With the death of Extended announced and impending, it seems to be a nice time to build a few Extended-friendly casual decks for your next Magic night. Of course, the fact that Extended is retired as an officially-supported format does not mean that you cannot continue to play it at the kitchen table. Just consider it a casual format.

What confuses me is that they are removing it from Magic Online. Does that mean we can’t even play it in the casual rooms as a format? Or does that just mean that tournaments will cease? Maybe these questions will be answered between the writing of this article and its publication. But I’d like to be able to keep playing my casual Extended decks online.

Extended used to be called 1.X for short (as opposed to Type 1, Type 2, and Type 1.5). Here’s to the good ol’ 1.X! May you ever live at Magic nights in homes around the world!

"Dream Dismissed"

• Creatures (18)
• 2 Deadeye Navigator
• 2 Frost Titan
• 2 Mist Raven
• 4 Aether Adept
• 4 Deceiver Exarch
• 4 Dungeon Geists

• Spells (16)
• 2 Blue Sun's Zenith
• 2 Gridlock
• 2 Opportunity
• 2 Spell Contortion
• 4 Dissipate
• 4 Dismiss into Dream

• Lands (26)
• 22 Island
• 4 Halimar Depths

Buy This Deck

This deck is built around Magic 2014 Core Set card Dismiss into Dream, which turns all opposing creatures into fragile Illusions that will die when targeted by anything. First of all, it turns off their Equipment and Auras—casting an Aura or Equipping targets something, causing it to die. (Those already equipped or enchanted are okay; targeting only occurs when one is put on the stack.)

In order to help these creatures later in the game, I added Deadeye Navigator. In can flicker itself and its soulbonded creature out and back into play, thus giving you another trigger of a creature with something useful. I also needed a bit more defense, so in went the flashable Deceiver Exarch. An Exarch will either untap something of yours to block or tap down a creature to keep it from attacking. Again, these are great with the Dream later.

Once I had my creatures and enchantment set, I just had a few slots left. In went a full set of nice Dissipates. They are a great counter to end any graveyard and recursion shenanigans. From flashback to reanimation, this shuts down a lot of tricks. Spell Contortion is there for an early counter and a later-game card-draw opportunity. Speaking of which, we have Opportunity to draw cards, and it is joined by Blue Sun's Zenith. I also wanted a bit of early card sorting, so Halimar Depths was a useful choice for my land.

The last card I pulled was Lost in the Mist. Take a look at it.

I like this deck as my first deck because it uses cards from all four blocks currently in Extended (Zendikar, Scars of Mirrodin, Innistrad, and Return to Ravnica) and core sets (Opportunity, Frost Titan, and Dismiss into Dream). It truly is a nice amalgam of concepts running in these different sets across years of gameplay. It’s a fun Extended deck for your next casual night. (Plus, the concept of Dream Dismissed is interesting if Extended is your dream format . . . )

"Your Bruna Is Not My Lover"

• Creatures (16)
• 4 Ajani's Chosen
• 4 Auramancer
• 4 Mesa Enchantress
• 4 Bruna, Light of Alabaster

• Spells (20)
• 4 Forbidden Alchemy
• 2 Glimpse the Future
• 1 Indestructibility
• 1 Righteous Authority
• 2 Angelic Destiny
• 2 Celestial Mantle
• 2 Ethereal Armor
• 2 Spirit Mantle
• 4 Sphere of Safety

• Lands (24)
• 6 Island
• 8 Plains
• 2 Halimar Depths
• 4 Azorius Guildgate
• 4 Celestial Colonnade

Buy This Deck

This deck is built around making Bruna nasty. It runs ten strong Auras of various purposes to build a better Bruna. We have Ethereal Armor for cheap use, Angelic Destiny for a quality midrange Aura, and Spirit Mantle for early to turn something into a powerful blocker and an unblockable attacker; and then, we have nasty stuff for pushing the envelope. We can make our Bruna indestructible, draw an extra card per turn, or put the amazing Celestial Mantle on her.

I added both Forbidden Alchemy and Glimpse the Future to the deck for card sorting. You can toss Auras into the ’yard for Bruna to pull out later. Meanwhile, use it to find mana or key cards. I enjoy Auramancer here as a body to enchant and for the Gravedigger-like quality it adds. Mesa Enchantress is a good way of drawing cards as well, and you should never underestimate an Enchantress in a deck such as this.

Finally, look at the powerhouse of Ajani's Chosen. Not only does it make a dork when you drop an enchantment, but it can even enchant that dork with an Aura. Note that you will spit out dorks when Auras hit the battlefield from Bruna’s triggered ability.

The deck was done, but I felt it needed a few more creatures, so in went Celestial Colonnade. Like the first deck, I also wanted a bit more card sifting, and a pair of Halimar Depths followed. Then, I added four Azorius Guildgates and added basics for the rest. This deck lacks a lot of early plays, so the tempo lost by the many tap lands should prove minor at best.

One of the last cards pulled out of this deck was Martial Law.

I came up with an idea of combining these decks around another card from M14 as well. Let’s look at my deck smash!

"Dismiss into Anger"

• Creatures (16)
• 2 Auramancer
• 2 Frost Titan
• 4 Ajani's Chosen
• 4 Dungeon Geists
• 4 Mesa Enchantress

• Spells (20)
• 2 Abundant Growth
• 2 Asceticism
• 2 Rancor
• 2 Unflinching Courage
• 4 Dismiss into Dream
• 4 Oath of the Ancient Wood
• 4 Sphere of Safety

• Lands (24)
• 5 Island
• 5 Plains
• 6 Forest
• 2 Breeding Pool
• 2 Hallowed Fountain
• 2 Temple Garden
• 2 Terramorphic Expanse

Buy This Deck

It harnesses cards from both decks. Frost Titan and Dungeon Geists join Mesa Enchantress, Ajani's Chosen, and Auramancer. I dropped Bruna and the large number of Auras and settled on just a pair each of Rancors and Unflinching Courages. They’ll make the deck less prone to Aura failure when someone targets one of my enchanted dudes with a Murder.

Another tool for that protection is Asceticism. Not only are my creatures hexproofed up all nice and shiny, but I can regenerate them, too. Finally, check out the full blast of Sphere of Safety in this deck. It can still draw a card off the Mesa Enchantress, make a dork off the Chosen, and then also send a +1/+1 counter to a creature of mine or kill an opposing creature. The deck still manages twenty enchantments of various sorts for fun.

It lacks strong card-draw, and the creature base is reduced in size. That makes it a bit less consistent. Perhaps one way to shore that up would be to add card-draw cards of various types and drop the numbers of some four-ofs to three-ofs, such as the Oath and Dream.

All right, now let’s move past these two concepts and into another sort of deck completely.

"Mono-Black This!"

• Creatures (18)
• 2 Butcher of Malakir
• 2 Harvester of Souls
• 2 Massacre Wurm
• 2 Nirkana Revenant
• 4 Crypt Ghast
• 4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
• 2 Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Liliana of the Dark Realms

• Spells (13)
• 3 Suffer the Past
• 4 Murder
• 2 Mind Sludge
• 2 Grave Betrayal
• 2 Lashwrithe

• Lands (25)
• 25 Swamp

Buy This Deck

This is a decent enough mono-black control deck, built around Liliana of the Dark Realms and with Swamps enhanced by both Crypt Ghast and Nirkana Revenant.

I added various cards to the deck to flesh it out. For the early game, I think Gatekeeper of Malakir is great. You just drop it with a kicker, and you have a 2/2 body, and you force an Edict on someone. You can trade or keep back some early creatures that don’t want to swing into it. Even late, it’s just a 3-mana Edict with a 2/2 body attached, which is always useful.

Harvester of Souls draws cards when anything else dies. That includes both all of the creatures that die to the removal in this deck and those creatures that die regularly at the kitchen table via other means—from combat to someone’s mass removal. Not only can we draw a card off them, but Grave Betrayal will reanimate some for us, too. It’s a real threat.

Massacre Wurm is a powerful midgame creature. You kill all of the opposing small stuff right there, and anything from Birds of Paradise (Elvish Mystic to be cognizant of M14) to Snapcaster Mage will bite it. You also shrink bigger stuff in preparation for a sudden attack. Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief will kill stuff and post-Ghast or -Revenant should become really huge as a mana sink. Finally, Butcher of Malakir will punish folks for killing your stuff.

Mind Sludge is still here, doing a great job at stripping out most of the cards from someone’s hand. It’s almost always reads, “Target player discards his or her hand.” I liked it here. Even though other old-school tools were deemed unfit to drop into the party, this is a nice two-of. Suffer the Past is cool for two reasons. It’s an instant graveyard-hosing trick, and that helps. There is a lot of graveyard junk running around. Plus, it can act as an instant X spell that hits a player and gives you life, where X is limited only by graveyard size and mana available. (This is best against multiple opponents, where playing one Suffer the Past against Steve does not hurt you against Sarah. If dialing it in on one player, I’d recommend replacing two Suffers with something like Consume Spirit).

And that brings us to the close of another deck article.

It’s sad that Extended is leaving as an official tournament format that was supported by WotC. It’s the first time we have ever seen the mass retirement of a format. (I’m not sure why we introduced Modern and then retired Extended. We should have just changed Extended to the rules of Modern to avoid confusion). That means that future overpowered cards won’t be banned by WotC to keep the format clean and safe from any Jace, the Mind Sculptors that might see print in the next few years. Extended is just a casual format now.

Five-Color, Pauper, Highlander, and Commander welcome you to our club. Have a seat! You are a great casual format for newer players who have just picked up cards in the last few years but who want to play things a bit older than Standard. You are not that powerful or crazy, and you’re still a lot of fun. Have a seat and grab a deck. It’s Extended time!

See you next week,

Abe Sargent