Quote Originally Posted by Marke View Post
Merfolk needs 3 lords in play to comfortably bash past myr enforcer, that's usually not happening all too soon and before that it stops them cold. Enforcer is also really easy to get into play through a counterbalance or daze something champion does not.

Champion just completely sucks on it's own unless it is in a 2 card combo with plating. Even then you are unlikely to attack before turn 4 and if you want to do that you usually need to play champion before plating in which case plating just gets countered. The plating is still a easy target for qasali pridemage etc and a etched champion itself can easily be raced, it doesn't even kill many creatures when blocking...
Sure a untargetable, unblockable target for plating would have been nice but not at 3 mana (which is alot for affinity) and with almost no influence the turn it comes into play... If affinity really needed such a guy it would have just played silhana ledgewalker which is just better...

Lots of problems you are mentioning will still haunt affinity and is part of the reason why affinity is nowhere near tier 1/2 in legacy. Etched champion does nothing to help this really. So far the only card that helps affinity alot from SoM is mox opal, memnite will be ok as well but a minor upgrade.

Go ahead and test it and you will find out in a few games what I just told you, etched champion sucks balls.


As for memnite vs phyrexian walker, memnite has 1 power which is a world of difference as it at least gets to bash against all the decks that don't care about creature on creature combat, something walker never did. Memnite isn't fantastic and might not even last in the new affinity but it sure is better then walker.
Don't really play affinity or 1.5 for that matter to much anymore, but a few more questions. You argue that fish needs more lords to swing past enforcer and therefore is a pro for enforcer. The way I see it though, they can never swing past champion once metalcraft is activated. I'll take an untargetable and unblockable 2/2 anyday and in any format. ]

Second, Your claim is that the combo of champion + plating is rather "whack" to paraphrase. It's slow, dies to artifact removal etc etc. The problem I see is that plating will die regardless of what creature it is attatched to. I'd just rather have a creature that doesn't die to the same removal that kills plating. Pridemage nukes both plating and enforcer last time I check, which is a good way to end up in frown town.