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NEWS > ARCHIVES - ARTICLES > Feature

TOP 10 EXTENDED DECKS

OF ALL TIME
Posted in Feature on February 7, 2008

By Mike Flores
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Due to the nationwide Morningtide release

tournaments (stock up on those Countryside
Crushers, everyone!), we have no new Extended
PTQ Top 8 lists to discuss this week (sorry about
that). What I decided to do was dial it back to my
original bread and butter; I mean before PTQ Top
8 breakdown analysis was my Swimming with
Sharks bread and butter, my preferred digital
butter to be spread across the vast bread that
was and is the Magic Internet was historical
analysis of interesting archetypes and the truly
great players that have graced this truly great
game.

As with any critic with any kind of worthwhile

opinions, I began with my own presuppositions
and biases (my #1 deck didn't change despite
poring over dozens of historical Top 8s and
ancient .txt format tournament reports on what
remains of The Dojo)... But what seems really
strange is that this list has no Rock, no straight or
combo reanimator, no legitimate Tinker deck,
and no red deck.

My guess is that maybe half of the decks that

made my Top 10 could reliably trade games with
a modern Dredge deck... But that doesn't mean
anything, any more than it means that either
boogeyman Dredge or newcomer Doran is one
of the best Extended decks of all time. The most
important thing to me when analyzing formats is
the edge and appropriateness of a deck when
contextualizing to a particular format. How much
better than a default deck was this deck at the time?
How likely was it to win the tournament? What if
they ran the same tournament again? Dredge is a
modern-day monster, certainly out-gunning even
most of its contemporaries and breezing through
tournaments when unencumbered, but it is
rarely the most likely deck to win any particular
tournament, any more than Doran or Red Deck
Wins, even though any of them is capable.
Compare that to Broken Jar, Miracle Grow at its
debut, or Oath of Druids in the able hands of
Robert Maher, Jr. The next most important thing
to me is the legacy that a deck leaves behind.
How did this deck leave its mark on Magic? Did it
somehow change the universe? Many of these
beauties did.

Enjoy.

#10. Miracle Grow – Alan Comer, 9th Place GP–

Las Vegas 2001

ALAN COMER'S MIRACLE GROW

Y T F

DECKLIST

STATS

SAMPLE HAND

SORT BY: Overview

Creature (15)
3 Gaea's Skyfolk
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merfolk Looter
4 Quirion Dryad

Sorcery (8)
4 Land Grant
4 Sleight of Hand

Instant (19)
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
3 Foil
4 Force of Will
4 Gush

Artifact (4)
4 Winter Orb

Enchantment (4)
4 Curiosity

Land (10)
6 Island
4 Tropical Island

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)
2 Boomerang
4 Chill
3 Emerald Charm
2 Misdirection
4 Submerge

Alan knew he was drawing into 9th place. It was a

shame for Miracle Grow's debut tournament.
Alan left a Top 8 that featured future Hall of
Famer Rob Dougherty with combo Reanimator
and seven Deuce, Rock, or Junk decks. No
o!ense to eventual winner MikeyP, but I think
Alan would have shredded that Top 8.

At the time, when Miracle Grow was young (this was its "rst tournament), the world
didn't realize how devastating it was against black-green decks or how it demolished
straight beatdown and red decks. If you look at the deck, Miracle Grow really looks as
though it will lie down for a Pernicious Deed... But that's not really how it worked. One
well-placed Daze or Force of Will and the opponent was tapped for a Deed that would
never resolve, locked under a Winter Orb, and dead to a Quirion Dryad before he could
blink. Submerge was so brutal for these decks, as the expensive Spiritmonger was an
automatic four-of in 2001. With Winter Orb it was "ve or even six Time Walks. Quirion
Dryad needed perhaps two turns to "nish the game.

Alan's deck was primitive for Miracle Grow decks.

Lord of Atlantis did not survive past the Las
Vegas weekend and Werebear became an
automatic include following Mike Long's Top 8
with the same archetype perhaps one week later
in Sendai. However the core strategy of the deck,
walking the opponent into an expensive play,
locking him with Winter Orb, and generating
progressive tempo with Quirion Dryad on
o!ense was compelling to the point of
irresistibility.

If you are not familiar with this deck, you are in

the same boat as many GP and PTQ players
when Alan brought it to Las Vegas and rattled o!
an undefeated Day One. Miracle Grow was a
paradigm-changing strategy that dealt with card
advantage and tempo #uidly, a precursor in
some ways to Sadin Greater Gargadon Green-
Red and other decks that operate on
nontraditional metrics. Gush and Foil didn't set
this deck back. Winter Orb slowed everyone down
to a snail's pace, and the deck could do
everything it wanted with two lands... Free
Counterspells, regardless of their drawbacks,
were golden at holding the advantage that
Miracle Grow—due to its vastly superior tempo
in essentially every matchup—could generate in
almost every early Game 1 situation. Because
Quirion Dryad grew with every Counterspell,
every extra card drawn, every o!ensive or
defensive play, the combination of mana
suppression and relentless proactive tempo
made Miracle Grow nearly impossible to beat
with anything but a dedicated anti-two drop
strategy, viz. Oath of Druids.

Context: Following Kai Budde's PT win with Blue-

Red Donate, Donate was the hands down Deck
to Beat in Extended. The deck on the rise was Sol
Malka's version of Black-Green The Rock. Even
today, seven itchy years distant, pundits,
commentators, and ex-PTQ players will not agree
who had the matchup (personally, I was 14-0
against Donate with The Rock in 2001, never
losing a game and winning both a GPT and PTQ);
the fact was that Miracle Grow thrashed both
decks. Even when people knew about it, it
continued to win, evidenced by the
advancements of Mike Long, Top 8 by Alex
Shvartsman, and massive improvements to
sickestever.dec by Ben Rubin and Brian Kibler.

Legacy: Miracle Grow was an unrelenting

tournament crusher as long as Magic R&D let us
play with Winter Orbs and Gushes in Extended.
In one of the most famous runs in the history of
top level play, Alexander Witt crashed his car,
managed to barely show up for work on time,
won the last-second grinder, and "nished up
with a Masters win at PT–Nice, rattling o! wins
against Alan Comer himself, the popular Gerard
Fabiano, Solemn Simulacrum and Invitational
winner Jens Thoren, and U.S. Nationals and
Extended PT winner Justin Gary (who was playing
one of the aforementioned anti-two drop Oath
decks!).

I really wanted to include Brian Schneider's

Suicide King as one of the Top 10 Extended decks
of all time (played in four tournaments ever, with
three Top 8s, two wins... and Jon Becker will
contest for the rest of his days the dubious
circumstances of his Top 8 non-win); but with
Miracle Grow this far out in the Top 10, that just
seemed silly in terms of scale.

Witt's Masters deck:

ALEXANDER WITT'S MIRACLE GROW

Y T F

DECKLIST

STATS

SAMPLE HAND

SORT BY: Overview

Creature (13)
4 Meddling Mage
2 Mystic Enforcer
3 Quirion Dryad
4 Werebear

Sorcery (8)
4 Land Grant
4 Sleight of Hand

Instant (21)
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
2 Foil
4 Force of Will
4 Gush
4 Swords to Plowshares

Artifact (4)
4 Winter Orb

Land (14)
4 Flood Plain
2 Savannah
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)
4 Chill
2 Legacy's Allure
3 Seal of Cleansing
2 Submerge
2 Waterfront Bouncer
2 Wax/Wane

#9. A!nity – Pierre Canali, 1st Place PT–

Columbus 2005

PIERRE CANALI'S AFFINITY

Y T F

DECKLIST

STATS

SAMPLE HAND

SORT BY: Overview

Creature (26)
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Frogmite
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Meddling Mage
3 Myr Enforcer
3 Somber Hoverguard

Sorcery (4)
4 Thoughtcast

Artifact (11)
3 Cranial Plating
4 Aether Vial
4 Chromatic Sphere

Land (19)
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
2 Ancient Den
2 Glimmervoid
4 Darksteel Citadel
1 City of Brass
2 Blinkmoth Nexus

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)
1 City of Brass
3 Kami of Ancient Law
3 Engineered Plague
3 Chill
2 Seal of Removal
3 Cabal Therapy

Rookie Pierre Canali showed the entire Pro Tour

the front of his hand... and then showed them
the back of his hand in what looked like the
easiest win in Premiere Event history. Pierre's
play in Columbus was a little rough around the
edges, but his deck build—one-third credited to
future Resident Genius and PT winner in his own
right Guillaume Wafo-Tapa—made the
tournament look like a basketball contest
between LeBron James and an auditorium full of
"ve-year-olds, with Pierre dominating even the
matches he was supposed to lose.

Context: Pierre's deck was beautifully positioned. I think Osyp Lebedowicz said it best. In
his Psychatog tuning, Osyp found himself taking out most or all of his anti-A$nity cards,
relying on a "Vampiric Tutor for Energy Flux" strategy that much of the Pro Tour
discovered. It was at that point that he should have himself switched to A!nity. The hate
was disappearing. A$nity was known but for some reason the metagame shifted away
from being able to deal with it; I was doing coverage in Columbus, and saw Pierre beat
name pros with Energy Flux in play.

The most popular archetype in Columbus was

"some sort of The Rock" with the top-"nishing
deck two-for-one Red Rock in the Top 16. Most
adherents of The Rock assumed that their
Pernicous Deeds would allow them to dominate
A$nity, but Pierre's Somber Hoverguards
o!ered surprising resistance. Aether Vial in
concert with Meddling Mage and Kami of Ancient
Law made for some interesting anti-anti-
situations. I think that the coolest play of the
tournament was Pierre Aether Vialing Meddling
Mage into play Counterspell-style while Geo!ry
Siron (himself a future PT winner) had madness
on the stack in the Columbus quarter"nals.

Legacy: This deck didn't actually have much of an

impact past Pierre's win. A$nity is still played
today, a perfectly respectable linear strategy, but
before Pro Tour–Los Angeles, the Powers That Be
banned Aether Vial and Disciple of the Vault in
Extended, taking a two-thirds chomp out of the
A$nity triangle o!ense. Maybe that itself is a
worthy legacy: Pierre and his A$nity deck scared
the future out of another "ght! In more recent
times, cards like Kataki, War's Wage and Ancient
Grudge have further suppressed A$nity's ability
to perform at the highest levels; then again, it
was right there in the Top 8 of the most recent
Extended Pro Tour!

I think that the greater legacy of A$nity, and

Pierre in particular, is the transformative attitude
it brought to the Pro Tour. I think that the top
players have in a sense "learned their lesson"
and have shown that they are not going to lie
down for a popular linear strategy. Just look at
the lists from PT–Valencia, with many—enough—
decks stacked to the rafters with Dredge
suppression: no free turn-two kills!

#8. Tax Rack – Randy Buehler, 1st Place North

American Extended Championship

RANDY BUEHLER'S TAX RACK

Y T F

DECKLIST

STATS

SAMPLE HAND

SORT BY: Overview

Creature (14)
4 Savannah Lions
2 Gorilla Shaman
4 Soltari Priest
4 White Knight

Instant (17)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Firestorm
3 Disenchant
4 Tithe

Artifact (7)
3 Scroll Rack
4 Mox Diamond

Enchantment (4)
4 Land Tax

Land (18)
4 Plateau
1 Savannah
8 Plains
1 Kjeldoran Outpost
4 Wasteland

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)
1 Disenchant
2 Gaea's Blessing
3 Aura of Silence
2 Suleiman's Legacy
2 Honorable Passage
2 Sand Golem
3 Pyroblast

Land Tax is, historically, one of the most

interesting cards in the history of competitive
Magic. After the "rst Pro Tour, a player who ran
two copies in his Top 8 deck declared that you
could only compete in Standard if you played
Land Tax or Necropotence. Land Tax was
subsequently restricted; Necropotence wasn't
(ha ha). Land Tax allowed for the most
interesting mind games and blu!s. How did you
play it? How did you play against it? How did the
other guy?

In one of my favorite PTQ Top 8 stories of all time (Extended of course), the amazing Al
Tran was up against a "rst-turn Land Tax. He refused to play lands. His opponent
seemed to say Fine! I won't play lands either! If he couldn't get an advantage on Al playing
lands, no one was going to play lands. It turned out Al was just mana-screwed, and the
whole "sit-there" game just bought him time.

Land Tax was the kind of card that turned

"mulligan to four" into "automatic win." Land Tax
was, conditionally, more di$cult to play around
and play against than even the skill-testing Fact
or Fiction. And it was cheap. Look at Randy's deck!
Everything cost one or two. He didn't have to
play any lands past the second; his opponent
probably did. Free Ancestral Recall! Scroll Rack let
him put back those lands, trade them in for
spells, and Tax for the same paltry eight basics
over and over again.

Context: Randy's deck was simply the perfect

deck to win the tournament. He handled the
more popular "PT Jank" look at red-white weenie
with tremendous card advantage; the world will
not likely see a player with better Firestorm skills
again.

Legacy: Tax Rack was probably the best Scroll

Rack deck ever in terms of sheer e$ciency, but
following the rotation of Land Tax from
Extended, there were certainly some other
interesting looks, including Zvi Mowshowitz's
numerous engines and the deck that Randy used
to win the Standard title at the 1998 U.S. National
Championships, Mulch-Rack / Oath.

Before the rest of the world recognized his sheer

perfection at Magic: The Gathering, Jon Finkel
#ew himself down to Rio de Janeiro (site of that
year's Magic Invitational) and won the
concurrent Grand Prix with a similar Land Tax
strategy. Note the o!ense of Empyrial Armor
(nice combo with Land Tax!) over the controlled
elegance of Buehler's mana costs emphasizing
his engine:

JON FINKEL'S TAX RACK

Y T F

DECKLIST

STATS

SAMPLE HAND

SORT BY: Overview

Creature (18)
3 Phyrexian War Beast
4 Savannah Lions
4 White Knight
3 Order of Leitbur
4 Soltari Priest

Sorcery (1)
1 Armageddon

Instant (16)
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Firestorm
3 Disenchant
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Tithe

Artifact (2)
2 Scroll Rack

Enchantment (8)
4 Empyrial Armor
4 Land Tax

Land (15)
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Plateau
10 Plains

60 Cards

#7. Ped Bun Oath – Dr. Ped Bun, 2nd Place

Extended PTQ

It was perhaps the greatest tragedy in the history

of PTQ Magic. Dr. Ped Bun, innovative deck
designer and future Regional Champion, had his
opponent locked out in the "nals of the last PTQ
of the season. The blue envelope was an inch
away. Impulse; look at the top four... Damn it!
That's Brainstorm! Three cards not four! Game loss.

Ped's creation didn't die with that tragic PTQ

"nish. Far from it. Bob Maher, who had made
Top 8 of Grand Prix–Kansas City 1999 with the
deck a week earlier, chose to make it his
memorable Weapon of Choice in Extended. Of
his numerous memorable Extended "nishes, the
win at PT–Chicago is probably the most
memorable; Bob followed up with a win with
essentially the same deck at Grand Prix–Seattle
the same year, on the way to his Player of the
Year title.

BOB MAHER'S OATH

Y T F

DECKLIST

STATS

SAMPLE HAND

SORT BY: Overview

Creature (3)
1 Shard Phoenix
1 Morphling
1 Spike Feeder

Sorcery (2)
2 Gaea's Blessing

Instant (23)
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
1 Disrupt
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Forbid
4 Force of Will
3 Impulse
2 Swords to Plowshares

Artifact (2)
1 Null Rod
1 Powder Keg

Enchantment (7)
1 Abundance
1 Aura of Silence
1 Ivory Mask
2 Oath of Druids
1 Sylvan Library
1 Trade Routes

Land (23)
1 Faerie Conclave
3 Flood Plain
1 Re#ecting Pool
1 Savannah
3 Treetop Village
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)
1 Aura of Silence
1 Gaea's Blessing
2 Oath of Druids
1 Powder Keg
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Sacred Ground
1 Crater Hellion
1 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Compost
1 Light of Day
2 Mana Short
1 Peacekeeper

Context: By the win in Chicago, Oath was known.

Moreover, it was known to be one of the best
decks. Nevertheless, Maher navigated hostile
tournaments on consecutive occasions to win in
Chicago and Seattle; the latter being even more