Pattern Recognition #65 - The Case of Extended

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berryjon

26 April 2018

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Hello everyone! I am berryjon, your resident Old Fogey. Welcome back to Pattern Recognition, Tappedout.net's most regular article series - barring the occasional week off for work or just because I'm out of energy. I endeavor to provide insightful, thought provoking and educational material for you all. Or at least a convenient target for all of you to aim your Goblin Barrages at.

Today's article will be delivered to you all on the day before the release of the newest set, Dominaria. And in response to that, and the way that Wizards has been messing around with the way Standard counts it sets, means that we can say fare-thee-well with total completeness to Shadows over Innistrad and Eldritch Moon.

What? I know they're already gone. I just want to commemorate their unlamented passing from play and into the binders and storage boxes of players.

Welcome to Standard! A constantly rotating constructed format that utilizes the most recent sets in order to provide a means for new players to get into the tournament scene without needing to get a lot of cards as they can just pick up some packs and go!

Yeah, not selling it all that well, am I?

Standard is, according to Wizards, the most prolific tournament format, with the most people playing it and the largest player scene. However, this also means that it is one that has the most attention placed upon it, bringing the flaws in it out in ways that may just be blown out of proportion.

Let me try to explain here. Standard is what we call a rotating format, and it is currently the only one. Because Brawl doesn't really exist yet. (insert smugface here.) Now, a rotating format is one where as new sets are added into the format as legal card choices, it also removes an equivalent number of older sets. This is designed to encourage constant experimentation, new and interesting decks and perhaps most importantly, give new players an entryway into tournament Magic.

I'm repeating myself on some things. I know. Don't worry. It's all part of my cunning plan!

Almost all the other formats in the game are what we call Eternal. That is, they have a definitive starting set, which is Alpha, and then they include everything that comes after it. So each new set is added to a greater whole and nothing leaves. Well, technically. Apparently Eternal is something that starts with Alpha, and Modern has a specific start date which I'll get to in a moment.

So, here's my first concern. As of the release of Dominaria tomorrow (are you excited? I'm excited!), the sets that will be in Standard will be Kaladesh, Aether Revolt, the Welcome Deck 2017 (didn't realize that, did you?), Amonkhet, Hour of Devastation and Dominaria itself. Oh, and the cards that appear exclusively in the relevant Planeswalker decks, like Vraska, Scheming Gorgon. This means that cards printed from 30 September 2016 through 27 April 2018 will be legal for Standard usage.

However, the next step up in officially supported tournament style play that isn't Commander (or by extension, Brawl), is Modern. Modern came into being in August 2011 as a replacement for the Extended Format, formally killing off the Type 1, Type 2 and Type 1.5 nomenclature of the time. With an official start date of Eighth Edition's release - 28 July 2003 - Modern started with eight years worth of cards, in comparison to Standard's then two years worth of selection.

And Modern hasn't removed any sets from its allowable cards. That means as of today, Modern has FIFTEEN YEARS of cards to choose from - while Standard has eighteen months. One and a half years.

The reason for this chosen start date though, turns out to be pretty basic. Eighth Edition represented a whole new process in printing cards, and the resulting quality was much, much higher than it was before. So everyone was using the new standard in cards!

Now, as time went by, the cards that make up Modern became harder and harder to get a hold of. I talked a bit about this a few weeks ago when I addressed my concerns regarding how the Modern Masters sets have failed in one of their stated goals. That being, to provide reprints of cards in the Modern format that can no longer be reliable acquired. And when you've got fifteen years and counting of cards to work through, there should be no shortage of cards that need to come back!

And no, I'm not looking at you, Jace, the Mind Sculptor. You can stay in the pile of "WHY?!?!" cards.

Modern has another issue, one that deserves to be looked at in more detail, but not at this time. Modern is, not exactly a 'solved' format like Tiny Leaders, where there is one-true path to victory. Rather it is, in my opinion, a calcified format, where there is a set of acceptable tournament level decks, and it takes something massive to change it up. You have Infect, Delver, Soul Sisters, RDW, Merfolk, Elves, Bogles, and others still. These are names. These are archetypes.

Play them, or do something so spectacular that no one knows how to deal with you if you want to try and win a Modern tournament. Hell, the last time I saw Modern get upset was with the release of Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch, which brought the colourless Eldrazi to the fore. This resulted in the banning of Eye of Ugin for being too good when combined with the Devoid mechanic. I mean, a turn 2 Call the Scions gives you four effective mana on that turn.

That was back in 2015.

Three years later, and only one real change to the format. Everything else has just been one incremental change or another. A card changed out here, a card in the sideboard there to deal with a change there. It's all very ... regimented. You pick your deck and see what the other person is playing. You might not even need to actually play the game, just compare the archetypes!

Standard has the opposite problem, though I think it's a feature, not a bug. The game is constantly changing, encouraging new deck designs, more experimentation and yes, buying new cards.

These are two extremes to constructed formats. And my problem is that there is nothing that can help bridge players from one format of 18 to 24 months of cards to fifteen years or more.

What about Frontier you might ask?

Well, that is another non-rotating format like Modern, whose starting point is 18 July 2014 and the release of Magic 2015 Core Set. Like the starting point of Modern, M15 was marked by improvements to the card layout and design. And that's it.

But Frontier has the same problem as Modern, only less apparent. It's a format where it will eventually calcify into a set of optimized decks where it takes some serious new mechanic or design to shake things up.

So what is there? Is there something that can help bridge the gap?

Well, I'm going to presume you read the title of the article first for your answer.

I want to make the case to bring back Extended as a format.

The first and most pressing issue is one of timing. As I should have beaten the drum on enough by now, there is a colossal gap between the available card sets between Standard and Modern. I have seen one of the serious arguments against Modern being that it is simply too much for a player to get into. That the width and breadth of cards that open up are too daunting.

But on the other side of the spectrum, can it not be said that Standard is too restrictive? That with only so many cards, and the necessity of buying more and more, you drive away players who don't want to spend more money, but be comfortable with what they have, and only make minor purchases on the secondary market?

I think Extended is the best of both of these. With either a four-year rotation, or even a full seven-year rotation, players can buy into the format through Standard, and slowly grow at their own pace in the format, picking up small purchases for their chosen deck, rather than needing to invest heavily every few months. In addition, the rotation allows for problem cards to slowly drop out of the running, as well as giving Wizards themselves more leeway in printing cards to address problems.

I'm not a fan of the concept of the Silver Bullet card - I've seen it taken to horrible extremes, trust me - but Extended has the unique capacity to allow for cards to be printed that can help curb poor excesses in terms of deck design without shoehorning them in like Standard, or throwing up their hands in annoyance and banning a key card or two in Modern.

Sorry, I put two points in there.

First one is that Extended creates a situation where a player's card set doesn't immediately become binder-fodder the moment it leaves Standard because they don't cut it in Modern.

The second is that Extended as a rotating format gives Wizards more tools for dealing with problematic cards and archetypes.

You know, this idea sounded better in my head. And I think I'm not doing it proper justice. It's just that while I like Modern, there are still problems with it. Mostly the fact that cards from over five years ago or more still dominate, and that new players who try to get in get told that they can't compete because they're too late.

Standard gets a bad rap because Wizards keeps trying to 'fix' it without understanding what's wrong with it. Yes, I think this includes Brawl. But when you go back and look at the changes to how Standard rotates over the past few years, I see a sense of confusion.

So remove the confusion. Keep Standard rotating regularly (because people like a pattern when they see it), and bring back Extended to fill in a gap and to help stabilize the transition from Standard to Modern.

But understand this. I'm not trying to say that Standard is wrong, or failing and that we should all just move to Extended. I think there needs to be a better progression of formats, one that isn't quite so binary. And I think that Extended fits those needs quite nicely.

Hrm, you know, I can't find any information about why Extended was dropped, save Wizards announcing that Extended and Modern were sort of in competition with each other, and one or the other had to go. The more popular Modern stayed.

If I had to hazard a guess, the shifting rotation of Extended, skipping between four and seven years, combined with the larger base selection from Modern caused the latter to reign supreme.

But now? Seven years later? I think there's room for Extended to come back.

But on the other hand, is there really room for one more style of tournament? Wouldn't Wizards have to lessen support for Modern or Standard for Extended to gain traction? Assuming even then that people would want to play a format that would be "Standard, but with more Cards" or "Modern, but not as many cards"?

I ... don't know. If I did though? I'm pretty sure that if I did though, I would be working for Wizards as some sort of amazing guru of some stripe or another.

Thank you for listening to my ramblings. Join me next time, when I should have drawn some pretty pictures for you all to look at!

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!

This article is a follow-up to Pattern Recognition #64 - Dominaria Spiral The next article in this series is Pattern Recognition #66 - Combo Creatures

Lord_Khaine says... #1

Highly agreed. I arrived in Standard when Khans of Tarkir came out, with fetchlands driving prices through the roof, so I didn't play Standard and instead just bought cards for non-rotating formats. I'm still convinced that I've done better focusing on eternal formats rather than dropping a lot of $ every couple of months in Standard, but I do like the appeal of Extended for not having as high of a power level, and giving me a reason to play with the newer cards that may look cool but have no place outside of Standard.

April 26, 2018 12:46 p.m.

Tezdemona says... #2

Being months new to this whole MTG thing, with my limited context, I am just now starting to understand the kind of investment it takes to stay in standard. Extended sounds like a great idea, based on what little I've experienced thus far.

April 26, 2018 2:15 p.m.

lukas96 says... #3

Modern and calcified?

Ixalan Made 5 color humans possible and its one of the best decks. Hollow one is a deck that got intentionon february. One year ago Grixis Deaths shadow and eldrazi tron were the deck to beat and nobody is talking about them any more. Before the pro tour Storm and Tron were decks to best for a short time and they are on the decline since then.

Modern is not calcified at all i honestly think it changed more tham sta dart in the last 12 months

April 28, 2018 6:20 a.m.

berryjon says... #4

lukas96: And yet it's the same decks, over and over again. Only new cards get added in as the meta causes small changes. 5C Humans isn't new to Ixalan.

April 28, 2018 10:29 a.m.

lukas96 says... #5

Well the humans deck was Bant before and the meta shifts currently. Thats not what i would call calcified to be honest.

April 28, 2018 11:31 a.m.

SliverKing90 says... #6

Eye of Ugin does not reduce the cost of Call the Scions, because it is not an eldrazi spell. and even if it did, it would not give you 4 effective mana, but 3 remaining. the remaining land plus the 2 tokens.

April 28, 2018 1:24 p.m.

berryjon says... #7

SliverKing90: Dammit, you're right. On the Eye thing. But not on the four mana thing. 2 from the Scions and the Eye reducing an Eldrazi spell by 2 means you can cast a 4 cost card without needing a land.

April 28, 2018 1:35 p.m.

SliverKing90 says... #8

no actually i'm right on the mana thing. you said turn 2. that means 2 lands. so you'd use 1 of them to cast Call the Scions (if Eye of Ugin could reduce its cost). you have 1 land remaining. plus 2 tokens. 3 mana. cmon now.

April 28, 2018 1:37 p.m.

Harashiohorn says... #9

So let me start by saying, bringing back extended might be worth looking into, and I would probably be up for trying it. That being said, I will provide a bit of background on why it was dropped.

Extended got dropped because it was hated. Like genuinely hated. (As one MTG columnist put it at the time "Extended died the ignominious death it deserved). Tournament attendance at Extended tournaments had gradually been dropping, and that was what helped drive the impetus to create a new format in Modern to take extended's place.

The issue with extended was that people felt like it was a collection of the most hated dominant decks from the past few Standard all piled together, with neither frequent innovation, nor actual longevity. If you look back over the various extended Pro-tours and Grand Prix, they tend to consist of fairly non-diverse collections of decks, many of whom were the boogeyman of their respective standards. If Extended were a format right now which allowed the past 4 years worth of cards, I get the nagging suspicion that we would be in year four, and thankfully the final year, of Collected Company extended (though perhaps counter cat would also have been becoming a big player). The key thing about standard is that even if it is terrible in theory the cards that make it terrible will be gone soon, in extended however those cards were around for a lot longer, forcing either bannings, which people hate, or playing against decks people hate.

For reference of player attitudes, here is a tapped out thread on the matter: http://tappedout.net/mtg-forum/general/extended-has-been-officially-killed/

April 28, 2018 2:03 p.m.

sylvannos says... #10

One of the issues Extended ran into towards the end of its life was how horrible the format had gotten and the DCI's refusal (or rather, they just didn't care and forgot Extended was a sanctioned format) to ban problematic cards. Those cards being Bitterblossom, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and Stoneforge Mystic.

U/B Faeries dominated Extended due to its timing. It rotated in when Onslaught block was rotating out. There was this ginormous power vacuum left in their place. Goblins, Dredge-a-Tog, Elves, 4CC, and so on all left in a very short time. The most powerful cards in the format were, without a doubt, Cryptic Command, Umezawa's Jitte, Thoughtseize, Bitterblossom, and Vendilion Clique. Oh look! These all go together in the same deck! They even get support from Mistbind Clique and Spellstutter Sprite!

Modern players may recognize that this isn't much different from how Faeries are played today, except it's in a much smaller format with fewer options to answer the Fae.

How bad was it? Well, you can start here and go all the way to the back on page 13, then scroll forward. Notice anything out of the ordinary? It's all top 8 finishes, often for the same event, and all at the level of Pro Tour Qualifier or higher. This is a format that normally has sometimes as many as 8 different decks in its top 8s, but with Fae? 3 out of 8 (sometimes more) of those spots are taken up by U/B Faerie variants.

And this continued for years. Faeries dominated the Extended meta for almost half a decade, yet no bans were made to curb its ability to fight a war of attrition, play a tempo game, or sit back and play draw/go.

It only gets worse.

By the time Lorwyn was looking to finally cycle out of Extended, Zendikar had already cycled in. And with Zendikar came Stoneblade. Faerie players just jammed Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic into their decks. It was just a question of whether you wanted to play Squadron Hawk or Spellstutter Sprite.

Did the DCI finally realize this type of gameplay was hurting the format? That maybe people wanted to play something that wasn't durdly blue bullshit dot deck? Hahahaha nope. This continued for years as well, so that by the time Faeries had cycled out, Stoneblade had taken its place.

Surely, the DCI would realize this problem, right? I mean, they wouldn't just--

Oh. Wait.

Yup. September 20th. 2011, the month after Modern was created, is when they finally banned Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Stoneforge Mystic, Ponder, and Preordain from Extended.

By now, it was too late. Anyone who enjoyed Extended had already begun to switch over to Modern. Everyone else had grown to resent the format.

So the problem wasn't any issue with the concept of Extended. Mike Flores even suggested it may have been the best format ever made. The problem was a handful of cards that lead to 4 grueling years of mirror matches between dumb blue decks that could do everything possible in the game except storm off and kill you with Tendrils of Agony.

I miss Extended myself. I've wanted it back even when they created Modern. In the past, it's been a format that's only slightly faster than Standard with a greater variety in viable options of what you can brew. 2002 to 2005 was probably the golden age we'll never get back, but I'd be interested in joining a silver age of the format.

April 30, 2018 2:07 a.m.

Boza says... #11

My favorite combo is an extended one. A friend had a Heartbeat Desire - a ramp-control deck that comboed off with Heartbeat of Spring, Early Harvest and a large storm count Mind's Desire. Plus, it has the best poetic deckname.

As others have noted, a format that is not curated by the DCI is doomed to fail.

Brawl in MTGO is 95% Baral decks. Pauper has exploded in popularity, but blue is overrepresented and monarch mechanic is proving too powerful in the format. Not a peep so far on that by Wizards and we have months to the next B&R.

A similar thing had happened to extended, but Extended 2.0 can learn from those mistakes. I think a trial for extended is in order.

May 2, 2018 4:49 a.m.

Calcified? Hardly. I play almost exclusively non-rotating and the evolutions and genesis of distinct archetypes is more profound lately is greater than I can ever recall otherwise.

Was Grobots a thing before Walking Ballista? Midrange Shadow as a tournament worthy deck didn't exist prior to Shadows Over Innistrad. Hollow One definitely didn't exist prior to the printing of Hollow One. Humans was just a worse merfolk before Ixalan. RW Taxes came into existence in Legacy as an answer to 4C Leovold post Sensei's Divining Top ban and then was ported into Modern. There are quite a few more, but I suspect that yellow journalism serves your purposes quite well.

Your complaints are reminiscent of those found in legacy regarding Deathrite Shaman. Not the justified ones, but the ones from people who complain that the format has become too efficient and interactive for them to play Zoo to competitive results.

May 2, 2018 9:22 a.m.

As an aside: a format being "eternal" not only involves start date, but also cards entering from outside standard. An important distinction, as cards like Baleful Strix, Toxic Deluge, a host of cards from Conspiracy or Commander sets would go a long way to reducing the prevalence of linear aggro in Modern, putting control on the map, and allowing for unbans due to a greater pool of answers.

May 2, 2018 9:35 a.m.

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