I give a ton of respect to anyone who is willing to actually test!
To elaborate a bit more, winning more quickly than the tribal decks is vital as well. There is no way you can compete with the card advantage of a goblin ringleader or huge merefolk in a long game. You simply need to win first.
side note: if you want to play non-affinity artifact aggro you should probably be playing this: Forgemaster
This is why Steel Overseer is important for any of the slower builds. Merfolk and Goblins have trouble fighting against +1/+1 every turn, especially when you could topdeck an instant win (Cranial Plating).Originally Posted by RexFTW
like in my previous post.... if you want to play past turn 3 wouldnt you rather be playing Wurmcoil Engine and Myr Battlesphere than Steel Overseer?
Anybody want to talk about the deck that Top 16 at SCG Indy?
Affinity
A Legacy Magic deck, by Timothy Morrison
16th place at a tournament in Indianapolis on 2011-02-06
As reported at http://www.starcitygames.com
Maindeck:
Artifacts
4 Cranial Plating
3 Springleaf Drum
2 Thopter Foundry
Artifact Creatures
4 Arcbound Ravager
3 Etched Champion
4 Frogmite
4 Memnite
4 Myr Enforcer
2 Ornithopter
4 Signal Pest
Artifact Lands
4 Darksteel Citadel
Creatures
4 Disciple of the Vault
Legendary Artifacts
3 Mox Opal
Sorceries
4 Thoughtcast
Artifact Lands
1 Ancient Den
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
Lands
1 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Glimmervoid
Sideboard:
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Pithing Needle
3 Engineered Plague
2 Darkblast
6 0-cost creatures, 6 engine cards(3 mox 3 drum), 6 sac outlets. Land choice is a little questionable, but overall a very tight deck.
My MTG Blog
"The game is not worth the candle."
I'd rather stick with Affinity for consistency over the Monolith-type builds. Plus, Cranial Plating makes the deck more reslient against removal.
Agree with Pltnmngl, This is the right way to play affinity.
If I didn't want to play past turn 3 I think I would play Combo.
As for the top 16 in SGC Indy. I shuffled it up and I dunno, I'm not so impressed. It sets up fast but it's a bit underwhelming. It heavily relies on the plating or Disciple+Sac outlet. If It doesn't top deck any of those it has no way of getting through. I felt like I was a playing a bad weenie deck.
I dunno, maybe it's just my results. Anybody else try sleeving it up? I'm honestly confused how it worked.
I'm actually cutting ornithopters for Signal Pests. They're still unblockable and have a bigger impact in the first turns. Tezzeret is a beast, currently running 3. Finally, 4 Etched Champions are a must, since against Zoo and Goblins are a huge beating.
Things that I have cut:
Disciple- It's just too slow, and with only one in play, it does alomst nothing.
Ornithopter- Replacing it with Signal Pests, since too many times Ornithpter is just a blocker for the 4 or more first turns. The only thing that I miss is blocking a Turn one Lackey and surviving.
Frogmites and Enforcers: I've not cutted them completely, just leveling their numbers to make place for other things, mainly Tezzerets and Champions.
Finally, Galvanic Blast is just insane. Excellent topdeck, delivering the last hit, and solid the rest of the match. You cant ask anymore for only one red mana.
I agree with a lot of these. I have not tested Tezzeret yet, but he looks promising.
Disciple does nothing???? He was BANNED.... making him the most unfair card in the deck.
Sligh16: "Im playing aggro and cutting my first turn plays for 4th turn plays. Weeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!"
I know everyone wants to play with toys from the new set.... so lets take a look at him.
Lets examine his abilities:
If you want to draw cards, glimpse of nature and thoughtcast are going to give you 2-3 cards for just 1 mana of a single color. There is clearly no reason to pay 4 mana and 2 colors to draw 1 card. If you plan to play this ability you better be playing myr enforcer to defend the turn you use it.+1: Look at the top five cards of your library. You may reveal an artifact card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
This is optimally 5 damage to the opponents face. On a signal pest or Ornithopter you will have a good chance of getting in. For only a 3 colorless mana investment, Cranial plating does much more. For 2 colored mana you can equip plating as an instant. Obviously, plating is much better.... but you can only play 4 plating. For just 1 mana you can do 4 damage with galvanic blast which also deals with hate like Kataki, Wars Wage and Phyrexian Revoker. This ability is obviously bad.-1: Target artifact becomes a 5/5 artifact creature.
The only thing that may make this worthwhile is getting to 4 loyalty, which forces the opponent to attack (or you will ultimate), opening up a path for your guys.-4: Target player loses X life and you gain X life, where X is twice the number of artifacts you control.
The ideal play would be: Play Tezzeret, +1, reveal Myr Enforcer, play Myr Enforcer. Is this play good enough? possibly. Is it worth risking missing a myr enforcer? probably not.
I wonder how would you ensure that you always draw Galvanic Blast when you want to pump a creature and Glimpse when you want to draw cards. Tezzeret is flexible, you have to take that into consideration before you just compare each of his abilities with different cards.
Good point, but how can you ensure you will draw 4 mana sources, of the correct colors to play tezzeret :). And they also cost 1 mana instead of 4 lol! that is quite a big edge.
The things tezz does are also in the deck - in a redundant fashion already. There are cranial platings and galvanic blasts for the -1 ability, glimpses and thoughtcasts for the +1 ability and ravagers + disciple of the vaults for the -4. And all of these cards cost much much less mana for mostly better effects.
Should Bant decks play bant charm instead of swords to plowshares? It is quite versatile but far less efficient.
The key thing with Tezzeret is to run enough mana acceleration (Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors) to cast him on T2-T3. For example:
T1 artifact land, Memnite, Mox Opal, random artifact.
T2 Ancient Tomb, Tezzeret, turn random artifact into 5/5 (Memnite is there to chump to protect Tezzeret). Swing for 5.
T3 turn artifact land into 5/5. Swing for 10.
T4 turn Mox Opal into 5/5. Swing for 15.
In practise, that's 30 combat damage from 1 card over a period of 3 turns. Simply put, T2 Tezzeret has the potential to dish out more damage over the course of 1 game than a T2 Cranial Plating + equip. Played on T3, the cards are roughly equal in value. From T4-> Tezzeret should rather aim for the ultimatum, and by that time a topdecked Cranial Plating should be better than a topdecked Tezzeret.
I agree that Tezzeret is an inconsistent addition to the deck and he needs a LOT of mana accel to be of any use whatsoever to us. But if you are indeed packing that much mana accel, Tezzeret is almost always better than the card he replaces.
Then why even compare them? These cards obviously have nothing in common, neither functionality nor power level nor Mana cost.
Hello everyone. Im the guy that posted 16th at the scg in indy with my affinity list. after reading some of the posts about it on here, i figured i might as well post my two cents about the deck, explain some of the decisions and why they are correct, and some of the things i would change, as well as my report persay.
Maindeck:
Artifacts
4 Cranial Plating
3 Springleaf Drum
2 Thopter Foundry
Artifact Creatures
4 Arcbound Ravager
3 Etched Champion
4 Frogmite
4 Memnite
4 Myr Enforcer
2 Ornithopter
4 Signal Pest
Artifact Lands
4 Darksteel Citadel
Creatures
4 Disciple of the Vault
Legendary Artifacts
3 Mox Opal
Sorceries
4 Thoughtcast
Artifact Lands
1 Ancient Den
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
Lands
1 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Glimmervoid
Sideboard:
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Pithing Needle
3 Engineered Plague
2 Darkblast
First off, signal pest is amazing in this deck, it has the ability to put an opponent into serious trouble early. he is definitly better than ornithopter (every time i draw an ornithopter i get mad!), however ornithopter is a neccesary bad card because of springleaf drum. Ornithopter get sacced to foundry or to ravager as soon as they hit the board usually because it dies to every removal spell as soon as ravager or cranial plating hit the board.
Thopter Foundry is all around sick, it by itself wins your control match ups, and makes spot removal virtually useless against you, as well as combos with disciple, makes a huge flyer with ravager, makes your memnites better, gains you life in the aggro match, turns your mid-late game land draws useful, and is really sick with a signal pest on board. 2 was the perfect amount, i wouldnt go lower, and sword of the meek doesnt fit the deck well enough to make it relevant. we tested the hell out of it, in a blue moon it was good, the rest of the time it was just awful.
etched champion is amazing everytime you draw it. You are going to power it out turn 3, 5 out of 7 games its in your opener. It IS Progenitus, and CANNOT BE KILLED by and spot removal which makes it much better than master of etherium ever could be. i dont know if people running master are aware that there are cards called STP, Krosan Grip, Ancient Grudge, Vindicate, Putrefy, Smother, and Path to Exile running around in this format, which makes the card really bad because you have NO WAYS to stop any of this.
Glimpse of Nature does not belong in Affinity. Here are reasons why: 1. It allows you to keep really bad hands. Would you keep the following? memnite, memnite, ornithopter, seat of synod, vault of whispers, springleaf drum, mox opal? NO. it has no real action. If that springleaf drum was a glimpse would you keep it? YES. they force your glimpse and youre in the same boat as if you kept the first hand, no action. secondly it is green, and as we should all know by now there is only 1 good green card that has every been printed (tarmogoyf).
The land base was great all day too. Darksteel Citadel is your basic land for the deck, its the only one that cant be wastelanded, and since only 10% of your deck has color it makes sense to play it as a 4 of. kataki is also bad so 2 sources that arent artifact mana is better than none. I ran the 1 of glimmervoid to help with color fixing and 1 of ancient den to help cast thopter foundry. blinkmoth nexus is better than inkmoth, because if you have your opponent below 10 it makes sense to just kill them instead of giving them 9 infect.
I think i can sum this up best with the word synergy. Each cards function is synergetic with the next and thats why I was successful, and without mulling to 4 against elf combo game 3, and my opponent cheating with goblins twice, im positive that i could have went X-0 on the day. It was a blast playing.
oh yeah, cut 1 bad ornithopter add 1 insanely good champion. and this is THE best and fastest aggro deck in the format. tested and proven.
and to the guy who said cut disciple.........even though I shouldnt even really respond to this....... if it sticks, you win. just saying, cutting it is a worse idea than nail filled condoms.
Thanks TJM, explained a lot.
Thoughts about Ancient Tomb? An extra turn's worth of mana sounds well worth the cost, cuz most of the time you're fast enough that it won't matter. It's not an artifact though, so it might end up balancing out with your affinity creatures pretty often, but it seems like sometimes it does net you a virtual Time Walk.
TJM - Nice decklist and congrats on the finish.
The slots I wonder about most (and I'm no expert Affinity player) are Myr Enforcer and Frogmite... they're, well kinda vanilla. They come online quick and can attack hard - I guess what I'm really wondering is if you're pushing to be that explosive beatdown role, or if something that is a little more conservative and controlling would be better. Example: I've been wanting to run Ethersworn Canonist in the Myr Enforcer spot.
How successful were you with Thoughtcast? A long time Affinity staple, but there are so many other options I'm wondering if you'd consider it a core element of the deck, or something that might be a flex spot.
Lastly, you said 2 Thopter Foundry was the perfect number. Seems like an awesome mid to late game option. My first thought was bump it to 3. Any thoughts?
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