Preparation, or lack thereof

I have two weeks until Grand Prix Oakland, and I've been playing very little actual Extended matches. I haven't even been doing side-by-side testing, because of a lack of faith in it. When you can't figure out how Dark Depths beats Scapeshift when it's supposed to be a very good matchup according to people who actually play Magic, or similarly when you think Faeries can beat Burn, your methods may be flawed.

Also consider that there are a MILLION viable decks, unlike Standard where Jund was the big bogeyman and I was basically trying three or four decks to see if they beat Jund. I've come to the conclusion that if I pick out a top tier deck and come armed with a solid sideboard, I can do fine as long as I like my deck.

Add to the fact that Worldwake may not have added many cards to the format, except maybe the new Wasteland which only really nerfs Scapeshift, and I can just use the current metagame to figure out what the most powerful decks are.

I'm proxying four or five decks I could conceivably play:
- Steppe Lynx Zoo
- Faeries
- Aggro-Scapeshift
- Thopter Depths
- Red Burn

I'm bringing them with me to the prerelease this Saturday pretty early and battling anyone who will battle me. In fact, I'll probably be going to a lot of events just with these decks battling anyone who will battle me. I'm not interested in collecting data, but instead just finding a deck I "like", and figuring out how matchups go. I think all these decks are the most powerful decks in the format, it will just be a matter of getting comfortable with them and knowing the interactions.

I'll probably end up purchasing the cards for ALL of these decks and bringing them to Oakland and then making a metagame decision and adjusting my sideboard accordingly. Maybe in the meantime I will stumble upon a brew I like that has good matchups against most decks in the format and that people won't have a clue about, ala my Naya deck last May for the Grand Prix. (I went 16-5 with that deck that weekend. One poor match away from top 8'ing the PTQ!)

I've said it many times, but Constructed is hard...