If you remember a couple of weeks ago my students were all abuzz about Austin and the Extended metagame. That fact hasn’t changed. In fact I would guess it won’t for awhile. An outsider would think someone has a blue envelope [Editor's note: Blue envelopes are used to give or mail the invitations to the Pro tours. So saying you have a blue envelope means you're playing on the Pro Tour.] or something. I guess we can all pretend.

* Dan drifts off day-dreaming of playing in Austin *

Where was I? Oh yeah, Extended. I am currently amazed by two things related to Extended. First is how many cards from Zendikar seem to fit in Zoo. Obviously we can’t fit them all but which will be used is a big question. I think Zoo will be in a Magic the Classroom lesson soon since it’s so dynamic and flowing right now. But for today I want to focus on the second thing that amazes me right now about Extended.

Maybe I’m wrong since I don’t scour the net that much. Only about 16 hours a day on the average (joke). But I have not seen anything about the fact that there are now 3 Wrath’s in Extended, Wrath of God, Damnation, and Day of Judgment (defining Wraths here as 4CC board clears.) Now the obvious point that Wrath and Damnation don’t really fit well in the same deck can be made. Their color requirements are semi fixed with the new fetchlands but still they haven’t been used together before. But the fact you can easily include both Day of Judgment and Wrath of God in the same deck without even changing your mana base is incredible.

What kind of decks can benefit from having 8 Wraths in their lineup? Let’s look at a few.

First we can go with a total Anti-Zoo mentality. Let’s see how many ways we can blast critters off the board. I would look for Red to be included in this since for many cards that will be played at Austin have "dies-to-fallout-itis." I really like that phrase but I didn’t come up with it.

Starting at 1cc I would like to play both Path to Exile and Lightning Bolt. They're cheap removal for the early threats and Bolt can actually finish a game for us later. For the 2's I'll bring back the classic Pyroclasm along with the new potential game winner Luminarch Ascension. When you see the whole deck you’ll notice how easy it will be to avoid life loss unless we see some hasty-ness and burn. Coming in at 3cc’s we will of course add the infamous Volcanic Fallout along with Oblivion Ring. The Fallout is an obvious inclusion but the Ring is in because of its ability to deal with any permanent non-creature threat like Planeswalkers. On top of the Removal gang at 4cc is the aforementioned Wrath of God and his delinquent twin brother Day of Judgment. You can see from this little collection that creatures will not last long. We can even take a 1 for 1 with our board sweepers and still control the game against aggro. The question is a finisher. The Ascension can be pressure build but one Qasali Pridemage and that’s a goner. For my ninth pick I’ll play Firemane Angel. I truly miss Eternal Dragon but at least the graveyard recursion is still there. The life gain will help us recover after the pain I think we’ll have to take to make the mana work.

[deck title="Firemane Contol" designer="Dan Eckstein" align="center"]

4 Path to Exile

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Luminarch Ascension

4 Pyroclasm

4 Volcanic Fallout

4 Oblivion Ring

4 Wrath of God

4 Day of Judgment

3 Firemane Angel

4 Arid Mesa

4 Sacred Foundry

4 Jungle Shrine

4 Reflecting Pool

1 Mountain

8 Plains[/deck]

The next deck is more special to me personally. Last year I tried to get a Blue Envelop by running a wacky Martyr of Sands deck. Most of that deck is still intact except for Eternal Dragon. My build was a little different than many because I also used the Enduring Renewal combo and the Proclamation of Rebirth combo. For those unfamiliar: the Renewal allows us to sac the Martyr twice for just two mana. That turns out a pretty sick amount life gain every turn. Most of the time I followed this massive life into a huge Avatar created by Ajani Goldmane. Proclamation gives us an un-counterable method of getting Martyr back in play and sac-ing it every upkeep. This did cost us 7 mana a turn however but with the Wrath and Path types of removal many of the metagame were not able to do more damage than I gained.

The reason I feel this deck can still be good is because of the boost of a 5th through 8th Wrath and a lovely little land called Emeria, the Sky Ruin. Emeria basically gives us a free Proclamation. Sure we need 8 Mana instead of seven (Emeria plus 7 plains) but we don’t have to SPEND the mana. That makes up for the extra turns. And with proper use of Martyr’s ability we should have plenty of turns to play with.

I do have a question that needs some ruling in my new build. If I’m wrong let me know. I’m not a rules monger but I do appreciate them. In fact every good store needs one. Anyway here is the scenario and how I think it should play out. I have Emeria in play with 7 plains. I also have a copy of Felidar Sovereign in my graveyard and I’m over 40 life. I don’t think this works but I want to trigger Emeria getting Sovereign and then have him check for life total and I win. I’m pretty sure that Felidar has to be in play when triggers happen but I won’t to hear it from you. Also what if I have the above scenario but with Felidar in play and only 39 life. Can I use Emeria to get a Kitchen Finks and then gain two and then win from Felidar?

[deck title="Emeria’s Martyr" designer="Dan Eckstein" align="center"]

4 Path to Exile

4 Oblivion Ring

4 Wrath of God

4 Day of Judgment

4 Martyr of Sands

2 Proclamation of Rebirth

4 Kitchen Finks

3 Felidar Sovereign

4 Ranger of Eos

1 Burrenton Forge-Tender

2 Ajani Goldmane

4 Emeria, the Sky Ruin

20 Snow-covered Plains[/deck]

Lastly I could also see some Turbo fun with Double Wrath. Who needs Cryptic Command to tap everybody when you can just drop the Wrath on them instead. Plus in Extended we have access to many more Fog effects. Plus we now have the card made for Fogs in Luminarch Ascension. In fact we have so many fog effects that we can maybe even drop the "Turbo" part of the deck.

[deck title="Turbo Holy Day of Ascension" designer="Dan Eckstein" align="center"]

4 Howling Mine

2 Font of Mythos

4 Angelsong

4 Ethereal Haze

4 Holy Day

4 Kami of False Hope

4 Safe Passage

4 Wrath of God

4 Day of Judgment

4 Luminarch Ascension

22 Plains[/deck]

Well there are a few decks that I feel can really blossom from Double Wrath Extended. In upcoming weeks I’ll look at the Evolution of Zoo. It won’t be a how to play guide but instead it really provides a base for lesson concept that I want to teach.

There's the bell. Have a fun Pre-Release this weekend.