Today I would like to chat with my internet classroom what went down in my real life room the other day.

As my experienced readers already know September is a rather interesting month for the Magic playing community. Here we sit on the edge of possible major change. How major? We don’t know. With the joy of the release of Zendikar we also have the loss of Lorwyn/Shadowmoor from Standard and the loss of Onslaught from Extended. With that loss of cards we will find some shifts in the metagame. Some blocks radically change an environment, such as Mirrodin. Or they may cause little to no shifts like Kamigawa. In the back of everyone's mind is "What Now?"

Because of this state of flux, many players avoid focusing on decks. It’s like running a business where a good percentage of your employees are about to retire or leave. For some companies like TEPS Inc. it’s time for bankruptcy. For others like the FAE conglomerate it’s time for you to focus your portfolio into just the Extended market. Hopefully your deck of choice is like TSC (Time Sieve Combo) with many young and energetic employees just waiting to see what rivals will try to push their way into the picture. Whether your deck is decimated by lose or still intact it’s still nearly impossible to test or prepare for any possible match-ups.

What I always find myself doing this time of year is drafting and scouring the net for spoilers. As of the writing of this piece there are a total of 8 cards beyond the basic lands spoiled with 4 of them being published right here on Mananation before anywhere else. In previous summers the drafting has been sort of stale but this year M10 has really made me happy. I really can’t think of a time I’ve enjoyed drafting more. I thought this was the case for my students as well. That is until last Tuesday. I had reshuffled our rarity piles and was starting to “rebuild” packs but no one was lending a hand. Turns out everyone was jazzed about Extended and debating which deck would prevail at Austin.

While I will not claim that my guys are great prognosticators of the metagame I was surprised by the depth of their conversation.

It all started with the Cascade/Suspend decks. If you haven’t seen a list for these I’ll provide a few shortly. The idea is pretty linear and not hard to understand. I actually find it humorous how many different people claim to have "designed" this broken deck. Basically each deck uses one of the Suspend cards that had no way to hard cast them. Ancestral Vision or Lotus Bloom are prime examples that have seen play so far. The rest haven’t really seen much play because they either take to much time to cast and wait or their effect doesn’t mesh well with enough cards to warrant a deck. Now the mechanic of Cascade can bypass the cast and wait cost. If the rest of the deck is tailored correctly then you can be assured of hitting the target suspend spell once you cast the Cascade spell. The main question is how to abuse that interaction.

The first step in all the decks is to stock up on the 3 casting cost Cascade Spells; Ardent Plea, Demonic Dread, and Violent Outburst. The number varies from deck to deck but it’s always enough to assure having a least one or two in hand when you have enough mana to cast them. From there the decks differ in significant fashion.

The most popular form of the deck idea uses Hypergenesis as its bomb spell. The idea is to have some uber awesome permanent on the field and hope that your opponent doesn’t have one himself. What Uber-coolness you use is up to you. Some go for the Magister Sphinx and Wound Reflection combo. Others go for comes into play effects like Bogarden Hellkite, Angel of Despair, or Woodfall Primus. You can also go hasty with Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund, or Hellkite Overlord. I’ve even seen Darksteel Colossus[card] and [card]Empyrial Archangel thrown in. There is plenty of room in the deck for any mix you want. Most decks run 20 lands, 10 cascade spells, 3 Hypergenesis’s and the rest is open. I personally recommend using 4 Simian Sprit Guide and 4 Serum Powders as well.

An example list would look like this. This one was piloted by Johannes Reding

[deck player="Johannes Reding" align="right"]1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath

4 Bogardan Hellkite

4 Hellkite Overlord

1 Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund

4 Magister Sphinx

4 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Violent Outburst

4 Demonic Dread

3 Hypergenesis

4 Wound Reflection

4 Serum Powder

4 City of Brass

2 Forbidden Orchard

2 Gemstone Cavern

4 Gemstone Mine

1 Island

3 Reflecting Pool

4 Tendo Ice Bridge[/deck]The second most played form uses Living End. The idea here is to play the Wrath like effect but to be the only player with any Graveyard action. Where does that action come from? Why with creatures that cycle of course. A lot of these beauties are dropping out in October as the Cyclers of Onslaught Block fall to the wayside but there are some good choices still. My favorite free cycler Streetwraith is always a good option. The list also includes; Architects of Will, Deadshot Minotaur, Glassdust Hulk, Jungle Weaver, Monstrous Carabid, Ridge Rannet, Viscera Dragger, and Yoked Plowbeast. You could also look at the Land Cyclers but most of the deck will be full of non-basics to allow for the use of all Cascaders.

One of the bonuses about using the cyclers is the fact that you scour through your deck much faster than other decks so you do not need as many Cascade Spells but you do need to have a full set of Living End since you increase your chance of drawing it during the early stages of the game. A major drawback of Living End is the fact that it’s a one shot deal. If your opponent can reestablish your second Living End only puts them back to the point where the first one resolved.

My own current deck list for Living End is this.

[deck player="Dan Eckstein" align="left"]3 Mountain

2 Swamp

1 Forest

4 Gemstone Mine

4 Tendo-Ice Bridge

3 Reflecting Pool

3 City of Brass

4 Streetwraith

4 Deadshot Minotaur

4 Monstrous Carabid

4 Ridge Rannet

4 Jungle Weaver

3 Igneous Pouncer

3 Valley Rannet

4 Violent Outburst

3 Demonic Dread

3 Bloodbraid Elf[/deck]Notice that went to just Jund Colors. This provided max power and allowed me to be able to hardcast additional help after the first Living End. All I had to do was raise the average cost of the Cascade spells. I was fine with that since I often found myself wanting to cycle more on turn three to maximize Living End.

It’s just basic Rock, Paper, Scissors in my mind. HyperCascade is the Rock aggro deck, Living Cascade is the Paper combo deck, and Restore Cascade is the Scissors control deck. I’m really not sure which is best but I do know that I would not carry any of them into Austin.

There will be just too much hate for them out there. All decks have easy access to Chalice of the Void set at 0 on turn 1. In fact I think the mass hate that will be packed for these decks may make room for other contenders to reemerge. Affinity will love it when the Sideboard artifact hate decreases. Fae will love to see a decrease in Fallout and Stage. Elfball is still an explosive deck. I even suspect there maybe a Tooth and Nail possibility since it can main the Affinity and Fae hate. Who knows?? I just wouldn’t want to invest all the resources that a Pro has to invest and carry one of the above Cascade decks.

The question to my Internet Class this week is: "Assuming you had a Blue Envelope, what would you carry to Austin?"

Ding. There’s the bell. Next class will be a Lesson that expands from the Rule of Nine we discussed earlier so refresh your mind on that if necessary.

Class Dismissed.