[Deck] Affinity

[furt]

I played this list in Chicago:

4 Thopter
4 Worker
4 Disciple
4 Ravager
4 Frog
4 Enforcer
4 Master

4 Springleaf Drum
3 Vial
4 Plating
4 Thoughtcast

4 Seat
4 Vault
4 Citadel
3 Ancient Den
2 City of Brass


Sideboard

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



I went 7-2 Day 1 with just a single bye. I had some good matchups along the way. I was going to play the original list in this thread but after walking the room we decided to go with Ethersworn and the Thougthseizes. They were correct choices on the day for sure.

Rd 2, I win 2-0 over Dredge. Game 1 he loses because I drop Ravager before he can get off a good sized Breakthrough. Game 2 he keeps a hand with some hate but not enough gas. He Needles both Relic and Crypt in the first few turns and tries to win with just dredging on his draw step which is obviously too slow.

Rd 3, I win 2-1 over UWb Landstill. Game 1 I blow him out. Game 2 he Wraths my board before I can get enough damage in. And in Game 3 he taps out for a Elspeth on his 4th turn and I am able to kill him with a Master and a plated Enforcer with his only blocker being a solider token.

Rd 4, I win 2-1 over European Pro Manuel Bucher playing Uwb Faeries. Game 1 he mulls to 4. Game 2 a quick Jitte, thanks to a Chrome Mox is enough for him to stabilize. Game 3 he cannot deal with double Frog and Enforcer.

Rd 5, I win 2-0 over a Counterbalance-Based Gro list, with Bob, Goyf, and Dryads. MD smothers and Engineered Explosives almost get him Game 1 but I am able to get him to 1 life and I stop attacking and let his Bob kill him, even though he has Top out, he had drawn close to 11 land already. Game 2 was not even close.

Rd 6, I lose 2-1 to AnT. Game 1 he does what he is supposed to do and wins on turn two. Game 2 he mulls to 6 and I come out of the gates fast with a double Disciple draw. After the match, he tells me he had a Meltdown in hand to try and wreck my board but couldn't cast it without dying. Game 3 I am forced to mull to 3. All previous hands are unkeepable, but my 3 cards are, Seat, Den, Cannonist. Not too bad. We go land go until I drop the canonist. By this time my two draw steps have brought me another Cannonist and a Drum. On his turn three he Meltdowns for 2 to take my board. We go draw go for 6-7 turns. I never draw a land. He kills me eventually. If the Seat had been a Citadel, I would've come back. Tough beats, gotta move on.

Rd 7, I beat AnT 2-1. Game one I have a turn three kill on the play and he also had a turn three kill so thank god I win most dice rolls. Game 2 he goes off on turn 1. Can't do anything about that. Game 3 I get Duressed on turn 1 and he sees a Cannoist coming down. So upkeep he Chants me off a petal. Next turn he chants me again. The next turn he Chants me a third time. I have no problem with this because he has only 3 cards in hand the entire time. Eventually I get to play things and I play somewhere around 10 cards on turn 5 and kill him the following turn.

Rd 8, I beat Merfolk 2-0. The games were not even close in the slightest bit. I had the nuts of quad Frog in game two on turn two.

Rd 9, at this point I am 7-1 and a lock for Day Two, my opponent offers a draw as he is tired and needs food, I decline, wanting to be in prime position tomorrow. The top tables are littered with blue decks so I want to be at the top. Turns out he is playing a very anti-aggro build of Landstill with MD Propaganda. Prop slows me down too much Game 1 and I lose to Humility. Game 2 I regret not having Grips but luckily I dont get angry as he wastes my first two land drops so I never really am in the game.

7-2 was pretty good for Day One, my only fear was all the random decks I saw around the X-2 brackets.


Day 2

Rd 10, I win 2-1 against Belcher. I win the die roll and lead with Citadel, Drum, Thopter, Frogmite. Good start. He starts with SSG, Rite of Flame, ESG, Tinderwall, two blank Chrome Mox, Empty the Warrens for ten guys, he has the better start. I kill him turn three though with Plating, Rav and Disciple. Thopter beats! Game 2 he does his thing turn 1 and I am done. Game 3 I open a hand that can led with Seize or Needle, I lead with the Seize because my hand can not beat a big Empty. I see Empty, Belcher, and mana to play both, but not activate Belcher. He is three short. So I take the Empty and pass. He draws, says sorry, and plays the Belcher out and shows the LED he drew. Good thing he still had a Bayou in his deck because he hit me for about 10 damage and then revealed Bayou. I Needle Belcher and he loses pretty fast.

Rd 11, I lose 0-2 to Carlos Ramao playing Aggro Loam. Game 1 he Burning Wishes for Shattering Spree to take out all my creatures and slowly wins from there. Game 2 is pretty much the same except he Wishes for the same Spree 4 times thanks to my having to Relic his graveyard a couple times to keep him off Assult/Loam.

Rd 12, I lose 1-2 to Dredge. Game 1 he wins the die roll, mulls to 6 and leads with Tireless Tribe. I am in rough shape. All I have is a Worker and a pass. Next turn I will have Ravager though. I hope he doesn't kill me this turn. He doesn't discard a single dredge and just draws for turn. He then discards the top decked Gravetroll and casts Careful Study and Breakthrough to end me. Game 2 he keeps a slow hand that plays around the hate. I am forced to crack my Relic turn three with two Narco triggers on the stack and pretty good grave. He recovers quickly and gets a 21/21 Troll in play and about 7 zombie tokens. I have only a couple turns to do something. My board is 2 Frogs, Rav, Worker, Thopter, and Master. On his turn he attacks and I chump the troll and take 14 or so. Next turn I draw Thoughtcast, which draws me into Thoughtcast and Disciple, the next Thoughtcast gets me another Disciple which ends that game. Game 3 he mulls to 6. He leads with a Imp and I lead with Citdel into Relic. He pitches a dredger and a useless card to stop my Relic from being good. He has an okay turn with a dredger and a Careful Study. Nothing too great but he Dread Returns an Ichorid Making 6 Tokens, attacks for 3 and gets two more tokens. This is a tough spot. I am at 17 and he has 8 power in play. I have to Relic his graveyard next turn but my second land drop is only a City of Brass. I am holding two Frogmites, Ravager, and Disciple. I draw nothing and can do nothing but RFG his graveyard and drop a Disciple going to 16. He attacks me to 8. I draw and miss a land. An artifact land would've been golden there but I am forced to drop Ravager and do some bad trades. I draw another blank and extend my hand.

Rd 13-15 was all against Goblins. Nothing special here. I won one match and get blown out by the others. Its not my favorite matchup but it is winnable.


So 9-6 overall, after 7-2 start is pretty disappointing but I had a lot of fun with the deck. I believe if I got paired with more of the Counterbalance, blue-based decks, I would've done better on Day Two but I can't complain really.

The deck is very strong in the format as I see it right now. Especially with the Top 8 results. Minus the AnT deck in the top 8, they all seem like 50/50 or better matchups.

[4eak]

@ furt

Rd 13-15 was all against Goblins. Nothing special here. I won one match and get blown out by the others. Its not my favorite matchup but it is winnable.

So 9-6 overall, after 7-2 start is pretty disappointing but I had a lot of fun with the deck. I believe if I got paired with more of the Counterbalance, blue-based decks, I would've done better on Day Two but I can't complain really.

I'm not surprised you faced Goblins (not just because it is an excellent deck, but because it appeared to be a decent meta choice). You wished to be paired against blue-based decks, and I'm sure the goblin pilots had the same train of thought. It is almost ironic that you got paired against them back to back to back.

While I consider the Goblins match pretty close to even, I prefer to be the one playing Goblins intead of Affinity. Beyond the Goblin/Affinity matchup, I think Goblins does what Affinity wants to do, only better. I think Goblins has way more "oops, I win", a larger range of options, better CA, and more moldable tactics.

Goblins is arguably the greatest competitor of Affinity. Both decks exist to defeat blue-control, both decks have decent non-combo matches all around, and both are synergy aggro-combo decks.

If you could do the GP again, would you have brought Goblins instead of Affinity?






peace,
4eak

[furt]

Its a tough question. I have played A LOT of Goblins. Goblins is a deck that got me to the Pro Tour before in Extended. Its a deck that got me to 9th place at Regionals in 2004 (it was a 500 man regionals tournament, 11 rounds), which is time when 60 percent of any Standard tournament was Affinity (both deck had access to four Skullclamps.) It has brought to a couple PTQ Top 8's and has brought me a couple tournament wins in Legacy. In short, I know Goblins inside and out. I know the matchups and I have a great feel for how most matchups go.

In any other format I would always prefer to be on the Affinity players side but in Legacy it is not the case. You said it right on the head, while it is not unwinnable and maybe not unfavorable, you just would rather be in the Goblins seat.

I would def play Affinity again if I had to do the GP over. I felt it was a great metagame choice and a lot of people underestimated its speed. I had more than one person on the weekend comment on how fast I killed, and sometimes out of absolutely nowhere. Its a deck that has its place and I liked my choices and I liked my sideboard as every card was pretty much relevant at some point on the weekend.

[GreenOne]

I'm leaning towards Thoughtseize too, in place of Chalice of the void.

I still believe some Disenchant Effect is needed by the deck. Did you miss Grips besides the landstill match?

How the hell your ANT opponent kept a hand with Duress+3 Chants against an aggro deck? Btw, how were the canonists? Seems like you boarded them in against just the 2 ANT decks.

[4eak]

@ furt

Btw, how were the canonists? Seems like you boarded them in against just the 2 ANT decks.

Ditto.

You did face combo 5 times:

2x Dredge (obviously no Canon here)
2x ANT
1x Belcher (Needle obviously, but did you run Canon here? )

Where else did you feel E-canon was worth boarding in? You saw Canonist in both ANT matchups, but how much did it really help? Do you think you faced a proper pilot in the ANT matchup you won? Or, rather, do you think you won in virtue of Canonist or in virtue of your opponent not playing/mulling correctly?

In my experience E-Canon's effect scales down very quickly as combo-pilot skill increases. E-Canon punishes poor-skill players dramatically, but hasn't been worth the sideboard slots (or color change) against a good pilot. There are few truly skilled pilots of combo decks, and that is definitely to our advantage. Should we bank on playing against combo pilots with mediocre skill? It seems plausible, but it certainly leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I generally try to beat expert pilots, not the average pilot of a given deck--but perhaps we should make an exception.

Lastly, why no Chalice? I see GreenOne might agree with the choice, so if either of you can give a good answer, I'd appreciate it. Chalice has won way more games against combo than Canon for me. Chalice is substantially easier to cast, it protects itself when dropped at 1, and when Dropped at zero it stops T1/2 shenanigans. I don't see why you would play Canon before/without Chalice if you wanted to combat combo. I run both automatically if I'm boarding against storm combo.








peace,
4eak

[GreenOne]

Lastly, why no Chalice? I see GreenOne might agree with the choice, so if either of you can give a good answer, I'd appreciate it. Chalice has won way more games against combo than Canon for me. Chalice is substantially easier to cast, it protects itself when dropped at 1, and when Dropped at zero it stops T1/2 shenanigans. I don't see why you would play Canon before/without Chalice if you wanted to combat combo. I run both automatically if I'm boarding against storm combo.

I don't expect to ever win against storm combo, so I don't justify the chalices just cause they're good in that matchup. The other matchup where CotV is useful is Threshold/Dreadstill, where I already want to side in Krosan Grip or Relic.
Thoughtseize is good in the Control/Rock matchup Where it can take preentively (sp?) their EE, Deed or whatever. Same goes for the Stax, Dragon Stompy, etc.
Threshold is a nice matchup, I don't want to dilute my deck too much, 4 SB slots seems ok against them. Thoughtseize is an overall card that can be sided against a good number of decks when you don't exactly know what to expect.
If you have a more specific hint on your metagame, then you can drop thoughtseize and play Plague/Chalice/etc, I guess.
This is the reasoning that brought me to Thoughtseize. That said, it's still in testing.

[4eak]

I didn't phrase that well enough. I thought you were considering replacing Chalice with Thoughtseize while also playing Canon to answer storm combo (as if you had agreed with furt's choice). Clearly, if you aren't trying to answer storm combo at all, then not playing Chalice is perfectly reasonable. My question still stands for furt then.

My testing on Thoughtseize is mixed. Thoughtseize is a card you want in your opening hand, but often becomes dead by turn 3 or 4. You either seized their answer or threat on turn 1 or 2 or they get to play their answer (and continually do so as they topdeck it--preventing further discard opportunities), and Thoughtseize becomes a dead card and dead topdecks. I don't like that I MUST open the game with black mana for Thoughtseize to realize its potential. I don't like that it isn't an artifact permanent either.

The main thing Thoughtseize has going for it is that it is always a relevant card against pretty much every deck on turn 1. That sounds like an argument for maindeck play, not for siding though.







peace,
4eak

[Pltnmngl]

Jujuhawk & furt - Congrats on how well your lists did. You guys prove affinity can definitely be a contender. I predicted the metagame the same way you guys did. Looking at the top 8, I almost want to chalk up the standings to bad luck. Oh well...

As a sidenote, Nassif is a lucky s.o.b.

[furt]

I will start at the top and say that I agree 100% with the way Canonist's ability scales down as player skill goes up. One of the two ANT players I played was far far more proficient with combo than they other and he was the one I lost too. I would like to add that I would've won the game without a mull to 7 I believe based on the hand he kept on the play in game 3

Thoughtseize was actually very very good all weekend. As stated it is good in a lot of random matchups, it was also decent against Goblins. More than once it hit his freshly Matroned up creature or a fresh Ringleader draw.

If you do have a more defined metagame to play in I could def see playing the Grips and Chalices over the more broad Thoughtseizes.

As I predicted, I would much need the Cannonists much more than I would need Grips. To me the biggest Grip target is Humility. In my testing, I am not very worried about 12/12s. I saw far more Combo around than Humility so thats when I made that switch.

[xsockmonkeyx]

My friend wants to play this deck in an up coming tourney, and he doesn't have the Ravagers to make the world go round. What can we replace him with that will be somewhat representative or play into the strategy of the deck? Is Atog the best option? Responses with "hurrrrr, play another deck" will not help. Thanks.

[Fons]

Ravager is very important to the deck try borrowing them from someone. Or see how much it costs to get them off ebay.

[GreenOne]

I'd play 4 Vial and Epochrasite.
And it would suck.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Ravager is very important to the deck try borrowing them from someone. Or see how much it costs to get them off ebay.

Of course I will try to borrow, but I need a contingency plan should they not be available. eBay is not an option because this is short notice and they wont arrive in time.

I'd play 4 Vial and Epochrasite.
And it would suck.

Interesting, but im not sure we want more Myr Enforcer type creatures. I would think Atog might be better because it opens up the Disciple engine. Also, we would have to borrow/eBay the Epocrasites as well.

@Ravager or bust: we havent found it nearly as important as as Cranial Plating, Master of Etherium, or Thoughtcast is to the deck, and the shell is solid as a whole, so the deck wouldnt be unplayable without him. Most of the time all he does is combat/removal tricks, and opening up Disciple kill. Sure it will suck but it wont be the end of the world with Atog instead IMO.

[4eak]

@ xsockmonkeyx

My friend wants to play this deck in an up coming tourney, and he doesn't have the Ravagers to make the world go round. What can we replace him with that will be somewhat representative or play into the strategy of the deck? Is Atog the best option? Responses with "hurrrrr, play another deck" will not help. Thanks.

Arcbound Ravager is the best card in the deck. Removing him (even if not by choice) would probably require you to change the nature of the deck a bit more than by 4 cards. You lose a lot of reason to play resilient-aggro with no Ravager. Disciple of the Vault loses a ton of value without Ravager, in the same way that Daze just isn't nearly as good without FoW (or Stifle/Wasteland).

I think the resilience plan is questionable in your case. Atog is an all-in card. If your adding him, then I'd consider adding more of that. I would test the red-combo plan if I were you. Perhaps something like this:

Lands: 18
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Great Furnace
4 City of Brass
2 Darksteel Citadel

Creatures: 26
4 Atog
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Frogmite
3 Ornithopter
4 Master of Etherium
3 Myr Enforcer

Spells: 16
4 Thoughtcast
4 Cranial Plating
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Shrapnel Blast or Fling


It is strictly inferior to Vial Affinity except against combo (which doesn't make a real difference anyways). But, if you don't have the ravagers, then you gotta make due.





peace,
4eak

[xsockmonkeyx]

Thanks 4eak, Ill take a look at the more comboish Fling/Blast orientated approach and see what happens.

[xsockmonkeyx]

My friend ended up making top 8 with the Atog-combo version so everything turned out well. Thanks for the advice, it really helped.

[Kilz88]

I will start at the top and say that I agree 100% with the way Canonist's ability scales down as player skill goes up. One of the two ANT players I played was far far more proficient with combo than they other and he was the one I lost too. I would like to add that I would've won the game without a mull to 7 I believe based on the hand he kept on the play in game 3

Thoughtseize was actually very very good all weekend. As stated it is good in a lot of random matchups, it was also decent against Goblins. More than once it hit his freshly Matroned up creature or a fresh Ringleader draw.

If you do have a more defined metagame to play in I could def see playing the Grips and Chalices over the more broad Thoughtseizes.

As I predicted, I would much need the Cannonists much more than I would need Grips. To me the biggest Grip target is Humility. In my testing, I am not very worried about 12/12s. I saw far more Combo around than Humility so thats when I made that switch.

Couple questions. I would have played this most likely if I had gone to the GP. Unfortunatly I could not but I do play sanctioned legacy on a weekly basis with about 18-20 players. That being said this is my current board setup:

4 Pithing Needle
4 Heap Doll
3 Engineered Plague
3 Disenchant
1 Aether Vial

I am not super happy with parts of it. I like the dolls, needles, and plagues but the rest is weird. The biggest problems I face in my meta are like humility/moat in the form of stax and landstill, counterspells, and progenitus. I was thinking of trying duress. How many situations did it matter whether it was duress or thoughtseize? Also what can I bring chalice in against that isnt combo? Combo is non-existent in my meta so...

[gamegeek2]

gamegeek2 from Gleemax, just got permission to post.

Here's the list I'm taking to tomorrow's Dream Wizards Legacy

4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Tree of Tales
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Glimmervoid

4 Arcbound Worker
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Master of Etherium
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
3 Ornithopter

4 Aether Vial
4 Thoughtcast
4 Cranial Plating
3 Springleaf Drum

--- Sideboard ---
4 Engineered Plague
4 Pithing Needle
3 Krosan Grip
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus

Last time I went, the meta was infested with Threshold. I am expecting a greater NLU (aka CounterTop) this time, due to its success at the Grand Prix, and put Thopters back in and moved Relics to the side (CounterTop is less reliant on the graveyard).

The Relic/Crypt split is to have 4 GY hate, but the Relics can come in against Threshold and Team America, whereas the Crypts are for the speed, and the Relics just serve as ways to dodge counter-hate such as Chalice and Pithing Needle.

[Pltnmngl]

Looks right to me. Heck, we practically have the same sideboard. Good luck!

[gamegeek2]

Well, I went 3-2. Barely missed top 8 (9th) - I was 7th going in to round 5 and wanted to draw, but the other guy (Phil Sagnay) had to play because there was another X-1 (Anwar) with bad breakers that could knock him out of Top 8 contention. I lost (lots of lands...), and still had a shot, but Mike and Chris drew after they found out they could draw into Top 8 (Mike had Painter's Grinstone in play, with mana to activate, too) - then again, Mike's decision makes sense, because Affinity is a bad matchup whereas Mighty Quinn is very good.

Round 1 - Jonathan - AnT with Doomsday

Game 1, he kills me turn 3. Game 2, he goes off but doesn't have enough mana (he messes up AdN) - Game 3, he mulls to 5 and I kill him turn 4.

Round 2 - Simon - RGB Aggro

He's my friend, playing a non-Tier 1 deck, but quite solid, featuring the typical GR Sligh Beatdown suite, but with less burn and Thoughtseizes, Bob, etc. Game 1, Ravager gets there through Goyfs and other stuff. Game 2, he stumbles a bit on mana and I blow him out of the water

Round 3 - Elves (this guy made Top8)

Game 1, he's at enough life to get there with turn 3 Natural Order (for Progenitalia). Game 2, I get him to 2 but Progenitus and a lot of Elves get there.

Round 4 - Jarvis - Goblins

Game 1, I kill him on turn 4 with multiple Disciples and Ravager. Game 2, he Wastes me on the play and beats me up with Lackeys and Warchiefs. Game 3, I have a decent draw and kill him turn 4 with help from Plating.

Round 5 - Phil (made top 8) with Bw Aggro/Control (Zombies)

Game 1, I beat him up with Master and Enforcer. Games 2 and 3 I draw 7 lands, with me mulliganing in Game 2 and losing all my creatures to a Hymn and double Thoughtseize in Game 3.

Engineered Plague, I find, is not the greatest, as it's only good against good matchups. However, I don't know what would go in over it.