Jon Loucks on Breaking Extended

by Bill Stark | posted at 2010-03-09 01:16:00
tagged: MTG, Magic, Magic the Gathering, Extended, Pro Tour Qualifier, PTQ, ChannelFireball, Jon Loucks, ChannelFireball.com

Jon Loucks is a deckbuilder I respect and admire. This past weekend he called me up out of the blue to tell me he had just Top 8ed the PTQ in Vancouver by using a landfall creature and Scapeshift fetching up multiple Flagstones of Trokair. The poor opponent had simply cast a Thoughtseize before dying abruptly.

 

Today Jon wrote about this deck in his article on ChannelFireball.com:

 

 

4 Steppe Lynx

4 Wild Nacatl

4 Plated Geopede

4 Vinelasher Kudzu

3 Tarmogoyf

4 Knight of the Reliquary

 

4 Path to Exile

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Scapeshift

 

4 Arid Mesa

2 Misty Rainforest

3 Sacred Foundry

3 Stomping Ground

1 Temple Garden

1 Scalding Tarn

1 Plains

1 Mountain

1 Forest

3 Flagstones of Trokair

1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

1 Vesuva

1 Sejiri Steppe

1 Stirring Wildwood

1 Ghost Quarter

 

Sideboard:

2 Aven Mindcensor

2 Ancient Grudge

2 Ranger of Eos

2 Umezawas Jitte

1 Damping Matrix

1 Rule of Law

1 Ravenous Trap

1 Ghost Quarter

1 Bojuka Bog

1 Elspeth, Knight Errant

1 Temporal Isolation

 

This deck is really exciting, re-trumping Brian Kibler's Pro Tour-Austin winning Extended Zoo list that next leveled with the combo of Grove of the Burnwillows and Punishing Fire. Jon trumps with Scapeshift, which creates an unblockable force of lethal creatures in the form of Steppe Lynx, Plated Geopede, and Vinelasher Kudzu. It also has a great end game plan of Scapeshifting into Valakut. Overall it's a truly captivating, exciting decklist.

 

Furthermore, Jon's writeup is the type of writeup that serves as a great jumping off point for learning a new deck you have no experience with. He offers up nuances that can be the difference between a match win and a match loss, as well as covering specific choices in cards (there are some important ones that look like random 1, 2, and 3-ofs) and game plans against major decks.

 

If you haven't read Jon's article yet, click here now.

 

If I were PTQing this weekend, this is the deck I'd be playing.

 

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