The Prodigal Player

This my first post, and I think I’ll just get right into it. This is shaping up to be an
interesting Extended PTQ season. Much has been made of the fact that there hasn’t been
a clear frontrunner so far. Here is how I tend to breakdown the metagame:

Fast Combo
Dark Depths
Hypergenesis
All In Red
Dredge
Elves

Control Combo
U/G Scapeshift
Thopter/Tezzeret

Aggro Combo
R/G Scapeshift

Aggro Control
Faeries

Aggro
Zoo (Big)
Zoo (Small)
Burn
Affinity

What I find interesting about this metagame is that within such a combo-rich environment, sideboard cards like Cranial Extraction and Extirpate are getting a thumbs-up from people who normally don’t endorse them. I like to call cards like Cranial Extraction “silver bullet” cards, because generally you are using them in hopes of ripping the lynchpin out of your opponents deck, leaving them few ways to meaningfully expect to pull out a win.

I found myself wondering: which of these decks can ignore Cranial Extraction? Assuming you resolve Cranial, ALL of the “Fast Combo” decks will be severely compromised. The same goes for U/G Scapeshift and Thopter type decks.

Although you can’t grow complacent, once you have resolved Cranial Extraction against a combo deck, your odds of winning against these decks has gone up significantly, regardless of what your own deck choice is.

Resolving Cranial Extraction, however, is often simply too slow, or too easily disrupted to be reliable. But the idea was powerful enough for me to consider: could I build a deck that can efficiently employ a “silver bullet” type effects while also remaining competitive against the non-combo decks in the format? Here is the list I came up with, after some initial testing:

“The Void”

4 Fulminator Mage
4 Shriekmaw
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
2 Oona, Queen of the Fae
14

4 Sadistic Sacrament
4 Duress
3 Wrench Mind
3 Cranial Extraction
3 Tendrils of Corruption
3 Extirpate
1 Thoughtseize
1 Sorin Markov
22

24 Swamp

Sideboard:
2 Night of Souls’ Betrayal
2 Ravenous Trap
4 Shimian Specter
4 Black Knight
3 Eradicate

The basic premise of this deck is to:

A. Disrupt their early combo/permission through Duress, Thoughtseize and Extirpate.
B. Strip their deck of key cards with Cranial Extraction, Sadistic Sacrament and Extirpate
C. Kill them either with Oona (or mill them with her), kick a Sadistic Sacrament, or simply beat them down with shriekmaw.

This 3-part plan has been highly effective in my initial testing against decks that rely on a combo.

Regarding aggro matchups such as Zoo and Burn, these games can be much more tense. Against Zoo, however, the deck runs eleven creature removal options (gatekeeper, shriekmaw, tendrils), and each of these options gives you on average better than a 1 to 1 trade. Post-board sides in Eradicate in place of Cranial Extraction. If you can survive an initial barrage, their deck will have been thinned of threats to the point that you can land an Oona or Sorin and eventually take over.

The Shimian Specters are for post-board games where opponents have sided out a majority of their creature removal, as a lot of their removal doesn’t profitably interact with this deck. An unanswered Specter will eviscerate their deck, stealing the game.

I believe that this deck’s approach demonstrates a gaping weakness in a majority of decks being sleeved up this season.

Welcome, new readers; I’d love to hear your thoughts.

This the first article posted on this site, and before you comment, please read the “About this site” and “How to use this site” sections. I am absolutely open to criticism here, but please keep it respectful, and keep in mind that my goals in writing and posting decklists here are to incite dialogue and get readers thinking outside the box. I’m *not* here to declare my strategic superiority.