Tacosnape
11-03-2010, 02:15 PM
Full Metal is my attempt at creating an Affinity deck not really like any others. Basically, there were several problems I ran into that kept me from loving Affinity enough to play it:
1. It had serious issues hitting the right color mana unless it ran excess spots devoted to doing so.
2. It completely got steamrolled by Pernicious Deed, which everybody and their dog plays in my metagame.
3. It didn't mulligan well and struggled to get explosive hands without a full 7-card hand of good cards.
4. It didn't have answers to hardly anything maindecked.
5. It had no late game.
So, to solve these, I decided to do the following:
1. I eliminated all colored spells from the deck.
2. I stuck ways to answer Pernicious Deed into the maindeck.
3. I made the deck have to mulligan less.
4. I loaded up the deck with broad, artifact answers to things.
5. Tried to patch up the deck with decent midgame cards.
The loss of everything from Master of Etherium to Atog to Disciple of the Vault to Dark Confidant to Trinket Mage made me wonder if I had enough power in the deck to go with the versatility and consistency, so I went looking and found an odd solution in Steel Overseer. Overseer became my panic button in stall-outs and gave me a small sense of inevitability in topdeck wars. I'm not going to lie and say he's absolutely incredible, but he's won me games and as far as I can determine he's the best sixth creature slot in the deck. Alongside Affinity staples Arcbound Ravager and Cranial Plating and two copies of the rogueish Salvage Titan, I felt I had enough power to put up a decent fight.
Here's the current list.
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Tree of Tales
2 Seat of the Synod
2 Ancient Den
2 Great Furnace
4 Mox Opal
4 Ornithopter
4 Memnite
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Steel Overseer
2 Salvage Titan
4 Pithing Needle
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Cranial Plating
3 Brittle Effigy
SB:
3 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Ratchet Bomb
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Mindbreak Trap
The manabase is pretty straightforward. Vault of Whispers gets 4-of due to the occasional fast-move of Cranial Plating and the hypothetical once-in-a-lifetime hardcasting of Salvage Titan, which I can't imagine ever happening. It completely doesn't matter how you divide the other colored artifact lands. The land count is 16 with 4 Moxes, which is rarely too little and definitely isn't too much given that you'll have plenty to sacrifice the excess to, and occasionally you'll want to be able to actually activate Brittle Effigy.
Creatures. Memnite, Frogmite, Myr Enforcer, and Arcbound Ravager don't need much explanation. They're all absolutely fantastic in this deck. And I've sort of already explained Steel Overseer. Salvage Titan gives me something to do when I'm light on threats, and it's not uncommon that I play one twice in a single game. He's a beast, but he's not exactly amazing in multiples sometimes. Ornithopter kept his spot because he's a 0-drop, helps against Goblin Lackey a ton, and carries Cranial Plating better than any other guy in the deck.
Cranial Plating, is of course, an absolute beast. Equipment that frequently gives anywhere from a 7-10 boost in power is nuts.
The maindecked sideboardish cards work really well in the deck, actually.
Pithing Needle is just a monster. It's always been one of my favorite cards. If you're leading with it blindly, you should almost always pick Wasteland (Or if your hand is land-heavy, Aether Vial.) It can stop Survival, opposing Jittes, fetchlands, Planeswalkers, Seal of Primordium, Pernicious Deed, etc. It can also keep Knight of the Reliquary from getting completely out of control, which helps a lot if you're attempting to keep one around the same size as a Myr Enforcer. It's got a billion uses, and the fact that it stays in play makes it a great choice.
Relic of Progenitus fights for its spot with Nihil Spellbomb and barely wins, due to the fact that you can use it for it's single tap-remove effect until you absolutely need it, and that it doesn't need black to draw the card in a deck where draw is very scarce. I've won a lot of games just because Relic got me Cranial Plating or Ravager a turn sooner. The drawbacks to Relic over Nihil Spellbomb, of course, are that you need a mana open to crack the thing, and that Relic of Progenitus doesn't always play very nice with Salvage Titan. Oh well. You're still going to steal quite a few games just because you maindeck graveyard hate.
Brittle Effigy might be the worst card in the deck, but it's a monster when you can tap out all your lands/moxes, get that stupid Knight/Goyf/whatever out of your way, then let all those tapped lands pump a Ravager or bring forth a Salvage Titan for a big swing in board position. It takes care of random guys you might struggle with otherwise. There's a possibility it will be the first cut if better options arise, or if Ratchet Bomb just proves to be better despite not being a 1-drop, which you really need this slot to be.
For the ACTUAL sideboard, you've got flexibility. Jitte and SOFI come in to help deal with Tribal asshattery, which can be tough for you if you don't get a great hand. The two Crypts add a little more boost against serious yard-based decks. Chalice and Mindbreak Trap come in for Storm Combo, as does Ratchet Bomb for ETW tokens. Chalice could be Ethersworn Canonist here, but even if the Ancient Den count were 4, that's still only 8 sources to hit the white, so for now it's Chalice. Ratchet Bomb also gets you out of lots of random little problems, like being one of your only feasible outs to a Kataki, War's Wage or Serenity. It's also kind of a monster against Merfolk, and I recommend bringing it in for this matchup over Brittle Effigy.
So yeah. If you're tired of all the problems of Affinity, pick this up, test it out, and help sculpt it. It'll likely be another one of those Tacosnape decks that sits on the back burner for all of eternity, but you never know.:)
1. It had serious issues hitting the right color mana unless it ran excess spots devoted to doing so.
2. It completely got steamrolled by Pernicious Deed, which everybody and their dog plays in my metagame.
3. It didn't mulligan well and struggled to get explosive hands without a full 7-card hand of good cards.
4. It didn't have answers to hardly anything maindecked.
5. It had no late game.
So, to solve these, I decided to do the following:
1. I eliminated all colored spells from the deck.
2. I stuck ways to answer Pernicious Deed into the maindeck.
3. I made the deck have to mulligan less.
4. I loaded up the deck with broad, artifact answers to things.
5. Tried to patch up the deck with decent midgame cards.
The loss of everything from Master of Etherium to Atog to Disciple of the Vault to Dark Confidant to Trinket Mage made me wonder if I had enough power in the deck to go with the versatility and consistency, so I went looking and found an odd solution in Steel Overseer. Overseer became my panic button in stall-outs and gave me a small sense of inevitability in topdeck wars. I'm not going to lie and say he's absolutely incredible, but he's won me games and as far as I can determine he's the best sixth creature slot in the deck. Alongside Affinity staples Arcbound Ravager and Cranial Plating and two copies of the rogueish Salvage Titan, I felt I had enough power to put up a decent fight.
Here's the current list.
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Tree of Tales
2 Seat of the Synod
2 Ancient Den
2 Great Furnace
4 Mox Opal
4 Ornithopter
4 Memnite
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Steel Overseer
2 Salvage Titan
4 Pithing Needle
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Cranial Plating
3 Brittle Effigy
SB:
3 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Ratchet Bomb
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Mindbreak Trap
The manabase is pretty straightforward. Vault of Whispers gets 4-of due to the occasional fast-move of Cranial Plating and the hypothetical once-in-a-lifetime hardcasting of Salvage Titan, which I can't imagine ever happening. It completely doesn't matter how you divide the other colored artifact lands. The land count is 16 with 4 Moxes, which is rarely too little and definitely isn't too much given that you'll have plenty to sacrifice the excess to, and occasionally you'll want to be able to actually activate Brittle Effigy.
Creatures. Memnite, Frogmite, Myr Enforcer, and Arcbound Ravager don't need much explanation. They're all absolutely fantastic in this deck. And I've sort of already explained Steel Overseer. Salvage Titan gives me something to do when I'm light on threats, and it's not uncommon that I play one twice in a single game. He's a beast, but he's not exactly amazing in multiples sometimes. Ornithopter kept his spot because he's a 0-drop, helps against Goblin Lackey a ton, and carries Cranial Plating better than any other guy in the deck.
Cranial Plating, is of course, an absolute beast. Equipment that frequently gives anywhere from a 7-10 boost in power is nuts.
The maindecked sideboardish cards work really well in the deck, actually.
Pithing Needle is just a monster. It's always been one of my favorite cards. If you're leading with it blindly, you should almost always pick Wasteland (Or if your hand is land-heavy, Aether Vial.) It can stop Survival, opposing Jittes, fetchlands, Planeswalkers, Seal of Primordium, Pernicious Deed, etc. It can also keep Knight of the Reliquary from getting completely out of control, which helps a lot if you're attempting to keep one around the same size as a Myr Enforcer. It's got a billion uses, and the fact that it stays in play makes it a great choice.
Relic of Progenitus fights for its spot with Nihil Spellbomb and barely wins, due to the fact that you can use it for it's single tap-remove effect until you absolutely need it, and that it doesn't need black to draw the card in a deck where draw is very scarce. I've won a lot of games just because Relic got me Cranial Plating or Ravager a turn sooner. The drawbacks to Relic over Nihil Spellbomb, of course, are that you need a mana open to crack the thing, and that Relic of Progenitus doesn't always play very nice with Salvage Titan. Oh well. You're still going to steal quite a few games just because you maindeck graveyard hate.
Brittle Effigy might be the worst card in the deck, but it's a monster when you can tap out all your lands/moxes, get that stupid Knight/Goyf/whatever out of your way, then let all those tapped lands pump a Ravager or bring forth a Salvage Titan for a big swing in board position. It takes care of random guys you might struggle with otherwise. There's a possibility it will be the first cut if better options arise, or if Ratchet Bomb just proves to be better despite not being a 1-drop, which you really need this slot to be.
For the ACTUAL sideboard, you've got flexibility. Jitte and SOFI come in to help deal with Tribal asshattery, which can be tough for you if you don't get a great hand. The two Crypts add a little more boost against serious yard-based decks. Chalice and Mindbreak Trap come in for Storm Combo, as does Ratchet Bomb for ETW tokens. Chalice could be Ethersworn Canonist here, but even if the Ancient Den count were 4, that's still only 8 sources to hit the white, so for now it's Chalice. Ratchet Bomb also gets you out of lots of random little problems, like being one of your only feasible outs to a Kataki, War's Wage or Serenity. It's also kind of a monster against Merfolk, and I recommend bringing it in for this matchup over Brittle Effigy.
So yeah. If you're tired of all the problems of Affinity, pick this up, test it out, and help sculpt it. It'll likely be another one of those Tacosnape decks that sits on the back burner for all of eternity, but you never know.:)