimee, there’s no one else that I spend more time around. We played each other at this year’s Regionals, and at one point we faced each other in four consecutive PTQs. He designed thedeck that I was playing, and I designed the deck that he was playing. Yeah, we’re fairly familiar with each other.

Game 1- What you have to understand is that, while Dan and I can be very serious players, we don’t believe in having stressful games against each other. With that said, Dan’s die roll of 2 beat my roll of 1 (on a 20-sided die!), and he went first. His first turn was Plains, Nomad en-Kor, Mox Sapphire. I went to draw my card, then stopped and stared at the Mox.

“Uh, didn’t you read the sign, you illiterate freak? This is an Extended tournament.”

“Oh, the Mox. That’s a proxy for a Nomad en-Kor.”

“You…proxied a Mox for a Nomad. Okay, well, you still couldn’t play it. You used your only white mana to play the first Nomad.”

“The Nomad is a proxy for a Mox Diamond. See? I discarded the land.” He pushed aside his library to reveal a Mountain behind it.

“Okay, then hold on a second.” I dug around in my backpack for a minute, and, finding the deck that I was looking for, I took a card out of it and replaced a card in my hand with it. I then drew my card and went Taiga, Timetwister. “That’s a proxy Mogg Fanatic.”

“Oh, okay. You know that I only proxied the cards for our match, right? I’ve got the actual copies with me.”

“Of course.”

We beat each other down to seven each by trading off attackers. It was at that point that Aimee wandered over to observe our game. She looked down at the table, then said, and I quote, “What the hell are you two doing THIS time?”

“We’re playing a friendly game of Magic, dear,” I replied as innocently as I could manage.

“I can see that. Care to elaborate?”

“Well, as you can see, I’m attacking with a Rancored Timetwister, and Dan’s blocking with a Mox Sapphire enchanted with Empyrial Armor.” And that, hands down, was the strangest thing that I’ve ever said with regards to a game of Magic.

“Why am I with you again? After that, I can’t seem to remember.”

“My roguish good looks, I believe.”

Dan eventually beat me with an Incinerate and a pair of Shocks.

Game 2- This one wasn’t even close. By turn three, I had a Mogg Fanatic and a Rancored River Boa. Dan was knocked down to six life before he drew an answer for the Boa, a StP, but by that time I had eliminated all of his creatures with a Cursed Scroll. Then I turned the Scroll on him until he rolled over and died.

Game 3- Ever seen both a Three Deuce and a Jank deck stall at the same time? I have. For ten turns straight, we both topdecked lands or creature removal, neither of which would have really helped. My Mogg Fanatic stared down his Nomad en-Kor. Finally, he shook his head and said, “This is crap. Absolute crap.” We ended up intentionally drawing at that point.

2-0-1

ROUND FOUR- Mark (I apologize, I didn’t catch the last name) with Stasis

Mark definitely knew what he was doing. He played his deck perfectly, and I knew that he had a spot waiting for him in the T8. He’s one of those rare players that take the time to actually learn a deck and it’s intricacies, not just copy the deck list and expect to win.

Game 1- It’s always going to be in Three Deuce’s favor in the first game against Stasis if Elvish Lyrist is in the opening hand. However, Mark Force of Willed the Lyrist I tried to cast on turn one. Remember how I said that Stasis annoys me? He played with a patient strategy that locked me up pretty well, then dropped a Morphling and a Stasis on consecutive turns. I had no choice but to concede at that point, as my lone Treetop Village wasn’t going to win the race.

Game 2- Mark kept countering everything that I played, but I finally managed to sneak through a River Boa. I had him down to nine when he tapped out to cast a pair of Morphlings. Seeing an opportunity, I tried to Incinerate one of the Morphlings, which got Forced. I think that I smiled slightly as I Rancored my River Boa. By paying the life to Force, he had made it so that I would only have to attack twice with the Boa rather than three times, which in turn meant that I would outrace the Morphlings. Mark complimented me on the play, then conceded when he didn’t draw an answer.

Game 3- To keep it simple, Mark surprised me. He spent quite a while sideboarding, and I wondered exactly what he was doing that was taking so long. Finally, the game began, and Mark decided to play first. Nothing really significant happened except that my first turn Elvish Lyrist made it out on the table. I had yet to see a Boomerang or something like that, so I felt pretty confident that Stasis wouldn’t be out very long.

Imagine my surprise when he not only stopped me from casting a Rancor or a Cursed Scroll to reinforce my Lyrist, but also cast a Palinchron! He had turned his Stasis deck into a beatdown deck, one that was more than prepared to race me. Had I known about the switch to begin with, I would have played some things differently, but he had me completely out of my game. The only other spell that he cast the entire game was a Counterspell, and he still beat me. I shook his hand and expressed my admiration for his deviousness.

2-1-1

Well, my perfect record was gone (I don’t count intentional draws as hurting a perfect record), but I still had a good enough record to make T8 if I won my final match.

ROUND FIVE- Will Mitchell with Necro/Donate.

I couldn’t have asked for a better draw than playing Will. He was playing the deck that mine was designed to beat, after all. Necro/Donate can still be a great deck, even without Dark Ritual and Mana Vault, but it’s harder to play. Of course, the biggest problem with the deck is often the player, who doesn’t seem to realize that he/she isn’t playing solitaire with the deck.

Game 1- It was obvious from the beginning that Will hadn’t made the adjustments to put in Green to speed up the deck the way that the Facgime did. Instead, he had chosen to include Blood Pet and Culling the Weak. He did, in fact, get a second turn Necro out in the first game, which is still pretty strong. I just played an Elvish Lyrist and sat back to watch as he did his huge amount of drawing. Remember what I said about how you’re not playing solitaire when you’re playing Necro/Donate? He went down to one life, then cast Illusions of Grandeur to go back up to 22. He then drew back down to three life, then passed the turn. I shrugged, then Rancored my Lyrist and attacked for the win.

Game 2- I think that the first game made Will kind of reluctant. I sided in my Pyroblasts, but that was it. Traditionally, I also side in my Auras, but I decided against it in this case. I’d rather keep the aggressiveness that had won me the first game in short order. I got out a first turn Elvish Lyrist again, and he once again managed a second turn Necropotence. This time, though, he played it conservative and went down to ten life. I hit him with an Incinerate my next turn, then passed. He cast an Illusions, and I had to work under the assumption that he was holding a Donate. To this end, I drew my card, then passed the turn. He was, in fact, holding the Donate, and after upkeeping the Illusions, he cast it. I Pyroblasted. He Forced the Pyroblast. I Pyroblasted again. That one got through, and Will, after a long moment’s thought, paid ten life into the Necro. That put him at thirty life with an Illusions in play. On my turn, I played a Mogg Fanatic and a Cursed Scroll. As I suspected, he attempted another Donate, and in response I sacked my Lyrist to destroy the Illusions, putting him at ten life. At the end of his turn, I successfully Scrolled for two more damage, making that life total eight, then untapped and attacked with the Fanatic for another point. He wasn’t able to play another Illusions on his next turn, so I Scrolled again and beat him upside the head with a Fanatic to put him at four. So Will was sitting there without an Illusions or an answer to my threats in his hand and at four life. Since he didn’t get a draw phase because of the Necro, he was essentially locked down. The next turn, he bit the dust.

3-1-1

So there I was, in the T8 with a respectable (although not stellar) record. As the pairings were being put up, I went out for a smoke break with few of my friends. I don’t smoke myself, but some of the most interesting conversations around take place while everyone’s standing outside in the night air; besides, I enjoyed the company. We talked over strategy and what the coming Extended season will look like, then made suggestions for each other’s decks. That’s probably what I like the most about Magic: the camaraderie. Finally, it was time for the T8.

ROUND SIX- John Copple with RecSur

Game 1- Games against RecSur tend to be very fast-paced, which I like a lot. I’m at my best when the game is moving along at a good clip. Anyway, the first game saw us both getting out our tech. He brought in a Spirit of the Night via Recurring Nightmare on turn four, which I Plowed. I then began a steady beating on John with a Rancored River Boa and a Treetop Village after I Disenchanted his Survival (it was the right play with just a BoP in his graveyard). I got him down to five, give or take a life point, when he hardcast a Deranged Hermit. I brought in my Village and Boa to take him down to two, losing my Village in combat. He then playing the “Don’t Echo Hermit, Recur Hermit out of the graveyard” trick, which kept me locked down for a couple of turns. However, I drew into a Scroll, and that was the end of the game.

Game 2- The second game played almost like the first one except for an Avalanche Riders that he kept Recurring. Eventually, though, I just Scrolled him to death. Sorry about not having more details, but I neglected to take notes during this game, and I don’t have all that great of a memory.

4-1-1

ROUND SEVEN- Mark with Stasis

Oh joy. I SO enjoy playing against a person that handed me my head in an earlier round when it really counts. The funny thing is, he sat down and said to me, “I was hoping not to draw you. I wanted the guy playing the White Weenie.” Amused, I glanced over at Dan, who was also in the T4. Apparently, Mark really wanted to play against the Jank deck that we had thrown together, although in retrospect it would have been a worse match for Mark’s Stasis.

Game 1- The luck that had led Mark to victory our first game seemed to have run out finally. He was forced to mulligan down to five cards, and even then he didn’t seem happy with his draw. My Lyrist made it into play without any resistance, so I knew that I was well on my way. I didn’t see a single counter the entire game until he Counterspelled a Rancor. Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t enough, and a swarm of weenies and a pair of Treetop Villages went the distance easily. Bah, who needs Cursed Scrolls.

Game 2- This time, Mark opened with a strong hand of seven cards, almost all counters. It wasn’t until I drew into a Treetop Village that I managed to start sending in the beats. At one point, it came down to my Village racing a Morphling. I had him at eight, and I was at six. That meant that next turn I was dead, right? Nope. I attempted to Plow the Morphling, which forced Mark to make it untargettable in response. Now that he couldn’t untap the Morphling, I played the card that I activated the Village and played the card that I had topdecked: Rancor. Then I played another Rancor, after which I played a THIRD Rancor. None of these saw counters, so my triple Rancored Village earned its keep by getting me the win.

Mark congratulated me and shook my hand, and I complimented him on his abilities. I don’t know him well, but it’s obvious that Extended is his best format, and I look forward to playing against him again in the near future. He’s one of those rare humble players that Magic is sorely lacking.

5-1-1

The finals in a local tournament had never looked sweeter. I had honestly believed that Mark was going to finish me off, but with the 2-0 win, I was in much higher spirits. Dan lost his match 1-2, so I got to play his opponent in the last round, which leads me to:

ROUND EIGHT- Steve Coughley (sp?) with Sligh

I was more than a little surprised to see a Sligh deck make it so far, to be honest. I hadn’t thought it would be a force at the tournament, although I was prepared because of the possibility of burn decks (Sanctimony).

Game 1- Steve lit me up in the first few turns, as a first turn Jackal Pup and a second turn Wasteland is much stronger than most people would think. I managed to get out a Cursed Scroll and a Mogg Fanatic, though, so I was still definitely in the game. For a couple turns, the game turned into dueling Scrolls, during which he got rid of my Fanatic and I got rid of his Pup. Between us, we must have killed off a good ten creatures, and I joked that a red Avatar of Woe was going to be making an appearance. He was ahead in the life race, though, so if we kept slinging Scroll damage around, he was going to win. However, I topdecked another Scroll, so suddenly I was in the driver seat. In desperation, he played a pair of Ball Lightnings which I was forced to Scroll. Sort of like a Time Walk, but not quite. Anyway, that’s how the game ended: he couldn’t topdeck any burn besides a Shock and an Incinerate, so I came out with the win. I’d never won like that before with Three Deuce, and I haven’t since.

Game 2- Steve’s deck worked exactly the way that it should. First turn Jackal Pup, second turn Wasteland, third turn Scroll and Mogg Fanatic, fourth turn Ball Lightning. I didn’t draw any of my hate, so that was all that it took to beat me. My entire offense came from a Scroll once again, but by that time I was too low on life for it to make a difference.

Game 3- In my opening hand, I got a pair of Sanctimonies, so I kept the hand. I probably shouldn’t have, since the rest was crap, but it didn’t matter in the end. He missed the Wasteland drop on the second turn, so I got out both Santimonies fairly quickly. I Incinerated his Pup, then just pinged away with a River Boa and I believe a Mogg Fanatic. This game, I didn’t see a single Scroll, and neither did he. Is it legal to not have a Cursed Scroll at least attempted to be played in an Extended game? Whatever the case, it was a rather anticlimactic ending to an otherwise very interested tourney, as the Boa and Fanatic just hit for three every turn until he was dead. I could tell that he was made about not drawing any burn, even though it wouldn’t have mattered all that much, but such is life sometimes. He walked away in a huff, and I walked away with the win. That box of Exodus didn’t hurt, either.

Final Standing- 6-1-1

Needless to say, I was happy with my performance, and I was happy with the way the deck worked (I wasn’t sure about some of the sideboard choices going in, namely the Masticores, which never even saw play). I had been right about one thing, which is that Stasis will be a strong deck this Extended season. The reasoning behind this is the banning of Dark Ritual, of course, which essentially stops two decks (Hatred and Necro/Donate) from outracing it.

Maybe it can help you if the deck needs some fine tuning