[Article]Eternal Europe: The Triumvirate

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Well, a little metagame exploration this time:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/26762-The-Triumvirate.html

Let me know what you think. Warning, though: I will be at Gamescom until Monday, so don't expect me to react during the weekend.

[Shawon]

I offer a much better alternative to Dragon Stompy if you want to talk using Moon effects:

Moon Affinity

Mana
16 Artifact Lands (:w::u::r::b:)
4 Opal
4 Drum

Critters
12 Free guys
4 Signal Pest
4 Ravager
4 Magus of the Moon

Business
4 TC
4 Plating
4 Galvanic Blast

I've been working on this build for the past three weeks after thinking about how I could configure Affinity to build Cloudpost, which is one of the deck's worst matchups. I talked with Rock Lee (from the Turbo Eldrazi thread) on MWS and we shared some ideas as well.

You can drop more Blood Moons in the SB, but the point is this: your manabase is way better (seriously, I'm running 4 colors and Magus of the Moon in-the-same-deck) and you have a much better creature offense because you're Affinity. Since you have a strong offense, you can relegate most of your actual disruption to the SB. You have access to 4 colors, so you can actually run an infinitely wider array of SB cards, especially against combo. Or you could just do broken shit like running Magus of the Moon and run Tezzeret 2.0 in the same deck. Something to think about.

In general, I think Affinity in multiple varieties is poised to rip apart the metagame. You have the speed to bumrush the shit out of midrange or tempo decks, and you can play the "#value" game by running value cards of your own like Stoneforge Mystic, Tezzeret 2.0, Cursed Scroll, or Academy Ruins. Also, as long as you properly metagame which combo decks to anticipate, you can beat any combo deck postboard with enough cards.

P.S. As usual, another informative and comprehensive article.

P.S.S. You should have mentioned Cloudpost. It's Affinity's worst nightmare but I can't deny it's a great foil against many of the midrange and control decks out there.

[phazonmutant]

This was an awesome article! I love LOVE that you actually used triumvir. If you want to get really fancy, the plural of triumvir is triumviri, acceptable for use in Latin and English :cool:

But seriously, excellent analysis. I hadn't considered Deathblade and Jund/Junk to be the same deck, but yeah, they pretty much are. BUG Control seems like it's pretty different, but I'm not sure why I think that. Maybe because its card advantage isn't grindy like Confidant, it's bursty like Vision? Not sure that makes sense. It's reasonable to group it with the others in any case.

How well positioned is High Tide against heavy discard decks? My thought would be that Thresh is a more favorable matchup because High Tide is good at interacting on the stack, but I'll defer to someone more knowledgeable with the deck. Miracles players seem to think that GB/x decks are generally a bit unfavorable, so not sure how well-positioned it is as a foil to the meta. Dragon Stompy seems like a sweet choice though.

[Barook]

I would count (Dark) Maverick/Junk to the DRS midrange decks as well now.

I totally agree with the statement that board interaction alone isn't good enough anymore. E.g. for Maverick, you need to be rather lucky to make it against combo with hatebears alone since they do have answers. Additional discard definitely helps in that regard.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

@Shawon: That's a pretty sweet-looking Affinity list and your argumentation sounds solid, definitely seems worth trying out. Thanks for sharing!

PS: Thanks :)
PPS: Cloudpost would definitely have fit the bill, that's for sure. Good catch!

@phazonmuant: Thanks :) Should have used triumviri somewhere for sure *g*

Miracles should be solid as long as there aren't too many Lilis, though a couple of SB Leylines would probably go a long way to make BGx good. As for High Tide, in my experience the deck is incredible against any kind of discard-based disruption, which is why I think its worth playing right now in the first place. It' just so ridiculous to be able to go off with only two cards, even if they're specific ones. Much harder to beat turn one Delver and Stifled fetches ime.

@Barook: Junk probably falls into the same spectrum, very true. Afaik it's seeing less play than the triuviri (hah!), which is why I didn't mention it. Also agree on your matchup estimation vs Storm, though Mom's a bitch postboard.

[Kayradis]

As usual, good article.

No love for Combo Elves tho...

Im still waiting.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

As usual, good article.

No love for Combo Elves tho...

Im still waiting.

Thanks :) An actual combo-elves article will have to wait a while. I simply don't have the experience with the deck I'd consider necessary to suggest a list I can fully stand behind - if I'm writing something, I want to really know what I'm talking about.

[Kayradis]

Fair enough.
I'd rather see you succeed than fail.

Keep up the good work!

[Zombie]

Thanks :) An actual combo-elves article will have to wait a while. I simply don't have the experience with the deck I'd consider necessary to suggest a list I can fully stand behind - if I'm writing something, I want to really know what I'm talking about.

Vault Tendrils has 8-9 kill cards. Elves has 14, 8 of which double as draw spells. You know you want to ;)

[Kayradis]

I guess it's time for you to sleeve the little green men and start hoofin' people!