After this rather extensive analysis of the card pool in the first part of my article, I would like to proceed to a recap of the most representative and format defining cards and card combinations, that will influence deck construction and ultimately the metagame.
With the gigantic card pool extended has, every color has at least 1 strong mono color build. This brings very solid and reliable decks, from the point of view of the mana basis, which should be taken into account accordingly. During this recap I will give an example of a simple possible sligh build to illustrate this recap.
First I will define the elements that should be taken into account for deck building in their context, the boundary conditions so to say.

8 Cities of Brass: This allows players to design their decks with a main color and multiple splash cards to compensate some deficiencies the deck might have, or for powerful gold spells. All combinations are possible each one with it’s particular strength. In the past 5cG builds were pretty successful and popular and I believe this archetype is still viable. The good early drops green has like River Boa and Wild Mongrel, powered by rancor and backed up by some direct damage, removal and Armageddon like effects gives you a very consistent archetype. Green also features cards like Birds of Paradise and Krosan Tusker to avoid further mana issues. Other good builds that have been successful in the past were 5cW using the powerful spectrum of WW cards and adding Vindicates, Meddling Mages and some removal to the mix, or 5cB with a more creature control focus splashing for some Vindicates, Deeds and similar.

A set of friendly color Fetchlands: The Fetchlands not only allow players to access the correct mana at the right moment, but also have a strong thinning value that allow players to actually play with “less land” or at least to draw less land improving the card quality. Combined with brainstorm like effects give the deck good manipulation and eases accessing the right cards. I would not be surprised to see decks running one single basic land of a particular color to enable certain cards.
Strong Combo Basis and Tutors for it: As seen during the Block review earlier on this format has a large amount of cards that can combine for “I win” like effects and at least 20 instant tutor cards to get the missing components. There are a few decks that can kill you in the first 4 turns if not disrupted or stopped. This turns the environment into a very aggressive one, where beatdown strategies have to lower the mana curve and attack faster and fiercer in order to keep up. Among the viable combo decks, I count Aluren with either Arctic Merfolk with Ghitu Slinger or Rishadan Cutpurse loop for the kill. I believe this deck with the aid of some Vampiric Tutors and Academy Rectors, and some disruption against control, can have excellent chances to win in very few rounds. Another good Combo deck I have been emphasizing on during the main analysis part would be an Enchantment build with Enchantress, Auratogs, Rancor and lots of enchantments. I have been testing this archetype and it has good chances even against control decks, since it can simply outrace them dropping more permanents and threats than the permission player can handle. Definitely one deck to watch out for.
Oath of Druids is also a combo possibility especially in a creature heavy field as this either in a Suicide or Turboland form. I believe both decks are playable; it’s yet to see if they are consistent enough for the format.
If we consider Reanimator a Combo deck, which is pretty accurate actually, then we have at least a 3rd strong and consistent combodeck in this format. A sample deck for the reanimator archetype could look as follows:

Reanimator 2002 Nestor Rodriguez
	Format: New_Extended
»Apprentice Format«
Read the article that included this deck HERE
Main Deck	Sideboard
1 Nether Spirit 1 Phantom Nishoba 3 Squee, Goblin Nabob 1 Verdant Force 1 Visara the Dreadful 3 Buried Alive 1 Contamination 4 Duress 4 Entomb 4 Exhume 2 Life/Death 1 Mutilate 4 Reanimate 4 Vampiric Tutor 4 Zombie Infestation 3 Rishadan Port 19 Swamp	2 Cabal Therapy 3 Diabolic Edict 1 Infest 3 Kill Switch 2 Mutilate 1 Perish 3 Phyrexian Negator
Total deck value: $
Notes:
NONE
Average Casting Cost (ACC)= 2.29 Spells by Color: Cards by Type: *Hover mouse cursor over pie chart to see ==>> COLOR/TYPE : # CARDS : % OF CARDS. *Left click on pie chart or legend to isolate a field.

The deckbuild is pretty straightforward. Seven ways to get your graveyard full, zombie infestation combined with Squee as a token engine, some reanimation and discard as early disruption and a few silver Bullets you can tutor for with the Vampirics. The sideboard is not particularly tuned for everything, just a few cards against control in general, some against early weenie rushes, and Kill Switches for artifact decks. When the metagame is more developed it can be certainly be tuned accordingly. I would also suggest enhancing this deck with green for naturalize or deed from the sideboard, which could help fighting some evil cards as planar void.

12 edicts (black removal): This is a very interesting issue in my opinion. Black has at least 12 possible slots to get rid of pesky protection from X creatures or untargeteable creatures. Powerhouses like Morphling can be eliminated with a simple Innocent blood. This turns strategies with few creatures into relatively difficult approach. A reanimator deck could just animate a verdant force to play around it, but other control builds that choose to 2 Morphlings, for instance, as finishers will have a rough time. If the environment shifts into a critter heavy beatdown paradise, this kind of deck could easily dominate using the many efficient removals available. My prediction is that Bx control is a very playeable archetype, splashing for enchantment removal, and/or permission it could handle almost every deck.

The Artifact Pack: As I explained before, Saga’s influence on extended is really enormous. All the mana acceleration and powerful artifacts like Masticore and Phyrexian Processor make just Artifact decks work. My experience with mono Brown is either you draw well or you just sit there with a bunch of colorless mana and nothing serious to do. Another big problem these decks have to face is sideboard hate from other decks, as it can shut them down completely with cards like Kill Switch or a well timed Naturalize.
This is certainly not my favorite archetype but its power is not to be denied. The Blue artifact builds gains upheaval, as a reset button or finisher and the red artifact builds can now wish for some powerful red spells to cast.

The 3 wishes: The 3 Judgment wishes (Red, Green and Blue) have had a huge impact on the Standard format since they became legal. I believe they will be a similar force extended. The flexibility they provide for their cheap casting cost, and their ability to get the player the card they need in the right moment, make them extremely valuable. Expect these goodie in all kinds of forms and varieties refreshing old archetypes and probably creating new ones.

Every Monocolor: I stated earlier on that every Color has at least one viable archetype for the new extended season. Actually most colors have many except for white, who seems to be doomed to playing weenies and casting Armageddon afterwards. WW is a really straightforward decktype and it has been around since the beginning of time. With the loss of Swords to Plowshares, the White mage is either forced to run sub optimal white removal cards, splash for a different color or just ignore the opponent critters completely. Who to play this is up to you, but I believe WW lacks the speed of sligh or black suicide or the punch of a stompy green build.
Blue can play with artifacts as already explained, or draw go builds adapted to a fast hostile environment. A big permission wall, and a few finisher cards seem like good enough arguments compete with other decks in the format. Another possibility is a black splash, with all the dual lands available, to fight blue’s weaknesses and the addition of some good sideboard hatred, or a 5cu control blue accessing many golden powercards and different spells in other colors. Even a Merkfolk weenie rush deck with miracle growth’s free spell engine doesn’t look that difficult to get to work.
Black offers us the typical suicide style of deck, the reanimator already posted, which is almost mono black, and a control-oriented approach with all the creature removal available and probably even a splash from other colors for more flexibility. The Bx kind of deck is actually one of my favorites for the coming season and it’s one of the fields I am testing most extensively.
Red has the typical sligh build that seems never to completely disappear from the scene. As long as red has some fairly decent weenies and burn, this archetype will be around, count on that. Since this is a solid choice and definitely one of the decks to beat next season, I will now show a sample deck of how this could look like.

Sligh 2002 Nestor Rodriguez
	Format: New_Extended
»Apprentice Format«
Read the article that included this deck HERE
Main Deck	Sideboard
3 Goblin Cadets 4 Goblin Lackey 4 Goblin Patrol 4 Goblin Piledriver 4 Jackal Pup 4 Mogg Fanatic 4 Mogg Flunkies 3 Firebolt 4 Reckless Charge 4 Seal of Fire 4 Shock 4 Barbarian Ring 10 Mountain 4 Wooded Foothills	3 Cursed Scroll 3 Flaring Pain 1 Forest 3 Kill Switch 3 Naturalize 2 Price of Progress
Total deck value: $
Notes:
NONE
Average Casting Cost (ACC)= 1.31 Spells by Color: Cards by Type: *Hover mouse cursor over pie chart to see ==>> COLOR/TYPE : # CARDS : % OF CARDS. *Left click on pie chart or legend to isolate a field.

This deck has a really low land count and every card is a threat. It’s a pretty uncomplicated build with an average casting cost of 1,2, definitely a deck you don’t want to be screwed against. The Wooded Foot not only let you play virtually with less land, but also enable adding one forest in the sideboard and splashing green for solutions against horsers like Worship. A possible sideboard for this deck could be as follows
1 Forest
3 Naturalize
3 Flaring Pain
3 Cursed Scroll
3 Kill Switch
2 Price of Progress

Again this sideboard does not consider the metagame and it doesn’t have a solution for a quickly animated Phantom Nishoba or Verdant Force. A possible way around this could be replacing that Forest for a Swamp and the Wooded Foothills for Bloodstained Mire and adding things like Terminate or Planar Void to fight reanimation. Those are just possibilities, but in general I must say that if you have a sub optimal hand this deck can basically run over you so be prepared. I personally wouldn’t even attempt to a tournament if my deck doesn’t at least 50-50 against this kind of threat, but that is just me and my sligh paranoia.
Red also has Ponza style decks, heavy on land destruction, or Red artifact builds using the Welder for some amazing interactions.
To conclude this section we have the green and all it’s different beatdown variants. My personal favorite from the Mono green decks is the Elf one. The concept is really simple, use the early boost to cast a lot of guys, stall the opponent with cards like Plow Under and eventually win with some massive effect like coat of arm, Overrun, Deranged Hermit or a random Silvos. This deck can kill really fast, and adding cards like Masticore or Cursed Scroll it can fight its greatest weakness, the lack of removal or non-creature way to win. Other stompy or Trinity build will just use the Weenies in Saga and some later expansion to create a fast early attack. As will all other colors Mono green decks can easily splash for other colors using the painlands or the cities.

Single Cards, sealing the deal: To conclude this recap I would like again address some cards that I find really environment defining. The first card is Meddling Mage. With all the possible Combo decks, this card punishes narrow strategies, and forces them to have an answer to it or succumb miserably. This wizard will even turn into a more important factor as the format takes shape and goes towards a certain direction. The ability to stop a certain cards from coming into play can turn a bad match up upside down. For me definitely one of the Top 5 cards in extended.
The second card is Pernicious Deeds. I have mentioned this card all along during this article and not without a good reason. This is probably the only fast and cheap way to stop hordes of weenies assaulting AND combo decks all in one. The lack of Cards like Nevinyrral's Disk, pushes the card to another level, to the point where if it wasn’t for the prohibitive casting cost, you would see 4 copies of this card in every deck. Expect this card, and play around it if you suspect that your opponent runs them. Definitely another Top 5 card of the format before it even started.

The Metagame
To conclude this article I would like to review what metagame we can expect for this new season. From the analysis and recap we can see that there are a lot of possible deck choices. And those seen so far are not the only ones Rock and his Millions, Counter slivers, Fires of Yavimaya, Rebels, Tradewind Rider decks, Opposition decks, and the list goes on and on. They are certainly not all at the same power level, but at least pretty playable.
So we have an unknown metagame with multiple solid choices and possibilities.
My advice to you when choosing a deck for this new season is:
- Be aware of the speed of this format and act accordingly
- Be sure you can deal with artifacts and enchantments or a combo deck might just eat you alive
- Don’t be afraid to compensate the weaknesses of your deck with other color/s, since, as seen so far, this is not such a hard task in extended with the current resource pool
- Don’t let a bunch of goblins kill you
It’s up to you to pick the best deck suited deck for extended, but right now, after my testing and experiences with new extended, I would say that Reanimator, Sligh and Mono Green elves are the Decks to Beat. I predict a lot of these at least at the beginning of the season, so act accordingly.
My feeling at this point tells me that Bx is the way to go. Black offers you so many control choices, and answers to pretty much any strategy with graveyard disruption, hand disruption and creature control.
I believe this article is already long enough so I won’t make it any longer.
For those that managed to read this far, congratulations! I hope it was at least a little insightful interesting.

As a final note, many of those that know me, might be wondering why I almost didn’t mention Battle of Wits as a possible archetype or deck choice. Well I believe in this card, and take it certainly more seriously than the average magic player. With over 24 Tutors available in extended you can certainly build a pretty “consistent” deck, but I intend an extra article on Battle of the Wits strategy and give that card the credit it deserves, I might even send it to brainburst too ;-)

Best Regards,