Balls of Steel - The $200 Solution [Archive]

frogger42

07-02-2012, 08:57 PM

http://blip.tv/scglive/scgri-leg-rd-6-matt-keefer-vs-chris-roberts-6137288
Actually, I think that link is busted. Try this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bu7HFWlrhQ

Just a bit of video. Completely different deck, FYI. Someone wanted me to post it up like a year ago, just been lazy about it. (Proof that I am a good deckbuilder/really awful player). I took 9th place... uuuuuugh...

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Gentlemen! Just the usual ground rules before reading:

-Be polite! I know most people are, so this is for those who spend their time in the basement posting all day.

-Keep your comments constructive. "Card X is garbage" is useless to me, you, and the oxygen you spent. Please explain why the card mentioned is ineffective in the meta, during certain matchups, etc.

-And it's a game! So don't take it personally!

I'm trying a new Affinity-inspired list, and will post it here. I've got the original post below this.

So! Sphere of Resistance... it was great against storm, and on certain occasions have shunted my opponents from playing spells (when spheres > their lands). Still, I was never a fan of Sinkhole, so I went back to the drawing board. Here's what has been working for me the past year or so:

4 Mox Opal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Ancient Den (signed!)
4 Vault of Whispers
2 Glimmervoid

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Cranial Plating
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Trinket Mage
4 Thopter Foundry
4 Ornithopter
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

4 Thoughtcast
4 Force of Will

SB: Phyrexian Revoker 4, Detention Sphere 4, SoFI and SoLaS, Tormod's Crypt, Engineered Explosives, stuff.

So here's how the deck plays out - it tries to scrap up 2 mana Turn one and drop something significant, Chalice or SFM (or Cranial with Ornithopter - pretty rare). That makes Turn 1 a Do you have Force? moment, and you can even go Force right back, though usually you don't want to. Generally, play Chalice first - to get Bolts and StoPs out of the way - then SFM, then, if you run him, Confidant. He's the right kind of card for this deck, a hefty 2-drop for your first turn plays, but Thoughtcast and Force make him somewhat angry. Just note you've got Foundry and Batterskull to help with - but not fix - that. The 4 Opals, 4 Chrome (and potentially 2-3 Lotus Petal) help with your turn 1 plays; and 14 arti lands is ideal, though I'm doing 12 and 2 Glimmervoid. I wouldn't go lower than 14 lands.
Basically, compared to Esper Stoneblade, you're trading a bit of consistency and resilience to Pernicious Deed for a bit more speed and power. It makes a big difference if you're playing first.

The basic shell is this - 7-8 Moxen, 14-15 arti lands. SFM, Chalice. The deck is currently in development, so the other slots are technically in the air, though suffice it to say Force, Thoughtcast, Trinket Mage, and the basic equip will likely stay. But work it around! Figure out what's effective! Lotus Petal and Ornithopter are probably the best 0-drops for Metalcraft. Dark Confidant is a strong choice, or you can go more Cranials. There's some flexibility as long as you know which cards to look at.

Some Strengths:
Much faster than Esper Stoneblade. Thoughtcast > Brainstorm (generally). Tezz AoB > Jace TMS
-Thopter Combo smashes Control MUs
-Chalice + Trinket Mage + Force smashes Storm combo.
-Cranial is the best equip in the game - if you can play it. More efficient than Jitte, and usually hits for 5-8 more dmg right away (no need to wait on charge counters). This pounds control/ other combo MUs like 12 Post, Show and Tell
-I've never found a need for actual removal. Usually your cards have a slight edge to theirs on the board (Cranial, Tezz), and you attrition through Cranial + Foundry, or some other means. Try to save back a blue for Force, though.

Some weaknesses: the manabase. Sometimes you come short a color, as happens with Affinity (10 sources per color + Chrome Mox, which is usually blue). This is really frustrating, and Wasteland can take you home, too. Usually you have a play you can make, but it might not always be the one you want to do. Be very careful with which color arti land you drop (due to Wasteland).
-Mox Opal. How frustrating to get two in the opening hand! Also, there are Opal + 1 land hands that are really hard to let go. (Note - new legends rule makes this card much better now, der)
-Mulligans are brutal. It's because of Mox Opal usually, you get a hand that doesn't quite produce 2 mana. If it does produce 2 mana and has a spell, you pretty much have to keep it. 6 is tough, and 5 is almost impossible, though I have won one.
-I had difficulties with the FoW/ Chrome Mox requirements, but that seems pretty solved by now. Just note that you probably want to imprint a Force onto Chrome, as you usually don't have enough cards to play both. Force often gets hardcasted in midrange/control MUs.
-Tezz. I haven't had trouble casting him at 4 mana, but I can imagine getting screwed on 2 colors fairly easily. He's a new inclusion, and Detention Sphere probably has the same problem with it, though that's usually being Showed in.
-Elesh Norn/ Punishing Fire. I swapped Tezz back and forth with Confidant, and running Confd is faster, though much weaker to those two bad boys. Reanimator is really difficult to get through.
-Abrupt Decay, what a pain! Usually your opp has 2-3 targets they need to hit per Decay, though.

So fire away! Here's the original and hilarious post.

*****************************************Original Post*************************************************

Okay then, here's the theory behind the deck: Affinity is terrible. Let's make it good again. Why? Because I bought 2 dozen playsets of Sphere of Resistance, and I'll be damned if it doesn't crack $30 ea this year. Here's the deck I took to 35th (arg) at the GP Atlanta this past weekend. That's 35 out of 900, and moreover, I play like a chimp (video can be provided). I'll put up the link when the decklists are up prob this week, so if you see it before me, please put it in this primer:

4 Lotus Petal
4 Mox Opal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Ancient Den
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Ancient Tomb

4 Frogmite
3 Myr Enforcer (grrr!)
4 Somber Hoverguard
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Riddlesmith

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull (see below)
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

4 Thoughtcast

4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Chalice of the Void

So the big problem I'd seen with Affinity is that it gets blown out by a single hate in a turn. Hence: Chalice and Sphere. Chalice @1 mucks up every deck in the format a lot, and another @2 defeats Delver and a few other major decks. Sphere makes the deck play like reverse-tempo: instead of generating tempo during the game, you make your opponent lose theirs while losing (almost) none of your own. If people like playing Sinkhole, why wouldn't they like one that 'activates' for each spell they play? And is colorless?
I guess this deck fits in the "Light Prison Aggro (with combo splash)" genre. It drops light prison elements. Those hurt. So do a couple Frogmites on board. You're not going to lock your opponent out with this deck, well, very rarely, but you put significant pressure through super-aggro creatures, and severely limit the spells your opponent can play. Generally you drop stuff that effects the board, and your opponent plays Brainstorm for 2 mana; sucks to be them. Just so you know, 4 artifacts + 1 Sphere still makes Frogmite 0 mana to play. Trinisphere mucks that up for you, so don't run it.

The trick: get down a prison piece T1. That means each prison piece you run in here must be CMC 2 (or less, obv). Then you need accelerants to hit that: Chrome Mox, Petals, Mox Opals (commonly known as Mopals, b/c they make me mope when I've got 3 in hand). Mopal isn't always the bomb T1, but you can activate it off a Chalice @0. Not a great option, but it's there if you need the extra punch. It's fine if you're going to lead up with creature pressure.

Other prison pieces I'd considered: Suppression Field. Some idiot told me it sucked, but it's only ever been a total beating in my hands. I wanted access to Jitte through SFM, though, but it's still pretty great.
Cursed Totem -> Posb SB card
Chains of Mephistopheles -> way too narrow, but kinda neat to consider
Basically anything CMC 2 or less that makes your opponent want to cry. The more tears the better. Just build your deck around it afterwards.

As for card choices, they're limited by the Spheres. Which is great, because it also limits your opponent's plays, too. With Sphere, the deck can only play affinity dudes or non affinity cards up to CMC 3, otherwise it'll never hit the table in time to make a difference. So, as much as I'd love to Armageddon with this build, the 4 mana is unlikely to push through 2 spheres. It hurts but I can't effectively run Lodestone Golem either.

Also limited by the # of cards to imprint to Chrome Mox. I run 16, and I'd really love to run 18. So keep that in mind with tinkering.

High % of mana. If you have a prison piece in hand, you need to drop it T1 on the play fairly effectively. This manabase does that, but it's also got 26 "lands." Riddlesmith is a total freaking house in this respect, in that you keep the 3-4 you want and loot the rest away. 2 Riddlesmiths almost always allow you to convert your cards in hand -> creatures on board + more Thoughtcasts, but keep in mind this meta likes Forked Bolt. Don't get Forked.

And throwing this out there: Salvage Titan. Total house with Riddlesmith. Also shrinks Goyfie, should always trade with it too (and come back home for more). Other good cards: Dismember, Dead // Gone. That last one's hilarious vs Misdirection, hint hint.
Thalia's fine, too. I liked her with SFM -> Cranial Plating, but too dependent on both those cards to make a difference on the board.

General way to play: drop a prison piece T1. Everything else can come after that. Chalice @1 protects your SFM pretty good. Riddlesmith never hurts, but try to save him for a turn where you'll loot at least once. And someone told me 3/2 fliers for U are pretty good in this format. Sometimes you don't have a prison piece in your opening hand, so hitting up 4+ power turn 1 seems fine, too.

Bad MUs: your worst enemy (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=221892). This guy will spoil your balls pretty quick, and he's got a few other cousins: Noble Hierarch, Green Suns' Zenith @0, Goblin Lackey. So Elves and Mav hurt pretty bad (1-1 vs Elves, 0-1 vs Mav). Goblins is pretty nightmareish too, but keep in mind a good Gob player wants to lead with Aether Vial over Lackey in every G1. This helps you out immensely, as you don't really MD Bolts or anything. Vial will get there eventually, but you're generally faster than that kinda stuff, and Gobs is why I dropped Myr Enforcer #4 for the SoFI, which never failed to make me smile.

Batterskull, however, felt like a 'win more' most of the time. You can't cast it through a Ball, which is a problem. It helps in Goyf MUs, but so does that 4th Enforcer. ROFL all ur Mongeese, took maybe 5 dmg from those dudes all day.

SB plan: you don't run FoW. It's not bad in this deck, but I opted out of it. Which means you can get blown out by T1 Win strategies, like Dredge, Reanimator, and Charbelcher (just make sure to win the die roll). Show and Tell sometimes stinks too, and I won't suggest an optimal SB plan overall, but you'll see what I threw in and figure something out in your meta. The counters are solely to stop Affinity hate (haha, a funny!) and generally come in against combo-ish decks just because they're there. Arcane Denial wouldn't be too bad here, either. Stop hate or just Jank-cestral FTW, I guess.

That's all I feel like typing up right now. Feel free to take the deck for a spin, and buy up a ton of my balls!

rxavage

07-02-2012, 09:30 PM

Did you and I playtest at DHG this past Thursday? If So I'm really glad to see you did pretty well with the deck, congrats.

Ps. Can I buy a set of spheres from you for my affinty list?

(nameless one)

07-02-2012, 09:51 PM

frogger42

07-02-2012, 09:52 PM

#1 - Yeah, almost certainly. Feinstein guilted me into running the Batterskull after all, which was pretty much the right call. If I were more familiar with the deck, I probably wouldn't've needed it, though.

#2 Sure. For $30 ea. Ebay's got them for nickels, you should be able to buy a playset under $20 pretty easily. SCG has them $4 ea at the most. The deck's obv not going to take off right this week, but who knows, maybe it'll get some traction in 2-3 mos.

It's a total blast to play when you have Riddlesmith. UR Delver was a joke (1-0? 2-0? Didn't lose a game), RUG's Goyf was the only threat. I think I went 2-1 against RUGs cause I mulled hard G1 and got no traction G2. A well-trained Bobo the Chimp has game against Delver with this jank.

lochlan

07-02-2012, 09:56 PM

4 Lotus Petal
4 Mox Opal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Ancient Den
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Ancient Tomb

4 Frogmite
3 Myr Enforcer
4 Somber Hoverguard
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Riddlesmith

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

4 Thoughtcast

4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Chalice of the Void

Cards tags inserted for my own reading pleasure.

frogger42

07-02-2012, 09:57 PM

Hey man,

Good job on the 35th at the GP. So close to top32 yet so far. I played with you on Cockatrice a couple weeks ago. I think your list is sweet. I am actually using the Sphere concept + SFM in my Parfait list (Land Tax/Scroll Rack).

While we're at it, your deck forces your opponent to play more lands than usual while you get comfortable with Moxen. I was wondering if you've considered Tax/Rack as a means of card advantage. While Parfait is more of a control list, with the same principle, I can see them work on this shell. Although you'll need to use Trinisphere in the Chalice spot.

Yeah, thanks! The 2 main problems I see with Land Tax here is that it's CMC 1 (I don't want to have any dead cards into Chalice due to that) and the basics part. I'd messed around w/fetches + duals and basics a month ago, but with the new Merf lord coming out, I don't think the deck can afford any Islands. Too much a liability.

I would've tried out things like Scroll Rack, but honestly, I'd been jumping between SFM and Suppression Field, so I only had 1 week to scrap together stuff for the Mystics. IE, I haven't playtested any -ANY - cards with activated abilities.

I did nuke my zoo friend one game with a T1 Field, though. 4 fetches = cry cry cry. I don't run it now, but I think it still gives him shivers.

EDIT: lochlan: thanks a bunch for the tags! I actually don't know how to do that, but I'll try to get them in at some point. I guess I can't assume everyone played during Mirrodin block, and I'm sure most people blocked those 2 yrs out anyway.

rxavage

07-02-2012, 10:03 PM

I like Batterskull, it just wins games sometimes. I'll have to pick up some cards so I can test the deck. Anways, Congrats and good job again.

civet five

07-03-2012, 12:24 PM

just curious what your sideboard looked like for a big GP, and what you would have changed about it?

Mirrislegend

07-03-2012, 12:43 PM

DHG represent!

You went down to Atlanta? Damn I admire your tenacity. Kinda wish I knew, I woulda bummed down with you!

Didn't I tell you to add BSkull when we had our mini tourney on Thursday? Are you glad that you did? Also, you mentioned playing SoFaF for Goyf and BSkull evasion. You switched to SoFaI. How was it for you? In my experience, it hasn't been good these days. I've been playing and LOVING SoLaS

Also, definitely please share that SB!

Hireax

07-03-2012, 01:27 PM

I love the look of this deck. What are the toughest match-ups you've faced?

I mean you show Mav/Gobs, but how do you lead out against say, combo? TES/ANT or even Spiral Tide for that matter? :)

Mirrislegend

07-03-2012, 01:42 PM

how do you lead out against say, combo? TES/ANT or even Spiral Tide for that matter? :)

Sphere of Resistance and Chalice of the Void are BEATINGS against those decks.

I imagine you must have trouble with tribal beats (merfolk, goblins) and other creature heavy decks

rxavage

07-03-2012, 02:04 PM

I can attest first hand that it can race Griselbrand.

Mirrislegend

07-03-2012, 02:20 PM

I can attest first hand that it can race Griselbrand.

Consistently? What about Maverick?

rxavage

07-03-2012, 02:43 PM

Consistently? What about Maverick?

I don't know about consistently since I was playing sneakshow and won 2-1. We tested punishing maverick for a few games, knight of the reliquary seemed like trouble, and Punishing Fire can easily remove most of artifact dudes. I think the games would've ended quicker and in "Balls of Steel's" favour with Batterskull.

1maarten1

07-03-2012, 04:04 PM

What about Winter Orb? Or maybe something for the sideboard? Seems good against control. I like the idea of switching your soft lock pieces against different decks. Cursed totem goes in against Maverick, Winter orb against control. Also 1 or 2 different swords in the sideboard seems cool so you can switch it in for SoFaI in the match ups where its bad. If goblins is so hard, what about Torpor Orb? (it does shut off your own SFM which is bad :()

Ill test the deck with a sideboard like this:
4 leyline of the void (best GY hate, excess copy's can be put under mox or just discarded to riddlesmith)
4 cursed totem
3 winter orb
1 sword of feast and famine
3 thalia (not sure about this)

And yea to add to the others, I would love to see your sideboard you used for the GP

frogger42

07-03-2012, 05:17 PM

With 12+ creatures, I can make Griselbrand hold back till I land equipment. Of course, it totally depends on the board state etc etc, but my opp is only gonna gain 7 life off of G-Brand, and I can probably lay at least 5 dmg off a Frogmite and Somb Hoverguard. Usually he hits but my opp can't afford activating him till he connects, which buys me another turn. And add Myr Enforcer (and 2-3 turns of Frogmite pressure) and I win that race on the board; Ancient Tomb x2 is the only card that I pay life for, so he's gotta connect 3 times through Hoverguards to win it, plus Jitte mucks that math up. Emrakul's far worse for me if he hits the board (didn't see Progen, but he's prob just a joke), but Sneak and Show has to spend a few more turns to set up than Reanimator. If I land a prison piece or aggro hard a few turns, Sneak and Show is in a worse situation than Reanimator generally. It's mostly the T1 Entomb, T2 Reanimate with FoW backup that can potentially blow me out.

Batterskull - yes, I'm glad I brought it down. It did win games. But it also sits in hands pretty frequently, and on occasion gets looted away anyway. Enforcer only sits in hands if I can't scrap 3 mana, and 2x of them stops a Goyf unless RUG has the double bolt + I don't have Chalice. Enforcer is the Goyf of this deck, but just better. If I were a better player etc etc, Batterskull -> Enforcer #4. SoFF did stink (and not good synergy with Chalice on board), while SoFI was another Jitte, which was never too bad. The whole SFM package got the axe vs Reanimator and Sneak and Show (though equipping Batterskull to Enforcer/ Hoverguard can still race Grisel on G1, just very mana-inefficient).

I dunno if the top 64 will show their decklists, but here's the SB:

4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Oblivion Ring (vs. Show and Tell, doubles as random Vindicate)
4 Hibernation
3 Assert Authority

Some guy wondered why I didn't just run Counterspell over Assert. The deck is closer to prison than control, so you want to dump stuff out the first few turns. Holding open for a counter T1-3 means you're not working to control the board, which means you're playing prison wrong and will lose vs everything. Assert also wipes out Loam, which is moderately relevant, and posb Ancient Grudge, though honestly, just let Grudge hit you twice, it hardly matters. My opp threw one at me and had to pick between (I think) a Sphere, Chalice, and a Myr, didn't have time to flashback till 4-5 turns later. I don't even remember what he hit, prob the Myr, hardly fazed my gameplan. I called his bluff by the end and won against 3 giant Goyfs 2-0.

TraxDaMax

07-03-2012, 05:25 PM

Phyrexian Revoker is also pretty good as a "lock" piece. Since turn one vial ruins your day I'd say.

frogger42

07-03-2012, 05:36 PM

Phyrexian Revoker is also pretty good as a "lock" piece. Since turn one vial ruins your day I'd say.

Depends. He could be in there too, but Vial is the slow grind, and if you have a Riddlesmith active for 1 turn, your deck can explode, almost literally, and gain board control pretty quick. I haven't tried this latest build VS gobs, but you can bring in Obv Ring (over Chalice) to stop Vial, should take care of it before it drops the bigger gobos. Revoker also dies to Gempalm Winthegame 10 times out of 10, so he's naming the cycler before bothering with Aether Vial. Having played Gobs with earlier versions, I'm not really liking the MU anyway.

frogger42

07-03-2012, 05:46 PM

Oh, and about the SB - just keep in mind to ALWAYS replace a Chrome Mox-imprintable spell with another one. Like I mentioned, 16's actually a bit low to imprint, and not getting 2 mana on T1 is super-frustrating. So don't spend too many SB slots with just more artifacts, dig into Gatherer and start getting creative with your gameplan.

EDIT: prob Propaganda would've been better than Hibernation. Not enough time to playtest them both though...

Barook

07-03-2012, 05:56 PM

frogger42

07-03-2012, 06:06 PM

What's the reasoning behind playing not a single copy of Cranial Plating? Could be useful, at least as a SFM target.

And Thalia as additional lock piece certainly sounds interesting, especially as she doubles as decent equipment carrier.

Win more. Or not at all. A 13/1 Riddlesmith still dies to Llanowar Elves all the same, and I'd rather Jitte dudes off the board than trade, obv. It doesn't make Hoverguard any better either, as a single Delver or Scryb Ranger tempos you on that wasted mana when you equip. You also don't have actual removal to help it connect, which Jitte does for you. Just not enough slots for everything I want to play... which I suppose is a sign of a flexible deck.

Barook

07-03-2012, 06:29 PM

What about Lodestone Golem? Sure, a bit on the expensive side with 4 mana, but synergizes well with Affinity spells and is a decent beatstick, especially with disruption against removal. And the deck runs a fair amount of accel.

TraxDaMax

07-03-2012, 06:50 PM

Merfolk and Craig Woscoe UWtempo also play vials though :-)

Anywho, I see it as extra hate against deeds, explosives(for 0 seems mean), KoTR, Hierarch, griselbrand, etc etc..

HokusSchmokus

07-03-2012, 06:52 PM

edit:<-learned to read

TraxDaMax

07-03-2012, 09:11 PM

edit:<-learned to read

Lol, 5 bucks on it being a comment to Hierarch :-P

HokusSchmokus

07-03-2012, 09:53 PM

No I just asked what the Sideboard looked like.

This deck is so far the most fun deck I tested in a while, by the way. Don't really know how it fares against fast combo,but I will see.

Final Ritual

07-03-2012, 09:57 PM

Some guy wondered why I didn't just run Counterspell over Assert. The deck is closer to prison than control, so you want to dump stuff out the first few turns. Holding open for a counter T1-3 means you're not working to control the board, which means you're playing prison wrong and will lose vs everything. Assert also wipes out Loam, which is moderately relevant, and posb Ancient Grudge, though honestly, just let Grudge hit you twice, it hardly matters. My opp threw one at me and had to pick between (I think) a Sphere, Chalice, and a Myr, didn't have time to flashback till 4-5 turns later. I don't even remember what he hit, prob the Myr, hardly fazed my gameplan. I called his bluff by the end and won against 3 giant Goyfs 2-0.

I was your round 14 opponent with the 3 giant goyfs. I didn't know what the fuck you were piloting. Sad to hear you didn't top 16 after our match, what did you play in round 15? I ended up winning last round to finish in 43 against a stock affinity list. Your deck is way more awesome and easily the most unique I played against all tournement.

frogger42

07-03-2012, 10:02 PM

What about Lodestone Golem?

It's okay at 4 mana, awful at 6. The way I play this deck, I grip all the extra lands + Moxen in hand until I find a Riddlesmith. So I don't really push the deck beyond 4 mana on field, as much blue and DkSt Cit as I can find. Expensive cards (4 cmc and up) make you play against your ideal gameplan here, and also leave you open to Deeds and whatnot.

Daze is a slight consideration. Most of the time you get around Daze anyway, and when it might counter something, half the time let them take the bait. Your opp bouncing a land mostly makes you happy, esp early, when it sets them back into your Chalice or Spheres again. You should have enough threat density + Thoughtcast to find something else they'll "need" to Daze in a couple turns.

Sup Field = Phyrexian Revoker for every non-mana activated ability. Revoker stops... LED. I wouldn't worry about that one slipping by. And Sup Field wipes cycling and all the other weird act abilities, just gotta keep your eyes open and catch them all. If it's that big a concern in your meta, feel free to drop the SFM and find another beater or some other threat, Legacy has the biggest selection to choose from. You gotta think outside the box on that and spend a night on Gatherer, I'm all set on researching that thank you very much.

frogger42

07-03-2012, 10:19 PM

I was your round 14 opponent with the 3 giant goyfs. I didn't know what the fuck you were piloting. Sad to hear you didn't top 16 after our match, what did you play in round 15? I ended up winning last round to finish in 43 against a stock affinity list. Your deck is way more awesome and easily the most unique I played against all tournement.

Oh hey, you're P.? Cool, good to meet you again.
Yeah, I didn't know exactly what I was piloting till a few days earlier, either. That was a pretty f-ing epic game, btw. Almost wish it went to G3, that's where the great stories come from. Thanks for the congrats and good wishes, good to hear you cashed a bit. I'm still several $100s in the hole flying out of RI... mrg.

I played Dave 8 last round. Mrg. He played Reanimator and I mulled to 5 G1, not enough pressure to scrap up too much. G1 is okay against Reanm (Chalice @ 1 shuts down Entomb + Careful Study) my G2 have been pretty crazy with 8 hate coming in - Crypt for his main plan and Obv Rings for S+T. I smashed 1-2 other Reanms that tourney, at least 1 another pro, but my G2 I didn't find a 'land' land in about a dozen cards. I got Dave down to 4, and punted the rest by playing Ancient Den (my 1st land around T4,5-ish) instead of digging for the Seat of the Synod and chaining stuff.
I think they have a saying for that - "That's Magic!" Yuck.

Kinda funny, he actually boarded in some # of Jaces G2. Total ??? on my face on T10 or 13 whatever it was. "Hrm, 4-mana dude who's likely 5-6 through a Sphere, whose relevant ability is to bounce a Frogmite. Seems good, bro." He did bounce the Frogmite. So it goes.

frogger42

07-03-2012, 10:30 PM

BTW, that quote's pure gold for my sig. Thx.

TraxDaMax

07-04-2012, 01:18 AM

No I just asked what the Sideboard looked like.

This deck is so far the most fun deck I tested in a while, by the way. Don't really know how it fares against fast combo,but I will see.

Ah, was always possible because I've had people want to say that while in game, then they read the card and are like "oh wait". :D

I haven't tested this yet (will load it up in cockatrice in a sec), but I assume that 8 hate pieces aren't really kind to combo.

TraxDaMax

07-04-2012, 04:48 PM

Lost 2-0 and 2-1 against UWb miracle in todays testing.
He played Explosives main and this really screwed me over a couple of times. 3 out of 5 games he was able to FoW my first hate piece also. And they just play so many lands+top, making it quiet easy for them to find explosives, stp and snappie. :-(

danpo

07-04-2012, 08:32 PM

1maarten1

07-05-2012, 04:30 AM

Any chance you'd consider Leonin Arbiter as the other lock piece? It likely means dumping SFM, and replacing the gear package with just 3x Jitte. But it IS a catjudge.

And to be fair w/r/t Revoker, it does shut off jerks you hate like Noble Hierararch and KOTR.

I think Leonin Arbiter is too narrow nowadays, before with survival and mystical tutor it was really good but now I just think Thalia is a way better choice if you opt for more MD lock pieces.

Aven mindcensor is better then leonin arbiter but since its 1 cmc more, I don't think its effective to run in here.

I think Thalia and Suppression Field are the better lock pieces to be considered in this line-up. Thalia being better against combo and control, Suppression field being good against control (planeswalkers/top/fetches) aggro (vial/alot of maverick stuff/fetches).

The question is if you want to run these MD, to me the only part of the deck that 'could' be cut is stone forge mystic, and I don't think thats a smart choice since it is so strong against aggro.

Anyway my sideboard after some testing:
4 leyline of the void
4 suppression field (replaced it for cursed totem since it has a lot more applications)
4 oblivion ring (this could be replaced, but I'm not sure what I would like in its place, suggestions?)
3 phyrexian revoker

Erdvermampfa

07-05-2012, 06:20 AM

what about Loxodon Hierarch?

1maarten1

07-05-2012, 06:28 AM

what about Loxodon Hierarch?

You sure you mean Loxodon hierarch? Thats the 4 costing green/white elephant. Doesn't seem good in here :P.

frogger42

07-05-2012, 01:03 PM

I'd just remind you guys you can *technically* splash a third color in the decklist. I never disliked having DS Cit, as it survives Deeds, T1 Wastelands and stuff, but when I ran Supp Field, Deed was at best a one-sided Armageddon on T4. Eng Ex is probably a bit worse through a Field. It's brutal trying to Deed even Frogmites through one Sup Field, and given how aggro the deck should be playing, you just shrug and keep pounding with dudes. Drop those lands you were holding back, big deal.
Also stops Grim Lavaman, who's a pain when Jitte hasn't connected.
Jitte is obv the worst combo with Sup Field, and Batterskull ain't that great either (you can chump it with Myr and it's at least 2 whole turns to reset it) but I'm hoping the other Swords should be fine into a Field. Expensive to equip, but you only activate them once.
Assert's mostly there to stop Hurkyl's Recall, the other Bounce thing and Energy Flux-like hosers (in case it ever gets relevant again). That's why Affinity sucked in the first place. Just keep that in mind should half your dudes bounce back into hand vs High Tide.

rxavage

07-05-2012, 01:38 PM

frogger42

07-06-2012, 07:48 AM

jjflipped

07-06-2012, 08:42 AM

Sorry you werent able to get there. I ended up bombing out day 2 pretty hard.

(FYI, im your elf loss)

rxavage

07-06-2012, 08:56 AM

Yeah, I should be at DHG fairly consistently for a bit. But given that there're no more serious tourneys this year (Dave's got another buncha duals one), I'm burned out on legacy. I crammed like 2-3 hometown tourneys/ wk, tweaking after each one for the last couple months, and I'm just wiped. I'm mostly gonna show up to screw around with my 5-Color decks, quite honestly. Those who want to shuffle 300 cards and play foil Trinket Mages FTW are quite welcome.

I'm going to be around too. I'm having surgery in about an hour and I'll be out of work for like 2 months so I'll have alot of time on my hands to play magic. I've even contemplated getting into standard or commander even modern.

frogger42

07-06-2012, 10:18 AM

Sorry you werent able to get there. I ended up bombing out day 2 pretty hard.

(FYI, im your elf loss)

No prob, I guess it was a decent showing on my part. Just felt miserable that I lost 2 rounds to mulls, and a game (and posb match) to sloppy play. Gotta sell some trade bait to pay it all off.
Sorry to hear your day stunk. I'd actually been telling my buddies about that bonkers game I got against you: T1 Riddlesmith, T2 Jitte, equip, swing (and wipe board). Even I knew that was the total nuts and was the first (and prob last) time that ever happened. I lucked out hard against you, prob didn't really deserve to win that MU. GL on your legacy tourneys, and don't play Modern.

frogger42

07-06-2012, 10:20 AM

Oh wait, you're the elf who beat me. The other elf guy... that guy I felt reeeeally bad for. GL all the same.

jjflipped

07-06-2012, 10:29 AM

JEEEZE, turn two equiped jitte is unbeatable.

frogger42

07-06-2012, 10:39 AM

Best way to beat 'living the dream' is to return to reality. It's like a .05% chance of that ever happening (on a swinging dude), let alone the statistics against the tribal MU I need that against (ie where my opp doesn't play Bolt). I think it was worth the punishment in Mulls just to be able to tell that story, tbh. The poor guy blocked with a Priest, too... and then opened his T3 with just one Forest on table. Yeah, I won, but it was still pretty dirty, I won't lie.

1maarten1

07-11-2012, 07:46 AM

Toughts on a single or maybe 2 Academy ruins? Seems pretty good with Riddlesmith to me

civet five

07-16-2012, 12:02 PM

frogger42

07-16-2012, 02:36 PM

Do you think its safe to assume an SCG Open has a similar field as a GP, and can be sideboarded accordingly? I'm starting with a baseline of 4 Crypt, 4 O-ring, 4 Propaganda 3 Suppression Field, but I'm also tempted to test Stifle, Revoker, Pithing Needle and Meddling Mage in some of those slots.

The SCG Open I was at had a ton of rogue strategies in T8 - just completely nuts - but I actually faced more Tempo there, too. There's honestly no way to know, but I went with the theory that for 9+ rounds, each one of my slots - esp out of the SB - had to do double or triple-duty for MUs that I couldn't ever predict. What I mean by that is stuff that's super narrow - like Submerge - wouldn't make the cut because it's so heavily dependent on my opponent running some sort of Forest. It's the kind of effect I'd want in tons of MUs, like Goblins and Merfolk, but I'd only have access to it to fight Goyf, KotRs, and other jolly green fatties. Even though it smashes those dudes, I still have to fight through Lackeys and SFM's in at least 2 rounds of the tourney, and I don't have another 4 more slots to dedicate to yet another narrow bounce or removal spell.

So my advice is to go broad with your SB plan, esp because you have some really strong MUs against Delver (RUG, but esp UR, that one's a cakewalk) and anything that wants to Storm out. These decks will struggle to find anything relevant post-board against you - often they'll have to keep in dead cards because they pitch to Force, rofl. You can just as easily put yourself in the same position by running stuff like Perish and Virtue's Ruin, because you might only bring them in for one round, mrg. The really flexible stuff like Obv Ring is brutal against Show and Tell, and still Vindicate-ish enough to come in against even aggro matches, Enchantress, whatever, if something else in your deck isn't pulling its weight.

As for those specific cards you listed: Med Mage isn't necessary to shore up combo MUs, your opponent is already freaking out, trust me. Most good Storm players will mull their 'good' hands into one that goes off T1, which almost never happens at 6, and less so at 5. Mage eats a removal in all other MUs, so not really worthwhile.
-Revoker, Needle - 3-4x Supp Field makes up for 7x of these other ones. If there are things you want to shut down (Planeswalkers, Sensei's Top, Deed), that extra 2 mana is the same as "shut down until T4." If you land 2 of them, it's a Pithing Needle for the whole board. Don't bring it in for just Fetchlands or things that don't directly disrupt your gameplan, but the Fetches are great collateral damage that your opponent can't possibly side out. You'll have to figure a way around Supp Field for your SFM + Equip, prob pretty brutal to lost 4 finishers post-board.
-Stifle - other than being a Needle for one turn, it stops Storm combo, but like I said, they're already sh##-ing themselves. Plus it runs into your Chalice @1, which you want to have access to in most MUs anyway. Flusterstorm is nice, but I never saw the need to stop a counter or whatever my opponent was casting, prison decks are generally better when keeping permanents off the board.

GL man, feel free to msg me if you have any other random Qs. Keep in mind I probably have 2-3 weeks more experience with the decklist than you, so feel free to trailblaze here. And drive them balls up in price for me!

ReinVos

07-17-2012, 09:47 AM

I'm not a very good storm player, but good enough to know that good storm players don't aggressively mulligan into turn one kills. TES could try and get a goblin army on turn one but ANT doesn't have the luxury of looking for turn one kills.

Against you (when ANT) I'd board in bounce. The plan would be to bounce spheres and play around Chalices. Duress would be the card I'm looking for in my opener because it takes spheres whether I'm on the play or draw (you rarely have a turn one sphere).

When playing against TES, Chalice at 0 is good because they have more 0 mana spells, as well as being faster so you want to interact as soon as possible. Against ANT, Chalice at 1 is better most of the time. It depends whether you're on the play and if you think he'll go off if you wait another turn to play Chalice (or if it's your only piece of disruption and you fear Duress). Keep in mind that if you have a Sphere out already, Chalice at one is strictly better than Chalice at 0 because you can stop Chain of Vapor on your Sphere, which leaves them to a 2-outer most of the time (Echoing Truth, Wipe Away, rarely Hurkyl's Recall).

frogger42

07-17-2012, 02:16 PM

I'm not a very good storm player, but good enough to know that good storm players don't aggressively mulligan into turn one kills.

I'm not saying it's the right play, but the deck runs 8 prison pieces that have roughly 12-14 ways to T1 play them; it's much worse than facing tempo. Storm's best window against this deck is generally T1 on the play, and dropping even just 6-8 gobos has a better chance of getting there than going for it on T3. The basis of the deck is to have consistency for T1 prison plays, mostly to get around Daze and Spell Pierce on the play, and that also happens to be brutal against Storm combo.

But you're absolutely right, trying for the T1 win as Storm isn't the best way to fight the deck. I played a couple Storm decks, and it looked like they wanted quicker hands than aiming for T3-4, gambling that those hands were probably slow enough to lose. But really Storm's actually better off taking a turn or two to go off and pretty much not worrying about the hate at all; it's still all probability, so hopefully it just won't make an appearance, and if it does, hopefully that's all of it and you can still win in a few more turns.

Charbelcher's practically a dice roll, because it has the highest chance of T1 win of any combo deck. For Storm decks that have to set up (all the others I think), you'll just have to recognize there's almost no chance of facing this kind of deck in a tournament and bite the bullet on those odds. It's not unwinnable, and my misplay should have cost a match vs a really good Storm player, but combo has to make incredibly good calls and seriously outplay in this MU.

frogger42

07-17-2012, 09:22 PM

A few other cards I just found out about:

Mana Vortex
Mana Breach
Magus of the Moon (knew about it, but worth (re-)mentioning)

civet five

07-18-2012, 02:30 AM

I hate Magus of the Moon outside of Dragon Stompy shells. I've tried him in Zoo, midrange Zoo-types, and Jund shells like this: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8634&iddeck=63001

and everytime I run him, they just float mana in response and kill him (too bad the dominant spot removal in the format doesn't say "Destroy Target Non-Wizard creature").

Now with that said, there could be an opportunity for an Affinity/DS hybrid, and it would let us run some truly miserable stax pieces like Thorn of Amethyst and Winter Orb too. I do happen to have a sweet playset of foiled Oxidda Golems that are itching to be played with. Not sure that its better than straight DS, but worth trying

HokusSchmokus

07-18-2012, 10:29 AM

Anyone has an updated decklist for a poor man that begins to lose interest in Legacy quite quickly?:tongue:

1maarten1

07-18-2012, 10:34 AM

Anyone has an updated decklist for a poor man that begins to lose interest in Legacy quite quickly?:tongue:

I have been using this:
same main as in the opening post (have been looking for new things, but its hard :laugh: plus the MD is pretty solid as it is now)
Side:
4 suppression field
4 leyline of the void
4 oblivion ring
3 phyrexian revoker

Taking it to a local tournament next week (maybe 2), Ill see if I can take some notes.

civet five

07-23-2012, 06:31 PM

I got rofl-stomped pretty hard at SCG Vegas yesterday. Technically 1-4, but only because I was the only player at 0-4 going into round5, and they gave me a bye.

Round1 against Burn
Game1: I mull to 6 and keep a no-land, 3 Chrome Mox hand with Sphere but only 1 colored card. I die quickly to Guide and Hellspark Elementals.

Game2: I bring in 3x Suppression Field and 2x Ghostly Prison but I had to mull to 5. I get turn2 Sphere, turn3 Suppression Field, but double-Smash to Smithereens and burn to the face seals the deal.

Round2 against Maverick
Game1: on the draw I mull to 5, and he gets Turn1 Dryad, Turn2 Pridemage, Turn3 Knight, Turn4 Knight.

Game2: on the play I mull to 6 but get a Turn1 Chalice at 1. He just lays down Pridemage on turn2, gets another, and after we both stall out, I just can't compete against a double-exalted active Knight.

Round3 against Goblins
Game1: The first time I don't mulligan, and get a near perfect turn1 Sphere, turn2 Chalice, and follow it up with Affinity beats.

Game2: I mull heavily and die pretty quickly to Lackey shenanigans.

Game3: I get the super obnoxious double-sphere, Chalice at 1, Propaganda board state but can't put any pressure on. We both are totally stalled out and his board getting ugly, but I cannot find a Somber Hoverguard. Eventually he gets a Matron, then a Goblin Tinkerer, blows up my Chalice and Lands, and gets inevitability via Siege-Gang Commander.

Round4 against Dredge
Game1: I mull to 6 and get down a Sphere. He wins a few turns later without ever casting anything, just swarming me with Zombies and Ichorids.

Game2: I get turn1 Chalice at 1, and he concedes after I drop a Propaganda on turn3.

Game3: I mull to 6 but only get a turn1 Sphere on the draw, which was enough time for him to Careful Study away a Troll. We whiffs on the next 4 dredges, and I cannot find a Tormod's Crypt but can match his Zombies with Frogmites and Hoverguards. After more turns of whiffing he Dread Returns Elesh Norn, wiping my board of all but a Myr Enforcer, attacking me down to 1. I rip Propaganda off the top and cast it for 5. He has no lands in play, and we both take a minute to sort through his graveyard and figure out if he will ever be able to pay for it. With Elesh Norn out I can't ever stick a Hoverguard, so I need him to deck himself or run out of time (we had 5 minutes left), or I need to draw another Propaganda or Ghostly Prison. 2 of his next 3 cards are the remaining lands, and that does it.

I was the only player left at 0 points, but I wanted to stick around and play more. Too bad for me I was the odd man out (literally) and given a bye. Rounds were pushing 80 minutes from pairing to pairing at this point, and I really didn't feel like sticking around that long, so I dropped.

I do think with more preparation, especially around mulliganing and sideboarding, I could have done better. However, it was also pretty tough to almost never getting to keep my starting 7, and having to keep hands with a lock piece but no pressure. I also never got to cast a Stoneforge or Riddlesmith, but I did often take the Stoneforge package out.

I did like the Sideboard, especially Propaganda/Ghostly Prison as they're pretty frustrating for them to fight through. Ghostly Prison gets a bonus immunity to REB and Pyroblast, and for that reason I would probably just run 4 of those.

I'm going to keep at this deck, but I don't know that I would want to play it against a known field that I went against. I would have preferred to run into RUG, Combo and weirdness.

frogger42

07-24-2012, 03:40 PM

That sucks Civet. Not to rub salt in the wound, but Sup Field doesn't do much against burn - if they run fetches, it might slow those down, and only really stops half of Hellspark. Field is actually pretty nuts against Mav. All their creatures other than mana dorks run into it pretty hard. Maze of Ith too. And it still keeps fetches from making Knight huge.
I posb might've brought it in against Gobos too, if they ran fetches instead of basic mountains. Much better option than Chalice, definitely - Chalice only stops Vial T1 on the play, and even on the draw it's too totally dead after that. Field at least slows Vial pretty bad and stops cycling (+slows Wasteland), though it's not perfect here and doesn't turn the tide if Siege-gang hits.
If you think the deck's interesting, I'd say just play a ton of small tourneys with it and get a sense of what to SB. I didn't have to SB all that much, but it can be really hard to SB right because you need to know your opponent's decklist really well - Chalice @1 should hit more than 10 cards, Sphere punishes 2-3 land strategies (not control), etc. I know it took me a few losses to UW Miracle to realize that deck gets around my balls by just playing a ton of lands - I side out Spheres for Obv Ring/Assert Authority and trade 1-for-1. Prison's so different from playing aggro or anything else, it takes practice knowing when to lock down and when to ignore and just lay pressure, etc. But I do like the heavy dig in this build, and that it comes online pretty early. That's really rare in prison decks. Better luck next time!

frogger42

07-24-2012, 03:46 PM

Sorry, more salt! SFM seems really good against all of those MUs. I only took it out when Jitte wouldn't realistically kill anything, ie Sneak and Show, Reanimator, usually Storm too.

evanmartyr

07-24-2012, 05:16 PM

Yeah, I should be at DHG fairly consistently for a bit. But given that there're no more serious tourneys this year (Dave's got another buncha duals one), I'm burned out on legacy. I crammed like 2-3 hometown tourneys/ wk, tweaking after each one for the last couple months, and I'm just wiped. I'm mostly gonna show up to screw around with my 5-Color decks, quite honestly. Those who want to shuffle 300 cards and play foil Trinket Mages FTW are quite welcome.

Not to derail a great thread, but people still play 5 color? Where and when does this wondrous event take place? I miss it so much :(

civet five

07-25-2012, 01:08 AM

for sure just need loads more practice - it plays much less like affinity than I initially realized; affinity as a mechanic is just pretty synergistic because of way cost increasers and reducers work.

To be clear - I did leave the SFM package in against Burn because of Jitte and Batterskull, but you're right that Suppression Field wasn't a great call (I way overreacted to getting killed by Unearth). Against Maverick I didn't see the Suppression Field, but I also should have changed my mulligan strategy to go for that over Sphere.

Like I said, I needed more preparation around mulligans and sideboarding, and could have used a little bit more luck in both a) not having to mull nearly every starting 7; b) being able to follow up a lock piece with a threat more consistently.

I'm actually most disappointed that I couldn't get a round 5 opponent - there were at least 8 of us at 0-3 going into r4 and we all made a pact to play out it through at least round 5 to get our money's worth. So much for that. I was still having a blast playing Magic and just wanted to get some more practice in.

frogger42

07-25-2012, 12:19 PM

Not to derail a great thread, but people still play 5 color? Where and when does this wondrous event take place? I miss it so much :(

Wondrous? Now I know you're full of bull; I've never known 5-C to be more than letting your opponent know how pathetic their magic skills are while drawing human anatomy on the ante. But if there's some shred of interest, 5-color.com (with the hyphen) has the last scraps of a sad race. It's the updated 300-card version from WI. The 250-card '.org' site hasn't been on in years, I'm pretty sure they just gave in to EDH or growing up or something.
I play online a bit. Ppl at my store have caught on and generally don't play, so no paper unfortunately.

frogger42

07-25-2012, 12:35 PM

BTW, I thought I mentioned this in the primer, but Sphere stinks against Noble Hierarchs and Llanowar Elves. Those decks run at least 8 ways to get 3 mana on the second turn, which makes Sphere only relevant on T1 on the play - cut it. Sup Field and Jitte are nuts against Mav, which is kinda unfortunate. Like to come up with a MD answer to Hierarchs that allows me to side in Sup Fields too, but my time's better spent going Tezz-Vault in 300 cards.

evanmartyr

07-25-2012, 01:22 PM

Wondrous? Now I know you're full of bull; I've never known 5-C to be more than letting your opponent know how pathetic their magic skills are while drawing human anatomy on the ante.
I play online a bit. Ppl at my store have caught on and generally don't play, so no paper unfortunately.

Damn.

I honestly do have fond memories of my sui-black 5-color and a casual budget pile I threw together to play against other people way back in high school. Playing for crap-rare trade back ante was fun.

frogger42

07-27-2012, 11:52 AM

Found a few more junk cards that actually work really well here:

Jotun Grunt
Favor of the Mighty
Indomitable Archangel

Grunt could be a useful replacement for SFM, one that allows you to side in Sup Field if that's what you want. Favor seems pretty neat, not entirely sure when I'd side it in, but prob aggro. Archangel at CMC4 is high, but a really powerful effect (+ kills Delvers and Mongeese).

frogger42

07-31-2012, 03:00 PM

Update. Mixing it up a bit; I think these changes could work too:

-4 SFM
-3 Equip

+1 Myr Enforcer
+2 Jotun Grunt
+4 Fire/Ice

Obviously add Great Furnace in there. This allows Supp Field to be in the SB (for Mav, Sensei's Top (UW Miracles), manlands etc.) which, when it's relevant, buys you several turns from your opponent.
I've been pretty happy playing F/I as spot removal even 1-for-1, and it also converts as tap down a dude and get through (or tap a land to help Sphere).
Dropping SFM for Grunt does 8 -> 6 for the fatty count. Both deal with Goyfs, Grunt a bit later. Opposing SFMs are tough without your own, but Sup Field makes it almost impossible to reset B-Skull. Every now and then your white is a Lotus Petal, which doesn't exactly help you cheat out your equip. This adds those 2 spells to imprint on Chrome Mox, and I don't think one way's clearly better than the other - might as well help the manabase.
I'd love to try out Augury Adept, which seems like bonkers synergy here, but with little removal it looks way too tough to connect, so I'm going to call it a "win-more" card. Could be in the SB, but it'd only beast out against Burn and Combo, which aren't tough MUs.

frogger42

08-22-2012, 01:22 PM

Thought I'd bump this post with a few observations.

Generally the deck likes both lock pieces, Chalice and Sphere, but Sphere often gets sided out more. So I threw in Supp Fields in my SB, and that card is really bonkers. Having access to 3 prison pieces is what the deck wants, and having started out running all 3 (12 pieces MD), I'll just say that Field is the least active of the three. But having the option to switch Chalice or Sphere into Field has worked really great - Field's often dope where one of the others isn't.

Still, between the 3 pieces, a deck every now and then gets through all of them. Like UG Miracle 12-post, wtf. That's really really rare, but still worth considering not having 4-8 dead slots in your deck post-SB when you put your SB together.

So I'm doing Sup in the SB, and actually cut Jitte into Enforcer #4. I could see it just be a second SoFI - hits Hierarchs, and pounds the good tribals, Gobos and Merfs.

Also, because the deck runs a ton of mana, your TDs are not so hot. Getting that 3rd Lotus Petal T6 doesn't help you seal the deal. I'd been pondering about using Ornithopter over the Petals because it suits up nicely (helps me get around ground pounders and Scryb Rangers). Memnite just feels like a wasted slot, and gets outclassed by any squire. Ooo, metalcraft!! Bleh.
And cutting the Petals raises the issue of T1 ramp -> prison piece. I'm guessing max out the Ancient Tombs or something. They're great T1, but sigf worse than arti-lands each turn later.
Just some notes in case you guys wanted to tinker it a bit.

kwis

08-22-2012, 02:03 PM

frogger42

08-22-2012, 04:53 PM

I understand how the deck should work but I'm wondering how it feels in practice. I know that the riddlesmiths should be invaluable in turning your less than ideal artifacts like petals and redundant moxen into other cards. The 2/1 body also looks nice since many people are likely to undervalue him and overvalue their cards.

It almost sounds like you were looking for even more ways to get rid of undesirable artifacts. Thirst seems too mana intensive for your decks design. It'd be really cool if you could abuse the SDT filter combo with riddle-smith but between chalice and sphere that isn't possible.

Also are 16 targets for that many chrome mox enough. I know you absolutely want to land that prison piece turn 1 so you can develop your board and start making affinity pay dividends on T3-T4, however I'm wondering if that commitment is creating a design flaw which you can't recover from. It also seems like by using Chrome mox you're either exiling a win-condition or your ability to dig and make up for the card disadvantage that it provides.

Hey kwis, thanks for looking this up. So, to start at the bottom -
Chrome Mox does exile your gas. Def. When I have a hand that I have to use two Chromes to get going, then the punishment is absolutely brutal. But usually I only need to imprint one during the course of the game, and I often drop dead ones for Affinity or Riddlesmith.
I get what you're saying about "design flaw" and I think it's more helpful to think of this deck as a "design black hole." It doesn't use fetches, it skips CMC 1, and it does a few other weird things that practically no other top deck does. That said, I wanted this deck to avoid that specifically so I could use Chalice and Sphere (and Supp Field initially) so I could punish the decks that rely on that stuff. Chalice and Supp Field can be absolutely brutal and devastating because, let's face it, you're no going to board out your 8 fetchlands, Brainstorms, Bolts etc. The hate I chose is the most powerful and devastating to the format at CMC 2. I think it will always be relevant because legacy is a heavily tempo-dependent format, and always wants to run hyper-efficient cards (CMC 1 and 2) and play stuff quickly (Sphere). The more your opponent's deck relies on tried-and-true legacy strategies, the more this deck punishes them. The more bizarre strategies (like Miracles) tend to get around this hate, unfortunately.

As for playing the deck, ideally it sets up a really vicious board presence in the first 3 turns. Then it kinda glides, really, but usually your opponent is just catching up board-wise around 3-4, so being in topdeck mode isn't a problem then. It kinda is prison-y, but it capitalizes on that tempo by being super aggro. Some games do go long, and when my opponent and I are in topdeck mode, I win if I have Chalice (makes most of his topdecks fizzle) and prob lose if I don't (I prob have fewer topdecks to seal the deal).

It's not made to abuse a specific meta, but just punishes generally efficient legacy decks. Decks that love Brainstorm and other cantrips are esp vulnerable to this list, and Llanowar Elves and Aether Vials tend not to care so much. It's just the nature of this deck, and sometimes legacy games are rock-paper-scissors-ish.

-And last thing about the 16 Chrome imprints- it may be enough, but all magic decks you've gotta mull sometimes. I'd rather play it safe and make sure the deck still functions at 6 or hopefully 5. I googled FoW + blue card counts to get an idea of what'd work best, and it's so important to get that 2 mana on turn 1 that you can't rely on a "statistical minimum" and then complain when you actually lose. I've won games at 6 with that first build, but prob none at 5 - so prob needs a slight redesign. Thanks!

frogger42

08-22-2012, 05:14 PM

Actually, I think Thirst would be fine, and would allow for a slight redesign. Usually 4 mana spells aren't going to happen through a Sphere - unless the game goes too long - but 3 mana should be fine here.
Like if you switch Riddle -> Thirst, I can def see that. Riddler does suit up with SFM very very well, and the 4x Mystic I needed there so I can just blow out my opp in like 2 turns. But if you can find another Goyf-sized finisher, prob Goyf, then I can see something like Thirsts. I wanted 2 colors because I love Darksteel Cits though. Sometimes you play a land T1 and then set out your hand T2. Dodges Wastelands, and Geddons (take that, Miracles!). It takes a lot of figuring out though how you can play relevant cards that your hate doesn't shut down. But that's good, because you're opp obv isn't going to run garbo like Somber Hoverguard over Delvers any time soon.

raestlyn

08-22-2012, 08:15 PM

I haven't played the deck, but wouldn't the Tangle Wire be a quite simple solution for longer games (turns 3->)? You have stuff like Chalice to tap, and it will slow the opponent to crawl under Chalice/Sphere. And its an artifact for Affinity. Just a thought.

kwis

08-22-2012, 11:05 PM

My biggest concern with wire would be that you're taking a bigger hit than them on the first couple turns or you're almost waiting too long to get the value you need out of the card. Other than that it seems like a very interesting option, but if you were going to play wire you could probably force lodestone golems instead. Different functions, but ultimately what are you looking to do? If disruption is the only answer wire is probably the better choice, but Lodestone has a really good body for killing people who can't react or trading with an immature goyf.

Winter orb actually seems like a relevant option the more I think about it. Since you're running 8 mox and some petals having 2-3 orbs could really trip up your opponent trying to get relevant spells through sphere turn after turn. However it could also hurt you if your opponent isn't doing anything, but then you have to ask the question "why play winter orb if they didn't have lands tapped?" The excess orb can always be dumped to riddlesmith :)

This deck is supposed to be up on tempo, however if you found yourself against another chalice(1) deck you might be in deep water.

frogger42

08-23-2012, 11:11 AM

Winter orb actually seems like a relevant option the more I think about it. Since you're running 8 mox and some petals having 2-3 orbs could really trip up your opponent trying to get relevant spells through sphere turn after turn. ...The excess orb can always be dumped to riddlesmith :)

Tangle Wire's okay for the deck, and Winter Orb actually suits it very nicely. The problem with W Orb isn't the effect, it's that the effect isn't powerful enough in this meta. RUG and Elves and other decks don't really need to tap out 3-4 lands a turn, so even though your Orb prob wouldn't hurt you at all, you're investing 2 mana on a card that wouldn't affect much of the meta right now. It's got to affect relevant permanents, and having played Tangle Wire before, the Wire actually has less chance to hit what I want it to hit.

The deck runs enough stuff to pitch to Riddlesmith already ;) Gotta spend some slots on cards that do things.

I actually came up with dropping my balls and running Thalias. This helps shore up the Chrome imprint #s a lot, and then I converted a couple Riddles (which is useful too, but mostly options onto a Chrome) into a couple more suits for SFM to try out. I hated the equip because I just needed a bit more consistency for my Chrome, but having a SoFI on the table is a really great way not to overextend into Terminus after Terminus. One WoG is fine, but this deck can't handle two in a row. Obv.

Just figured Sphere doesn't help in those tough aggro MUs (Elves and Gobs can outpace my own Sphere faster than I can) and Thalia's also a warm body to suit up, too.

kwis

08-23-2012, 11:27 AM

Thaila, while good seems like a liability against a lot of what you will play against. If you don't have a chalice to protect her I expect she will just eat removal while not effectively slowing down aggro like the spheres. I'd run her as a 1-of prison piece, possibly in the batterskull slot since you called that a win more card.

The fact that all the Thalia decks out there exist and with all the Krakas running around for S&T/Reanimator means that she will probably underperform. You also don't want to run into her as a dead card later in the game.

I think that by leaning more towards playing her you're opening up to a lot more cards. Thalia can tank a turn 2 lightning bolt or a turn 2 sword after being rushed out on turn 1 and then she probably only gets in for 2 damage or 4 if they use her effect against you and EOT her. I think a large part of what makes sphere strong is that you congest the opponents hand with their removal and waste their time so that once they have a removal target they get further and further behind by playing removal instead of developing. She definitely helps with the chrome imprint and having more warm bodies, but I think the cost is a bit too high.

Can you post an updated list for me to look at?

Another note: We haven't really discussed sideboard plans much in this thread because you wanted to leave it up to people depending on their meta. However I think we could have an interesting discussion about what your good, neutral, and bad matchups are an how to improve them. At least this way it gives anyone testing out this deck a bit more insight into what makes it work and how they should try to deal with situations.

Thorns seem like a nice extra piece against combo to make redundant spheres.
3 Sphere is a consideration but you probably need more 2cmc lands to justify it.
Tsabo's Web is a card a personally like a great deal because it replaces itself and messes with multipurpose lands like Karakas, Manlands, and Foglands.
Cannonist is an option, not being to imprint her is unfortunate though.

frogger42

08-23-2012, 11:40 AM

Thaila, while good seems like a liability against a lot of what you will play against. If you don't have a chalice to protect her I expect she will just eat removal while not effectively slowing down aggro like the spheres.

The fact that all the Thalia decks out there exist and all the Krakas running around means that she will probably underperform. You also don't want to run into her as a dead card later in the game.

I'd run her as a 1-of prison piece, possibly in the batterskull slot since you called that a win more card.

I'm gonna try out the 4 for now. I like the idea behind having a bit "too many" Chrome imprints, because it makes SB-ing much more flexible. The added effect that sphere has - slowing down creatures too - has actually not helped or cost me a few games in the MUs that run a lot of creatures, ironically enough.

Chalice is great at protecting SFM as you mentioned, but same thing: this deck packs a reasonable amt of answers to my opps disruption (Chalice, and even Thalia) and even if I don't get my protection, they still have to draw the bolt/ StoP, too. It's kinda like Mother of Runes in my deck. At the point we're talking about, I think it's reasonable to expect my opp's a bit more afraid of my board state getting out of control, which gives me more play options that most decks are forced to play around - and if they can't, woot.
Aaaaand prob should've mentioned those two Tombs are now Karakas. I wanted the colored mana, and the options were that or Adarkar Wastes. Might as well.

kwis

08-23-2012, 11:49 AM

You say that they have to draw the bolt/sword but it seems a tad irresponsible for them to keep an opening 7 that didn't have either an explosive start, dominant controlling midgame, or decent removal to draw into what they need.

Obviously your deck loves to run into someone relying on a brainstorm to fix their opening 7, especially if they miss good targets on it because then they are rather far behind.

There is also the potential problem of being on the draw and now having to deal with Inquisition, Thoughtsieze, Duress, Spell pierce, Daze, and friends.

frogger42

08-24-2012, 02:20 AM

You say that they have to draw the bolt/sword but it seems a tad irresponsible for them to keep an opening 7 that didn't have either an explosive start, dominant controlling midgame, or decent removal to draw into what they need.

I'm actually going to have to shut you down on this point kwis. I keep hands like that. The last deck I built I mulled maybe 3 games out of 9 rounds. I keep hands based on resources (like lands) and whether I have a couple likely relevant plays. 4 lands and 3 dudes for any given deck is fine by me, because I have plays I can make right out of the gate and in a few turns it's up to probability to net me the next play anyway. That part's up to proper deckbuilding.

I don't need gg in my opening hand, this isn't combo, but I need a consistent gameplan to set up for when I topdeck the SFM or other bomb and then win. 2 Brainstorm Ponder Delver 3 lands is a smoking hand for that deck, but against this prison it's terrible. How is my opp going to know that? That's making them play around how my deck works. I'm taking away potential plays, and a lot of those happen to land right in the middle of efficient legacy deckbuilding.

kwis

08-24-2012, 11:42 AM

I wasn't talking about your deck needing the god-hand. I was talking about most of the efficient decks out there that probably wouldn't keep a hand without removal/disruption/counters in game 1. I appreciate that this deck shits on the people who keep weak hands that they intend to fix via brainstorm, however in order to shut that down you need to win the die roll or they still have a decent chance of fixing their hand in response.

I'm not saying that this deck doesn't punish people who are trying to keep otherwise very good looking hands. Challice at 1 shits all over the format. However when your second disruptive option becomes a legendary 2/1 creature (that is heavily used) it opens you up to a lot more hate. Sphere was generally resistant to everything but Deed, Vindicate, and Maelstrom pulse, which it made too slow to matter. Thalia unsupported by a creature like Mom or protective equipment dies to pretty much any removal spell in the format, since this deck invests so much in its explosive start I'm not sure if you can afford to lose her that easily.

1maarten1

10-09-2012, 12:49 PM

civet five

10-10-2012, 01:44 AM

frogger42

11-13-2012, 09:31 PM

Hey! Havent posted here in a while. I actually took the deck to a tournament a while ago, my thoughts:

Lock pieces work nicely, tho I really really felt like that when other decks start to recover (when the game goes a little longer) I couldnt finish them off in time. I really think the deck needs some other strong finisher besides or other then SFM. In all my games it was easy to lock them down for the first few turns but then when I would just draw mana accel and frogmites they started putting down goyfs/knights etc.

I actually agree here. I haven't tested Mav except for one round, but it looks like a rough MU; Goyfs never really feared me much, but them KotRs and QPMs seemed pretty good. Enforcer isn't quite as good a finisher, and Frogmites are slightly sub-par in the meta, where Wild Nacatl doesn't make much of an appearance.

I tried a ton of different variations to try to get in more muscle, but this decklist is about where it is. I traded a Jitte for another SoFI, and Suppression Field in the SB. Sphere sometimes pulled its weight, sometimes not. It's definitely better than crummy old Sinkhole, but that's not saying much.

My new list, which I have yet to test, benefits from having more bombs to seal the deal. It's a pretty similar decklist here, almost the same (flawed) manabase:

4 Mox Opal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Ancient Den
4 Vault of Whispers
2 Darksteel Citadel

4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Dark Confidant
4 Master of Etherium
3 Aven Mindcensor

1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow

4 Thoughtcast
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Vindicate

4 Chalice of the Void

SB:

4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Suppression Field
4 Tidehollow Sculler
2 SoFI
1 Sword of Body and Mind

Same rough idea - be able to put out a combo-breaker within the first or second turn (Chalice, Aven MC) for those MUs, and it packs a few more punches for more aggressive creature decks. The Mishra's Bauble helps metalcraft, MoE, and Confidant, though hits into your own Sup Field post-board. I figured Sculler was more useful than the Thalias all-around, except they don't imprint. Oh well.
Feel free to test this new build and lemme know what you guys think. I haven't played a real game with it yet, but it should run fairly well based on prelim testing. Vindicate and Sculler might be tough to cast, though (and try to keep 16- 18 imprintable spells post-board). Thanks.

frogger42

11-13-2012, 09:41 PM

Civet Five - I was going to say I somewhat prefer the BoS' slightly better speed over the soldier deck. VS Storm or other combo, that extra turn it takes to drop another land is a significant difference - only Moxen and Tombs power out your 6 pieces (you can't Tomb a Thalia). It looks consistent, but not broken. I can see some metas where it acts a lot like Mav but with smaller finishers, just keep dropping dudes and overwhelm the board, kind of like how prison spends its mana directly on board position in almost every card. Nice deck, though, it looks like it's got some heft.

Thorn I'm not crazy about. I'd love Sphere if it came with a 2/2 attached. That's the only think lacking in the card.

frogger42

01-16-2013, 06:09 PM

Balls of Steel has a new iteration currently, and I thought I'd share it witch'y'all. I've got it on the primer page right there, and I'm liking it a bit better than the original, though there is currently a lack of balls to it. Sigh. Still, help me iron out the kinks here, and feel free to take it for a whirl!

(nameless one)

01-16-2013, 08:30 PM

What about Baleful Strix over Looter?

Deathtouch is relevant, cantrip is relevant, being an artifact is also relevant.

Definitely better than just recycling Moxen.

frogger42

01-17-2013, 10:27 AM

What about Baleful Strix over Looter?

Deathtouch is relevant, cantrip is relevant, being an artifact is also relevant.

Definitely better than just recycling Moxen.

Right now it's 16 imprintable spells, and I wanted to kick that to 18 with these two slots. That's the main thing holding me back, because it makes SB'ing easier when you have a few slots to work with. Could also be Trinket Mage, I guess - gets Thopter and Chalice.

frogger42

01-18-2013, 12:03 AM

Hilariously enough, the imprint on the Looter slot won me a game. I guess I was right in my count... lucky me. I ran Trinket Mage in that slot instead, and that's probably the right call, though all I ever did with him was imprint so far.

I'm not big on tournament reports, especially for small local tourneys, but I beat out Burn, UW RiP/Miracles, and UW Stoneblade. I probably should've lost G1 to Miracles, but he mishandled the game (and kicked himself for it). I'm annoyed that the guys on the regular Affinity thread still discount Chalice in this deck, as it obv smashed Burn and gave me G2 easy against Stoneblade, esp when he drew 4 CMC 1 spells. It's a nice deck, 12 solid finishers (not counting Cranial). I'd like to see other people try the new build out and let me know what's up with it, but I know people here probably have their own various decks they want to test and tinker with first. Later.

Oh yeah, SB: 4 Crypt, 4 Detention Sphere, 4 Suppression Field, 1 SoLS, 1 SoBM, 1 Basilisk Collar (idk, for Trinket Mage or something, fight goyfs??)

clavio

01-18-2013, 10:35 AM

Really cool deck. I'm just wondering, is the reason you don't play trinisphere so that you don't get owned by wasteland?

frogger42

01-20-2013, 06:37 PM

Really cool deck. I'm just wondering, is the reason you don't play trinisphere so that you don't get owned by wasteland?

For the original Sphere of Resistance build, 3-Sphere mucks up the Affinity ability; you still have to pay 3 (or more) mana to drop your dudes. Not so great when you lay a Frogmite or even Enforcer. With two Riddlesmith on the table, you can often chain through affinity creatures and lay out your cards in hand. Thanks!

frogger42

04-04-2013, 05:01 PM

I think I currently like the idea of Thopter Foundry over Master of Etherium right now. SFM can get the 1x Sword of the Meek, and Foundry is pretty useful for extra Opals, lands, or if you have to drop Chalice at 0 turn 1 (for opal's metalcraft). That means no Suppression Field, of course, and it's still vulnerable to Abrupt Decay, which is the nuts against me. Still, if I have a turn with Foundry, and hopefully with Sword, I can get ahead enough that the Decay doesn't take too much off my board.

Other cards to consider on the new list: Aven Mindcensor, Lingering Souls. Probably Detention Sphere for Show and Tell, if I didn't mention it. Even Meddling Mage seems okay as it shuts down Decay and suits up to a Cranial, though the double color hurts. Trying it tonight and will give a sense of how useful the Foundries are.

Feel free to give other ideas for what to do here. I think the power of SFM and Foundry should be enough to get it through a lot of different MUs, with Deed of course being a problem, as always.

hax0rm4n

04-28-2013, 02:04 PM

First, I want to say this build is inspiring. I hated Drums, and no longer feel like I'm at the mercy of my opponent's whims when playing Affinity :D
I just have some questions about the deck as I don't have very much experience/testing done with Chalice in Affinity

Is there any reason why you stopped running the Ancient Tombs? Did you feel like they ended up costing too much life over each game? As far as I can tell, the role of the Tombs has mostly been taken over by the Chrome Moxen, at the expense of cards over life. Is there any situation where you would go back to using Tombs?

I do feel like Lotus Petal, maybe even as a 2-of, would help smooth out some color issues. I'm kind of wary of running Chrome Mox in a deck with so many artifacts, which is why I brought up Tomb and Petal.

Still not sold on Looter, although I understand that it pitches to FoW is nontrivial.

I think the cost of running Swords as Stoneforge targets is pretty tough right now, considering the possibility of Abrupt Decay. If they Decay a Sword, that's a pretty big tempo swing for them especially considering the extra 1 mana in comparison to Plating or even Jitte.

SPEAKING OF WHICH
Jitte works well in creature matchups, like Gobbos or Merfolk and gives a good way to interact with the board besides combat. These are also the decks that have fewer ways to interact with an active Jitte.

Have you tried Rest in Peace as your SB gravehate? This deck has quite a few ways to generate 1W on t1, and you could 1 for 1 swap them with Chalice vs. Dredge.

It's too bad this deck can't run the Leonin Bola tech, but the SB Detention Sphere/ORing make up for it.
I'm going to try to run something similar with a little less colour commitment to see if I can squeeze in 4 Darksteel Citadel. I don't actually have FoW on hand, so I'll try to make do with some combination of Canonists, Mindbreak Trap, and other nonsense.

Sorry for picking your brain heheh

frogger42

04-28-2013, 05:50 PM

The one day I come back to check this thread. I'll get you those answers lickety split!

Is there any reason why you stopped running the Ancient Tombs? Did you feel like they ended up costing too much life over each game? As far as I can tell, the role of the Tombs has mostly been taken over by the Chrome Moxen, at the expense of cards over life. Is there any situation where you would go back to using Tombs?

I do feel like Lotus Petal, maybe even as a 2-of, would help smooth out some color issues. I'm kind of wary of running Chrome Mox in a deck with so many artifacts, which is why I brought up Tomb and Petal.

Still not sold on Looter, although I understand that it pitches to FoW is nontrivial.

I think the cost of running Swords as Stoneforge targets is pretty tough right now, considering the possibility of Abrupt Decay. If they Decay a Sword, that's a pretty big tempo swing for them especially considering the extra 1 mana in comparison to Plating or even Jitte.

SPEAKING OF WHICH
Jitte works well in creature matchups, like Gobbos or Merfolk and gives a good way to interact with the board besides combat. These are also the decks that have fewer ways to interact with an active Jitte.

Have you tried Rest in Peace as your SB gravehate? This deck has quite a few ways to generate 1W on t1, and you could 1 for 1 swap them with Chalice vs. Dredge.

It's too bad this deck can't run the Leonin Bola tech, but the SB Detention Sphere/ORing make up for it.
I'm going to try to run something similar with a little less colour commitment to see if I can squeeze in 4 Darksteel Citadel. I don't actually have FoW on hand, so I'll try to make do with some combination of Canonists, Mindbreak Trap, and other nonsense.

Sorry for picking your brain heheh

Ancient Tomb is pretty great when you run Chalice and Sphere, but since I stopped running sphere, I've needed colored sources to get those Turn 1 SFM. The deck is predicated on hitting something heavy T1, so it's either Mystic or Chalice in the current build, though I've also liked Dark Confidant in some slots. The harder you spam those 2-drops (with a reliable way to get 2 mana), the faster you come out of the gate; right now there are few spells for Ancient Tomb to accel. I should also note Chalice isn't the beast it once was, considering people like their Abrupt Decays. Also, you generally don't want to drop Chalice at 2, except against the rare RUG matchup.

Petal isn't too bad, and I'm running few of them in my current today list, but the problem I've had with it is that you cast the SFM, but then you can't flip Batterskull, cause the petal is sac'ed, of course. But it's not that bad, and it does smooth out some of those one-land opening hands that just stink so bad. In those instances, Chrome Mox is better so you can flop down the Skull.

I've got Jitte MD right now, and when I had Master of Etherium as a fattie, then I really liked the pro:Colors from the Swords. The reason I didn't have Jitte for a while is because I used to run Suppression Field in the SB, and Jitte is pretty terrible with that. Field was great against Maverick, but that's hardly in the meta anymore. It's also pretty good against Death and Taxes, but so is Jitte (if you have fliers/ colorless dudes).
Actually, side out that Batterskull against Mother of Runes. It's frustrating, but the right play.

Looter was okay in the deck with Spheres, but now I don't run them (I've got Force instead), so I can run things that are heavier, like Tezz and Glen Elendra Archmage (see list below).

Decay rocks most everything in the deck. Dammit! I get the tempo problem, but sometimes you have to go for the stronger card, and then get rocked in other MUs. That's what I feel, anyway. If you have evasion, go Cranial; fatties that like the pro:Colors, go Swords; otherwise go Jitte, which is generally good, unless you feel a special need for Suppression Field.

Rest in Peace rocks, but Tormod's Crypt gives Metalcraft for the Opal. You can drop things like Lotus Petals for it. And Chalice at 1 is still pretty good, as it stops almost all the Dredge enablers, other than Breakthrough and Draw to Eight.

Oh, and if you don't have FoW, go get a set of Trinket Mages! Force is mostly for Pernicious Deeds. Trinket Mage snags an extra Chalice for you, which rocks combo; you're probably better off that way over the Canonist and the Duress-able Trap. Drop it for 0 against Charbelcher, and 0 or 1 against TES/ANT. Usually I drop Trinket Mage turn 2-3 and drop a 0 Chalice right off of that.

Thanks for the questions! That's how you make a deck better, and I'm more than happy to answer them as best as I can. And check out the new decklist below; I've been winning the past four weeks with it, so it's a good place to start tinkering.

frogger42

04-28-2013, 05:56 PM

So this is what I've got so far. I had an Ornithopter and Opposition x2 in the place of the Glen Elendra, but I like that Elendra can take Deeds. Hot! But I've got to test it to see how effective it is. We'll see.

Mox Opal x4
Chrome Mox x4
Seat of the Synod x4
Ancient Den x4
Vault of Whispers x4
Darksteel Citadel x3
Lotus Petal x3

Engineered Explosives x1
Chalice of the Void x4
Sword of Meek x1
Cranial Plating x1
Batterskull x1
Umezawa's Jitte x1
Stoneforge Mystic x4
Thopter Foundry x4
Trinket Mage x2
Glen Elendra Archmage x3
Force of Will x4
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas x4
Thoughtcast x4

hax0rm4n

04-29-2013, 02:05 PM

TIL Welding Jar is the most hilarious card to fetch with Trinket Mage ever

The Trinket Mage suggestion is great, even just for colorfixing. He kind of fights with MoE, so I might even end up cutting them entirely, as MoE hasn't been performing for me lately. EE is also great against swaths of tokens when you need to alpha-strike them.
Since I don't run/have FoW, I don't have the same blue requirements to support. I am going to try out Etched Champion in place of MoE and focus harder on evasive Plating beats. Also, he's nicer on Ancient Tomb mana.
I am trying out a singleton Welding Jar as a tutor target for trololol moments, but I think in the end it's going to turn out as janky as it looks. It DOES blank Abrupt Decay :P. Spellskite works as well, but I don't think it fits here.

I tried out Vault Skirge because it was a "one-drop" that doesn't get affected by Chalice@1, but the life loss has been kind of clunky sometimes. I think I'm still going to keep it in until I think of something better.

In light of these changes, I'm still a bit afraid of Chrome Mox as I am running fewer colored spells. Tomb is still great for an early Champion/Tezz.

A long time ago, in traditional Affinity, I tried out the Foundry/Sword combo with a Stoneforge package but it never really worked out without more ways to dig, as well as being really tough on the mana and tempo. Additionally, eating up your extra lands has the odd anti-synergy of making your Sword less effective once you DO find it. I don't know how differently it plays out here, but my past experience with it hasn't been so good. Hopefully it'll work better here.

Don't know what to make of Archmage just yet. It DOES pitch to FoW, so the times when it's a dead card are probably fewer than I think.

frogger42

04-29-2013, 06:17 PM

A long time ago, in traditional Affinity, I tried out the Foundry/Sword combo with a Stoneforge package but it never really worked out without more ways to dig, as well as being really tough on the mana and tempo. Additionally, eating up your extra lands has the odd anti-synergy of making your Sword less effective once you DO find it. I don't know how differently it plays out here, but my past experience with it hasn't been so good. Hopefully it'll work better here.

I like Foundry a bit better here than in those old UWx combo decks from a little while back. You almost always have something to pitch to them, usually in the form of Chrome Mox or Lotus Petal (or extra Chalices, even). Generally I don't like pitching my lands as you just said, that I want them in case I find Sword, but I have turned my board into Thopters on a couple rare occasions. Some decks just can't deal with the combo, and I've had a few players scoop after I assembled the pieces; I think it's better than Baleful Strix in this list. The little men also suit up to Cranial and Jitte, too.

TIL Welding Jar is the most hilarious card to fetch with Trinket Mage ever

I actually ran it in a janky version that ran The Abyss. It was kinda funny, actually, mostly for Metalcraft. The problem I had with that other version is that there weren't enough arti-fatties beyond MoE to run with The Abyss, but I might as well throw it out there in case you can proxy up a set and feel the need to windmill slam something awesome.

Put up a list or something! I'd like to see what you're running for your Tombs and maybe I can make a suggestion or two.

And you know what, I think I want to make room for a Welding Jar in the SB. Just for gits and shiggles, see if it's enough of a blowout for Decay.

hax0rm4n

04-30-2013, 05:04 PM

I never liked Baleful Strix anyway. I think the big problem with Foundry I had was generally that it took up 3-4 slots, and drawing multiple Foundries sucked pretty hard. The requirement for T1 Opal metalcraft already squeezes what little room is left.
Having said that, this was before when I ran a more mana-light Affinity list. I'd probably feel better about it if there were some E.Tutors in the main, especially as they can turn on Chrome Mox for Stoneforge if needed.

Right now I'm running something like:

3 Ancient Tomb
2 Lotus Petal
4 Mox Opal

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

3 Etched Champion
2 Master of Etherium
2 Memnite
4 Ornithopter
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Trinket Mage
2 Vault Skirge

1 Batterskull
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Cranial Plating
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3 Thoughtcast
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Welding Jar

It might be off by one or two cards, but this is what I'm tinkering with for the moment. The sideboard is something like:

2 Engineered Plague
4 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Rest in Peace
1 Tormod's Crypt

The Canonists are a holdover from before. I think a few Mindbreak Traps would be better in that slot as an insurance against T1 combos, as I don't have FoW. The Crypt is tutorable by Trinket Mages, but T1 RIP is just such a house. Revokers might actually deserve a place in the main.

Memnite sucks. Welding Jar hasn't been bad even when drawn. Vault Skirge is really clunky. Trinket Mage is a beast.
I am comfortable cutting a single Plating if there are 4 Stoneforges in the main. Naturally drawing 2 after a Stoneforge for Jitte or Batterskull kind of sucked.
That anti-combo with Ancient Tomb and Stoneforge has come up a few times, but Tomb sometimes lets me pull off ridiculous T2 Tezz or keep an otherwise iffy hand by using T2 Trinket Mage to fix mana. It also leads to hardcasted Batterskulls and quick Champions, so I don't think it's that bad.
I generally find I don't want to fire off a really early Thoughtcast anyway, so I cut a single Seat, whereas Ancient Den is a 4-of for early Stoneforge.
I might even try a 1-of Chimeric Mass as a tutor target for when I am swimming in mana. Also, I want to try a 1-of Arcbound Ravager, sort of the same role as Foundry, but easier on the Tombs and good with extra Opals. He's also really good with Champion.

So, potentially:
-2 MoE
-2 Memnite
-2 Vault Skirge???
+1 EC
+1 Revoker
+1 Trinket Mage (GODLIKE)
+1 Ravager
+2 ???
Maybe +1 plating with the extra Champion.

How do you feel about Academy Ruins? It might set up EE recursion and fetch things that Abrupt Decay blows up. Unfortunately, the matchups where it's relevant also pack Wastelands, and it blows when it just acts like a non-artifact Citadel. If Academy Ruins makes its way in, I could see more Crypts in the side.

That Archmage tech looks kind of dubious lol. DRS > Deed if they are ballsy.
WELDING JAR SAVES SOMETHING FROM DEED BTW

frogger42

04-30-2013, 05:51 PM

How about Dark Confidant in this list? You run 3 Thoughtcast (which I think you should have the 4th) and 3 Tezz, and everything else is pretty cheap. That'll give you Chalice, SFM, and Bob to drop T1 off a Petal or something. Bob being one of those rare, need to answer right away guys makes him a better T1 play than something like Goyf. This'll make Chrome better than Tomb, though.

+4 Confd
+2 Lotus Petal

-2 MoE
-2 Vault Skirge
-2 Memnite

You might even cut a land with the extra Petals. My buddy turned me away from Glimmervoid because it wasn't an arti, and I'm kinda with him; Petal can kinda make up for that in this kind of deck.

-2 Glimmervoid
+1 Trinket Mage
+1 Vault of Whispers/ Chrome Mox

I'm not sold on Chimeric Mass, seems like a really bad Master of Etherium for your Trinket Mage. And you run enough platings for an Ornithopter to become that fat, anyway. I ended up cutting back to one Plating, but with all your thopters I think you want to run as close to 4 as you can.

I haven't run the Glen Elendra yet, but I like that the playstyle works with the deck: drop something first, don't hold open mana for Brainstorm. I just had a discussion with my buddies and they agree Deed doesn't really see that much play, so fingers crossed. I switched Archmages over to Trinket Mages (4x now) with the Welding Jar, because I figure Decay is the most brutal card against this deck. I might switch it a couple more times before I play this Thurs. My SB is:

1 Crypt (4 trinket mage)
4 Revokers
1 Sword Fire Ice (Gob, Merf)
1 Sword Light Shadow (opp Batterskulls, Death and Taxes)
4 Detention Sphere
4 open, prob 1 more crypt

I'm definitely a huge fan of the Swords, and for one extra slot, you get a lotta pounding with it. They make those MUs a breeze, and there's a lotta Gob and D+T where I play - D+T being the much tougher MU. I'd still consider bringing the Swords to an SCG Open or something bigger.
Actually, E Champion should house D+T for you. You just need to draw it; 1 Sword L/S is like 5 more of those slots.

I like the effect of Academy Ruins, but I don't think there's enough inherent synergy for it to happen. EE, Welding Jar, Crypt, Lotus Petal technically. There isn't a whole lot of dig to get it, or than many effects to abuse it; it feels like a longshot to me, and I think you're right in seeing it as a bad Citadel. Not like E Champ is going to die, other than to Terminus.

EDIT: I feel that Cranial > Ravager almost all the time. Can't be StoP'd or Bolted or anything, just Decayed. Also survives Terminus, which is a consideration when you're used to dumping out (most) of your hand.

frogger42

04-30-2013, 06:17 PM

Oh yeah, and how often does this come up for you:

Ornithopter + Jitte (no tokens)

It happened to me once when I ran 1 Thopter and I think 2-3 Cranials. That would be the worst position ever, but I don't think it's worth cutting Thopter because it's great, or really changing Jitte to a Sword because it's worse. Just one of those quirks you'll have to figure out.

hax0rm4n

04-30-2013, 09:00 PM

I tried cutting Enforcers in old Affinity and running Bob, but he's hard to attack with, even with a Plating on.
I mean, Tomb is just good when you want to get early Champs or even Tezzeret. I guess I am overcompensating for their colorless mana with Glimmervoids.
Still not completely sure about Chrome Mox, but I'll give it a try. I should look to include more colored 2-drop bombs if I run them, right? Maybe even cutting the Tombs/Voids and replacing with artifact lands/Petals? I might add MoE back in if I go that direction.

The weird thing about Chimeric Mass is that it gets better when you run Tombs. I took out a Memnite for it, he can turn on metalcraft but it feels pretty horrible to drop it for 0. I did have a game where I dropped it for 0 for T1 Champion off of Tomb, Opal, and some other 0 drop, then followed up with T2 Tezz and made the useless Mass a 5/5. Which was Christmasland, and also would have worked with literally any other 0 mana artifact.
Chimeric Mass stinks.
(The rare T1 Tezz hands are also silly, like Bob on steroids.)

Thoughtcasts kept getting clogged in the hand, likely due to the same issues with Tomb generating colourless. Likewise, I had issues where I would draw 3 or 4 Platings in a game and be terribly screwed. I goldfished about 30 games and those issues are mostly gone. The Plating may have to go back in, but I think I first want another creature in that slot instead.
It looks kind of like I'm being half-assed about the focus on T1 drops, but a lot of the time I just play out like a normal Affinity deck, and then sometimes they get blown out by a ridiculous T1 drop.

I just moved recently, so I'm not too sure about the meta here; Merfolk was traditionally an easy matchup before I used Chalice. Goblins may be solved by Whipflare? Or the ironic Krark-Clan Shaman? Not liking the E.Plagues, will probably just go up to 4 Revoker.

I think you're right about Cranial > Ravager. I almost want another Welding Jar, they're actually hilarious and people will skip over them if they are used to playing against normal Affinity decks. Drawing multiple Opals still stinks without Ravager.

The Trinket package I have right now is:
3 Trinket Mage
1 Welding Jar (2 maaybeeeee they're not even that bad when you draw them)
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Chimeric Mass (pretty horrible)
1 Tormod's Crypt (in the side)
as well as the Chalices, Thopters, and other goodies

Hmm, still trying to figure stuff out. Maybe I'll just take the list from the primer card-for-card and play around with it for a while.

You might see Deed pop up, at least in games 2 and 3, if there's BUG and Jund running around. It's just so hard to deal with now that Abrupt Decay is always in the same deck.

I've had that awful scenario with Thopter and no way to get Jitte counters come up in the past. The Skirges help make it a little more bearable, and Trinket Mage/Stoneforge both carry Jitte in a pinch, so it's not the worst thing ever. It was a lot worse when I had Signal Pests.

Have you ever considered Thirst for Knowledge? You might be able to pitch extra Opals or Chalices to it.

frogger42

05-01-2013, 03:54 PM

I tried cutting Enforcers in old Affinity and running Bob, but he's hard to attack with, even with a Plating on.

Treasure Mage also gets Enforcer, which seems pretty hot. The problem I had with that was that Enforcer was easily dispatched by Batterskull tokens, so unless you have something else going on, it loses to the ever-present SFM.

If you're finding Thoughtcast stuck in hand, then Trinket Mage probably does, too. You need about 12-13 sources to run a splashable color effectively, about 15-16 to do a double of that color. This is just what I've noticed on my own testing. So you're slightly low for blue in that list you offered, and considering you've got Tezz and Trinket in addition to Thoughtcast and MoE, it's probably worth upping that a bit. Ancient Tomb does get in the way of that, as awesome as it is.
I dunno. I ended up running Chrome Moxes and imprintable spells, which goes against what Ancient Tomb tends to power out. I feel like Tomb is better off in more Mud-like lists, where Tomb plus a Darksteel Citadel can drop a bomb for you. You've got E Champ as an awesome option for that, but not much else in the colorless. Cranial is more of a support card.

I just suggested Confidant because the original list I drew up was based on making the most impact off a T1 play - Chalice and SFM are both need-to-answer threats that basically your opponent has to stop. Probably Chalice less so nowadays. This puts your opponent in the position of having to Force on the draw or risk getting so far behind that they can't recover. That is, if you have two mana turn 1. I hunted around and there aren't any really punchy 2-drops for Tomb to put down other than Chalice, not ones that really matter to get down T1 instead of T2. Cranial's really good, but it can come down a turn or two later.
That said, I've been playing my list and goldfishing a bit, and the most miserable hands are the ones with two Chrome Mox as the only lands. Those are brutal. I might go down to 3. That and the deck punishes you on your mulls; you can rarely take a hand below 6. So I often have to keep sub-par hands because they're playable and I don't want to risk the 6 (or 5 - that's murder).
The other problem is the high # of blanks in Opal, Petals, and extra Chalices; Cranials too in your case. I'm high on Thoughtcast because it potentially gets you into more business, and you can afford to keep a couple dead Opals in hand based on that. Confidant does much the same thing, and as long as he's alive, you're netting cards, regardless of whether you want to attack with him.

I think Thirst is a bad Thoughtcast. They come online roughly the same time - three mana - except Thirst is always 3 mana whereas Thoughtcast goes down to 1. And gets around opposing Thalias, too - just need 5 artis. You can make nutty plays like Thoughtcast and drop a SFM off it same turn, whereas you don't get that option in Thirst, unless you've got a tonna mana. The deck doesn't hold open for counters all that often, so the instant-speed is pretty irrelevant.

Oh, and about Chrome - about half the time I use it to Metalcraft an Opal, so it's dead a lot of times. Sure, I get Card Disadvantage, but usually Chalice makes up for it, or the tempo I gain for Stoneforge is just plain nuts (plus the "Do you have Force" question); Confidant would work in the same way. Thoughtcast helps offset the disadvantage this kind of deck sets itself up to lose. I think there could be a version that runs Tomb, but it'd look a lot more different, and would probably want to max out Tombs. I propose Lodestone Golem, which is 80% awesome until Batterskull hits. Maybe even a set of Abyss, get rid of the Batterskulls. I think your list is a little between wanting to run Chrome or Tomb, mostly because drawing that second Tomb is probably miserable.

Just some thoughts. I'd been trying to build a version with four Tombs for a little while, but I keep coming up with Planeswalker Stax. Maybe I'll ditch Chrome Mox go heavier Colorless. A work in progress.

hax0rm4n

05-08-2013, 06:11 PM

Thanks for clearing these things up for me, it's always nice to hear from someone who's already tried things out.

I was also thinking about Lodestone Golem, but it proved to be pretty underwhelming and hard on the mana, even with 3 Tombs. Kinda the same situation you described with the old Sphere plan, except Boltable and much harder to actually fire off.

I see what you mean about Chrome Mox. I think even in a list with Tombs it deserves 2-3 slots, definitely more sans Tombs. To support it, I put the last Thoughtcast back in, and...

LINGERING SOULS

Jesus that card is nuts. Maybe the best way to describe it is like a super Thopter Foundry that adds serious resilience and value to your draws. SFM + Souls has already been a thing in Stoneblade decks, but adding Plating is ridiculous. I would seriously suggest that you try it out, especially as you already have 4 Chrome Mox to take advantage of their colored status. They also make extra Platings really good. I'd just be wary of clogging up your 3-drop slot; Etched Champion has been getting kinda clunky, especially in situations where Souls is a better usage of your turn, so I'm trimming them down to 2. He's still good against a lot of decks, Jund especially, but so is Souls :D. Souls also helps immensely when you are backpedalling or in topdeck mode.
I may just put the other 2 Champions in the SB if I can think of matchups where I'd prefer a full set of pro-everything, or where I need an immovable way to blank opposing Batterskulls. The T1 Souls hands with Tombs and Opal/Mox with Plating followup are just godlike, though.

Ancient Tomb is actually kinda good when you mull just because of the extra mana it makes. I went back down to 2 of them, though, as I increased my color reliance with the Moxen and the Souls. I'm kinda considering taking out the Petals, they've started to become lackluster with Souls + Plating hands.

Sadly, Souls has edged out Trinket Mage entirely, as I feel running him + a package takes up too much space whereas Champs are slot efficient and great in many matchups. Having said that, there are still times when I miss having EE to tutor up. Not sure what to do. Maybe even move Trinket Mage to SB as 2/3-of along with package?

Having tried this out, I agree with you completely on the issue of drawing high numbers of blanks after the first few Opals, Mox, Chalice, etc. I see how that's partially fixed by running enough cards with huge impact/value (Tezz, SFM, TC, Souls (!!)). However, I still feel kinda bad about having extra useless artifacts lie around in the hand. I think Ravager might be worth looking into on this end. He's also halfway decent against Decay. Deed still hoses him, though, and he nonbos with Souls tokens. I am also drawn to your earlier idea of Looter il-Kor, especially for the imprint requirements. The raw power of the rest of the deck may make up for playing a 1/1 for 1U. I may even replace Vault Skirge with him just for the imprint, although the lifelink is excellent when catching up from Tomb payments. He's almost a better Invisible Stalker.

I know since you run FoW that MoE becomes a lot better just because of the blue requirements, but I honestly think if not for that I don't really like him any more. There's effectively 8 Platings in the deck, and with Souls hogging the curve MoE doesn't feel very worth it. I'd rather untap with Souls tokens and zerg with Plating next turn than put a big lord down, especially as we've shied away from the swarm strategy of Memnites and Signal Pests. If he buffed Souls tokens, or if I ran FoW, I would leave him in.

What do you think about Whipflare in the sideboard?

Edit: Did a search for Phyrexian mana cards. Just saw Porcelain Legionnaire, although it just looks like a worse Thalia (no imprint), even if it's an artifact. The extra power isn't really as relevant with Plating, either.
Someone ran Gitaxian Probe in Affinity to a top8 in Europe recently, can't remember where. Might be worth looking into, but bad with Chalice, hard on Tombs, and doesn't do much on its own.
Maybe even Dismember for some removal. Can't really see it being much better than Dispatch, but it dodges Chalice and imprints.

frogger42

05-13-2013, 09:09 PM

Maybe even Dismember for some removal. Can't really see it being much better than Dispatch, but it dodges Chalice and imprints.

Dismember is pretty awesome for the deck. I'd tried it a bit and it's exactly the kind of removal this deck wants: something playable T1, and dodges Chalice. Right now I'm running 4 opal, 4 chrome and 3 petal, so I'm opting out of the 1-mana T1 plays, and hoping I can drop a 2-drop that turn instead. The problem with Dismember is that it's not a win-con, and it can also be a blank just like the Chrome Moxen and Opals and other things, especially in topdeck mode. Also, it doesn't get Reanimated dudes, especially Elesh Norn, who rocks about every dude in the deck. I decided Obv Ring/ Detention Sphere was what the deck really wanted.

I liked Lingering Souls too, but I actually come down on the side that Thopter Foundry is more powerful than it. They both make around 3-4 tokens on average, Foundry pitches to FoW, Souls to Chrome, but with one extra slot (Sword of the Meek) Foundry becomes a total house. I just like that some decks just scoop when I get Thopter combo going. Sword can sometimes be pretty dead, or at least underwhelming, but I've never found Foundry useless (other than when I have extra copies of it). I feel it's minimal slot investment for maximum return on power.

I stopped using the MoEs and switched those to Foundries a few weeks ago. Actually, I've been splitting first the past three weeks based on my list, which runs 4 Trinket Mage right now. I've made top 4 the last 6-7 weeks now, though some of that is based on playing against a few sub-optimal decks and some newbie players.

And about Trinket Mage, he really helps shore up the combo MU. The combo guy who plays at my store is pretty good, and I know he always feels miserable getting paired against me. 4 Force, 4 Chalice, 4 Trinket Mage (which sometimes comes down T1) makes 12 slots MD for cry cry cry. I honestly don't expect much combo in larger metas, but Chalice is generally useful against just about anything. He's not a bomb, but I have trouble coming up with a better slot for the deck.

And I have 3 slots open in my SB. I might throw in Etched Champion because he seriously smashes certain MUs, especially those with Punishing Fire. The lack of Chrome Imprinting might make sideboarding him in a bit tricky. I've got 3x Gilded Drake right now, for Rean, Sneak and Show, and Aluren though I think the guy who plays that is starting to learn how the deck goes, and Drake prob won't be as effective now. I'm kind of against SB'ing creatures that could be maindecked (unlike Gilded Drake), it just seems like inefficient deck building, and more tinkering will find whether you actually want Champion or have a stronger option to running it. I've had times where he's been no more than a super-duper Pearled Unicorn.

Looter is pretty weaksauce. Just Chrome imprint. I never tried him in a list with Cranial, though, which would be kinda cool.

EDIT: Whipflare... I don't really see a need for it. Whipflare stops Empty the Warrens token, Goblins, and occasionally Death and Taxes stuff. Trinket Mage + Chalice (+ Eng Exp) stops tokens, Sword of Fire/Ice takes Goblins, and Sword of Light/Shadow takes D+T - all of which are at least 5 slots of access. So I spend 2 slots SB instead of 3-4 slots on Whipflare, which is also untutorable. This build of Affinity also runs dudes you don't want to die, usually SFM is nice to keep alive, Trinket Mage and Ling Souls tokens, too. It's aggro enough with SFM and Jitte generally to ruin aggro matches, like Elves, Zoo and other random things I might be missing, and I find those are slightly in my favor, as I run Chalice too, which smashes aggro. I think it's a bit overkill. I want to play against Elesh Norn more so I can see how to end up winning that MU, as none of my dudes have more than 2 toughness; that's one reason why I ran MoE for the longest time. And Deed, too. I'd worry more about those MUs.

hax0rm4n

05-14-2013, 08:13 PM

Yeah, I'm running O-Rings and Spheres in the side as well. I pretty much figured the same about Dismember, but I wanted to see if you had already gone and done the legwork on it. Are you running both Spheres/O-Rings and Gilded Drakes in the side? I'm not sure, but I think I'd just go for the O-Rings and put in a few more slots for gravehate to deal with both Reanimator and Dredge.

I can see your point on Foundry, especially as it pitches to FoW, which is actually incredibly relevant. The only issue is that I don't have a set of FoW yet, so Lingering Souls tends to play out better for me as fuel for Chrome Mox. I'm also feeling that I want at least one more Ravager to eat up extra Opals, Petals, and Moxen. Ravager also gets better the more Opals you run as you can use them as pseudo-Petals to get out of tight spots or to accelerate plays.

I've put the Trinket Mages back in after cutting Looters, as they weren't doing anything very well besides imprint, and made some room for a Welding Jar and an EE. I still love how you can just drop a Chalice at 0 right after playing him. Looter + Plating was too often a worse version of Etched + Plating.

I think Champion in the board would serve a similar role as your singleton swords that you currently have, only not fetchable with Stoneforge, but resilient to removal. It's a house against tribal decks, solid against D&T, and puts good pressure on planeswalkers.

Broodstar is kind of like a MoE that pitches to FoW and Mox, but doesn't boost your Thopters and isn't an artifact. If it wasn't so harshly costed I might have actually considered using them, but even with affinity it's hard to come up with enough mana to justify it. It does dodge Abrupt Decay, which MoE doesn't.

I also saw a really strange card suggested over on the Affinity thread at Salvation: Jeweled Amulet. I'd kind of see it as a Springleaf Drum that dodges Chalice at 1, but it feels really slow and the mana would come a turn too late to be useful enough.

Funnily enough, one guy on Salvation there is thinking about cutting out the weak stuff like Memnite, Pest, and Skirge and focusing on the top end. While protecting his stuff with WELDING JAR.

EDIT: I just found this old card, Lodestone Myr, except he's kind of a worse Lodestone Golem. He can make use of extra Chalices and Moxen, though, and works well with equipment.

frogger42

05-17-2013, 07:42 AM

Are you running both Spheres/O-Rings and Gilded Drakes in the side? I'm not sure, but I think I'd just go for the O-Rings and put in a few more slots for gravehate to deal with both Reanimator and Dredge.

Yeah, I probably don't need the Gilded Drake, but I had three SB slots open and couldn't figure out what other MUs to hate out, other than Rean. I saw in Salvation one guy runs Tangle Wire, which I think is a great idea, except this deck is too control and doesn't have a threat often enough to capitalize on the tempo you'd gain from the Wire. I suppose it could also be Etched Champion, except I don't really feel a need to overkill the aggro MUs; Swords seem to do pretty fine.

Yesterday I just played against a mono-U Show and Tell/Omniscience/Dream Halls deck. It was really damned good and played a nuts sideboard: Cunning Wish got a million different things. He could S+T Omni, I would show Det Sphere, and in response he could free Cunning Wish for free Trickbind and still win. So I'm trying to figure out a way to beat that deck. I'm not really sure what I could do about it right now, but I feel like my list can be played a bit more optimally to give me a better shot at beating it. Never seen the deck before.

I'd seen Jeweled Amulet before, but this version of the deck wants Lotus Petal more. You've got splashable colored sources, so all you need is one White or one Blue to play what you want. I'm not sure about other types of Affinity, though.

hax0rm4n

05-18-2013, 12:51 PM

I've tried out Tangle Wire both in traditional Affinity and with Chalice, and I've pretty much found that you need small beaters like Pests and Memnites to really take advantage of tapping the opponent down for 2 turns. Like they've said over there, Tangle Wire + another control element (Chalice+FoW in this case) is often excessive.

I'm really finding Jund and the various flavors of SnT to be the worst matchups. Broodstar has actually been useful against Jund, as they have no way of getting rid of it outside of Liliana's -2, and Lingering Souls or extra Thopters make it hard for them to do that. They also have 0 ways of blocking it, and as always pitching to Mox and/or FoW is quite useful. My only qualm is that the double U is kind of hard to come up with sometimes. It's only a 1-of, and I would never go above 2 of them. Part of the reason I'm running Etched is for Jund, where he can stare down Goyfs until you draw a Plating and also puts good pressure on Liliana while being impossible to deal with.

Damn, I really need that set of FoW :(
They would probably make the SnT matchup a lot easier.
I've never seen that mono-U SnT variant either, I've only seen UR ones with Burning Wish/Sneak Attack, but it's still hellish to play against. I wish we could run Cabal Therapy in the side to break up their game plan, but that would be an awfully narrow sideboard slot that conflicts with Chalice. Maybe Meddling Mage on Show and Tell would work under a Chalice@1 to stop Burning Wish for removal, or we can just bite the bullet and side out Chalices games 2 and 3 for Therapies.

EDIT: I might try 1-2 Flusterstorm in the side as something to bring in vs. Storm and SnT. Even under Chalice@1, only the first copy would get countered, and I think it would help a lot in stopping a Show from resolving especially as it isn't very hard to keep up a proactive game plan while holding U up given how much acceleration the deck has.

frogger42

05-20-2013, 09:51 PM

This is really out there, but have you seen Savage Summoning? It's spoiled for the new set, and I like the idea that I can drop Chalice @2 and still get a guy to sneak through it.
Even worse idea, one of my buddies wants to run Counterslivers with all the new ones they're coming up with, and I'm starting to think that maybe I could keep the manabase and run Slivers in the deck instead. It'd allow me to run Cavern of Souls, again for the Chalice @ 2 (which hoses all the good win cons) though I freely admit it's an absolutely crazy idea. They're probably not as powerful as SFM/Cranial, but I really like my Chalice @2...

hax0rm4n

05-21-2013, 12:03 PM

This is really out there, but have you seen Savage Summoning? It's spoiled for the new set, and I like the idea that I can drop Chalice @2 and still get a guy to sneak through it.

LOL
My only issue is that it has card disadvantage inherently built into it while not doing enough with that extra card you're paying. There's already so many dead draws in the deck, and Savage Summoning seems to add more of those.
It's unfortunate that there aren't many creatures with affinity that have the same impact as SFM or Bob.

Even worse idea, one of my buddies wants to run Counterslivers with all the new ones they're coming up with, and I'm starting to think that maybe I could keep the manabase and run Slivers in the deck instead. It'd allow me to run Cavern of Souls, again for the Chalice @ 2 (which hoses all the good win cons) though I freely admit it's an absolutely crazy idea. They're probably not as powerful as SFM/Cranial, but I really like my Chalice @2...

I'm just afraid of the the problem where you rely completely on Cavern to resolve your slivers without a way to tutor it. Trinket Mage and Tezz both can't grab it, and Cavern kinda sucks when it's a non-artifact land that produces colorless.
I'm imagining draws where you get a Cavern and have trouble landing something relevant T2, or go for an early Chalice@2 before you find a Cavern and just sit there with meathooks in your hand for a few turns.
Have you had lots of games where you would land, say, Chalice@1 and 2 and have trouble actually killing them? I've been finding that, against the decks where you want Chalice@2, the soft lock slows them down enough to dig up a Tezzeret or a Broodstar in order to put on pressure. I've also just killed people with Lingering Souls tokens :D
Maybe it's the inclusion of Foundry+Sword that gets mucked up by Chalice@2?

frogger42

05-21-2013, 09:14 PM

You're right about Sav Summoning. Just another blank, really. The problem with my build is that Stoneforge and Foundry and Jitte and Cranial, just about all my serious beaters, are all CMC2. Trinket Mage is kind of a pansy. And I have to find Tezz to play it, let alone if it gets FoW'd.
Playing against Aluren, I'd found that Trinket Mage wasn't enough to get there with Chalice @1 and 2. I'd been deadlocked until I got Chalice @ 3. Against other decks, I can see that their 3-drops would likely be heavier than my T Mage (something like Liliana, to start with) that it would be a liability for me to drop Chalice @ 2. I just wish my build had the added flexibility of using a second Chalice and not getting hampered all that much. But that might entail doing Ling Souls over Foundry, and Thopter Combo has won me a tonna games on its own. I'll keep my eyes open, though.

frogger42

05-21-2013, 10:02 PM

I've also been thinking a lot about Force. Its rarely a blank or anything like that, but generally this deck likes to play out things Sorcery speed, as it doesn't run Brainstorm or Intuition or anything. Dudes are preferred, as they suit up to Cranial really well. The rough Sorcery-speed equivalent to Force I figure is Med Mage, and he's got a few other cousins - Tidehollow Sculler (Mesmeric Fiend), Spiketail Hatchling (Spiketail Drakeling, Judge's Familiar). These all stop a card proactively and, even better, leave you with a dude to Jitte and swing; I think Sculler's the best, but he doesn't imprint. My games against that Mono-U Show/Omni deck were brutal because I didn't have any pressure on the table for several turns, so I think I might try a few weeks with Mage or his equivalent to see if that's what the deck really wants.

hax0rm4n

05-22-2013, 12:30 AM

I was actually following a very similar line of thought as I don't have the Forces, and stumbled on Meddling Mage in my trades binder. I still like Flusterstorm out of the side better because it doesn't get beat by Burning Wish or REB. Sculler and Familiar seem like better choices for their broader hate and maindeck usage.

I feel Sculler isn't quite 1-for-1 swappable with FoW because of the imprint restrictions, but there are ways around that. I actually would have considered Gitaxian Probes if it didn't nonbo with Chalice, just so I didn't feel quite as in the dark in every matchup, and Sculler is a great way to do that that adds to artifact count. Only problem is that coming up with WB early can be rough, and he gets hit by the Chalice@2. I talked to a buddy about it and he was really skeptical about the hard color costs, but I still think it might be worth it. It makes Tomb and Citadel significantly worse, but I think the deck is already resilient enough to Wasteland.

Judge's Familiar gets dinged by Chalice and I feel it doesn't do enough to break up game plans compared to Sculler. The plus side is providing 2 colors on imprint and flying with Plating, but the lock is way softer than Sculler or Mage.

Good catch on Sculler, I really want to try it out. Maybe I'll get to crush a few opposing Stoneforges :D
I'll probably take out the singleton Ravager, Vault Skirge, and Welding Jar (nooooooo), but it's hard to make room for them.

frogger42

05-25-2013, 09:45 AM

So I put in Meddling Mage over Force for a couple days, and then I remembered Dark Confidant, who's just plain more powerful than Mage. So my creature base looked like:

SFM 4
Confidant 4
Trinket Mage 4
(Thopter Foundry 4)

I really liked having Confidant and he surprisingly stuck quite a few games. One game I flipped two Thoughtcast in a row and flipped out a bit, but I won it (the guy was pretty new to playing his deck, Maverick). I should note with SFM + Batterskull, Confidant has minimal drawback, and also I know you run Ling Souls whereas I've got Foundry, which also gains life for me, esp with Sword. Add 4 Tezz, and I've effectively got 13 ways of gaining life back, to 4 Conf.
I think Med Mage and Confidant are both ways to fight the occasional Deed, in that Mage blocks it, and Conf fills your hand again so you can replay your board position. Mage does get Decayed easily, then you can get your board wiped; whereas Conf, if he has already stuck a few turns, has already netted you the cards to try to catch up after a Deed. I think I like that plan slightly better, considering I can't Welding Jar a Mage to keep Deed from coming down.
The only worry I have is that the deck is that much lighter on disruption. It runs Jitte and Chalice too, in a way. I lost to the Mono-U Omni/Show again, it's even harder without the Forces. I've got 3 Mage in the Board, though I kinda feel it's weird to have both Mage and the Phyrexian nullifier guy (can't remember his name), where they kind of cross paths a bit. I might just make them Forces, and heck with the Confidants flipping them.

And last thing: 4 Opals, 4 Chrome, 3 Petals for T1 2-mana. That makes Chalice 4, SFM 4, Conf 4 to play turn one, which is so much fun! I'd probably prioritize them that way, too, if I had a couple in hand and had to choose one to play.

Actually last thing: the new Legends rule makes Mox Opal exceptionally awesome. Makes bringing out Tezz that much easier!

hax0rm4n

06-02-2013, 09:12 PM

I think I'm going to try Confidant, too. It sounds really powerful, but I'll probably have to shift some other things around to reduce the average CMC. I'm also going up to 4 Tezz after the legend rule change. 3 has done well for me so far, with 4 I was drawing two without a Chrome too often for my tastes, but I feel the change will make it more worth it. I ended up landing a T1 Tezz one game and using -1 on my Chrome Mox, then -1 again next turn on a land to swing for 10, and being able to "reset" Tezz after the change will make plays like that even more backbreaking when you don't have enough board presence.

The Tidehollows bricked way too often on the coloured mana, so I'm pretty much done with that idea. Especially as they don't pitch to Chrome. I'm just going to go with Meddling Mage + Flusterstorm for SnT.

I'm going back to your old tech of Riddlesmith for card selection. It's been testing pretty well, especially as an imprint. I also like that I can get 1B Lingering Souls off of his trigger when putting down artifacts somewhere around T3-5, and there are enough blanks in the deck to make his topdeck improvement relevant. Unfortunately, he's kind of awful against Lili, but I'm hoping Souls will cover my back there. I also put in a single Academy Ruins to have the ability to build my own Demonic Tutor off of Riddlesmith triggers while also having Abrupt Decay insurance.

I still has moments where he feels really lame, though.

I know he looks kinda garbage, but would Tezzeret the Seeker have any place here? He still has the +1 -> ultimate win pattern, but he might be worth it for his Trinket Mage impersonation. You could tutor for Thopter or Sword, or pull out silver bullets like a Revoker.

frogger42

06-05-2013, 06:37 PM

I know he looks kinda garbage, but would Tezzeret the Seeker have any place here? He still has the +1 -> ultimate win pattern, but he might be worth it for his Trinket Mage impersonation. You could tutor for Thopter or Sword, or pull out silver bullets like a Revoker.

I like the idea of Tezz the Seeker a lot, but I have a couple problems with him. He's UU, first of all, which requires an Opal/ Chrome and Seat of the Synod to get off. Tezz AoB is easier to get the color requirements for, because you can have Seat or Vault with Opal, whereas you usually need your 4-of Seat to cast old Tezz. Two, the five mana is a significant jump. I've had some moments where I held on to a couple TAoBs because I didn't have enough mana, and it seems that old Tezz is going to be about 50% harder to cast. Even though he seeks out all kinds of good stuff, the manabase is mostly designed for 2-drops and the occasional 3, so Confidant is probably more efficient than old Tezz.

If you have room for 4 Trinket Mage and extra space for old Tezz, try it out! Being able to fix off of Mage might make it workable. Also, Trinket Mage can be a bit better, as he puts Chalice or Eng Ex directly in your hand.

Riddlesmith wasn't too bad when I was playing him, but his main drawback is power level. He's relatively weak in this format, compared to Goyf and Confidant et al., and makes a sucky topdeck. Unless you've been holding onto a ton of cards to cycle with him. It's nice that he Cranials up in my version now, but so do a lot of things. I think the unblockable makes Looter Il-Kor a bit better, that and the original version of the deck had Frogmite and Myr Enforcer to cycle through a tonna cards.

A couple other possibilities in that Tezz slot: Glen Elendra Archmage. It feels like it could solve the Show and Tell MU, and deal with the occasional Deed, too. Transmute Artifact - though I feel like you're going to sac Opals and get Thopter Foundry, and pay at least UU2 for it. Oh yeah, I guess Tezz also gets equip. I played at a tourney with 40 people and kinda scrubbed, 3-2, dropped before the last round. If you end up running old Tezz, let me know what your manabase looks like and how it works out.

EDIT: I think I'd like to run Vendilion Clique but the UU is what's holding me back. I think it would be the ideal card in my FoW slot, deals with combo, drops a dude, and cycles extra Opals too. Oh well.

frogger42

06-09-2013, 09:14 PM

A friend of mine just suggested that I try to run Ethersworn Canonist against Omni/Show. I could show it in and buy a few extra turns of hitting. More impressive, I could cast it, then show in the Obv Ring and my opponent won't be able to Cunning Wish/ Trickbind the trigger. I think it's worth a shot, as I've got 3 open slots right now.
I'm thinking it might work really well without FoW, with Confidant instead. Force is a good way to stop combo decks from going off Turn 1, and I've found I've sided it out a lot for Obv Ring or something else. And Ethersworn is quite castable T1 with this manabase, so I think I might not lose a whole lot against Combo MUs. Confidant might help more against Control, as I like having a couple T1 options against my opponent. So I'll let you know how that SB plan works out.

frogger42

06-13-2013, 12:50 AM

I'm trying out Magus of the Moon on MWS right now. I dunno how it is, tbh. But with all the Petals and Opals, it seems I could possibly get it down T1 every now and then and get a free win. I've been noticing that I can't deal with land-based strategies, like 12-Post or a lot of Wastelands, and I figure Trinket Mage + Opal is plenty of fixing for the deck.
Manabase: 12 Arti Lands, 4 Opal 4 Chrome, 2 Cavern of Souls (T Mage + Magus + Confidant = Wiz; SFM gets his own, I guess). I took out a couple Tezz and a couple lands to make room for more spells.
I don't know how it is yet, because Thopter combo likes a lot of lands when you get it going. I might be going counter-intuitive. But it'd be nice to have a bomb 3-drop, as all the 2-drops are being played. Maybe I could do Goyf, but it doesn't help my land disruption.
It also makes 4x Foundry and 2x Tezz so difficult to play! But I think, even if Magus isn't the right card, that I'm on the right track with experimenting with other splashable bomb 3-drops. Magus, Mindcensor, Treasure Mage, Fierce Empath.

In fact, even though it's generally worse than Trinket Mage, I wonder if Treasure Mage could find a strong enough toolbox that it might be worth running. He snags Wurmcoil/ Steel Hellkite for power, Myr Enforcer for speed, and maybe a couple other cards, too (unfortunately not Scourglass). Though the deck really needs a Trinket Mage for artis CMC 2.

And I might've found another bomb 2-drop: Ankh of Mishra. Fetches hit for four, and all the Moxen dodge it natch. But I wonder how useful it might be in all MUs, and the deck will have to be redesigned to be more aggro and take advantage of both players having lower life totals. And it'd probably want Galv Blast (and no Chalice), too.

12 arti lands, 4 opal, 4 chrome

4 Ankh
4 Confidant
4 SFM
4 Ornithopter
4 Vault Skirge
4 Death's Shadow
3 Magus of the Moon

4 Cranial
1 Batterskull
1 Jitte

4 Galv Blast
4 Shrapnel Blast
60

frogger42

06-13-2013, 02:45 PM

Hey hax0rm4n,
So I tried a different version with Ankh, and it should've been obvious, but it only gets in around 4-8 dmg if Turn One'd. The opponent can usually stop playing lands at some point, generally around 3 (because that's most legacy curves). So not a powerhouse or anything, def not. And Skirge definitely stinks... esp against Punishing Fires decks.

Regarding the blue/white/black version:
I've been jumping around between Force and Confidant. Confidant I think I lose more games, usually with pretty close to a full grip, and I tend to not be able to drop cards fast enough (because the mana curve starts at 2). Force I win a few more, though I'm more often in Topdeck mode. That's not too bad for the deck, considering I could TD a Stoneforge or Tezz, some other powerhouse.
I also tried Vendilion Clique. With the T Mages (usually for Opal), it's actually fairly castable. I think I've been getting pretty lucky with my Seat of the Synods, though.
Here's what I think I want to do: Force and Confidant (and Thoughtcast, ugh). Why? Because Confidant keeps adding cards to my hand, and Force allows me to convert those extra cards into massive tempo swings; I could cast a SFM and then Force my opponent's in one turn, and still recover with Confd. Obviously the two cards aren't that synergistic, but I'm going to test more to see how often Bob kills me. Right now he's been taking pretty hefty swings at my life total, so I'm not too happy with that - but I haven't died to him yet. Still, the end result is whether he wins the game, and I like that he fits exactly in my mana curve, and that it makes my opponent's bolts have to work that much harder. I like SFM for Batterskull, knowing it will die to a StoP, then Confidant to see if they have the other kill. I cut a couple Tezz, Welding Jar and a land for a playset.
Right now, the average mana-cost in my deck is about 1 1/3 mana per card. So I'll be taking about 4 dmg every three turns, on average. That's rarely been the case, but it should be fairly acceptable as long as I'm dealing 2 dmg right back. And gaining life with Foundry/ BSkull most games.

Right now I've got to get the deck ready to play in a month for the SCG open in July. Ugh! I also tried out Magus in the SB - I swapped Darksteels for Great Furnaces. It's strange that it's the only red card, and right now I'm 60-40 on it. It smashes Lands and 12-Post, but I haven't played it enough in other MUs to see if it makes a difference beyond that. It is a Wizard, though, which is neat if I could run Cavern of Souls...

EDIT: Now that the deck doesn't run Sphere, it can't really be called Balls of Steel. What's a good name for it? I've got "Good-finity," because it's... well, whatever.

frogger42

06-14-2013, 05:52 PM

Ankh is jank :D

Yes. Yes it is. It took me one of those "Aha! This is pretty terrible" kind of moments for me to realize that.

I've been tinkering again, and the latest build is:
4 Opal
4 Chrome
4 Seat, Den, Vault
3 DS Cit

4 Chalice, Thopter, Force, Thoughtcast
4 SFM, Trinket
3 Tezz
3 Other Equip
3 Ornth, 1 Phyrexian Walker (for Punishing Fires, Elesh Norn)
2 Cranial

The build I ran last night had Confd in the place of Tezz and a Cranial (also Petals instead of Ornithp) and that didn't do too great. The power's definitely there... I haven't decided whether it's better simply to just run Confd as a slightly less powerful Tezz, or Tezz as an all kinds of hard-to-answer finisher. The deck def wants to drop a 2 drop turn 1, but is it better in the long run just to play a crazy Bob+finisher (and Conf def is not that)? I don't know. I compromised and tried to make Cranial the next 2-drop I can play T1, and changed the Petals to Ornithopters so I can get swinging T2. I think testing will tell which way is more effective, Cranial or Bob, because right now it's not that clear and I'm not thinking that straight anyway (re: Ankh idea).

My Sideboard! I still basically have 3 open slots, but I think I came and found the card I wanted:
2 Tormods (just in case they recover)
1 Sword Fire
1 Sword Light
4 Det Sphere
4 Revoker
3 Armageddon

I do 4 D-Sphere because there are MUs I need removal bad, like Reanimator, or stuff like Moat+Humility, Energy Field. I forgot about Armageddon, and something tells me Magus is a bit better than it... but I do run 8 Moxen and 3 DS Cit, and only 12 of my lands will get hit by it, as opposed to 22+ of my opp. I don't know when to bring it in, other than against Lands and 12 post - against Jace, it's great before he hits, then really really awful after - Planeswalkers make it pretty bad. So I'm not too sure on that. I might even try out Scourglass, but I'm already pretty strong against aggro.

Do you need the second Eng Ex in your SB? I've actually been finding it a liability every now and then - that I have to trade some of my permanents to take out my opp's, too. I think it's right to have one MD, but I never really find myself needing a second - Chalice @ 1 ends up taking care of Deathrites and Elves, which is what EE ideally hits.
And you run 4 grave hate, which seems a bit high. I know Trinket Mage sometimes ain't fast enough, like against nut Reanimator hands, but oftentimes he's fine - esp with Lotus Petal. I think you can cut one RIP, maybe 2. I'd probably go up on Revoker, or if you'd rather, D-Sphere or Magus. 2 doesn't feel like enough to make a difference in your match. Actually, I'm still going to suggest you make room for a couple Swords; another 5 slots of free evasion + card advantage never hurt anyone (other than your opponent).

So how have you been doing with Good-finity so far? I've been going 50-50 since I changed it around a few weeks ago; I was taking 1st-3rd for a couple months with the updated list on the first page, but I've been hitting a lot of 1-land hands of late. I'd like to hear how it's faring against what you're playing against. I feel like the deck is about 80% done with tinkering, it's got a solid shell, but it's the last bit that's really tough to figure out.

EDIT: I think I'm going to try Master of Etherium again in the Foundry slot. I remember liking that a lot, esp if you Turn 1, then Turn 2 (or 2 and 3). That's almost always game. It's weak to Liliana unlike Foundry/ Ling Souls... but it's another impressive finisher. It also answers Goyfs really well and dodges Chalice @ 2/ Punishing Fire. We'll see.

hax0rm4n

06-16-2013, 12:28 PM

After taking your suggestions into account, I've ended up with this:

Mana - 24
4 Seat of the Synod
3 Ancient Den
3 Vault of Whispers
2 Great Furnace
4 Chrome Mox
4 Mox Opal
3 Lotus Petal
1 City of Brass

Creatures - 19
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Dark Confidant
4 Ornithopter
3 Lingering Souls
1 Vault Skirge
3 Trinket Mage

Other - 17
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Cranial Plating
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Thoughtcast
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

Sideboard
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Detention Sphere
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Flusterstorm
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Rest in Peace
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Magus of the Moon

That singleton City of Brass has saved me so many times that I feel bad cutting it. I've also bricked on D-Sphere mana before, so I'm still running some number of O-Ring, although I think you're right that 4 Rings/Spheres is the way to go.

EE has been completely dead a few times, so I feel comfortable moving it to the side and only bringing it in when needed. It may deserve a spot in the main again, but the room is just so tight and sometimes you really just don't want it. Flusterstorm has been excellent so far for just catching people off guard through Chalice, though I think the only reason I feel that way might be the lack of FoW.

I'd like to find room for a Sword or two, but again there is just not a lot of room with the 12 2-drop package and the affinity aggro cards. They're also disgusting with Souls.

From my testing on Trice, we manage to keep affinity's traditionally good matchups against aggro while also beating some of the unfair decks with Chalice, but I keep having trouble with more disruptive decks. I haven't really been keeping numbers, but I feel like the deck is actually well-positioned right now. I brought it out once when I was out of town to a weekly and crushed a bunch of Delver and Storm decks, but I haven't had a chance again to do so recently so all my testing has been online. I've had a lot of people disconnect immediately after a T1 Chalice, though, so that must be a good sign.

I like the split between Ornithopter and Walker for the 3-toughness, and I can think of quite a few situations where it's relevant (blocking Goblin Guide, for one), so I definitely want to try that out especially since it really does not change the deck too much to make the switch.

Souls is a very real thing. There's very powerful plays with Souls like SFM > Jitte + Souls, or Souls + Tezz to do a good impression of Stoneblade. I have the Thopter combo package lying around as well, so I'll eventually just replace it 1-for-1 and see how it goes, but the imprint has been very kind to me so far to make T1 SFM a lot easier.

I think so far this is how I prioritize T1 plays, if there are multiple in hand:

With Petal:
1) Chalice
2) Bob
3) SFM if white land + another land in hand

With Mox:
1) Chalice
2) SFM if possible
3) Bob

With Opal (or complete freedom):
1) Chalice
2) SFM
3) Bob

I feel like the T2 Batterskull is key to putting on huge pressure, although sometimes I end up going with Bob first instead because I have some plays to make on T2 that would need that extra 2 mana, and SFM can always just grab a Jitte/Plating for fliers.

Another thing about the new legend rule: Jitte is kind of scary now. I've been thinking about Manriki-Gusari to beat Jitte mirrors, but that smells strongly of janky tech.

frogger42

06-17-2013, 02:21 PM

First of all, I was thinking of something along that decklist, but I think you nailed it. I think the list looks great, fast, powerful, consistent. The one thing I'd question is the 1x Vault Skirge, as you have no way to tutor for it or anything. And I've been finding Skirge to be too easy to bolt or block, so I think I'd cut that for something else.
Also, if you're running Ornithopter, Trinket Mage is like a mini, but more versatile Ling Souls. I'd probably cut one Souls for the fourth mage. But that's my opinion; awesome looking list.

Another thing about the new legend rule: Jitte is kind of scary now. I've been thinking about Manriki-Gusari to beat Jitte mirrors, but that smells strongly of janky tech.

I fear that a lot, too, esp considering Punishing Fire is so brutal against the deck. The main card I can think of to fight that is actually Master of Etherium. He should be way too big to Jitte effectively, so you should be able to equip him up with anything and always swing through. I'd say just keep at least 18 imprintable spells MD and you should be good. And Obv Ring should take care of Jitte, so it's probably important to 4x that.
(I've noticed Obv Ring really really sucks with Engineered Explosives. Also I've been running D Sphere so my Obv Rings don't all get Sphered.)

I think the worst disruption against the deck is Wasteland. I've been Wasted out of games a few times; they hit the right color, and you're out. Or sometimes you just need Metalcraft. I really like being able to drop DS Cit turn one, so they can't waste it, then I can metalcraft next turn and dodge daze. I bet that requires dropping red and Magus...

Anyway awesome list! I'm going to Philly this weekend with a list a bit more control, and I think I might try out Jace instead of Confidant, cause I got Force and all. I tested one game and smacked him down T2; followed by T3 Tezz. The pow-ah!

hax0rm4n

06-18-2013, 01:03 AM

This list has been treating me really well recently, and feels way more powerful than conventional Affinity.

The one thing I'd question is the 1x Vault Skirge, as you have no way to tutor for it or anything. And I've been finding Skirge to be too easy to bolt or block, so I think I'd cut that for something else.

I think I might actually just swap him out for a Walker. There's already Souls and Thopters for fliers, so the resistance to 2 Jitte charges/Fire is pretty good especially when tutored by Trinket Mage when it's most relevant.

Also, if you're running Ornithopter, Trinket Mage is like a mini, but more versatile Ling Souls. I'd probably cut one Souls for the fourth mage. But that's my opinion; awesome looking list.

That's exactly how I feel about Mage as well: a "Souls" that can also fetch a Chalice, mana, or EE when needed. By himself he doesn't pressure planeswalkers as effectively as an actual Souls, which is why I'm still committing to 3 Souls. 4 Souls is overkill in any deck, so 3 is the functional maximum, but 3 is definitely feeling good right now. Mage also has moments where it doesn't feel high impact enough, and I almost never want to see more than 1, so I think 3 is fine. Mage for Thopter is only best when you already have a Plating.

It looks like we've come full cycle on MoE, although I think I would want to replace the Souls with Foundries then. Maybe the raw bulk is enough to be worth it without tinkering around with the imprint slots, I'll just try him out first and see how it goes. It might be rough with the current reliance on Petals, but he fights Goyf like a boss.

I'll definitely try upping the O-Ring/Sphere count to 4, you've got me there.

Waste is definitely an issue. I'm going to really stretch the manabase and see if it's still possible to keep at least 2 Citadels in with 2 Furnaces without making the deck too inconsistent. Magus autowins certain matchups and barely touches our manabase, and the jump from 3 -> 4 for 'geddon sometimes represents a full two turns before you can cripple their mana, so I really like Magus and might also run a split with Blood Moons to make them harder to deal with.

frogger42

06-18-2013, 11:42 PM

I just played tonight and won out - 3 rounds, 4th split. I think I know what broke my losing streak, probably 3 things:

Force of Will: I'd been trying to figure out either to run this or Confidant, and I think Force is better, actually. It tempos really hard, and it can also provide immediate card advantage, like forcing a SFM or Jace. Where it really shined was against Omni/Show, and it gave me a way to disrupt my opponent other than Chalice @1 - which gives me 8 slots to interact with them. It's really important in that MU and against and gives you a fighting chance against decks that don't interact with creatures.

Thopter Combo: I played against Esper Deathblade and assembling the pieces with SFM got me G1. I was in a completely unwinnable situation, staring down Batterskull, stuck on 2-3 lands for multiple turns.* Eventually I started cranking out 3 thopters/turn, and that was powerful enough to outrace batterskull. He had no answer MD for it; schweet.
Don't get me wrong, there are some MUs where Thopter stinks, mostly combo and tempo. But I don't see it being that much worse than Lingering Souls, which is still 5 mana for 4 power on the field; against combo, you side both out for Thalia or something. Foundry still pitches to Force in those situations where it sucks, which makes it so bloody great. I'm def keeping it from here on out.

Wasteland: I don't remember what I dropped, but originally I tried something close to your list with Wastes, I think dropping the Petals. It's nice having the extra mana, potentially for Tezz or Thopters, and while I already had won the second game against Deathblade, I was able to finish out faster by hitting Riptide Lab. I remember there are a lot of MUs where Waste comes in handy: 12 post, Punishing Fires decks, greedy manabases (like possibly BUG, try to keep them off a mana from Decay/Deed). I think this will allow you to drop Magus.

I ran Meddling Mage from the SB against Omni/Show, and having Sword of Fire/Ice in the board was huge. Everything but that and Cranial were awful equipment, and I was able to pro:Blue my Med Mage FTW. I think your list could run Thalia, which is usually 90% better than Mage, and easier to cast.

So I still run a couple Petals, but I think I'm kinda against needing to go all in turn 1. Hence why I'm trying Wasteland. Because the CMC of the deck starts at 2, it really helps to try to run land-heavy, and Wasteland converts into a spell when you get too much mana. Even Mishra's Factory might be worth considering for the same reason, though I pref the disruption. Probably 12 arti lands, 4 wastes, and then the Moxen should suffice. I also dropped T Crypt down to 1 like in your board, so I could make room for Med Mage #4. It should probably do.

*EDIT: I should mention there was also a Jace involved.

frogger42

06-20-2013, 10:24 AM

Hey Haxor,
I know we're not running the old Balls of Steel list, but I saw a Transaffinity list that reminded me of a project I'd tried to work on a while back: Transmute Artifact in affinity. Balls of Steel is well-positioned to abuse this card, as it already runs Enforcer and Frogmite plus Batterskull. However, I can't seem to get a list together that runs Balls (for 1x Sundering Titan, woot!) or Chalice (Frog and Myr with 18+ imprintables for Chrome Mox... tough choices) but it seems Riddlesmith can get cut right away for TA. And I want to run Wasteland in that old list, too. I seem to be at 65 cards right now with nothing to cut... ugh. Just thought I'd put it out there, and maybe run out a list when I figure the basics out.

frogger42

06-24-2013, 01:54 PM

So I went kinda scrubby with it, going 5-3, and ended up in 54th place. Money, but really not so great. Here was my list:

4 Opal, Chrome, Seat, Den
4 Wasteland
3 Vault
1 DS Cit
2 Lotus Petal

1 Ornithopter
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Chalice
4 SFM
4 Trinket Mage
4 Tezz AoB
4 Thopter Foundry
4 Force
4 Thoughtcast
1 Batterskull, Cranial, Jitte, Sword of Meek

SB: 4 Revoker, 4 Med Mage, 4 D Sphere, 1 Crypt, 1 Sword Fire/Ice, Light/Shadow

It wasn't too bad, but the deck kept petering out after a couple turns. If SFM gets forced, that's just huge against me. Very hard to fight. I'm thinking of replacing Force with the Det Spheres in the board so I don't keep 2-for-1-ing myself. I don't have definite proof that's the right way to go, but I'm kind of feeling it might help my long game, which is mostly dependent on Thopter Combo.

The other surprising thing was how little Tezz actually won games. I won more often with Thopter Combo. Tezz often tried to help me stabilize against a harsh field, and usually didn't succeed.

My losses were to a Maverick player (he won the SCG Open), Esper I think (prob not Deathblade) and Dredge. I made a misplay, admittedly, but I probably wouldn't've gotten out of it. Mom isn't usually the problem with the Mav MU, as EE for 1 wrecks her. I just need some way to keep Kotr small, because he was way too big for my Cranial to take care of him. I won against Cascade BUG, TES, Omni-Show, Death and Taxes, and Mav. I got most of my matches in 2.

I liked Wasteland, too. It wasn't phenomenal, but I did waste my buddy (of course you play your buddy when you're x-2) out of the game. I think it's worth going at least 2-of, and it still taps for mana on top of that.

Tezz -> Confidant, Force -> D Sphere??? I don't know, but I'm going to try that. I'm not convinced it's the right play, but it's going to take some testing to figure it out.

Also, it's very easy to misplay the deck. Grrr! knowing when to drop a dead Chrome, and when not to, is quite the pain. I had to Force a Liliana because I didn't drop my Ornithopter, too. Which cost me the game in the long run, though not the match.

Final thoughts: it's definitely a deck, but it still feels a bit janky at times. Like one game when I dropped Chrome, Opal, Chalice, then Chalice @ 1 - that's 5 cards for a freaking Chalice. Wtf. It comes close to being uber-competitive, but right now I'd still put it around tier 1.5-ish. There's SCG Worcester over here in a couple weeks, so I've got a bit more time to cram for that. Hopefully I'll crack T16 with it... though prob not. We'll see. A couple players told me that my MU was likely in their favor... rofl. How's your testing going?

frogger42

07-07-2013, 09:36 PM

I sucked in Worcester, too, going 5-4. Same list, but Force -> Bob. He surprisingly stuck several times, maybe got plowed 2-3 times the whole tourney. I liked him a lot today.

I just feel like the deck is missing one more piece to it. I'm not quite sure what it is. I lost round 1 to traditional affinity - Etched Champ + Cranial both games, and as much as I'd like to run him, he's just not good in this build. I'm probably going to put down the deck for a bit and work on another - I want to play Angel Stompy and screw around with my Prismatic-made-Legacy. The whole day I didn't really get Opal-screwed, a few times Chrome screwed, and a couple games I mulled to 5, but overall I wasn't fighting my deck too hard. I don't know quite how to fix the deck to make it closer to Tier 1, I just think some of the inherent weaknesses (2-for-1 with Chrome, Lotus Petal) can make some games frustrating, even though the TD's are really incredible - even just Thopter Foundry. If I were to take a guess, Goodfinity would need a slightly stronger manabase to really make it, but as is, it's still a pretty good deck, even as I was playing it maybe 85% optimally. I still got mana pwn'd every now and then off of SFM or something like that, which was especially frustrating, grrr.

Thanks for your suggestions Hax0r, I'll post something new when I get a good idea for the deck, but a year on it's been pretty long, and I could use the change, at least for a few weeks. I hope you stick with it and come up with the brilliant idea that'll push it over the top.
-Matt

frogger42

08-04-2013, 09:49 PM

Last week I dusted it off and went: 4 Cranial, 4 Force, no Confidant/Tezz. I also MD 2 Etched Champ for Cranials (though dunno if it should be 2 MoE to dodge Elesh Norn - and survive Jitte!) and went 4-0 with it. American Delver, OmniShow, Deathblade and something else. The real main difference was that I dropped 4 Wasteland for 3 Tundra and something else, just to get the extra fix in there, and though I really love Wasteland, I think the deck was missing that last bit of fix. I dropped the few Petals I was running for Ornithopter; so I'd have an arti that makes a decent topdeck all game long - Cranial x4 to try to make it more useful than Petal. The rest of the stuff, Chalice, Trinket Mage, stayed the same, and I only mulled a couple times. I was pretty happy with it, though I still would really like to spend my time on Geddon Stax and Eureka Stax.

Another power 2-drop that would be interesting to get down Turn 1 might be Standstill. I saw another Affinity player trying to break it. It would require half the deck to be rebuilt, though, and I'm not sure it's powerful enough - or rather, that you won't see any Gob/Merf/opposing Manlands - to make it worth dumping half your power cards into Memnites and stuff. It was an interesting concept, and would fit the slightly accelerated curve here, so I thought I'd mention it.

I think the rough decklist (don't have it on me now):
4 Mopal, Chrome, Seat, Den, Vault
3 Tundra

4 Ornithopter, SFM, Trinket Mage, Thopter Foundry
2 Etched Champ
1 Batterskull, Sword Meek, Jitte

4 Chalice, Cranial
4 Force, Thoughtcast

It's interesting that one hand can play hyper-fast with T1 Ornithopter equipped with Cranial T2; and the next can go long with Thopter Combo. I think it's counter-intuitive that a deck would want to do this, but again, there are only so many power 2-drops, and Cranial is one of them... mostly. I might want an Ornth to be Phyx Walker.

EDIT: Or maybe make Etched Champs into Phyrexian Walkers. That would increase the probability of landing a Turn 1 Creature + Cranial, which, while it hasn't beaten control, is just insane pressure against combo and most other decks. I'm going to try that eventually. Also put the new list up, as I think the deck needs Tundras for mana-fixing. Note that the deck would still benefit from 2 more blue, Chrome imprintable spells.

frogger42

09-14-2013, 10:45 AM

Update of Balls of Steel:

4 Mox Opal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Ancient Den
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Ancient Tomb

4 Memnite
4 Frogmite
4 Somber Hoverguard
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Spiketail Hatchling

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
2 Cranial Plating

4 Thoughtcast

4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Chalice of the Void

Basically, I'm going to cut the Riddlesmith for Thalia, which is more powerful, Lotus Petal for Memnites (which are a better TD), and Myr Enforcers + SofI for Cranials and Spiketails. That guy is acting as a psuedo-sphere here, and will suit up as well - plus he's the last two imprint slots I want for Chrome Mox. Should be viable, I hope.
I'm going to take this next week. I've been switching decks a lot, cause there're like three ideas I'm working on right now.

EDIT: It was also suggested I run Azorius Guildmage in the Spiketail slots. I might SB it and see which is better.

DOUBLE EDIT: Without the Petals, that's a lot less colored sources. I'm going to Tomb -> Tundra. (Or Karakas...)

frogger42

10-05-2013, 01:49 PM

Ack, our local little weekly didn't fire this week! Oh well. I think I'm going to keep 4 Cranials, as that card is just so powerful. I think it's even better than running Bob.
Played against 12 post, and it seals the deal in three turns. Almost every game. It's just unbelievable getting down an extra 7 dmg for 3 mana in one turn. That card effectively solved my 12 Post problem, whereas I was originally considering Wasteland (which screws the manabase).
I'm doing Cranials with Ornithopters from here on out. I like getting 4-5 dmg T2, which just feels so good.

I still want to figure out how to fight Reanimator. I might need 4 Crypts in the board, or maybe some RiPs. Initially, when I ran Lotus Petals, T1 Trinket Mage -> Crypt wasn't too bad. But that's definitely never going to happen without the Petals.

Also updated the primer a bit. Give you a sense of what the deck does well. I'd really like the deck to put a dent into a tourney, and I really do believe in it. I think it's well-positioned, with the general lack of Pernicious Deeds right now.

I am a bit worried that the deck essentially runs Aggro (Thopter + Cranial) and control (Force, Chalice, Thopter Combo), and I've had a friend comment the deck was trying to do too much. He played it and couldn't figure out how to run the deck, lost horribly, and I wonder if maybe it's a bit trickier to run than I'd considered. I'll try to think of a clearer strategy for the deck, though suggestions are always welcome.

Haxor - are you still on this deck or have you moved on? I haven't seen anything new good for it in ages. I want to test it online extensively, BUUUUUT my bloody MWS doesn't work. Grr!

Darkenslight

10-05-2013, 03:50 PM

For Reanimator, you can pick a number of cheap, effective options, ranging from Crypt to Relic and Cage, and even Thran Foundry.

frogger42

10-05-2013, 04:20 PM

For Reanimator, you can pick a number of cheap, effective options, ranging from Crypt to Relic and Cage, and even Thran Foundry.

Yeah, I think I'm just going to drop some of my toolbox slots so I can run 4 GY hate. Probably 1 Crypt, 3 RiP should work, though RiP hurts my own Thopter Combo. The problem with Rean is G1. If they have a T2 Grisel-hand, I probably lose. There are a couple things I can do (Ornithopter + Foundry) but it's still pretty iffy.

Also, I usually find I side Thopter Combo out against GY decks anyway, as they tend to be faster and more efficient, and Thopter Foundry is on the slow side to set up. It also goes out against Storm, obv, for the same reason.

frogger42

11-28-2013, 12:15 AM

Idea:
Since manadorks (Llanowar Elves, and now Deathrite Shaman) punish me for my own Spheres, and I want to run powerful 2-drops off Ancient Tombs, how about Umezawa's Jitte? Like, x3???
Seems kinda weird and janky, but I think it might be the right place to start:

4 Mox Opal
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Lotus Petal

3 Vault Skirge
4 Ornithopter
4 Memnite
4 Frogmite
4 Somber Hoverguard

3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Cranial Plating

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Thoughtcast

Without white, the SB's kinda... awful. It'd be rough to use O-Rings and RiP in Show and Tell, Reanimator. Ugh. I might have to use Echoing Truth and Tormod's Crypt, hopefully those will get there.
So yeah. More artifacts, no Chrome, more stuff to power out with Tombs. I could even make the 2x Petals into City of Traitors, which ain't a bad idea. The ideal play is Metalcraft an Opal -> Jitte -> Frogmite T1. Or Tomb, Jitte, Memnite, equip T2. That's why 3x Jitte.
Thoughts?

frogger42

05-25-2014, 05:50 PM

I want to propose a new build based on the hotness coming out in Conspiracy. I have no idea if it's going to be any good. (Probably not)

4 Mox Opal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Great Furnace
4 Darksteel Citadel
3 Ancient Tomb

4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Sphere of Resistance

4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer

4 Goblin Welder
4 Transmute Artifact
4 Thoughtcast
4 Riddlesmith
2 Muzzio, Visionary Architect

1 Sundering Titan
1 Platinum Emperion
1 Sharuum the Hegemon

Note: Transmute Artifact is basically a bad Entomb for Welder if you don't have a Myr Enforcer on hand. Anti-combo pieces, a bit of synergystic light aggro, and then cheaty tinker effects, the Natural Order of the deck.
Eat that Abrupt Decay. Feel free to critique this pile!

MGB

05-27-2014, 03:57 PM

I would play 4 Trinisphere in this build. It is really powerful in opening hands against most legacy decks.

Also consider Tangle Wire and maybe Smokestack. These two cards are REALLY good with Goblin Welder.

frogger42

06-08-2015, 12:14 AM

MGB

06-08-2015, 08:33 AM

Ta-Da!

I think I've got it.

4:
Mox Opal
Seat of the Synod
Ancient Den
Darksteel Citadel
Ancient Tomb
2 Chrome Mox

4:
Chalice of the Void
Sphere of Resistance
Thorn of Amethyst

Frogmite
Somber Hoverguard
Myr Enforcer
Quicksilver Behemoth

Thoughtcast
Dragon Wings
2 Complicate

The 4/5s beat Batterskull germs, and the Wings beat Delvers and evade Goyfs. I'll post results from my next weekly for those interested.
(And white for the SB: Suppression Field, Leonin Arbiter/Faerie Macabre, Containment Priest, 3 Venser, Shaper Savant)

It's a super budget build, totally unintentionally, and like the initial build, should wreck Combo and Delver, thought prolly less hot against Control and Mid-Range. Post away!

The 4/5s that get bounced to your hand every time they do something?

Interesting list, but is it better than just playing traditional Affinity with Ravagers and Cranial Plating and the like? I mean, if you're going to open yourself up to mass artifact hate like Affinity, you have to really justify playing this over Affinity, which seems faster. Chalice of the Void? Couldn't I just jam that into Affinity?

frogger42

06-08-2015, 11:08 AM

The 4/5s that get bounced to your hand every time they do something?

Interesting list, but is it better than just playing traditional Affinity with Ravagers and Cranial Plating and the like? I mean, if you're going to open yourself up to mass artifact hate like Affinity, you have to really justify playing this over Affinity, which seems faster. Chalice of the Void? Couldn't I just jam that into Affinity?

The 4/5s with psuedo-vigilance. They're not too bad, actually, esp when they're Serra Angels.
You totally could (and probably should) jam Chalice into your Affinity deck. This deck's style is much more prison, less balls-to-the-wall than traditional affinity, which does get blown out by hate really hard. I was just playtesting against BUG Delver and traded back and forth fairly evenly.

I definitely prefer this style to traditional (though this is "more traditional"?) Affinity, but that's my preference, and one over the other is a metagame choice. Ravager Affinity is of course faster, but that's not the point of this deck. I think this Old School style is more stable, much more disruptive. Thanks for the input, though!

MGB

06-08-2015, 11:18 AM

The 4/5s with psuedo-vigilance. They're not too bad, actually, esp when they're Serra Angels.
You totally could (and probably should) jam Chalice into your Affinity deck. This deck's style is much more prison, less balls-to-the-wall than traditional affinity, which does get blown out by hate really hard. I was just playtesting against BUG Delver and traded back and forth fairly evenly.

I definitely prefer this style to traditional (though this is "more traditional"?) Affinity, but that's my preference, and one over the other is a metagame choice. Ravager Affinity is of course faster, but that's not the point of this deck. I think this Old School style is more stable, much more disruptive. Thanks for the input, though!

But the big downside that prevents Affinity from ever cracking the Tier 1 is still very real in this deck - the fact that your entire deck is artifacts and just gets blown out by artifact hate and/or permanent sweepers.

frogger42

06-08-2015, 11:42 AM

But the big downside that prevents Affinity from ever cracking the Tier 1 is still very real in this deck - the fact that your entire deck is artifacts and just gets blown out by artifact hate and/or permanent sweepers.

Honestly... I don't know about that! Traditional Affinity, yes, because you just jam through with no disruption. Just looking at the Affinity hate:

- Pernicious Deed: Doesn't kill my dudes. I pack Suppression Field in the SB to hose that.

- Null Rod: Doesn't kill dudes on field, and I can still crank Frogmites and Enforcers. You can run Seal of Cleansing if you're afraid of it.

- Engineered Explosives: A real threat here, as it nukes my balls off the table. It's a possibility for running in the deck, too. I still have Supp Field to prevent it.

- Hurkyl's Recall: My board state can recover kinda quickly from that. And I have Hoverguard / Behemoth not to get too blown out. Usually combo packs this to go off next turn, but if it's a defensive Recall, I probably win.

- Kataki / Energy Flux: serious hosers. Kataki might come through an Aether Vial, and you just have to hope your board state (Tombs + non-arti-dudes) can beat it. Flux is probably about 4 to cast by the time they draw it, but a total hose when it comes down. Kataki's the most vicious hate here.

Keep in mind, you run disruption to keep your opponent from finding / windmill slamming hate down. But sleeve it up! Tell me what you think. I think Complicate can go in the board, as I'm trying something else in those 2 slots. Give it a shot and let me know where you think the holes are.

MGB

06-08-2015, 12:17 PM

frogger42

06-08-2015, 02:19 PM

Suppression Field doesn't prevent anything. All that Field does is delay blowouts by a little bit. At a certain point in the game the opponent is more than happy to pay 2 mana to get his activation while you sit in play with card disadvantage. I've played with Field ALOT in Legacy, and I think it's a very overrated card for what it does.

Honestly, because this deck plays Artifact Lands just like Affinity, I don't see how opponent playing P.Deed/H.Recall/E.E. isn't just as devastating for this deck. Counting on Suppression Field from the sideboard is simply not a viable answer either.

Just curious what you played Supp Field in? I'd love to see a decklist. As far as I know, none of the Tier 1 decks can run Field effectively, and a few of the T1-1.5 decks get completely blown out by it.

My opinion of Field? In Legacy, you're better off running Stoneforge Mystic and just winning. But I like Field, and it protects my stuffs. 4 Mana to crack a Deed that doesn't stop my dudes is still pretty rough for my opponent. And they need a non-fetch in hand after casting the Deed, too. Again, this is a tempo-y deck, like RUG, except backwards: the disruption costs mana, but the threats are undercosted/free. You can't ride a Sphere/Field to victory, but it usually buys enough time to smack with something.

Darkenslight

06-08-2015, 04:37 PM

frogger42

06-08-2015, 05:57 PM

For the board of that list, this is what I'd consider:

4 Damping Matrix
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Torpor Orb
3 Force of Will

I'd also take out the Complicates for another counterspell (possibly the Big Mack Daddy Hindering Light).

^ Cool. Just note Torpor Orb stops the Dragon Wings trigger, too, though. There's a lotta versatility in UW with the Sideboard, some options:

Cursed Totem
Winter Orb
Anhk of Mishra (you are aggro, after all)
Tsabo's Web
[enter 2-drop arti bomb here]
Decree of Justice
O Ring, Containment Priest, etc etc

I think Hindering Light is hard to pull off, considering only 10 U sources and 8 W ones. Unlike all other counters, FoW included, Complicate gets under your Spheres when you cycle, and taxes.

That said, I moved Complicate to my board and am trying something else in that slot:

4 T Crypt
4 Complicate
4 Supp Field
3 Cranial Plating (meh??)

frogger42

06-12-2015, 11:30 AM

List:
4:
Mox Opal
Seat of the Synod
2 Ancient Den
Darksteel Citadel
Ancient Tomb
Chrome Mox

4:
Chalice of the Void
Sphere of Resistance
Thorn of Amethyst

Frogmite
Somber Hoverguard
Myr Enforcer
Quicksilver Behemoth

Thoughtcast
Dragon Wings
2 Dust Bowl

I went to a 4 round weekly and got 3rd. I played all decks that, umm, don't care about Sphere effects: 12 Post, Miracles, Red Mud, and Grixis Control (this one caring the most, with Young Pyros). I sided out the spheres in most cases for Revokers and sometimes Jittes. I only lost to Grixis Control, based on the always janky mana-screw (he drew 2x more lands than me... huh).

Thoughts on the deck: Thorn is fine, but maybe Cranial/Jitte would be better than the card that's generally worse than Sphere.
Winter Orb for the SB, to make Sphere relevant in control/ mid-range MUs.
Dust Bowl is da nuts, with me Bowling away about 10+ lands during 3 games VS Miracles. Even super-relevant with all the basics.
Dragon Wings often came out for Complicates, which is still a terrible card, but probably better than Assert Authority (UU is hard to come by). I Complicated 2 spells in the tourney FTW.

I don't think this is a super-competitive deck as of yet, but I do think it's Tier 1.5 worthy, and for $200, you can't do any better than this. The Thorn slots I'm going to have to figure out, maybe 2 Jitte, 2 Winter Orb; maybe just 4 Jitte. Not too sure yet. I also playtested against Omni-Show (about 40% win rate - the jerk brings Hurkyl's Recall literally because of me) and BUG/RWU Delvers (probably 50%, maybe a bit more).

Though not ultra competitive, it is one of the simplest and most fun decks to run that I've seen. If anyone has thoughts for the last 4 slots... though I suspect those are meta-calls. Perhaps they could even just be the Complicates. I've convinced one friend to sleeve it up, so lemme know how your playtesting goes!

frogger42

06-13-2015, 02:23 PM

Another (slightly less budget) build:

4:
Mox Opal
Chrome Mox
Seat of the Synod
Darksteel Citadel (or whatever color arti-land)
Ancient Tomb
Rishadan Port

4:
Chalice of the Void
Sphere of Resistance
Winter Orb

Frogmite
Somber Hoverguard
Myr Enforcer
Qumulox

Thoughtcast
Complicate

This one goes for Mox+Port/ Winter Orb lock. It's pretty spicy, but Qumulox kinda stinks (specifically the UU), and Complicate's really pricy to cast. (Orb also is synergy with Affini-dorks, and Ancient Tomb in addition to Moxen.) Thoughts for these 2 slots? They've both got to be blue and Chrome-Imprintable.
It doesn't seem to bad on Cockatrice so far.

EDIT: Card tags included.

MGB

06-14-2015, 12:22 AM

See if you can find some way to break Static Orb.

Or just see if you can make Tangle Wire work in Legacy.

frogger42

06-14-2015, 11:15 AM

See if you can find some way to break Static Orb.

Or just see if you can make Tangle Wire work in Legacy.

Tangle Wire is definitely really good for this deck. I think it's a strong SB card.
Static Orb I feel is kinda a different deck. You only get to untap 2 creatures, basically. And there isn't that much room for Relic Barrier or Icy Manipulator effects.

Something like Howling Mine + Ensoul Artifact or Tezz AoB, well, that gives you a Dark Confidant combo. Thanks for the input.

bruizar

06-14-2015, 04:22 PM

Mishra's Factory or Blinkmoth Nexus? Perhaps even Faerie Conclave if you really need more UU.

frogger42

06-14-2015, 07:50 PM

Those are options, Bruizar, but not for the Winter Orb version of "Balls". And Dust Bowl x2 I think is better in that other version.

Does anyone know how to attach a pic? I just found my Day II shirt, but I don't think The Source will let me post it up here.

bruizar

06-15-2015, 03:29 AM

Use [IMG]-tags

frogger42

06-15-2015, 04:11 PM

Use [IMG]-tags

It's on my computer. I don't think the site will let me upload an image. Pshaw, heck with it.

bruizar

06-16-2015, 03:48 AM

try imgur

MGB

06-16-2015, 08:00 AM

Frogger I play mostly stompy decks in Legacy myself and while 4 Chalice as the #1 piece of disruption is basically written in stone tablets ... the #2 piece of disruption always troubled me.

In mono white Soldier Stompy I've tried Suppression Field, Trinisphere, Winter Orb, Tangle Wire, etc. The one that seemed to be most effective for me was always Winter Orb for some reason. It cost the least amount of mana (even less than S.Field because it can be cast off one Sol-land), it did the most damage to mana-hungry decks, and it synergized best with Thalia (which the deck also plays as a 4-of).

It's a weird card in that you can easily underestimate it, but Winter Orb is very powerful if the person casting it has access to Moxen and Sol-lands.

frogger42

06-27-2015, 09:29 PM

kinda

07-24-2015, 02:12 AM

I think this is the best thread for me? I played the below list tonight starting 2-0 but finishing 2-2. Beat maverick and burn 2-1 each and lost tough game 3's vs death and taxes and food chain. Turns out people in my shop play null rod and serenity. Overall i really liked the deck...but really want to add whipflare. Cradle is a house. Jitte is awk with ornithopter so will replace that...probably with sofi. Considering etched champion too. Suggestions welcome!

@frogger: what's your current list?

Edit: memnite's 1 toughness is an issue. Thinking phyrexian walker over him.

4 Ornithopter
4 Memnite
4 Vault Skirge
4 Lodestone Golem
3 Porcelain legionnaire
3 mirror entity

4 Mox Opal
4 Cranial Plating
2 sword of fire and ice
1 jitte
4 chalice of the void
1 winter orb
2 oblivion ring

4 Ancient den
4 tree of tales
4 Gaea's Cradle
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Rishadan Port
2 City of Traitors

Sb:
3 krosan grip
2 choke
2 trinisphere
2 rest in peace
2 tormods crypt
1 thrun
1 o-ring
1 jitte
1 winter orb

kinda

08-07-2015, 02:07 AM

frogger42

08-08-2015, 08:39 PM

Went 3-1 tonight but 1-2 last Thursday with the below list. I've won every match the last 3 weeks I haven't seen serenity, melt down, null rod, or a turn 1 game 1 on the play chalice of the void on 0(jakobian on here...). Thinking -1 rip but not sure what to add...

Edit: Considering trying tangle wire or maybe even smokestack over o-ring.

4 Ornithopter
4 Phyrexian walker
4 Vault Skirge
4 Lodestone Golem
3 Etched champion
3 mirror entity

4 Mox Opal
4 Cranial Plating
3 sword of fire and ice
4 chalice of the void
1 sword of light and shadow (was winter orb last week)
2 oblivion ring

4 Ancient den
4 great furnace
4 Gaea's Cradle
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Rishadan Port
2 City of Traitors

Sb:
3 krosan grip
3 whipflare
2 choke
3 trinisphere
2 rest in peace
2 tormods crypt

Hi Kinda!
It looks like a neat list. I have a couple Qs for you's: Gaea's Cradle - does it hit 2 mana on turn 1 all that often? You only run 8 0-drops. I hate Memnite, but it is another 0-drop with potential to get Chalice going off a Cradle. Also, making Cradle good puts you in a bad position vs Terminus (I've built a deck with 0-drops and Cradle and learned the hard way - 5-for-1 off a Terminus, yikes).

O Ring - It doesn't suit up to Cranial, which is why I tend to put it in the SB. Maybe make those Jittes? Although it's really bad with the 0-Power dudes, I know.
I still really like Stoneforge a lot. It'll let you cut down on the SoFIs, give more consistency, and make your SB options that much better.

Choke is VERY NICE. I love it with your Cradles, haha.

Thanks for putting this up! RiP... I think the MUs that it hurts most - Dredge, other GY-based strategies - are also hurt by Containment Priest. Who suits up as well. For equip decks, I tend to lean towards the Priest. Though Priest doesn't hurt BUG/Goyf/DRS at all... so depends a little on your meta. Good luck!

frogger42

08-08-2015, 08:57 PM

OOOO, and another possibility for your deck: Gaddock Teeg. He'll shut down all kinds of WoGs and PW'ers.

I was originally going to suggest running Thoughcast, since it's really the most powerful card in Affinity. It's strange, but it really is; it makes your deck smaller, more consistent, and tends to get me out of bad situations. But you're not blue, so maybe Teeg will do. He's kinda like another Chalice/prison effect (but shuts down your own Chalice). Definitely playtest first, cause color requs will be tough for Teeg.

civet five

08-08-2015, 08:59 PM

kinda

08-10-2015, 01:26 AM

I think there is a very fine line between utilizing cradle and trying to hard. You can't always power out 2-3 mana turn 1 with cradle with my build. However, turn 1 cradle plus ornithopter playing vault skirge is very solid followed up by turn 2 lodestone or equipment. Cradle consistently generates 2+ mana turn 2 on which is still strong. Playing and equipping a sword turn 3 is fun. I definitely suggest testing cradle. Plus it's bonkers with mirror entity.

Teeg sounds really good. I will test him. I was considering stoneforge but he feels slow in this. I could be wrong. The color requirement is relevant.

@civet: Tangle is very temping. I'm going to test it over o-ring. What do you think of tangle? I don't understand genesis chamber. It seems very situational.

Updated list: I won't be able to play this thursday though. I feel like I have too many sb cards for the same matchups. I need the 4 kgrip for serenity/null rod/chalice matchups in my meta. Teeg will go in against Ur omni with melt down. Might actually make sense to cut trinisphere.

4 Ornithopter
4 Phyrexian walker
4 Vault Skirge
4 Lodestone Golem
3 Etched champion
3 mirror entity

4 Mox Opal
4 Cranial Plating
3 sword of fire and ice
4 chalice of the void
1 sword of light and shadow
2 tangle wire

4 Ancient den
4 great furnace
4 Gaea's Cradle
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Rishadan Port
2 City of Traitors

Sb:
4 krosan grip
3 whipflare
2 choke
2 trinisphere
2 gaddock teeg
2 tormods crypt

frogger42

08-19-2015, 02:23 PM

I think posted this in the regular MUD thread a while back, but I've been screwing around with something similar:
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Darksteel Citadel
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Gaea's Cradle
3 Myr Enforcer
3 Frogmite
4 Signal Pest
4 Ornithopter
4 Vault Skirge
4 Memnite
4 Mox Opal
4 Thoughtcast
4 Cranial Plating
4 Genesis Chamber
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Tangle Wire

Its pretty all-in but as kinda has also seen, Gaea's Cradle is a house. I'm finding that it can kill lightning quick but I can't really get it past some things. I really want to find a way to run Ensoul Artifact, Force of Will and Master of Etherium alongside Thoughtcast to give me 16 blue cards.

I think running all that blue is a problem in Affinity. You basically want to find around 12-13 blue sources (Opal + Seat only gives 8) to splash the color. Islands take away from Metalcraft consistency, and Chrome Mox take away from relevant threats/ answers in your hand (and really hurt alongside FoW). I've been liking a very, very rough list with Mishra's and Urza's Baubles, in that they feed traditional affinity, Metalcraft, and thin the deck. But running 8 slots of slow-trips makes it really tough to run good #s for FoW and blue mana sources.

I had put together a FoW Affinity deck, but because of the #s for Metalcraft and mana sources, it was difficult juggling basic requirements. And SB'ing is a nightmare, too - swap a blue card for a blue card, 0-drop arti for Crypts, etc etc. It's possible, but you eke out maybe 3-4 extra slots to tinker with.

I figure: 24+ 0-drop artis for Turn 1 Opal
16 U for FoW

22-24 mana sources (about 12 blue) : Usually Opal, Seat, and DS Cit double as 0 -drops for Opal.

About 8 slots for non-blue, non-0-drop jazz. Bleh. Like SFM + Equip, basically. Running Chrome Mox make the #s more nightmarish (16 imprint for Chrome, basically can't run Master of Etherium).

Hope some of that rambling helps!

MGB

10-01-2015, 05:24 PM

Copypasta from the MUD thread but because it is essentially an artifact-based Tangle Wire tempo deck, I thought it might be appropriate here:

What if we built a MUD Aggro version more focused on the smaller stuff and hitting our curve... and took a cue from Vintage and played the Arcbound Ravager + Hangarback Walker "combo"?

I've been testing this and it has proved to feel remarkably powerful. I think I may actually have stumbled on something here:

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland

4 Crystal Vein <---- 4 Cavern of Souls and/or 4 Blinkmoth Nexus can be subbed for either one of these, depending on preference and meta
4 Darksteel Citadel <----/

4 Metalworker
4 Hangarback Walker
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Lodestone Golem

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Tangle Wire

2 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawa's Jitte

SB:
the usual stuff, depending on meta.

The way this deck plays out is more like an aggro-control deck that tries to finish off the opponent fast with brutal tempo gains made with the usage of Tangle Wire, Trinisphere, and Wasteland. Arcbound Ravager is remarkably powerful even when you're not an Affinity deck, because he is like a one-card combo piece that can utilize nearly everything else you play, and can invalidate spot removal as well. Hangarback Walker just generates tons of value nearly every time, and with Ravager it's just sick. I think Metalworker might just be at his best in this deck because so much of it is artifacts, and you can just vomit out your hand onto the board in one turn of a Metalworker being live.

frogger42

10-01-2015, 06:39 PM

Copypasta from the MUD thread but because it is essentially an artifact-based Tangle Wire tempo deck, I thought it might be appropriate here:

What if we built a MUD Aggro version more focused on the smaller stuff and hitting our curve... and took a cue from Vintage and played the Arcbound Ravager + Hangarback Walker "combo"?

I've been testing this and it has proved to feel remarkably powerful. I think I may actually have stumbled on something here:

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland

4 Crystal Vein <---- 4 Cavern of Souls and/or 4 Blinkmoth Nexus can be subbed for either one of these, depending on preference and meta
4 Darksteel Citadel <----/

4 Metalworker
4 Hangarback Walker
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Lodestone Golem

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Tangle Wire

2 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawa's Jitte

SB:
the usual stuff, depending on meta.

I think this deck looks pretty great. I'd been experimenting with a MUD deck that runs a lot of the same stuff, but never got it off the ground; though now with Hng Walker, it looks pretty good. I like Metalworker -> Walker combo. Beast!

Have you tested the deck out yet? And maybe Rishadan Port? Or Winter Orb?

frogger42

01-27-2016, 01:41 PM

Sphere is working its way to $20 on SCG right now.
Excellent...

Xod

01-28-2016, 03:50 AM

:laugh:

Go Matt!

Dice_Box

01-28-2016, 04:37 AM

Have you tested the deck out yet? And maybe Rishadan Port? Or Winter Orb?
I have been playing Stax for a few weeks (taking a break from Lands) and I have found Port in that deck to be undeniably strong. I would look at adding them here as a strong control element.

I like that build and I want to give it a go. Might switch out the 3sphere for Thorns though.

frogger42

01-28-2016, 07:19 AM

I was just talking to my friend about Sphere vs Trinisphere.

So... just one-on-one,

Sphere makes 1-drops cost 2 (Cantrips, DRS/Delver, Dark Rit). That (and the occasional Lotus Petal play) is where SoR is weaker than Trinisphere.

2-drops (Goyf, SFM), Trini and SoR are the same.

3-drops + (Show and Tell, Jace TMS) SoR still has an effect on your opponent.

Granted, most Legacy decks run a majority of 1-drops, esp in the form of Cantrips / Removal (some run Elves, or burn spells instead). So Sphere of Resistance generally has a weaker effect on a deck overall. But it does effect the back-breaking 3-drop 4-drop spells in the format. Some give and take, here.

BUT - and here's the huge thing - for a relatively comparable effect, SoR is 1 LESS MANA, Which totally makes it a Turn 1 play off Tomb/City/ Mox + Land.

The biggest setback to running Sphere over Trinisphere is that SoR is MUCH HARDER to capitalize on. It makes every legacy staple harder to cast. Trinisphere is "more selective" - in that you can select a certain segment of the Legacy-playable cardpool (Jace TMS, Show and Tell, other typical 3-4 drops) and just jam those cards with Trinisphere and not care; something which Sphere of Resistance doesn't particularly like to do.

So if you run Sphere, for it not to negatively affect you, you have to make card choices off the beaten path. Kind of a double-edged sword - Sphere is good because it affects everything, but then again, it affects EVERYTHING. (I don't know why, but this new version is back to like $200):

4x:
Mox Opal
Chrome Mox
Seat of the Synod
Ancient Den
Darksteel Citadel
Ancient Tomb

Chalice of the Void
Sphere of Resistance

Frogmite
Thoughtcast
Somber Hoverguard
Myr Enforcer
Quicksilver Behemoth

Mishra's Bauble
(or Urza's Bauble)

??? (possibly:)
Puca's Mischief

SB:
Suppression Field
Armageddon
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Meta-whatever

The Puca's Mischief slot has been: foil Dragon Wings (which I adore), foil Mana Plasm (which is f-ing cool but mediocre), but should probably be those non-foil Suppression Field. I like the idea of packing removal MD, though. So I'm trying Mischief right now. (Possibly Blood Moon > Geddon, I just like Suppression Field.)

The other hot thing about Mischief, in relation to these types of prison pieces, is that Sphere / Chalice maintain their effect on the opponent when you trade them for, say a Goyf. Or Delver (Insectile Delver). Or Jitte. So you effectively lose nothing, other than an artifact to help you Metalcraft / Affinity.

That said... you're running Quicksilver Behemoth in this build. WTF. At least it stops Germ tokens. Maybe that's the best reason to run Trinisphere - at least Armageddon's always a hot option.

It's gorgeous running in foil, though. And about $20. Thoughts?

EDIT: I should mention ramp decks (12-Post, Metalworker, Loam) and non-spell decks (most of Dredge, Lands.dec) don't fear the Sphere. I think there's good synergy in running SB Sphere in ramp/Mud should combo be a consideration.

Xod

01-28-2016, 08:03 AM

frogger42

01-28-2016, 08:15 AM

With Behemoth not such a great card, I see some use for it. Let's say, for example you have a Mischief in play. During your upkeep, you can trade your Behemoth (CMC 7) for almost anything. If your opponent then attacks or blocks with it, it does return to your hand right?

In theory, I like the card (Puca's Mischief) already. :-)

Haha, yup! Realistically speaking, Frogmite's going to pull most of your opponent's permanents. But against Mud, Prime Times, (not Griselbrands!), then Behemoth shines.

But yes, giving your opponent a foil Behemoth for any legacy-playable staple feels like a solid trade to me. There's a reason Behemoth is $.33 foil. It's also got the sh!@-iest vigilance you've ever seen. (But bouncing could come in during niche Chrome Mox plays.)

Xod

01-29-2016, 07:09 AM

frogger42

01-29-2016, 08:34 AM

I was thinking (and it happened to me playing the previous decklist, with the SFM) that if you go second, and the other person has a chalice (plenty nowadays, with aggro loam and things) and they drop it on zero, it goes reeeeeeeeeaaaly slow or not at all. Now that you include a bauble, that would only increase the pain. But since you now would play 16 blue cards, instead of that bauble, you can include FOW?

I know, you need to pay for the Sphere, but even as sideboard card on the draw, but even with lock pieces in place, I think it can be a good addition.

You're absolutely, 100% (or 300%) right. The biggest threat this deck faces (ironically enough) is Chalice. Add a playset of Wastelands to that (ie typical Stax deck) and now you have no mana, you've lost, game over.

Force is a strong possibility. It could take the Puca's Mischief slots. The thing I don't like about Force in this build - actually, I should say, the thing I don't like about Chrome Mox, is that it eats a card. With Force and Chrome often eating your cards up, it's usually a "one or the other" kind of decision you have to make. Which sucks, frustrates, and can end games.

I actually have a super-clever idea. Instead of those baubles, run Engineered Explosives x4. This list, you've got Ancient Tomb x4, Darksteel Citadel x4 to crank it for CMC = 1, Sunburst = 0. It's a 1-for-1 trade, you lose a little tempo, but I think it's better than Force-pitch. Also, Eng Exp helps metalcraft on Turn 1 (like Bauble) it's a live draw through the game, and extra awesomeness, it's almost totally unaffected by Sphere (with 1 sphere, you can still go Sunburst = 1 with CMC = 0). I loved fetching 1 with Trinket Mage in the SFM build, my only concern here is cracking it to pop Goyfs / your own Spheres.

Which is better? IDK, depends on your meta. Force also stops Null Rod; but I hardly see those going around. I think Eng Exp makes more sense in this style deck, but it comes down to playtesting. I might have to try it myself because my LGS is a half-Chalice meta. It's nuts.

Kinda cool idea, right? Thanks for bringing that up, it's super-helpful to think of that in my meta.

Xod

01-29-2016, 09:51 AM

Indeed, E. Explosives will do the trick, good thinking!

drinkard

02-01-2016, 02:19 PM

frogger42

02-01-2016, 07:14 PM

Hi all, new to the thread, but I bought into the deck because all I needed were Spheres and Chalices. I am interested in playing Legacy, and this had a low barrier of entry since I already had the mana-base and the bulk.

I don't mean this in a nasty way, but the vast majority of the discussion in this thread is based on card choices and not on sequencing. I've taken the deck into 2-man queues on Magic Online, and my results basically boil down to me being way on top or way behind. I even reverted to the SFM, Thopter combo version of the deck (but without Force) after a few match losses to try and improve the power-level of the deck. The only match I won was with Thopter-Sword game 1 and then locked my opponent out with Chalice, Sphere turns 1 and 2 game 2. I feel like the likelihood of this game 2 is very low.

I played Lands in the next match and made it to g3. I had Chalice in my opening 7, but after my opponent played t1 Exploration, I opted to wait and play Chalice on 2 with 2 Ancient Tomb. Then SFM, Thopter Foundry, and a later topdecked Suppression Field got stuck in my hand. I drew Armageddon, and in response my opponent plays 2 Crop Rotation.

I guess what I am getting at is can we go over lines of play? Should I have stuck with Chalice @ 1 to cut off Crop Rotation, Gamble, Manabond, and Exploration #2?

With the newest version of the deck (Quicksilver Behemoth, Baubles, etc.) I got trounced by RUG Delver even through Chalice @1 and Sphere. Delver flew over Quicksilver Behemoth until Tarmogoyf hit 5/6 (thanks to Chalice countering spells and putting them in the grave), and I never had much of a board presence. Any tips on this common matchup?

Thanks!!

Hi Drinkard! Thanks for posting here. The Source's boards are not really an optimal place to discuss strategy and sequencing, to be quite honest. Sometimes it often comes down to personal preference and playstyle, but I can go over the general sequencing of this deck. It's pretty basic.

1. Drop prison piece T1, T2 (on the blind, Chalice > Sphere; if you side in Supp Field, that gets trickier. I still think Chalice goes first, if you have that option, and usually Supp Field > Sphere, but it's very MU-dependent)
1a. Thoughtcast early
2. Drop your junky aggro threats after prison pieces

There are super-awkward situations where you may have: Tomb, Chrome, Blue Spell, Sphere, no apparent U sources. Generally, I jam down Tomb; Chrome (imprint), then Sphere. Tomb keeps your Chrome off Spell Pierce, and running it out early will make Frogmite & co come down likely next turn, rather than casting Chrome through Sphere later. If I have Thoughtcast, I'd probably rather hold it and hope for a U source or another U spell to imprint instead. Thoughcast is the obv #1 U spell you don't want to lose; Imprint is generally: #1 pitch Behemoth, Puca's Mischief, Hoverguard... Thoughcast if desperate. In the latest version, which I'm still testing.

There are so many other things to go over, and like I said, posting on a board is the worst way to figure out the theory behind the deck, and how to fight certain MUs. I'll PM you on here with my FB, as an actually discussion is soooo much easier. I can send you I think the "strongest" build of the deck, at least, most successfully tested. Puca's Mischief is very little tested right now. It's mostly theory. And cheapa$$ trollage.

Thanks!

-Frogger

frogger42

02-04-2016, 06:57 AM

4-0 at my LGS last night. Just posting to give an idea of how y'all can tinker with the deck. (Really 3-0 + Rd 1 bye.)

I went with Quicksilver/Puca's Mischief build, and ran R instead of W. SB: 4 Blood Moon, 4 Phyrexian Revoker, 4 Tormod's Crypt, 3 Ghirapur Aether Grid.

Rd 2 - I faced the most challenging player in the room, aggro-loam (4 color). We went to 3 - I reasoned that Eng Exp doesn't easily hit 3, where his Knights and Lils were, so brought in Crypt; Chalice -> Blood Moon (he runs Chalice himself); Puca's Mishchief -> G Aether Grid (+1 Revoker). He ran Punishing Fire, so I didn't want all Revokers.

G1 he smashed me, I think I had 2 permanents on field. Brutal. G2, G3, I got down a T2 Blood Moon then a T4 Blood Moon, which shut off his utility lands. He had early Mox Diamond both games, and also a forest G3, but it slowed down his plays, and nulled his Loam engine. The champ was Ghirapur Aether Grid, which killed a Confidant, a 2/2 Knight (when I Crypted) and a 6 loyalty Liliana (in about 4 turns, haha) all in the same game. Grid was very difficult to remove, plus gets around / offs Teeg, which didn't come up. Fantastic prison piece.

Rd 3 - UG Infect. Pretty standard list, though it ran some # of Lotus Petals (I traded one for my Chalice via Puca's Mischief, the only trade of the night). I got very lucky off an Eng Explosives @1 that wiped 2 Hierarchs and 1 Infect Elf, followed with a Chalice @ 1. Literally, one Frogmite took 20->0 all game long, which frustrated me (1/4 of the deck is creatures) while I outraced an Inkmoth by 2 turns. My MU got much better with Ghirapur Aether Grid coming in over Puca's Mischief (reasoning - most of their dudes are 1-toughness, and it's basically like a super-Jitte. Also, better than Blood Moon, which only hits Inkmoth) and Chalice really soaked up most of his spells both games.

Rd 4 - Storm. UBr, usual list, by probably the strongest player in the room. But my fast prison deck is heavily favored - for instance, G1 T1 he was 1 mana off from killing me, Ponder passed turn, and I went Land, Opal, Chalice @ 0, Sphere. I found a second Chalice (@ 1) and Frogmite or some pressure.
This SB'ing was difficult, because Puca's Mischief obviously doesn't take anything. Sometimes this player gets an early LED out to dodge Chalice (maybe steal that, bleh) but I went Eng Exp -> Crypts, Mischief -> Revokers. Better than Blood Moon, though Blood Moon imprints to Chrome and Revoker doesn't... so I was denying my manabase a bit with that decision. G2 was a nail-biter, for me, because I only had 2x Crypt and Revoker as disruption - def not enough to lock him down. But Revoker on LED was clutch, I'm sure, and I drew pressure instead of prison, so I presented Revoker + Frogmite T1, and I think next turn added Frogmite, Enforcer, Somber Hvg next turn - presenting exactsies lethal (he went 1 fetch, 1 Git Probe). I forced him into Empty the Warrens for 6 gobos to delay, gobos ate my Frogs, and a Sphere eventually came down the turn before I was going to win to lock it up.

So, just some examples of SB cards to run, ways to evaluate their power in a given MU. Hope that gives some idea of how to shift your deck for your local meta. The question about Puca's Mischief, I don't know. It would've been useful Rds 2/3, but gambled that G Aether Grid was better vs Loam. Reasoning it out now, if I were to Mischief off a Frogmite, the Loam player could easily Punishing Fire it off and shut down Mischief's triggers most of the time. And stealing Confidant is HORRIBLE for me. I don't think Mischief is bad, just G Aether Grid found a lot of smaller targets that night instead. They probably complement each other in good ways. Let me know what you think. Thanks!

drinkard

02-10-2016, 11:13 AM

I played in a small event with this deck. This is my first Legacy event ever, and I was kind of sad to get a bye. I went 1-2 in actual matches.

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

4 Frogmite
4 Somber Hoverguard
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Trinket Mage
1 Ornithopter

4 Thopter Foundry
1 Sword of the Meek

1 Batterskull
1 Cranial Plating
1 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sphere of Resistance

4 Thoughtcast

SB
4 Armageddon
4 Suppression Field
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Dismember
1 Manriki Gusari

*Some card choices here are based on availability only. I'm a Modern player.

RD 1 vs Miracles
I win game 1. He seemed to keep a 1-lander with Ponder/Brainstorm/something, and I had Chalice on the play. I followed it with 2 Sphere of Resistance and a Frogmite, and eventually a Batterskull cast for 7.
Game 2 I mull to 5 with no real reason to keep there except that I've never won on a mull to 4. I am in trouble when he kills my pressure, and he has Monastery Mentor out. I Armageddon with 2 Citadels and no other board to try and keep him from getting a lot of guys quickly, but he gets a land and a recurring Sensei's Divining Top.
Game 3 I have a bad opener again, but I get pressure with Batterskull and Somber Hoverguard. I have no lock pieces. I draw Thopter combo naturally, and have it on board when he miracles Terminus at 6 life. EOT I activate Foundry 2 times and equip Batterskull on one of the tokens my turn for the win.

I don't really know how to sideboard this, and the 75 is suboptimal. I replace Spheres with Suppression Field which thankfully got FoWd game 3 so I could win with Thopters. 2 Armageddons come in as well, for Umezawa's Jitte and Ornithopter I believe.

RD 2 vs lands
I'm on the draw, and my lock pieces don't matter. All of my dudes are Punishing Fire-able, and I never am really in the game.
Game 2 I resolve Chalice on the play to keep him from Exploration, and I have Armageddon, but I can never cast it because of Rishadan Port. My pressure is minimal, and he eventually gets Depths-Stage. I never drew Suppression Field
Side: -Jitte, 4 Sphere of Resistance, Frogmite, Thopter, something? (Trinket Mage?) +4 Armageddon +4 Suppression Field

RD 3 vs. Eldrazi Stompy

I felt like this opponent was trying to do what I was trying to do, but he did it better.

Game 1 I'm on the draw, he Chalices@1. :) Both of us take a lot of damage from Ancient Tombs, and I am stuck with Chrome Mox and Stoneforge Mystic in hand to try and get Batterskull. I have no other white source for a long time until finally I get an Ancient Den. A flyer gets equipped for a win in my only attack of the game.
Game 2 His chalice on 0 is better than his game 1 chalice. I would have three mana into Frogmite, SFM on turn 1, but instead I'm too slow.
Game 3 I'm on the play and get the same game-winning sequence I had in game 1 except I have no flyers. He is able to trade his creatures (even multiples at a time) for my Batterskull-equipped ones, even with the +4 toughness, and after a grind, he wins the game.

All of my lock pieces felt irrelevant here. -4 Sphere, -3 Chalice +4 Armageddon, +3 Dismember

frogger42

02-10-2016, 12:23 PM

Hi Drinkard! Awesome that you took the deck out for a spin, sadface that it only went 1-2. Thanks for putting up your SB options, as I think this is the most important part of the deck - a lot of MUs you'd find a certain lockpiece (usually Sphere) it sub-par, and should get axed for something else. I think I mentioned to you that Suppression Field, which is such a house, I would not run with Thopter Combo. It's so massively un-synergystic, as you noticed in your game vs Miracles. But I understand you're really limited in your Legacy options. So I'll try to talk about your SB choices.

And I'm glad you noticed Sphere was sub-par in all these MUs. Miracles and Lands can always just keep dropping an extra land, and basically ignore Sphere's taxing. And Eldrazi runs Tombs and things like that, so it's only half a Sinkhole. Good call.

Miracles - Really good SB'ing, the only thing I'd note is that Miracles and other control / mid-range MUs get decimated by Armageddon. Run all 4x, because the only way they can recover from 1 Geddon is by replaying lands, one turn at a time, for 4 turns. This is weird, but I think I'd drop a couple Hoverguards for the other two Geddons. It's such a blowout here; Miracles' board state and potential to turn this around is based entirely on the # of lands that are on the field. One Geddon essentially wipes 7/8 of the cards they've committed to the field. It's like casting Wrath vs Goblins / Merfolk, but a lot more devastating.

Lands - I totally get the frustration vs Punishing Fire. But Frogmite is more efficient than Somber Hoverguard. And since you're swapping Chrome-imprintable Geddons/Supp Fields in, dropping Hoverguard here again will still leave you with more than enough stuff to pitch for T1 Mox if you need it.
Another thing that you missed is that Tormod's Crypt is NUTS here. Generally, you let them cast off Loam at some point, and then Crypt it off. They gain 2-3 lands, but lose their card advantage engine. It's actually more powerful and efficient than Geddon in most board states, esp if you land Chalice @ 1 (so they can't Gamble another Loam). Sometimes you hit P Fire, but that's rare. I think this is what I'd do:

4 Hoverguard (only chumps 20/20s once) -> 4 Geddon

4 Sphere -> 3 Crypt, 1 Supp Field

1 Jitte (kills nothing), 2 Frogmite (tough choice) -> 3 Supp Field

Your main kill now is Thopter Combo, which is notably awkward with 4 Supp Field. So you have to be really careful with that. Foundry of course can chump 20/20s all day long. Even Manriki isn't bad, as it keeps the equipped creature out of Punishing Fire range. I'm not really sure if you drop Frogmite #3 for that, though.

Eldrazi - I think your SB here is basically on the spot. Keeping 1 Chalice in, though, actually hurts you. Options are 1x Crypt (so you can metalcraft with Mox Opal) but what I think is better is actually Manriki. You're grinding out creatures here, and jamming a random topdeck Manriki-Gusari is pretty useful. Yes, you're playing a bad Holy Strength. Do what you gotta do.
Also note - in creature MUs, I generally don't like Cranial. Its easy to chump. But you've got Ornithopter (+3 Trinket) and Somber Hvg, so potentially you might want to tutor it in rare circumstances. Other than missing Manriki, though, really good call on this one.

This deck is REALLY TOUGH to make those calls. Most decks you have Swords to Plowshares to side out, or something else really obvious. Sphere, you have to realize what style of play you're going against, evaluate their manabase (or just memorize the list), etc etc. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't make the rookie mistake of keeping Sphere against Miracles ("oh, it hurts Force of Will"). That was awesome! But yeah, keep in touch, and just get used to the Legacy meta with this ultra-budget deck. And trust me, you'll probably lose quite a few more 'til you find the right SB options and grab a few extra cards to swap in. I'll probably jam this tonight with Puca's Mischief again, let you know how that goes. Thanks for the report!

Xod

02-10-2016, 06:16 PM

Looking forward to your testing with Puca's Mischief!

Currently playing Oozing/Sylvan Plug/maybe even Zoo. So the ball's are on the side for the moment, but I will definitly run them soon!

frogger42

02-11-2016, 06:15 AM

Ack! So yesterday I went 0-2, got a bye round 3 and dropped (to get some sleep). The second weekly I took this Puca's Mischief to, I think I have a few slots I'm going to change.

Rd 1 - That 4 color Loam. Game 1, I got no Moxen or Frogmites, and was just dropping lands. A Turn 3 Thoughtcast for U1, oof. He got his Turn 1 Sylvan Library off a Mox Diamond, while I was scraping to land anything in the first 4 turns. I had a couple of worthless Chalices that I could only drop on 1, which does nothing here but Affinity. It was horrible.

Game 2 - I got him down to 4 off of beating and G Aether Grid. It was actually pretty close and I had a lot of time to draw outs to victory. Highlights: T1 Thoughtseize grabbed... Somber Hoverguard. Oblivion Ring grabbed... Quicksilver Behemoth. He considered these cards the relevant threats at the time. Just sayin'.

SB - All 15 (4 Revoker, 4 Blood Moon, 4 Crypt, 3 G Aether Grid) came in. Chalice, Sphere, Mischief, 3x Eng Exp out.

Rd 2 - Sneak and Show. With OmniShow pretty much gone (and a fair 60-40 MU for this deck), Sneak and Show is definitely the more brutal of the two cheaty decks. They have to resolve one Show and can usually ride either Griselbrand or Emrakul to victory, in most board states, anyway. G1 I got a T1 Sphere FoW'd, and presented 5 dmg quickly. I think it was kinda close a game for him, but I snagged it. G2,3 weren't too bad. I think I laid into him for 10+dmg both games, but an early 7/7 Lifelink helped offset my dmg on board. I think all 3 games were surprisingly close for a MU I'd say is 70-30 in his favor.

SB - 4 Revoker, 3 GA Grid, 1 Blood Moon (bleh) - sided out 4 Eng Exp, 4 Puca's Mischief.

Then I got a bye and dropped, like I said.

Changes - I think Puca's Mischief is really really good on paper, but I've sided it out 5 of 5 matches so far. Ghirapur Aether Grid came in almost all the time. Even against Show (just extra damage). Mischief looks like a bomb against Equip and Goyf.dec, but more practically speaking, the Grid just might be more useful. I think Mischiefs -> Grids (note - this makes Chrome imprinting less likely to be blue), and for the SB, those 3x Grids -> 3x Venser, Shaper Savant, because Show and Tell is generally a bad MU for this style of deck.

Mischief could also be Blood Moon, but I sided those in less frequently. Hope this is helpful.

drinkard

02-11-2016, 02:32 PM

frogger42

02-11-2016, 04:14 PM

I should add that I am not discouraged by my 1-2+bye result at all. I was quite happy to beat Miracles, which on MTGO is definitely going to be a consistent thorn in my side.

I balked when Chalice of the Void spiked thanks to Modern Eldrazi decks and the Pro Tour, but the one match win was all I needed to keep going with the deck.

I acquired some cards for the deck and its variants:
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Meddling Mage
3 Blood Moon
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

I know that these go in distinctly different directions.

One of my concerns with moving to UR instead of Thopter + SFM is Burn and Aggro. Are the lock pieces enough to stave off Burn until [very slow] pressure comes? Do I need Myr Enforcers back in the deck to apply more pressure, and if I play them, what other colorless cards do I remove for them?

Against Burn, Ancient Tomb is your own worst enemy. The Burn MU is a toss-up without SFM + Batterskull, but I'll try to point out a few things about it. You almost always want to imprint to Chrome Mox - this will keep you from jamming too many lands into their Price of Progress. The deck is lock pieces and creatures - if you get more lock pieces, you're in a really good position, esp with Chalice of the Void. If you get mostly creatures, specifically Affini-creatures - you can easily present 10+ damage in one turn and race their 3-5 dmg every turn. Either way, you're definitely not left in the ditch. And without SFM, again, it really really depends on your draws. Also note that all your Affini-spells get around their own Eidolon of the Great Revel, which is hilarious and awesome.

Basically, you will lose if your opener is Tomb + 3 Myr Enforcers. Too slow, and you take too much damage on your own. Sphere is still pretty good, not great, because they run fetches and a low land count. They need to keep a bad hand (ie 3 lands) for Sphere not to have too much effect.

VS Aggro... depends on the deck. Death and Taxes, Merfolk, (Goblins), ((Zoo))... again, depends. Jitte / SoFI do similar things to Ghirapur Aether Grid; Grid smashes DnT / Gobs, SoFI smashes Merf / Gob, Jitte smashes Zoo...

With your current list, I'd drop either Suppression Field in the SB (for Revoker or Med Mage), or drop Thopter Combo if you think Supp Field hoses 70% of your meta. IE Aether Vial decks, lands, Sensei's Top, and BUG (eats Deathrite Shaman AND Liliana) all get stopped by Supp Field. And also note: Blood Moon also hoses Lands and BUG as well. 3x is enough to try it in your meta, but trust me, it's so powerful you'll generally want 4x. Moon vs Supp Field - you'll also notice Supp Field is usually "Prevention/Prison", esp for fetches, while Moon is more "Removal" ie, Supp Field generally gets weaker as the game goes on, Blood Moon is still relatively the same effect.

I'm leaning toward Supp Field getting the axe because you don't have Sword of Fire and Ice, only Jitte. Death and Taxes and even Merfolk (and Gobs), you want Supp Field + a Jitte-like effect, ie, SoFI. And also Sword of Light and Shadow is great in the SB against Death and Taxes, too... I even bring it in against opposing SFM's (blocks Germ, blocks SFM equipped with Skull).

Since you have Blood Moons, Ghirapur Aether Grid is, literally, $1 on ebay for a playset. Shipped. Go grab it. NOOOOOOOWWWWW!

I think I tried to answer all of that, sort of.

drinkard

02-18-2016, 02:32 PM

frogger42

02-18-2016, 03:27 PM

Legacy leagues are up on MTGO! I ran this through my first one to a disappointing 2-3.

RD 1 - Sneak/Show 2-0
I am 2-0, 4-0 against this deck. Game 1 I play Chalice on 1 then on 0, and I whittle down his life total with a Frogmite and Jitte. He plays Sneak Attack without the combo piece and sits on it for two turns. Finally he draws a Griselbrand and plays it, draws, plays Emrakul, and attacks for 22, making me sac a useless Opal, the Chalice on zero, some lands, etc. I remove 2 counters from Jitte to survive the turn and grind out three more turns attacking with an Ornithopter equipped with Jitte and 2 counters.
Game 2 wasn't as exciting. Oblivion Ring came through for me when he combo'd.

in-4 revoker, 4 o-ring
out-jitte, 2 thopter foundry, 1 trinket mage, 1 ornithopter, 1 Hoverguard, 2 SFM

Rd 2 - Miracles/UW Control 0-2
Game 1 - After a long grind, Monastery Mentor is active with recurring Tops. I have Thopter Sword, but it does nothing.
Game 2 - This one is quicker. Monastery Mentor comes out turn 3, and he gets all aggro on me, killing me on turn 5.

in-4 revoker
out-jitte, chrome mox, trinket mage, ornithopter

Rd 3 - Burn 1-2
This was discouraging, since I picked the UW deck to prey on Burn decks in the league from newer Legacy players (although I too am one).
Game 1 I got stuck on one land and never did anything. I had Stoneforge Mystic, Frogmite, Hoverguard, Thoughtcast, etc. in hand and an Ancient Den.
Game 2 I won by playing SFM and Thopter Foundry
Game 3 I lose to Sulfuric Vortex despite my Chalice on 1.

in-2 sphere of resistance, 1 jitte
out-1 chrome mox, 1 trinket mage, 1 ornithopter

Rd 4 - Grixis Delver 1-2
I felt good in all of these games, and I know that I was an early Chalice away from an easy game.
Game 1 I lose to a grind after he clears the air of Hoverguards and Ornithopter with Lightning Bolts and swings in with Delver.
Game 2 I win with Myr Enforcer equipped with Sword when he gets a Gurmag Angler through my Chalice at 1.
Game 3 I get Chalice down but after some cantrips, Cabal Therapies, and bolts. His 2 Young Pyromancers still get a lot of value through Chalices, and I can't answer 10-12 tokens.

in- 1 jitte
out- 1 frog

Rd 5 - Enchantress 2-1
Game 1 and 3 I play my hand on turn 1 and have Thoughtcast to keep up the pressure. Game 2 little pressure gave him time to get Solitary Confinement, Elephant Grass, and Stony Silence. Ouch.

in- 2 sphere of resistance, 4 oblivion ring
out- jitte, 2 sfm, 2 chrome mox, ornithopter

A game-play, sequencing question: In my matches against Burn and Sneak/Show, I had the choice on turn 2 to play Myr Enforcer, Somber Hoverguard, or Thoughtcast. I could not play more than 1 of these cards unless I drew Chrome Mox/Mox Opal off Thoughtcast, and each time I cast Thoughtcast without being able to make another play after it. I won both of the games that I made this choice, but I still do not know if it was right to play this instead of putting more pressure on the board.

The matches against Delver and Miracles were enough to convince me to acquire Engineered Explosives, but would I even side it in against Miracles?

Deck+SB
4 Citadel
4 Den
4 Seat
2 Tomb
4 Petal
4 Opal
4 Chrome

4 SFM
4 Frogmite
3 Enforcer
3 Trinket Mage
1 Ornithopter
4 Hoverguard

1 Batterskull
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Jitte
4 Thopter Foundry

4 Thoughtcast
4 Chalice of the Void

SB
1 Manriki Gusari
2 Sphere of Resistance
1 Jitte
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Oblivion Ring (want Detention Spheres now after so many tokens games)
4 Revoker

So a deck I came in to beat got me, and it makes me question the UW deck over mono U, UR, or UBW. (I know, the data set is n=1, but still, it hurt my feelings).

Directions to go with the deck -
SB will have at least 3 engineered explosives
SB will have 4 Detention Sphere

Hrm, so... looking at your SB'ing, I think you brought in really relevant things, but I think what you sided out was probably not the least optimal stuff you had. I'm going to also make a MD suggestion: find room for 1x Cranial Plating. You might want to cut another Myr Enforcer to jam the 1 slot. Cranial is such a boss vs non-aggro decks, and when you run into tribal or Delver, then you just side it out. I know you're 4-0 against Sneak and Show, but Cranial is Master of Etherium that's tutorable with haste. Any MU where your opponent is not going to commit creatures to the field, or very very few creatures (Storm, Reanimator, even decent vs Burn) means that the +8 dmg or whatever is not going to get blocked. So let me just lay that out right now. For $.75 and one slot, you shore up random unfair / cheaty / combo MUs.

(Another card, for the SB, is Leonin Bola. You can tutor it with Trinket Mage or SFM, but if you're happy with your Rean / Sneaky matchup, you probably don't need the 1x slot.)

1. Okay, now your SB'ing: Sneak and Show. If you had access to Cranial, I'd keep all 4x SFM - Myr Enforcer's the slowest of the beats, and its only advantage here is surviving Pyroclasm. I sort of like Thopter Combo a bit better than Enforcer because, if you somehow get it online, then Sneak can't beat your board state at all. But it's slow. Next on the chopping block I'd put Trinket Mage. The only thing Mage fetches is Chalice, and by the time you lay that Chalice, Sneak and Show has set all their cantrips through, anyway. Cranial, Sword of Light and Shadow (to block Griselbrand in the air) and Sword / Batterskull are the only equip really worth considering keeping in, with Cranial being necessary for pressure.

2. Miracles - I think this is a tough call. Last night I jammed G.A. Grid, and was totally able to stabilize in 2 games by killing all the 1-toughness guys. I even killed a Mentor with it. I'd probably keep Jitte in tbh. I think Jitte, Sword Meek, Batterskull, and even Cranial are all super useful here. Considering UW doesn't run Bolt, Myr Enforcer again doesn't dodge any removal, and can totally go into Revokers. And I'd also try not to drop Chrome, either. Unless for some odd reason you're dropping a significant # of Chrome-imprintables. 3 Enforcer, 1 Orni -> Revoker. O Ring is too tempting for their SB disenchant thing.

3. Burn - bringing in Spheres is up to you. I like Trinket because it fetches Chalice, which is always relevant. Def Ornithopter gets the axe.

4. Delver - Sphere is AMAZING in the MU. It makes Young Pyro decidedly horrible, even just 1 Sphere. Possibly the weakest thing here might actually be Thopter Combo - it's just soooo slow vs Delvers.

Side note - Eng Exp is terrible against delvers, esp because you run so many 0-drop artis. It's actually good against Miracles because it can crack CB easily, plus it can eat a ton of Angels at instant-speed, which D Sphere can't. Probably 1 is all you want vs Miracles.

5. Enchantress - Another MU where Cranial really shines. Make them chump their draw engine, or take like 8. I think you sided in the right stuff, but Thopter Combo is too slow here, and I'd take out all 5 slots (plus Jitte). They're not doming you with bolts or wrath effects.

Bam. Hope that helps!