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Hello gentlemen! I'm running a sorta-Affinity build, except a lot more control. I've got a thread on the New and Dev board, and thought I'd solicit some more traditional Aff advice for the deck:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...e-200-Solution
Sorry I don't have a whole lot to contribute here! Thanks!
With the popularity of so many durdle-y midrange decks featuring Abrupt Decay, I've found Shrapnel Blast versions to be the best for today's metagame. I have a friend who has Top 4'd two recent 20+ local tournaments (all the players have legit decks) with Shrapnel Blast/Galvanic Blast all in Affinity.
Immensely disagree. Stoneforge Mystic allows you to play the value game against Abrupt Decay decks.Quote:
Originally Posted by akatsuki
EDIT: I think a better direction to go with Affinity splashing Red is abusing Magus of the Moon, using the fact that your artifact lands are still artifacts under the Blood Moon effect to allow the potential to hit big with Ravager or Master of Etherium.
EDIT(2): I was toying with a Blood Moon list last week. Looked like this:
4 [MR] Seat of the Synod
4 [MR] Great Furnace
4 [MR] Ancient Den
4 [MR] Vault of Whispers
4 [SOM] Memnite
4 [4E] Ornithopter
4 [MR] Frogmite
4 [MBS] Signal Pest
4 [FUT] Magus of the Moon
4 [ALA] Master of Etherium
3 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
4 [SOM] Mox Opal
3 [LRW] Springleaf Drum
4 [FD] Cranial Plating
1 [FD] Paradise Mantle
4 [MR] Thoughtcast
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 3 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 [NPH] Batterskull
SB: 3 [M10] Pithing Needle
Both of these lines of play bug me a tad.
What if your opponent does nothing after you make the Ravager a 2/2? Ravager dies in combat and then they Bolt Frogmite in response to the Modular trigger. 2 cards for 3. You come out behind.Quote:
Originally Posted by SirTylerGalt
First, I'm assuming that your opponent used Punishing Fire and not you. Then it really boils down to your opponent misplaying. What he should have done is let the Nacatl die in combat (killing Ravager) and then Punishing Fire the Frogmite in response to the Modular trigger. Again you are 2 for 3ed and put yourself into a hole against an aggressive deck that will punish you for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawon
Personally, I feel that you need to take 3 damage here and build up your board to kill them as fast as you can.
Yes, my opponent played Punishing Fire, not me ofc. Anyway, if my opponent never played Punishing Fire in response to my first sac, I would have just keep saccing to make Ravager into a 4/4 and respond accordingly if my opponent played Burn/PtE in response to Ravager. I still stand by choosing to double block, because it forces the opponent to decide to use removal or let their Nacatl die.
So you sac everything but Frogmite, making Ravager a 4/4, while double blocking. Wild Nacatl does 2 damage to Fromite, killing it, then one damage to Ravager. Bolt hits Ravager and you have an empty board. Doesn't sound too good to me.
Luckily that never happened :) To be honest, I can't remember exactly how many artifacts I had besides Frogmite and Ravager. I could have had five if I started my hand with seven playable cards by my opponents 2nd or 3rd so I could have had enough to make Ravager 5/5. Yeah on second thought, doing that would have been unnecessarily risky. I think you bring up a good point that the Zoo player could have just let their Nacatl die and use a Burn spell to kill Frogmite in response to Modular. Good catch.
I had meant to post here a while back, but got busy; oh well.
I was running the Ravager-less Esper Affinity that you had advocated here earlier; I was liking that deck, but felt like I kept getting outpaced for whatever reason. Anyway, I decided to dump the SfM and the Ancient Dens (the only white stuff besides the Cannonists for the SB) and go back to the UB version featuring more Tezz (and swarmy stuff). I went to the local with this:
2 Tezz
4 Thopters
4 Memnites
4 Vault Skirge
3 Signal Pest
3 Etched Champions
2 Master of Etherium
2 Baleful Strix
4 Thoughtcast
2 Thoughtseize
4 Cranial Plating
4 Mox Opal
3 Springleaf Drum
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Darkslick Shores
2 Glimmervoid (I know, you hate this card :wink:)
2 Ancient Tomb
1 Academy Ruins
SB:
2 Tezz
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Spell Pierce
2 Graffdigger's Cage
2 Revokers
2 Dismember
1 GftT
I had pretty good battles with this list. Ended up 2-2 on the night, but with all going to 3rd match. Here's a super brief recap from what I can recall:
vs. Stax:
First game he starts with Mox Diamonds and Crucible of World-type of stuff going on. I keep a hand with a free guy, a vault skirge, a cranial plating, and tezz. I get the skirge out first turn, he kinda dicks around with some lands, but doesn't do much. I end up just on turn 4 playing Tezz and turning an ornithopter into a 5/5 to swing with a plating; at this point he mumbles something about not expecting affinity, plays an O-ring or something that doesn't do much and he scoops on his dead draw after I thoughtseize him and my next attack. I SB in my spell pierces, Tezz-es, and revokers (for signal pests, springleaf drums, and some combo of etched/master). Second game he gets his Smokestacks out and gets me in a soft lock, recurring a wasteland, destroying all my lands, playing stuff like Ghostly Prisons and O-rings; I scoop once he finally manages to get a threat out (which took forever). Third game was like the first, though he gets a ghostly Prison out, but I'm hitting all my land drops, chaining out mox opals, and end up just going Tezz ultimate on him. 2-1
vs. RUG
First game I get swarmed by Delvers and a Mongoose, while he counters everything I play with FoW and etc. (Guy's a major asshole, btw, though everyone else was cool that night). Second game I SB in my chalices and spell pierce. I draw an ancient tomb and 2 chalices in my opening hand, so just go for the turn 0 Chalice for 1; it sticks, no FoW. He was pretty much dead to rites after that -- never had any removal for it and was all pissy about it. It takes me a sec to kill him, since I didn't have many early threats; Tezz ultimate does the deed, though. Third game I should have mulliganed, but had all the ingredients to have a fat cranial plating'ed vault skirge so I kept. Unfortunately, he got a delver out and just countered everything I tried (and was dismembering whatever creatures I could play). So, oh well. 1-2.
vs. Combo Elves
A friend of mine here. First game I come out able to dump my whole hand basically with a cranial plating out and a mox. I get him down to half life or so; he looks uneasy, but ends up top-decking that 3-cast elf that destroys target artifact when it EtB; using one of the other elves that lets him return an elf to his hand in order to untap an elf, he's able to play her like 2 or 3 times and wipe practically wipe my board, lol! He then Natural Orders into a Craterhoof Behemouth and that's that. Second game I SB in counters and chalices; chalices in my opening hand, and I'm able to turn 2 chalice for 1; I get a plating out and am able to fly over a few things to get the kill. Third game I'm able to chain out some moxes to get a skirge with a plating out on turn 1; I get him down to like 8, but his deck goes off and stomps me out with the Craterhoof. 1-2.
vs. Reanimator
Another friend. Game one, he doesn't quite have the goods, and I'm able to get two fliers out and a plating (and enough black mana to equip during combat); he reanimates a Griselbrand, but it's not enough. I SB in chalices, have to mulligan down to 5, but he's got a god-hand and just tells me I lose -- he was right. Turn 2 Elesh Norn. It got late (there was some gigantic standard tournament that bumped the legacy stuff back that night), so we just draw and go have beers.
Tezz is just so damn good. He was never bad in any game, hah. The other unheralded stars of the night were the 4 cards I subbed in for the SfM when I run the toolkit: the Thoughtseizes and the Baleful Strix. I just bought a third Strix, and I'm thinking about going up to 3, taking out a champion, actually, though maybe a Springleaf Drum or a Signal Pest. The new rules with the Mox Opal are just so amazing, which is why I wanted to return to this deck (affinity in general, I mean -- I had been playing something else in Legacy lately). Chalice of the Void is the best SB card.
Anyway, that's that. I had messed around with playing the SfM alongside Tezz in the MB, but just couldn't get it to work out right -- the deck seemed clunky or something. I might bring this version back in a couple weeks with another Strix and maybe even MB a third Tezz.
You should definitely give SFM another chance, except this time replacing a Drum or just add a Paradise Mantle. I've many a time used SFM to fetch Mantle, in order to assist casting Master or Tezz, or Affinity for Artifact spells like THoughtcast or Frogmite. Making SFM minimally versatile is the key to justify running it. Jitte can be pretty handy even if you can't use it anymore to legend-rule the opponent's Jitte. Batterskull is very good to have in the 75, too.
I've found some local Legacy in CT near where I live (yay!). Tomorrow I'm going to a $5 tourney. I'll try to write a tourney report with my list afterwards.
There's a Cloudpost player I'm trying to metagame against and lately all my Legacy testing has been testing different SB ideas to beat Cloudpost. Ideally, I would go with the experimental Blood Moon list I posted, but since I couldn't find some Magus of the Moons, I'm stuck with my usual Esperblade build. Luckily, I got some Armgeddons (probably should've gotten Magi of the Moon instead, shrug) so I'm going to see how they work.
P.S. I've put my in-progress primer on the backburner as of late. Between studying for the Praxis 2 exam and other real-life stuff, I just don't have the time to write the primer the way I want to, but the thread is in dire need of a new primer, so I'll try to come up with something short that provides an introductory perspective. Anyway, that news was just for anyone who was curious about the primer I was writing.
The Cloudpost player never showed up. In fact, only 4 people showed up lol and we ended up playing a Round-Robin tournament. I won the whole thing.
R1 vs. Sneak-Show: I should mention that I only won this matchup because I watched this guy sleeve up his Show and Tell deck while having a conversation. Thus, I reconfigured my SB to run anti-S&T cards since the Cloudpost player didn't show up. G1 is a trivial loss. G2 I win without using any hate. G3 was really interesting. He TURN 1's a Show and Tell, but he uses it to drop Sneak Attack and I drop.... Pithing Needle :tongue: I still mess up though, by miscalculating my Ravager counters to make Inkmoth a 9/9 instead of a 10/10. However, I save my own ass by letting my opponent keep Blood Moon instead of E. Truth or Through the Breach off of his Intuition. His Blood Moon ends up screwing him more than me as I just recover my board that I sacrificed to Ravager and he can't activate his Sneak Attack due to the Pithing Needle I never sacrificed to give my Ravager 10 counters. Redemption. Anyway, the game is over once I manage to cast Stoneforge Mystic and tutor up Leonin Bola. I'm lucky he didn't play Pyroclasm because I definitely overextended that game.
R2 vs. Homebrew Delver/Jace Control: I win G1 since his hand is slow. G2 I think I have a bad hand, or I think he just stabilized. G3 was just bad for him as I drew the nuts. We've played before, and it does feel like our matchup is like a cointoss, but the guy admits he needs to be running some artifact hate in the SB.
R3 vs. Smallpox: Historically, the worst matchup... for the Smallpox player. In the last game, I shut down his Cursed Scroll and SDT with Needles. One thing I'm reconsidering is keeping some Tezzs in. I left them out during G2 and G3 because I thought I would never get to cast them against Smallpox, but I was able to cast a friggin Batterskull, so I might reconsider leaving them out. Since the Smallpox build I faced was a little slower (control-based) than the traditional destroy-everything (i.e. attrition-based) variety, Tezzeret might be castable.
Ended up winning 6 M14 packs. Even when I had another guy open them for me (my luck with boosters is terrible), I still wound up with shit.
2 questions for you Shawon:
1. Do you have any other competitive Legacy decks and do you ever play them?
2. What's your latest list? I have a friend who is borrowing my Affinity deck and he's struggling a lot and I want to make it better. Granted, he is a new player so makes a few mistakes from time to time.
I only own Affinity and thus am only concerned with playing Affinity. It's been the only deck I've been testing seriously for a year and a half now.Quote:
Originally Posted by akatsuki
It depends on which list you want to see. I have an Esperblade list with a Stoneforge package, I have an Esper list that uses Armageddon post-board so I can beat this local Cloudpost player (not Rock Lee), and I have a Moon Affinity list that I can't wait to try in next week's tournament once I get my Magus of the Moon in the mail. The Moon list is still under construction. With Magus MD, I am still deciding between running Stoneforge Mystic or Arcbound Ravager. Affinity requires lots of research and testing if you want to come up with an optimized list.Quote:
2. What's your latest list? I have a friend who is borrowing my Affinity deck and he's struggling a lot and I want to make it better. Granted, he is a new player so makes a few mistakes from time to time.
Normal esper list please no Armageddon
Esperblade Affinity
Mana
12 Artifact Lands (:u::w::b:)
4 Inkmoth
4 Opal
3 Drum
1 Mantle
Critters
12 'Nite/Thopter/'Mite
4 Pest
4 Ravager
3 SFM
Business
4 Plating
4 TC
4 Tezz
1 Jitte
SB:
4 Chalice
4 Sculler
3 Pithing Needle
1 BSkull
3 Flex
Thought I'd share my latest version of the Moon-based Affinity build I've been working on:
Mana
16 Artifact Lands (:w::r::b::u:)
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
So the latest developments I've made with deck have been deciding to run Ravager over a Stoneforge Mystic package and running Galvanic Blast over Tezzeret. Ravager just seemed like what I needed to make my creature offense more robust to compensate for the lack of actual offense that Magus of the Moon (even though it's a creature itself). I think I may have judged my decision off of only one match against RUG, but having 8 MD cards that are too slow or irrelevant to do anything in g1 against RUG or other aggressive decks (not necessarily aggro, but Merfolk is another example) just seemed like I needed to compensate. Hence that is why I'm running Galvanic Blast, a card I haven't played with in a LONG time, over Tezzeret. Blast also has the benefit of just being a good burn spell, so I'll welcome the change. I'm still thinking of keeping Tezz SB against control decks though.
As for the SB, it's still in flux. I originally had Blood Moon in the SB, as my original intent to testing a Moon build was to try it out against a local Cloudpost player, but I don't think I want to use it. I think it's overkill.
I'm still evaluating how useful Tidehollow Sculler is. Has anyone else tried him, and with Ravager? I am also thinking of trying out REB (Red Elemental Blast) since I am already running Red.
I think it's funny, given that I used to play Dragon Stompy, that I'm playing a Moon-based deck that still tries to play four colors. LOL.
Has anyone considered an Affinity list in the vein of this:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=45582.0
Obviously no Shops so that changes things but it looks like a pretty cool idea. Would Genesis Chamber be something worth exploring? What about Wire or Revoker?
Genesis Chamber is mainly used in Vintage Affinity because of Skullclamp and the fact that decks sometimes need to factor in cards that resist Smokestack. So I don't think the use of Genesis Chamber in Vintage would be easily transferable into Legacy Affinity.
Though I have pondered the idea of using Thopter Foundry, another token generator. I think it's a playable card in Affinity just by itself, without Sword of the Meek. It's great defense since you gain life and create blockers, and it can create good offense if you have Plating since your tokens are fliers.
Tangle Wire has been discussed before. It's decent disruption. One of the best things you can do is play Tangle Wire, tap your opponent's perms, and then EOT sacrifice to Ravager and go for the kill next turn.
Revoker has been discussed and used in lists many many times.
Taking Affinity once again to the weekly Legacy tourney at the shop around here. I'm going with a very slightly adjusted UB Non-Ravager version (Showon: I noticed you run 4 Tezz with your 4 Ravagers -- how often do you run into trouble with the slightly anti-synergistic dynamic going on between them? Ya know, one wants artifacts, the other eats 'em all up :wink: Or are you using Tezz to just make your inkmoths that much scarier?)
It's basically my previous list, just:
+1 Tezz; +1 Baleful Strix; +1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth; -1 Academy Ruins; -1 Champion; -1 Drum.
UB Tezzy-Swarmy Affinity
3 Tezz
4 Thopters
4 Memnites
4 Vault Skirge
3 Signal Pest
2 Champions (I love Etched Champion, so might be 3 of him and 2 Pests)
2 Masters
3 Baleful Strix (the unsung hero of my last tourney)
4 Thoughtcast
2 Thoughtseize
4 Cranial Plating
2 Drums
4 Opals
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Darkslick Shores (or, possibly 1 Darkslick and 1 Underground Sea -- not sure about the latter since a buddy of mine runs Merfolk and Islandwalk -- yes, Islandwalk -- wins him games ALL THE TIME; if he's there I might just go with 2 Shores)
2 Glimmervoid
2 Ancient Tomb
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth (surprisingly helpful in testing)
SB:
1 Tezz
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Spell Pierce
2 Graffdigger's Cage
2 Revokers
2 Dismember
2 GftT
I'll see how it goes and report back :cool: Last time I had a good run, was right in every game. The meta is so all over the place at this shop, so I'll be running up against a lot of stuff.
P.S. I've been tinkering with trying to get Thopter Foundry into an Affinity build... though I'm not so sure it works for what this type of affinity deck is up to. It fits great into that Tezz/Jace deck... but, ya know, that's a whole different deck than what we are working with here.