Magic – The Gathering Strategy – The Next Level – Blue in Post-Conflux Extended

I have another extended deck for today, and that is Next Level Blue. Designed by Patrick Chapin for last year’s PTQ Extended Season, it was the Blue to play deck that wasn’t called Chase-Rare Control. This season, he’s the underdog compared to the Wizards, but he’s been making the rounds on the PTQ circuit and even appeared in the Top 8 at Grand Prix – Los Angeles. Let’s take a look at how it goes.

To understand Next Level Blue, we first need to know what kind of deck it is. Next Level Blue (“NLU”) is a Blue-based control deck with an emphasis on using Tarmogoyf as a win condition. A list of actions for NLU looks like this:

Next level blue
Terrain – 24
1 academy ruins
3 Breeding Pools
2 flooded groves
4 strands flooded
1 holy spring
7 island
1 Behold, the groaning well
4 Contaminated Delta
1 steam vents

Creature-8
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Vendilion Clique

Spell – 28
4 Ancient Vision
4 Cryptic Command
3 engineering explosives
2 fire pipes
4 mana leaks
2 repeals
4 Spell Trap
2 Jitte of Umezawa
3 Vedalken Shackles

Sideboard – 15
3 Arashi, the divided sky
4 Sworn Canonist
4 kitchen utensils
3 ancient grudge
1 fire nozzle
All right, let’s get into this.

Land:
Our mana base is very flexible here, using a total of eight fetchlands to gain access to Green, Red, and White when needed with cards like Engineered Explosives, Firespout Rude Awakening in the main deck, and basically his entire sideboard. See, the Wailing Well allows us to gain life at the expense of our opponent’s creatures that are snatched up through Vedalken Shackles. Academy Ruins allows us to turn to Engineered Explosives, a card that recently became one of the best rares outside of the Mirrodin block that isn’t called Arcbound Ravager thanks to Pernicious Deed’s rotation. Other than that, the mana base is pretty self explanatory.

Creatures:
Tarmogoyf is by far the best beater this deck has. He is menacing, efficient, and costs two mana. In the long run, Tarmogoyf is your win condition. Combine that with a Jitte from Umezawa and you have a winning combination. Vendilion Clique is possibly the best creature in Extended right now. It has so much flexibility to deny your Idiot Life opponent a Proclamation of Rebirth, draw a Mind Wish away from TEPS, or target yourself to cast a dead card to attract something more useful. I find it quite amazing how it is still hovering around the $2.50 mark.

Spells:
Let’s deal with the non-artifacts first. You have a standard blue pack of Ancestral Vision, Cryptic Command, Mana Leak, Repeal, and Spell Snare. Vision is by far the best play you can make early in the game, as it’s three free cards in four turns. Cryptic Command remains the best four-mana counterspell ever in print due to its tremendous flexibility in stabilizing the game by countering spells, hitting attackers, bouncing permanents, or drawing a card. Mana Leak has seen a lot more play in Extended than Remand, something I’d rather see the opposite of. Mana Leak is possibly the second best two-mana counter in Extended (the first being, you guessed it, Remand). Repeal stays here to bounce off pesky creatures, sulfuric vortex, and lotus flowers at the start of a TEPS player’s upkeep. Spell Snare remains a popular card in Extended as it basically counters every relevant spell in the format, from Dark Confidant to Lightning Helix, Mana Leak, Spellstutter Sprite, Ancient Grudge, Smother, Tarmogoyf, Tidehollow Sculler, Desperate Ritual, Manamorphose and much more.

Then we have two non-blue spells here in the form of Firespout. Firespout… it’s a godsend. Enrage any board necessary, while offering to evade your own creatures if you want. Against fairies, just give him a green kick to get the job done. In Zoo, if you have a Vendilion Clique in play, just send it red and enrage its board while protecting your Clique. It’s strictly better than Volcanic Fallout in all decks that can afford to splash both red and green.

For your artifacts, Engineered Explosives are given. It’s the board sweep prominent in the format, seeing how Pernicious Deed rotated with Apocalypse. Umezawa’s Jitte is still the most broken two-mana team ever printed and helps your cause a lot more. In fact, almost all decks contain Jitte now. Shackles became popular thanks to Next Level Blue due to his ability to steal creatures and then combine that with Miren for a pseudo-Rage effect.

Sideboard:

Arashi is an unstoppable hate against fairies when channeled, and since fairies are still one of the best “decks to beat”, it’s essential that we have enough hate for it.

Ethersworn Canonist is an addition that combats all forms of Combo decks like Elves and TEPS. With both decks growing in popularity thanks to LSV’s back-to-back wins in Berlin and Los Angeles, it’s silly not to heap hate on the combo.

Kitchen Finks is on the sideboard to fight Aggro when Firespout just isn’t enough. Finks allows us to gain up to sixteen life (and more if you count Miren) against Burn, which is more than enough to put him out of commission.

Ancient Grudge is a basic anti-Affinity/Jitte item.
The third Firespout is here to add additional reinforcement if needed.

So would you play Next Level Blue? Definitely. It’s my kind of control deck. It has counterspells, access to four colors, plays Tarmogoyf, and has the sickest interaction with Vedalken Shackles and Miren, the Moaning Well that I just can’t say no to playing it. While Faeries may be the most popular deck, it will be hated and expected much more than Next Level Blue. As a meta call, I’d definitely run Next Level Blue on Faeries in a PTQ.