[Deck] Affinity

Hey GameGeek2, nice to see you here. You know me from wizards as Ilyasviel Einzbern. I haven't posted there in awhile, and even here since I have been out of the Magic scene for awhile due to Street Fighter 4. But glad to see you here, and glad to see you still playing Affinity.

Surprised by your results against AnT, though one of the posters named Furt also had some sucess against those. Though I wonder how familiar they are with the deck. But anyways, are there no room for sideboarding in Chalice of the Void? I've been keeping it in my sideboard and never really had any complaints about it.

I'm still pretty satisfied with the configuration of:

3 Krosan Grip
4 [Cards for your meta]
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Pithing Needle

But then again, I've been out of the magic scene for awhile. Oh and which combinations of Thresh do you normally see anyways?

Hey, i'm playing the deck for a while now on mws and goldfishing and its going pretty well. Only the sideboard im having troubles with. I never know what to board out :rolleyes: . Could someone give sideboardoptions on what to board out and in against some decks?? :smile:

~Maarten

Hey maarten, I ha d the same problem and I asked the same question.
Here is the answer:

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Originally Posted by 4eak

@ Elfrago



I look at choosing what to side out as this question:

"what are the least important cards in the main against my opponent?"

(I know, I'm stating the obvious.)

The primer shows a decent structure of how I value each card (I tried to show the most valuable at the top, descending to the least valuable). Perhaps I should say that more explicitly in the primer. The generic answer is at the bottom of that list. Ornithopter, Myr Enforcer, Workers, and sometimes Frogmites are the cards I side out. It depends on the match and how many cards I need to side in. Examples:

If I'm playing against certain control decks, Ornithopters flying is less valuable, and so I'm often inclined to remove them for gamebreakers like Krosan Grip.

If I'm facing Deed, then I never take out Myr Enforcers.

I have dropped 1-2 MoE against copious amounts of mana denial, but I'm not convinced that is the correct play. If I had a 4th Vial in the main, I certainly wouldn't do this.

If I'm only siding Pithing Needles, it often substitutes for the Workers.




peace,
4eak

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I generally board out Thopters - I find they're the weakest card in the deck, and the most reliant on specific other cards to be effective. For my four-ofs, I take out my 3 Thopters and an Enforcer, and for my 3-ofs I just board out Thopters.

I just find Enforcer so effective - he's extremely efficient as a 1 or 2 mana 4/4, which is plenty good enough to get the job done.

Thresh has fallen out of favor at my local tourney since the GP, NLU seems to have taken its place. I did an extensive amount of testing and put relics back in the board because they're not nearly as effective at neutering their creature base (though they are still good, and I board in 2 Relics usually for Thopters, unless they're playing Predators). Enforcer also sneaks around Counterbalance as a 4/4 beater very nicely.

The thing is, this deck can fairly easily dodge CounterTop due to its wide range of casting costs, as well as the ever-amazing Aether Vial. Counterbalance is almost dead, I would just side it out if I were the NLU player.

I am playing the fairly standard first page list, same sb and all, and its been working fairly well. In a meta dominated by cb and discard it is easy to puke out my hand t2-t3 and make haste from there.

What I would like to know if how you sb for the matchups, since it seems we have a lot of cards that can do good. Against normal thresh, do you sb in gy hate and hope to make their creatures useless/make their clock slow as hell as you try to aggro-out, do you side in Krosans too? Do you side in the Needles to deal with SDT? If so, what do you side out to keep a good clock?

Affinity,like most highly-synergestic decks, is hard to sb with.

Change from my previous list for the next tournament

SB
-4 Engineered Plague
+4 Chalice of the Void

Apoplogies for the double post, but Affinity has had some nice finishes as of late. We might make DTW this time around.

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Originally Posted by gamegeek2

Apoplogies for the double post, but Affinity has had some nice finishes as of late. We might make DTW this time around.

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Pardon my noobiness but where does one look to find Affinity results?

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Originally Posted by BattlefieldMedic

Pardon my noobiness but where does one look to find Affinity results?

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http://www.deckcheck.net/

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Originally Posted by Samsunait

http://www.deckcheck.net/

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Thanks.

It seems strange that all of the decks that most of the decks that make top 8 have red or white as the third color as opposed to green. Any reason for this?

The trend seems to be that they're all from foreign countries.. is UBg affinity an American version or something?

Are 4 Ravagers really enough to make the Disciple pull its weight? Personally, I'd also want at least one Atog along the Ravagers.

Am I the only one who feels like this? Or is it simply preferable to have a slightly inferior main deck for a better sideboard (Tree of Tales -> Great Furnace would mean no Krosan Grips...).

Disciple pulls its weight not only because of Ravager, but also because of board sweepers/removal and Vial tricks.

I'm also thinking about sideboarding Chokes. Seems like a nice card against blue decks, which are rampant right now.

Choke sounds interesting...Tell me how that works out for you.

I personally don't think we will get DTW status unless Zendikar gives us something interesting.

@ Pltnmngl

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I personally don't think we will get DTW status unless Zendikar gives us something interesting.

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You are probably right, DTW seems unlikely.

Although, remember that the DTB forum is about making a valid gauntlet and anticipating a metagame. It isn't about "which deck is scientifically the best" (even though I'd be willing to argue it often houses those decks).

The largest factor to a deck getting DTW status is just the number of people actually playing the deck, especially skilled players with good builds. The Affinity archetype is often short on both of accounts. I think most Established decks could easily make DTW status if played by decent pilots in decent numbers.

Most (if not all) decks are strongest when they aren't anticipated (anticipated like the DTW/DTB), and Affinity is a prime example (given the hate it could face). I wouldn't want others playing Affinity if I was playing Affinity. The less my opponent can anticipate me as an Affinity pilot, the better.

Also, I can't think of a card WoTC would give Affinity. Although, I was pretty surprised by MoE.




peace,
4eak

I've played the deck for a while in small local tournaments, when I didn't play it I lended it to a couple of friends of mine. All three of us had the same conclusion: the deck performs good.
But I don't think that DTW will come, especially with the printing of Quasali Pridemage that could be a real pain in the ass if widely played.

So...how much do we suck now? (So much for DTW status...:cry: )

Is it bad that I'm praying for good artifacts in Zendikar? (Metallic Dreams, please?)

PS- Perhaps the original post should be modified when the rule changes go through...

I haven't tested the deck with the new rules but... I don't think it really loses that much. Ravager is still a fine beater, still able to eat things that where about to die due to removal and still able of eathing creatures that where about to die in combat (sadly without being able of damage on stack things).
And now Quasali pridemage can't be used to 2-for-1 shenigans.

If all else fails, just replace ravager with Tarmogoyf =)

So...should I just let go of Engineered Plauge altogether? It seems we don't have anything that compliments it anyway...

Plague naming Lurgoyf is pretty much the tech :tongue:
It really depends on your meta, it can "help" slow down alot of good decks.

Since against tribal decks the match tends to go long, with both sides having a good number of creatures in play, Do or Die might be an option.

Can somebody do a "typical hand to keep/mulligen" type thing?

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Originally Posted by BattlefieldMedic

Can somebody do a "typical hand to keep/mulligen" type thing?

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Generally, you should look at your hand, and know that by turn 3, you will have played all but 1 or maybe 2 cards in it. The exception is when you start with a vial and have a good vial curve with turn 3 Ravager into turn 4 Master of Etherium, with the rest of the hand good enough to play a blocker should you NEED it to keep you alive (you probably won't)

You should also have at least one good threat or lot of little guys and a Thoughtcast. IMO, reasonable threats: Plating, Enforcer, Master, Ravager

Hi Everyone!

I've never built an Affinity deck before and I deffinitely wanna try 'cause it just sounds like a lotta fun, some of the damage I've seen pumped out is just ridonculous >.>

Well, I guess the main reason I sorta got drawn in is the spell Time Sieve. Yarr.. I know you've already prolly started cringing, lol, but I love the challenge trying new ideas out and trying to break cards.

My idea was combining the basic shell, for the most part, of what you guys have and mixing in Moriot Rigger & Time Sieve. I just thought it'd be sweet, sac 5 artifacts to give yourself an extra turn, Rigger grows to 7/7, swing next turn ftw--I just thought the synergy was awesome. I know Arcbound works a lot the same way, but ..well, this way you can sacrafice to Sieve's ability instead of arcbound AND get the extra turn, use the next turn to finish them off with cranial or Rigger, etc. It also might seem like its disynergy if used with Master of Etherium, but I don't think it'd be as much an issue, if anything it'd be more a double threat ^.^ Double Dragon suckas' lol

Is there a way to make this work well? Any ideas would be awesome :laugh:

I've been testing this deck out alot recently, and I have to say I'm most impressed by the red splash. The power in the deck really lies in its ability to kill out of nowhere, and before the opponent can find their hate. Atog, Fling, and even shrapnel blast can make this deck stupid fast, and I believe thats probably a route that isn't discussed enough, at least, as of late.

I refuse to play this deck after m10 rules ruin ravager.

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Originally Posted by jimirynk

I refuse to play this deck after m10 rules ruin ravager.

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Thanks for the constructive criticism sir, we will keep this in mind.

Just how bad do the M10 changes make the deck?

Is it really as bad as a few people make out?

Would be interesting to hear the Primer writer's comments...

Affinity had many games where combat math and carefully declaring blockers mattered and many games where we had to ask "damage on the stack?" fairly often. It's obvious that the deck is hurt by the combat changes.

The new system doesn't ruin Vial Affinity, but I think it weakens it. The defensive aspect of combat was buffed, targeted removal became stronger, and some of our synergistic combat tricks have disappeared. This was a deck that squeezed for every little bit of damage it could muster, and the nerf did take a points of damage from some of games.

However, some cards we really dislike, e.g. Fanatic and Qasali Pridemage, also took a hit.

Ravager is not ruined. His greatest strengths still remain. He punishes all forms of permanent destruction, and he is still a scaling artifact that also combos with Disciple. Ravager will not be replaced; he is still the most important card in the deck, and he still remains mostly functional.

Besides the types of hate that can be leveraged against this deck, the barriers posed by combo, and the lack of skilled Affinity pilots, the other large factor which we need to consider is this:

The average power of the format only continues to increase. That trend is likely to continue. Affinity will rarely (if ever) be a benefactor, and will continue to trend downwards in proportional power to the rest of the format. I see a decay in the viability of a deck which has little room for improvement or innovation in a format that continues to evolve into a stronger and harsher environment.

As far as I can tell, decks that can play random, undercosted creatures are the most likely to continue to be viable in the future of Legacy (i.e. Fish/Grow/Zoo). Combat synergy decks will decline (not overnight, but overtime).

For now, Vial Affinity is still a reasonable choice in many metagames. And, I think it will be a while before I would say the deck is just outright unplayable. So, enjoy the deck while you can!





peace,
4eak

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The average power of the format only continues to increase. That trend is likely to continue. Affinity will rarely (if ever) be a benefactor, and will continue to trend downwards in proportional power to the rest of the format. I see a decay in the viability of a deck which has little room for improvement or innovation in a format that continues to evolve into a stronger and harsher environment.

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You sound like a downer man, lol.. cheer up :P

Remember, it only takes like one card to come out and be broken *cough-tarmagoyf*, so who knows what's in store the next year or two. They need to bring back Tinker :O!!! lol, jk that'd be too broken Tinker --> Forge ftw!!

@4eak- Do you also mean Tribal when you mention "combat synergy decks?" Because I don't think they'll ever die now. Wizards is catering to them too much. In fact, only more tribes will pop up as the game progresses.

So what do you recommend we invest in while this archetype dies out?

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Originally Posted by Pltnmngl

So what do you recommend we invest in while this archetype dies out?

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I was thinking maybe the stock market. But yea, I see his point about there being only so much you can do. Artifacts will always be a huge part of MTG, so there's always gonna be plenty of room to grow, and some of these colored artifacts coming out seem interesting but yea.. most dont seem to fit the mana curve of affinity

I'm praying for an artifact creature with removal to take masticore's place ^.^

@ Mystical_Jackass

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You sound like a downer man, lol.. cheer up :P

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Nothing sad about it. I love playing Affinity. I will admit its weaknesses and the likely future of the deck in this format.

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Remember, it only takes like one card to come out and be broken *cough-tarmagoyf*, so who knows what's in store the next year or two. They need to bring back Tinker :O!!! lol, jk that'd be too broken Tinker --> Forge ftw!!

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There is always a possibility that they'll make an incredible card for Affinity. I think it is unlikely though. This is a deck that conjures up bad feelings for lots of T2 players. MoE did surprise me though, so you never know.


@ Pltnmngl

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Do you also mean Tribal when you mention "combat synergy decks?" Because I don't think they'll ever die now. Wizards is catering to them too much. In fact, only more tribes will pop up as the game progresses.

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Tribal included.

We've seen many different tribes actually become playable, but none are dominant. Catering will make no difference. In time (it could be quite a while for some), Combat synergy decks will fade. Even Goblins has been kept in check, and not by any combo winter (the assumed bane of its viability), but rather by the big green creature.

While WoTC clearly wants to make their tribal fans happy, they aren't going to make the same tribal mistakes like "Goblin Lackey" anymore. Even M10 really didn't do 'all' that much for Tribal decks (although, I think the elf lord is the best in the set). I will admit though, I think Goblin Lackey + goblins will always have a shot at winning, but I'm not convinced by any other tribe.

Wizards has, however, continued to create isolated, powerful, and extremely undercosted creatures in many colors. Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant type creatures are the real future of Legacy. Yes, WotC gives some love to Tribal/synergy decks, but they will continue to produce those 1-2 chase rare creatures each block that are vastly superior to any tribal card as standalone creatures.

Combat Synergy Decks require multiple parts to be effective. They remain consistent (the real strength of a synergy deck), but their ramp is easier to disrupt and too linear. Tribal decks will plateau (some already have). No individual card in these decks are really all that great by themselves; their reliance upon the other pieces in the deck is also a weakness.

I'm very serious in the primer; Synergy is a two-edged sword in decks like Vial Affinity or Tribal decks. There are hardcapped ceilings to innovation and improvement in these archetypes, and it is quite unlikely that they'll be the real benefactors of the so called 'power creep'.

Eventually, Combat Synergy decks just won't be able to catchup to the raw power of random Fish/Zoo hands. Fish/Zoo are wide-open archetypes that transform gracefully, they are flexible, and they are the most likely benefactors of upcoming randomly awesome cards. Fish/Zoo will experience power gains where Combat synergy decks will not.

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So what do you recommend we invest in while this archetype dies out?

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It isn't the apocalypse, so keep playing Affinity if you enjoy it. If you want to keep your investment value, then buy duals, fetches, and staples (FoW, StP, LED, etc.). Those cards will never be replaced and will always have a home.

It wouldn't be wise to comment too far on what decks will look like in the future. Barring bannings, I think Storm combo and Thresh will always be a wise choice.







peace,
4eak

I stopped playing Affinity awhile ago. The deck just is merely fair in Legacy at this point in time. It's fine if you're on a budget but it's hardly optimal.

I think that most decks like Goblins won't get too much better like 4eak was saying. Then again, I don't think anyone saw Warren Weirding coming. WotC is full surprises.

So I have more obvious and sound deck choices for the upcoming 2009 Legacy worlds, but you also have to take into account your overall comfort with a centain deck. I am very comfortable with this deck therefore making me what to consider it for the coming weekend. I am interested in everyone (especially 4eak's) opinion on it as an option at gencon. After that I would like to examine the sideboard. Right now, based on recent tournament success, I am playing this:

4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Duress
4 Pithing Needle
3 Relic of Progenitus

I feel like the needles and canons have to stay...and my only other options for relic are crypt and heap doll (secret tech!!! lol, seriously though, amazing vs ichorid). I used to play disenchants/krosan grips but recently they have been too late. Also, in recent tournaments both in my area and not, duress/cabal therapy has proven fantastic. Lemme know what you guys think about the deck choice and if you like it, what your board would look like and why? Honestly, one thing I am thinking hard about is combo though. Will it be non-existent due to the mana changes (LED and AdN?). Enough to maybe even cut canonist?

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Originally Posted by Kilz88

After that I would like to examine the sideboard. Right now, based on recent tournament success, I am playing this:

4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Duress
4 Pithing Needle
3 Relic of Progenitus

I feel like the needles and canons have to stay...and my only other options for relic are crypt and heap doll (secret tech!!! lol, seriously though, amazing vs ichorid).

Honestly, one thing I am thinking hard about is combo though. Will it be non-existent due to the mana changes (LED and AdN?). Enough to maybe even cut canonist?

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I played the following list in the board:

3 Doom Blade
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Duress
3 Pithing Needle
3 Relic of Progenitus

Combo is still there, so don't cut the EC! I had the most problems with Goyf in the first game :mad: , but with Doom Blade/Relic after board that problem is slightly less (because you need to draw them to use them).

Has anyone tried playing "Transmute Artifact" in Affinity? If you sacrifice the right creature, it can be an even cheaper Tinker due to the high converted mana cost of the creatures it runs.

Anyone see any usable cards so far from Zendikar?

Cause I don't :/

Blade of the Bloodchief + vampire aristocrat? :wink:

Its like a badass ravager

Should I stick it out with Crypt/Relic (I go 2/2 in the sb) or go all out with the new trap that exiles all spells?

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Should I stick it out with Crypt/Relic (I go 2/2 in the sb) or go all out with the new trap that exiles all spells?

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It isn't all spells (Mindbreak Trap), but rather all cards from a GY (Ravenous Trap).

The problems:

• The card is conditional and the actual cost is unplayable.
• The card isn't an artifact.

Either one of those knocks Ravenous Trap out of contention.




peace,
4eak