Extended Metagame Analysis and Predictions

Extended season is drawing to a close but we still have a few more PTQ's to go. Mirrodin Besieged has had a pretty awesomely large impact on extended (and every other format of magic) and has already changed the format a lot. As everyone (or at least I hope everyone) has noticed, Sword of Feast and Famine has had the biggest impact thus far, finding its way into a handful of currently existing decks, and completely defining a Standard deck that very quickly turned into an extended deck. While there have been a couple other impacting cards such as Green Sun's Zenith, Go for the Throat, Tezzeret, etc., none have had nearly as much of an impact as Sword of Feast and Famine. Already the extended version of standards Caw-go - the deck based perhaps based around the sword - has won a handful of PTQ's and have made several appearances in top 8's. With the combination of MBS and the general movement of a format, we can determine a few things about the format.

1. If Alara-Zendikar standard was all about defining 4-drop cards, the current Lorwyn-MBS extended is all about powerhouse 2-drops. Between Bitterblossom, Stoneforge Mystic, Prismatic Omen, Fauna Shaman, and even Quasali Pridemage, a lot of the top decks are defined by extremely powerful two mana cost cards, which most decks want to play on Turn 2. If you plan on countering some of these, you better be really lucky at rolling for first or expect to be facing a lot of pain, no matter what the deck.
2. Everything is fast and aggressive. No, not every deck is taping as many creatures as they can, but everything has a strategy it is trying to employ very fast. The only control decks placing well are Faeries and the new U/W, both of which plan on putting some creatures on the board before controlling the rest of the game. If the metagame is to remain the same as it has been from the past post-MBS PTQ's, expect fast game plans.
3. Perhaps the most important, there is no top deck. Yes, Faeries has been performing very well, but as of recently there has been so many decks performing well and winning PTQ's. There is Jund, Bant, Naya, Elves, U/W, several different types of Scapeshift, GW Trap, Mono Red, Faeries, and many more. I have reason to believe that if you can take almost anything to the top in Extended, which is very exciting. On the other hand, there are so many decks and game plans that you must prepare for, so much that it seems more beneficial to be more proactive than reactive (perhaps why there is a big lack of control.) 

That being said, there are a few predictions I would make given the nature of people and how formats flow.

• The format is becoming slightly less interactive. With the exception of the two only control decks that I mentioned above, almost no one is playing much removal, counter magic, or disruption as most decks just try to do their plan better than you. Yes, people are playing these things, but with decks like Elves and Scapeshift constantly rocking the top tables, I can't say the entire format cares that much about what you're doing. If you have a game plan that is hard to disrupt, you can probably make it work well (at least game 1.) 

• While this will vary location to location, I can say generally, expect lots of U/W with swords, RG Scapeshift, and Faeries. The first two you can expect a lot of not only because of their power level but mostly because they are slightly altered standard decks. Faeries you can expect a lot of because it has been considered the 'best deck' for the season and most people have picked it up or have been playing it for several seasons now.
• Sword of Feast and Famine is going to be really popular. Whether or not you are playing the sword yourself (something I recommend, its REALLY good...) you should have a plan against the sword because you will see it a lot. It is used in U/W and Faeries which as I said are already very popular decks, and it see's play in many other decks such as Bant and some new Naya builds, and will see play in many more decks. Hopefully you've been hit by this card a few times already to know just how devastating it is, so plan your decks with this card in mind.

Those are my predictions for those of you planning on going to a serious extended tournament any time soon. As for myself, well, I still haven't decided what to play, as I play for specific tournaments and often change my deck for each tournament. I'm very excited with this format (except Scapeshift... Valakut can go f*** itself) and I'm probably going to try a handful of decks before I play at Seattle and my home town of Portland. Currently I'm playing Faeries, as I've always wanted to play the deck and now have the cards available to me. However, I may just design an awesome build of my current standard deck RUG, as I've seen a few in the top 8's recently and I can already play the deck very well. I'll post up decklists when I get them rolling ;)

Brandon