The new Extended, or what happens when you try to change the past

The premise of the current season of Heroes is that future Peter Petrelli travels back in time to tell the present Peter Petrelli that the future is really messed up and that he needs to stop events in the present from occuring so that this future doesn't occur.

Or if you prefer, in Back to the Future II, Marty McFly travels into the future and buys a sports almanac to make money in the present on bets, but crochety old Biff takes the almanac and steals the time machine and travels to the past and gives it to himself, and messes up the present. Marty and Doc Brown have to go back and undo what happened to mess it up.

Well, I don't who Wizards of the Coast goes to for time travel. Maybe Kenji Tsumura's superhuman ability isn't Magical powers, but time travel like fellow countryman Hiro Nakamura. Or an artist was modifying the art on a Sensei's Divining Top and saw something terrible like Isaac Mendez did. Or MaRo was fresh out of ideas for new Magic cards, hopped in his Delorean, and brought back the Top from a future World of Warcraft set. WHATEVER happened, the banning of Top has appeared to really mess up Extended, as these really busted Elf combo decks took over Pro Tour Berlin.

Of course, I was thinking the mirror matches would go really fast as the decks can win the turn they go off. Nope, games were apparently taking over an hour, with hundreds of tokens, hundreds of life, and 150/150 Predator Dragons, and way too much math. And these aren't guys at PTQs or FNMs that just copied the list from the Pro Tour. This IS the Pro Tour, and these are the game's professionals. And games are taking over an hour.

If Sensei's Divining Top was banned because rounds were taking too long, it looks like the abundance of this mirror match in the PTQ's will actually be worse for time, because these huge turns could happen during extra turns. And then there could still be a stalemate if both players go off. And hoping that the Pros can find the answer to this deck for Worlds, we might have a two deck format, or a Dredge-like phenomenon where you have to be packing the hate in your sideboard if you don't want to get blown out. It looked like the Tezzerator had the right idea with Needles, Explosives, Trinispheres, and Chalice of the Voids, and he STILL lost in 5 to LSV, the eventual champion!

Rome was dominated by Tolarian Academy and led to bannings. New York (Masques block) was dominatd by Rebels and led to bannings. I don't think we need to absolutely nerf the deck ala Affinity. (Banning Heritage Druid? Glimpse of Nature? Most embarassing ban ever?) I think unbanning Sensei's Divining Top would be a good idea to keep decks like this in check and give Control a greater presence, seeing as there really isn't a great control deck in the format. I thought the previous Extended format was really great. Yeah, Countertop might have been the best deck and really really powerful, but still beatable and there were tons of great alternatives. I don't know if I can say the same.

Wizards, whatever you saw in the future is probably better than this. What you thought would be a good idea and harmless, if not healthy for the format, wasn't. Consider Sensei's Divining Top a less attractive, less human version of Claire Bennet. Save the cheerleader, save the world.