I've been working on a Esper-Tezz/Thopter brew and keep running into the "D&T is a stupid deck" issue (feels very 50/50..:( ) I was thinking that Etched Champion is not only defensively stellar against them (and goyf.. and myriad other things) but also dodges both sides of Mom activations for Jitte-game-enders and taking care of Mirran Crusader. Having had a Koira ult me recently (and winning :P) I could see the random applications in blocking huge beasties or swinging through with perfect evasion.
I was curious on other's thoughts given he's only in Affinity, a Tier 2 deck at best. Is there enough artifact hate out there to really deal with Champion's psuedo-TNN status?
Is it just that TNN is that much better that you should warp your mana-base? Or is it that the shells that could support him are "meh" or have better things to do? I feel like his ground-stalling potential and ease of swinging with Jitte/SoFaI could cause easy (and huge) swings.
Originally Posted by Nestalim
Pretty obvious: You have to have metalcraft in order for Etched Champion to be a psuedo-TNN, which means you have to build pretty much the whole deck around him. With TNN, there are no special sacrifices to make. Having to cut cards for a plethora of artifacts is difficult because there aren't a lot of great artifacts out there, so that leaves you having to decide on fetch lands vs. artifact lands. One category synergizes with Brainstorm and Sensei's Divining Top and the other doesn't.
Affinity is Tier 3 now. You can look at how long it's been between posts in that thread.
It seems to me that the only significant advantage of Etched Champion over TNN is that it is colorless. That does help a little in the D&T matchup. But then Etched Champion can be removed by an opponent's Jitte or SoFaI and it doesn't have protection from Phyrexian Revoker, unlike TNN.
Etched Champion just feels subpar in Legacy.
I don't see how colorless helps in the least against D+T.
One creature can be blocked and killed by Revoker, hit with Jitte or Sword of Fire and Ice, and rendered inert by whacking their other artifacts.
The other one can not be interacted with in any form. Oh, except for the specific hate which D+T brings in for the matchup including Celestial Flare and Council's Judgment. Oh, and both of those also hit Champion.
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Can't pitch a Champion to Force and TNN is never "Off". Also, inbuilt protection from Jitte I have been told is relatively good in Legacy.
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Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
What kind of equipment are you running?
It's hard to make statements until you post a decklist. If you plan to use TNN as a mere roadblock without Jitte/Batterskull to back it up, I don't think you're going to get the results you want.
Besides, D&T can beat/race TNN. Sometimes D&T loses to it and it's annoying to deal with it, but it's far from the autowin solution you're looing for.
Depending on your manabase and the rest of your deck, SB Massacre might do a better job.
If TNN was a 3cc 2/2 instead of 3/1 he'd be played much less often than he is now. The 3 power lets him race some things he couldn't handle at 2.
Literally the only upside that Champion has vs TNN is that he can't be hit by REB on the stack. That's it. A part from that, and a a part from the cards functionality, I heard that playing a pure blue shell in legacy is better than playing an artifact (or blue artifact) shell.
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This just isn't true. Mom can't give protection to swing through, SoFaI guys don't get around him. (3) is much easier than 1UU if you're running anything like Liliana (especially against a deck that will happily cut you off of double-colors were you fortunate enough to find them.) These are very relevant interactions in the MU I'm speaking of.
@Barook
I didn't post a decklist as it was more of what prodded my thinking. I've mostly convinced myself not to run him unless I swap from Ponder to SDTs (or shave cards for them..) as I think you really need a 1-2-3 kinda drop to make him any good (and even then you have to be careful for a turn about how you're blocking and such.)
Inactivity in the Affinity thread doesn't say anything about the actual power of the deck. Despite not having posted in the thread, I have been consistently played the deck in REL (fun& Comp) events since 2013. I've been doing very well in my local meta with my current list of Affinity in the past two months, keeping the same MD throughout. I top8'd a IQ in December with this list. This deck is insanely powerful. Undisrupted, I can kill on turn 3-4 easily, and with the perfect 7, I can kill on turn 2. Ensoul Artifact just rolls over people. 4 Mystic and 4 Thoughtcast also make the deck really resilient and chock full of gas. I stopped posting in the Affinity thread because I'd rather just focus on my list and keep doing well than worry about what everyone else in the Affinity thread is doing, because chances are they're way behind or I've already tried what they suggested.
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Yeah for sure vs DNT is better, but since the thread title reads ''[SCD] Etched Champion (vs TNN)'' I was just stating the obvious.
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