[Deck] Affinity [Archive] - Page 5

Shawon

10-09-2012, 11:22 PM

Only that, you know, he's a planeswalker and not a creature (pretty huge) and re-stocks your hand 1 card at a time (pretty slow).

You're right, I forgot that Ringleader doesn't guarantee 5 to the dome nor takes 12-16 life from your opponent by itself. Moot semantics aside, I would put Tezzeret and an artifact Goblin Ringleader more or less on the same playing field as threats control players must answer (or lose).

If you're losing to UW Miracles, it's not because you don't have access to a fictional Goblin Ringleader, it's because you're either not running Tezzeret or your disruption isn't good enough.

Let's digress from Tezzeret for a second. Kanti, I know you claim Chalice is pretty strong against UW, but how has it actually come up in testing? Aside from the fact that it's luck-dependent and that drawing it beyond turns 1-3 is kinda pointless, 1 Disenchant or EE can undo all the effort and setup you made for that game-breaking Chalice. Can you explain to me how Chalice makes this matchup much more manageable than Tezzeret could? I just don't see how a card specifically used as a disruption tool that can answered by Disenchant or EE be a better solution than a card that ignores both mentioned cards, wins on its own, and isn't useless when drawn in the late game. It should be obvious by now that you don't think Chalice is good against Miracles, otherwise you would've mentioned how the Miracles matchup is positive for you now and you wouldn't be saying this bullshit below.

There is really no reason to play this deck in the current metagame besides it being someones pet deck.

I'm making a generalization here so I'm not making any statement on your actual skill, but it's this type of attitude that keeps alive the reputation of Affinity being played only by shitty players, and it's why it prevents a progressive and communal discussion of the archetype to become as successful as the Nic Fit thread discussion.

Who are you to say this deck isn't playable anymore, when you yourself have made little effort to try to adapt to the metagame? Trying out Chalice and then giving up on the deck after it doesn't work the way you want it to isn't effort. Kanti, all you've changed from your last decklist is the manabase and 3 relevant sb cards. You still have the 4 Chalices and the 4 Revokers in the SB, and by now you've given up on the matchup as well as Affinity in general. Is it possible for you to consider the outside chance that you might need to adapt your deck instead of heralding the same cards you claim are solid in most if not every matchup (-> Ravager + Disciple, Chalice) and blaming the metagame?

Obviously Chalice hasn't done enough for you against Miracles as you claimed it would. Why not test Tezzeret now, as it was the other sb card you were considering for the Miracles matchup? Feel me to contradict me, but your statements lead me to believe either you are really attached to Disciple or you refuse to actually test Tezzeret. Nothing else makes sense, because you're the only one in this thread so far who continues to believe that Disciple isn't considerable as a card to cut and continues to refuse actually testing Tezzeret. You haven't even tested the very card that everyone else runs to good results and you're wondering why you're having a hard time.

Johanovich

10-10-2012, 06:20 AM

There is really no reason to play this deck in the current metagame besides it being someones pet deck.

Just wanted to post out latest results with this deck:

We participated at a local store legacy event. There were 19 people and we ended in first place with affinity (and second with the gate and 7th with reanimator).

We played this list:

3 etched champion
4 frogmite
4 vault skirge
4 master of etherium
4 ornithopter
4 memnite
2 arcbound ravager
4 cranial plating
4 thoughtcast
4 chalice of the void
3 mox opal
3 springleaf drum
2 tezzeret, agent of bolas

4 ancient tomb
4 seat of the synod
3 vault of whispers
4 darksteel citadel

SB:
3 phyrexian revoker
2 cursed totem
2 grafdigger’s cage
2 tormod’s crypt
2 spellskite
2 thorn of amethyst
2 meekstone

Dunno if this deck was paired against miracles since one of my teammates was playing with it, but chalice was the star of the show for the deck. According to him nearly half of the matches were won due to an early chalice sticking on 1. Spellskite was also amazing.

Now we have found a 4th mox so the list has been changed to the following to completely exclude any spells with cmc 1 in the maindeck:

3 etched champion
4 frogmite
4 vault skirge
4 master of etherium
4 ornithopter
4 memnite
3 arcbound ravager
4 cranial plating
4 thoughtcast
4 chalice of the void
4 mox opal
2 tezzeret, agent of bolas

4 ancient tomb
4 seat of the synod
4 vault of whispers
4 darksteel citadel

SB:
3 phyrexian revoker
2 cursed totem
2 grafdigger’s cage
2 tormod’s crypt
2 spellskite
2 thorn of amethyst
2 meekstone

Just to point out affinity can still kick some ass!

Kanti

10-10-2012, 12:31 PM

Just because Tezzeret is as much as a threat to Tundra control decks doesn't mean you should be comparing it to a Ringleader, who would be good vs Tundra and versus Bayou and versus Volcanic Island and etc etc etc. Tezz doesn't guarantee 5 to the dome, and his ultimate ability doesn't always get the chance to go off. Compare this to an Envoy effect and you can see how a guaranteed X/Y body that creature CA on the spot would be miles better. Him being a Planeswalker is something that even furthers the blow as you can't Vial him in, and he gets hit by Spell Pierce, which sees play in just about every U-deck.

How strong is Chalice against Miracles? Extremely strong. A resolved Chalice against a Miracle deck makes it very, very hard for the Tundra player to interact with you. Seeing as I would be siding in x4 Revokers against them as well E.E becomes much less of a problem. Tezzeret winning on his own is a pipe dream. If you are not seeing how disruption can be better than another threat you should maybe spend some time playing other decks, maybe something like Death and Taxes, or even Pox, to see just how much damage disruption can do in this format. And no, the card isn't dead passed t3. A resolved Chalice on t4 for 1-2 is still extremely strong. And that is on it's lonesome. If you already have a Chalice@1 out and resolve a Chalice@2 the game is pretty much yours.

Nothing, I repeat NOTHING, will make the Miracle match-up positive, barring sbing +2-4 Tezz, +4 Revokers, +4 Chalice. Even then the match-up would still probably be 50-50. Saying a card isn't good against a deck because it doesn't make the match-up positive is pure idiocy. By that line of thought Leyline of the Void isn't good versus Dredge because they can play around it. A resolved Chalice, in my testing, is the best shot this deck has of winning the Miracle match-up.

So it's not Chalice that isn't doing enough for me, it's the other 56 cards I'm running in the deck. Do yourself a favor and test Chalice yourself before bashing it. And I don't really understand the part about it being "luck dependant". What the fuck does that even mean?

I have tested Tezzeret Affinity, and I have had much more positive results with Vial Affinity as opposed to Tezzeret Affinity. I don't know where you got the idea that I "refuse to test Tezzeret" but that is a pretty baseless statement. How on earth do you know what I do, and don't test?

I have tried to adapt, and it has brought me to my sideboard. I tested a bunch of weird sideboards and decided it was best to get back to basics. Chalice is incredible against so many decks in the format (UW Tundra, Canadian Thresh, Storm, Elves), and Revoker is pretty much the same (UW Tundra, Maverick, SnT, Storm). Crypt is obviously good vs Reanimator and Dredge (especially against Dredge where running x4 Ravager already lets you steal some g1's. g2 you will have 8 hate cards against them which is huge)

Disciple+Ravager is amazing. They are some of the strongest cards this deck has besides Champion and Plating. I don't really think I can explain this anymore (I posted my thoughts some pages ago). Turning everything into [card]Shock[/cards] is good, among the other dozens of uses they have (blank spot removal, get around blockers, combo-kill them, stop Jitte, stop Lifelink, make Deed useless, stop Emrakul, makes Etched Champion a monster, makes Vault Skirge a monster, allows you to profitably block Goyf). Why do I herald these cards? Because they are fucking AMAZING. And they have been since Affinity has existed. Compare that to running, what, Memnite over Disciple? Yeah, that's real smart.

My list hasn't changed because it's solid. It hasn't changed because this is probably the most linear deck in Magic, passed some nonesense like Belcher. If you need any explanation regarding my card choices I suggest you read the opening post, about 8 times over.

A possibility is to cut the Crypts for 2-3 Tezz, +some other card. You'd be sacrificing the Reanimator and Dredge matches for the UW match. This might be worth it, but it's metagame dependant and would probably do you over at a larger event when you face Dredge and auto-lose.

I stand by my comment. Unless you are playing this deck because you like it there is no reason not to choose another, more powerful, aggro-deck. If you don't agree with this I don't really care, but you are cutting yourself short of winning more games. If I had to swing with creatures I'd play Elves or Gobbos any day over this pile.

And I didn't say it wasn't playable. I only said that there was no reason to play this deck less it was your pet deck. Affinity has no advantages over Goblins. None. And this is before Cavern and Krenko were even printed.

Also, please direct me to the "good results" that everyone playing Tezz Affinity runs to. Besides like 3-4 SCG finishes (which all occured before Miracles became a deck) the deck blows. Not only does it lose to Miracles but it has a very tough time against Maverick, especially if you run a lot of Master of Etheriums as they are never going to connect.

Affinity is shit. That I typed out this huge wall of text for such a shitty deck is a disappointment.

@John

Congratz on the result. I've been thinking of putting Chalice in the main as well, just don't know what I would cut. I've also been pondering on cutting the Frogmites for Revokers and putting in the 4th Vial main-deck. This might actually be a good idea.

I'd find room for the 4th Champion, like I said earlier. He is your best threat vs UW, RUG, Maverick, and Goblins.

Shawon

10-10-2012, 10:47 PM

Just because Tezzeret is as much as a threat to Tundra control decks doesn't mean you should be comparing it to a Ringleader

You're the one who made the comparison, not me. I didn't literally mean we have a functional equivalent of Goblin Ringleader in the form of Tezzeret. All I meant was that we have a proactive threat that is more or less as problematic for Miracles as an artifact Ringleader would. One of these cards actually exists and the other one doesn't, so making a serious comparison between the two is an exercise in jackassery.

Tezzeret winning on his own is a pipe dream.

Hyperbole much? I've already explained many times how Tezzeret can win the game by itself and it's not hard at all to win after it resolves. How hard is that for you to understand? Use your brain. Tezzeret has 3 abilities, all of which are relevant against Miracles. I'm not going to spell this out for you anymore.

If you are not seeing how disruption can be better than another threat you should maybe spend some time playing other decks, maybe something like Death and Taxes, or even Pox, to see just how much damage disruption can do in this format.

Thanks for that wonderful advice, Kanti! I had no idea how useful disruption can be against other decks. I mean, what was I thinking using Spell Pierce to improve my matchups against control and combo? How stupid of me to think my strategy would do anything other than disrupt my opponent?

I have tested Tezzeret Affinity, and I have had much more positive results with Vial Affinity as opposed to Tezzeret Affinity. I don't know where you got the idea that I "refuse to test Tezzeret" but that is a pretty baseless statement. How on earth do you know what I do, and don't test?

You're right, I don't know what you do or test, and I believe you when you say - you - have - tested - Tezzeret - in - the - past. In. The. Past. Testing Tezzeret when it came out in January 2011 or whenever the fuck you tested him isn't the same as testing him now. You should be interested in testing Tezzeret against a specific matchup, not testing Tezz to see how good it is in Affinity.

Turning everything into [b][card]Shock[/cards] is good, among the other dozens of uses they have (blank spot removal, get around blockers, combo-kill them, stop Jitte, stop Lifelink, make Deed useless, stop Emrakul, makes Etched Champion a monster, makes Vault Skirge a monster, allows you to profitably block Goyf).

I'm talking about Disciple, not Ravager, so spare me. Notice how you need Ravager for most of those uses? Take away Ravager, what do you get? You get a puny 1/1 nonartifact that does nothing on its own, and the fact it doesn't hurt your opponent when they cast Terminus is pretty relevant if you are trying to justify keeping Disciple against Miracles.

Why do I herald these cards? Because they are fucking AMAZING. And they have been since Affinity has existed. Compare that to running, what, Memnite over Disciple? Yeah, that's real smart.

Right, running a free card that turns your Drum into a Mox is terribly irrelevant and inconsistent, I should just run a nonartifact 1/1 that doesn't activate Mox Opal, doesn't improve Cranial Plating, and doesn't help me cast Thoughtcast on turn 1 or turn 2 with mana backup for Daze or Spell Pierce. Real smart wouldn't you say?

My list hasn't changed because it's solid. It hasn't changed because this is probably the most linear deck in Magic, passed some nonesense like Belcher. If you need any explanation regarding my card choices I suggest you read the opening post, about 8 times over.

Also, please direct me to the "good results" that everyone playing Tezz Affinity runs to. Besides like 3-4 SCG finishes (which all occured before Miracles became a deck) the deck blows. Not only does it lose to Miracles but it has a very tough time against Maverick, especially if you run a lot of Master of Etheriums as they are never going to connect.

Perhaps you should read this 8 times over:

"What really decides if a deck falls into the linear category is its strategic focus. If a deck is totally focused on pursuing one single angle of attack or abusing one particular kind of interaction, that is what Magic theory calls a linear deck." - Carsten Kotter's article on linear decks

Affinity doesn't fall into this category. It can win through the attack phase, Disciple life loss, or Tezzeret activations. 3 different lines of attack. Not linear, and a deck that isn't linear has plenty of room for change in its design to add or subtract focus on a particular line of attack. In English, no card in the Affinity archetype is above the eye of scrutiny. Including Disciple of the Vault.

In your quote you say your list is solid, yet you're bitching about two matchups, matchups by the way I have by now told you how to address (both on the Source and on MWS). You can say you've tried stuff but you can't go back to the same decklist and expect different results. Then again, I don't care what you do. You can dump the deck if you like, but don't think about saying the deck can't hack in today's metagame if you haven't tried all the available options for a particular matchup. That includes testing Tezzeret specifically against Miracles and I can tell from your posts that you haven't done that.

And popularity or lack thereof has no correlation with the power level of ANY deck. This is the second time you've brought up the 'results' argument when it doesn't have to do with what we're discussing. I mean, really?

Hanni

10-11-2012, 12:40 AM

Different angles of attack aren't what make a strategy linear or non-linear, they are simply the difference between being interactive vs non-interactive.

Dredge has multiple angles too, whether it be slow beats with Ichorid and Narcomoeba, 2/2 tokens, or a reanimated fatty. They can also interact with Therapy.

Burn can interact by aiming some of the burn at the opponent's creatures, and they also use creatures these days as another angle of attack.

What constitutes linearity vs non-linearity lies within the fundamental strategy of the deck. There are two basic principles to this.

The first principle:
When you want to drop your hand with a bunch of cheap or free artifact creatures and smash face, that's pretty linear. Most of the creatures are horrible on defense, most lists have limited removal options, and most lists have no way to interact with the stack or otherwise disrupt its opponents. You're entire goal is to drop the opponent from 20 to 0 as fast as possible. Tezzeret does is give you some midgame strength, to compensate for the deck crapping out due to running a ton of underpowered threats like 0/2 fliers and 1/1's. It is still linear though... it either makes a 5/5, does some damage and gains some life, or gives you an Impulse.

When you start running Dispatch, Cabal Therapy, Spell Pierce, Jitte, etc... you become more interactive and less linear.

Which brings me to another point; there isn't some exact difference that makes one deck linear and one deck non-linear. It's not always an all or nothing thing. Some decks are extremely linear, while other decks are only slightly linear. Most Affinity lists are extremely linear, while some are less so.

The second principle:
Affinity's construction is primarily (and almost completely) artifact based, which makes it very linear in this regard. Much like Dredge goes all in on the graveyard, or Burn goes all in on one-time effects to reduce its opponents life total, Affinity goes all in with artifacts. This is what makes linear strategies hard to beat when there are too many of them seeing alot of play in the format (too much specific hate required), and what makes them easy to hate out when there are not that many seeing alot of play in the format.

Kanti

10-11-2012, 01:04 AM

Affinity isn't linear? AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Is that a joke? Affinity's strategic focus is smashing through with tons of artifacts, and abusing the interaction between them and it's namesake mechanic.

And no, I didn't make the comparison. You know when you replied to my first post with this "We already have that ringleader: Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas" as your opening sentence? Sorry I took the bait and replied, but don't change the story.

Just like the "results arguement", that is me taking the bait again after you typed "You haven't even tested the very card that everyone else runs to good results and you're wondering why you're having a hard time. ". I simply asked you to show me these results that you speak of. This is the second time you say something and blame me on using it as an arguement. Pretty coy man, pretty coy.

Running 8 0cc creatures without Pest is terrible. Absolutely terrible. You say you gain speed with Memnite but you actually lose it as your deck can't combo somebody out via DotV+Ravager. If you would go back to Pest you probably woudn't lose too much speed at all since Pest is pretty damn good once you make the decision to run Memnite. If you are resolving a DotV you can wait a turn to resolve a Thoughtcast.

Thank you for telling me how to adress the matchups. To bad Spell Pierce is absolute shit compared to Chalice. You say I am losing vs Miracles because my disruption isn't good enough, yet you'd rather have Pierce as disruption over Chalice? Are you kidding me? Pierce is stronger than Chalice? Cmon... Chalice, besides being immensely stronger once resolves, is even an artifact. In Affinity. Cmon.

Anyhow, I've told you I would like to fit a Tezzeret in the deck for UW but I can't really find the room. And seeing as he's only good vs UW I'd be sacrificing other match-ups. Revoker+Chalice can take care of Storm more often than you think, as can O-Ring/Angel+Revoker against SnT. Even taking out 1 Revoker would make me stronger vs Miracles, but weaker versus other decks.

An option would be to replace the MoE in the main with a Tezz, and shave a Revoker in the side, but I'm not really sure that that is correct. Especially since casting Tezz in a Vial build can get to be tough.

Shawon

10-11-2012, 02:12 AM

Running 8 0cc creatures without Pest is terrible. Absolutely terrible. You say you gain speed with Memnite but you actually lose it as your deck can't combo somebody out via DotV+Ravager. If you would go back to Pest you probably woudn't lose too much speed at all since Pest is pretty damn good once you make the decision to run Memnite. If you are resolving a DotV you can wait a turn to resolve a Thoughtcast.

This whole paragraph is terrible. Again, you always mention Disciple and Ravager in the same sentence like their conjoined twins. Stop thinking about Ravager for a second. When Ravager + Disciple isn't an available game plan during a game, Disciple is in every way worse than Memnite as Memnite contributes to the synergies of the deck (Opal, Thoughtcast). I care more about consistency than situational explosiveness. I cut Pest for resilience purposes, not out of an issue of speed.

Thank you for telling me how to adress the matchups. To bad Spell Pierce is absolute shit compared to Chalice. You say I am losing vs Miracles because my disruption isn't good enough, yet you'd rather have Pierce as disruption over Chalice? Are you kidding me? Pierce is stronger than Chalice? Cmon... Chalice, besides being immensely stronger once resolves, is even an artifact. In Affinity. Cmon.

Read what I said carefully. Either you're not running Tezz or your disruption isn't good enough. One or the other, possibly both.

No, I'm not kidding. And yes, Spell Pierce is way better than Chalice, unless knowing how to time a counterspell is too difficult for you. You don't need to lock your opponent out of the game since you're an aggro deck. You just need to disrupt them temporarily until you win. And Spell Pierce is excellent disruption because it punishes an opponent for tapping out to answer your threats. It not only counters the answer they were relying on, but it makes them harder to cast another answer by the time they untap. Still think I'm just kidding?

Anyhow, I've told you I would like to fit a Tezzeret in the deck for UW but I can't really find the room. And seeing as he's only good vs UW I'd be sacrificing other match-ups. Revoker+Chalice can take care of Storm more often than you think, as can O-Ring/Angel+Revoker against SnT. Even taking out 1 Revoker would make me stronger vs Miracles, but weaker versus other decks.

Forget your combo matchups, just focus on Miracles, because you're more likely to run into those. I would cut all the Revokers anyway. Revokers are useless post-Terminus and they can be bounced by Jace or surprise-butt-sexed by Snapcaster Mage even if you have Chalice@1 stopping STP.

Kanti

10-11-2012, 02:51 AM

Read the opening post of the thread on Disciple. He isn't only good when Ravager is out. He punished Wasteland, allows you to do Vial tricks, he makes it so your opponent can't chump all day when he's on sub-5ish life, he is amazing against Deed, he is a lightning rod for your opponents removal, he makes Wasteland cost 1 life, he can stop an Emrakul attack. His value has diminished since Terminus became the de-facto board sweeper, but he is still damn good. Running Vial ensures you will have a good chance at resolving him against U-decks.

I don't think you are kidding with Pierce, I just think you are delusional, or you just never played Chalice. Chalice is amazing in this format. How many times does Miracles tap-out to answer your threats? I find it to be not that many. And even when they do, and you catch them with Pierce, you are still only countering 1 spell. Compare that to countering 1/4-1/3 of their deck, and helping you with Affinity.

And in a large tournament you are bound to encounter combo. Auto-losing doesn't really happen when you have x4 Revokers and x4 Chalice. The reason why I run them is because they are relevant in almost every single match-up. Ravager makes it so you can actually race combo decks by going all out (swing t2-t3 for 4-7ish damage, without Disciple).

Yes, Revokers are useless post-Terminus, but they make resolving Terminus a nightmare by shutting off SDT. And Jace is usually never going to hit them as you are going to be naming him with a Revoker, after you name SDT. If you fear a chump-blocking Snapcaster coming your way you can just sit back on Revoker and let him act like a Needle. Even if my opp does land a Jace on t4 to bounce my Revoker, I can just re-cast him. And if Forces it then tough luck. The combination of Revoker and Chalice is brutal to UW Tundra control (Blade, and Miracle alike).

I'll be testing cutting the MoE in my main for a Tezz and see how it works out. I hate him in the Mav match-up, and though he's amazing vs RUG and pretty damn good against UW Tundra decks there isn't a reason to test him.

Hanni

10-11-2012, 03:30 AM

I'll be testing cutting the MoE in my main for a Tezz and see how it works out. I hate him in the Mav match-up, and though he's amazing vs RUG and pretty damn good against UW Tundra decks there isn't a reason to test him.

If you have a Mox Opal (or other worthless artifact out), Tezz is a 5/5 for 4 at worst that also prevents X damage (if you can't block enough of it, and it goes to Tezz instead of you). Slightly better, it turns 0/2 fliers and 1/1 flying lifelinkers into 5/5 fliers (and lifelink with Skirge), before dying. At best, it's a card advantage engine that is more powerful than Tezzeret (in this deck), and/or can instantly win the game the turn after it comes into play.

I think you got it backwards. He's great against Maverick.

He's awful in the RUG matchup because they can prevent it from coming down with Wasteland/Daze/Pierce, can Stifle it for a big gain of tempo, or can Bolt it if you make a 5/5 (and then swing in the air for 3 with Delver or on the ground for 6 with Goyf).

Kanti

10-11-2012, 04:15 AM

You read that wrong, mate. I was talking about MoE being horrible in the Maverick match-up, but amazing against RUG.MoE just gets chumped all day from Mother or Scryb Ranger, and a Mav player can fetch one of those up really easily, and quickly if they want to. He is just BEASTLY vs RUG though, and very good against UW.

Now that we are on the subject though, I don't know if Tezz is that great vs Mav, especially in a Vial build. Remember that they run Waste, and KotR>Waste. This can make resolving him a pain in the ass, especially if you are running Vial.

The way I see it is if a build is running Vial it should probably steer clear of Tezz, passed in the sb, as he can be very difficult to cast with only 21 mana sources, especially considering his UB requirments and the presence of Wasteland in the meta. If you run Drums and SOL lands he becomes very easy to cast, but then you are losing Vial which I'm not really ready to do.

I want to test a split between MoE and Enforcers though, as I'd have some more Vial targets at 3 and probably be better off vs anything but Maverick or Death and Taxes. MoE is usually an all star vs UW, as vs SFM decks he can take out a Bskull outright by virtue of being a huge fucker, and vs Miracles he makes it so you don't have to overcommit to have a heavy board presence.

Shawon

10-11-2012, 01:28 PM

Read the opening post of the thread on Disciple. He isn't only good when Ravager is out. He punished Wasteland, allows you to do Vial tricks, he makes it so your opponent can't chump all day when he's on sub-5ish life, he is amazing against Deed, he is a lightning rod for your opponents removal, he makes Wasteland cost 1 life, he can stop an Emrakul attack. His value has diminished since Terminus became the de-facto board sweeper, but he is still damn good. Running Vial ensures you will have a good chance at resolving him against U-decks.

You're overrating Disciple, because he's only amazing in those instances where your opponent is close to lethal. As long as your opponent doesn't die, why should they care about Disciple if an action they take essentially wins them the game? If your opponent is at 10-15 life, they're not going to care about taking 5 as a cost for Annihilator 6... a Deed player doesn't mind losing 5-6 life if it means wiping out your entire board INCLUDING Disciple. Like I said, on its own Disciple is a situational suicide bomber. Key word is situational.

I don't think you are kidding with Pierce, I just think you are delusional, or you just never played Chalice. Chalice is amazing in this format. How many times does Miracles tap-out to answer your threats? I find it to be not that many. And even when they do, and you catch them with Pierce, you are still only countering 1 spell. Compare that to countering 1/4-1/3 of their deck, and helping you with Affinity.

Here's what I"m trying to get at: Chalice doesn't stop Terminus from actually resolving, even if you play it before they land a Top. Furthermore, Miracle decks still keep Jace post-board, and don't forget that Jace can Brainstorm an opening hand Terminus back in the library to Miracle next turn.

And that's if they haven't dropped a Top. Without Mox Opal, your earliest Chalice is on turn 2, which may not even be useful as Miracles will undoubtedly slam a Top on their first turn. Even with Opal, having only 4 Ornithopter significantly decreases your chance of getting two mana on turn 1. (This is one reason why Memnite > Disciple.)

Spell Pierce directly answers Terminus. It also answers Entreat the Angels, and most likely counters it unless they have a Force, because the opponent will never keep mana open while casting Entreat (likely because they don't know you run Spell Pierce). Spell Pierce can counter Moat or Humility. Chalice can't stop directly stop any of the cards I mentioned.

Chalice only stops the small removal (STP) and the card selection, but it doesn't stop the key spells that actually ruin your day. Despite all that, I think Chalice would still be good against Miracles, but I don't like the possibility of Miracles removing it (EE/Disenchant) with no blowback.

Infinitium

10-11-2012, 01:48 PM

Kanti

10-11-2012, 01:56 PM

Just like with Disciple and Ravager though, you won't always have a Memnite and Opal. Running Opal with Orni/Skirge still lets you go land, Opal, Vial/Skirge, Frogmite/Disciple. So even when you don't get a Memnite+Opal you can be accelerating with the tons of other cheap cards in your deck. You say not to base a cards value on it's potential with other cards, yet never fail to mention Opal+Memnite whenever you talk of him. I'm not overrating Disciple. Against Emrakul he is really an all out, and obviously this is bad example, but against Deed he is the most amazing card. Blow up all of my board, take 7, and if you aren't dead have fun dealing with my Frogmites and Enforcers. If he doesn't win you the game on the spot he is making it easier to win at a later stage as for 1b mana you did 5-6 damage. That is value, period. Memnite on his own is what? A 1/1 artifact without modular? I'd honestly rather play Arcbound Worker over Memnite.

If you think a Chalice isn't useful on t2 you really just have not played with it.

Sure you can directly answer Terminus, but a lot of times a UW Miracle player can just Plow you death, and use their Snapcasters as chump and/or removal. After you blow a Pierce they are also unlikely to not keep 2 mana open, which is nice since you can potentially slow them down, but it will bite you in the ass when you are really depending on not getting hit by a spell.

You also don't note that I have 4 Revokers, which can be uncounterable with Vial. They deal with resolved tops and Jaces, and E.E.

Kanti

10-11-2012, 02:05 PM

Sorry for the doulbe post, damn editing feature.

In my testing Maverick usually just GSZ's a Ranger, and renders my MoE useless. He's the first card I side out against them.

Also, I've been thinking of adding some Nexuses back the the deck, Blinkmoths. I could sub out O-Rings for Angel of Despair in the sb, and cut out some Dens for a Nexus. This will hurt with getting to affinity, and beyond, but it's worth a shot as it is pretty amazing post-sweeper.

Shawon

10-11-2012, 02:41 PM

Eh. Don't forget that should the Miracle player have a hand that enables a turn 3-4 Terminus he will most likely hold any countermagic for your Platings anyway which splash damages any sneaky Pierces something fierce.And if he knows it's coming, resolving what is effectively a 1-mana spell is trivial. Chalice@1 by comparison comes down early and shuts down BS, Top and STP, all of which are spells that helps Miracles stay alive until they can drop their midgame bombs. Also, even if it does get hit by Disenchant post-SB, that's removal that isn't aimed at your Platings. And let's be realistic, Platings along with Nexii is what keeps any build of Affinity in the game post-sweepers.

They can sandbag counters, but they likely won't. I guarantee enough pressure to prevent this. Also, Tezzeret post-board. Nexi could be actually good against Miracles, but I don't use them because I like being able to cast Thoughtcast consistently, which is the same reason I cut Sol lands.

Also, Affinity isn't really a deck where you can afford to hold back colored mana just in case - especially considering all of your bombs except Plating already cost blue.

You don't have to hold back every turn, just deploy threats by turn 1-3. Or you could just have leftover mana, which is a thing in this deck after you empty your hand.

As for MoE not being good against Maverick ..what? It's still a Lord first and foremost, even if it cannot attack directly it still helps your little brown men push through/survive pings/whatever. That alone makes it good even disregarding the fact that if it goes unanswered you just win.

If unanswered (looks at STP, Pridemage, Mother of Runes, Scryb Ranger, and maybe Krosan Grip). I think I can say Kanti and I both agree on MoE not being so hot in the Mav matchup. You have better cards to run in the board, be it Revoker if you're Kanti or Jitte if you're me.

Just like with Disciple and Ravager though, you won't always have a Memnite and Opal. Running Opal with Orni/Skirge still lets you go land, Opal, Vial/Skirge, Frogmite/Disciple. So even when you don't get a Memnite+Opal you can be accelerating with the tons of other cheap cards in your deck. You say not to base a cards value on it's potential with other cards, yet never fail to mention Opal+Memnite whenever you talk of him. I'm not overrating Disciple. Against Emrakul he is really an all out, and obviously this is bad example, but against Deed he is the most amazing card. Blow up all of my board, take 7, and if you aren't dead have fun dealing with my Frogmites and Enforcers. If he doesn't win you the game on the spot he is making it easier to win at a later stage as for 1b mana you did 5-6 damage. That is value, period. Memnite on his own is what? A 1/1 artifact without modular? I'd honestly rather play Arcbound Worker over Memnite.

It's not just Mox Opal that benefits from Memnite. It's practically every other card in the deck, especially Frogmite and Myr Enforcer and Thoughtcast.

Sure you can directly answer Terminus, but a lot of times a UW Miracle player can just Plow you death, and use their Snapcasters as chump and/or removal. After you blow a Pierce they are also unlikely to not keep 2 mana open, which is nice since you can potentially slow them down, but it will bite you in the ass when you are really depending on not getting hit by a spell.

"Plowing us to death" is less likely to happen than seeing Terminus, so I'd rather anticipate that. Anyway, don't both of us already run Champ and Plating?

If I can resolve a Spell Pierce once, that is usually all I need to win the game.

Hanni

10-14-2012, 05:24 PM

I decided I'd like to revitalize this thread a little :)

Here is my holy trinity of Affinity:

Steelblade

// Lands (16)
4 [UNH] Plains
4 [MR] Ancient Den
4 [DS] Darksteel Citadel
4 [DS] Blinkmoth Nexus

// Creatures (20)
4 [R] Ornithopter
4 [NPH] Vault Skirge
4 [UL] Mother of Runes
4 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
4 [NPH] Puresteel Paladin

// Spells (24)
4 [MBS] Flayer Husk
1 [NPH] Batterskull
4 [FD] Cranial Plating
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
1 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
1 [MBS] Sword of Feast and Famine
1 [DS] Sword of Light and Shadow
4 [FD] Paradise Mantle
3 [SOM] Mox Opal
4 [NPH] Dispatch

// Sideboard (15)
SB: 1 [SOK] Manriki-Gusari
SB: 1 [M12] Swiftfoot Boots
SB: 1 [MBS] Mortarpod
SB: 4 [LRW] Oblivion Ring
SB: 2 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 [MBS] Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 2 [DKA] Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 [DK] Tormod's Crypt

This version plays like a white weenie deck, with a twist. You play the typical white weenie game with creatures like Mother of Runes and Stoneforge Mystic with equipments, but you combine it with the explosiveness of affinity. The deck is built around Puresteel Paladin, who gives the deck a massive card advantage engine and makes all the equipment costs free. Flayer Husk is this decks Arcbound Worker, and the deck has tons of artifacts to enable Metalcraft and Cranial Plating.

Metalboros

// Lands (16)
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [R] Plateau
1 [UNH] Plains
4 [MR] Ancient Den
4 [MR] Great Furnace

// Creatures (24)
4 [SOM] Memnite
4 [MR] Frogmite
4 [CFX] Court Homunculus
4 [MBS] Ardent Recruit
4 [SOM] Auriok Sunchaser
4 [NPH] Porcelain Legionnaire

// Spells (20)
4 [R] Lightning Bolt
4 [SOM] Galvanic Blast
4 [NPH] Dispatch
4 [FD] Cranial Plating
4 [SOM] Mox Opal

// Sideboard (15)
SB: 3 [MBS] Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 3 [DKA] Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
SB: 3 [LRW] Oblivion Ring
SB: 3 [SC] Sulfuric Vortex
SB: 3 [DK] Tormod's Crypt

This version plays like a Zoo deck, with a twist. You're structured fairly similar to Zoo, with the appropriate curve of 1-drops, 2-drops, and 12 1cc spot removal spells, but the deck is capable of exploding with Mox Opal and Cranial Plating. The spot removal clears the way for the groundbound guys to push damage through, and the Sunchasers and Legionnaires are great Plating-wearers. Blast and Dispatch are much stronger than Chain and Path.

Esper Tezzerator

// Lands (17)
4 [MR] Seat of the Synod
4 [MR] Vault of Whispers
4 [MR] Ancient Den
4 [R] Underground Sea
1 [US] Gaea's Cradle

// Creatures (20)
4 [VI] Phyrexian Walker
4 [R] Ornithopter
4 [GTW] Vault Skirge
4 [PC2] Baleful Strix
4 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic

// Spells (23)
4 [MR] Thoughtcast
3 [MBS] Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 [ARB] Thopter Foundry
1 [FUT] Sword of the Meek
4 [FD] Cranial Plating
3 [LRW] Springleaf Drum
4 [SOM] Mox Opal

// Sideboard (15)
SB: 4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
SB: 3 [LRW] Oblivion Ring
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 2 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb

This version plays like the more traditional combo affinity lists, with a twist. Thopter Foundy gives this deck serious resilience to removal, both single target and mass effect. The insane amount of card advantage allow this deck to consistently find its combo pieces. The card advantage and Thopters give this deck an incredible amount of resiliency overall. This version is more of a combo/control version than an aggro version, but still uses Plating as its primary means of victory. Walker is used over Memnite because it holds back aggro against opposing creatures in the early game while it sets up its card advantage and combo pieces, but it can still attack with a Plating unlike Shield Sphere, and Thopter can turn it into a 1/1 flier later on.

---

If anyone would like a more detailed write-up on any of the lists, thorough card explanations, etc... let me know. These lists have been pretty thoroughly tested and optimized; they're not just some randomly thrown together piles that I thought would look cool.

TheSleeper

10-14-2012, 10:19 PM

Hanni

10-15-2012, 03:49 AM

Hanni: always appreciate your posts. Definitely gives the Affinity lovers some food for thought. Can you elaborate on each variant fares versus decks to beat? Or which metas they can be played in? Do you favour a particular build yourself?

Sure thing.

All 3 decks are based on Metalcraft, meaning all 3 still have the ability to have explosive openings with artifact lands, Mox Opal, and the 0cc creatures. This is the main aspect that deviates them from their traditional roles. Beyond that, each has is unique in playstyle. I'll do a little bit more thorough of an analysis on each one. I do not have a particular favorite, as I enjoy playing all 3.

I'm going to make a separate post for each one. I don't have the time to do all 3 right away, but I will make sure do a write-up for all 3 as time permits.

Hanni

10-15-2012, 03:53 AM

Steelblade

Deck Overview

This version is built around Puresteel Paladin, which makes the title "Steelblade" rather suiting. The entire deck is structured around him; the deck is has 17 equipment spells maindeck, and an additional 3 more in the sideboard. This gives the deck a very strong draw engine, which is something that typical white weenie decks tend to lack. The ability it equip equipment's for free is also insane; the tempo boost is not to be underestimated. The fact you can pile up all your equipments on your offensive creatures, and then swap them all over to your defensive creatures after the combat step... priceless.

Other than that, this deck is structured in a vaguely similar way to what you might expect of other white weenie decks... a bunch of weenies, a small amount of spot removal, and some equipment's to make the weenies bigger. You have traditional white weenie creatures like Mother of Runes, which can be used both offensively and defensively, and Stoneforge Mystic to grab the normal tools you would expect, like Jitte and Batterskull. This deck can often just play the fair "large threat density" strategy (with strong card advantage engines, in this case), which tends to work well against aggro/control and control decks.

By fair aggro deck, I'm talking about simple plays like this:

Turn 1: Plains, Mother of Runes, Ornithopter.
Turn 2: Darksteel Citadel, Vault Skirge, EOT Dispatch.
Turn 3: Blinkmoth Nexus, Stoneforge Mystic, grabbing Batterskull (w/ protection)
Turn 4: Batterskull.

At the same time, this deck contains the explosive Affinity element. The overlay of Affinity cards with white weenie cards is a very smooth package, in this regard. Mox Opal and Paradise Mantle help to accelerate the decks early game much faster than the speed of a typical white weenie deck (in terms of board development), and Cranial Plating equipped to fliers (or protection from Mom) can speed up the clock dramatically, which improves the decks combo and aggro matchups. It is not uncommon to have extremely explosive starts.

By explosive starts, they can be as complicated as this:

Turn 1: Ancient Den, Mox Opal, Vault Skirge, and Mother of Runes.
Turn 2: Darksteel Citadel, Puresteel Paladin, Paradise Mantle, Flayer Husk, swing for 1 with Skirge (+2 cards drawn from Puresteel).
Turn 3: Plains, equip Mantle to Husk, Stoneforge Mystic, Cranial Plating, equip Mantle to Puresteel, Cranial Plating, Paradise Mantle, equip Husk and 2 Platings to Skirge, swing for 20 (+3 cards drawn from Puresteel + 1 from SFM).

...and that's coming from a white weenie deck. Of course, the deck doesn't get explosive openings like that all the time, and the average goldfish is definitely not turn 3. The other thing to remember, is that an opponent may hit the turn 1 Mother of Runes and Skirge play with a turn 1 Forked Bolt (vs the explosive start), cast a Force of Will on the turn 3 Stoneforge Mystic (vs the fair start), etc.

Card Choices

The manabase is structured around producing adequate white mana, while enabling Metalcraft.

With 4 Paradise Mantle and 3 Mox Opal, I feel that 16 lands is sufficient, since the deck doesn't want to get flooded with too many mana sources.

8 Artifact lands feel pretty comfortable; Ancient Den is pretty standard, and since the deck is monocolored, Darksteel Citadel makes sense as my other artifact land.

Blinkmoth Nexus gives the deck some manlands to add some resiliency against mass sweeps like Terminus, and the flying allows them to carry equipment over blockers. The can also tap and activate to give the deck another artifact in cases where it needs to hit Metalcraft for Mox Opal (for white mana) or Dispatch.

To round out the manabase, I added 4 Plains.

The deck currently has 15 sources of white mana, which has been sufficient for me so far; Puresteel Paladin is the only spell requiring WW. However, 15 is a bit low for hitting WW consistently sometimes, so I may look to cutting some Blinkmoths for more Plains (and 1 Karakas), in the future.

The ability to tutor for Mantle with SFM when I need WW for Puresteel works, altough it is a lackluster play.

Paradise Mantle is an important piece of the deck. At 0cc, it helps enable Metalcraft early, it can provide mana ramp (especially midgame with a Puresteel Paladin), and it provides white mana. There are better options for this spot for the early game, like Springleaf Drum, but the fact that it is a equipment is more important. Each Mantle is a 0cc cantrip with just a single Paladin on the table (with multiple Paladins, the deck usually goes nuts). They also attach for free with Paladin on the board, allowing a single Mantle to tap for a bunch of mana (where Springleaf would only tap for 1).

Mox Opal is ran as a 3-of, because the deck doesn't actually need the early accel due to its fantastic 1cc curve, and the deck does not have ways to pitch extras. 3 feels right, for now. I may move these up to 4 in the future.

Despite the creature base only having 20 creatures, the Flayer Husks and Batterskulls count as creatures too, so the deck is actually playing with 25 creatures.

I'm running Ornithopter's to help me enable Metalcraft more consistently and buff up Platings. I chose Ornithopter's because they have flying, and therefore carry equipment very well. The 4 additional 0cc bodies with flying make the deck feel alot smoother overall.

Vault Skirge is about the best equipment wearer one can ask for, since it carries it in the air with lifelink. Once equipped, the lifelink can quickly swing games around. They can be cast for 1 mana (and almost always are), which is wonderful for this decks curve, and they also help enable Metalcraft and bigger Platings.

Mother of Runes is a key component. This deck lacks ways of interacting with its opponent with cards like Force of Will or Thoughtseize, and so it needs a way to provide protection to its creatures. There are numerous uses for her both offensively and defensively, and there are quite a few high profile creatures that you want to try and protect at all costs, such as Puresteel Paladin. At 1cc, she fits the curve beautifully. She's your strongest assest against aggro decks, and spot removal in general.

Stoneforge Mystic is seen in a variety of decks these days, and it should be no surprise to find her here, in a deck with so many equipment spells. Not only does she provide card advantage, she has a big toolbox of equipment's to choose from, she can help cheat on costs, and she has great synergy with Puresteel Paladin.

Puresteel Paladin has already been discussed in the Overview. Basically, this guy is insane.

Flayer Husk to this deck is like Arcbound Worker to Ravager/Disciple lists of old. He may not look impressive, but he's an important piece to the deck nonetheless. Cheap artifacts are important for achieving metalcraft early. He's a 1/1 body that can wear equipment. He's also an equipment himself, which increases the decks density of equipment spells for Puresteel. Against creature removal, the equipment sticks around to maintain Metalcraft and keep the artifact count up for Plating, and can be equipped to other creatures (like Skirge) later on. The equip cost is a bit steep for just +1/+1, but even that minor buff can be a big difference when attached to a Skirge, and the equip cost is free with a Puresteel anyway. This guy is pretty much mandatory for this deck to function properly.

Cranial Plating gives the deck its combo element, and is what truly separates it from other white weenie decks. The ability to give a flier huge +power gains immediately after equipping speeds up the clock of the deck dramatically. With as many artifacts and fliers that this deck has, it would be wrong to not run 4 of these bad boys.

The singleton equipments are all strong in different situations. Batterskull is a nice play when the deck has a Mother of Runes in play but has no fliers and is light on creatures. It's great against decks like Merfolk too, which have little to no removal to deal with the SFM even without Mother of Runes in play. SFM into Batterskull is alot faster than SFM into any other equipment (besides Flayer Husk) when Puresteel Paladin is not on the board, as it comes down already equipped. Jitte is fantastic, and probably the equipment spell I fetch the most, since it doesn't matter if I can protect SFM, doesn't matter if I have fliers, and doesn't matter if I don't have a bunch of artifacts in play. Even a Flayer Husk becomes a serious threat when attached to a Jitte. The three Swords of X and Y all have varying uses, depending on the situation.

Finally, Dispatch is this decks Swords to Plowshares.

Cards Not Included

If people ask why I'm not running certain cards, I will update this section with why those cards were not included. There is simply too much ground to cover here without some discussion first.

Matchup Analysis

Not any differently than traditional white weenie decks (before the advent of hatebears like Thalia), this deck can have a tough time with combo decks. Fast combo decks like Belcher are absolutely horrible; luckily the format is full of Force of Will to keep those decks in check. Tendrils decks can be rough too. If they go off very fast and don't fizzle, or this deck gets a very slow fair start, we lose. Unlike traditional white weenie decks, we can sometimes get explosive openings that are able to race them. Sometimes. The Show and Tell and High Tide matchups are much better though, since they tend to be a bit slower at winning, which gives us more time to race.

Control decks like Miracles can be a bit tough. We have no way to stop a Terminus, and it can be hard to not overcommit in this deck. We are also susceptible to a Counterbalance lock after the wipe the board. However, this deck has several tools that help this matchup greatly. The first of which, is the sheer number of equipment spells, especially SoLS. It can be fairly easy to recover from Terminus if there are equipment spells on the board, since even a topdecked Flayer Husk can turn into a serious threat. SoLS giving our creatures Pro White is pretty huge here, although it can still be bounced by Jace. Control matchups with Pernicious Deed are usually awful. The only way we beat Deed decks is to kill them before they can stabilize with Deed. This can happen often enough against some builds, but there are also some that are nearly impossible to beat. Luckily, there are not alot of Deed decks seeing widespread play in the format right now.

Aggro matchups that are light on spot removal are pretty good (like Maverick), since we can dominate the ground with Mother of Runes and the large amount of equipment, and then swing in the air to close the game out. Jitte and SoFI are fantastic against Goblins, Jitte and SoFaF are great against Maverick, etc. Our ability to sometimes just combo off with a huge flier carrying a Plating can kill opposing aggro decks before they even get a chance to do much. Against aggro decks like Zoo, this deck has a rough time. If we cannot stick a Mother of Runes early, they can usually keep our board clear long enough to kill us before we can get established. If we can manage to stabilize though, we will dominate them since we have a much stronger midrange aggro gameplan.

Aggro/control matchups are the best matchups for this deck due to the large threat density, equipment, and Mother of Runes. They try to play countermagic or discard or whatever to try and steal some tempo and outrace us, but we just keep dropping creature after creature and overwhelm them with superior card advantage and better creatures (once equipped).

Mr. Froggy

10-16-2012, 11:12 PM

My SB for Affinity consists of:

4x Relic of Progenitus
4x Duress
2x Oblivion Ring
2x Swords to Plowshares
2x Ancient Grudge

Relics: Graveyard-based decks, obviously
Duress: For combo/control
O-Ring: For big and fat things I don't want to see
STP: Random dudes I don't like
Grudges: For Null Rods, Pithing Needles, etc.

If someone could chime in and tell me my numbers are completely off? I'd be more than appreciative. :smile:

ween

10-16-2012, 11:18 PM

STP: Random dudes I don't like

Why not Dispatch in place of STP? How often do you not have Metalcraft switched on?

Esper Tezzerator

Man, i LIKE that list. I love Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and Baleful Strix, but they just seemed a little slow in my Affinity build. This slows it down just a hair more in favour of some broken interactions. Love it. Thanks :)

Mr. Froggy

10-16-2012, 11:29 PM

Why not Dispatch in place of STP? How often do you not have Metalcraft switched on?

The life-gain the opponent gets from STP is kind of irrelevant I find, since my robots hit for so much. But I think I'll switch them for some Dispatches soon, since they're in all the lists I see.

Shawon

10-17-2012, 12:55 AM

Relics: Graveyard-based decks, obviously
Duress: For combo/control
O-Ring: For big and fat things I don't want to see
STP: Random dudes I don't like
Grudges: For Null Rods, Pithing Needles, etc.

Relic: I prefer Grafdigger's Cage as the more permanent solution, but Relic at least takes something with it if it's removed by anything other than Krosan Grip. Also, being a one-shot solution isn't so bad for Affinity as you can use the window of opportunity given by Relic to defeat the opponent, with the help from drawing a card off of Relic. I might try it over Cage. If graveyard decks are a concern, 4 Relics are a fine choice.

Duress: Cabal Therapy is just plain better. Just practice with the card if you're not making the correct blind calls. I wouldn't go past 3 Therapies.

STP/Dispatch: What are your relevant targets that you need post-board STP effects? 'Random dudes' is really too vague an explanation for anyone to understand why you're running STP effects when you already run O-Ring.

Mr. Froggy

10-17-2012, 09:24 AM

Relic: I prefer Grafdigger's Cage as the more permanent solution, but Relic at least takes something with it if it's removed by anything other than Krosan Grip. Also, being a one-shot solution isn't so bad for Affinity as you can use the window of opportunity given by Relic to defeat the opponent, with the help from drawing a card off of Relic. I might try it over Cage. If graveyard decks are a concern, 4 Relics are a fine choice.

Duress: Cabal Therapy is just plain better. Just practice with the card if you're not making the correct blind calls. I wouldn't go past 3 Therapies.

STP/Dispatch: What are your relevant targets that you need post-board STP effects? 'Random dudes' is really too vague an explanation for anyone to understand why you're running STP effects when you already run O-Ring.

For STP, I use them more for kind of a "catch-all" card, be it Bob, Goyf, etc.

Also, for Therapy, I kind of suck with it, lol. I like seeing what my opponent has in his hand, and actually being able to discard something, and not "hopefully" discard one.

Shawon

10-17-2012, 10:27 AM

Why would you be concerned with Bob? It's just a 2/1. It's not significant enough that you have to answer it post-board. If they draw cards, they're drawing one extra card per turn and losing life. That's way too slow against you and Dark Confidant costing them life makes your job of killing them easier.

I used to suck with Cabal Therapy too, but if you're going to play Legacy for a long time you might as well learn how to play with Therapy. It's the most skill-intensive card you can run in black that is legal in Legacy. You can read Caleb Durward's primer on the card (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/legacy-weapon-therapy-session/). Duress is easier to play than Therapy, but Therapy has too many benefits you simply can't ignore. Having the opportunity to cast Therapy twice and hitting multiple copies of a card is worth the chance of getting the Therapy wrong on the first try. Affinity runs a large enough creature base that it's very affordable to flashback Therapy.

Mr. Froggy

10-17-2012, 11:13 AM

I just read the article, I never thought Therapy was that skill intensive... :O I might just need to run them.. You're right, Shawon..

Hanni

10-17-2012, 12:35 PM

I apologize that I have not done a write-up on my other 2 lists yet... I just haven't had the time. I will get to it by the end of the weekend I hope.

@ Mr. Froggy
As for your sideboard, it is impossible to help without your decklist. The sideboard is completely dependant on your maindeck. You cannot just toss in some good cards and call it a day. You have to cut maindeck spells for sideboard spells, so there is no point in tossing stuff in your sideboard without first determining why you need those cards in the first place, and what you would replace them with.

Maybe it is the right call to go with Dispatch in the sideboard... it depends on your list.

(I cannot think of any Affinity lists that would not be able to support Dispatch, so you should be using these instead of Swords, if you do need them)

Regarding Therapy... well if the card is in your sideboard and you are cutting maindeck spells for it for games 2 and 3, you should know what cards to name... otherwise, why even bring it in? I'm assuming your running some sort of traditional list. In that case, you should have tons of bodies that you don't care about sacrificing for the flashback, even if the first one is a dud.

Therapy is much better than Duress in the matchups you want to bring it in against... it's this decks version of Thoughtsieze + Hymn to Tourach all in one.

@ween
Thanks, I'm very happy with where my Esper list is at right now. I cannot tell you how much time I spent working on that list. You don't notice Strix slowing you down at all because you aren't running 3 mana 2/2's, vanilla 4/4's, or any of the other typical aggro beats. Strix is basically your Thoughtcasts 5-8 that leave behind a 1/1 flying deathtouch artifact body for Platings, a body for Drums, creature control and/or protection for Tezz, etc. Strix may seem weak on the surface, but it's easy to see how important they are for that list, even after just a few games. I would actually consider them the strongest piece of the "engine"; they just do so many things that the deck wants, and does them all at the same time... on a single card.

Strix is teh nutz :p

I'll go into more detail on the write-up.

Mr. Froggy

10-17-2012, 01:42 PM

My list is a traditional U/B TezzAffinity, but yeah.. I think I might cut my Duresses for some Therapies, everyone agrees they are amazing, and have been backing it up, can't argue with that. :)

Shawon

10-17-2012, 01:48 PM

Mr. Froggy, I also want to add that 2 Dispatch will fall short for two reasons, one is not having it when you need it and the other is that having a one-for-one isn't enough in really bad situations. Actually, three if you are running Ancient Den to accommodate Dispatch, which makes you vulnerable to Wasteland if your opponent knows you are relying on Dispatch. If Goyf and other green creatures are a big concern, I would run Perish as it's in black and it's CA.

Mr. Froggy

10-17-2012, 04:51 PM

I saw a couple SBs running Perish, I think I may have some lying around in my boxes. Switch the STPs for them? It's true that only killing one dude is not that helpful, usually. And I guess Perish is almost an auto-win vs. Elves?

Hanni

10-17-2012, 05:11 PM

Before you go tossing in Perish... how is your Maverick matchup? I haven't seen your list, so I cannot tell. If you are using Master of Etherium , Frogmite, and/or Ravager, then yea, you probably want a sweeper. If not, you probably don't even need Perish.

Since your sideboard doesn't have Needle, Revoker, or Cursed Totem, I would actually suggest Virtue's Ruin (again, if you even need it). They run more white-only creatures than they do green-only, and those also tend to have a much higher impact. Thalia +Wasteland slows down your Platings and Tezzeret; Mother of Runes shuts down your Masters more consistently than Scryb Ranger. Ruin still hits Qasali (if they haven't popped it), Teeg, and Knight. You aren't playing mana denial to care about the mana dorks, and Ooze is pretty slow.

Ruin is also useful in the Stoenblade matchup (among others). If you want the Perish for RUG or Elves or something, then I would at least suggest a split. But again, is Perish something you actually need in those matchups? Resolving a 3cc sorcery against RUG seems a bit dumb (or rather, a Time Walk for them). Therapy would be alot stronger against RUG, for example...

So yea, anyways, tl;dr version is that I'm not even sure if you need Perish for Maverick, and if you do, I'd suggest Virtue's Ruin instead.

Mr. Froggy

10-17-2012, 08:09 PM

I actually did read the entire post. :P

I'll test some more, and see what happens. I have a tournament this weekend, and I'm gonna use Affinity (I have Dredge built, too, but I don't think small tournaments want to deal with overpowered decks :P).

Hanni

10-17-2012, 08:16 PM

I'll test some more, and see what happens. I have a tournament this weekend, and I'm gonna use Affinity (I have Dredge built, too, but I don't think small tournaments want to deal with overpowered decks :P).

If you build Affinity right, it feels just as overpowered as Dredge does. Maybe not quite as a fast (a turn or two slower maybe), but just as overpowering. Both decks are easy to hate out, but require specific hate (graveyard vs artifact), so you can keep switching it up on them until they start running hate for both. :tongue:

Mr. Froggy

10-17-2012, 10:07 PM

Not a bad plan, hehe. :P

But I don't think my build is "optimal" but I like it.

Also, I run 4x Memnite and 2x Ornithopter, should it be the other way around?

Hanni

10-17-2012, 10:11 PM

I can't tell without seeing your list. If you look up at the 3 builds I posted, one runs just 4 Ornithopter, one runs just 4 Memnite, and one runs 4 of both. Gotta look at the entire list to be able to understand the context.

Mr. Froggy

10-17-2012, 10:22 PM

Alright, alright, I'll post my list, lol. (finally on a computer and not on my phone, lol.

TezzAffinity

1 Great Furnace
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Brass

4 Etched Champion
4 Frogmite
4 Memnite
4 Signal Pest
4 Master of Etherium

4 Cranial Plating
4 Thoughtcast
4 Springleaf Drum
3 Galvanic Blast
3 Mox Opal

3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

I was thinking of maybe changing the Frogmites for Vault Skirges, good move?

Hanni

10-17-2012, 11:04 PM

Okay yea, you definitely are going to want the Virtue's Ruin in the sideboard lol. You're build is all in on the ground-bound creature plan, so you will need a way to clear blockers. Pest and Champion are the only two that can actually carry a Plating past blockers. At the same time, your attackers are not very aggressive (only Master applies any serious amount of pressure). I would definitely run Ornithopters over Memnites in your list... that will take you up to 12 evasive creatures, which should be enough.

I'd also cut 1-2 Springleaf Drums. You're only running 4 0cc creatures and 4 1cc creatures to enable it on turns 1 and 2 consistently (enough to matter anyways). I'd probably add in the 4th Galvanic Blast if you cut one, and if you cut two, I'd add the 4th Mox Opal.

In regards to cutting Frogmites for Vault Skirges... yes, do that. Being 1cc will not only increase your consistency for hitting Metalcraft sooner, they give you more bodies to carry Platings. 1/1 fliers will also give you more consistent damage against aggro decks (where oftentimes Frogmites won't be able to attack without dying), and the lifelink goes a long way when you're consistently growing its power (Pest/Master/Plating).

So my suggestions would be:

-4 Memnite
-4 Frogmite
-1 Springleaf Drum
+4 Ornithopter
+4 Vault Skirge
+1 Galvanic Blast

At that point, you aren't really worried about blockers anymore, so you should no longer need Virtue's Ruin or Perish in the sideboard. You're biggest threats against Maverick are going to be Qasali Pridemage (blows up Platings) and Umezawa's Jitte (nukes your X/1's). Pithing Needle and Phyrexian Revoker deal with both of those much better than Virtue's Ruin or Perish does. Needle and Revoker are also alot more valuable in other matchups.

Mr. Froggy

10-17-2012, 11:28 PM

I just realized I forgot to add the 2x Ornithopters to my list lol, sorry.

I actually ran 4 Blasts, but I cut one to add a Great Furnace, because I felt low on lands a bit. I think I'm gonna cut a Drum for the Blast, and the Frogmites (I like the 2/2 for 1-2, but other than that, it doesn't really do much for me) for the Skirges, because they seem to be AMAZING.

TheSleeper

10-18-2012, 07:36 AM

I have yet to test Hanni #2 or #3 yet, just been playing with Steelblade. If you haven't played with the 0-cost equip before, its absolutely bonkers in practice. My only gripe is that without Puresteel in play, the deck feels very clunky. Despite mantle/opal, you only have so much mana, and playing/SFM'ing/equipping all those chunky equipments is slow (one turn to cast a SoFI, another to equip, etc). If you get the sweet plays of MoR into Puresteel, you'll go off and it's a lot of fun. Just the hands I never saw him or if he was removed straight away, I just durdled around and died. Did you test either Mask of Avacyn or Swiftfoot Boots for the Hexproof?

Nidd

10-18-2012, 09:58 PM

I wonder if anyone except for me has tried sth like this:

4 Ornithopter
3 Memnite
3 Baleful Strix
2 Steel Overseer
4 Dark Confidant
4 Etched Champion
3 Master of Etherium

4 Cranial Plating

3 Thoughtcast

1 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Cabal Therapy

3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

3 Mox Opal
2 Springleaf Drum
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Academy Ruins

This list is not an Aggro deck, it's midrange - it ramps, it has huge threats, it has disruption, it has CA and it has a few trump cards up it's sleeves - basically, it's The Rock disguised as Affinity.

Some thoughts about the individual cardchoices:
Ornithopter: The best 0 mana creature for us. Carries Platings like a boss, blocks Lackeys, unflipped Delvers and unthreshed Mongeese all over the place. They also do everything Memnites do...
Memnite: As much as I hate drawing Memnites later in the game, they are the invaluable Ornithopter 5-7 early, enabling Drum, enabling Metalcraft, carrying Platings, getting beefed by Overseer, making Thoughtcast a passable Ancestral Recall imitation, saccing to Therapy and looking cute. Too bad they don't fly, like their idols do. Still, they are a must.
Baleful Strix: This is the new kid on the block and he performed very promising in testing. He's an excellent card against the fair decks and actually quite relevant against Reanimator or Show and Tell - drop this against their Griselbrand and you might gain some valuable time.
Steel Overseer: This dude helps out Memnite, Strix and Ornithopter, so they can go to town. Basically, untapping with this guy in play means a lot of pain if your opponent wants to win with creatures. 2 activations and your Memnites have turned into fluffy kitties. I wouldn't want to play more than 2, though, as multiples make for awkward draws and they can be quite slow at times.
Dark Confidant: He draws cards, end of story. He is quite swing in this deck with an average CMC of 1,35 but spikes at 4 and 5, but he does what you want him to do: Absorb removal or win the game. Should your life total get low, sac him for Therapy.
Etched Champion: Invincible roadblock for Aggro and unblockable. Bad in the mirror, but seriously... There's not much to be said about him, besides him being removalproof and the single best carrier for Plating.
Master of Etherium: Gigantic dude, sadly, he dies to everything. If he doesn't, though, he wins the game in a few swings. He also pumps your little guys, adding an average of 12 power to the board when he lands.
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas: This bad boy is the best planeswalker if your deck can support him. He ends games at blazing speed, be it through 5/5 beatdown or his ultimate. Also, do not underestimate the amount of life he gains. Against Aggro, drawing a card and then draining them for 12-16 all while gaining the same amount of life, puts the game far out of reach for them. Alternatively, you can just draw an extra card every turn.
Cranial Plating: Do i really have to explain why I play this card?
Cabal Therapy: I want disruption. Sadly, MM got banned and other counters don't really do what I want them to do, so proactivity is the name of the game now. Once you get the hang of the deck, you will know what to name and this card will tear your opponent's hand apart.
Inquisition of Kozilek: Disruption #5 - I prefer it over Thoughtseize simply because of the lifeloss. You can play Thoughtseize if you want to, but I prefer IoK.
Mox Opal: Best Ramp for this deck, too bad, this is legendary. It being legendary is no excuse to play bad cards like Ravager, don't even think about it. If you draw multiples, deal with it. The CA the deck generates overall makes up for that.
Springleaf Drum: Because Mox is legendary and we need some more Ramp/fixing, this is the next best card - Tezzeret can turn it into a 5/5, uses him for his ultimate and Cranial Plating likes it, too. It's a janky card on it's own, but in the context, it works fine.
Darkslick Shores: The drawback is never (read: never) relevant. Never. Nevereverever. Should you play against Merfolk, you will congratulate yourself for playing this over Underground Sea.
Academy Ruins: This is experimental. The inclusion of Baleful Strix made me consider this card, as lategame against Aggro, you can draw both Strix and another card. Academy Ruins also gets back Plating, countered Champions and destroyed Masters. More than 1 is a no-go, though.
Artifact lands: Play these. All 12. No discussion.

All in all, this is my take on Affinity. If this type proves different enough from regular Affinity, I will open a new thread for it. Until then, give it a try and tell me what you think.

Shawon

10-18-2012, 11:53 PM

Nidd

10-19-2012, 01:27 AM

I don't think Dark Confidant is so hot in Tezz Affinity. 4 Thoughtcast, 3 Tezz, 7 3-drops make the Great One very costly in your deck. At least run some Vault Skirge to offset Bob. Speaking of which, why aren't you running the little critter anyway? He's the best flier you can run in Affinity, way better than Baleful Strix.

The problem with making Affinity more like The Rock is that along with inheriting the strengths of The Rock of being disruptive and controlling you inherit another of The Rock's best qualities - it's inability to just straight up win.

EDIT: I have a feeling you might have struck gold with the 1-of Academy Ruins. I'm going to try it over one of my UB painlands. I don't know why I didn't think of trying it when I was thinking of what utility lands I could run in my three slots. I more I think about Ruins, the more I think it's theoretically awesome. The thought of getting back Cranial Platings and Etched Champions is becoming sweeter with every second I imagine it.
Bob was fine back when I ran 4 Thoughtcast. There are 27 cards that cost 0 in my list, so there's that. He's just a bit swingy.
Vault Skirge is a card I tested, but he suffers from so many problems:
His size is irrelevant. The same argument could be made about Memnite and Ornithopter, but these 2 cost no mana.
Vault Skirge also doesn't gain you too much life - it comes with an initial investment of 2 life. Assuming you play it turn 1, it will have gained you the first life turn 4, 3 turns later. Ofc he's nuts with Plating, but tell me which creature isn't.
Again, his body is irrelevant. Strix trades with everything and draws a card - that's where my list wants to be.

I didn't pull this list out of my ass, I have played a very similiar one at the german legacy championship last year to a top 8 finish - okay, Mental Misstep was a thing back then, but the Meta was comparable. Lots of RUG, UW, GW, Dredge and some Storm.
Strix is an addition I am very excited about and my testing shows that it's indeed very strong against fair decks.

So far the list feels strong again, I need a plan VS little green men, though.

ween

10-19-2012, 07:49 AM

I need a plan VS little green men, though.

I guess the obvious answer is Perish. Is it not working for you?

Nidd

10-19-2012, 07:59 AM

I guess the obvious answer is Perish. Is it not working for you?
The problem with most little green men is that they are red ;)

Updated my post. Have fun.

Shawon

10-19-2012, 09:24 AM

Bob was fine back when I ran 4 Thoughtcast. There are 27 cards that cost 0 in my list, so there's that. He's just a bit swingy.
Vault Skirge is a card I tested, but he suffers from so many problems:
His size is irrelevant. The same argument could be made about Memnite and Ornithopter, but these 2 cost no mana.
Vault Skirge also doesn't gain you too much life - it comes with an initial investment of 2 life. Assuming you play it turn 1, it will have gained you the first life turn 4, 3 turns later. Ofc he's nuts with Plating, but tell me which creature isn't.
Again, his body is irrelevant. Strix trades with everything and draws a card - that's where my list wants to be.

I didn't pull this list out of my ass, I have played a very similiar one at the german legacy championship last year to a top 8 finish - okay, Mental Misstep was a thing back then, but the Meta was comparable. Lots of RUG, UW, GW, Dredge and some Storm.
Strix is an addition I am very excited about and my testing shows that it's indeed very strong against fair decks.

So far the list feels strong again, I need a plan VS little green men, though.

You need to test Vault Skirge again. Let me tell you why it's better than Baleful Strix. Vault Skirge is better than Baleful Strix because it costs one-mana, which assists your goal of being "Affinity," dropping artifacts and casting Thoughtcast. Skirge makes hands more keepable in a deck that has to mulligan sometimes. Baleful Strix doesn't do this because you need UB, which in this deck is giganticly costlier than 1 mana.

Here's an example. You can't keep this hand:

Darksteel Citadel
Mox Opal
2x Baleful Strix
Thoughtcast
Frogmite
Etched Champion

This hand is a mulligan. If those Baleful Stric were Vault Skirge, you could amass 4 power on turn 1, have Thoughtcast with mana backup turn 2 or possibly cast Champ if you draw a land next turn.

Baleful Strix helps your mid/late-game. Vault Skirge helps you keep hands, I think that's way more important.

Nidd

10-19-2012, 10:07 AM

You need to test Vault Skirge again. Let me tell you why it's better than Baleful Strix. Vault Skirge is better than Baleful Strix because it costs one-mana, which assists your goal of being "Affinity," dropping artifacts and casting Thoughtcast. Skirge makes hands more keepable in a deck that has to mulligan sometimes. Baleful Strix doesn't do this because you need UB, which in this deck is giganticly costlier than 1 mana.

Here's an example. You can't keep this hand:

Darksteel Citadel
Mox Opal
2x Baleful Strix
Thoughtcast
Frogmite
Etched Champion

This hand is a mulligan. If those Baleful Stric were Vault Skirge, you could amass 4 power on turn 1, have Thoughtcast with mana backup turn 2 or possibly cast Champ if you draw a land next turn.

Baleful Strix helps your mid/late-game. Vault Skirge helps you keep hands, I think that's way more important.
You are looking at my list as an Aggro deck, which it isn't. My goal is not "being Affinity" as in dropping my hand as fast as possible, my goal is to play efficient, synergistic cards to take over the game. I also don't play Frogmite, which you would know, had you taken a closer look at my list.

Thinking of sample hands won't help in judging cards, playing the deck and seeing the cards perform does.

Shawon

10-19-2012, 11:02 AM

You are looking at my list as an Aggro deck, which it isn't. My goal is not "being Affinity" as in dropping my hand as fast as possible, my goal is to play efficient, synergistic cards to take over the game. I also don't play Frogmite, which you would know, had you taken a closer look at my list.

Thinking of sample hands won't help in judging cards, playing the deck and seeing the cards perform does.

Change Frogmite into any other card besides Drum or another artifact land and you essentially get the same unkeepable hand. The sample hand I described is pretty average as far as bad hands go for Affinity, so I didn't cherry-pick the worst hand you could possibly have just so I could make a point.

Just because there is a distinction between the role you are seeking and the traditional aggro role of Affinity doesn't mean the deckbuilding principles don't apply. You may have different cards than the traditional Tezz list, but you still operate just the same and that is where I am speaking from. I know all and well that Baleful Strix has 'value,' but Vault Skirge has enough value to make up for itself and it's actually more synergistic with the deck than Baleful Strix because it can support other cards in the deck. Baleful Strix needs other cards to be cast, at least two (three if you use Drum). Vault Skirge just needs one mana, and that's of any color, which very noncommital for a card that is insane in this deck.

EDIT: Before you tell me again that I should test Baleful Strix before judging, let me say that I have played long enough with Tezz Affinity this year to pre-evaluate some cards, if they have similar mana costs and constraints as cards I have already played with. I can judge Baleful Strix because I have played with Tezzeret. It's hard enough to reach UB early on when you take into account Wasteland and countermagic on your mana spells. Baleful Strix's value as a card, to me, doesn't outweigh the need to commit two or more cards to cast it.

whiley85

10-19-2012, 11:25 AM

Change Frogmite into any other card besides Drum or another artifact land and you essentially get the same unkeepable hand. The sample hand I described is pretty average as far as bad hands go for Affinity, so I didn't cherry-pick the worst hand you could possibly have just so I could make a point.

Just because there is a distinction between the role you are seeking and the traditional aggro role of Affinity doesn't mean the deckbuilding principles don't apply. You may have different cards than the traditional Tezz list, but you still operate just the same and that is where I am speaking from. I know all and well that Baleful Strix has 'value,' but Vault Skirge has enough value to make up for itself and it's actually more synergistic with the deck than Baleful Strix because it can support other cards in the deck. Baleful Strix needs other cards to be cast, at least two (three if you use Drum). Vault Skirge just needs one mana, and that's of any color, which very noncommital for a card that is insane in this deck.

EDIT: Before you tell me again that I should test Baleful Strix before judging, let me say that I have played long enough with Tezz Affinity this year to pre-evaluate some cards, if they have similar mana costs and constraints as cards I have already played with. I can judge Baleful Strix because I have played with Tezzeret. It's hard enough to reach UB early on when you take into account Wasteland and countermagic on your mana spells. Baleful Strix's value as a card, to me, doesn't outweigh the need to commit two or more cards to cast it.

If you change frogmite in that hand I wouldn't keep it with skirges either.
I like the deck due to the CA and therefore being able to go for longer than 4 turns.
I played a lot of variants of artifact decks in legacy especially "steel stompy".
Nidd's Affinity plays like a hybrid between this and Affinity, seems very competitive.

Mr. Froggy

10-19-2012, 12:39 PM

This deck can be nuts sometimes... :O

Turn 2 Tezzeret with a 5/5 Signal Pest... Without using an Ancient Tomb...

Shawon

10-19-2012, 12:39 PM

If you change frogmite in that hand I wouldn't keep it with skirges either.
I like the deck due to the CA and therefore being able to go for longer than 4 turns.
I played a lot of variants of artifact decks in legacy especially "steel stompy".
Nidd's Affinity plays like a hybrid between this and Affinity, seems very competitive.

Why would you mull? Even if your opponent STPs a Skirge, you can go Thoughtcast turn 2, hopefully into some mana if you didn't draw it on your draw step. Your hand isn't going to be that much better if you mull. You're more likely to mull into just the same hand or even worse than mulliganing to a nutty six-card hand.

whiley85

10-19-2012, 01:39 PM

Why would you mull? Even if your opponent STPs a Skirge, you can go Thoughtcast turn 2, hopefully into some mana if you didn't draw it on your draw step. Your hand isn't going to be that much better if you mull. You're more likely to mull into just the same hand or even worse than mulliganing to a nutty six-card hand.
After turn 1 you have 2 power on board at 16 life with 3 cards left in your hand. This is everything but pressure.
If thoughtcast gets countered you'll have a hard time. But this is the problem of "fast affinity" in general.
It depends too much on platings for being successful.

godofallu

10-19-2012, 10:59 PM

What do you guys think of this list?

4 Ornithopter
4 Puresteel Paladin
4 Vault Skirge
4 Dark Confidant
3 Memnite
3 Stoneforge Mystic

Spells
4 Thoughtcast
4 Cranial Plating
4 Paradise Mantle
4 Bonesplitter
4 Dispatch
2 Mox Opal

Lands
4 Ancient Den
4 Glimmervoid
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers

I know paradise mantle seems janky at first, but it really is the same thing as drum but far far better with puresteel in the mix. Dark Confidant and Puresteel can both be dropped turn 1 which opens the deck up to some crazy stuff.

As an example T1 Mox, Den, Puresteel, Ornithopter, Mantle, Confidant, thoughtcast AND this can keep going for a long time. Every 0cc creature adds mana, every 1 cc creature is free, and every equipment draws cards and equips for free. By turn 2 you can drop and equip multiple platings and equip for free swinging in. Plus mediocre hands are less all in when your drawing cards throughout the entire game.

Shawon

10-20-2012, 11:53 AM

I know paradise mantle seems janky at first,

Because it is.

Greenpoe

10-20-2012, 12:06 PM

Nidd

10-20-2012, 01:55 PM

Why would you mull? Even if your opponent STPs a Skirge, you can go Thoughtcast turn 2, hopefully into some mana if you didn't draw it on your draw step. Your hand isn't going to be that much better if you mull. You're more likely to mull into just the same hand or even worse than mulliganing to a nutty six-card hand.

That hand is 0 pressure, 0 CA beyond the initial Thoughtcast and has no lategame. It's all in on drawing into something relevant.
What I learned while piloting my list was figuring out what each of my hands can do and I wouldn't consider attacking for 1 with lifelink relevant at all. Just like you mull hands with 3 or more 0 mana dorks without big followups.
Strix often invalidates draws which are kind of all in on a single big dude and is guaranteed CA.

Again, give the list a whirl and figure out your gameplan with each hand.

Shawon

10-20-2012, 04:42 PM

That hand is 0 pressure, 0 CA beyond the initial Thoughtcast and has no lategame. It's all in on drawing into something relevant.
What I learned while piloting my list was figuring out what each of my hands can do and I wouldn't consider attacking for 1 with lifelink relevant at all. Just like you mull hands with 3 or more 0 mana dorks without big followups.
Strix often invalidates draws which are kind of all in on a single big dude and is guaranteed CA.

Again, give the list a whirl and figure out your gameplan with each hand.

You would be attacking for 2 with lifelink, making it easier to keep that hand and naturally draw into something, because the lifelink slows down the damage you could be taking while you are fishing. It's not irrelevant.

Anyway, my point wasn't that replacing Baleful Strix would make that sample hand suddenly awesome. I'm aware that hand is still a bad hand with Vault Skirge in it, but I think one of our differences lies in our definitions of a 'keepable' hand. My point is that the hand would be keepable with Vault Skirge because 2 power on the offense is better than 0, your only land is a land that can't be destroyed by Wasteland, you can play Thoughtcast for (1)U next turn or play Etched Champion if you draw a land. That's a lot better than what you're likely to encounter when you're mulliganing with a deck that runs 15-16 land. You say to figure a gameplan with each hand, and I've explained how you have more than one game plan in the sample hand I've described if you had Vault Skirge instead of Baleful Strix.

godofallu

10-20-2012, 04:51 PM

Nidd

10-20-2012, 06:06 PM

The reason I think 3 memnite is the right amount is because they don't have evasion and I basically always get affinity without them.

Vault skirge has evasion and wears equipment better than basically any other creature in the deck. It generally swings for 10+ lifelink by turn 3-4.

Oh and Mox Opal could be 2 or 3. IDK what the right count is but I own 2 and with the card draw I still see both fairly often.
Each and every creature we run is nuts with Plating. Vault Skirge is godlike with Plating, but it's a horrible card without it.
Don't get me wrong. Skirge is fine as an additional beater for the fast versions. But the approach I am proposing is not fast. Heck, I'd rather run Revoker again.

thefreakaccident

10-21-2012, 02:01 PM

Have some of you guys considered the abyss in this deck to combat other creature-based strategies?

It would be pretty sick to have your opponents always sacrificing creatures, while your's are protected.

Affinity already loves acceleration, and so does the abyss... It may take some retooling, but SOMEBODY please make it work, because I think it'll be sick, for 1, and secondly, I feel like this would pressure a lot of agro decks, trying to race board position... It becomes even more powerful the lower the creature count the opposing deck has as well (assuming the threats are non-artifact).

Shawon

10-21-2012, 02:10 PM

Why don't you try it out yourself and get back to us? Personally, I wouldn't use the Abyss because it costs too much mana for what it does. My creature tech is 3 Umezawa's Jitte and 1 Etched Champion in the sb, and so far that's been working great for me.

thefreakaccident

10-21-2012, 02:38 PM

godofallu

10-21-2012, 02:43 PM

I don't think the Abyss has any place in Affinity. It costs 4 mana which is the same as Tezzeret. So for 4cc you can either win the game next turn with Tezz OR trade 1 of your creatures for 1 of theirs.

Shawon

10-21-2012, 02:54 PM

I wouldn't have asked for others to do it if I had time for it. If you don't want to test out new options to potentially strengthen your archetype, that's fine. Although, this might fit better in metalworker Agro/control.

You don't have the time to test Abyss in Affinity, yet you have the time to ask other people to test for you and reply with a condescending remark when someone suggest you try out a card yourself? Either you've got some balls, or you're a lazy as shit. Probably the latter.

When I want to find out how a card fits into a deck, I either ask people's thoughts, search threads and articles, or test the card myself.

Mr. Froggy

10-21-2012, 08:27 PM

Just finished 3rd at my LGS's Weekly Legacy Tournament, I didn't change anything to my list because I didn't have time to. We were 8 and I saw:

1st round: Goblins
2-1

2nd round: Elves!
2-0

3rd round: Maverick (I think)
0-2

And from what I saw for the rest: Junk, MBC, LED Dredge, and Turbo Eldrazi

I liked it, metagame was varied, and kept things interesting. :)

Shawon

10-21-2012, 08:32 PM

Nice work. What were your observations in your match with Maverick?

Mr. Froggy

10-21-2012, 08:38 PM

That I hardly had any outs... I sided in Duress and Ancient Grudge (for the equipments) but I only drew 1 Duress...

I wish I would have drawn Galvanic Blast a lot more than I did though...

Shawon

10-21-2012, 08:46 PM

That sucks. I remember when I first starting testing this deck against Maverick I'd always wish I drew more Galvanic Blast, especially against Stoneforge...

Lemme guess, was Jitte the equipment you saw the most? I typically find that the best way to fight Jitte is running Jitte yourself. If they have it, you save your army. If they don't, they're in trouble.

Mr. Froggy

10-21-2012, 08:55 PM

ween

10-22-2012, 05:39 PM

Esper Tezzerator

I've tried your build, and made some tweaks i was interested in hearing your feedback on (you menton you had worked a lot on that list)

I didn't have Underground Seas, so went with Underground River.
Similarly, the Gaea's Cradle became a Glimmervoid.
I swapped a Springleaf Drum for a main deck Umezawa's Jitte and Phyrexian Walker became Etched Champions.

This does hurt the mana a little and potentially slows the opening down, but i think it adds a much meatier mid-game with Champions.

Mr. Froggy

10-23-2012, 10:08 PM

My friend has a MBC list, and I have a hard time vs him, especially when he gets his stuff online soon (IoK, Liliana, etc.) how do you guys beat MBC?

Shawon

10-23-2012, 11:43 PM

It should be the other way around. Affinity is a nightmare matchup for MBC, if by MBC you're referring to Smallpox decks. I beat them all the time on MWS.

Just keep whatever fast goldfish you have. They're too slow to hold you down since they don't run any targeted removal to dispose of your real threats, so if they cast Smallpox or Liliana, just sacrifice Ornithopter or Memnite and keep chipping at their life total until they die. If you have to choose between sacrificing Vault Skirge over Frogmite, you should always pick Frogmite because you don't want to have Nether Spirit chump-blocking your Froggy.

As long as your hand is fast and the MBC doesn't surprise you with an Infest (unlikely), it's an easy matchup. Of course, I make it really tough for them when I Spell Pierce whatever is about to save them from losing... but I guess I'm the only person in this thread who thinks Spell Pierce is good... must be something wrong with my brain...

Knowing what to cut really helps, too, because the less useless topdecks you run into, the more likely you will come out ahead if they try to drag you into a grind.

Take out while boarding:

- All of your Etched Champion (it's pro-color is irrelevant against 'sacrifice' removal, and Mishra's Factory blocks it with great success, and Cursed Scroll kills it easily too)
- All or at least 2 Tezzeret from your MD (too slow)

Mr. Froggy

10-24-2012, 12:48 AM

Would it be wise to side out my MoEs first over my Etched? Or is the pump really important? And with all the discard, I can understand why I would side out Tezzeret.

EDIT: I think it's time for me to test Spell Pierce, because I think it could be really good.

Shawon

10-24-2012, 12:50 AM

Masters can be 4/4 or higher. Etched Champion is just a Gray Ogre in the matchup.

Mr. Froggy

10-24-2012, 01:34 PM

Yeah, makes sense.

Mr. Froggy

10-26-2012, 01:18 AM

I thought that I'd post my list (and write it up correctly this time...)

Lands/mana
4 Darksteel Citadel
1 Great Furnace
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
2 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Brass
4 Springleaf Drum
3 Mox Opal

Beaters
2 Ornithopter
4 Signal Pest
4 Memnite
4 Frogmite

Win-cons
4 Etched Champion
4 Master of Etherium
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Cranial Plating

Other(s)
3 Galvanic Blast
4 Thoughtcast
1 Spellskite

SB
Same as before, but my change the Duress to Cabal Therapy

I have yet to change the Frogmites for Skirges (but I like them too much...), also of all the games I've played, using Pest or Orni, I always had one swinging for 8+ Flying damage. But I think the Lifelink would be of great help since of all the life I lose with my City and Tombs (yes the Tombs accelerate a bunch, but the lifeloss is kind of major sometimes, esp. when I play against some kind of fast aggro.)

All in all, I find Affinity to be an extremely powerful deck. As I read somewhere, it might not be Tier 1 but its damn near powerful enough to be part of it (at least in my opinion). Its sleeved up, and I think its going to be my go-to deck from now on, because it suits my play style so perfectly.

Alright, I'll stop bothering you guys with this.

Enjoy!

Shawon

10-26-2012, 06:39 PM

All in all, I find Affinity to be an extremely powerful deck. As I read somewhere, it might not be Tier 1 but its damn near powerful enough to be part of it (at least in my opinion). Its sleeved up, and I think its going to be my go-to deck from now on, because it suits my play style so perfectly.

This is very true. It can also be VERY resilient, but many people don't believe this because they give up too quickly when they are trying to fix bad matchups that just seem hopeless (e.g. Miracles). I once felt the matchup was entirely pointless to improve, but I kept working at it until I came up with something good. Now I have been beating THE SHIT OUT OF Miracles/Blade decks, because I have worked out a solid sb plan and I am comfortable on what plays I need to make versus them.

I have yet to change the Frogmites for Skirges (but I like them too much...), also of all the games I've played, using Pest or Orni, I always had one swinging for 8+ Flying damage. But I think the Lifelink would be of great help since of all the life I lose with my City and Tombs (yes the Tombs accelerate a bunch, but the lifeloss is kind of major sometimes, esp. when I play against some kind of fast aggro.)

I'm telling you... City of Traitors >> Ancient Tomb. I hate giving Burn free wins.

Don't cut Frogmite. Brace yourself... I think you should cut Signal Pest for Vault Skirge. Pest is very fragile, as I've come to realize despite being such a huge fan of the little guy. First, it's an 0/1, so any blocking flier (Bitterblossom or Soul tokens, Sprites, Clique) can easily take out your Pest without taking a card (not even a token!) with it. Second, Pest costs the same as Skirge, but Skirge has 2 CMC, so it makes it less convenient for an opponent to just pop a Deed for X=1 and expect to kill your entire board. Now they have to pop it for higher mana if they want to get your Skirge + Plating. Those are the subtle differences I wanted to highlight for you.

Hanni

10-26-2012, 07:00 PM

Don't cut Frogmite. Brace yourself... I think you should cut Signal Pest for Vault Skirge. Pest is very fragile, as I've come to realize despite being such a huge fan of the little guy. First, it's an 0/1, so any blocking flier (Bitterblossom or Soul tokens, Sprites, Clique) can easily take out your Pest without taking a card (not even a token!) with it. Second, Pest costs the same as Skirge, but Skirge has 2 CMC, so it makes it less convenient for an opponent to just pop a Deed for X=1 and expect to kill your entire board. Now they have to pop it for higher mana if they want to get your Skirge + Plating. Those are the subtle differences I wanted to highlight for you.

I don't get the point of running an evasion-less 2/2 in a deck without a minimum of 8 spot removal spells, but I guess that's just me.

Shawon

10-26-2012, 07:53 PM

Hanni

10-27-2012, 12:05 PM

Maybe it's just you. Signal Pest is fragile in this format for reasons I've stated, due to its 0/1 nature and its 1 CC. I'd be open to cutting X number of Frogmite, but I wouldn't cut any of them for Pest.

I don't get the point of running Signal Pest either, in a deck that doesn't spam out 1/1 tokens ala Kuldotha Rebirth and etc.

Mr. Froggy

10-27-2012, 03:04 PM

This is very true. It can also be VERY resilient, but many people don't believe this because they give up too quickly when they are trying to fix bad matchups that just seem hopeless (e.g. Miracles). I once felt the matchup was entirely pointless to improve, but I kept working at it until I came up with something good. Now I have been beating THE SHIT OUT OF Miracles/Blade decks, because I have worked out a solid sb plan and I am comfortable on what plays I need to make versus them.

I'm telling you... City of Traitors >> Ancient Tomb. I hate giving Burn free wins.

Don't cut Frogmite. Brace yourself... I think you should cut Signal Pest for Vault Skirge. Pest is very fragile, as I've come to realize despite being such a huge fan of the little guy. First, it's an 0/1, so any blocking flier (Bitterblossom or Soul tokens, Sprites, Clique) can easily take out your Pest without taking a card (not even a token!) with it. Second, Pest costs the same as Skirge, but Skirge has 2 CMC, so it makes it less convenient for an opponent to just pop a Deed for X=1 and expect to kill your entire board. Now they have to pop it for higher mana if they want to get your Skirge + Plating. Those are the subtle differences I wanted to highlight for you.

I understand why you wouldn't want to give Burn free wins, but I find myself playing lands after Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors would get destroyed if I did. Does Vault Skirge not off-set the lifeloss? I'll pick some up soon and test them.

On Pest, I can't see myself not playing the little guy, it's one of those creatures I pretty much always want to draw. But I see your point, I'll try it out and see if it works for me.

Shawon

10-27-2012, 07:53 PM

I don't get the point of running Signal Pest either, in a deck that doesn't spam out 1/1 tokens ala Kuldotha Rebirth and etc.

And Affinity doesn't spam out multiple 0/2s, 1/1s and 2/2s?

I understand why you wouldn't want to give Burn free wins, but I find myself playing lands after Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors would get destroyed if I did. Does Vault Skirge not off-set the lifeloss? I'll pick some up soon and test them.

So what if Cities get destroyed? When I played with Cities, I sacrificed them all the time. You don't really need any more lands once you're able to produce 5 mana, so keeping Cities and not playing lands makes no difference than playing another land. If you play the deck fast and aggressively, you only need one or two City activations to get enough mileage out of it. The self-sacrifice clause can bite you in the ass sometimes, but so does Ancient Tomb with the lifeloss. Vault Skirge is great because of its lifelink, but don't - depend - on it to offset the life loss from Ancient Tomb, because smart players will dispatch your Skirges. Casting 1 Skirge off of Tomb sets you behind 4 life, casting 2 off of Tomb sets you back 6 life. That's a death sentence against Burn.

Mr. Froggy

10-28-2012, 11:46 AM

I don't know, I like my Tombs, but I see your point of making 5 mana. But are you sure after 2 activations you're done with CoT? Because I find myself using my Tombs a lot more than my other lands, in general.

Shawon

10-28-2012, 12:19 PM

Just play Cities wisely, or play you Cities #2 or #3. If you're running Sol lands, you should be running 3 by the way. Personally, I've stopped using Sol lands because I found that I care more about having access to :u: than pure mana accel.

If I were to go back to Sol lands, I think I would try testing Lodestone Golem MD because I've been thinking about that card a lot lately. Your thoughts?

Infinitium

10-28-2012, 12:32 PM

No go. At 4 mana it cannot be reliably cast on turn 3 with ~20 producers, and as a rule of thumb taxing isn't efficient disruption without further support (albeit the built in clock helps in this regard). I do like it in Artifact Stompy decks however.

Shawon

10-28-2012, 12:45 PM

You can say the same about Tezzeret, no? I can reach 4 mana on turn 2 pretty often, let alone turn 3, with a Sol-land build, so I don't think mana is an issue. I just tried a few goldfishes, and Lodestone was pretty easy to cast with a City in hand, but then the goldfishes reminded me why I left the Sol-land versions in the first place: hands with no access to :u: for Thoughtcast >.<

EDIT: For the record, I wouldn't consider Lodestone Golem in my current Sol-less list.

EDIT #2: Speaking of...

Mana
12 Artifact lands
2 Underground River
1 Academy Ruins (credit goes to Nidd!)
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Mox Opal

Small guys:
4 Vault Skirge
4 Ornithopter
4 Memnite
2 Frogmite (credit goes to Hanni!)

All-Stars:
3 Master of Etherium
1 Arcbound Ravager (I look at it as MoE #4)
4 Etched Champion
4 Myr Enforcer

Best cards in the deck:
4 Thoughtcast
4 Cranial Plating

Tech:
3 Spell Pierce

SB:
3 Relic of Progenitus (credit goes to Mr. Froggy!)
1 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Spell Pierce
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

The Relic has been helping me a lot. It's a great cantrip, and it's actually quite useful against RUG Delver, as it shrinks Goyf and Mongoose pretty effectively. I find I'm still losing to Reanimator, though, because of their darn SnT sb plan. This is where Dispatch comes in useful, but I'm not going to run Dispatch anytime soon.

The Academy Ruins has been good whenever I'm able to use its 2nd ability, and because I only run 1 and the rest of my mana taps for :u: and :b:, I haven't been mana-screwed by Ruins yet.

I took out 2 Frogmite because like Hanni implied, it's pretty weak on its own. Furthermore, I don't run Signal Pest anymore so I don't need to have full sets of small critters to Zerg-rush my opponent. I cut out 1 Frogmite for the 4th Enforcer as I felt this would make my creature base more robust, and I removed the other one for the 4th Etched Champion to give me an additional SB slot for the 4th Pierce (could be something else, not sure). I still keep 2 as it's a free creature that nets you one mana when tapping with Drum.

Mr. Froggy

10-28-2012, 01:29 PM

If I were to add a 3rd Sol land, what would I take out for it? Also, I should try Lodestone Golem, but maybe in the side?

Shawon

10-28-2012, 01:33 PM

Great Furnace for Tomb/City #3, and City of Brass for Opal #4.

Mr. Froggy

10-28-2012, 03:21 PM

I saw you like Myr Enforcer, is it a goodbeater? The 7CMC is not an issue for Affinity, probably costs around 1-2 to play, right?

Shawon

10-29-2012, 12:19 AM

0-3 mana, haha. Myr Enforcer's a beast, though. I used to dislike him, but that was because I was trying to replace Vault Skirge/Master of Etherium when I should've been trying to replace Signal Pest. Myr Enforcer is more resilient than Signal Pest because it blanks a single Jitte/Lavamancer activation, Darkblast, Counterbalance, and more importantly Pernicious Deed and Abrupt Decay, cards I've named that easily take out Signal Pest. And now, I'm removing a Frogmite for my final Enforcer because I want to add more late-game beef to my arsenal.

Mr. Froggy

10-29-2012, 01:54 PM

I can live with paying 3 for a 4/4 that benefits the rest of the deck! :P

I might need to try them, too. They seem to be a relatively good beater.

Mr. Froggy

10-30-2012, 08:55 AM

Would running Nature's Claim in the sb be a better move than my Ancient Grudges? Or does the flashback on Ancient Grudge make it the right choice?

Shawon

10-30-2012, 09:40 AM

Why do you need either? Not for equipment again, I hope. You only need disenchant effects for cards that you can't stop otherwise, such as Energy Field + Rest in Peace or Rest in Peace + Helm of Obedience. Or Enchantress.

Mr. Froggy

10-30-2012, 11:38 AM

They're for equipment, yeah. I think I'm gonna stick with the Grudges for now though, so I can 2-1 Stoneblade/Maverick.

Shawon

10-30-2012, 12:24 PM

But whhhhhyyyyy? You're the aggressor or beatdown versus both decks.

Here's the problem with Ancient Grudge:

- It only targets artifacts, not creatures, so until they drop an Equipment or some other artifact (I can't think of any non-Equipment Blade/Maverick would run that you can reliably destroy with Grudge), it's going to be useless. May not be dead the entire game, but if you die before you get to use Grudge, then Grudge was a useless card. Not my crucial argument, but it's still a valid point.
- Since you're talking about Equipment, let's be real: the ONLY equipment you care about is Jitte. Not Batterskull (see-> Etched Champion), not Sword of Y and Y (Jitte>SoXY). Why not just run your own Jitte? It neutralizes theirs, and better yet, if you play it first, they HAVE to spend a turn or some mana to kill yours, or just die.

Sure, Ancient Grudge has other applications in other matchups, but against Blade decks and Maverick decks, you want the BEST threat against them, because you're the aggressive deck in both of those matchups. You don't want to run a situational answer for them (I wouldn't consider Spell Pierce situational in the Blade matchup), because you risk Ancient Grudge being a dead card in your hand which may prevent you from winning the game before either deck stabilizes. Jitte is the best card you can run against Jitte. Period.

Actually, against Blade decks, I don't sometimes don't even bring Jitte. Cabal Therapy is way better than Ancient Grudge here, because not only can you get a free blind call after they reveal an Equipment off of Stoneforge, you can also name Swords to Plowshares and be correct quite often.

Mr. Froggy

10-30-2012, 01:28 PM

Its just because I don't want to run SFM in my build to be able to grab the Jitte, I don't like SFM-Affinity. I just like having an answer to it, and various other equipment, but also I might go to my LGS this weekend and test vs. Stoneblade decks to see how it goes.

Shawon

10-30-2012, 01:33 PM

SFM?? You don't need Stoneforge, just Jitte. Run 3 of them for consistency and redundancy against other Jitte decks.

Mr. Froggy

10-30-2012, 04:59 PM

I know Jitte is extremely powerful, but doesn't it seem a bit slow? Or is it once its active its too powerful to ignore?

Shawon

10-30-2012, 10:01 PM

You run 4 drum and 4 opal (well, you should) so you can probably cast and equip Jitte faster than most decks could. Jitte is fast enough against the decks (Maverick, Goblins) that lose to it and/or rely on their own Jitte to beat you (Maverick, Blade).

Mr. Froggy

11-01-2012, 01:24 AM

I played 4 Mox in my MTGO list, but always thought maybe 4 were too much since it is Legendary and I don't have any Ravagers?

Shawon

11-01-2012, 07:55 AM

You always want Mox Opal in your opening hand. It's worth the trouble. You can discard extras, or cast two more Opals after the first to net one mana. Also, Opal tends to find itself in the graveyard sometimes from your opponent's disruption, so it doesn't hurt to have extras anyway.

Mr. Froggy

11-02-2012, 01:33 PM

As of yet, I've always had at least (1) Mox in the hands I've had since playing the deck (other than stupid hands in MODO, ie: 4 Citadel, 2 Vaults, 1 Opal, etc.) but maybe I'm just lucky. :tongue:

Also, what's the fastest this deck can kill? Turn 3, right? I goldfished, and got a Turn 3 kill with 1 Pest+Plating (random artifacts in play) and Tezz ulti (pretty easy to do, honestly).

EDIT: Also, if I add the Therapies to my board, do you mind listing some of the cards you name in a particular match-up? That way, I would know where to start. :smile:

Shawon

11-02-2012, 06:20 PM

Maybe just lucky. The probability of an opening hand having at least one 4-of is 30-40%. I doubt you have better odds than that if you're just running 3 Opal. Anyway, as I said before, things can happen where your Opal gets countered (some smart players will Spell Pierce your Opal if you start out with just 'land, Opal') or blown away by Pernicious Deed or EE or even occasionally discarded by a first turn discard effect while you're on the draw, so it's good to draw into additional Opals to rebuild your manabase if you're fighting the attrition battle.

Here are some matchups where I can tell you the best card to name with Therapy. I'll start with combo first.

Show and Tell - On blind calls, name Show and Tell. If it's Sneak and Show, and they respond with Brainstorm, name Emrakul. If it's Omni-Tell and they Brainstorm, name Omniscience. If they have multiple outs (say a Show and Tell & Burning Wish) and you have information on their hand, you could name any of their SnT targets such as Emrakul or Griselbrand if they have it.

RUG - If you're on the play, I'd either name Brainstorm or Delver of Secrets on turn 1. If you have enough mana to play through Daze or Pierce for a Cranial Plating and you can afford to cast Therapy to clear the way, name Force of Will. If you're bringing in Relics, I wouldn't try to name Goyf unless you don't have Relics in your hand. Hopefully any misses you make on the blind call can be made up for by the flashback.

UW Miracle or Blade - Always name Swords to Plowshares on a blind call. If you can somehow wait until they cast Stoneforge, then you're golden. If they reveal something off of Stoneforge, name the Equipment. It's a free card always and you get rid of something that can harm you. If they Brainstorm in response to Therapy, still name Swords to Plowshares. An Esperblade guy played Trinket Mage for EE against me. I Therapied him, he Brainstormed, I named Swords to Plowshares (I used Therapy before on his Jitte, so I knew he had at least 1 StP). Turns out I knocked out two of his StPs!

Smallpox decks - Name Smallpox or Liliana.

Storm decks - If they don't realize they can cast their artifact mana to prevent them from being discarded, then always name Lion's Eye Diamond. Otherwise, I would name Dark Ritual or Brainstorm.

Affinity - Cranial Plating. If they have more than 3 mana, name Tezz or Master of Etherium.

Those guidelines are just merely guidelines. If you disagree, then tell me why or you can make different choices in your matchups. It's all insight that I developed myself from my own personal experiences with these matchups.

Mr. Froggy

11-02-2012, 07:50 PM

Mr. Froggy

11-04-2012, 11:23 PM

I might want to switch the numbers in my deck, like so:

-1 City of Brass
+1 Mox Opal
-1 Great Furnace
+1 Ancient Tomb
-1 MoE
-1 Spellskite
+2 Arcbound Ravager

Giving me something like so:

Lands/mana
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Mox Opal

Beaters
2 Ornithopter
4 Signal Pest
4 Memnite
4 Frogmite
2 Arcbound Ravager

Win-cons
4 Etched Champion
3 Master of Etherium
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Cranial Plating

Other(s)
3 Galvanic Blast
4 Thoughtcast

Thoughts?

Shawon

11-04-2012, 11:26 PM

EDIT: I think I'm gonna change my SB to the following:

3 Cabal Therapy
2 Duress
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 O-Ring
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Galvanic Blast

Why did you go from having 4 Relic to splitting it into Relic + Crypt + Spellbomb? Doesn't make much sense looking at it on paper. Ever since I saw your SB with Relics and tried them out, I've been having a MUCH easier time against RUG. It's probably a favorable matchup now for me if I bring in 3 Relics post-board. I wish I had thought of using Relic instead of Cage a long time ago.

Ever since I saw your list, I've been meaning to ask you this: why are you - specifically - using Galvanic Blast? I know it's a good card, but are you using it for any specific matchups? Does it help your unfavorable matchups? More importantly, is it the best card you can use for a specific matchup that you want to to improve? I used to love playing the card all the time, but when I started asking those questions I asked you, I ended up not being able to answer them and started to realize that Galvanic Blast, while very powerful especially in multiples, wasn't what I needed. Do you NEED Galvanic Blast?

Mr. Froggy

11-04-2012, 11:39 PM

Why did you go from having 4 Relic to splitting it into Relic + Crypt + Spellbomb? Doesn't make much sense looking at it on paper. Ever since I saw your SB with Relics and tried them out, I've been having a MUCH easier time against RUG. It's probably a favorable matchup now for me if I bring in 3 Relics post-board. I wish I had thought of using Relic instead of Cage a long time ago.

Ever since I saw your list, I've been meaning to ask you this: why are you - specifically - using Galvanic Blast? I know it's a good card, but are you using it for any specific matchups? Does it help your unfavorable matchups? More importantly, is it the best card you can use for a specific matchup that you want to to improve? I used to love playing the card all the time, but when I started asking those questions I asked you, I ended up not being able to answer them and started to realize that Galvanic Blast, while very powerful especially in multiples, wasn't what I needed. Do you NEED Galvanic Blast?

About my SB:

I split the Relics because of fear of Needle, Revoker, Extirpate (the NPH one). This way, I can still bring them in, and not have to worry about them getting hosed by one card.

About Galvanic Blast. I guess it comes down to how or what I'm up against, because its never really a "dead draw", I'm never really disappointed in drawing it. I guess I chose it over Dispatch because I can hit my opponent with it, and I know Affinity does its business in the red-zone, but sometimes I Blast my opponent, drop them down to 16 (they probably took around 1-2 dmg from fetching), so 15-14 and just ultimate them for the win. At the tournament I got third, I think I did just that against my Goblins opponent.

EDIT: Funny aside, in my game against Goblins, my opponent and I found out how anti-synergistic Tin Street Hooligan and Goblin Warchief are, lol.

Shawon

11-05-2012, 11:23 AM

About my SB:

I split the Relics because of fear of Needle, Revoker, Extirpate (the NPH one). This way, I can still bring them in, and not have to worry about them getting hosed by one card.

First, Relic will unlikely if not ever be Extracted (Relic will practically never be in the gy). Second, Needle is a poor solution to gy hate in general. Pithing Needle is too narrow for Dredge to use and risk being absolutely cold to Rest in Peace or Leyline. And Reanimator's SnT sb plan is much more effective at bypassing gy hate than simply trying to answer a Relic. So you might as well run 3-4 Relic and improve your Threshold matchup.

About Galvanic Blast. I guess it comes down to how or what I'm up against, because its never really a "dead draw", I'm never really disappointed in drawing it. I guess I chose it over Dispatch because I can hit my opponent with it, and I know Affinity does its business in the red-zone, but sometimes I Blast my opponent, drop them down to 16 (they probably took around 1-2 dmg from fetching), so 15-14 and just ultimate them for the win. At the tournament I got third, I think I did just that against my Goblins opponent.

Ok, so you just described how Galvanic Blast is good. I already know this. But does that answer my question, do you need Galvanic Blast more than any other card to significantly improve a specific matchup? Against UW Miracles, is that 1-of Galvanic Blast in your SB really better than having the 4th Tezzeret in its place? Because I can confidently tell you that Tezz Affinity needs to have 4 Tezzeret in its entire 75 to compete with UW Miracles or Blade Control.

I'm not telling you to cut Galvanic Blast because ultimately it's your choice. I'm just asking you from your experience which matchups were Galvanic Blast highly relevant other than just being a finisher or win-more card?

Mr. Froggy

11-05-2012, 11:41 AM

First, Relic will unlikely if not ever be Extracted (Relic will practically never be in the gy). Second, Needle is a poor solution to gy hate in general. Pithing Needle is too narrow for Dredge to use and risk being absolutely cold to Rest in Peace or Leyline. And Reanimator's SnT sb plan is much more effective at bypassing gy hate than simply trying to answer a Relic. So you might as well run 3-4 Relic and improve your Threshold matchup.

Ok, so you just described how Galvanic Blast is good. I already know this. But does that answer my question, do you need Galvanic Blast more than any other card to significantly improve a specific matchup? Against UW Miracles, is that 1-of Galvanic Blast in your SB really better than having the 4th Tezzeret in its place? Because I can confidently tell you that Tezz Affinity needs to have 4 Tezzeret in its entire 75 to compete with UW Miracles or Blade Control.

I'm not telling you to cut Galvanic Blast because ultimately it's your choice. I'm just asking you from your experience which matchups were Galvanic Blast highly relevant other than just being a finisher or win-more card?

Yeah, I see what you mean about Relic. I should just go on using 3-4 Relic?

Also, it's true that Blast is kind of a "win-more" card.. But I do enjoy being able to kill creatures (Hierarch, Heritage, etc.), and not have to rely on the red-zone to kill things that could potentially be a nuisance.

Griselpuff

11-07-2012, 07:43 PM

What does everybody think of Kevin Green's list that Top 16'd a SCG Open? It's the best showing since RTR was released:

http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/38779

I noticed there are no Memnites or Vault Skirges, and it's much more of a midrange Tezzeret type deck. Interesting direction for Affinity. I wonder if he was budget constrained, choosing the Duress over Thoughtseize. I think w/o Memnite, not using Therapy makes some sense.

Shawon

11-07-2012, 08:41 PM

To be honest, I think the list is terrible and very unrefined. I don't care about his placing. Affinity has been relatively midrange ever since the majority of players have switched from Vial-Ravager-Disciple to straight up Tezzeret Affinity, so I don't really see how this list is groundbreaking. The basic lands are better served as Darksteel Citadel, because you know, Darksteel Citadel actually synergizes with the deck. I run some nonartifact lands myself, but I don't run them in place of my other artifact mana. I just don't get this methodology of diluting your manabase for situational needs. Fetching basics off of a Veteran Explorer isn't going to directly impact your chance of winning in a deck with such as small threshold of mana and it's probably not going to keep your from losing if your opponent still manages to Time Stretch into an active Pernicious Deed anyhow. That's why you run Tezzeret and Darksteel Citadel, and this guy compromised both their numbers. Shame. Also, why run fetchlands for 2 basics when you can just run two more of the same basics, or better yet, Darksteel Citadel. I don't think shuffling your library is going to make that Etched Champion suddenly pop back on top of your library after your opponent resolves Terminus.

The rest of the list is just suboptimal period, due to all the shaving from 4-ofs. Everyone repeat after me: YOU NEED 4 TEZZERET AGAINST CONTROL, MD OR SB. That's why he lost against a BUG deck that didn't even have Pernicious Deed. What is this guy's infatuation with the number 2, as if it's his lucky number and that if he runs something as a 2-of he's always going to draw it at the right time, such as the 2 Master of Etherium. Good luck finding the opportune time to resolve a Master of Etherium on turn 7 when you needed to cast one on turn 3!

Griselpuff

11-08-2012, 11:22 AM

What's your current list (with SB)?

I kind of like the O-Rings and the Smelts.

Shawon

11-08-2012, 12:13 PM

O-Ring is good because it doubles as a generic permanent removal and as a foil to Show and Tell. Smelt, however is unnecessary because you have other cards that do the same job (Revoker, O-Ring, Cabal Therapy, Spell Pierce) that don't just sit there in your hand until you have an opponent's artifact you can target.

My latest list. I cut my last 2 Frogmites for the Therapies so I could free up my sb. Now I can finally make a sb that can beat Show and Tell without killing my other matchups:

Mana
12 Artifact Lands
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Mox Opal
2 Underground River
1 Academy Ruins 1 Karakas

Small guys
4 Memnite
4 Ornithopter
4 Vault Skirge

Big guys
3 Master of Etherium
1 Arcbound Ravager
4 Myr Enforcer
4 3 Etched Champion

Best cards in the deck
4 Thoughtcast
4 Cranial Plating

Tech
3 Spell Pierce
2 Cabal Therapy 3 Phyrexian Revoker

SB
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Angel of Despair
2 1 Karakas
1 Etched Champion

Mr. Froggy

11-08-2012, 06:18 PM

I changed my deck:

-1 Furnace
-1 MoE
-1 City of Brass

+1 Tezz
+1 Opal
+1 Tomb

And my SB:

-3 Duress
+3 Therapy

Shawon

11-10-2012, 04:32 PM

Just made some more changes:

-2 Cabal Therapy
-1 Academy Ruins
-1 Etched Champion (to the SB)

+3 Phyrexian Revoker
+1 Karakas (from the SB)

As much as I am a fan of Cabal Therapy, I quickly noticed how light my creature base was after taking out Frogmites for the Therapies. So once again Cabal Therapy is out of my MD, but instead of going back to Frogmite, I've decided to try out Phyrexian Revoker. It's still a utility card just like Cabal Therapy, but it keeps my creature count where I want it.

Mr. Froggy

11-11-2012, 09:21 PM

@Shawon I feel your list is more midrange, also how is Karakas working out for you? Seems very "techy" for me.. Is it for the Show and Tell match-up?

Shawon

11-11-2012, 11:39 PM

@Shawon I feel your list is more midrange, also how is Karakas working out for you? Seems very "techy" for me.. Is it for the Show and Tell match-up?

Karakas is good against Show and Tell, as you may already know. It's also good against Reanimator alongside Relic seeing as how Reanimator tends to go the Show and Tell route as a means to bypass graveyard hate. Against Reanimator, I look at Karakas as Relic #4-5.

Those are my main uses. Karakas isn't intentionally used against Maverick or Death and Taxes, but it does happen to help that I can Wasteland their Karakas or bounce one of their Legends (Teeg, Thalia).

Mr. Froggy

11-12-2012, 12:25 AM

I'm gonna try Jitte in my SB, because its almost an auto-lose when I face it. Maybe if I run them myself, it's gonna help a bit...

Shawon

11-12-2012, 12:52 AM

i'm gonna try jitte in my sb, because its almost an auto-lose when i face it. Maybe if i run them myself, it's gonna help a lot

ftfy

Mr. Froggy

11-14-2012, 10:32 PM

Wasn't able to test much... School got in the way... -_- Will test soon!

EDIT #1: I'm trying out Vault Skirge right now on MTGO (along with full Orni and 3 Enforcers)

EDIT #2: I'm sold on Skirge :O damn!!!

Shawon

11-14-2012, 11:46 PM

I've gone and contradicted what I said about painlands vs. Sol lands and have come crawling back to running Ancient Tombs. Aside from the fact that I would have hands with 1 River as my only land and no way to activate Mox Opal on turn 1, running Phyrexian Revoker instead of Cabal Therapy has reduced the urgency of having specific mana and increased the urgency to simply have more mana. Despite what I said about Cities vs. Tomb, I'm running 2 Tombs this time because as long as I'm not running 3 Sol lands, I feel that I won't have too many scenarios where I would allow double Tombs to screw me over, and if I'm going to see on average 1 Sol land per game, it might as well be Ancient Tomb.

Phyrexian Revoker has been growing on me. Until recently, I had never been a fan of the guy in Affinity and that was because I would compare it to Pithing Needle all the time and evaluate Phyrexian Revoker's card type as a creature as a liability. After playing with it, I've come to realize that in a vacuum, it's definitely less failsafe as a solution compared to Pithing Needle, but realistically, it doesn't matter. Even if your opponent can inevitably remove Phyrexian Revoker, depending on what you named, Phyrexian Revoker can buy you valuable time that you can use to come up ahead and do what matters more than just stopping a certain card, which is winning the game. I completely owned an Affinity mirror match with Revoker by naming cards I ran myself! If I was ahead in board position, all I needed to do with Revoker was name Cranial Plating because I didn't need one myself to win the game if I was already winning and because I could then freely attack with my bigger creatures without my mirror trying to surprise me with a topdecked Plating. Another strategy I used with Revoker against the mirror was naming whatever mana source they had that they were depending on. I had a Mox Opal and lands, and I named Springleaf Drum with my Revoker and my opponent's Drum was his only source of blue mana. I'm mentioning this mirror match anecdote because it says what I have come to learn about Phyrexian Revoker being able to manipulate certain board positions to buy me enough time that I need to get in more damage or build my board position.

I still have yet to fully evaluate Phyrexian Revoker's merit, but I definitely don't miss Frogmite in the deck anymore. BTW, running 4 Myr Enforcer is really really boss.

Mr. Safety

11-15-2012, 05:30 PM

Mr. Froggy

11-15-2012, 10:05 PM

Sometimes MTGO shuffling can be so frustrating -_- (when I can't go to my LGS'S, I test on MTGO)

Hands with 3 MoEs, 2 Tezz, 1 Pest, 1 Memnite

Mull into 2 MoEs, 2 Tezz, 2 Pest -_-

I have yet to even draw a damn Enforcer... But I found myself missing my Galvanic Blasts...

Shawon

11-16-2012, 08:37 AM

Well Shawon, you decimated my mid-range Rock deck last night pretty handily...and took apart my U/b faeries deck, too. I would have to agree with you about Ancient Tomb...the explosive starts, along with the ability to get Tezz down fast, are worth paying the 2 life. I didn't realize how good the new breed of Affinity was until I saw you piloting it with such class. Nice work, and I guess I'll have to remember Affinity when sideboarding...it seemed that Pernicious Deed was a good answer, but not really fast enough, not even with Deathrite Shaman x4.

I would agree that Myr Enforcer x4 seems right...converted cost matters a lot when folks are using PDeed and Engineered Explosives as their wiper. Getting them for 0-2 mana seems pretty good, too. :wink:

I appreciate the props, man. I'm sure next time you'll always pop Deed immediately after resolving it against me! I still would've lost that game had you done that. Deed is a good answer to Affinity but you definitely need to complement it rather than rely solely on it. Abrupt Decay helps a lot in this regard, which I know you already run. I honestly don't think you need to add anything specific like Serenity (maybe that, so you can also beat RiP) or Kataki. But if you want to add anything, perhaps versatile answers such as Krosan Grip would help in addition to your removal and discard.

Mr. Froggy

11-16-2012, 09:51 PM

I love this deck, period.

I'm gonna get myself some Vault Skirges because insane their power, and I can't pass it up.

Shawon

11-19-2012, 12:15 AM

This is my latest abberration of Tezzeret Affinity. This one's kinda ugly:

12 Artifact Lands
2 Tomb
1 Karakas

4 Opal
2 Drum
2 Lotus Petal

4 Thopter
2 Memnite
4 Vault Skirge
4 Champ
3 MoE
1 Ravager
4 Enforcer
2 Phyrexian Revoker

4 Thoughtcast
4 Plating
2 Tezz

SB:

2 Tezz
3 O-Ring
1 Karakas
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Relic
3 Cursed Totem

Notes:

I've cut 2 Memnite, because like with Frogmite and Signal Pest, the trade-off between raw explosiveness and reliable efficiency is well worth it. It's still decent with Drum, though. Speaking of Drum, with less and less cheap creatures, I find myself never needing more than 2 Drums on the field ever. I'm trying out 2 Lotus Petal because it's completely free and it doesn't require me to rely on tapping creatures for mana.

With 2 Memnite gone, I had to replace it with something that will keep my creature count where it is. I didn't want to just add more Revokers. Then I realized that I could just add Tezzeret back into the MD. It still keeps my threat count where it is, and it's a hundred times better in the late game than Memnite. It feels great to have Tezzeret back in the MD.

After all the space I made, I decided to fill the extra 3 SB slots I created with my favorite SB tech against Maverick, Cursed Totem. I thought of adding Cabal Therapies again, but I don't think I would be able to board them and everything else I would bring against control or combo without taking out important cards.

Let me know what you think!

Mr. Froggy

11-19-2012, 09:25 PM

How are the Petals working out for you? Does the one-shot clause bother you at all?

Shawon

11-19-2012, 10:18 PM

How are the Petals working out for you? Does the one-shot clause bother you at all?

Not really so far. The explosiveness so far has been worth the risk I would take by the temporary use of Lotus Petal, and despite that I have other acceleration such as Tomb or Opal to make up for any subsequent tempo loss I would take from using Petal. Also, if I am using Lotus to cast Tezzeret, I can always make ensure a land drop that turn or the next if I am trying to accumulate some mana.

I've been thinking about trying Lotus Petal for a while, but it made no sense to run it over Drum if I was running 12 'free' creatures. Now I just run 6, so Lotus Petal is way more appealing now as an option.

EDIT: New changes

MD
-2 Phyrexian Revoker
+2 Baleful Strix

SB
-3 Cursed Totem
+3 Phyrexian Revoker

I feel the Baleful Strixes are better MD as naming whatever with Phyrexian Revoker is pretty irrelevant in g1 if you have limited information on what the opponent is playing. My list is less hyper-aggressive (I'm still an aggro deck!) now than it was in the past, so I am open to trying out Baleful Strix despite what I've said about it in the past since it has some post-early game 'value' (ugh, I hate applying that word to anything Magic: The Gathering related).

Mr. Froggy

11-20-2012, 11:13 AM

Not really so far. The explosiveness so far has been worth the risk I would take by the temporary use of Lotus Petal, and despite that I have other acceleration such as Tomb or Opal to make up for any subsequent tempo loss I would take from using Petal. Also, if I am using Lotus to cast Tezzeret, I can always make ensure a land drop that turn or the next if I am trying to accumulate some mana.

I've been thinking about trying Lotus Petal for a while, but it made no sense to run it over Drum if I was running 12 'free' creatures. Now I just run 6, so Lotus Petal is way more appealing now as an option.

EDIT: New changes

MD
-2 Phyrexian Revoker
+2 Baleful Strix

SB
-3 Cursed Totem
+3 Phyrexian Revoker

I feel the Baleful Strixes are better MD as naming whatever with Phyrexian Revoker is pretty irrelevant in g1 if you have limited information on what the opponent is playing. My list is less hyper-aggressive (I'm still an aggro deck!) now than it was in the past, so I am open to trying out Baleful Strix despite what I've said about it in the past since it has some post-early game 'value' (ugh, I hate applying that word to anything Magic: The Gathering related).

I used to have Revoker in my MTGO list, but it would always die so I took them out. Sure, they can hold a plating but no evasion or anything made me hate them.

anakyn

11-21-2012, 09:30 AM

There was some debate about Baleful strix on another forum recently, and I'd like to write my opinions on this card also here.

I simply don't understand at all how it can be considered viable in Affinity.

What is Balefux strix?
It's like a flying wall than cantrips, and can be used as a pseudo-removal thanks to deathtouch.
The drawbacks are:
- it is slow for our strategy
- it requires 2 colored mana, and we could have issues producing it early game

The cantrip is NOT something with a value in itself because it's not drawing but merely replacing the Strix you've drawn; we can consider it a bonus but the value of the card must be somewhere else to be considered viable.

Now:
- do we need a wall? --> no, because we are an aggro deck and our creatures are generally bigger than opponent's
- do we need creature removal? --> yes, sometimes. But we already have Dispatch which is cheaper and more reliable (for example, it doesn't need opponent's creature to attack), probably the best spot creature removal in Legacy. Strix's removal utility can be nullified by a single bolt, and it's more expensive. Dispatch > Strix by far
- do we need evasion for our Cranial? Yes, of course, but we already have 8 flying creatures that are cheaper (Ornithopter) and both cheaper & better (Vault skirge, which can gain us life). Ornithopter & Skirge > Strix by far

So every Strix's utility is greatly surpassed by other cheaper & better alternatives we already use. So greatly that the cantrip it provides can't be enough to consider Strix even with the alternatives.

My question is very simple: why should we use it?
Or, in other terms: what does Strix offers that we don't already have from other better and/or cheaper cards?

Shawon

11-21-2012, 11:51 AM

The drawbacks are:
- it is slow
- it requires 2 colored mana, and we could have issues producing it early game

These two drawbacks are the same drawbacks I thought about when I argued against using Baleful Strix in Tezzeret Affinity. I think those drawbacks are still valid if you are staying within the aggressive lane of Tezzeret Affinity, because if you're running 12 'freebies' and fast fliers (Pest and/or Skirge) you don't really have room for a defensive card that doesn't aggressively change the board position or life total of your opponent.

Now:
- do we need a wall? --> no, because we are an aggro deck and our creatures are generally bigger than opponent's
- do we need creature removal? --> yes, sometimes. But we already have Dispatch which is cheaper and more reliable, probably the best spot creature removal in Legacy. Strix's removal utility can be nullified by a single bolt, and it's more expensive. Dispatch > Strix by far (Except Dispatch is terrible in Affinity because it's not a creature. Baleful Strix is, and it also doesn't require splashing :w:. Besides that, no one is primarily using Baleful Strix as removal. It's a value card, not a removal card.)
- do we need evasion for our Cranial? Yes, of course, but we already have 8 flying creatures that are cheaper (Ornithopter) and both cheaper & better (Vault skirge, which can gain us life). Ornithopter & Skirge > Strix by far (Not a really valid counterpoint, because you can never have too many evasive creatures in any Affinity build. But yes, both Ornithopter and Skirge are better than Strix.)

My question is very simple: why should we use it?
Or, in other terms: what does Strix offers that we don't already have from other better and/or cheaper cards?

Like I said before and in the past when I argued against Baleful Strix, it's not a good card in explosive Affinity lists that are primarily focused on ejecting as many artifacts as it can on turns 1-2. However, Baleful Strix is worth considering if you are taking Tezzeret Affinity into a less explosive but more resilient direction. I had two slots in my build for Phrexian Revoker in my MD, but I decided to make them Baleful Strix because I felt they didn't depend on what little information I had about my opponent's deck in g1.

So far, I haven't been totally impressed with Baleful Strix, but it's not as bad I as I used to think it was on paper, because it buys me some time for me to assemble my offense in games and it can draw me into my SB hate post-board. However, I might just cut the two Strix for my leftover Tezzerets in the SB so that I will always have 4 Tezzeret in all my games against relevant matchups (Miracles et al).

anakyn

11-22-2012, 05:02 AM

However, Baleful Strix is worth considering if you are taking Tezzeret Affinity into a less explosive but more resilient direction.

I've tried that road before, and imho it doesn't work when compared to "explosive" affinity.

With an explosive build sometimes we can simply be too fast for our opponent (luck is involved here...); with a "resilient" build we are not that fast, but often we haven't neither enough control to overcame opponent.

But even if we choose the resilient build, I think Strix doesn't offer enough utility to be used.
I guess you want to see him when you face some strong creature: why not picking directly Dispatch? Just because it doesn't cantrip?
The Strix has 2 bonus (evasion & removal) in 1 package, but both bonus imho are too weak when compared with our alternatives.

If I chose the resilient way and I had 2 slots free, I would go with Dispatch or, in your case, the 3rd Tezzeret. Even the 3rd Revoker would be better imho. Or 1-2 Chalice MB.

I admit I never tested Strix, and maybe I should try even if it seems terrible to me, but I wanna ask you: every time you see a Strix in your hand, wouldn't you be happier to see Dispatch / Revoker / Chalice or simply something faster?

Shawon

11-22-2012, 11:59 AM

I've tried that road before, and imho it doesn't work when compared to "explosive" affinity.

With an explosive build sometimes we can simply be too fast for our opponent (luck is involved here...); with a "resilient" build we are not that fast, but often we haven't neither enough control to overcame opponent.

I agree and that's what I've always felt about the 'resilient' builds posted in this thread. Perhaps I'm using the term 'resilient' too loosely and broadly when I'm speaking on my build and others. When I apply the word 'resilient' to my build of Affinity, my deck is still leaning on the aggressive side, but its design is specifically built in consideration to certain interactions with problematic cards (e.g. running Myr Enforcer instead of Signal Pest to build a resistance to Grim Lavamancer, Pernicious Deed, etc., while still being aggressive). I don't try to play control too much (I do run Spell Pierce, after all) but any control approach I apply to my deck is done so that I can maintain my aggro approach (this is what Spell Pierce does, e.g. playing aggressively and cautiously holding back Spell Pierce for Terminus, Pernicious Deed, etc). To be honest, I don't really consider 'resilient' builds posted by other people in this thread to be that resilient anyway.

But even if we choose the resilient build, I think Strix doesn't offer enough utility to be used.
I guess you want to see him when you face some strong creature: why not picking directly Dispatch? Just because it doesn't cantrip?
The Strix has 2 bonus (evasion & removal) in 1 package, but both bonus imho are too weak when compared with our alternatives.

If I chose the resilient way and I had 2 slots free, I would go with Dispatch or, in your case, the 3rd Tezzeret. Even the 3rd Revoker would be better imho. Or 1-2 Chalice MB.

I already run the other alternatives. 4 Ornithopter and 4 Vault Skirge. I'm not going back to Signal Pest as it's too easy to kill. I don't need Dispatch because it's in white and like I said before, it's not a creature so it can't kill the opponent or planeswalkers.

I admit I never tested Strix, and maybe I should try even if it seems terrible to me, but I wanna ask you: every time you see a Strix in your hand, wouldn't you be happier to see Dispatch / Revoker / Chalice or simply something faster?

Not Dispatch because creature removal is useless against control or combo, not Revoker MD because you have too little information to make a significant call during game 1, and not Chalice because I run Spell Pierce which is miles better (yet I'm probably the only person ON EARTH who's even bothered to test it).

anakyn

11-22-2012, 12:28 PM

[...] and not Chalice because I run Spell Pierce which is miles better (yet I'm probably the only person ON EARTH who's even bothered to test it).

I think both Chalices and Pierces have been long tested by many Affinity players in the last months, or maybe even years.
I've saw many Pierces and Chalices in the SB of many competitive Affinity lists.
So they are probably both good choices.

Can I ask why do you consider Pierce > Chalice?

Imho they are simply different, you play them for different purposes.

I'm on the Chalice side because it can completely shut down certain decks, with a one-time investment of 2 or even 0 mana.
For example casting it early vs RUG means match over like 90% of the time. Hard part here is resolving it, but if they can't counter then it's over for them, unless they already had a couple of Delvers beating us or they find an Ancient grudge.
Same with many other decks, fair and unfair ones: Burn and Storm are other good examples, along with others. In those cases landing a Chalice is almost like having an active Countertop, without the necessity to activate it.
I like the fact it's NOT a win-more card, because it helps us a lot against decks we have much trouble with.
I play 4 of them SB cause I feel you should play the full playset or don't play them at all.
So Chalice can be considered a permanent solution, but limited to specific match-ups.

Pierce, on the other side, has more versatility and can be an answer for more threats, but it's a one-shot trick.
It's a matter of preference to choose between the 2 alternatives (I don't think you can pick both... not enough space in SB), and I tend to prefer the more specific but also more permanent solution.
What I don't like the most about Pierce is the fact you have to keep 1 mana open. I mean, being fast for Affinity is key and imho we should never save our mana if we can land some more threats during our turn, or if we can equip some creature. There are exception, like playing vs a deck full of mass removals so that we wanna keep something in hand, but generally speaking our gameplan is land everything as fast as possibile, so that single mana I should keep open can hurt.

Shawon

11-22-2012, 02:22 PM

I think both Chalices and Pierces have been long tested by many Affinity players in the last months, or maybe even years.
I've saw many Pierces and Chalices in the SB of many competitive Affinity lists.
So they are probably both good choices.

At least not in this thread besides me. Can you show me some others lists that run Pierce? EDIT: Come to think of it, I came across the idea of using Spell Pierce from a top 8 list I saw running 3 SB Pierce. I guess when you advocate a card that's been amazing in testing for so long and no one seems to bother trying it out themselves you think you invented the idea yourself.

Can I ask why do you consider Pierce > Chalice?

Imho they are simply different, you play them for different purposes.

True, except Pierce's applications are much more relevant to Affinity.

I'm on the Chalice side because it can completely shut down certain decks, with a one-time investment of 2 or even 0 mana.
For example casting it early vs RUG means match over like 90% of the time. Hard part here is resolving it, but if they can't counter then it's over for them, unless they already had a couple of Delvers beating us or they find an Ancient grudge.
Same with many other decks, fair and unfair ones: Burn and Storm are other good examples, along with others. In those cases landing a Chalice is almost like having an active Countertop, without the necessity to activate it.
I like the fact it's NOT a win-more card, because it helps us a lot against decks we have much trouble with.
I play 4 of them SB cause I feel you should play the full playset or don't play them at all.
So Chalice can be considered a permanent solution, but limited to specific match-ups.

Here's what I don't like about Chalice:

- It's much worse when it's not in your opening hand
- It's dependent on you going first
- Outside of RUG and certain combo decks, it only stops a small subset of cards

I think Spell Pierce is way better than Chalice of the Void because it can stop critical spells the opponent can cast that can stop you from winning or allow them to win (Terminus, EtA, Pernicious Deed, Time Spiral, Helm of Obedience, Show and Tell, planeswalkers). Chalice of the Void can't stop any of those cards. Also, Pierce is less dependent on the game circumstances unlike Chalice which depends on: whether you're playing first or not, whether your opponent manages to Brainstorm in response to your Chalice, whether your opponent has an answer to your Chalice, and whether your Chalice is still relevant by the time you cast it. From my experience, Spell Pierce has always been relevant in my games. Being an aggro deck, I apply too much pressure to allow my opponent the luxury of waiting to have two leftover mana to pay for my Pierce.

Chalice is pretty good against RUG, despite all the 'ifs' you mentioned. But, it's not a good selling point for Chalice when you're talking about a matchup that I consider to be good anyway. I only bring in 3 Relics against RUG, and that's only to replace Spell Pierce as it's the better card in that matchup.

Pierce, on the other side, has more versatility and can be an answer for more threats, but it's a one-shot trick.
It's a matter of preference to choose between the 2 alternatives (I don't think you can pick both... not enough space in SB), and I tend to prefer the more specific but also more permanent solution.
What I don't like the most about Pierce is the fact you have to keep 1 mana open. I mean, being fast for Affinity is key and imho we should never save our mana if we can land some more threats during our turn, or if we can equip some creature. There are exception, like playing vs a deck full of mass removals so that we wanna keep something in hand, but generally speaking our gameplan is land everything as fast as possibile, so that single mana I should keep open can hurt.

Why does being a one-shot trick have to do with anything? Dispatch is a one-shot trick too, yet you're advocating it. If I can counter a critical game-changing spell with Pierce, then that's all I usually need to win. Here's are two examples of this: I faced two UW Miracles last night on MWS. I resolved a Tezzeret against the first guy, made him cast two Terminus in a row, and after he bought some time with Energy Field + Rest in Peace, he E-tutored for an Helm of Obedience. He cast his Helm of Obedience with one mana leftover, and I countered with Pierce. Helm was the only way that card could win. Even if he had two leftover mana, he would have had none to activate Helm. And obviously, next turn, I assembled enough artifacts to be able to one-shot kill with Tezz. Against the other guy, he had Energy Field with no RiP. This bought him some time, except he was mana screwed at three mana the whole time. The game-ending play occurred when he cast a Rest in Peace, I Pierced it, and he FoW'd, as a result his Energy Field was sacrificed before RiP entered. I won next turn with my Cranial Plating-assisted army the next turn.

Hoarding U mana isn't as bad as you're making it out to be. If I have a surplus of mana in the midgame, then I'm not really holding myself back by keeping a land or Opal for Pierce. Sometimes I do have to make the call of not developing my board because I need to hold U open. But I have plenty of experiences of tapping out instead of holding mana for Pierce only to be SnT'd next turn or my opponent dropping something else that I didn't want to see resolve early like Energy Field.

Normally, I would agree about running permanent solutions as opposed to disposable ones (e.g. running your own Jitte instead of Grudge against opp's Jitte), but Spell Pierce is so good that it completely overshadows Chalice as a solution card.

anakyn

11-22-2012, 07:08 PM

At least not in this thread besides me. Can you show me some others lists that run Pierce?

When I'm searching for competitive lists I usually surf TC Decks site, probably the bigger and best database for tournament decklists: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/index.php

You should find many Affinity lists running Pierce in the last year.

Hope it will help you.

I think Spell Pierce is way better than Chalice of the Void because it can stop critical spells the opponent can cast that can stop you from winning or allow them to win (Terminus, EtA, Pernicious Deed, Time Spiral, Helm of Obedience, Show and Tell, planeswalkers). Chalice of the Void can't stop any of those cards. Also, Pierce is less dependent on the game circumstances unlike Chalice which depends on: whether you're playing first or not, whether your opponent manages to Brainstorm in response to your Chalice, whether your opponent has an answer to your Chalice, and whether your Chalice is still relevant by the time you cast it. From my experience, Spell Pierce has always been relevant in my games. Being an aggro deck, I apply too much pressure to allow my opponent the luxury of waiting to have two leftover mana to pay for my Pierce.

Our opinions about Pierce and Chalice are very different, or maybe we play in very different metas.

You can probably agree with me when I say Chalice is better vs RUG and many combo decks like Storm, Dredge, Reanimator and Elves (against combo Spell pierce won't save you unless you find at least 2 of them, since they usually have either lots of discard or counterspells, and sometimes both, so they will start their combo when they are sure your Pierce will be useless or discarded; while Chalice can literally make you win alone if not countered), which right now are respectively:
- the most played (and probably stronger) deck in the format
- probably our worst match-ups

Chalice is far better than Pierce also against Burn, another matchup not so favorable to us (usually Burn can deal 20 dmg faster than us, and kill our Skirges easily if we land them).

On the other hand, I would say Pierce is absolutely better vs Control because it can interact with their removal and planeswalkers.

But I don't think it would save you very often from Terminus, since they rarely play it with less then 3 total mana in play.
And against Show & tell, which is so full of counterspells that your Pierce will rarely resolve, I think Phyrexian Metamorph should definitely be more useful.
Also against Spiral tide your Pierce shouldn't resolve very often, since they play both FoW and Pact (and Pierces sometimes).

Pierce > Chalice vs planeswalkers, Pernicious deed, other forms of mass removal and generally speaking control stuff, that's for sure.

But against Control our best card probably remains Tezzeret.

Against Combo I would also play Cabal therapy (I don't remember if they are in your list) in addition to Chalice: I'm pretty sure both Chalice and Therapy are better than Pierce in combo matchups.
Of course Pierce would be very strong against combo if only we could follow a permission gameplan together with our traditional aggro plan (like Merfolks for example), but since we are Affinity we can rarely play more than 2-3 Pierces from SB... and 2-3 counters total are too few to fight current combos.

So we can come to this general conclusion, tell me if you agree with me:
- Chalice is best against many combo decks, RUG, Burn
- Pierce is best against control
- Cabal therapy is best against generic combo

So everything depends from your meta.
In my meta, the amount of RUG + Burn + Combo is bigger than Control, and that's probably why I prefer Chalice over Pierce.
Probably your meta is the opposite, since you consider Pierce the best solution.

Metas are fluid and with the recent addition of Abrupt decay there's a chance BUG control or tempo decks will find a nice spot: in that case Pierce would be very sweet against Pernicious deeds (but BUG usually plays 4x FoW and at least 4 more counterspells between Dazes and Pierces, so they could counter your Pierce) but useless against Decays.

Here's are two examples of this: I faced two UW Miracles last night on MWS. I resolved a Tezzeret against the first guy, made him cast two Terminus in a row, and after he bought some time with Energy Field + Rest in Peace, he E-tutored for an Helm of Obedience. He cast his Helm of Obedience with one mana leftover, and I countered with Pierce. Helm was the only way that card could win. Even if he had two leftover mana, he would have had none to activate Helm. And obviously, next turn, I assembled enough artifacts to be able to one-shot kill with Tezz. Against the other guy, he had Energy Field with no RiP. This bought him some time, except he was mana screwed at three mana the whole time. The game-ending play occurred when he cast a Rest in Peace, I Pierced it, and he FoW'd, as a result his Energy Field was sacrificed before RiP entered. I won next turn with my Cranial Plating-assisted army the next turn.

Hoarding U mana isn't as bad as you're making it out to be. If I have a surplus of mana in the midgame, then I'm not really holding myself back by keeping a land or Opal for Pierce. Sometimes I do have to make the call of not developing my board because I need to hold U open. But I have plenty of experiences of tapping out instead of holding mana for Pierce only to be SnT'd next turn or my opponent dropping something else that I didn't want to see resolve early like Energy Field.

Your examples are surely correct.

Yet they describe exactly the kind of situations I was referring before when pointing out the decks against which Pierce is better: Control.

U/W is control; also reaching mid-game to keep U open without bothering too much is a typical situation we meet against Control, since combo usually kills us (or fizzles) before mid-game, while against aggro Pierce is usually dead.

So here you are stating that Pierce is a house vs control, and I couldn't agree more as I said earlier.
But the examples you brought don't concern other kind of decks.

Normally, I would agree about running permanent solutions as opposed to disposable ones (e.g. running your own Jitte instead of Grudge against opp's Jitte), but Spell Pierce is so good that it completely overshadows Chalice as a solution card.

Of course you can keep your opinion about Pierce being generally better ("overshadowing") than Chalice.

But imho, the thoughts and reasoning I've followed in the last posts shows that Pierce shouldn't be considered "generally better" than Chalice.

We can say it's better in certain matchups, and at the same time we should say Chalice is better in others.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Anyways, very nice and stimulating discussion :)

Shawon

11-23-2012, 12:15 AM

You can probably agree with me when I say Chalice is better vs RUG and many combo decks like Storm, Dredge, Reanimator and Elves (against combo Spell pierce won't save you unless you find at least 2 of them, since they usually have either lots of discard or counterspells, and sometimes both, so they will start their combo when they are sure your Pierce will be useless or discarded; while Chalice can literally make you win alone if not countered), which right now are respectively:
- the most played (and probably stronger) deck in the format
- probably our worst match-ups

I don't run Spell Pierce post-board against RUG because Relic of Progenitus is the better card in that matchup, so comparing Chalice to Spell Pierce against RUG is pretty moot. As for Chalice vs. Relic with respect to RUG, I think it does come down to a matter of preference. I agree with you that Chalice is pretty sick against RUG, but I would rather run Relic of Progenitus as it involves less variance of the game circumstances (going first/second, if they have Ancient Grudge, etc.) and it is probably better than either Chalice or Pierce against Dredge or Reanimator. I would consider Chalice to be more annoying against storm combo than Spell Pierce, but I don't think even Chalice is going to significantly make your storm matchup positive anyway. As for Elves, even if I have nothing to SB against it (and I do, see Umezawa's Jitte in addition to Phyrexian Revoker or alternatively Cursed Totem), Elves is nothing more than a minority deck due to Miracles and it shouldn't be a serious consideration even if it's a bad matchup (but I do have SB cards against it anyway!).

Chalice is far better than Pierce also against Burn, another matchup not so favorable to us (usually Burn can deal 20 dmg faster than us, and kill our Skirges easily if we land them).

I wouldn't use Burn as a serious basis for the inclusion of a SB card, unless Burn was truly a nightmare matchup for us (like Lands.dec). Also, it's not too hard to defeat anyway. In my opinion, the matchup comes down to tight play, not what cards you run. Any loss to Burn can be accredited to play error and not to drawing the right cards at the right time. I have a little more resistance against Burn than explosive lists as I run 4 Myr Enforcer. Furthermore, I have O-Ring in my sb if I were so inclined to stop Bridge or Lavamancer. Like I said, it hardly matters what you run against Burn, and you shouldn't run anything at all in your SB specifically for Burn.

But I don't think it would save you very often from Terminus, since they rarely play it with less then 3 total mana in play.

Tell that to the Miracles players I've beaten. I've said it before, I don't allow Miracles the luxury of having two leftover mana for Spell Pierce when they Miracle-cast Terminus. And Miracles is less consistent than you think. Miracles decks are more likely to keep one-land hands with Brainstorm/StP/SDT in them against us because they know we don't run Wasteland. I don't think Miracles can consistently be able to use Brainstorm to find lands and be able to set up Terminus conveniently enough to dodge Spell Pierce. If they do, that means they had the nuts or I had a slow hand, and I can live with that. I can just save Spell Pierce to make sure my Tezzeret resolves, or I can counter whatever chance they have of winning (Entreat the Angels, Helm of Obedience). It happens, as I've explained from my personal matchup experiences.

And against Show & tell, which is so full of counterspells that your Pierce will rarely resolve, I think Phyrexian Metamorph should definitely be more useful. Also against Spiral tide your Pierce shouldn't resolve very often, since they play both FoW and Pact (and Pierces sometimes).

I'm getting the impression that you assume I just run Spell Pierce and nothing else against the matchups I say I use Pierce against. Anyway, I thought we were talking about Chalice vs. Spell Pierce, but if you want to talk about a matchup in which Chalice has no significant applicability, then sure. Have you read the ruling on Phyrexian Metamorph vs. Show and Tell? (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23973-Show-and-Tell-and-Clone) Because if you knew the ruling, I don't think you would be suggesting that Phyrexian Metamorph would be more useful, as it's not remotely useful at all since it doesn't work against Show and Tell. Did you mean Oblivion Ring, because that actually works? Well, fortunately, I run 3 and 2 Karakas (1 MD). I run Spell Pierce in addition to those spells as backup for when I don't have them. Are you still trying to tell me I shouldn't run Spell Pierce against Show and Tell? Pierce is much better than Chalice here.

Against Spiral Tide, I don't see how Chalice or any artifact-based solution would be better than Spell Pierce against Spiral Tide, considering they run Cunning Wish for Rebuild, so bringing this up just to contest Spell Pierce's effectiveness is pretty insignificant.

Pierce > Chalice vs planeswalkers, Pernicious deed, other forms of mass removal and generally speaking control stuff, that's for sure.

But against Control our best card probably remains Tezzeret.

I don't get why you're comparing Spell Pierce to cards I already run (in conjunction).

Against Combo I would also play Cabal therapy (I don't remember if they are in your list) in addition to Chalice: I'm pretty sure both Chalice and Therapy are better than Pierce in combo matchups.
Of course Pierce would be very strong against combo if only we could follow a permission gameplan together with our traditional aggro plan (like Merfolks for example), but since we are Affinity we can rarely play more than 2-3 Pierces from SB... and 2-3 counters total are too few to fight current combos.

I've tried Cabal Therapy and I firmly advocated for it in past pages of this thread. Actually, against blue-based combo decks, Cabal Therapy and Spell Pierce are more or less the same in efficacy. You would play Chalice in addition to Cabal Therapy? Can you tell me how you resolve a Cabal Therapy if you cast Chalice with X=1?

So we can come to this general conclusion, tell me if you agree with me:
- Chalice is best against many combo decks, RUG, Burn
- Pierce is best against control
- Cabal therapy is best against generic combo

-No. Chalice is irrelevant against Show and Tell, and it wouldn't make any significant difference in making your other combo matchups positive. Relic vs. Chalice against RUG is a matter of taste. Burn is irrelevant.
-Yes. I'm glad we can agree on that.
-No. Cabal Therapy is as good as Spell Pierce against combo, but Pierce is better against control so I would rather run Pierce.

Metas are fluid and with the recent addition of Abrupt decay there's a chance BUG control or tempo decks will find a nice spot: in that case Pierce would be very sweet against Pernicious deeds (but BUG usually plays 4x FoW and at least 4 more counterspells between Dazes and Pierces, so they could counter your Pierce) but useless against Decays.

And they can remove your Chalices with Abrupt Decay too, even if Chalice is set at x=2. What point are you trying to make exactly? I am the least concerned about not being able to counter Abrupt Decay. The only important cards I run they can target with it are Cranial Plating and Master of Etherium. BUG can't use Pernicious Deed or Abrupt Decay to kill my Myr Enforcers or Tezzerets.

Of course you can keep your opinion about Pierce being generally better ("overshadowing") than Chalice.

But imho, the thoughts and reasoning I've followed in the last posts shows that Pierce shouldn't be considered "generally better" than Chalice.

We can say it's better in certain matchups, and at the same time we should say Chalice is better in others.

I may have exaggerated what I said, here is my actual point: Spell Pierce has wider applications than Chalice against both control and combo. Chalice should be run over Pierce as a meta-call with regards to specific matchups where you want to maximize your advantage such as RUG or Burn. But given the diversity of Legacy as a format in whole and the number of spells Pierce can target, Pierce just seems like the better card as it's less variable and its success only depends on how well you play it as opposed to how lucky you get with Chalice. You ended several of your points on Chalice with Chalice being very problematic if unanswered. Both Spell Pierce and Chalice of the Void are capable of being countered, but Pierce is a solution card that doesn't care about any removal your opponent has for your Chalice. One such removal that is becoming more popular and accessible if not already is Abrupt Decay. Why not prefer the solution that only needs to resolve ONCE to give you the advantage you need to win?

Anyways, very nice and stimulating discussion :)

Likewise. You should post in here more often.

anakyn

11-24-2012, 06:20 AM

Well, we definitely don't agree on many points, the most general being what is better vs Combo between Pierce and Chalice.

It would be pretty useless and frustrating to insist on our respective points, as I don't think we are
gonna convince each other.

Btw my logic was NOT to compare Chalice vs Pierce for every matchup, and neither to say Chalice is better vs every combo (I pointed out which combo decks suffer Chalice), but to identify which are the decks they are better against.
Doing that, we can choose which one to pick depending on meta.
Unless you think Pierce is "generally better" than Chalice (but that's probably your exact opinion), choosing the first or the latter is related to the meta we expect to meet.
I won't use Chalice in a control-full meta, that's for sure.
And I'm not gonna use Pierce in my meta full of RUG / Combo as well as some Burn (I don't even agree on considering Burn a favorable match-up... unless we have a really nice hand/draws, they are gonna deal 20 dmg faster than us).

If BUG control becomes a thing (at my last tournament there were a couple of BUG decks, and there will be probably more on the next occasion) then I will consider reserving 2 slots to Pierce in place of Metamorph.
(about Metamorph: yes, you can't use them like Oblivion ring on Show and tell cast, but you can play it the very next turn to destroy their fatty, and I prefer it to O-ring cause it's more versatile in an Affinity build since it can copy artifacts).

And yes, Chalice is a house vs Storm, it definitely is. Miles better than Pierce in that match-up imho.
(to be more accurate about this: Chalice better than Pierce in a deck which can run only 2-3 Pierces as permission; Pierce would probably be better if we could run Forces / Dazes along with it)

One thing I don't understand is when you say "I won't allow Miracle" to have 3 mana for their Terminus... well, it doesn't really depend on you, you know.
Because I don't think you are running Wastelands or other forms of land disruption... so it really depends on them and their luck and skill.
If they are so unlucky not to draw at least 3 lands in time (which in unlikely, as they run at least 22-23), or they are so impatient to cast Terminus on 2nd/3rd turn, then Pierce is nuts. But does that happen so often, considering in a tournament you shouldn't meet unskilled opponents?

Pierce just seems like the better card as it's less variable and its success only depends on how well you play it as opposed to how lucky you get with Chalice. You ended several of your points on Chalice with Chalice being very problematic if unanswered. Both Spell Pierce and Chalice of the Void are capable of being countered, but Pierce is a solution card that doesn't care about any removal your opponent has for your Chalice. One such removal that is becoming more popular and accessible if not already is Abrupt Decay. Why not prefer the solution that only needs to resolve ONCE to give you the advantage you need to win?

You pointed out that both Chalice and Pierce die to counterspells (and to discard, I wanna add), which is true.
Then you pointed out that Chalice dies to removal, unlike Pierce, and that's true as well.

But you forgot something: Pierce also dies to "2 mana open opponents", and Chalice doesn't.

And another thing: Pierce is a reactive card, while Chalice is proactive (you don't have to play it "in response" to something). I think proactive cards fits better a proactive deck like Affinity.
You can call it philosophy, but imho it's not. Every deck has its style of play and imho we should play accordingly.

The point about Decay is true as well, but that becomes relevant only when facing BUG decks (and some ANT/TES, unfortunately for us), and I don't use Chalice in that matchup.
Against ANT I would definitely use Chalice @ 1 and hope they don't have Decay in hand (post-SB of course, as they never play Decay MB), because at that point they can't even play Brainstorm / Ponder to search for it. Anyways, if ANT/TES player has to Decay it, he just lost a turn for doing that and I can profit from it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Anyways, I don't pretend to be right, neither to state Chalice > Pierce on every occasion and meta.

As I said many competitive Affinity lists run Pierce (did you find some on TC Decks?), so it must be good.

Actually I love Pierce: I used to run 4x MB in my Merfolk deck, before realizing there were too many for a deck like that.
Thinking they are not so good for Affinity doesn't mean I consider them less than great in many other decks running blue.

I just keep thinking it's more of a meta call then a card being "generally better" then the other one.

Shawon

11-24-2012, 02:02 PM

Btw my logic was NOT to compare Chalice vs Pierce for every matchup, and neither to say Chalice is better vs every combo (I pointed out which combo decks suffer Chalice), but to identify which are the decks they are better against.
Doing that, we can choose which one to pick depending on meta.
Unless you think Pierce is "generally better" than Chalice (but that's probably your exact opinion), choosing the first or the latter is related to the meta we expect to meet.

I know that's what you're pointing out. To an extent, I agree, that's why I said Chalice would be against specific matchups in which you want to optimize your wins, such as RUG or Burn. I just don't agree with having to do that when you can beat RUG just fine with other sb options that have broader applications to other matchups (like Relic against RUG, not Pierce). I wouldn't go out of my way to run SB cards specifically for Burn since I consider that deck to be such a minority, but if that's your meta sure, then I can understand you wanting to run Chalice... but it is just one deck that you're able to beat anyway.

I won't use Chalice in a control-full meta, that's for sure.
And I'm not gonna use Pierce in my meta full of RUG / Combo as well as some Burn (I don't even agree on considering Burn a favorable match-up... unless we have a really nice hand/draws, they are gonna deal 20 dmg faster than us).

Because Burn can kill on turn 3 with a fast hand? I never said the matchup was favorable. Burn comes down to who has the better hand and who makes the least number of mistakes. It's somewhere in the middle. Why go out of your way to one-side such an irrelevant matchup? I mean, if that's your meta, then I guess you might as well make it favorable with certainty, but I don't know, personally I would rather leave it up to chance and work on what I believe are more important matchups like Miracles or Omni-Tell.

(about Metamorph: yes, you can't use them like Oblivion ring on Show and tell cast, but you can play it the very next turn to destroy their fatty, and I prefer it to O-ring cause it's more versatile in an Affinity build since it can copy artifacts).

This is comical. So tell me, if Show and Tell has the permission to counter my Spell Pierce like you say, what makes you think they won't have that same permission to counter your Metamorph? If they SnT a Griselbrand, you think your Metamorph 1) is going to resolve after they draw 7 in response and 2) is going to be going to be relevant if they draw another Show and Tell? Or tell me, how reliable is the plan to cast Metamorph after your SnT opponent has put down Omniscience and just kills you that same turn because you put down nothing relevant from the Show and Tell?

And yes, Chalice is a house vs Storm, it definitely is. Miles better than Pierce in that match-up imho.
(to be more accurate about this: Chalice better than Pierce in a deck which can run only 2-3 Pierces as permission; Pierce would probably be better if we could run Forces / Dazes along with it)

I never said Spell Pierce made storm combo a positive matchup. It doesn't matter if you run Pierce or Chalice against storm, as they will still win. It's our absolute worst matchup. What's your storm matchup like? Do you face competent storm players, because I would find it very laughable to see a skilled Storm player lose to an Affinity player with Chalice when they can easily remove it or play through a Chalice set a X=0 with a Past in Flames kill. Or just make you discard Chalice. Or just kill you before you have a chance to cast Chalice at X=1. I am in need of some enlightenment on how Chalice makes your storm matchup favorable.

One thing I don't understand is when you say "I won't allow Miracle" to have 3 mana for their Terminus... well, it doesn't really depend on you, you know.
Because I don't think you are running Wastelands or other forms of land disruption... so it really depends on them and their luck and skill.
If they are so unlucky not to draw at least 3 lands in time (which in unlikely, as they run at least 22-23), or they are so impatient to cast Terminus on 2nd/3rd turn, then Pierce is nuts. But does that happen so often, considering in a tournament you shouldn't meet unskilled opponents?

I thought I spelled this out when I said I apply too much pressure against Miracles for them to just sit back and wait to have two mana leftover for Pierce. If a Miracles players waits on a Terminus they were able to cast, then I get a free combat step. Also, any control deck with 22-23 lands is going to have some consistency troubles of making every land drop without card manipulation, especially if said control players have to use that card manipulation to prioritize putting removal on the top of their library to draw it.

It seems to me that you're just thinking one-dimensionally about Spell Pierce vs. Terminus and you seem to believe Miracles is a super-consistent deck that always draws both its removal and its lands at the perfect time. Do you want to face me with Miracles on MWS and I'll play my Affinity build? That way, you can see for yourself how often you can comfortably ignore my Spell Pierce while I threaten you for lethal by turns 3-4? PM me if you're interested.

You pointed out that both Chalice and Pierce die to counterspells (and to discard, I wanna add), which is true.
Then you pointed out that Chalice dies to removal, unlike Pierce, and that's true as well.

But you forgot something: Pierce also dies to "2 mana open opponents", and Chalice doesn't.

Very astute observation. I didn't know my opponent could pay 2 to prevent my Spell Pierce from countering their spell, even if they didn't have two leftover mana to begin with, despite the fact that I opportunely played Spell Pierce at a pivotal point of the game where resolving it would give me a significant advantage. Thanks for letting me know!

And another thing: Pierce is a reactive card, while Chalice is proactive (you don't have to play it "in response" to something). I think proactive cards fits better a proactive deck like Affinity.
You can call it philosophy, but imho it's not. Every deck has its style of play and imho we should play accordingly.

Like I said before, I normally prefer proactive solutions. With the exception of Spell Pierce, every SB tech I run is a proactive solution to any of my matchups. However, Spell Pierce is such a strong exception. Wizard Replica is the closest proactive equivalent of Spell Pierce that fits the theme of Affinity, but it is far too slow to be considered a serious choice.

The point about Decay is true as well, but that becomes relevant only when facing BUG decks (and some ANT/TES, unfortunately for us), and I don't use Chalice in that matchup.
Against ANT I would definitely use Chalice @ 1 and hope they don't have Decay in hand (post-SB of course, as they never play Decay MB), because at that point they can't even play Brainstorm / Ponder to search for it. Anyways, if ANT/TES player has to Decay it, he just lost a turn for doing that and I can profit from it.

"Hope," because that's always worked against storm :rolleyes: Anyway, see my response ^ about storm earlier in this post.

Anyways, I don't pretend to be right, neither to state Chalice > Pierce on every occasion and meta.

Same here.

As I said many competitive Affinity lists run Pierce (did you find some on TC Decks?), so it must be good.

Yes, I did. I mentioned in my last post (as an edit), but I remember looking at a list that had 3 SB Spell Pierces which inspired me to try them. Again, I've been advocating Spell Pierce for what feels like a long time it sometimes feels like I'm the only one who ever thought of the card.

Mr. Froggy

11-24-2012, 05:34 PM

I never tried Spell Pierce (I might, one day) but I say I hate facing Miracles. Even if I have lethal on the board, they always seem to be able to play Terminus when they need it. It's happened often that I had a bunch of guys in play, equipped with Plating, and them down extremely low life, and BOOM! Terminus... Story of my life, really.

anakyn

11-24-2012, 06:12 PM

Mmm... you are getting emotional and you are missing many of my points, or you are distorting them.

I won't go further on this argument: I already explained my opinions and choices and I have motivated them.
What's more important to me: I did it without using words like "comical" when referring to my interlocutor's thoughts. Maybe you are used to it. I'm not, and I won't become.
No more to add.

A couple of examples of your misinterpretations (the first things I've read of your last reply):
- I never said I use Chalice especially for Burn matchup. I clearly said it was there primarily for RUG and Combo, which are the most used deck in my meta; utility vs Burn is just a bonus, a well-accepted bonus that almost completely shuts down a deck which troubles us
- I never said I consider Metamorph a strong answer to Show and tell, just a simple answer in a very unfavorable matchup (which Pierce doesn't make less unfavorable at all). I even admitted it IS a worse answer than O-ring, but I prefer it cause of its versatility. I also said the best answer we have vs combo in general is Therapy, NOT Chalice.
Yet you used the word "comical" for no reason and out of context, probably with the purpose of ridiculing my choices and opinions.

Then you said something about Storm decks ignoring/removing/discarding my Chalice... well, not easy to ignore Chalice @ 1 when you play Storm, not easy to remove it if you can't play Brainstorm/Ponder to search for answers (if you play TES you can still Burning wish for Shattering spree... and you just wasted 2 turns doing it), not easy to discard it when Affinity can pretty easily produce 2 mana on first turn and just play it before they can do whatsoever.

But I admit I didn't read your full points after I read the word "comical".
To be honest, from that point on I didn't read anything of what you wrote.

Hope someone else will explain his/her thoughts about sideboard decision, the argument between us is over.

Shawon

11-24-2012, 08:33 PM

What adjective would you have preferred instead of 'comical?' Your idea to use Phyrexian Metamorph is 'comical' because: you had JUST said previously that Spell Pierce is ineffective against Show and Tell due to the number of permission they have, yet you suggested a card you can only CAST to be effective against SnT, that can be hit by just as many counterspells and is 2 more mana expensive than Spell Pierce? It's comical because your point demonstrated irony. Do you still not get the 'context' of my statement? To be honest, I don't understand your frustration. Maybe you see it, but I don't see any direct correlation between calling your idea 'comical' and using that word to describe you as a person. Were you just offended by my usage of the word 'comical' because you didn't get the irony of your statement? I think you're overreacting a bit to one word that wasn't even intended to offend you.

I'm not going to quote your examples of my alleged misinterpretation, but it doesn't matter who misquoted who. I don't care if I said or you said Phyrexian Metamorph was a 'strong' or 'robust' or 'muscular' or 'healthy' answer to Show and Tell. The fact is, buddy, you mentioned as an answer to Show and Tell and I effectively expressed my opinion why Phyrexian Metamorph has no business being used as an answer to Show and Tell. I don't get how you acknowledge O-Ring being better in the matchup and then say you prefer Metamorph because it's more versatile. :confused:

Hope someone else will explain his/her thoughts about sideboard decision, the argument between us is over.

I don't mind ending this discussion if you have nothing else to contribute, but there's no need to take things personal as neither of us took the discussion to that level. There's no hard feelings on my side.

godofallu

11-25-2012, 02:16 AM

What adjective would you have preferred instead of 'comical?' Your idea to use Phyrexian Metamorph is 'comical' because: you had JUST said previously that Spell Pierce is ineffective against Show and Tell due to the number of permission they have, yet you suggested a card you can only CAST to be effective against SnT, that can be hit by just as many counterspells and is 2 more mana expensive than Spell Pierce? It's comical because your point demonstrated irony. Do you still not get the 'context' of my statement? To be honest, I don't understand your frustration. Maybe you see it, but I don't see any direct correlation between calling your idea 'comical' and using that word to describe you as a person. Were you just offended by my usage of the word 'comical' because you didn't get the irony of your statement? I think you're overreacting a bit to one word that wasn't even intended to offend you.

I'm not going to quote your examples of my alleged misinterpretation, but it doesn't matter who misquoted who. I don't care if I said or you said Phyrexian Metamorph was a 'strong' or 'robust' or 'muscular' or 'healthy' answer to Show and Tell. The fact is, buddy, you mentioned as an answer to Show and Tell and I effectively expressed my opinion why Phyrexian Metamorph has no business being used as an answer to Show and Tell. I don't get how you acknowledge O-Ring being better in the matchup and then say you prefer Metamorph because it's more versatile. :confused:

I don't mind ending this discussion if you have nothing else to contribute, but there's no need to take things personal as neither of us took the discussion to that level. There's no hard feelings on my side.

As a third party let me just step in and say you clearly have no idea what you're reading, and need to think a little more before replying. Oh and the random acts of patronizing people seem childish.

I would assume that phyrexian metamorph would be sided in against show and tell as a permanent that would be put into play during the resolution of show and tell. The namesake card of the deck. Sort of similar to how Goblins side in Angel of despair. So the casting cost/ability to counter are absolutely not relevant. CAN ONLY BE CAST... um no the entire point is to never cast the card at all, but you totally could if you need an extra beater to add pressure/artifact count which is why the metamorph is more versatile than an oblivion ring which is usless at all times except during the show and tell's resolution.

Shawon

11-25-2012, 02:40 AM

As a third party let me just step in and say you clearly have no idea what you're reading, and need to think a little more before replying. Oh and the random acts of patronizing people seem childish.

I would assume that phyrexian metamorph would be sided in against show and tell as a permanent that would be put into play during the resolution of show and tell. The namesake card of the deck. Sort of similar to how Goblins side in Angel of despair. So the casting cost/ability to counter are absolutely not relevant. CAN ONLY BE CAST... um no the entire point is to never cast the card at all, but you totally could if you need an extra beater to add pressure/artifact count which is why the metamorph is more versatile than an oblivion ring which is usless at all times except during the show and tell's resolution.

Thanks for being the mature one by telling me I have no idea what I'm reading.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23973-Show-and-Tell-and-Clone

You're welcome.

anakyn

11-25-2012, 06:22 AM

There's no hard feelings on my side.

It's not called "hard feelings" nor "frustration" (frustration for what? my points on Chalice and Pierce seems pretty solid to me); just being tired to debate with someone who seems more interested in making fun of interlocutor's opinions than serching for common points of view.
Just that.

You should read your interlocutor's words with the same focus you put when you read yours.

You would understand, for example, why I said Metamorph is more versatile.
Or the meaning of me writing that Pierce dies to "2 mana open", unlike Chalice, after you said Chalice dies to removal unlike Pierce.
But you're more interested in the apparent "irony" of my thoughts.

Again, nothing more to add.
It's all already written, it just needs an open mind to read.

Or, even better, a "fresh" mind, different from mine or yours.

Shawon

11-25-2012, 10:37 AM

Fair enough.

------------------------------------------

Moving along, this is my what I'm currently working on:

SolarTezz Affinity

12 Artifacts Lands
2 Tombs
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Opal
3 Petals
1 Drum

4 Thopter
4 Skirge
4 MoE
1 Ravager
4 Champ
4 Enforcer

4 TC
4 Plating
3 Spell Pierce
4 Tezzeret

SB:

2 Karakas
3 Jitte
3 Relic
3 O-Ring
2 Revoker
2 Therapy

Finally, 0 Memnite. Relying less on Springleaf Drum makes it harder to defend Memnite when your purpose is to make the Tezz Affinity deck more robust in offense. Now that I run Petals to retain my explosiveness (sometimes increasing it), I don't need Memnite + Drums for cheap permanent synergy anymore.

I'm down to just running 1 Drum. I tried cutting them altogether for just 4 Petals, but it didn't feel right. But 1 Drum has been fine. Having a 2nd Drum is 99% of the time worse than any other serious alternative. I also moved Karakas out of the MD because it was entirely useless and limiting during all of my game 1s. Never doing that again.

I've upped the MoE's back to 4 and I'm running 2 Blinkmoth Nexus. I used to shy away from adding Nexus because usually I would look at lands to cut to add in Nexus and then I would just say no to that. However, replacing creatures with Nexus is a much more natural decision because Nexus increases both my threat count and mana source count at the same time! I'm running Blinkmoth over its Infect equivalent because I don't want to rely on Cranial Plating to make Inkmoth have any realistic chance of killing my opponent.

With my Tezzs all in the MD and me not loving 3 Revoker, the Cabal Therapies are back in!

Shawon

11-26-2012, 11:40 PM

Besides anakyn, does anyone else here actually feel that RUG is a bad matchup? I've always been under the belief that RUG is inherently one of the reasons why we play Affinity, to beat up on the fair decks that punish unfair decks. Master of Etherium is an absolute beating against RUG and they can't get rid of it pre-board if they let it resolve. That alone is why I decided to keep them in the deck despite it being my most sided-out card of all my matchups. I'd like to know other people's strategies against RUG to compare ideas.

Have any of you tried Relic of Progenitus against RUG? I find that ever since I cut Grafdigger's Cage from the SB and tried out 3x Relic, my post-board games have tilted tremendously in my favor. If I am able to resolve a Relic by turn 2 and my opponent doesn't have a Delver, I don't see how it's likely I can lose the game, because I can just activate the 1st ability turn after turn until I feel like exiling many cards from the graveyard at once or if I need to draw a card, and when I use the 2nd ability, I'm still exiling cards and getting a card out of it. Post-board against RUG, Relic has the incredible benefit of marginalizing RUG's weapon of choice against Affinity, Ancient Grudge. RUG often doesn't have three mana by the time it casts Grudge, as they will probably need to cast it quick on a resolved MoE. I always try to get rid of any Grudges in the graveyard I see with Relic's 2nd ability, especially when RUG can't tap for :g:. RUG will never exile Grudge by choice if I use the 1st ability, so I have to force them to exile it with the 2nd ability. Using the 2nd ability yields incredible value as you exile 1/2 of their best removal against you and you draw a card. How do you lose once you make a play like that? And that's just value out of one physical card. Nevermind that fact that RUG still has to worry the rest of my deck that beats them to a pulp on top of Relic.

I think another way to make the RUG matchup positive is replacing Frogmites and Memnites, as both of those cards are better used as fast enablers and cheap offense that become near useless when faced by opposing Goyfs.

anakyn

11-27-2012, 05:06 AM

Besides anakyn, does anyone else here actually feel that RUG is a bad matchup?

Well, no offence but this confirms my suspect that you don't read very carefully what other people (in this case, me) are writing.
I never wrote RUG is bad matchup for Affinity.
When I did argument why I prefer Chalice, I wrote that it is nuts vs certain combo and RUG, and that it is relevant because combo (not RUG) is our worst matchup while RUG is the most played deck.

But let's forget it and focus on the RUG matchup.

I wouldn't say RUG is particularly bad, it's like 45%.
It depends more on them: if they have lots of denial and/or they use counters brainfully, I'd say RUG wins the majority of times.
To win, we should have a pretty fast hand and find at least 3-4 threats, cause the first 2-3 threats will be countered/bolted.
Maybe a good Affinity player should be bluffing a bit against RUG, having them counter/bolt a minor threat while keeping in hand the biggest threats.

Yes, MoE is our best card here, that's why they'll likely save Force for it. And that's also why we should play it as the last of our threats, unless it's the only one we have.
If MoE resolves most of the time it's game over.

Post-side they have Ancient while we have Relic (but I never play 3 Relic side, since I prefer to mix up my GY-hate) and Chalice if we play it.

Imho the biggest problem here are not even the counters or their Delvers or their bolts, but the quantity of denial instead.
Assuming they find some Wastelands and Dazes, they can keep us at bay for several turns. Also their Stifles are annoying early, if they stop Cranial equip and we have no spare mana left. Since we are an early game deck, denial hurts us badly.
From that point of view, maybe Opal and Drums can be considered key cards, since they can let us speed our clock over their denial. Playing 3-4 Citadels is also key.

Shawon

11-27-2012, 08:16 AM

Imho the biggest problem here are not even the counters or their Delvers or their bolts, but the quantity of denial instead.
Assuming they find some Wastelands and Dazes, they can keep us at bay for several turns. Also their Stifles hurts early, if they stop Cranial equip and we have no spare mana left.
From that point of view, maybe Opal and Drums can be considered key cards, since they can let us speed our clock over their denial. Playing 3-4 Citadels is also key.

I feel the opposite way. The cards you just mentioned provide extra acceleration to maintain our speed against mana denial. 4 Darksteel Citadels should always be played MD. Mox Opal and Drum are good pieces of acceleration, but Sol lands also make it easy to play past Daze while not slowing down.

anakyn

11-27-2012, 08:44 AM

The cards you just mentioned provide extra acceleration to maintain our speed against mana denial.

Of course, that's why I mentioned them... but you have to see at least 1 of them in your opening hand!
Otherwise their denial will likely screw your gameplan.

Playing against a super-efficient deck like RUG emphasizes our biggest and worst problem (vs any matchup) as Affinity: consistency.

Opal and Drums help us ignoring denial, and we play about 6-7 of them so we are hoping to see some copies... but if we don't?
Yes, our deck has some nice answer/counters to RUG: problem is finding them.

Decks like RUG can often start with not-so-good hands cause with a single Ponder they could find the answer/threat they need... but we don't have library manipulation so we are going to mulligan more often.

I know this issue concerns every matchup and not only RUG, but facing a deck that have such a good consistency/manipulation is a bit painful.
In the last months Affinity has tried to find something to increase consistency (like Stoneforge), but it remains a big issue and sometimes I watch opponent's Brainstorms/Ponders with envy.

Generally speaking, as I was writing also in another forum, I feel like having success with Affinity nowadays is related more to luck than skill/smart building.
Not the best remark for an Affinity player, but that's it.
(fortunately I also have some other decks... cause lately I play Affinity just for fun but not on tournaments)

Shawon

11-27-2012, 11:53 AM

Of course, that's why I mentioned them... but you have to see at least 1 of them in your opening hand!
Otherwise their denial will likely screw your gameplan.

I run 4 Opals, 4 Petals/Drum, 2 Sol lands and 4 Darksteel, all cards I want to see in my opening hand against RUG. I like my odds.

Playing against a super-efficient deck like RUG emphasizes our biggest and worst problem (vs any matchup) as Affinity: consistency.

I think facing RUG also emphasizes Affinity's best quality: redundancy. RUG only has consistency and not redundancy. What makes Affinity strong against RUG is a high threat density that's way too diverse to be handled by just one subset of RUG's answers. Bolt can get rid of small guys and Tezzeret, but it can't hit MoE or Champ. Ancient Grudge can hit a lot of artifacts, but it can't answer Tezzeret or Champ, nor a 5/5 Darksteel.

EDIT: Sure, RUG can draw one specific answer at the right time, but I can overwhelm their demand for specific answers through redundancy. They can have Force of Will to counter Etched Champion. Cool, do they have another Force next turn when I cast my 2nd Champ? Another good thing going for Affinity is that RUG has no form of card advantage, unless you count Ancient Grudge. Affinity runs Thoughtcast to refill gas. As long as Affinity maintains a steady flow of pressure, RUG will inevitably run out of answers.

anakyn

11-27-2012, 05:33 PM

I run 4 Opals, 4 Petals/Drum, 2 Sol lands and 4 Darksteel, all cards I want to see in my opening hand against RUG. I like my odds.

I agree about the chance to find 1/2 key cards on a total 14, but I don't understand why you include Glimmervoids... they are wastable, so everytime I play them I feel my mana is very fragile against RUG.

Since I run 3 Drums and no Petals and I don't consider Glimmervoid as a solid strategy to avoid denial, in my deck there is a total of 11 cards that "counter" denial.
Of course it could be worse (some decks suffer denial more than us), but you also have to consider we only play about 15 lands, which are really few. Under this point of view, when playing vs RUG Moxes and Drums can be considered as "additional Citadels": normally they provide us speed, but against an heavy denial deck often their role is to replace the lands they have wasted.

What makes Affinity strong against RUG is a high threat density that's way too diverse to be handled by just one subset of RUG's answers. Bolt can get rid of small guys and Tezzeret, but it can't hit MoE or Champ. Ancient Grudge can hit a lot of artifacts, but it can't answer Tezzeret or Champ, nor a 5/5 Darksteel.

EDIT: Sure, RUG can draw one specific answer at the right time, but I can overwhelm their demand for specific answers through redundancy.

That's agreeable as well, and that's why I said one important factor is drawing enough threats to overcome their permission.
We can stomp them away easy enough, if we find enough mana and at least 3-4 threats.

But:
- even if we put aside for a moment the consistency problem (which is the question: "how many threats will I find, and in which order?"), there comes again the denial problem.
Yes, we can have the right mana and the right threats, still they can force us to spend too many turns to cast them.
The fact is: they can easily start Delver/Mangoose, then Daze something in our turn, then go Ponder to sculpt their hand or another Delver/Mangoose, then Force something, then go Goyf and proceed to beat us down (these are all cards they play 4x): a start like that is pretty common for them, and it means they landed 2 or 3 fast threats while negating our gameplan almost completely. Not easy to comeback from that point.
You could reply something like: "ok, but that would be godhand for them"... only they have so much library manipulation, that they can build their godhand easy enough, while we have to rely on our luck or mulligan.
- apart from Bolts, they also play Fire/Ice, which is nuts against us. I found out a good answer to bolts is Ravager: for a long time I didn't consider this guy like a viable option, but since I tested it I feel my build is better.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As I said I don't think RUG is a bad match-up, but I wouldn't consider it good neither.

Godhand RUG vs godhand Affinity (something like artifact land, opal, drum, 0-cc creature, thoughtcast, 2 threats) means Affinity will probably win, just because our threat density is too much for them to answer forever.
But the fact they have so good consistency & library manipulation while we lack in both factors, imho means we are slightly under them.

Of course it also depends on our build... Affinity builds are so different that it's very difficult to predict matchup % without knowing the specific cards used.

EDIT: don't you side Tezzerets out when playing RUG? I always put them out because it's very difficult they will let me cast a 4-mana threat which can be countered also by Pierce...

Shawon

11-27-2012, 06:01 PM

(Glimmervoids? I don't run any.)

That's why people play RUG: no matchup is unwinnable for RUG as long as the RUG pilot is skilled, or lucky I suppose. But if you're prepared for RUG and you know the matchup well enough to play correctly, I think the odds are in your favor. We have the advantage of being able to overwhelm their consistency with a high threat density and a fast manabase. The matter of keeping that threat density high and resilient is the current challenge to Affinity builders they need to overcome.

I think the best thing for Affinity builders to do to improve their RUG matchup is reinventing their offense (or defense). I said that Affinity has a lot of redundancy as its advantage, but it also goes both ways. I've had plenty of games against RUG where I needed to draw into a threat and feeling the disappointment of drawing a Frogmite off the top. I think Affinity's cheap explosiveness is less to be desired in the current format and the deck needs to adapt to today's echelon of removal.

Part of the reason I decided to cut Signal Pest was Forked Bolt from RUG. As of now, the only creatures I run that can be handled by Fire/Ice or Forked Bolt are Blinkmoths, Vault Skirges, and my 1-of Ravager. But Blinkmoths and Ravager don't effectively count in context, obviously, so the only card that can realistically be killed by Forked Bolt or Fire/Ice is Vault Skirge. That's a nice reduction from running 4 Memnite and 4 Signal Pest as X/1s easily picked off by either removal.

EDIT: don't you side Tezzerets out when playing RUG? I always put them out because it's very difficult they will let me cast a 4-mana threat which can be countered also by Pierce...

I currently keep 2 Tezz post-board against RUG. I bring at least 3 Relic in, but now that I have Cabal Therapy again, my SB changes go like this against RUG: -3 Pierce, -2 Tezzeret, +2 Therapy, +3 Relic. Arguably I could keep Spell Pierce instead of Tezzeret, but I think having a card that opts as both offense and defense is better. Sure, my opponent can run their own Spell Pierce, but it's questionable whether they would keep it in as it fails to answer actual creatures. If I were RUG facing Affinity, I would rather run REB post-board than Spell Pierce. Regardless, if they still run it, I can force them to use it earlier through my regular attempt to overwhelm them or just cast Tezzeret when they are tapped out. If the game against RUG comes down to a grind, it's not too hard to gather enough mana to pay for Pierce, given my manabase.

Mr. Froggy

11-29-2012, 02:35 PM

I finally got to changing out the Frogmites for some Skirges, and I'm finally running a fu set of Thopters now. :)

I think I'm gonna keep the Blasts in though... I can't see myself removing them from my list.

Shawon

11-29-2012, 07:17 PM

Mr. Froggy: What does your list look like now, after said changes?

Mr. Froggy

11-29-2012, 10:54 PM

Lands/mana
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Mox Opal

Beaters
4 Ornithopter
3 Signal Pest
4 Memnite
4 Vault Skirge

Win-cons
4 Etched Champion
3 Master of Etherium
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Cranial Plating

Other(s)
3 Galvanic Blast
4 Thoughtcast

I feel this list is extremely tight, and I love it!

EDIT: It should say 3 MoEs, my bad!

Shawon

11-29-2012, 11:35 PM

Looks good. Boy do I miss using Galvanic Blast. Playing that with Tezzeret in the same deck was why I got into playing Tezz Affinity in the first place this year.

What's your sideboard like? Did you ever get a chance to try out Umezawa's Jitte or Cabal Therapy?

Mr. Froggy

11-29-2012, 11:40 PM

On MODO, I have 3 Jitte's and when I get them online, I basically win. As for Cabal Therapy, I still need to practice with them, but the raw power is undeniable. I wish I had enough money to buy the Jtte's, but I just spent a bunch to finish my LED Dredge... All in all, I think my Affinity deck is where I want it to be right now, and I haven't really had any problems with it. Plays good, and is pretty consistent at getting wins. If I have time, I'd like to try it out at a tournament again.

Shawon

11-30-2012, 08:22 AM

Mr. Froggy

11-30-2012, 11:27 AM

How do you feel about Jitte being an answer to other people's Jitte? Do you still wish you had Ancient Grudge for that purpose? I'm trying to see if I can get more supporters of my SB 3 Jitte plan :)

I think you should consider Myr Enforcer over Signal Pest, though. Myr Enforcer nets you just about the same damage, if not more than, a Pest would with Battle Cry, except it's much harder for the opponent to actually kill.

Jitte in the SB is pretty darn amazing. I'm gonna get some once I can, because in my MTGO testing they have been ridiculous! :)

The reason I think I'm going to keep Pest in is because it wears a Plating pretty well. I know Enforcer is a 4/4 always, but the lack of evasion makes me kind of wary of it. Maybe I'm going to change my mind, maybe not, but for now I'm going to keep my Pests in because it has evasion and it boosts my dudes at the same time.

Shawon

11-30-2012, 04:33 PM

The reason I think I'm going to keep Pest in is because it wears a Plating pretty well. I know Enforcer is a 4/4 always, but the lack of evasion makes me kind of wary of it. Maybe I'm going to change my mind, maybe not, but for now I'm going to keep my Pests in because it has evasion and it boosts my dudes at the same time.

If that's the case, why not cut Memnite? You can go -4 Memnite for either +4 Enforcer or +3 Enforcer +1 Signal Pest. Or somewhere in between. Four Memnite is excessive now. You might have a little more clunkiness with Myr Enforcer not being able to power out faster turn 1-2 plays but you'll also feel a little better when you draw an Enforcer after a board swipe than you would with Memnite.

Raggedjoe

12-01-2012, 05:20 AM

If that's the case, why not cut Memnite? You can go -4 Memnite for either +4 Enforcer or +3 Enforcer +1 Signal Pest. Or somewhere in between. Four Memnite is excessive now. You might have a little more clunkiness with Myr Enforcer not being able to power out faster turn 1-2 plays but you'll also feel a little better when you draw an Enforcer after a board swipe than you would with Memnite.

I recently had the same thought and decided to try no Memnites. Enforcer gets stuck in my hand more than I'd like, and is somewhat often win-more so far, but I'm thinking of testing -2 Ravager, -1 MoE, -1 Enforcer, +3 SFM, +1 Jitte.

4 Ornithopter
4 Vault Skirge
4 Singal Pest
2 Arcbound Ravager
4 Etched Champion
3 Master of Etherium
4 Frogmite
3 Myr Enforcer

3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

4 Mox Opal
2 Springleaf Drum
4 Cranial Plating
4 Thoughtcast

3 Glimmervoid
3 Seat of the Synod
3 Vault of Whispers
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Darksteel Citadel

Sideboard
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Cursed Totem
3 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Grafdigger's Cage[

Shawon

12-01-2012, 10:46 AM

I would rather run Memnite than Frogmite, though. It's always 0 mana and it can activate Mox Opal on turn 1. The p/t difference is negligible as they are both relatively weak and can still be chump blocked by Snapcaster Mage.

Honestly, I think both Memnite and Frogmite have outlived their usefulness. Despite the speed and synergy they provide, they are still unable to make Affinity more or less consistent in every game state (early, mid, late), and it's because Memnite and Frogmite are inherently weak. Relative to the power level of Legacy, they provide no imminent board presence by themselves and furthermore, they are liabilities as they are very susceptible to the current tier of removal being played. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am sick of Snapcaster Mage 2-for-1'ing me by taking out a Frogmite or Memnite as they buyback a StP that's probably been used before.

Cutting four Memnite does weaken Springleaf Drum so I did edit my suggestion to mention that some number of Memnites can be cut. Springleaf Drum is another card of the deck I have a problem with, but I think I'll talk about that in another post.

Raggedjoe

12-01-2012, 03:42 PM

I know... But what else do you play? There are only so many playable cards for us sadly. If we cut drums toon (I agree they are terrible), what can we use? More lands? I've tested petals and found them lacking.

Mr. Froggy

12-01-2012, 04:34 PM

I actually really like Drum.. Especially early on, but I don't want multiples. I want to test Ravager, maybe add 1-2, and remove a Drum or 2.

Shawon

12-01-2012, 07:15 PM

I've been trying out the singleton Ravager for half a year now and through all my tweaking, I've never taken it out ever since I put it in the MD. It's amazing, it can act as both an auxiliary MoE or Cranial Plating.

I know... But what else do you play? There are only so many playable cards for us sadly. If we cut drums toon (I agree they are terrible), what can we use? More lands? I've tested petals and found them lacking.

It's not that hard to replace four Memnites. I cut four to complete my sets of Tezz, MoE and Champ in the MD. EDIT: If you already run playsets of those, add in Blinkmoth Nexuses to complete your creature quota. They add to your creature count and your land count.

I found Petal to be really amazing. It acts just like Memnite would with Mox Opal. You can play an artifact land, Opal, and Petal, and have access to 3 mana on turn 1. Petal's only downside compared to Springleaf Drum is its lack of reusebality, where Springleaf Drum has to use creatures for mana.

EDIT: I've actually been using something else alongside Lotus Petal as a mana source. Take a guess what it is:

12 Artifacts Lands
2 3 Tombs
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Opal
2 Petals
2 Talisman of Dominance

4 Thopter
4 Skirge
4 MoE
1 Ravager
4 Champ
4 3 Enforcer

4 TC
4 Plating
3 Spell Pierce
4 Tezzeret

SB:

2 Karakas
3 Jitte
3 Relic
3 O-Ring
2 Revoker
2 Therapy

After trying out 4 Petal or 3 petal 1 Drum, I decided I needed a mana source that wasn't Springleaf Drum and that had a little more value to it. I tried Chromatic Star for a bit, which was okay if I knew when to consume it for mana, and I goldfished some hands with Prophetic Prism and even Mana Cylix! I liked the Prism because it drew a card, but I wanted a mana source that could tap for colored mana on its own, that didn't require mana I had leftover just to use my mana source once I resolved it. I found out that in my hands, I wanted Talisman the most because it could tap for :u: with no mana cost as soon as I resolved it, making me able to cast a Spell Pierce if I needed to or net me mana next turn to cast Tezzeret.

anakyn

12-03-2012, 11:53 AM

I think right now there are 2 ways to build Affinity:
- swarm strategy, full of Memnites, Thopters, Pests, Frogmites and MOE --> you wanna win as fast as you can
- "disruption" strategy, a bit slower but with some control over opponent and a little more consistency

I don't like anymore the swarm strategy cause I feel it's based on pure luck, and it's not even that fun.

So a couple of months ago I tried the disruption way, but I exaggerated a bit too much cause I played 4 Chalice + 3 Revoker MB, and it was bad: you win when you meet the "right" deck and you lose against everyone else.

Maybe Affinity should build like something in the middle between ultra-fast swarm and slower disruption strategy.

It's not easy at all to find the right balance.

I'd like to cut Memnites as well, but until now they've been too important to get Opal online from turn 1... if we cut them we should accept the fact we are slowing down our clock... or yes, we could play Petals instead of Memnites, but we are dropping a potential beater if equipped with Cranial.
I don't like Petals that much cause I feel we need our mana to be re-usable; that's why I'm insisting on Drums.

Also, I think 4 Tezzeret are really a lot... 3x is good (but starting with 2 in hand is awful), playing the full playset is a bit too much imho.

My last list has 4 Memnites and 2 Frogmites MB, and the Frogmites are the first to make room for sideboard choices.

I'll try to cut Memnites to play 1 more MoE (3x total), 1 more Frogmite (3x total) and 2 Enforcers (2x total).

About sideboard: since I play 4x Chalice, which is often played @ 1, I tried to cut as many 1 drops as possible, therefore as anti-GY I play only Tormod's (3x) but no Relics.

Shawon

12-03-2012, 01:41 PM

I wouldn't call the second strategy 'disruption,' as I consider that direction of the deck to be more focused on the purpose of resiliency, that is limiting the effectiveness of your opponent's interactions with you, as opposed to pure disruption. But I agree with you that Tezz Affinity variants tend to follow either one of those disciplines.

With Deathrite Shaman increasingly seeing more play and UW Miracles that has by now become the premier control deck of Legacy, the 'swarm' strategy can only become less and less effective as more effective removal spells and cards like Deathrite Shaman, that can incrementally shrink your chance of winning, are being printed.

However, I don't think Tezzeret Affinity has to go in the completely opposite direction. As you said, anakyn, making the deck more 'controllish' just makes you into a bad aggro deck AND a bad control deck.

I just think Tezzeret Affinity should fall somewhere in between the two ends of the spectrum, having the explosive power without being completely vulnerable to timely removal or disruption. I believe my list does that, because it shaves off the more explosive yet vulnerable elements (4 Memnite, 4 Frogmite, 4 Signal Pest) and fills up on the slower yet more powerful elements (4 MoE, 4 Champ, 4 Tezz, 3 Myr Enforcer).

I just took out 2 Ornithopter so that I can now run 18 lands (3x Nexus) and 5 artifact mana sources NOT including Opal (3 Talisman, 2 Petal), which I believe remedy the 'consistency problem' that plagues contemporary Affinity lists.

By now, I have removed at least one-quarter of the original Tezz Affinity deck's staples, the free creatures and Signal Pest. The best part of my deck after all of these changes is that despite all of the muscle I've packed in, it still doesn't feel inconsistent because I've added more lands. It just feels more powerful and I feel I lose games a lot less.

Also, I think 4 Tezzeret are really a lot... 3x is good (but starting with 2 in hand is awful), playing the full playset is a bit too much imho.

You need all four against any control deck. Against other matchups where excess Tezz is a liability, just keep 2 Tezz in games 2 and 3.

About sideboard: since I play 4x Chalice, which is often played @ 1, I tried to cut as many 1 drops as possible, therefore as anti-GY I play only Tormod's (3x) but no Relics.

The difference between Tormod's Crypt and Relic is that Relic can expeditiously invalidate strategies that rely on conservative use of the graveyard (Deathrite Shaman, Tarmogoyf even) where using Tormod's Crypt would often be wasteful or ineffective. If Chalice is the only reason you're running Tormod's Crypt instead of Relic, you should drop Chalice or just run Relic despite Chalice. Relic is too useful NOT to run.

Mr. Froggy

12-10-2012, 12:23 PM

How is everyone doing with Affinity now? I haven't had time to go to tournaments, and I stop by my LGS a few times a week, but everyone plays Standard (except me)... Haven't been able to test...

Anarky87

12-10-2012, 02:36 PM

I haven't been able to play in any tournaments, but I've switched my build up to try out a list I saw that made T8 in November.

4 Ornithopter
4 Signal Pest
4 Frogmite
4 Vault Skirge
4 Etched Champion
4 Master of Etherium
2 Memnite

4 Mox Opal
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Thoughtcast
4 Cranial Plating
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
3 City of Traitors

I believe in his build he was playing Ancient Tomb and he dropped down to 14 lands to play 1 Umezawa's Jitte MD.

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9537&iddeck=69602

Shawon

12-10-2012, 05:08 PM

Cutting an Ancient Tomb to bring the land count to 14 just to include a 1-of Jitte is a poor decision. I'm not impressed.

This is my current incarnation of Affinity:

Mana Sources (26)
12 Artifact Lands
3 Tombs
3 Blinkmoth
1 Glimmervoid
4 Opal
3 Talisman

Threats (23, but really 26 because of the Blinkmoths)
4 Skirge
4 Master
4 Champ
1 Ravager
3 Pest
3 Enforcer
4 Tezz

Other Business
4 TC
4 Plating
3 Pierce

2 Karakas
3 Jitte
3 Relic
3 O-Ring
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 flex slots

Mr. Froggy

12-10-2012, 06:44 PM

I find 14 lands to be extremely low.. I would not have done that, especially since the list is so tight.

Anarky87

12-11-2012, 12:46 PM

Yeah, I'm pretty partial to the 15, so I left out the Jitte and kept the 15th land in. I've liked everything else. If my LGS ever did Legacy again instead of infinite Standard, I'd give it a go.

CabalTherapy

12-21-2012, 06:19 AM

I have rebuilt my affinity deck into a faster version because I had the experience that my cc3 spells are too slow.
I am testing this list currently:

19
4 Ornithopter
4 Memnite
4 Signal Pest
4 Frogmite
3 Vault Skirge
for the early rush

6
2 Master of Etherium
2 Etched Champion
2 Myr Enforcer
some bigger stuff

14
2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Cranial Plating
4 Thoughtcast
4 Gitaxian Probe (a pretty good spell, to see what actions one has to do/can do)
the non-mana, non-creature stuff

21
3 Mox Opal
3 Springleaf Drum
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Seat of the Synod
2 Great Furnace
4 Darksteel Citadel
1 Island (path to exile, explorer, wasteland-proof casting blue spells)
mana stuff

My Sb is very flexible but I am not shure if I should add Spell Pierce to it.

15
4 Pithing Needle
3 Diabolic Edict
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Hydroblast
2 Echoing Truth
2 Perish

frogger42

12-21-2012, 10:22 AM

I've actually liked building a more controlling build with a couple prison-ish elements. I made a build with Sphere of Resistance and placed pretty high, but now I'm kind of set on mana accelerants and turn 1 2-drops that need to be answered. Here's what I've got so far:

4 Ancient Den
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Mox Opal
4 Chrome Mox
2 City of Brass
2 Glimmervoid

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Cranial Plating
4 Thoughtcast
4 Oblivion Ring (to fight S+T, Rean)
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Batterskull
1 Tormod's Crypt

4 Ornithopter
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Dark Confidant
4 Trinket Mage (flex slot)

SB: Another Crypt, another SOFI, Sword of Body and Mind, 4 Suppression Field, 4 Thalia?? plus 4 ???

What I've noticed from playing this less-explosive build - you've got fewer wimpy Ornithopters and Memnites and stuff. Those guys only really come online with a plating, and now I'm effectively running 8 platings, too. Also, Turn 1 Confidant is really difficult to answer, same with SFM and Chalice; 20 cards to imprint are more than enough for Chrome, and sometimes Chrome just helps Opal get metalcraft turn 1. I usually have a ton of cards mid-late game, so the deck doesn't really lose steam; also, mulling down isn't that bad, because SFM and Bob can get you back into the game right away. Wasteland can set you back much more than traditional Affinity, however, because you're more mana-dependent.

Just thought I'd put this list out there and give you guys some new ideas for it. I had Etched Champ instead of Trinket, but sometimes Champ is just a nice Pearled Unicorn; that and the Swords already give enough evasion. I haven't tested Trinket, but it grave-hates, snags Thopter for evasion, and grabs Chalice because that card hurts. I scrubbed bad last night, but I've done well most nights and hold to the merits of this list.
** About Chrome - I tend to imprint Thoughtcast the most! I like having stronger options in high-power dudes over just a couple more unknown draw. I think that's a good sign of the non-artifact options.

Mr. Froggy

12-21-2012, 01:52 PM

Mr. Froggy

12-26-2012, 10:48 PM

I tested Myr Enforcer and I haven't been too happy with it right now, but Jitte IS AWESOME. Next cards I get will definitely be Jittes.

frogger42

12-30-2012, 02:26 PM

264505

12-31-2012, 04:39 AM

frogger42

12-31-2012, 04:08 PM

Yeah, MoE pitches to Force and Champion obviously doesn't. Also, this version runs SFM and tends to snag a Sword with it, which pretty much gives evasion on its own (SoFI for Merf, Gob, SoLS for Batterskull decks). I used to play Champion with the swords, but it seemed redundant; that and Jitte makes quick work of the best creature in the deck. Also, Chalice @ 1 stops most removal, except for Abrupt Decay now, so the Pro:Colors on Champion is very redundant.

DragoFireheart

12-31-2012, 10:32 PM

I have some super secret tech to share with you.

Highlight:
=============
Invisible Stalker
=============

Give it a try if you need a better carrier for Cranial Plating.

Mr. Froggy

01-01-2013, 04:35 PM

I don't know if all those are needed, especially since Affinity needs a lot of artifacts. Do you think it's diluting the deck too much? Or has it been working out for you?

DragoFireheart

01-01-2013, 06:36 PM

I don't know if all those are needed, especially since Affinity needs a lot of artifacts. Do you think it's diluting the deck too much? Or has it been working out for you?

I need to test it more TBQH, but I got the idea from these two decks:

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/busqueda.php?token=Decks&tname=&nlow=0&nhigh=0&dlow=0&mlow=0&ylow=0&dhigh=0&mhigh=0&yhigh=0&player=&dname=&format=Legacy&aname=&main=Invisible+Stalker%3B+cranial+plating&nomain=&side=&noside=&strict=on

If for some reason your opponent does a good job at killing your creatures, Stalker will give you some inevitability.

Mr. Froggy

01-01-2013, 07:57 PM

I checked both decks out, and I'm really not impressed with them. No offense, though.

To me Cranial Plating should always be a 4-of, it's too good in Affinity. And what are the Welding Jars for exactly? I thought, "Why not run Memnite instead?"

frogger42

01-02-2013, 10:17 AM

Hey Drago, I saw the Invisible Stalkers in my box, but I think the guy, like Etched Champion, stinks unless he's suited up. Looter deals with one of the problems of the deck, which is topdecking Opals and Ornithopters when you need Cranial or something with punch; I think getting the looting ability and dropping hexproof is a solid tradeoff, makes the card always good regardless of board state. He also digs deeper to find Cranials for himself, too.

I'm also kinda annoyed that I only run 3 Cranials, too, but I'm not sure how to fix that. I could drop a land I guess, but I like the high amount for this build with the Swords and SFM. Sometimes you need to hardcast a Batterskull and all. I think I prefer the second Skirge in its place to help metalcraft, but I haven't tested it a whole lot to see what the deck really needs. I'd run 4 Skirge and Cranial if I had the room... oh well.

EDIT: Also Chalice @ 1 keeps Bolts off Looter. I'd considered it like the Mother of Runes of the deck until Decay came out, and that usually hits the equip anyway.

Mr. Froggy

01-02-2013, 10:37 PM

I'm thinking of cutting my Galvanic Blasts, but for what I'm not sure yet. Ideas?

CabalTherapy

01-03-2013, 03:31 AM

I'm thinking of cutting my Galvanic Blasts, but for what I'm not sure yet. Ideas?

I ve played Galvanic Blasts too but switched over to Gitaxian Probe.

a boss

01-03-2013, 04:54 PM

I 3-1ed a legacy daily with this

4 Thoughtcast
4 Memnite
4 Frogmite
4 Cranial Plating
4 Signal Pest
4 Ornithopter
2 Master of Etherium
4 Mox Opal
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Darksteel Citadel
3 Springleaf Drum
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
3 Arcbound Ravager
4 Etched Champion
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Chalice of the Void
SB: 3 Spellskite
SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Faerie Macabre
SB: 3 Perish
SB: 4 cabal therapy

Round 1 ant
He plays gitaxian probe ponder off an underground sea so my plan is to make ad nauseam shitty and pray. I play ravager and he just ponders and brainstorms. I have singal pest ornithopter in play and cast ravager. I miclick sacrificing ravager to ornithoper instead of sacrificing ortithoper which puts him at 5 instead of 4. He goes off the nest turn with infernal tutor into infernal tutor into tendrils. I side out tezz, etched champion and side in cage, macabre and cabal. I turn one therapy naming dark ritual and hit 2 then I flashback off memnite and hit infernal tutor. Then I play 2 cages and start beating for 2 or 3 a turn. Several turns later he I have him in two turns and he echoing turths cage and kills me.
0-1
round 2 burn
I raced him game 1 with tezzeret. He was forced to kill tezzeret and that bought me a turn to attack back and win. I sided in spellskite. I had a turn 2 spell skite into turn 3 plating on pest. he had double goblin guide. I blocked with spellskite then he lightning bolted me and I redirected at spellskite. I attacked for the win and he played price of progress putting me at 1.
1-1
round 3 bug control
He forced plating and champion I resolved master of etherium. He brainstormed and conceded with nothing in play.
Game 2 was similar except he had counterspell and fow played a goyf and I played master of etherium, master of etherium
2-1
round 4 uw control
I have literally never been able to beat this deck. All I remember about game 1 was him playing jace and dieing next turn. Game 2 I got him to 1 and he got jitte onto clique (he terminused me twice) and I lost. Game 3 I balls to wall not playing around counterspells at all and he was at 1 life with 3 lands a fetchland. Conceded revealing supreme verdict. (he could have cast it without the fetchland)
3-1

I played almost an identical list at the local event last night. I cut the chalice for another master. The cabals in the board were mindbreak traps.
Round 1 Tes
I put him on dredge since he was testing it before hand. He also did the whole "register for a new dci card at a new store" He was play testing dredge before hand and I had never seen him before. I won the roll keeping a hand with ravager. I played darksteel pest mox and passes. He played an underground sea foil gitaxian probe and foil japanese ponder. I asked "tes?" he said maybe. I said "is it bryants list" He said "ya, exactly" letting me know he was running no mainboard tendrils and he had shattering spree and 2 abrupt decays sb. He did his ponder things over the next few turns and I was certain I was just dead on the next turn. He was at 11 and "went off", he cast infernal tutor with 5 mana floating, and then got empty the warrens making 16 goblins. On my turn I played a land frogmite and springleaf drum, he attacked me for 16. I drew played a land cast ravager cast frogmite saced all the lands the frogmite to ravager sac ravager to memnite and attacked for exactly 11 winning the game.
I sided out champion tezz for 2cages, 1 spellskite mindbreak trap and farie macabre . He mulliganed to 6 I mulliganed to 5 missing the mindbreak trap. He probed and pondered. I kept a hand with no blue mana and a master. I drew spellskite. I played memnite. He pondered finding a land. I played spellskite and he infernal tutored for abrupt decay revealing abrupt decay. I played seat of synod and cast master of etherium. He pondered. I attacked putting him at 1 and put him off the fetch. He conceded.
1-0
Round 2 rug
Game 1 I played land mox and he forced mox them he wasteland all three of my lands.
Game 2 He forced my mox and wasted me, but I had enough lands and master of etherium killed him.
game 3 he got stuck on 2 lands and I played champion next turn plating and swung. Then he lost.
2-0
round 3 rug
I played mox opal which he spell pierced then I played another and laughed at him. Then Master won.
Game 2 he didnt wasteland me and I won with etched chamions. He krosen griped some random stuff and dazed plating.
3-0

Overall the added master was worth it for sure. Mindbreak depends on if the meta had belcher or not. I played another dialy going 2-2 getting wrecked by bug control. I beat a turn 2 show and tell prgentus on the play though and game 2 I wanted therapy over mindbreak. Terapy is probably better but the local meta gets a lot of belcher and I also like it against elves and hypergensis so there is that.

a boss

01-03-2013, 05:12 PM

I don't like anymore the swarm strategy cause I feel it's based on pure luck, and it's not even that fun.

If "based on pure luck" involves winning with exact damage and making strategic plays with subpar creatures then sure. Its like saying storm is based on pure luck. "oh they have no disruption looks like I win" and then you miscount slightly and die on the spot. I feel like the deck is lot more deep than people give it credit for. Playing around counterspells, wrath effects, mulliganing when you deck is half blanks half nearly instant wins- is a lot more that what I would call "pure luck". But to each his own. The ub version has consistently been the best for me. All the chalice revoker stuff is trying to make the deck do something that other decks do better. If you want to play stax play stax. The one of chalice I ran was cute but I found i just wanted more master of etheriums.

Mr. Froggy

01-04-2013, 12:21 PM

I changed out my Blasts for some Enforcers, and they are starting to grow on me. 4/4s for 1-2, I like it.

Also, as much as I used to love Jitte, I'm starting to be turned off by them a bit. I have found them a bit too slow for my liking, and I might switch them out of my SB.

Smea.gol.lum

01-11-2013, 04:29 PM

Have you tested Cursed Scroll ??
I haven't tested it yet, but on paper it looks really good.
It kills Delver, Deathrite Shaman etc....the majority of good creatures, it helps to overcome an opposing Goyf and Affinity decks are in topdeck mode very fast.

Sample List:
Mana:
4 Mox Opal
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Seat of the Synod
3 Blinkmoth Nexus/Inkmoth Nexus

Creatures:
4 Memnite
4 Frogmite
4 Signal Pest
2 Ornithopter
3 Etched Champion
3 Arcbound Ravager
2 Master of Etherium

Non-Creature-Spells:
4 Thoughtcast
3 Tezzeret
4 Cranial Plating
4 Cursed Scroll

SB:
3 Spell Pierce
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Etched Champion
4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Perish

Shawon

01-11-2013, 07:26 PM

Cursed Scroll is a decent suggestion. I'll try it out. I question its reliability to kill Delver given its susceptibility to Abrupt Decay and needing few cards in hand, but fundamentally it's a reusable source of noncombat damage that synergizes with the rest of Affinity.

I haven't posted a list in a while because I've been reinventing lists and starting over a bunch of times so if I come up with something definitive, I'll post it.

Shawon

01-12-2013, 10:16 PM

(Sorry in advance for double post!)

Cursed Scroll has been proving to be quite useful! For weeks now I was thinking about how best to replace Signal Pest, and I couldn't think of a replacement that cost the same mana or less. Scroll really fills in Pest's slot as it's still a cheap artifact except it's way better as a removal and a finisher.

PSA: Relic of Progenitus needs to be in every Affinity SB. >>>> Tormod's Crypt & Grafdigger's Cage.

Mana
4 Seat
4 Vault
4 Citadel
3 Den
1 Glimmervoid
4 Opal
4 Drum

Creatures
4 Thopter
4 Skirge
4 Etched
4 Ravager
4 Frogmite
1 SFM

Everything Else
4 TC
4 Plating
3 Tezz
3 Cursed Scroll
1 Jitte

SB
4 Therapy
4 Relic
3 Canonist
3 O-Ring
1 Tezz

Mr. Froggy

01-12-2013, 10:22 PM

Is it fast enough in Affinity? I used to run in a Mono-B Pox deck I had, and found it was a good finisher because of the slow nature of the deck.

Shawon

01-12-2013, 10:34 PM

Like Smeagollum mentioned, Affinity decks play out their hand pretty fast, so you can activate Cursed Scroll with one card in your hand relatively quickly.

Shawon

01-14-2013, 10:15 PM

Double post.

*tumbleweed rolls by* "It's quiet... too quiet..."

So, has anyone besides me actually tested Cursed Scroll? because it's goshdarnit insane. It's seriously Affinity's version of Grim Lavamancer. Anyone reading this needs to test Cursed Scroll. Props to Smeagollum for suggesting Cursed Scroll.

Aside: It seems that every page there's always someone posting their pet Affinity list, but I rarely see any posts asking for or discussing sideboard strategies against the Legacy metagame. Why is that?

frogger42

01-14-2013, 10:27 PM

That second Opal is such a bad topdeck that I find I need a way to utilize it. I'm not a huge fan of Ravager, but I dug through my box of semi-playables and found Looter Il-Kor. That guy loots your dead Opals and lands, and suits up with a Cranial pretty swell. How about:

4 Ancient Den
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Mox Opal
4 Chrome Mox

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Cranial Plating
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Thoughtcast
4 Force of Will

4 Ornithopter
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Looter il-Kor
4 Master of Etherium
2 Vault Skirge

I like the idea of Forcing to save your Chalice, that's been pretty sweet for me before. Looter's the weakest card in the deck, but I think it's better than Riddlesmith and there's about nothing else in blue that's runnable. Just trying to stir up some thoughts here, not sure if there was another thread for Force affinity.

I think -Adarkar Wastes for 2 City Brass, 2 Glimmervoid. 2 Looters and 2 Vault Skirge = 4 Tezz. DS Cit 4 = Vault of Whispers 3 + Cranial Plating #4. That's what I'm working on now. I ran another really diff list the other night, and being able to Force a Daze on my Chalice won me a game easy. The two are really powerful together; what Chalice doesn't soak up, FoW usually gets. I think the power level of the cards here is higher than normal Aff, perhaps over 9000. Except for the Looter, but I could always use suggestions for another card in that slot. Prob not Jace or anything, because I run so few shuffle effects for the Brainstorm. I'd still like something of that power level, maybe V Clique though I know UU is tough to come by.

Shawon

01-15-2013, 09:24 AM

I think the power level of the cards here is higher than normal Aff, perhaps over 9000.

I'm pretty doubtful of this claim. You run way less creatures than the normal Affinity builds so I fail to see how your list can overpower other decks better than normal Affinity builds. Also, you're overvaluing Force of Will in this deck. The problem with Force of Will in Affinity is that you almost never want to exile some of the blue cards you're holding just to cast Force of Will. Thoughtcast is blue, but you would almost never exile it to cast Force of Will, because A) you would probably cast Thoughtcast right away and B) why would you sacrifice a draw spell just for a counterspell?

To be honest, you're running a lot of cards that are just straight terrible for any Affinity build. Chrome Mox is absolutely unnecessary when there's other mana sources that aren't card disadvantage, and Looter il-Kor is inferior to Invisible Stalker or Etched Champion since both of those creatures can't actually be targeted by conventional spot removal.

Smea.gol.lum

01-15-2013, 01:55 PM

I don't think that cards like Looter belong in this deck. The protection from colors of Etched Champion is far more important than the pseudo card drawing ability of Looter.

Note that Affinity's manabase is not as reliable as the ones of normal legacy decks. From time to time there are situations in which you haven't got access to a certain color. That's why I'd run 4 Mox Opals and 4 Springleaf Drums in every list and run as few colored cards as possible except for Tezz and Toughtcast.

@Shawon: I won't be able to test Cursed Scroll in the near future due to MWS issues but I will when my tests in March are over.

frogger42

01-16-2013, 12:10 PM

I'm pretty doubtful of this claim. You run way less creatures than the normal Affinity builds so I fail to see how your list can overpower other decks better than normal Affinity builds. Also, you're overvaluing Force of Will in this deck. The problem with Force of Will in Affinity is that you almost never want to exile some of the blue cards you're holding just to cast Force of Will.

The creatures I run are the heavy ones, other than Thopter to help Metalcraft. SFM wins games on its own, and if you suspect your opponent has a bolt, you can snag Cranial or something other than Batterskull that'll get through early. It's better here than in Stoneblade even. You always have another card that you want to keep with FoW, I mean, there's never a dead blue card unless you're running Stifle and/or Daze. Sometimes Jace gets pitched because it's the early game. Force is the best spot removal spell in the game, as it keeps problem cards off the table, protects Chalice, and in Aff stops Hurkyl's Recall type effects.

To be honest, you're running a lot of cards that are just straight terrible for any Affinity build. Chrome Mox is absolutely unnecessary when there's other mana sources that aren't card disadvantage, and Looter il-Kor is inferior to Invisible Stalker or Etched Champion since both of those creatures can't actually be targeted by conventional spot removal.

Chrome is to help get down Chalice/ SFM early. On the play, it's a huge difference and wins games on its own; on the draw, still a difference, but not as much. Between Chrome and Opal, there's a decent chance that you can make a power play Turn 1, though I'm guessing less than 40%. Looter is blue for Force and imprint on Chrome, because Stalker is only good when it's equipped. It's a concession, not perfect, but fills the last niche here. I'm not sure why these cards are considered terrible for Aff other than they're not Artifacts; they play pretty powerful I'd say, though feel free to prove me wrong card-by-card. I guess I'm done posting as people seem more intent on their pet builds being the best. I always thought new ideas helped development, but maybe I'm not a good player I guess.

PS - True that you get mana-screwed sometimes. That's the worst part about running SFM and the like. It happens every now and then, and the only other way I can see to fix that is with some # of Lotus Petals, and I really like my Thopters right now. Oh well.

Shawon

01-16-2013, 01:47 PM

The creatures I run are the heavy ones, other than Thopter to help Metalcraft. SFM wins games on its own, and if you suspect your opponent has a bolt, you can snag Cranial or something other than Batterskull that'll get through early. It's better here than in Stoneblade even. You always have another card that you want to keep with FoW, I mean, there's never a dead blue card unless you're running Stifle and/or Daze. Sometimes Jace gets pitched because it's the early game. Force is the best spot removal spell in the game, as it keeps problem cards off the table, protects Chalice, and in Aff stops Hurkyl's Recall type effects.

I run 1 SFM myself. It's good, but to say that it makes up for the surprising lack of creatures in your list is absurd. Creature removal exists (and so does consistency), and if your opponent is able to wipe out your offense, it doesn't matter that you run 'the heavy ones.' If you depend on SFM so much, then what do you do when it gets removed? You can say you gained an Equipment off of it, but if your opponent is clearing your board of any creatures, then that Equipment just becomes a dead card. Batterskull won't help you much if SFM gets bolted, because then you're going to have wait until you have 5 mana to cast it, and in many games that would be too late for any significant impact.

Also, do you mind explaining to me how SFM is worse in StoneBlade than Affinity when they can protect SFM better than you can (don't you rely on SFM?), take more advantage of life gain so they can cast removal or Jace, or Brainstorm any unwanted equipment for card quality?

I'm not sure why these cards are considered terrible for Aff other than they're not Artifacts; they play pretty powerful I'd say, though feel free to prove me wrong card-by-card.

Gladly.

Chrome Mox is terrible in your deck and in any Affinity list because you don't need a mana source that's inherent card disadvantage. It's that simple. Your plan of using Chrome Mox to fuel a turn 1 SFM/Chalice is short-sighted because you're talking about a plan that requires at least 3 cards just to cast ONE card (land + Mox + exiled card)... that can be removed easily! Have you gotten a chance to play against Abrupt Decay yet? I'd like to know how your first turn Chalice shuts down the game when they can just Abrupt Decay it and you sit there unable to use your Force to counter it.

Looter il-Kor is also terrible because it has shadow. Shadow makes it effectively unblockable in the context of Legacy, but it also means... guess what... it effectively can't block anything! Why on earth would you want that? If your opponent is has a 5/6 Goyf swinging at you, why would you be content with a 1/1 creature unable to block it? All the equipment in the world wouldn't make Looter a good card in Affinity. Did I explain that well enough for you?

Chalice isn't bad, but I'm not as firm a believer as you are that it's awesome in the MD, considering that people play Abrupt Decay nowadays.

If you're running 4 SFM, then I guess Batterskull isn't bad (actually it still is, since it depends on you resolving SFM), but I have no idea why you would rather run Sword of X&Y over Umezawa's Jitte, the card that ruins you if your opponent connects with it. You at least want to have 1 Jitte in the whole 75 to neutralize an opponent's Jitte if you're running SFM.

Lastly, I already told you why Force of Will isn't so great in Affinity, but I'll add to my point earlier that you can't depend on Force of Will being a catch-all, because it does nothing against Abrupt Decay. When building Affinity to stand up against the metagame, you have to answer the question of how to deal with Abrupt Decay.

I guess I'm done posting as people seem more intent on their pet builds being the best. I always thought new ideas helped development, but maybe I'm not a good player I guess.

You've got it wrong, my friend. Your list is the pet build that YOU'RE insisting is the best ('over 9000'). Your ideas aren't new either, as other people currently play or have played SFM and Chalice, and even Force of Will (see AfFOWinity). So, your only contribution to innovation is Looter il-Kor and I've already explained why it doesn't belong in Affinity.

frogger42

01-16-2013, 05:50 PM

I run 1 SFM myself. It's good, but to say that it makes up for the surprising lack of creatures in your list is absurd. Creature removal exists (and so does consistency), and if your opponent is able to wipe out your offense, it doesn't matter that you run 'the heavy ones.' If you depend on SFM so much, then what do you do when it gets removed? You can say you gained an Equipment off of it, but if your opponent is clearing your board of any creatures, then that Equipment just becomes a dead card. Batterskull won't help you much if SFM gets bolted, because then you're going to have wait until you have 5 mana to cast it, and in many games that would be too late for any significant impact.

Also, do you mind explaining to me how SFM is worse in StoneBlade than Affinity when they can protect SFM better than you can (don't you rely on SFM?), take more advantage of life gain so they can cast removal or Jace, or Brainstorm any unwanted equipment for card quality?

Gladly.

Chrome Mox is terrible in your deck and in any Affinity list because you don't need a mana source that's inherent card disadvantage. It's that simple. Your plan of using Chrome Mox to fuel a turn 1 SFM/Chalice is short-sighted because you're talking about a plan that requires at least 3 cards just to cast ONE card (land + Mox + exiled card)... that can be removed easily! Have you gotten a chance to play against Abrupt Decay yet? I'd like to know how your first turn Chalice shuts down the game when they can just Abrupt Decay it and you sit there unable to use your Force to counter it.

Looter il-Kor is also terrible because it has shadow. Shadow makes it effectively unblockable in the context of Legacy, but it also means... guess what... it effectively can't block anything! Why on earth would you want that? If your opponent is has a 5/6 Goyf swinging at you, why would you be content with a 1/1 creature unable to block it? All the equipment in the world wouldn't make Looter a good card in Affinity. Did I explain that well enough for you?

Chalice isn't bad, but I'm not as firm a believer as you are that it's awesome in the MD, considering that people play Abrupt Decay nowadays.

If you're running 4 SFM, then I guess Batterskull isn't bad (actually it still is, since it depends on you resolving SFM), but I have no idea why you would rather run Sword of X&Y over Umezawa's Jitte, the card that ruins you if your opponent connects with it. You at least want to have 1 Jitte in the whole 75 to neutralize an opponent's Jitte if you're running SFM.

Lastly, I already told you why Force of Will isn't so great in Affinity, but I'll add to my point earlier that you can't depend on Force of Will being a catch-all, because it does nothing against Abrupt Decay. When building Affinity to stand up against the metagame, you have to answer the question of how to deal with Abrupt Decay.

You've got it wrong, my friend. Your list is the pet build that YOU'RE insisting is the best ('over 9000'). Your ideas aren't new either, as other people currently play or have played SFM and Chalice, and even Force of Will (see AfFOWinity). So, your only contribution to innovation is Looter il-Kor and I've already explained why it doesn't belong in Affinity.

Jesus.

I'm not going to defend my deck point by point, because we're just going to end up yapping like two annoying lapdogs. I don't feel a special need to prove my record to you, though suffice it to say I have done respectable in a couple large tournaments. I came here looking for advice and innovation, and while I appreciate your concerns, meh. I like building outside the box, because every now and then something pretty good comes of it, and I think this list might get there at some point. I'm not really looking to tinker 3-4 slots in a 60-card list. That's why Looter and some of the other choices, fyi.
Try it. You might like it. (Probably not.) At least 9000, btw.

Shawon

01-16-2013, 07:30 PM

I don't feel a special need to prove my record to you, though suffice it to say I have done respectable in a couple large tournaments.

Right, because we all know that tournament placings exempt the deckbuilder from any criticism. [/sarcasm]

There's nothing wrong with innovation, so don't act like you're the only one seeking it. I'm always reconstructing my lists, more than 3-4 slots at a time. However, at least do some amount of extensive testing before you go posting your list and bragging how you think it's better than everyone else's.

Atikin

01-21-2013, 02:01 PM

So I dont play affinity or know whats currently going on in this thread, but I saw a mention of looter il-kor and thought Id suggest Saprazzan heir as perhaps a carrier of plating. Apologies in advance if this suggestion is terrible. Now that I think about it it probably is since they would just chump if the game depended on it.

straca3

01-21-2013, 04:30 PM

Shawon

01-22-2013, 12:32 AM

Hey guys as you probably know there will be legacy MOCS this weekend, I never played Legacy on MODO and I dont have milion tixs to buy duals + I have Affi in modern, so I'd like to know if any of you could ship me some affinity list, ideally great against MODO meta (which I have no clue how looks) thx.

Mana
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Ancient Den
4 Mox Opal
4 Springleaf Drum
1 Academy Ruins

Creatures
4 Ornithopter
4 Vault Skirge
4 Etched Champion
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Frogmite
2 Stoneforge Mystic

Everything Else
4 Thoughtcast
4 Cranial Plating
2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Cursed Scroll
1 Umezawa's Jitte

SB
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Relic of Progenitus
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Oblivion Ring
1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

I'll spare you exhausting matchup advice, and share with you some pro tips about this deck:

- Etched Champion can block Batterskull tokens all day. No lifegain. Same against any attacker equipped with Jitte. No counters.

- If your opponent casts Terminus and you have Ravager, sacrifice all of your robots, including Ravager itself. Even if you don't have an Academy Ruins in play, if you draw one, you can always Reclaim Ravager as a single recursive threat that can get big very quickly and reliably stops Swords to Plowshares from exiling it. Speaking of Ruins + Ravager, in response to Swords, if you have Drum + Ravager + Ruins + another land, you can tap Ravager for mana, sacrifice Ravager, and then while remaining in that phase, you can Ruins targeting Ravager.

- You probably don't need to be told this, but always cast an Ornithopter/Memnite after a Springleaf Drum. I see way too many awful Affinity players on MWS who do the reverse. When I used to run Galvanic Blast, I shut down a mirror opponent for the entire game because I Blast'd his Thopter when he cast the Drum after he played Thopter.

- You know you can sacrifice Ravager to itself right? I'm assuming you do. Just remember, if you have multiple Ravagers, don't just sacrifice a Ravager to itself in response to removal, use the other Ravager's ability to sacrifice the targeted Ravager. You get at least 2 counters of value as opposed to the minimum of 1 you would get from sacrificing the targeted Ravager to itself to trigger Modular.

- Here's another Ravager tip. If you have Tezzeret down and you choose to -1 to make Ravager a 5/5 artifact creature, Ravager becomes a 6/6 since its base p/t is 0 with a +1 counter on top.

- Ok, no more Ravager tips. Oh, one more. You can make use of excess Opals in your hand with Ravager. Use this caveat conservatively and try to wait until after you untap with Ravager so you can fully utilize the Ravager trick for mana acceleration, into say something like Tezzeret.

- Seriously, no more Ravager tips. We're moving onto Tezzeret. Using his -1 ability on a Darksteel Citadel makes it into a 5/5 indestructible Artifact Land Creature. It can't be destroyed by Wasteland (nor even targeted by Abrupt Decay), but it can be tapped by Rishadan Port. If they play a The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, then you can 'choose' to let Darksteel destroy itself, but nothing will happen since it's indestructible!

- Be mindful that you can use Tezzeret's -1 ability to target your opponent's artifacts, especially an opponent's Equipment, be it Jitte or Cranial Plating. The equipment you target with Tezz becomes a 5/5 robot and it unattaches from any creature it was equipping. It's not a common interaction, but it's a desperate interaction you can sometimes rely on as opposed to facing the alternative of Jitte ripping apart your board.

- I could've used this interaction yesterday, but I missed it. If your opponent has a Humility and Pithing Needle, you can use Tezz's -1 on the Pithing Needle. This not only makes it a 1/1 due to Humility, but you effectively just shut down Pithing Needle from shutting down whatever card they named with Needle!

- Post board, if you're running Cabal Therapy, keep in mind that Ravager is one of your favorable Cabal sacrifices as the modular counters it has transfers onto another robot once you sacrifice Ravager. You get more value this way.

- Against Deathrite Shaman, if they target anything in your graveyard and you have Relic of Progenitus, you can just target yourself with Relic's first ability and effectively counter DRS's ability on the stack.

- You can activate Cursed Scroll in response to Thoughtcast or Stoneforge Mystic's ETB trigger.

- Against Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or any taxing effects ala Lodestone Golem, Thoughtcast's cost reads = :4::u: + additional mana costs - Affinity for Artifacts. If you have 5 artifacts and they have Thalia, Thoughtcast will always cast :u:.

There's probably more tips I can include there. If I think of anything useful or relevant, I'll edit this post to include it. Hope this helps, good luck on MODO! Don't suck!

straca3

01-22-2013, 12:44 PM

Shawon

01-22-2013, 05:17 PM

Wow thx for the quick and useful answer, Im kind off interested how good is the deck against combo preboard, I checked some results from dailies and it seems that combo is half of the meta atm + I'd like to know whats the matchup against Burn because a lot of players will obviously play that.

You gotta be more specific about what combo you're referring to. There are many, many, different combo decks in Legacy that are all viable and competitive.

Against fast combo such as Storm and Belcher, you lose g1. Post-board games are winnable, but you need to play to a T. Otherwise, it's unlikely for you to win matches consistently.

Show and Tell can be addressed by O-Ring and Cabal Therapy. Use them wisely.

As for Combo Elves, try to get Jitte online early, and save any Jitte counters for Heritage Druid or Wirewood Symbiote. Canonists stop them from comboing out with Glimpse.

MUD is our nightmare matchup. You can try to use O-Ring and Cabal Therapy, but you will probably lose the game if you let your opponent untap with Metalworker even once.

Relic of Progenitus is good against Dredge and Reanimator obviously. Reanimator does have a Show and Tell backup plan, so don't forget to bring in O-Rings along with your Relics.

Burn has been historically a dicey matchup. A lot of people say it's an unfavorable matchup, but to me, it just comes down to who plays better or who has a better draw. Keep 2 Tezzerets post-board, as you want to threaten them with imminent life gain if they refuse to direct any Burn towards to it.
Cabal Therapy is a good card here, but O-Ring isn't bad if you know they run Ensnaring Bridge or Grim Lavamancer.

Wik

02-05-2013, 12:52 PM

Hey, Just wanted to share a list I've been playing with.

I've been having ok results while playing with this deck so far, the sideboard has some wierd choices, mostly a local meta game thing with the red and blue blasts. But the maindeck has been very solid, I'm only running 12 lands but I've also cut any cards that cost more than 2 realistically.

4 Seat of the Synod
4 Great Furnace
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Mox Opal
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Galvanic Blast
4 Thoughtcast
4 Cranial Plating
4 Memnite
4 Ornithopter
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Invisible Stalker
4 Vault Skirge
4 Signal Pest
SB: 2 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Whipflare
SB: 3 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Blue Elemental Blast

MirrorMask

02-05-2013, 09:35 PM

SaintS

02-18-2013, 07:47 PM

Hello everyone, I already posted that on MTG Salvation, but as I'm more of a "The Source" guy, I wanted to post it here too;

There was someone on MTGS that said he thinks we should change the deck as the archetype changed a lot since the begining, and as far as I'm concerned, I agree; now here is what I'm working on for the moment :

// 16 Lands
4 Glimmervoid
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Tree of Tales
4 Vault of Whispers

//29 Creatures
3 Etched Champion
3 Master of Etherium
3 Ornithopter
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Baleful Strix
4 Memnite
4 Shardless Agent
4 Vault Skirge

//3 Planeswalker
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

//8 Artifacts
4 Cranial Plating
4 Mox Opal

//4 Sorceries
4 Ancestral Vision

I'm basically trying to build something with more CA than the older version, but I'm also trying to keep an explosive deck that can come out really quickly, that's why I kept Memnite and Ornithopter, although they are not so great cascaded spells.

What do you think of the deck, do you have any advice?

thanks a lot!

-SaintS

Mr. Froggy

02-18-2013, 08:05 PM

You should run Thoughtcast, it's one of the most powerful cards in the deck.

SaintS

02-19-2013, 04:17 AM

You should run Thoughtcast, it's one of the most powerful cards in the deck.

That's funny because the first version I posted on salvation was with thoughtcast, but someone suggested AV as it could be cascaded. I don't really know which one I should play ... Any advice or comment on the rest of the pack?

Justin

02-19-2013, 09:31 AM

Play Thoughtcast. It's not even close. It draws you cards right away for U. Ancestral Vision is very conditional. Sure, you might be able to draw three with it after a Shardless Agent, but most of the time it will cascade into a different card (such as Ornithopter or Memnite). If you draw and suspend AV, you have a wait a long time to get your card. Agent/AV might be OK in some control decks, but they aren't good in an aggro deck like Affinity.

Your mana curve is also poor. You run only 16 land with four legendary moxen. That's way too light, considering all the three and four drops you are running. You should add 3-4 Springleaf Drum to your deck in place of creatures.

Shawon

02-19-2013, 05:59 PM

I think the first step anyone can take to remodeling Affinity for today's Legacy metagame is to stop putting so much importance and emphasis on Cranial Plating. Then, the next step would be to try to keep a balance between holistic synergy within the deck and individual card quality.

To put this into perspective, I'm going to post my list, which I feel is competitive in today's Legacy metagame:

Mana
16 Artifact Lands (UWB + Darksteel)
4 Drum
4 Mox Opal
1 Academy Ruins
1 Paradise Mantle

4 Memnite
4 Ornithopter
4 Ravager
4 Master of Etherium
4 Etched Champion
3 SFM

4 TC
3 Tezz
2 Plating
2 Night's Whisper
1 Leonin Bola
1 Jitte

SB:
2 Canonist
3 O-Ring
4 Cage
4 MB Trap
2 Vedalken Certarch

After two months of running SFM (finally came around to it) and noticing how often I was boarding out 2-3 Cranial Platings against Jund or even Show and Tell, cutting 2 Cranial Plating from the MD has made sideboarding much easier. Because I run SFM, I still run the same threat density of 4 MD Cranial Plating, except with SFM I have increased versatility as I can also tutor for Jitte in games 1-3 as well as Paradise Mantle.

BTW, Paradise Mantle has AMAZING synergy with Stoneforge Mystic. I'm surprised how so many Affinity players run SFM in their list, but I have never seen a list that uses SFM and Mantle. Try it!

Shawon

02-21-2013, 12:35 PM

I changed the Night's Whispers to Leonin Bola and the 3rd Mystic. Having Leonin Bola along with Paradise Mantle, Umezawa's Jitte and Cranial Plating as fetchable targets for Stoneforge Mystic make SFM a real skill-tester in the deck.

Moreover, Leonin Bola turns itself and SFM into actual answers to S&T Emrakuls. I beat a g1 S&T player by S&Ting my Mystic, searching up Leonin Bola, tapping my fresh Mystic w/ Drum and land to Vial in Bola with my 1st Mystic.

Shawon

02-22-2013, 02:55 PM

No comments or feedback? Aren't we as a majority dissatisifed with Affinity and are trying to rebuild the deck to keep up with the format? There's an Affinity thread in the N&D section titled: "Blue Lagoon: an Affinity thread that isn't terrible," so clearly there is some movement to try to revitalize the deck. I like to netdeck just as much as the next guy, but anyone reading this can't just expect to wait for someone to post a list that you like or you believe will win you matches. The progress of Affinity is a collaborative effort. I invite that collaboration within this thread. Just have some reasoning to back up your choices. Or hell, you can just bash on my ideas and tell me why I'm wrong or why my choices stink. I welcome all sorts of criticism.

With that out of the way, more changes!

MD:

-3 Ravager
-1 Tezz

+2 Skirge
+2 Certarch

SB:

-2 Certarch
+1 Tezz
+1 Canonist

Pretty much, I want the 3rd Canonist because I want to hedge my Storm/Tide matches. I've always been a little unhappy with >2 Tezz MD, so having the 3rd Tezz in the SB makes me a little happier. Certarch is just so versatile that I would rather have them MD. I believe these changes make my g1 against Sneak Attack really positive, since I have 3 outs to Emrakul, and 1 of them can be found with a 3-of in my deck. I like those odds!

Mr. Froggy

02-22-2013, 04:44 PM

If someone hadn't stolen my collection, I would still push be pushing Affinity...

Shawon

02-22-2013, 05:32 PM

If someone hadn't stolen my collection, I would still push be pushing Affinity...

That sucks dude. I hope you're able to recover your collection someday or build it back up again. I liked your input in this thread, it will be missed.

SaintS

02-22-2013, 05:37 PM

@Everyone :
alright, here is what I think : Affinity has to change, we can't play anymore our little creatures as memnite and ornithopter that don't do a all lot; we need to be more cost effective, I agree on the comment shawon did earlier saying that people give too much importance to Cranial Plating, even if it's really good, you can't make a list or a game just putting all your hopes into it. From my point of view, I'm trying to make a Metalcraft-based deck, keeping the artefacts but making it more tempo. I'll post the list just under.

@Shawon : Why would you play a Paradise Mantle instead of a Jitte (for exemple)? this is a true question, I'm not trying to flame or anything, just trying to understand. the same question come for Leonin Bola.

So here is the list I spoke about :

//19 Lands
3 Tree of Tales
4 Ancient Den
4 City of Brass
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers

//26 Creatures
3 Etched Champion
3 Master of Etherium
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Vault Skirge
3 Vedalken Certarch
4 Baleful Strix
4 Shardless Agent

//3 Planeswalkers
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

//6 Artefacts
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Cranial Plating
3 Mox Opal

//3 Instant
3 Dispatch

//4 Sorceries
4 Ancestral Vision

There are a lot of 3-of, but I like the decklist as it is, even if I didn't test it yet.
Every Creatures brings her "little-something", control, draw, helps in fights (lifelink, deathtouch) or is a good finisher. Vision is just really good, why prefer it instead of thoughtcast? well, beeing a bit more "tempo" we can afford to cast it T1-2 and wait for it to resolve; It's also a better cascade target (not difficult as thoughtcast couldn't be cascaded ^^)

The Green "splash" was for the Agent that brings us a lot of CA (and a blocker) so I wanted to add a color, white was the best color from the two other available as it brings control (Tidehollow Sculler - Dispatch (our Path to Exile without negative point)) and also the Stoneforge-Package.

The targets for the Stoneforge Mystic are really standart ... 2 Cranial Plating because it's really good and a jitte because ... well ... why not?!

Being a controlish version I went up to 19 Lands, City of brass is there instead of Glimmervoid because it helps us keeping hands that could/would have been bad with Glimmer! Exemple : Glimmer and Vault T1. Vault takes a bolt (or whatever other removal) so we would be without a creature (/artefact) and we would lose our glimmervoid too.
There are only 3 Mox Opal because I couldn't fit a 4th one in the list and because I feel like 3 mox + 19 lands is far enough for our list.

There you go, if you have any question, if you want to try the list and give any feedback, good or bad, feel free to do so, I would be happy to hear what you think about my list!

Thanks a lot
-SaintS

Shawon

02-22-2013, 06:05 PM

@Shawon : Why would you play a Paradise Mantle instead of a Jitte (for exemple)? this is a true question, I'm not trying to flame or anything, just trying to understand. the same question come for Leonin Bola.

My mistake! The list is supposed to have 1 Jitte in there. So I am running 1 Paradise Mantle, 1 Jitte, 2 Platings, and 1 Bola as Stoneforge targets.

I'll try to answer more of your question later, through editing this post. Watch for it.

slave

02-23-2013, 01:56 AM

I agree on the comment shawon did earlier saying that people give too much importance to Cranial Plating, even if it's really good...
3 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Vedalken Certarch
4 Ancestral Vision

2 Cranial Plating;
The targets for the Stoneforge Mystic are really standart ... 2 Cranial Plating because it's really good and a jitte because ... well ... why not?!

Some interesting choices!
I like Stoneforge Mystic, I believe this is a very good addition to the deck, even if Tezz doesn't have great synergy with it.
Jitte = :cool:
Although, I'm not sure about dropping Plating numbers. I may be out of line here, but I see anything lower than 4 Plating to be insufficient. Some of you state we rely on Plating too much, and that it's not a crucial piece. Based on the games play, a lot of the time it comes down to whether I could smack them with a Plating to the face.
If not, Affinity lacks quality defence as our threat denisty relies on having a good board presence, and without a good opening hand, we're down to tiny chumpers. BOOOooo!!!
Diluting our fast start with Death-toucher's is cute, but they just play their removal and hit us anyway.

I've been testing Enlightened Tutor for this reason. I like it, as it's capable of grabbiing us anything in the deck (apart from Tezz), it helps with mana-screw, can fetch an Etched Champion for chumping or swinging, Jitte, Plating, Revoker etc.
I like SFM as a chumper, but E-Tutor just seems far more flexible, it also gets around targetted discard effects, and Mill strategies aren't common.
E-tutor also has another advantage; against SnT/Sneak variants, we can fish out an answer like O-ring, Spine of Ish-Sah etc etc., and Tezz has good synergy with it too, being able to +1 afterwards (potentially).

Tidehollow Sculler is a unique one! Team Italia uses that too i think, seems a good card, but without a Mom, counter or heavy discard? I like this one in the right build, but I won't be running it as we have no way to support it.

Certarch seems useful - I've not tested that one, how effective is this card against greedy manabases?

And introducing Cascade? How are you finding it? Is mana-screw a problem?
Vision's seems worthwhile in you initial 7, but I wonder how useful you find it when you top-deck it turn 3 or 4 when you don't have cascade, when a Thoughtcast would've been way more useful?
(I tried it a while back, 4 turns is a long time to wait!)

Sorry to be so critical, I've had this deck for a while, and like most of you (it seems), my results haven't been too flash.
My list is BUW, full of the usual suspects, although I like a full 4 Plating, a Jitte, 3 E-tutor, and a Darkblast.
Darkblast is a card I don't rate hugely, but I've found it useful at nailing those first turn Lackey's, DRS, Mom etc., and being able to constantly recur it is awesome! It does leave us more open to extraction effects however so I'm still not sure whether it's gonna stay.

SaintS

02-23-2013, 05:18 AM

Some interesting choices!
I like Stoneforge Mystic, I believe this is a very good addition to the deck, even if Tezz doesn't have great synergy with it.
Jitte = :cool:

Stoneforge doesn't always have a great synergy with Tezz, but Tezz is a really good finisher; and you could find yourself doing the +1 on tezz, putting away an equip and then playing a stoneforge to go and fetch it, that's also a reason why I play the 2 cards ^^

Thanks for your feedbacks, I'll try to answer everything when I'll test the deck a bit more

Shawon

02-23-2013, 12:26 PM

@Shawon : Why would you play a Paradise Mantle instead of a Jitte (for exemple)? this is a true question, I'm not trying to flame or anything, just trying to understand. the same question come for Leonin Bola.

Alright, now I have time to answer this question. Like I said before, I forgot to add Jitte to my posted list so I am running both Mantle and Jitte. Paradise Mantle is pretty good on its own as a mana fixer and mana accelerator. Let me elaborate on that so you can see how unique a mana source Mantle is. It's a 0-cost artifact, so obviously Mantle is good at setting up Metalcraft on turn 1 for Mox Opal, kind of like a 9th Memnite/Thopter if you look at it that way. If you play Artifact Land, Opal, and Paradise Mantle on turn 1, you can cast SFM on turn 1.

You can equip Paradise Mantle onto any creature to set up mana acceleration for the next turn or mana fix on the same or next turn. Say you have 3 Memnites and 3 Darksteel Citadels on the board, with 3 Thoughtcasts sitting in your hand. You draw Paradise Mantle, and you do a jig, because you can now cast Mantle, equip to the 1st Memnite, tap it for U, cast Thoughtcast, and rinse & repeat for the other Memnites. This is a neat mana fixing trick that Paradise Mantle can do but Springleaf Drum can't since Drum can only tap one creature for mana.

Now remember that Paradise Mantle is an Equipment. This is really important because with Stoneforge Mystic in the deck, you can find Paradise Mantle if you resolve Stoneforge Mystic's ETB trigger. You might wonder why I would ever want to search up a Mantle instead of a Jitte or Plating. Pretty simple, there are situations where you are color screwed out of blue mana and if you could just find one blue source, you could cast the THoughtcast/Master/Tezz sitting in your hand. Furthermore, sometimes speed matters more than power. If you have at least 1 mana open after resolving Stoneforge Mystic and finding Mantle, you can just equip the Mantle onto Stoneforge Mystic to accelerate your next turn play, such as casting a Tezzeret with or without mana leftover for protection from Daze effects. One fancy play you can do if you have a Drum, Artifact Land, and Mox Opal/Ancient Den is cast Stoneforge Mystic, cast Paradise Mantle, and cast Thoughtcast since you now have four artifacts to reduce Thoughtcast to :u:.

Leonin Bola is a recent addition that I've been trying out because I remembered that I hate losing to Tarmogoyfs. I used to handle uncaged Goyfs pretty handily with Relic of Progenitus, but I have no room for that card anymore. I also didn't want to run Dispatch, because it would mean cutting artifacts thus reducing my synergies. Leonin Bola is perfect because it neutralizes 'vanilla' or beefy creatures such as Goyf, Tombstalker, and Phyrexian Dreadnought and I find it anytime I want if I resolve Stoneforge Mystic. As I said before, Leonin Bola has excellent use against S&T decks, especially Sneak Attack, because it can stop Emrakul dead in its tracks even if it was put into play via Sneak Attack.

TLDR: I could have condensed to you why Paradise Mantle is good in a few sentences, but I wanted to give you specific examples so you can see how Paradise Mantle makes Stoneforge Mystic act as a Green Sun's Zenith for the deck. Mantle is definitely not better than Springleaf Drum, but I already run four of Drum so Paradise Mantle as a mana source is pretty decent on its own merit.

Although, I'm not sure about dropping Plating numbers. I may be out of line here, but I see anything lower than 4 Plating to be insufficient. Some of you state we rely on Plating too much, and that it's not a crucial piece. Based on the games play, a lot of the time it comes down to whether I could smack them with a Plating to the face.

That used to be true before Abrupt Decay, though. Abrupt Decay doesn't make Plating into a bad card, but it does making going all in on Cranial Plating a vulnerable strategy. That is why Affinity needs to change its focus less on Cranial Plating and more on individual value or card advantage. With 2 SFM and 2 Plating, you are still running 4 virtual copies of Cranial Plating anyway.

Final Fortune

02-23-2013, 05:23 PM

Shawon

02-23-2013, 08:54 PM

I don't understand why you feel that traditional Affinity needs to change at all, Miracles is on the decline, Reanimator is struggling and Mana Dredge is dead thanks to the rise of Jund, and most aggro-control decks are either playing Nimble Mongoose, Tarmogoyf or Tombstalker, all of which are virtually destroyed by Rest in Piece. It seems pretty well positioned as a dark horse in the format if you want to play aggro-combo.

My list is more or less similar to the standard Stoneforge list. I didn't mean to imply that another variant of Affinity needs to be invented, but I do still think the deck needs to change. It just needs to reduce its focus on Cranial Plating and increase its card-for-card value, as well as seriously address its combo matchups.

slave

02-24-2013, 02:46 AM

My list is more or less similar to the standard Stoneforge list. I didn't mean to imply that another variant of Affinity needs to be invented, but I do still think the deck needs to change. It just needs to reduce its focus on Cranial Plating and increase its card-for-card value, as well as seriously address its combo matchups.... ....Abrupt Decay doesn't make Plating into a bad card, but it does making going all in on Cranial Plating a vulnerable strategy. That is why Affinity needs to change its focus less on Cranial Plating and more on individual value or card advantage. With 2 SFM and 2 Plating, you are still running 4 virtual copies of Cranial Plating anyway.

I understand what you're saying, but almost every card we play is vulnerable to Abrupt Decay. How is any other option we play, bar Batterskull, any different?
Please don't think I'm being overly critical here Shawon. I really appreciate all the great work you've been putting into this deck, I just have a few different thoughts.
So here we go, sans sugar coating (cos its for pussys.)

I disagree that Plating is something we have to cut to make the deck better.
Before AD we had Naturalize, Krosan Grip etc etc. that did the same job, and had us just as susceptable to extraction effects.

Lets say you cut the Plating to two, and play 4 SFM. Lets set the scenario against a deck running AD.
In order to play Mystic, you need one white mana and a colourless. Plating costs two. Equip is one.
So you SFM a Plating into your hand, and in order to cast that Plating, you're paying the same mana cost regardless. The pro is that you've scored a chumper, the con is that you need a white mana source, and relative to a fast start, you've now got a chump on the field and a bomb in your hand. I'd rather have that bomb on the field....and whilst SFM gives us flexibilty, it's also setting us back a turn. We're playing aggro!!!!
But, how many decks run discard? Shitloads!
You play a Mystic, grabbing Plating and BANG - on their turn they play targetted discard or a Cabal Therapy. Against the kind of deck that plays AD, they're almost definitely gonna have discard too. Playing into a discard trap is the wrong move IMO, unless you are able to cast that sucker immediately.

Relative to what you said about making the deck better against Combo (or Storm), this is why I have been favouring Enlightened Tutor.
It can grab us hate, answers, stalling effects, mana sources or anything else in the deck. This is especiialy important post board, and gives us the flexibility of a silver-bullet style sideboard, so we're able to inlcude whatever effects you may favour, like;
Thorn of Amethyst, Ethersworn Canonist, Phyrexian Revoker, Leonin Bola, Engineered Explosives, Grafdigger's Cage, Meekstone etc., aswell as a whole lot of enchantments to hose certain decks like Leyline of Sanctity, Rest in Peace etc.
It can even fetch up an Expediton Map to find a Karakas if you really wanted to....
And then there's creatures we may need to beat face or chump block with, when the game is up in the air. Its way more flexible than SFM pre and post board.
SFM is a great card, but it's very limited to answering the problems when we're getting beaten!!! :mad:

Personally, i think Etched Champion is our best defender and our best beater in one. I'm sure you all agree on that.
I think E-tutor deserves a spot here, as AD can rarely touch this guy in a proper artifact-heavy build.
It also gives us a much more varied and flexible sideboard that is tutorable on turn 1, especially important against decks running Show and Tell.
My 0.02c.:cool:

Shawon

02-24-2013, 09:56 AM

slave, I believe you are the first to acknowledge that I put any work into Affinity! I appreciate your kind words!

I understand what you're saying, but almost every card we play is vulnerable to Abrupt Decay. How is any other option we play, bar Batterskull, any different?

I disagree that Plating is something we have to cut to make the deck better.
Before AD we had Naturalize, Krosan Grip etc etc. that did the same job, and had us just as susceptable to extraction effects.

It's all the difference. Prior to Abrupt Decay, most decks didn't run any MD means of artifact removal. That's why it was feasible for Affinity to rely on Cranial Plating beats, where you can have a board of just 2 mana sources, 3 Ornithopters and 1 Plating and have a legitimate chance of winning because your opponent couldn't answer Plating. And it's not just Plating Abrupt Decay can answer. Abrupt Decay gives the BGx player the option to disrupt our mana sources to complement their discard or Wastelands.

Abrupt Decay gives decks already packing permission/discard and Wasteland added flexibility to take a mana denial strategy against us. Abrupt Decay doesn't invalidate Affinity's existence, it just changes the game like the Jund primer says about the Affinity matchup. I think it's time we change our game.

It's not just Abrupt Decay that's inspiring my changing philosophy about Affinity. Think about it, how many Cranial Platings do you actually use per game? One, right, and sometimes you can kill FTW with Double Plating beats. Against combo decks, multiple Cranial Platings are near useless if you can't use them to kill your opponent by your 3rd turn. Against combo post-board, I only keep 1 Plating in the deck, so that if I have time, I can go for the kill with SFM -> Plating.

Lets say you cut the Plating to two, and play 4 SFM. Lets set the scenario against a deck running AD.
In order to play Mystic, you need one white mana and a colourless. Plating costs two. Equip is one.
So you SFM a Plating into your hand, and in order to cast that Plating, you're paying the same mana cost regardless. The pro is that you've scored a chumper, the con is that you need a white mana source, and relative to a fast start, you've now got a chump on the field and a bomb in your hand. I'd rather have that bomb on the field....and whilst SFM gives us flexibilty, it's also setting us back a turn. We're playing aggro!!!!
But, how many decks run discard? Shitloads!
You play a Mystic, grabbing Plating and BANG - on their turn they play targetted discard or a Cabal Therapy. Against the kind of deck that plays AD, they're almost definitely gonna have discard too. Playing into a discard trap is the wrong move IMO, unless you are able to cast that sucker immediately.

Sure that might happen, but I still run 2 Plating, so it's not like I'll never topdeck one naturally or have 1 in my opening hand. I just don't think the difference between 2 and 4 is as relevant as you're making it out to be, considering I run SFM to add virtual copies of Plating. Also, keep in my mind that Plating isn't my only target with SFM. Believe it or not, I often SFM for Mantle to set myself up to cast Masters or Tezz.

Relative to what you said about making the deck better against Combo (or Storm), this is why I have been favouring Enlightened Tutor.
It can grab us hate, answers, stalling effects, mana sources or anything else in the deck. This is especiialy important post board, and gives us the flexibility of a silver-bullet style sideboard, so we're able to inlcude whatever effects you may favour, like;
Thorn of Amethyst, Ethersworn Canonist, Phyrexian Revoker, Leonin Bola, Engineered Explosives, Grafdigger's Cage, Meekstone etc., aswell as a whole lot of enchantments to hose certain decks like Leyline of Sanctity, Rest in Peace etc.
It can even fetch up an Expediton Map to find a Karakas if you really wanted to....
And then there's creatures we may need to beat face or chump block with, when the game is up in the air. Its way more flexible than SFM pre and post board.
SFM is a great card, but it's very limited to answering the problems when we're getting beaten!!! :mad:

Enlightened Tutor in Affinity is very interesting, but as someone who has had a hand in playing combo or control, I never really liked the e-tutor toolbox. E-Tutor is inherent card disadvantage, and like what Koby said somewhere in some thread, E-tutor really sucks when the silver bullet you fetch gets countered. Also, when it comes to gy hate, it's much better to just have the gy hate in your hand then wait until EOT to find it.

slave

02-24-2013, 01:16 PM

Prior to Abrupt Decay, most decks didn't run any MD means of artifact removal. ...... Abrupt Decay gives the BGx player the option to disrupt our mana sources to complement their discard or Wastelands.
.....
Enlightened Tutor in Affinity is very interesting, but as someone who has had a hand in playing combo or control, I never really liked the e-tutor toolbox. E-Tutor is inherent card disadvantage, and like what Koby said somewhere in some thread, E-tutor really sucks when the silver bullet you fetch gets countered. Also, when it comes to gy hate, it's much better to just have the gy hate in your hand then wait until EOT to find it.

You make some good points.
So if we're fearing LD, maybe we should up our Darksteel lands?
I know AD is now quite a common card, so I get what you're saying - but whatever they kill with AD, we're still both trading a card for a card.
I don't see it as any different than any of the anti-artifact stuff (like Shattering Spree etc.) we've faced before.
Artifact hate hasn't been super common main deck, there you're right. But there's always been cards like Vindicate floating around, sooooo.......
Why not E-tute? It can get us mana-sources can't it.:smile:

Yes, E-tutor IS card disadvantage. And yes, counter sucks against either ET or SFM. The thing is, we can tutor for anything, not just equipment.
I think my point is a good one - equipment doesn't really do that much to help you when you're gonna lose. E-tutor has the possibility to get anything that could swing the game from your deck, including a mana-source you need after getting AD or Wasteland in your face.
I would've thought the ability to grab a SnT answer was reason enough.
RE: What you said on Grave hate; E-tutor has the same relation as to your argument about 4 SFM and 2 plates. I like to run a side that is flexible, but singles are rarely useful against blue decks. I realise most people take "silver bullets" to mean a side full of singles, but I always include multiples for the really scary decks like Storm & Dredge.

I'm still gonna run E-tute. I just see it as too useful. Being able to pop a top-deck Ethersworn Canonist, Rule of Law/Arcane Laboratory against Storm is a good play, as they're unlikely to be able to do anything to us after that, provided we get enough time to actually cast it.
Likewise, being able to fetch up a mana-source in order to cast Tezz is something I've done regularly too....
Against combo the options are a little narrower, but we have options.

I should also say, I have been running Standstill, so maybe that's why I'm lovin E-tute so much! I love this card in this deck so far, but I'm pretty early in testing it, see how I go....
Are any of you running Standstill in your 60?

Smea.gol.lum

02-25-2013, 05:28 PM

I would begin with 4 Cranial Platings in every Affinity list, so i definately agree with slave on this topic.
You should change the cards around Plating due to Abrupt Decay rather than cutting the Platings themselves, because Plating is easily the best card in Affinity.

Seriously, why should you play Affinity if you don't run 4 Platings?? You have to keep in mind what the deck you play can do best/better than other decks. Ask yourself: Which good cards can Affinity run that other decks can't?

Affinity decks profit most from the Affinity and Metalcraft mechanic as well as from cards that turn your artifacts into damage like Arcbound Ravager, Master of Etherium, Tezzeret and Cranial Plating. That's why I think that you shouldn't try to do things that other decks can do better anyway, like playing slow and controllish cards (e.g. Baleful Strix). Affinity is an AGGRO deck and nothing else.
I see that Abrupt Decay is very common now, but it shouldn't make you remove the most powerful cards of your deck. If you fear Abrupt Decay you probably shouldn't play Affinity because AD can hit nearly every card in our deck.

@Shawon: Why have you abandoned the addition of Cursed Scroll? Has it turned to be not as good as in the beginnings of your testing sessions?

Has anyone tested Gitaxian Probe yet? It is very nice to know wether you can go all-in (e.g. with Arcbound Ravager) or not.
Sakashima's Student could also be worth a test. It helps against Emrakul decks and it is nice to copy other opposing creatures like Goyf or Stoneforge Mystic fetching a Plating.

AmishLuvah

02-25-2013, 05:42 PM

slave

02-25-2013, 07:42 PM

Shawon

02-25-2013, 08:38 PM

Abandoning plating? He not abandoning it, he's varying his threats. It's a smart move in a changing meta. I myself run 2 platings, 2 jittes, 1 sword of fire and ice, 1 sword of light and shadow and 1 leonin bola and I'm digging the toolbox. I find it makes the deck more flexible but then again I play the deck W/R so your mileage may vary with your color scheme.

Thank you. That's exactly the point what I wanted to say but would've tried to convey with too many paragraphs.

I would begin with 4 Cranial Platings in every Affinity list, so i definately agree with slave on this topic.
You should change the cards around Plating due to Abrupt Decay rather than cutting the Platings themselves, because Plating is easily the best card in Affinity.

Seriously, why should you play Affinity if you don't run 4 Platings?? You have to keep in mind what the deck you play can do best/better than other decks. Ask yourself: Which good cards can Affinity run that other decks can't?

Affinity decks profit most from the Affinity and Metalcraft mechanic as well as from cards that turn your artifacts into damage like Arcbound Ravager, Master of Etherium, Tezzeret and Cranial Plating. That's why I think that you shouldn't try to do things that other decks can do better anyway, like playing slow and controllish cards (e.g. Baleful Strix). Affinity is an AGGRO deck and nothing else.
I see that Abrupt Decay is very common now, but it shouldn't make you remove the most powerful cards of your deck. If you fear Abrupt Decay you probably shouldn't play Affinity because AD can hit nearly every card in our deck.

I get that you're saying that every Affinity list needs 4, but what I don't understand is the argument behind that and how my changes compromises the strategical integrity of the deck. Like the other guy posting above said, I am not abandoning Cranial Plating in the least. I've only cut 2, out of the 4 I used to run. I still rely on Cranial beats as an offensive strategy. The only tangible difference between running 2 and 4 Platings is based on statistics. I will have less instances of opening my hand with Plating, and I will have less occurrences of having drawn or expended more than 2 Platings in a given game. The latter instances are insignificant, because I only need at maximum two Plating in an entire game if I am not taking attrition of resources (i.e. Abrupt Decay) into account. I will have less instances of an opening hand with Plating in it, so that does mean less of the turn 1 Plating nutz, but I'm not concerned about that because I'm trying to improve card-for-card value in the deck with SFM. In terms of actually seeing Cranial Plating, I don't see how different are my chances of finding access to a Plating worsen if I now run 4 Stoneforge Mystic.

@Shawon: Why have you abandoned the addition of Cursed Scroll? Has it turned to be not as good as in the beginnings of your testing sessions?

Has anyone tested Gitaxian Probe yet? It is very nice to know wether you can go all-in (e.g. with Arcbound Ravager) or not.
Sakashima's Student could also be worth a test. It helps against Emrakul decks and it is nice to copy other opposing creatures like Goyf or Stoneforge Mystic fetching a Plating.

Cursed Scroll is still good, but I cut it because it doesn't help the matchups I want to address.

=============================================================================

New decklist with changes:

Mana
16 Artifact Lands
1 Ruins
4 Drum
4 Opal
2 Mantle

Creatures
4 Memnite
4 Thopter
4 Master
4 SFM
3 Skirge
3 Champ
1 Ravager

Noncreatures
4 TC
2 Plating
2 Tezz
1 Leonin Bola
1 BATTERSKULL!!!!

SB:
4 Cage
3 Canonist
3 MBT
3 O-RIng
2 Certarch

You may not outright notice, but I removed the Jitte, I removed the 4th Champ, put the Certarchs back into the SB. I cut the Jitte because the primary reason for running it in the first place is to neutralize an opponent's Jitte. I have Leonin Bola to prevent a Jitte-wielder from getting counters. Maybe I might still need JItte, but at least I get to try this other Equipment... BATTERSKULL!

I thought I'd try Batterskull instead of Tezz #3 because it's much faster and more relevant to get down against tempo decks such as RUG.

AmishLuvah

02-25-2013, 09:17 PM

W/R?
That makes me curious.... if you're playing W/R whats your list look like?

I get the toolbox approach.
2 swords, 2 Jitte's and 2 Plating, Bola is a nice mix, but the swords I'm not so sure about.
In order to equip a sword, you're spending 5 mana. Shawon was talking about the threat of Abrupt Decay.
I don't wanna spend 3-4 mana on Plating, let alone 5 on a sword. The swords are awesome, but I've always found that this deck can struggle to find a lot of mana - thereby slowing your plays down and exposing yourself to permission spells like Spell Pierce and Daze etc.
You have to ask, is the sword worth the extra mana cost? How much does it add to the deck?

Now, Batterskull is a card I'd like to hear people's opinions on. It's out of AD's reach!
It has a high mana cost, a high equip cost, but some of that can be negated by SFMs' activated ability.
I see it as too rich a cost for this deck, but what about all of you? Thoughts?

My list:

4x Ancient Den
4x Great Furnace
2x Darksteel Citadel
3x Glimmervoid
2x City of Brass
3x Mox Opal
3x Springleaf Drum

4x Memnite
4x Ornithopter
4x Signal Pest
4x Frogmite
3x Vault Skirge
3x Etched Champion
3x Stoneforge Mystic

2x Cranial Plating
2x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Leonin Bola

4x Lightning Bolt
3x Boros Charm

I'm playing a slower game here but Cranial Plating + Boros Charm set to doublestrike = win, it also protects our things from being destroyed and in a pinch we can do four to the face with it. It's been so good to me that I need to make space for a fourth one. My sideboard options are much better in these colors so my combo match up is a bit better all around. I do lose card draw being out of blue but SFM has made my card selection that much better and the Sword of Fire and Ice has helped a little bit. When Abrupt Decay has been an issue I have tended to bait them out using the swords or a jitte and go for a kill with the plating. By the way, Sword of Fire and Ice is nutty with double Strike as well. ;)

As to Batterskull, I've been a little afraid of it. It can really only be cast with an SFM in play and 3 mana is about the top of my curve. I really don't want to risk it but I might give it a try because the card is that good.

Smea.gol.lum

02-26-2013, 11:27 AM

I get that you're saying that every Affinity list needs 4, but what I don't understand is the argument behind that and how my changes compromises the strategical integrity of the deck.

I didn't mean you with that paragraph ;). I just wanted to point out the direction Affinity has to go. Your list is of course a solid aggro approach.

Yan

02-26-2013, 05:31 PM

By the way, Sword of Fire and Ice is nutty with double Strike as well. ;)

Hate to be a dream crusher, but the creature with SoFI will have protection from red, so you can't really give double strike to it with Boros Charm. Hope you have not done this, no matter how nutty it is, cause it's kind of illegal ;)

slave

02-26-2013, 05:33 PM

1 BATTERSKULL!!!!
I thought I'd try Batterskull instead of Tezz #3 because it's much faster and more relevant to get down against tempo decks such as RUG.

Love to know how it tests for you.
I've been giving a spin, so far I'm not so sure! It's killer when it hits, but I'm finding it's not too easy to get it into play. (SFM or not)

AmishLuvah

02-26-2013, 05:54 PM

Hate to be a dream crusher, but the creature with SoFI will have protection from red, so you can't really give double strike to it with Boros Charm. Hope you have not done this, no matter how nutty it is, cause it's kind of illegal ;)

Woops! Thankfully it hasn't come up yet. Oh well, I'll just have to make do with massive plating hits instead. :)

Shawon

02-26-2013, 11:10 PM

Love to know how it tests for you.
I've been giving a spin, so far I'm not so sure! It's killer when it hits, but I'm finding it's not too easy to get it into play. (SFM or not)

Nothing definitive, just a few observations:

- Unless you're facing Goblins, more specifically Krenko, then it seems impossible to lose in the red zone with a Plated Germ token. Apparently, Krenko (+Chieftain) scoffs at a 17/4 Vigilance Lifelinker :cry:
- If you attack with a Germ equipped with Leonin Bola, you can tap an opponent's only blocker at the end of the Declare Attackers phase (before they declare blockers) and hit 4 to your opponent's dome. Or, you can attack with your Germ as usual and then use Bola to tap out an opponent's attacker. Pretty useful tactics when those situations come up.
- You can get added value from the Germ's vigilance by tapping it for Springleaf Drum should you need the mana badly.

Shawon

03-05-2013, 10:41 PM

slave

03-06-2013, 09:45 AM

With the rise of combo, I've finally motivated myself to move all my Tezzs to the board and go hardcore hate-mode with MD Canonists.

Mana
16 Artifact Lands
4 Drum
4 Opal
1 Mantle

Creatures
4 Memnite
4 Thopter
4 Master
4 SFM
4 Canonist
2 Skirge
3 Champ

Noncreatures
4 TC
2 Plating
2 Night's Whisper
1 Leonin Bola
1 BSkull

SB:
4 Cage
3 Tezz
3 MBT
3 O-RIng
2 Certarch

I'm giving the Night's Whisper a 2nd chance, because I feel it remedies the problems when Affinity just loses gas and draws into mana sources. Thoughts on new changes?

Nice list.
I have to ask;
Whats TC? I feel like I should know....

Also, I noticed you have 4 Master, 3 Champ. Whats the reason you've settled on this number?
I personally find the Master, hoever good they are, are usually harder to keep on the field.

Also, I've been playing Standstill. I've been finding it quite effective once our hand is empty, as quite often we have a much better board position, and our opponent is gonna be forced to crack it sooner than later.

Shawon

03-06-2013, 10:06 AM

TC = Thoughtcast

Champion has become less important now that I am running less Platings in my deck. Furthermore, against combo, it is much worse than Master of Etherium in terms of putting your opponent on a clock.

I don't approve of Standstill in Affinity, naturally because I feel that it is only good if you build your deck around it (e.g. Landstill) or if Standstill happens to fit well into your deck (e.g. Merfolk). Furthermore, the best part about the draw 3 from Standstill in those blue decks is that you draw into Force of Will. Against combo, it doesn't matter if you draw 3 cards or 5000 if you're not drawing into any counterspells when they go off that turn. Also,
Standstill can be a very risky card to play. You could be handing out your own death sentence if you cast a Standstill and your opponent responds with a removal spell while Standstill is on the stack.

When you have your opponent's back against the wall, Standstill seems great because unlike the namesake, you're not putting your opponent in a standstill, but more of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't." But if you're using that to defend a card, then you're pretty much putting that card in the 'win-more' category of card evaluations.

slave

03-06-2013, 10:19 AM

TC = Thoughtcast

I don't approve of Standstill in Affinity.....can be a very risky card to play. You could be handing out your own death sentence if you cast a Standstill and your opponent responds with a removal spell while Standstill is on the stack.
When you have your opponent's back against the wall, Standstill seems great because unlike the namesake, you're not putting your opponent in a standstill, but more of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't." But if you're using that to defend a card, then you're pretty much putting that card in the 'win-more' category of card evaluations.

TC = Duh! Oh man....

RE: Standstill. That's fair, I think you have a point, but try think about it this way;

You put a threat on the table (purging your hand) with all your mana sources on t1, then play standstill. I should explain too, my list is concentrating more on purging your hand on turn 1 or 2, less about mid-range threats.
Before they even get to play a single card, you're in front. I find Standstill so far quite good for coaxing out a Force too, much better that than Plating/Mystic etc. So in this context, I find Standstill quite good.
Now, I do conceed that as the game gets on, Standstill is less useful - but my list is concentrating on early game pressure and drawing enough cards to build and maintain that pressure quickly - instead of a mid-range approach.

Shawon

03-10-2013, 06:44 PM

I'm thinking of writing an updated primer for Affinity. The primer at the beginning of this thread is dated to 2009, so it definitely needs a reboot. So why not do the job myself?

Anyway, I'm going about this primer by writing up the matchup analyses first, then writing the introduction, card choices, and filler last. What I have pasted here are my thoughts on the Miracles matchup that I typed today. Please post any constructive criticism anyone, even if you don't play Affinity. I don't like to make promises I can't keep, so I can't guarantee I'll have the whole primer written up anytime soon. So consider my excerpt here as a sample rather than an appetizer for the main course. Either way, let me know what you think!

Miracles
It’s easy to perceive how this matchup can be a nightmare matchup for Affinity. With Terminus alone, the Miracles player can wipe your entire creature offense on turn 2, with just one mana! What can Affinity players do against a one-mana Wrath of God? The answer isn’t that difficult: just remember how you played against Wrath of God. Against Wrath of God, your strategy was playing more conservative while still applying pressure, so that even if they do clear your offense, you can create another one next turn. Now, use the same strategy against Terminus. For example, if you have Memnites and Ornithopters in your opening hand, just play all of your Memnites. One, this minimizes your potential losses if your opponent resolves Terminus. Furthermore, if you resolve a Cranial Plating and you force your opponent to resolve Terminus, then any Ornithoper you land becomes a win condition because of Plating, and you have a good chance of connecting because Ornithopter has flying. Moreover, if you are running Springleaf Drum, and all of your creatures just got removed by Terminus, you want to use those spare Ornithopters to tap for mana to cast Etched Champion or Tezzeret that you might not have had the mana to cast otherwise if you overplayed your Ornithopters into Terminus.

One uncommon way of fighting Terminus is using Arcbound Ravager and Academy Ruins. If your opponent casts a Terminus, you can sacrifice all of your creatures to Ravager and choose to sacrifice Ravager to itself. Then, if you have an untapped Academy Ruins and mana available, you can use Ruins’ ability EOT. Otherwise, you can do it next turn. Even if you don’t have Ruins, you always want to sacrifice your board to Ravager in response to Terminus because if you draw an Academy Ruins, you have the option of rebuilding your offense if you can’t rely on topdecking to increase or maintain board presence. I currently don’t run Ravager, but I find this synergy between Ravager and Ruins to be one worth mentioning to anyone considering running Ravager.

Personally, my favorite way of fighting Terminus used to be countering it! Yes I said, “countering it!” Last year when Miracles took off as a Deck to Beat, I was an outspoken promoter of running MD Spell Pierce. It seems like a counterintuitive solution, considering Terminus costing 1 mana can allow your opponent to pay for Spell Pierce, or simply use Force of Will if they don’t. But from my extensive experience with playing against Miracles, waiting until turn 4 to cast a Terminus from their draw step and having two mana leftover is a luxury that you, the Affinity player, can deny them. If that wasn’t clear, that scenario is a luxury because of three things: 1) if your opponent tries to Miracle-cast Terminus with mana leftover to pay for Spell Pierce, then they need at least three lands and your opponent can’t use Top to set up Terminus in that turn, so the earliest turn they can create that scenario is turn 4; 2) like I mentioned about Top, using Top to set up Terminus on the same draw step gives them one less mana to pay for Spell Pierce; 3) you’re playing Affinity, an aggro deck that can win on turn 3 so your opponent won’t always be able to wait until turn 4 to safely cast Terminus. Even if you can’t use Spell Pierce to counter Terminus, you can use it to protect Tezzeret from countermagic as well, or counter Entreat the Angels.

The third way, and probably the best way, of fighting against Terminus is using Affinity’s favorite planeswalker, Tezzeret Agent of Bolas. If you have a board attacking for lethal next turn, and you drop Tezzeret, you effectively put your opponent into a Catch-22, as they will unlikely be able to stop both your offense and Tezz by the time you untap. Tezz is also great casting post-Terminus. Just by itself, ramping it up +1 counter allows you to quickly rebuild your offense as you are practically drawing 2 cards per turn. The -1 ability can be quite useful as well if your opponent is tapped out, because you can use that vulnerability as an opening if they have low life or an unprotected Jace.

As for dealing with the rest of the Miracles deck, there’s not really anything specific to deal with, but more of just being mindful of what win conditions the Miracle is running. If they are running the Stoneforge package, assume they run Batterskull and play against Miracles like you would against Blade Control while playing conservatively so as to not overextend into Terminus. At the time of this writing, the current flavor of the deck seems to be the one involving the Rest in Peace package. It’s not Rest in Peace that is important, but the cards that combo with it, such as Energy Field and Helm of Obedience. Energy Field is hard to answer without Tezzeret. This is why Tezzeret is the best card you can run against Miracles. Tezzeret’s ultimate bypasses the ‘prevent damage’ clause of Energy Field. Just remember, if your opponent has an Energy Field with no RIP to back it up, even if your opponent has a counterspell, you can effectively Disenchant Energy Field by casting Tezzeret and forcing your opponent to counter it, then trigger Energy Field’s self-destruction. Of course, if your opponent has both Rest in Peace and Energy Field down, then your only shot of winning is either removing Energy Field or resolving Tezz’s ultimate.

No matter what build of Miracles you are facing, Tezzeret is hands-down the best card you can run against them. Tezz is a proactive solution that ignores Energy Field and it allows you to shrug off Terminus either by reassembling your offense or threatening your opponent for lethal next turn. Personally, Tezzerets are the only SB cards I bring in against Miracles. They’re much better than running any specific narrow answers such as Krosan Grip et al.