[DECK] The Extractor

[Finn]

With the inclusion of the busted-ass delve cards, Legacy decks have fewer serious threats now than ever before because even more of the deck's composition is on jockeying for card advantage and selection. Ya know - durdling. Well, a friend asked me whet I thought about something like this and we set about making a deck that punishes durdling. Extractor is the result after screwing up several times.

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Force of Will
2 Dig Through Time
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 True-Name Nemesis
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Archive Trap
4 Extirpate
1 Surgical Extraction
3 Thoughtseize
2 Slaughter Games
2 Terminate
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Sudden Demise

4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp


Admit, it. You have been hoping there was a competitive deck of this sort possible in Legacy. It is almost ready. It is a tad weak to flying creatures, especially a first turn Delver of Secrets. But it is not too bad. You can toy with the numbers some if you think you can get get it better. But this is going to be pretty close to a correct version. Sort of in the vein of Death and Taxes, Extractor does not want to go toe-to-toe with the hyper-efficient decks in the DtB section, but seeks to disarm them. It works differently against different opponents, and it takes a lot of practice to get the hang of the matchups. I still suck at some of them because I have not figured out which cards to extract first. In fact, I am not even going to give mathup advice yet. I don't know that I am playing them optimally. But here are a few pointers to get potential players started.

1. Unlike most TNN decks, you do not need to attack with True-Name Nemesis unless it is a free attack or you are crunched for time. If there is any chance your opponent can benefit from your TNN being unavailable on block, keep it for defense.
2. A time crunch is actually a significant possibility because you will occasionally remove all of your opponent's threats, or virtually all, and just be waiting to either get to a TNN or for him to scoop.
3. Liliana of the Veil is hard to win through. You are going to be hiding behind TNNs against a lot of decks and she prevents this strategy.
4. I can't say this enough: games with this deck are incredibly complicated. I have twice called MYSELF with TNN because I needed it to survive Sudden Demise. I have considered Extirpating myself for various reasons, but I have yet to do it.
5. Archive Trap does not become cheap off of Extirpate, Slaughter Games, or Surgical Extraction since you are doing the searching.
6. You can not pay for Archive Trap with Snapcaster Mage. You CAN pay 2 life with Phyrexian mana off a Snapcaster Mage.
7. You will need something like Engineered Explosives or Chain of Vapor in the sideboard for Rest in Peace.



Here's the deal. I now know that this strategy is possible, but omg is it hard to play it because you have to balance the number of EVERY CARD in your opponent's DECK and what those cards do every time you extract something, and you will have to keep track of what is in his hand throughout most of the game. You will be looking often, but it is still a lot to consider. I am constantly counting and recounting. You will probably have to write stuff down in a tournament. Games take a long time. You will suck every time you sit down to face a new deck. But you will get much better if you are a good player. As an example, we started testing against Miracles and Death and Taxes because we had them built. Playing against Extractor, I won most of the early games. But over the Thanksgiving weekend, we talked about it and retooled, and talked some more. By this morning, I am winning most of those games WITH Extractor. Facing Izzet Delver, it is a lot clearer how to play, so it was kinda easy to understand from the start. Lands is almost laughably easy. I faced ANT once and Sneak Show a few times. I think I won all of those. But stuff with Ooze or Deathrite Shaman get very skill-testing. I do not have enough experience with those yet. But UBG stuff tends to beat me.

If you think you are up to it, I would like to hear what you think about taking this for a spin.

[Zupponn]

I think this deck might have issues against Extirpate.

[Michael Keller]

Casting an Archive Trap only to see an opponent gain the ability to Ancestral turn one and turn two seems extremely bad, even if you have Force. Also, in a deck entitled "The Extractor," how are you running only one Surgical Extraction?

Looks fun, but I dunno...

[Finn]

Casting an Archive Trap only to see an opponent gain the ability to Ancestral turn one and turn two seems extremely bad, even if you have Force. Also, in a deck entitled "The Extractor," how are you running only one Surgical Extraction?

Looks fun, but I dunno...

If you are not holding an extractor, I think I would hold off on the Trap. There will be time. But Izzet Delver really only has three threats. If I can nab two of them, what do I care how many cards he draws? My stuff is uncounterable and untargetable. He is welcome to draw into as many more Ponders as he wants. And that is exactly what does happen.

[Michael Keller]

If you are not holding an extractor, I think I would hold off on the Trap. There will be time. But Izzet Delver really only has three threats. If I can nab two of them, what do I care how many cards he draws? My stuff is uncounterable and untargetable. He is welcome to draw into as many more Ponders as he wants. And that is exactly what does happen.

You only have two uncounterable cards in your deck and you're not really doing anything proactively aside from Jace and Nemesis. If you Trap an opponent and enable them to play Ancestral Recall, that's really not very good for you. Also, you really can't predict under a unique set of circumstances what an opponent has or doesn't have as far as creatures go. I like the removal suite, but again the deck seems slightly confused on what it really wants to achieve.

[apple713]

I've tinkered with a deck like this before and its great once you find the balance between extirpates and surgicals vs permanent removal. The issue the deck faces is against decks that have a lot of threats that come out really fast like elves, merfolk, and goblins, and there are significant issues when lists become more diverse and have a greater number of 1 of's that are tutor able. The later circumstance is usually found in Miracles, MUD, maverick, nic fit, and landstill.

example, against miracles, your threats are entreat, jace, and snap caster, vendillion, and sometimes venser. Do you extirpate terminus so you can stick a TNN? Spending an extirpate to remove cards that only hit a 2 of in the deck is a difficult decision. Ideally the best way to attack miracles is find a way to remove SDT from the equation... if you do that and they stick a theat you are somewhat weakened.

Archive trap is great and id consider running 3, because most decks don't have reanimation, so a creature in the grave is as good as gone. against combo decks, almost all use fetch lands and you can completely wreck them early.


I feel like the numbers are off on the deck too. you only have at best 6 removal spells (I'm counting 2 reb's) and most decks have at least 12 threats. ideally would be like 4, 4, 4. theoretically you should have about ~12 removal spells, adjusting for mass removal. it would be different if you had more than 4 FOW to place creatures into the grave. Ideally, countering a creature / threat is the because because they waste time casting it, and then you can RFG it. Since you can't counter everything there has to be a delicate balance of removal and such.

What do you think the decks best matchups are? It doesn't have any bye's from what I'm seeing.


There is a similar post here. the lists are very different but conceptually similar.

[M+1]

Interesting idea. Certainly worth looking into, if it can work.

Have you considered Extract, as a proactive opener?
Or Cabal Therapy, since figuring out what is in opponents hand shouldn't be too hard most of the time?

[apple713]

Interesting idea. Certainly worth looking into, if it can work.

Have you considered Extract, as a proactive opener?
Or Cabal Therapy, since figuring out what is in opponents hand shouldn't be too hard most of the time?

extract is a really good idea because you can search the opponent's deck and remove those pesky 1 of's proactively for cheap. However, against decks that run lots of multiples its not particularly useful.

Thats one of the issues the deck faces. Cards that are good for 1 purpose are not good for other purposes and the answers they provide are too conditional / narrow to really make the deck functionally competitive.

Haunting echoes would be the catch all and could be used with burning wish type deck to answer various issues. Since it cost 5 you don't want a bunch clogging your deck, but you want access to it when it's necessary.


Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver could be good too because it exiles cards and against creature decks it allows you to cast their creatures against them. Continuing to exile cards helps with eliminating those pesky 1 of threats.

hedron crab helps in a similar fashion to ashiok and is faster but more limited and easily killed.

eradicate x1 might be useful because it combines removal and extraction in 1 card.

[Finn]

I feel like the numbers are off on the deck too. you only have at best 6 removal spells (I'm counting 2 reb's) and most decks have at least 12 threats. ideally would be like 4, 4, 4. theoretically you should have about ~12 removal spells, adjusting for mass removal. it would be different if you had more than 4 FOW to place creatures into the grave. Ideally, countering a creature / threat is the because because they waste time casting it, and then you can RFG it. Since you can't counter everything there has to be a delicate balance of removal and such.

Lands has been very simple though. And UR Delver.

What do you think the decks best matchups are? It doesn't have any bye's from what I'm seeing.

I don't know what its best matchups are but it has better creature defense than you may be figuring. The TNNs are pretty good walls, and they are a big part about what makes this deck work. I like how players have to extend to get past them, and then Sudden Demise is great.

extract is a really good idea because you can search the opponent's deck and remove those pesky 1 of's proactively for cheap. However, against decks that run lots of multiples its not particularly useful.

Thats one of the issues the deck faces. Cards that are good for 1 purpose are not good for other purposes and the answers they provide are too conditional / narrow to really make the deck functionally competitive.

Haunting echoes would be the catch all and could be used with burning wish type deck to answer various issues. Since it cost 5 you don't want a bunch clogging your deck, but you want access to it when it's necessary.


Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver could be good too because it exiles cards and against creature decks it allows you to cast their creatures against them. Continuing to exile cards helps with eliminating those pesky 1 of threats.

hedron crab helps in a similar fashion to ashiok and is faster but more limited and easily killed.

eradicate x1 might be useful because it combines removal and extraction in 1 card.

Extract does not do much of anything in most matchups.
Haunting Echoes is incredible when you draw it late and when it resolves. It might be a great card in some matchups like Lands.
Ashiok is garbage. This deck has little need for using creature against their owners.
Hedron Crab is cool, but ultimately...not good enough. If I wanted more of what Archive Trap does I would use more Archive Traps.
Eradicate is very cool and exactly what this deck wants to be doing. I had it for a short while, but it kept getting countered - largely because much of the most important cards in the deck can't be and, like Miracles for example would have Force of Will and Counterspell sitting in hand - and you really can't afford to get that 4 mana sorcery countered.

These are the sorts of things I figured out in the previous six or so iterations of this deck. You can not play a "Mill" deck and expect to win. It has to be a control deck that moonlights as a miller.

You only have two uncounterable cards in your deck and you're not really doing anything proactively aside from Jace and Nemesis. If you Trap an opponent and enable them to play Ancestral Recall, that's really not very good for you. Also, you really can't predict under a unique set of circumstances what an opponent has or doesn't have as far as creatures go. I like the removal suite, but again the deck seems slightly confused on what it really wants to achieve.

I have just not had these kinds of problems. With the exception of what the opponent draws for the turn, you nearly always know what is in their hand and library. The trick is to have enough control to slow the game down long enough to fire off several Extirpates and/or Slaughter Games. Dig Through Time and Snapcaster are perfect for this as they enable a lot of variation in the composition so that you can balance those needs better. That is why you see a lot of 2-ofs. My presumption is that this is what you are referring to with "slightly confused".

[apple713]

[QUOTE=Finn;853894 Miracles for example would have Force of Will and Counterspell sitting in hand - and you really can't afford to get that 4 mana sorcery countered.

These are the sorts of things I figured out in the previous six or so iterations of this deck. You can not play a "Mill" deck and expect to win. It has to be a control deck that moonlights as a miller.[/QUOTE]

so if thats the case, is the shell you've constructed really the best for drawing out to long game? I figure some sort of punishing fires might be good

[Valtrix]

I agree with apples above. If you want to draw out the long game, just play fire/groves. So much in legacy is susceptible to that combo, and I've been immensely happy with it in a Miracle variant I've been playing. I like the idea of extracting threats (to win the long game), but I just can't believe that it's that solid of a late game strategy when you could just go for any of the recursion engines legacy has instead, which, in general, seem to be far more useful on their own.

[ThiefSlayer]

I agree with apples above. If you want to draw out the long game, just play fire/groves. So much in legacy is susceptible to that combo, and I've been immensely happy with it in a Miracle variant I've been playing. I like the idea of extracting threats (to win the long game), but I just can't believe that it's that solid of a late game strategy when you could just go for any of the recursion engines legacy has instead, which, in general, seem to be far more useful on their own.

That would be great to have this combo in here, but this deck relies on black to have the extirpated and some removal, in blue for can trip/counter/JTMS/SCM. Would it be reliable to have 4 colors in this deck? I mean, even if you don't put any green on the deck because of the burnwillow, your manabase would not be really great with burnwillow.

I think liliana would be good here its as it's worse a 3 mana edict, which if sticks will be a pain in the ass. Jace is cool too, but it's too mana intensive. And you can Also just run both.

I think you may also run wastelands. Actually I think this would take you to a man a denial strategy. I have a friend that plays pox and wasteland +extirpate one of the dual lands is usually a badass move. If you do it twice with UWr delver, he loses all his colored mana sources. I think with wastelands you should run at least 20 lands as u got jace and slaughter games too.

[Valtrix]

The point wasn't to suggest that firegroves should should be thrown into this deck. It's more that going for the extraction route is a lategame plan--You're hoping to beat somebody as the game goes on by draining their threats out of their deck, which is only useful in the long term. But, if your goal is to win in the long term it really begs the question if extracting threats is the best way to go about it, or if some other strategy would be a better plan. In particular firegroves is one option to dominate the late game.

[pfiremc13]

I really like this idea, and I would be interested to hear results. I know nation prophetic was doing very well (granted, just at his LGS) with a similar strategy (the thread that apple linked). For me, personally, it requires too much time and dedication.

My conception of this deck is that it is very hard to understand how it works until you try it. My advice to people who haven't tried this is to try it before dismissing it or giving advice.

[pfiremc13]

2 Sudden Demise

Do you think this is better than toxic deluge?

[apple713]

That would be great to have this combo in here, but this deck relies on black to have the extirpated and some removal, in blue for can trip/counter/JTMS/SCM. Would it be reliable to have 4 colors in this deck? I mean, even if you don't put any green on the deck because of the burnwillow, your manabase would not be really great with burnwillow.

I think liliana would be good here its as it's worse a 3 mana edict, which if sticks will be a pain in the ass. Jace is cool too, but it's too mana intensive. And you can Also just run both.

I think you may also run wastelands. Actually I think this would take you to a man a denial strategy. I have a friend that plays pox and wasteland +extirpate one of the dual lands is usually a badass move. If you do it twice with UWr delver, he loses all his colored mana sources. I think with wastelands you should run at least 20 lands as u got jace and slaughter games too.

I think you raise a good point about attacking the manabase, delver decks usually run ~6-8 colored mana sources. It seems like it would be easier in some cases to deny them the ability to cast their spells than to remove all of the threats. Obviously that won't work against decks with lots of colored sources but against delver decks with 3 volc 3 tundra wasteland extirpate is easy. Then sweep the board.

Additionally, pithing needle on fetch lands is a somewhat half decent plan and may help with some other issues.

Do you think this is better than toxic deluge?

toxic deluge is nice but unfortunately it requires life loss and thats not something you have a lot of.



@ Finn, i'd probably up the probe count to 4 just because knowing your opponents deck / hand is so important. Maybe its ok because you have 3 thought seizes too.

[ahg113]

Needs more Cabal Therapy. With so many ways to peek at the opponents hand, 3 G.Probe, 5 extract/surgical, 2 Slaughter games (10) there are plenty of options to go bonkers on discard. Therapy also works well with Snappy, in that you can alternate cast or just recast Therapy with little effort or cost.

Therapy is such a fun card, way more skill intensive than brainstorm.

[apple713]

i drafted this because the version in the OP felt too fragile. Im not sold on Encroach but haven't gotten to use it much.

2 Extirpate
4 Surgical Extraction
4 Archive Trap
2 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize
3 Encroach
4 Brainstorm
3 True-Name Nemesis
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Punishing Fire
2 Terminate
1 Sudden Demise
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Wasteland
3 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
2 Island
1 Swamp
3 Grove of the Burnwillows

[Finn]

Update: Oops. I will have to include something saucy to handle opposing True-Name Nemeses since I cut the Lilianas. I am thinking possibly Toxic Deluge, as was mentioned or maybe just Damnation. I don't think Deluge is especially well-suited for this deck.

Apple, I appreciate your input. Lemme address some of those choices.

Encroach is a crappy card. Don't ever use it. Your Wasteland/Punishing Fire approach might possibly pan out to be something, but I have been doing well by extracting threats while you seem to want to extract mana sources. And while I have found myself going after fetch lands when I have too many Extirpates in my hand, you can't do both well. Gitaxian Probe is a good card, but there are so many cards that let you look at the opponent's hand that I am actually considering reducing them.

[apple713]

Update: Oops. I will have to include something saucy to handle opposing True-Name Nemeses since I cut the Lilianas. I am thinking possibly Toxic Deluge, as was mentioned or maybe just Damnation. I don't think Deluge is especially well-suited for this deck.

Apple, I appreciate your input. Lemme address some of those choices.

Encroach is a crappy card. Don't ever use it. Your Wasteland/Punishing Fire approach might possibly pan out to be something, but I have been doing well by extracting threats while you seem to want to extract mana sources. And while I have found myself going after fetch lands when I have too many Extirpates in my hand, you can't do both well. Gitaxian Probe is a good card, but there are so many cards that let you look at the opponent's hand that I am actually considering reducing them.

why did you cut liliana? she seems natural for this deck to either provide reusable removal and keep combo decks at bay.