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ROGUE PLAY Going Rogue in Extended Part I

by Nafiz Erman

Hello reader readers and welcome back to Rogue Play, your primary source for rogue options for many formats. This week we will once again ponder new rogue ideas and our format for this week will be the new Extended. Last week in this article, I showed you the net decks for the format. You saw what people play and what you should expect to play against. And this week I will show you what kind of nice decks you can build for this nice format. Speaking of building decks...

Call me old fashioned but deck building is a very important aspect of trading card games. This kind of games aren't only about buying the cards and going out and playing. Well yes, those are important parts as well of course. The "trading" part of trading card games wants you to trade for cards you don't own. Getting the pieces of a deck one by one with small steps is a lot of fun on its own. And yes, the "games" part of trading card games wants you to go out and play!

But what happened to the deck building part?

Well, net decks killed them; that simple. Looking at a card and thinking about the possibilities is now not a part of Magic. It was, but not anymore. Nowadays we just look at a card and if we find it interesting then we google it and look at the decks playing it. So the discovery part of Magic is sadly dead. Nowadays a card is only good if you can find it in the "Decks of the Week" section of dailymtg.com.

These may be the facts but I refuse to accept them! I refuse to let my decks build for me. I still enjoy discovering cards and building decks. Of course I know that I am never going to win anything significant just because I refuse to play the best decks. But you know what; that's not my intention! My only intention is to have fun while winning and to win while having fun. And therefore I still build my own decks.

And in this article I will present you a few nice decks I built recently for the new Extended. If your aim is to win a Pro Tour or something like that, then I don't think you will find anything useful here. But if you're looking for a few good, powerful and fun deck ideas for Extended, then you're at the right place.

Oh and here are the decks.

 

DECK #1
Gang of Wolves
 

Every deck starts with an inspiration. You look at a card and say "Yes! That's my card" and then start building a deck around it. Sometimes this is a very complicated card that requires you to play some really special cards but sometimes it is something as simple as this one:

There are a few things going on here. One is that this dude needs either Elves or Shamans to "operate". There are actually a lot of such creatures around, especially within the card pool of Extended. But the other thing about this card is limiting our options: Wolf-Skull Shaman is no ordinary Shaman. When he sees one of his companions on top of your library, he summons a 2/2 Wolf creature to the battlefield.

2/2 Wolf tokens, eh? Hmm... I remember seeing a card that can use them effectively. Could it be this one:

Yes! This is the one. First and foremost he is a Shaman too and he really does know how to use those Wolves. Creature removal in Green is scarce and therefore Master of the Wild Hunt is a very special creature.

But wait, is that all? Just two creatures? Of course not dear readers. Check this one out:

How lovely! He's an Elf, he spawns 2/2 Wolf tokens and as if those aren't enough, he also gives our tokens deathtouch.

One other interesting creature is Wolfbriar Elemental from Zendikar. It may not be an Elf but it is very useful in expanding our army of Wolves.

Now these are all the interesting cards in my opinion. A true and pure Johnny might also include cards like Howl of the Night Pack or Fable of Wolf and Owl to this deck but I'm neither a true Johnny nor a pure one, and therefore I will stop here with the Wolves theme and concentrate now in making this a really good deck.

By the way, I will present you a few different versions of this deck. One will be for the TP Room and the others will be for the Casual Room. 

Okay, to make this a really good deck there are some cards I have in mind which are these:

As this will be a deck that can generate tons of creatures, Eldrazi Monument is the first card that comes to mind. 2/2 deathtouch Wolves are surely nice but why stop there? Why not turn them into 3/3 flying indestructible, deathtouch monsters? And what about Jace? Well, I said I am going to make this a really good deck. Besides, he works really well with Wolf-Skull Shaman.

As I'm already in Blue, I don't think a few counterspells would hurt. As a matter of fact they would be perfect. With the amount of creatures I will have in play, Unified Will will always counter a spell and the other two don't need any special explanation I guess.

And when put together, all those cards look like this:

 

Pretty nice, no?

With the sideboard I aim to accomplish a few things. Scattershot Archer is in there against the Fae. Krosan Grip mainly comes in against Bitterblossom but there are some other nasty artifacts and enchantments as well. Relic of Progenitus shuts down Living End decks as well as the "Burning Willows" combo (that is Punishing Fire plus Grove of the Burnwillows). And the other counterspells come in against Scapeshift decks as well as other decks with cards that needs to be countered such as Ad Nauseam.

Okay let's say that you liked this deck but want to turn it into a casual one. Which cards should go and which cards should replace them?

Surely Jace, the Mind Sculptor must go and the mana base must be re-designed. Also Pact of Negation, Eldrazi Monument, Noble Hierarch and Cryptic Command aren't very budget friendly cards. And finally you don't need a sideboard for the Casual Room and so all those fifteen cards may be removed.

The first replacement is easy; Noble Hierarch will become Birds of Paradise. If you don't own the Birds, which you really should, you can still go out with Llanowar Elves. The second replacement is also obvious; Eldrazi Monument becomes Coat of Arms. Even though it works for both sides of the table, Coat of Arms will still get the job done. Just be careful when you play against some random Gobos.dec though.

Okay now the hardest part. What can replace Jace, the Mind Sculptor? Jace Beleren maybe? No, it can't. Of course we like to draw some extra cards but Jace, the Mind Sculptor's main purpose in the deck is to arrange the top of our library. Crystal Ball then? Surely it works but I have a better card in mind.

This one to exact:

I choose Gilt-Leaf Seer because she's an Elf and a Shaman. Alternatively you can try cards like Ponder or the aforementioned Crystal Ball as well.

And the final card I will add to the deck is Shared Discovery. Ancestral Vision might look like a better card and as a matter of fact it is. But as we are building a budget version, I choose to play Shared Discovery.

And after re-designing the mana base as well, our budget version looks like this:

 

Now this is something you can pick up for a game in the Casual Room!

One other way to build this deck is to go Mono Green. Not only you will have a less troublesome mana base but you will also replace those Blue cards with Overrun.

And if you are curious, here's that version:

 

Other than adding four Overruns to the deck, I made a few other changes too; such as adding Garruk Wildspeaker. He's excellent in this deck but if you don't own the card, you can always try something as simple as Giant Growth or Might of Old Krosa.

And finally I'm sure careful eyes among you noticed the other change I made, which is to replace Gilt-Leaf Seer with Troll Ascetic. This is a more aggressive deck than the previous one and therefore the troll is more useful than the seer.

Okay dear readers, this was the first rogue deck I had in mind for the new Extended. Let's move onto the other one which may look similar to this.

 

DECK #2
Warriors of Gaea

Before writing this article, I went over all the cards of Extended and found myself over two hundred interesting cards. I know this is a long list and no, you don't have to worry; I will not build a deck around each one of them. Next week's Part Two will be the last one. 

The synergy between Wolf-Skull Shaman, Master of the Wild Hunt and Wren's Run Packmaster was great and so that was my first deck. And for the second deck I decided to visit a long forgotten friend foe.

This one to be exact:

To be honest, I never played this creature myself but I always fought it back in the TSP Block days. I played many different decks back then but my personal favorite was a  Blink Riders deck. That was a deck that was using a few great "enters the battlefield" cards such as Avalanche Riders, Riftwing Cloudskate and Bogardan Hellkite, and then it was abusing their abilities with Momentary Blink. And all the time I entered tournaments, I fought those annoying mono Green decks that were playing Groundbreaker as a four-of.

But now it's time. It is finally time to summon this elemental onto the battlefield to break the ground and to crush my enemies!

Wow, that sounded too Gruul, don't you think? Indeed it did because I'm going to use Groundbreaker not in a Mono Green deck but in an even more angry Gruul deck. The creatures of this deck are so angry that they can't even wait a turn to attack. No dear readers, this is a typical Gruul deck full with hasty creatures that have only one thing in mind which is to "Crush them" as Borborygmos would say.

As this deck is so hasty and angry, I will not make long explanations and will cut to the chase directly.

 

So what do you think? Apart from Llanowar Elves which isn't in the deck to attack and Tattermunge Maniac, all the creatures have Haste and they all are mean. Actually I thought long about replacing Tattermunge Maniac with Goblin Guide, but the Guide needs some Mountains which of course isn't a good idea if I am aiming for a third turn (or a second sometimes) Groundbreaker.

So the idea here is very simple. Actually it can't get any simpler than this. Just play your dudes and turn them sideways. I always liked more complicated and sophisticated decks, but sometimes the answer is as simple as casting a Bloodbraid Elf and cascading into a Groundbreaker. That is really so... uhm... Gruul, I would say.

Okay let's build a casual version now. Actually I would play this deck in the Casual Room and as a matter of fact I even do so and no one complained so far. But if you don't own some of the cards such as Vengevine or Grove of the Burnwillows or Thornling, then I have a different version in mind which plays more budget friendly cards and still enjoys its Groundbreakers.

 

This is some serious army of Warriors led by Bramblewood Paragon who gives all of them trample and saves us from playing Overrun which is way above our mana-budget for this deck. Really, a first turn Nettle Sentinel into a second turn Bramblewood Paragon into a third turn Boggart Ram-Gang is not something to be laughed at.

Of course you can make this deck even more budget friendly by replacing the fetchlands with Evolving Wilds and/or Terramorphic Expanse. You can also replace Nissa Revane with Giant Growth but I do like the deck a lot as it is.

Oh and finally, let me tell you that Talara's Battalion also fits very well into this deck. You may also try it if you own it.

 

DECK #3
Mono Black Control
 

Mono Black Control was and still is one of my favorite deck types. And I do believe that it is now the perfect time to try it in Extended because we still have Damnation in the format. Actually that, and also this one too:

A few weeks ago I took Korlash, Heir to Blackblade and built a mono Black Control deck for BYOS and entered the weekend tournament. And after a successful 5-0, I actually managed to win the tournament with that deck. But this is another tale for another article of course. What I'm trying to say is that Korlash is incredibly powerful, and let's see what we can do with him in Extended.

We will surely play Korlash, Heir to Blackblade as a four-of but he needs companions. And good ones even. So we will start with four Vampire Nighthawks for early protection. And for late game we will pick M11's hottest Black Titan; the so called Grave Titan. I think three copies will do.

Protection is the key to victory when playing this deck as is gaining life. We must prevent those ugly(!) opposing creatures from dealing damage to us and we must find a way to gain those precious life points we lose. And that's why Tendrils of Corruption and Corrupt are very important.

Tendrils of Corruption and Corrupt are excellent removal spells but they are costly in terms of mana. We also need some cheap and efficient ones and that's the reason why we will add Smother and Slaughter Pact to the deck. Oh and if killing those creatures one by one isn't enough, then we will nuke the table with Damnation. Which, as you may know, is a lot of fun.

There are of course some other cards as well in the deck but I want to talk about them after you see the list. 

 

Other than the ones I mentioned above, I also have four Thoughtseizes and two Duresses. These cards are incredibly important and I think that you know why. I also play Sign in Blood to draw cards and Sorin Markov just because he is Sorin Markov. Currently he's the best Black planeswalker there is and this deck wouldn't be complete without him.

The sideboard also offers me some nice options. Extirpate simply kills a lot of decks that rely on a few certain cards. A first turn Thoughtseize discarding that precious "I win" card into a second turn Extirpate removing all of its copies is nothing unheard of. Even if that doesn't happen all the time, you can always Extirpate that boring Cryptic Command after being countered by it.

And finally I have three Krosan Grips and a Forest to be able to cast it in the sideboard. Black is a very powerful color but it lacks a way to deal with artifacts and enchantments. This "hole" we fill with Krosan Grip which can't even be countered.

Okay and now it's time for the Casual Room version. Surely there are cards we must replace but looking at the list I see that this won't be that easy. First and foremost, there is nothing you can replace Damnation with and the same is true for Korlash, Heir to Blackblade as well. And no other big Black fattie is as good as Grave Titan. But we will find a way of course.

Let's start with our finisher. It was Grave Titan in our TP Room version but now I think we can use Dread from Lorwyn. It's a creature that doesn't know to die (unless exiled), it has Fear and it kills opposing creatures without even touching. So yes, Dread it shall be. Our removal package stays. We will continue playing Tendrils of Corruption, Corrupt, a lone Slaughter Pact and two Smothers. Vampire Nighthawk can also be considered as removal and he also stays. But just because we don't have Damnation, we will need more removal. And therefore we will play Shriekmaw and Consuming Vapors as well. Oh and our choice for that planeswalker spot is now Liliana Vess of course. She has her uses and we will surely find ways to gain advantage off of her. But sadly there are no cards that we can use instead of Korlash, Heir to Blackblade. Also Thoughtseize has to go too. That means eight less cards from the original list and now we can use some other cards such as Inquisition of Kozilek together with Duress. Two of each is enough. And we will also use Beseech the Queen as well. For  we will get to hand what we need and that makes it a useful card. And finally Crystal Ball will also be in.

Okay these are a lot of new cards. Let's see how they look like.

 

Even though the power level is lower, the idea is the same: Stay alive during early turns, build your mana base, kill all that enters the battlefield, kill the opponent's hand, tutor what you need and then bring in your beater and finish the game.

Losing Damnation really hurts so if you have a couple (and you only need a couple) just add them to the deck. The Casual Room is full with Aggro decks and Damnation really is what you need in those games. A third turn Beseech the Queen into a fourth turn Damnation simply wins games you would lose otherwise.

 

WRAP UP

Okay dear readers, this is all from Rogue Play for this week. Next week in Part Two I will show you three other rogue Extended decks I like a lot and  I will also include their budget versions as well. Then I will list you some cards and ideas which are great if you like building decks. I cannot build a deck around each interesting card there is but at least I can mention them to you so that you can do something with them later. As I said at the beginning, Magic is a trading card game and deck building is an important aspect of trading card games. Just don't forget this.

 

NEXT WEEK ON ROGUE PLAY
Going Rogue in Extended, Part II

Next week I will first show you a deck that is great if you like getting blocked by other players; especially if you take it to the Casual Room. Then I will build a deck with lots of colorful cards (hmm, what could it be?) and then I will build a final one around a card I always had in my "to try sometime" list. All are great and all do work. You wonder what they are? Would you like to know what's in next week's Rogue Play? Okay, here are a few hints for you:

Deck #1: This is a deck I built around an artifact that costs to cast. The Duels of the Planeswalkers game has a nice alternate art which I would like to have on MTGO as well. 

Deck #2: We will wish us some colorful cards! I will say no more.

Deck #3: This legendary creature I built the deck around, is the brother of the most famous planeswalker ever existed. Both brothers have factories (apparently they both are industrialists) and even though the elder brother himself is more famous, the little brother's factory is far more widely known throughout the multiverse.

The first reader who can guess the three cards correctly will get a cookie.

Thanks for reading.

See you online
Nafiz Erman, aka Lord Erman