[Deck] Vial Affinity

[mans0011]

I have been starting to play some legacy with my affinity deck and i really like it. I have been to two tournaments until now and ended with a bit of luck t8 in one of them, but u would like some comments on my deck. My deck until now is:

// Lands
4 [DS] Darksteel Citadel
4 [MR] Seat of the Synod
4 [MR] Vault of Whispers
4 [MR] Ancient Den
2 [8E] City of Brass

// Creatures
4 [9E] Ornithopter
4 [DS] Arcbound Ravager
4 [DS] Arcbound Worker
4 [MR] Frogmite
4 [MR] Myr Enforcer
4 [MR] Disciple of the Vault
4 [MR] Somber Hoverguard

// Spells
4 [FD] Cranial Plating
4 [LRW] Springleaf Drum
4 [MR] Thoughtcast

The last 2 slots where until now just some fillers, nothing important. The Ancient Den slots are depend on what i run in the sideboard. What i am planning to replace the Hoverguards with Master of Etherium. The Hoverguard was nice until now, because of the flying, but i want to replace it with a cheaper artifact (to much dependend on blue with master and its not an artifact). The flyers i found until now are Arcbound Stinger and Roterothopter. Does someone here have experience with any one of those, or have other options for the last to slots?

Thanks in advance :)

Apparantly Aether Vial is a controversial inclusion, still! I don't see how this deck can afford the loss of all the tricks and help that vial affords. 4eak's been over this many many times. I'm sure he can tell you which post numbers to read on aether vial.

[MartinV]

Not smart of me to forget to mention AEther Vial :P. I have tested vial, but until now i am not convinced. But i wouldn't mind reading the main posts / pages about vial in this thread if someone can tell me the page/post numbers :)

[kicks_422]

Uh, try all the pages. I think it comes up every 2-3 pages or so.

I've been mulling over Epochrasite as well. I'll try it out over Workers. The one major thing I don't like about cutting Workers is that they are 4 less Lackey blockers on the play, with the prevalence of Goblins where I play.

[mans0011]

Uh, try all the pages. I think it comes up every 2-3 pages or so.

I've been mulling over Epochrasite as well. I'll try it out over Workers. The one major thing I don't like about cutting Workers is that they are 4 less Lackey blockers on the play, with the prevalence of Goblins where I play.

If goblins is all over your meta then I would not recommend cutting it, at all. We have very few turn 1 plays with legs. No one wants to throw Disciple in front of a lackey, but I'll be damned if I won't....

[GreenOne]

I've been mulling over Epochrasite as well. I'll try it out over Workers. The one major thing I don't like about cutting Workers is that they are 4 less Lackey blockers on the play, with the prevalence of Goblins where I play.

Between Fanatics, Incinerators, Weirdings and Hooligans, I can't believe a 1/1 is enough to stop Lackey from connecting. Is it?

[4eak]

Between Fanatics, Incinerators, Weirdings and Hooligans, I can't believe a 1/1 is enough to stop Lackey from connecting. Is it?

Every little bit counts.

Still testing, btw.


peace,
4eak

[4eak]

I'm back from testing Epochrasite, and the card is out.

Replacing Arcbound Worker with a 2cc card hindered our ramp too much. 60-70% of the time I'm hardcasting Epochrasite. He wasn't a much better topdeck than Worker. It is was uncommon to make use of his recursion, and his recursion took forever (3 time counters is a lot for this deck).

There were a few games where Epochrasite was a pimp. While he actually isn't very good against aggro, he was a nice recovery tool against control. However, I rarely get to the late game, and that is the only place he shined over Arcbound Worker. We have to keep in mind this is an aggro-combo deck, and while we can adjust the deck for resilience, we shouldn't do so if it costs us too much tempo.

I often found myself staring at Epochrasite in the first turn wishing it were Arcbound Worker or any 1cc artifact creature. By not being able to drop Epochrasite on first turn (or 2nd sometimes), I was a turn late dropping Frogmite, Enforcer and Thoughtcast. As expected, Springleaf Drum was considerably worse on 2nd and 3rd turns which sometimes pushed colored spells, Cranial Plating, and MoE back at least a turn as well.

Epochrasite was a decent card against control decks. Eating a Disk or Wrath wasn't nearly as scary with Epochrasite in play, but the loss in synergy from playing Epochrasite instead of Worker often slowed the down the deck to make me vulnerable in the first place.

I think we have better options against control decks.

Aether Vial
Pithing Needle
K-Grip
Winter Orb




peace,
4eak

[GreenOne]

As I said, I had not much time for serious testing, so I had some matches on MWS. Everytime I drew a Epochrasite I was asking myself if Worker would be better and the most of them Epochrasite was better.
As a topdeck, Epochrasite was clearly better, especially with a vial or ravager in play (with 8 creature in the 2cc slot you usually want to keep vial@2). Versus control and aggrocontrol Epo was better. With a cranial plating in play Epo was better, cause the only chances the opponent has to win when you have a cranial in play are to destroy your Plating or to kill all your critters (Epo helps against this one).
The only times where I actually wanted a Worker instead of Epo was when I had a fast 1-land hand that wanted to drop an enforcer on turn 2 and couldn't, and a time where having a ravager modular on the worker, and the worker modular on Orni later was probably gg.
To come up with the higher cc of the deck I put 1 land more in the deck. In my testing I was playing the usual list but with 4 vial, 3 drum, 3 enforcer, 3 epo, 1 Nexus.

Those are the matchups I played against:
Burn x3
UGb Thresh
Landstill 4c
Thruffle Shuffle
The Rock
MUC
WG Natural Order
Goblins x2
Draeadstill
AggroLoam
ITF (or something really similar)

[4eak]

@ GreenOne

Perhaps the 1 land was the difference.

Epochrasite usually cost me an entire turn whenever I opened a hand with him instead of Worker. I don't understand how did you didn't experience this problem.

Perhaps my gauntlet or partners weren't as good as yours. It may have been a mistake to let my opponents choose whatever deck they wanted to play (and vice versa when we switched up). We played a few games against each of these (no sideboarding):

Landstill
Quinn
UGw Thresh
WW (not Legacy legal--but it was a good deck--played Skullclamp etc.)
Pox
MUC
Goblins
ANT

Our matches were "swingy". That is to say, the fundamental turns were early. The turn that decided who won came so early that the benefits from Epoch weren't usually given a chance to play out. As I said, getting him to be a 4/4 wasn't common, and the 3 time counters simply took too long. How often did you get to abuse these two assets?

The control matchups were stronger, but not by much. He was good against against Quinn and Landstill, and it was lovely to see it come back after Wrath. The lost turns against MUC, however, weren't worth it because you either slide your bombs into play before Disk/Shackles comes down or you lose. Pox was the only control deck in which Epochrasite was an outright pimp (but that might be because some Pox decks run the card themselves).

Threshold, Goblins, WW, and ANT were matches I preferred Worker. The ramp was too necessary in these cases.

Our testing played games (as best we could) both ways. We played the circumstances with Worker and with Epochrasite. Sometimes it is difficult to see the effects of a card until turns later, and this is why we played like this.

Our opening hands almost always preferred Worker. Topdecks weren't substantially stronger because by the time we drew him and tried to abuse him the fundamental turn of the game was upon us. We found mana curve problems, not just with casting Affinity spells, but also because the cost of Epochrasite was actually in conflict with casting other cards that were simply stronger (Ravager/Plating/MoE).

I didn't consider the small gains against some of our control matches to be worth the synergy sacrifices that slowed our tempo down against other decks. However, where Vial Affinity deserved to played Epochrasite wasn't a bad substitution for Arcbound Worker at all. The difference between having a 1st turn artifact and a 2nd turn is a big one, and I'll be sticking with Worker for now.




peace,
4eak

[GreenOne]

Epochrasite usually cost me an entire turn whenever I opened a hand with him instead of Worker. I don't understand how did you didn't experience this problem.

I experienced that, but it was not that great as a difference: in retrospect, my list plays 1 more drum and 1 more land, as well as 1 less Enforcer. Obviously 2cc cards are better with more lands and more acceleration pieces. Also, there's less loss of Affinity sinergy cause there's 1 less affinity piece (and the more costy one).

Perhaps my gauntlet or partners weren't as good as yours.

Well, I'm quite sure that your testing partners were better than the random MWS player, but maybe the gauntlet was not optimal.

How often did you get to abuse these two assets?

Those are the matches were Epo showed:
Burn: I won 2 games on the power of Epo+Plating. The opponent nedded to shot my critters and just went out of business. With both almost in topdeck mode a 4/4 haste+plating won the game.
UGb: in one game he had to play EE for 2 to destroy my stuff and his Goyf. Epo came back and dealt 8 more damage, winning the game.
Landstill 4c: Epo eated a EE, but lived to tell.
Truffle Shuffle: I wanted Epo in this match, drew it one game but got STP. Meh.
The Rock: Epo eated a deed, but lived to tell.
MUC: Epo eated a Keg, but lived to tell.
WG Natural Order: In one game 2x Epo helped a lot in chumpblocking Goyf while dealing 2 in the air. Finally an all out attack with 2 Epos, an enforcer and a Ravager won the game.
Goblins: It sucked.
Dreadstill: It sucked due to stifle.
Aggroloam: So so. At some time I believe it screwed the opponent's math on DD, but I'm not sure.
ITF: Did not draw it in both matches.

We found mana curve problems, not just with casting Affinity spells, but also because the cost of Epochrasite was actually in conflict with casting other cards that were simply stronger (Ravager/Plating/MoE).

Yeah, this happened to me too. This is probably the best argument against it.

Is a 2/2 split conceivable? We already have a good amount of 1cc drops (I always want to play Vial and ofter drum before worker) so maybe it's a good call to have just something like 8 turn 1 drops. It's always a mess to build a curve, due to affinity cards.

[Zappa]

I've recently picked up this deck, and I still have some plays I am questioning.
What is the correct turn 2 play when you have a choice between plating and ravager? Does it also matter which one you play?

Another 1 I am curious about is, has anyone tried out Winding Canyons as a 2of if running 18 land count? It seems to play some cute combat tricks especially if you have either frogmite, enforcer or disciple at hand.

Against decks like landsstill where you know (from alculating in your head) that you can deal a near lethal damage (say 15-17 damage), but not enough to kill them. Do you over extend and go with that much damage knowing that its not enough to kill them, and will play wrath of god once they get their turn. Or do you hold back some of your cards to try and recover slowly but only dealing minimal amount of damage?

Thanks for the advise.

[4eak]

@ Zappa

What is the correct turn 2 play when you have a choice between plating and ravager? Does it also matter which one you play?

It definitely matters which one you play. I can't tell you which is better without more information. Could you provide us with more information? I want to know what you have in play and what is in your hand (and it doesn't hurt to tell us your opponent's deck [what they've dropped at least]).

Another 1 I am curious about is, has anyone tried out Winding Canyons as a 2of if running 18 land count? It seems to play some cute combat tricks especially if you have either frogmite, enforcer or disciple at hand.

I love that card. It sucks in Affinity though. You shouldn't have mana open to use its ability, and it hinders you from consistently (how did that One of Green put it:) "regurgitating your hand" into play. Play artifact lands or mana smoothing, all other lands are dead to Affinity post-Shards (even Nexus imho).

Against decks like landsstill where you know (from alculating in your head) that you can deal a near lethal damage (say 15-17 damage), but not enough to kill them. Do you over extend and go with that much damage knowing that its not enough to kill them, and will play wrath of god once they get their turn. Or do you hold back some of your cards to try and recover slowly but only dealing minimal amount of damage?

I generally play very aggressively against control decks. Now, that doesn't mean I constantly sac out to Ravager/Disciple just to bring them to 3 life (suicide), but I push the pace. Holding back is almost always the wrong answer in a synergy aggro deck. I'm not going to explain why this is the case unless you need me to explain it. Rush them, but do it intelligently.

Baiting counters, combat tricks, punishing board control, slow-rolling, etc. are all techniques you just have to practice. Against control decks, overextending is more subtle than just playing everything in your hand just to see them Wrathed away. Overextending could be saccing too aggressively to ravager or putting Cranial Plating on the largest threat on the table instead of a smaller one (putting all your eggs in one basket, etc.) to distribute the risk of pin-point removal.

If you want more specific answers, you'll need to give specific circumstances.



peace,
4eak

[Ssbm Rocks1]

Is Shrapnel Blast any good anymore?
It seems helpful, but I can't find it in any builds on Deck Check.

[kicks_422]

With Ravager and now Master, Fling seems to be more popular than Shrapnel Blast. However, I don't think it's really needed. When i ran it, I never found the time to cast it. Once I had the chance, I was already well on my way to winning or losing.

[GreenOne]

I've recently picked up this deck, and I still have some plays I am questioning.
What is the correct turn 2 play when you have a choice between plating and ravager? Does it also matter which one you play?

You have to consider those factors:
- You have a third land, so you can play cranial+equip next turn.
- You have a third mana at your disposal now (drum) and a 2nd creature to equip, so you can play cranial, equip and attack this turn
- You have few artifacts in play and your opponent is playing burn
- You have double cranial in hand and want the opponent to counter one (double cranial is almost useless against control)
- etc.

Generally, if I have a third land in hand and your opponent is not playing red and you don't already have 2 critters+drum in play then Ravager is the choice I make.

[GreenOne]

Is Shrapnel Blast any good anymore?
It seems helpful, but I can't find it in any builds on Deck Check.

Shrapnel and fling are quite good cards, but the mana base can support only one between Red and Green. Green offers Krosan grip where the cards that red can offer are meant to be played maindeck. I would not play Shrapnel in the side (but 4eak would probably), and there's no really room in the maindeck.

[4eak]

@ Ssbm Rocks1

Shrapnel isn't the problem; red is the problem.

Red is not as powerful now that Master of Etherium changes how we build the deck and given our need to answer powerful control cards with disenchant effects. Maximizing artifact counts and having access to K-Grip are the reasons I don't play red anymore. Others will always play white because it not only gives us DE effects, but it also allows us to play E-Canon for the combo match.

Red (or any 4th color) probably means we can't afford to play Darksteel Citadel. This is a metagame call. If you don't see a ton of wasteland/p-Deed, then it is quite possible to go red. I know there are several matches where I would love to board in Shrapnel. Unfortunately, I'm not able to remove DSCitadel at this time.

There are metagames where not playing Green or not playing Darksteel Citadel could be acceptable or worth the risk to gain access to Shrapnel Blast. For the majority of people, I don't recommend playing Shrapnel Blast anymore.


@ kicks_422

While Fling is popular, if one were to play red, Shrapnel is a much better card overall.



peace,
4eak

[Zappa]

A few scenarios for me, regarding the plating vs ravager play on turn 2 is this...

1) Case 1 (turn 2)
In play: 2 artifact land, Ornithoper, Roterothopter, Frogmite.
Choice to play: plating vs ravager (no 3rd Land)
Opposition: Landstill

If it was against burn, will the play change?

2) Case 2 (turn 2)
In play: 2 artifact land, Disciple, ornithoper.
Choice to play: plating vs ravager (no 3rd land in hand, frogmite also in hand)
Opposition: Landstill.

Also again if it was burn, will it be different?

Pretty much concerned regarding Landstill match up though. As it is the deck I usually have problem also with Ichorid-combo (bangs head against the wall when faced with factory + crucible + tormod). But yes with affinity, granted I've just picked it up, I've had games where I wasn't sure if I did the correct play by going for a lethal damage bringing him down to 3 life, but fails to kill and sees them get wrathed / deeded.

Thank you for advise.

[GreenOne]

1) Case 1 (turn 2)
In play: 2 artifact land, Ornithoper, Roterothopter, Frogmite.
Choice to play: plating vs ravager (no 3rd Land)
Opposition: Landstill

If it was against burn, will the play change?

VS 3c Landstill: I'd play the Cranial. This way you put on the board enough pressure. The opponent needs some wrath effect and you still got a crature (ravager) in hand and a plating in play if he does.

Vs 4c Landstill: I'd play the Ravager. The problem we're facing here is deed. If the opponent plays deed and sacs it for zero in his turn we're left with no lands, a Frogmite and an un-pumpable Roterothopter. Playing ravager changes the math and the opponent will have to deed in his next turn and for 4, cause ravager will modular on frogmite otherwise.

Vs Burn: I'd play the cranial first. You need to race in this game. Ravager becomes more and more effective as time passes by in this matchup, cause the opponent have to kill it with burn. Also, hope to draw an artifact land next turn, play ravager, then equip the cranial. So if the opponent wants to burn out the equipped creature it can get eaten by ravager or get some modular counters to survive and attack for a lot (depending on how much lands/lands open the burn player has).

2) Case 2 (turn 2)
In play: 2 artifact land, Disciple, ornithoper.
Choice to play: plating vs ravager (no 3rd land in hand, frogmite also in hand)
Opposition: Landstill.

Also again if it was burn, will it be different?
[/QUOTE]

Vs 3c Landstill: Same as above, but the opponent is going to take some minor damage from wrath.
Vs 4c Landstill: Same as above, but the opponent is going to take some serious damage from his own deed.
Vs Burn: Same as above, but you got less protection against a Flamebrake and 1 less creature to modular on. I'd equip the Disciple first.

[indelicate]

A quick question--has anyone else tested Glaze Fiend in Legacy Affinity? (1B, flying, 0/1, gets +2/+2 till end of turn whenever an artifact comes into play under your control.) I played four of them today on a whim--versus elves, Slivers, Stasis, and burn, as well as a few rogue decks--and was really happy with the result. Granted, it's a higher cc than Ornithopter and performs much the same function, but it's less afraid of blockers and nearly deals lethal on turn 3.