Alright, I guess I'll start this matchup grind with "A" for Affinity.
Success of the Affinity/Merfolk matchup depends highly on your ability to contain Affinity's beginning, and their Big 3 most powerful cards throughout the match:
Arcbound Ravager,
Master of Etherium, and
Cranial Plating. Affinity's explosive start tends to come mainly from a first turn Vial or even worse,
Ornithopter and
spring-leaf drum. Although they're overextending their early game, do not let this happen! It'll be much harder to control the match if they are essentially a mana up on you. This combined with an artifact land enables them to produce a
Frogmite up to the first turn and a
Myr Enforcer/Master of Etherium the second. It also instantly gives them the all the colors they need. If you have a daze/pithing needle and they're on the draw, use it on the Springleaf drum. If the Affinity player has a
Darksteel Citadel, they will use it the first turn to avoid being Wasteland-ed and to set up an artifact for their
Glimmervoid. Variants tend to splash red if they're not using AEther vial, or green or white if they are. If you see an early
Great Furnace , start saving your Counterspells for potential
Flings/
Shrapnel Blasts, as they will target your lords. Continue to minimize the the Big 3's disruptive capabilities while pumping out your lords, if you survive the initial wave, this game can go on for awhile.
After the sideboard, Affinity likes to put it
Ethersworn Canonist, Red Elemental Blasts, and definitely Pithing Needle for your vials. Your worst case scenario are sweepers such as
engineered explosives or something like
Firespout, depending on how much swarm they're anticipating. In response, take out standstill (it's too slow to be effective), Daze (not very effective against Affinity mechanic, they go around it or sideboard thorns, and maybe some Cursecatchers depending on your sideboard options because there's usually not enough instants/sorcery spells to make it worth it.
Your Common sideboard includes, Spell Pierce, disenchant (spot removal,) Jitte for Disciple of the Vault and weenie friends( also forces Arcbound Ravager to activate, stifle ( Arcbound Ravager), and my favorites, Back to Basics and Pithing Needle for vial springleaf drum and trickery such as Engineering Explosives, are usually the most devastating that I normally sideboard. Control cards like Sower of Temptation and Vedalken shackles are also nice but the later is also Pithing needle-able.
Furthermore, if you're splashing white, Affinity rarely uses basic lands, making Path to Exile wonderfully efficient! Absolute law is definitely worth it if they're splashing red because although they'll probably only be packing 3 or so burn cards pre-sideboard, splashing this color also can imply there's a good chance are they're also packing some blue hate post-board (Red Elemental Blasts/Pyroblasts). One can't be certain though, the scary thing about Affinity is they usually have 2-3 multi-mana lands, Springleaf drums and vials, so they could and will surprise you in the sideboard with off color sideboard.
The big anti-Affinity sideboard cards, if for some reason you're suspecting it in your meta game, is
Energy Flux,
Kataki War Mage,
Serenity, and
Null Rod. They are all time tested game winners. However, you probably won't be expecting this deck, as, ironically it only seems to survive in meta games that aren't combo intensive, or hated out. If you expect affinity, they probably expect that you expect affinity, and they won't bring it. Unless they are poor, new, or just like having heavy things thrown at them... wait this isn't mirrodin standard anymore. My scars have healed.
Tips:
-Watch out if they attack with multiple weaker creatures, have a Cranial Plating on one of them, and the ability to produce two black mana, they will re-equip the cranial plating on to something else.
- Key counter targets anytime are Arcbound Ravager, Cranial Plating, Master of Etherium, a turn 2 through 4 Myr Enforcer, Atog (red splash) and Ethersworn Canonist (white splash)
-Remember you typically won't be sideboarding for Affinity, hence why most of my sideboard suggestions were cards not only applicable to affinity, but other aggro archtypes in general; however affinity will be sideboarding for you, as is part of the bane of being a DTB. Therefore don't be caught off guard to see cards such as Firesprout or E. Plagues which may hinder affinity's speed a bit, but will hurt you more than themselves. Affinity is also really vulnerable to counterspells and removal, they know this, and will sideboard to protect against it. But you can use this to your advantage and you can anticipate the anti blue cards for the second game, try to play more conservatively the second game in its anticipation.
-Affinity's creature power is unmatched against Merfolk's creature power but your trickery and counter spells can (like many decks) slow them down enough for your lords to be effective until the lords/Wake Thrasher/whatever+jitte can finish them. Always remember, they're the
beat-down.
What's next, agro loam?
