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By: JPLiberato, JPLiberato
Feb 15 2009 10:09am
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Hi everybody, and welcome back to Extended PDC Deck Analysis! It has been a long time since my last column. It is not that I didn't want or didn't have time to write. The point is that there was no inovation at Extended PDC. People were not playing anything new. Esper Cogs, Orzhov Blink and MGA got, each one, 3 trophies in the first 11 events of the season. But for XPDC 4.12 there was new stuff everywhere.

I'll start with myself. I was playing Grimdrifter, a Standard deck from last season. I don't know the original designer, but it was made famous by Boin. It tries to control the game interacting Grim Harvest with powerful CIP effects like Mulldrifter and Mournwhelk. It also runs a Mystical Teachings package for answers and card advantage. I tried to port it to Extended with moderate sucess. I went 3-0 (6-0) in the swiss part of the tourney, but lost to the eventual winner at the Top4 round (after beating him at the last swiss round). The deck was in a very 'crude' format, and there's room for lots of improvements. Other deck that I briefly saw playing was Kehmesis' Death's Touch. I don't know much about the specifics of his deck, but it was the first deck I've seem to run more than 1 Viridian Longbow. The equipmament is abused with cards like Tidehollow Strix and Oona's Gatewarden. It also run counterspells and good red removal like Skred. His list is not available, but that's enough inspiration for you to design your own list, right?

Now, it is time to talk about our event winner. Blightning Aggro, piloted to victory by Dark_Knight05. He had a slow start during the swiss rounds, with a BYE, a win and a loss. But it was good enough to give him the third seed into top4, where he went 2-0, beating Grimdrifter and Elves!. Let's take a look at his list, and see how it works.

Blightning Aggro
Pauper Extended, by Shayden
Creatures
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Noggle Bandit
4 Stream Hopper
12 cards

Other Spells
4 Blightning
4 Clout of the Dominus
4 Incinerate
4 Rift Bolt
3 Last Gasp
2 Grim Harvest
2 Raven's Crime
2 Shard Volley
25 cards
Lands
8 Snow-Covered Mountain
8 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Rakdos Carnarium
3 Mountain
23 cards

Blightning

 

The first time we saw that deck was one week before XPDC 4.12, at XPDC 4.11. As far as I know, it was designed by Shayden. He piloted the deck to a strong second place finish, going 4-1 at the tourney. Hence, we have a deck that was at the final table in two consecutive events. I'm not sure if the name "Aggro" fits the deck. It sure can play the aggro role when paired against heavy control. But Keldon Marauders is the only aggressive drop. Stream Hopper and Noggle Bandit are not worth the (digital) cardboard they are printed. They only work with Clout of the Dominus. Enchanting a creature is always a delicate process, where you risk a 2-for-1 situation. Anyway, it's a burn deck that will try to deal 20 damage at the opponent as soon as possible. Blightning is an inefficient burn spell, at 3 mana, but has built in card advantage in the form of hand disruption, so it's more than worth it's cost. Full playsets of Incinerate and Rift Bolt, plust two copies of Shard Volley will complete the burn package. I'm not sure if Grim Harvest belongs to this deck. The creatures are not worth the trouble of getting them back. I'd play two extra Shard Volleys here.

Sideboard makes space for Magma Spray to handle threats that don't like to stay dead. Even if it's not going to help you fight Sanctum Gargoyles, it's still a great card at some situations. Green aggro decks comes in two flavors at Extended PDC, Elves! and MGA. And they are both very strong. To deal with either deck, you have 3 Martyr of Ashes, 3 Echoing Decay (that will also help you versus Gobbostorm) and a playset of Rend Flesh that will kill anything but changelings and Guardian of the Guildpact (this guy is not heavily played anymore, recent sets brought too many gold removal spells). Other spirits creatures simple do not see play. Relic of Progenitus is there to stop any graveyard recursion strategy, common at cogs decks and sometimes at some rogue builds.

The deck is still young, and there's room to at least tweak the numbers of some cards. If I'd play the deck next week, I'd start, as I mentioned above, cutting the Grim Harvests and adding more Shard Volleys. Cut the Last Gasps for Skreds and change the mana base to 16 Snow-Covered Mountain, 3 Snow-Covered Swamp and 4 Terramorphic Expanse. At the sideboard, I'd go with 4 Martyr of Ashes, 4 Wail of the Nim, 4 Lash Out and 3 Relic of Progenitus.

Before I finish this article, I must say that recently we saw a post from Yogev_ezra at pdcmagic.com Extended forum. It seems that UPDC will come back some day at the near future. That's great news! Not only we get another Extended PDC tourney, but it's also played at a different time zone, so we can get more people into the Extended fun! Given that it's played at Sundays, I'll probably find time to play one or two events during the season.

And that's what I had for you today! I'll be back here anytime soon with more Extended tech before we finish the current season. Until then, I hope you can have lots of fun building and playing Pauper Extended decks. Who knows? Maybe someday we get our own official filter!

3 Comments

Nice by Goblins then mo... at Fri, 02/20/2009 - 17:54
Goblins then more goblins's picture

Pretty good deck, i wish i had more ice age cards.

I just Love this game by balililix at Mon, 07/09/2012 - 11:20
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3

I just Love this game

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