[Free Article] Experimenting in Legacy Against You-Know-What

[voltron00x]

So obviously I wrote this expecting Survival to be banned, which perhaps makes it a curious article, but I had two objectives:

1 - Show why combo isn't really quite the foil to Survival that we'd like it to be, due to the power of Enlightened Tutor as a trump, and,

2 - Play around with some more budget-friendly deck options and throw some new decks out there for post-Survival Legacy.

The Affinity deck is quite good. I would play it in January, albeit with a revised sideboard. The Belcher deck likewise has impressed me with how consistent the one-land version can be.

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...uKnowWhat.html

[Tammit67]

I would love to see more articles like this one

[Aggro_zombies]

There's a typo in the Affinity decklist: it says Etched Oracle instead of Champion.

Otherwise, nice article.

[rleader]

I'd have a difficult time dropping money on Opals just to play affinity even though they're much more reasonable now.

[voltron00x]

There's a typo in the Affinity decklist: it says Etched Oracle instead of Champion.

Otherwise, nice article.

That's my fault, I actually did the same thing in the text below the deck and caught it there, but not in the deck itself. I sent an email to Lauren asking her to correct it.

Don't sleep on that Affinity deck. Standard warnings re: hate apply, obviously, but if I were playing Legacy in January I would probably play that deck. It generally stomps all over the other creature decks like Merfolk, Zoo, and Goblins; you know, the ones people are going to want to play now that Survival is ban-hammered.

rleader: Opals aren't a bad investment at the price. Artifact decks in Legacy are getting close to a critical mass where they might become good (considering that you can already play 4 Metalworkers and 4 Grim Monoliths) and if they do, the price will spike; ditto if the rest of Scars block makes the card playable in Standard. Also keep in mind that apparently artifact aggro.dec is a real deck in Extended, and that is the next PTQ season.

I think its safe to assume the cellar for a card like Mox Opal is probably in the $8-10 range so once they get there, its probably a safe buy.

[android]

I'd buy at $10 or less. Not only to have them available but at that point, the card will only go up. People need to be shown the power of a card (via top 8 performance) before they believe. All the conjecture in the world gets tossed right out the door when a card is proven successful.

[Linkin Pac]

I'm really liking the looks of the Affinity deck a lot. It seems that unlike the usual Master of Etherium builds, this one is better able to dump its hand onto the battlefield much quicker, and can actually make use of Myr Enforcer. Atog/Ravager with Disciple also seems to be ignored these days. But I look forward to trying it, I also like how it's not too dependent on colored spells.

What would you change in the sideboard? I would start with 4 Tormod's Crypt and 4 Mindbreak Traps, but don't know where to go from there.

[TsumiBand]

I find it odd that you find 'tension' between Master of Etherium and the whole Atog/Ravager + DotV strategy, when really MoE is sort of what life would be like if Tarmogoyf were also a Lord. I mean, the apparent lack of synergy between Disciple, Ravager and MoE should sort of be made up for by the fact that most of your deck is already artifact permanents and that Disciple's best application has always been to eek out lethal damage, which MoE puts target player in range of - without having to draw Cranial Plating.

I know this isn't a popular opinion, and anecdotal evidence is a lousy proof of anything, but my experience with the deck usually sees DotV being the biggest question mark in the deck. No not kidding. Generally only great in multiples, the deck wins without it, doesn't help the Affinity count and there's been about a vajillion times when I wished to hell it'd been a Thoughtseize instead.

[voltron00x]

As I sort of said in the article, I tried a LOT of different builds before getting to this one. A. LOT.

Affinity is a weird deck that is harder to build correctly than you'd think. Springleaf Drum, Mox Opal, Affinity costs, colored mana distribution, etc - this is an easy deck to "eyeball" but hard to actually get right. As I say in the article, I'm really happy with this list and how it actually plays in real-game situations. Hopefully I can get some tournament action in next month or in February.

This is the sideboard I'd play today:

4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Nature's Ruin / Perish
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Thoughtseize
2 Pyroblast [This is a floater slot, I've also considered a removal spell, or adding some # of Engineered Plague; you can cut a Thoughtseize and/or Nature's Ruin/Perish to push this up to a 4-of]

EDIT - just to expand specifically on Master of Etherium, what I found was that it often just got killed. When you build around Master, that guy just becomes a huge target. Now you're going into combat having to try to figure out if they have the removal spell, or keeping hands based on Master resolving / staying alive, and more importantly, you're either a) not playing Champion, which is a big mistake, b/c the card is your trump against other creature decks, or b) you're playing Champion, in which case your deck is too slow. The way the deck is built, it is still fast, but has threat density and diversity. You want to overload opponents removal, and Master versions don't really do that very well.

[frogboy]

Sort of irrelevant now, but I think it's sort of loose to be like 'oh man, this version of Tendrils is bad against a maindecked Canonist' when the Burning Wish builds are more stock, more resilient to a Canonist, and boast more turn two and turn three wins (and therefore make the Tutor for Canonist lines irrelevant)

(article was vg obvobvobv)

[voltron00x]

Well, the point was more like: look at the havoc that adding just one Canonist to that deck does to combo match-ups, let alone if people actually were straight-up prepared b/c people starting flocking to Tendrils decks. I mean, beating a deck with 4 Canonist 4 Thoughtseize 3 Cabal Therapy 4 E. Tutor plus a clock? Not sure Burning Wish really gets you past that.

That U/B deck has / had some serious advocates and did well in a few big events, so I just found it amusing that changing one card did so much damage to what some consider(ed) a match-up way in favor of ANT.

But yeah, all sort of moot now.

[frogboy]

One of the reasons Ari likes the UB build so much is because you don't need many maindeck answers to hate, fwiw.

[Valtrix]

Perhaps not focusing on the main part of the article, but I was wondering if you had tried versions running 4 master/4 plating/4 stoneforge mystic/possible other equipment? I've been testing this type of affinity and have been rather happy with it. I think it's probably a little slower than your build with ravagers, disciples, and atogs, although this is not to say that it's slow. I think that such a version is a lot less "all-in" and has more inevitability. There's a very large difference in staring down a quick ravager compared to a quick master. I could talk about it more, but mostly I was curious if you had tried this type of version and if so what your thoughts were.

[voltron00x]

An interesting build I tried had Stoneforge in the Atog slot, with no red mana. It makes it much easier to find Plating, which makes every creature more ridiculous. That version is better against removal, and white gives you your own removal if you want, and Canonist in the SB.

But, no Atog makes Disciple and Mox Opal worse, and thus you're being pulled toward a rather different deck again.

[Valtrix]

Yes, making that change does pull you toward a rather different deck, but I guess that's what my question is about. Namely, is that different style deck one that is better or worse than the one you presented in your article, since I haven't played your version to compare.

[Vacrix]

Decent article man.

In Affinity, I'd say that Cabal Therapy is stronger post-board then something like Duress. Cabal Therapy will often get played twice given the sheer number of 0 mana artifact creatures you play. Further, because you can sacrifice artifact creatures to it, you also get a little synergy with Disciple of the Vault. I'd say they might even be worth running over Mindbreak Traps. Trap will probably get Duressed away before the opponent goes off. Permanent hate is much better, especially hate that doesn't really affect you too much like Thorn. Also, if your opponent takes Cabal Therapy with their own protection, you can still play it from your graveyard.