I'm new to Legacy, but in October there's a Legacy GP (Amsterdam) coming to my country. I've always been an Affinity player, and I've heard rumors that the deck is somewhat playable in Legacy.
After goldfishing some lists that made top 8 at the SCG Opens, I've found a Tezzeret list that I like. My question is, how do the good decks of the format interact with it?
Below is the list. In practice, you have two types of games: the ones where you vomit your hand onto the table with Mox Opal, cheap creatures and a Plating or Master, and games where it takes slightly longer to play out your hand (turn 3-4) and finish with Master or Tezzeret.
How do the top decks react to these openings?
Maindeck
4 Memnite
4 Frogmite
3 Myr Enforcer
2 Etched Champion
4 Ornithopter
4 Master of Etherium
4 Signal Pest
4 Thoughtcast
3 Springleaf Drum
4 Cranial Plating
4 Mox Opal
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
Sideboard
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Pithing Needle
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Diabolic Edict
3 Thoughtseize
Most top decks will employ one of these strategies:
Attempt to puke out creatures of their own while making tempo plays like wastelands and burning creatures in response to you equipping cranial plating.
Play Show and Tell/Natural Order and ignore you entirely.
Puke elves on the table faster than you can puke artifacts, then use those elves to summon the great spaghetti god.
Tendrils/Belcher you for 20 or more.
Reanimate a fatty and attempt to ignore you or ensure you can't attack.
Counter your keyspells then combo off or drop big fatties to beat you to death.
Rape your hand, murder your creatures and bury you in card advantage.
Lots of Decks will have hate in their boards or maindeck in the form of:
Pernicious Deed
Null Rod
Shattering Spree
Ancient Grudge
Krosan Grip
Quasali Pridemage
As for your list Tezzeret is slow and hard to cast sometimes and Mox Opal shouldn't be a 4 of ... Its legendary, 3 is a better number. Mental Misstep is a very good card in affinity and in most any deck at all for that matter, spell pierce is good in the board as well.
You should check this thread for more discussions on Affinity vs. the format:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...-Vial-Affinity
Not to scare you of at all. You have chances to actually beat some decks, but its no deck to beat.
Greetings
Welcome to the Source either way.
Afinity is one of those decks that's a glass cannon. You either run into hate for it or you don't. It's a better deck than people give it credit for, it just happens to have serious problems with the hate cards that work against it. If you don't see a Null Rod all day, you're probably going to do well. Luckily people have cut back on the Affinity hate somewhat since UW decks have taken a small upswing lately.
Just remember any deck that has GW has pridemages (3-4 main), any deck with Green has Krosan Grip (almost always), and everything else can bring in around 4 cards worth of artifact destruction if not more as a general rule.
The reanimators seem to always be the ones with the Null Rods.
Be aware that anyone running white may also be running an Enlightened Tutor board with access to Null Rod.
To be honest, if you can afford the Cards, Merfolk is a pretty easy deck to pilot and would probably serve you better at the GP. Not to say that Affinity wont do well, but odds of it being hated on, and shut down either intentionally or unintentionally are probably higher than merfolk being shut down.
I'll mention Kataki, War's Wage since no one else has. You should probably be playing Dispatch, which gives you an out. A friend of mine did well at GP Providence with this Affinity list: http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/14800
"I'm willing to imagine a TES where Past in Flames replaces Ill-Gotten Gains entirely, and we just don't play Diminishing Returns." - me, 29/09/2011
Founding member of Team Scrubbad: Legacy Legends
you can see in this article that affinity does not show good results in the current metagame.
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...gacy_Open.html
I personally think that it is stronger than this results show (win% of 43 Percent since MM) and that it also depends on which route to take. Decisions like Tezeret, W vs. R,...
Thanks for your insights, everyone. So basically Affinity just has to get lucky and dodge the hate to finish high. Not an easy thing to do in a GP, unfortunately.
So if I still want to play it, I'll have to start looking for ways to make the deck more resistant to hate. I've made a list of all the hate-cards mentioned so far. Could you help me by saying how likely I am to run into them in the current metagame? Scale 1-3, with 1 = about one in ten matches, 2 = about one in four matches, 3 = about one in two matches.
Pernicious Deed
Null Rod
Shattering Spree
Ancient Grudge
Krosan Grip
Quasali Pridemage
Kataki, War's Wage
Thanks a lot!
Pernicious Deed - 2
Null Rod - 2
Shattering Spree - 1
Ancient Grudge - 3
Krosan Grip - 3
Quasali Pridemage - 3
Kataki, War's Wage - 1
Welcome to legacy. If you're not playing blue, you're doing it wrong.
Needs more goyfs.
Pithing Needle and Phyrexian Revoker can shut down a lot of hate. Your main issue with be with Shattering Spree.
"If you're playing Storm in Legacy, you need to believe that what your deck does is better than what their deck does."
Honestly, Blue is very strong, but another choice, could be using Black as a control method to cause heavy discard, and control the pace of the game that way.
As explained, Affinity is no Deck-to-Beat.
I wouldn't be too concerned with hate though : it's not what people are bothered about in their sideboards currently.
Your best chance, imo, is to go for a fast kill, which will help negate any hate anyway. That means ditching Tezzeret, however powerful he is, Myr Enforcer and Etched Champion and opting for metal-burn (Galvanic Blast and Shrapnel Blast). It will accentuate the glass cannon effect but you often can't afford to enter the long game.
I also don't think Signal Pest is good enough ; once you do the maths and actually account for opponent interaction, it's rarely better than a 1/1 for 1.
Darksteel Citadel is often pointless, even with Tezzeret : run Mishra's Factory instead if you're not too colored, or Ancient Den for Dispatch/Cannonist.
3 Mox Opal is also good advice. Sneak in a Glimmervoid instead of the 4th for example.
Sideboard considerations for quick-kill Affinity : Whipflare, for the aggro/aggro-control matchup, and Phyrexian Revoker against control/combo. Whatever you choose, though, keep in mind who will have the best tempo in each matchup : don't slow your game if you face control for instance (sounds obvious but worth saying).
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