I had the deck.. for a day and I am already looking to drop 2 Mindslaver + 1 Oblivion stone for 3 Mana Leak (Maybe even vapor snag) .. I feel I need more chance to hit a counter on turn 2 and I feel Platinum Angel + Wurmcoil Engine backed with some counter spell are already a solid win con and I can't see myself relying on abusing Tron every game.
I need the forum opinion since I am new and maybe I am missing something. ( I run the same ''basic'' list at the moment)
You should really play a deck more than a day before you tinker with it.
So I am looking to sleeve up my first modern deck ever and play in a tournament on Sunday. I am going to play affinity because I have bought all of the cards. After researching affinity and the modern metagame and how it might change post-banning/un-bannings I have some ideas and observations that I wanted to bounce off of more experienced players:
1) So, if everyone is in agreement that Cranial Plating is by far affinity's best card, then why do I see a lot of decks not running Steelshaper's Gift, which is effectively copies 5-8 of Cranial Plating? Considering that URx is a tough match-up wouldn't extra copies of Cranial Plating do a lot of work in this deck since it isn't vulnerable to Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix, Anger of the Gods, Flameslash, etc, etc? Since Cranial Plating pretty much wins the game in several of our difficult match-ups why not run more than 4 of them?
Cranial plating can't be burned but obviously the thing its attached to can. I mean maybe you can go t1 gift, t2 champion or plating, t3 champion or plating and attach it and duck a counter 3 times, but probably not. I wouldn't really say plating is the most powerful cards. A lot of times I think that etched champion + something to increase its power is the best thing in this deck. It doesn't really matter if its an overseer that lives for 2 turns, a ravager that we can sack a pile of crap to power up the champion, or a plating.
I'm not a fan of it because sometimes you have a plating and if you topdeck a gift, it does NOTHING. Say you start with opal, 2 land, thopter, memnite, plating, blast. They burn out your two dudes. You are waiting to draw a creature. topdeck steelshapers. fantastic, wasted draw. If it had been a thoughtcast, it might have drawn you into creatures. if it had been a sideboard card, or a burn spell, or a discard spell, or a creature it would do something for you.
Like several others, I went to a GPT for Richmond and was playing a red affinity variant. http://deckbox.org/sets/610085 15 players showed up so we played 4 rounds with a cut to top 4. After the fact I found out 9-16 players should be 5 rounds. Oops on the TO.
Round 1: Budget Affinity, 2-1. He had frogmites and city of brass replacing arcbound ravager and mox opals. Game 2 my hand should have been a mull, I kept a 1 mana source and he was able to race me. Overall I was just faster than him.
Round 2: Dega Control, 2-0. I don't know if he had bad draws or what, but I steam rolled him. Game 1 I dropped 6 cards on my opening hand, game 2 I dropped etched champions on turns 2 and 3. His deck was impotent to unremovalable unblockable creatures.
Round 3: Affinity Mirror, 0-2. His draws were more exposive and he had the removal come up more.
Round 4: Splinter Twin UWR variant, 2-0. g1 I vomit 5 card hand, stick a t3 champion and had a plating to attach to it. He saw the writing on the wall, he was dead in two swings and had no outs. g2 he played a t2 spellskite. I untap for my 3rd turn and galv blast he spellskite then swing. I quickly finished the match one or two turns later. After the match he says to me, "you killing the spellskite was what won you the game. I was kind of hoping you didn't know how the interaction between skite and ravager worked." I just looked at him and said "I make my share of mistakes but I know my deck."
So I got 2nd place! I got to choose play/draw.
Round 5: UWR Delver, 0-2. Every UWR control variant feels awful for affinity. The package of bolt, helix, path, leak just demolishes me. My main issue is my keep was two one drops, a land, mox opal, some two drops. So I got t1 land, 1 drop pass. I didn't play opal since it wouldn't be active, and why risk it getting destroy. So he untaps, fetches a shock, take 3, bolts my guy. Ok, t2 play another 1 drop. He kills it. He kept me off metalcraft for the first 3 turns, until I drew a 2nd land, and just kept remove/counter until it didn't make a difference, and ate me with 2 delvers. Game 2 my opener was more explosive, played 5 cards. I even stuck an etched champion, but I never got to ravager, plating, or overseer it to ramp it up. he removed everything else, the tide swung in his favor and 2 delvers and a goblin guide finished me.
Adding a 4th etched champion over my previous builds really made a difference. Its showed up more often, and in almost every game it showed up, I won. It crushed dega and twin. It could have won me a game against UWR twin had I found one other thing to go with it. The burn package was highly relevant. I don't feel I ever missed thoughtcast, but there were many games where removal or just being able to fling 4 or 5 at the face was game winning. What I really need to work on is what the **** to do against that UWR package. I'm debating cutting the spell pierces and adding two welding jars to my sideboard, or else going 3 bloodmoon 2 thoughtseize. Someone mentioned shrapnel blast vs. counterspells, that is awful, and they come out immediately if they have counters. For this event I was siding in thoughtseizes.
One question, when you an active ascension and copy grapeshot does the copy also have storm triggers or does storm only count when played from hand? Could not dfind anything clear in the rulings.
I just assembled the deck and im still figuring out which card draws enginges to use. So far i really like the idea from the last chance trial prague list with 4 thought scour. most lists play 3 desperate ravings and 3 looting. I kind of dont seem to like the looting though since it sometimes feel like i lose a lot of cards early, sure it can filter and digs deeper but i feel like i lose one card more in hand and once the engine is online i feel like the 2 cards and 4mill from thought scour is enough.
thoughts?
You will go on tilt when you are playing an event and they pick your grapeshot to ravings. Just my opinion. I've playtested a good bit with a friend who plays storm, and he's tried ravings, looting, scour, and peer. He settled on peer/looting and I tend to agree. looting gives you control, and peer gives you dig. With those two things you should be able to find your combo.
Anecdotal but blast won me my match against twin, game 3, he went for it, I had the blast, he had nothing in response, I swung for lethal next turn. I keep 3 mainboard, but do side them out often depending on the match up.
Considering building the Budget version of the deck as my first Modern deck. How competitive might it be? I mean, I know it probably won't be amazing, but...will I be able to hold my own and even win a few games?
If you drop mox opal and ravager the deck is slower and has less explosive power.
Basically ravager and cranial plating allow you to win fast, opal gets them out quickly. Take out some of those and the deck is just a bunch of 1/1's banging away against decks that will combo off or remove all your dudes quickly. You could try adding all 4 memnites, maybe 2 welding jars so you still have 10 0 drop artifacts, and some combo of frogmite or myr enforcer, but you'll be 1-2 turns slower than the "normal" build. You could also consider something like flingatog for fun, and/or disciple of the vault. All variants are inferior to having opals because it is how you have a t1 2 drop or t2 3 drop in play, and that can be really important.
You could also run something cheap like contested war zone replacing some man lands or glimmervoids for budget also.
I expect something like FTV: Legacy where they print cards that see a lot of legacy play. The headliners would be either wasteland, force of will, or mana drain, all of which can be reprinted. Lotus Petal? I'm sure they can print several cards from old sets that aren't on the reserve list to newer things like Delver or Griselbrand which see a lot of legacy play.
Ive just started to collect this deck. Yesterday i borrowed a friends complete version for the Modern game night at the local store to get some practice.
Our meta is filled with UWR and Tempo-twin decks (and some melira pod and Grixis control believe it or not) You rarely see any Affinity decks, perhaps because of this.
Do any of you affinity players play in a Meta filled with UWR/tempo twin and how do you tackle it? I found them to be quite tough opponents.
The deck i played yesterday had 3 spell Pierce and 2 Torpor orb in the board but did not run welding jar.
Any suggestions?! It just felt downright superhard to bring affinity to this meta as a player not so familiar with the deck itself.
Cheers
//Khaiden
That is a seriously awful matchup. You'll need land destruction, hand disruption, counterspells, and spellskites. The "normal" affinity list basically dies to UWR control unless you stick an etched champion with a plating. That is basically the only winning spells in affinity vs. UWR control. If you build a deck that does all that, it'll be more like Black White Death and Taxes than affinity.
Affinity vs. UWR control. I was playing affinity, I didn't have blood moons to side in, and he mana leaked my spellskite. I just sat there topdecking cards and wondering if he'd counter or burn it! It was fun.
If you look at a typical GR-Tron list, and then look at a MU-Tron list, it is quickly evident that they are substantially different, despite having much the same overall game plan. GR is smoother and less interactive, MU is less single-minded and more interactive.
My question is: has anyone ever considered -- or better yet, tried -- narrowing MU's focus such that it resembles GR? Something like the following:
The idea here is to ditch the weeny creatures like Treasure Mage and Solemn Simulacrum as well as some mana sources to focus harder on assembling Urzatron itself. However, this list retains early interaction via counter magic and Repeal...probably drawing additional cards by cracking some eggs to cast them.
Thoughts?
Blue Tron is a control deck that can take its time to assemble tron, and even survive without tron if necessary. RG Tron is a fast combo/agro-ish deck that needs to assemble Tron as quickly as possible and is absolutely screwed without it. Eggs exist to ensure you can cast ancient stirrings, sylvan scrying, or pyroclasm on turn 2 and get tron online on turn 3 because the deck HAS to. Blue tron needs 1 blue source on 2 or 3, and it has 12. The weeny creatures that you mention are quite necessary. We don't have a sweeper or tutors that green does, so those two creatures are both defense against aggro and tutors for things we need. It would be equal to cutting ancient stirrings, sylvan scrying and pyroclasm from GR tron. You've gutted crucial cards in the deck. I mean look at your list. You have Fabricate, which is 2U find an artifact. You cut Treasure mage which is 2U find and artifact and get a 2/2 blocker. How is fabricate better than treasure mage??? Yes it can tutor the lower cmc artifacts, none of which are needed to win the game. If you are tutoring for expedition map you are not playing well.
Your explanation of your changes is contradictory. You want to assemble tron earlier, but still intend to have countermagic available for the early game. How are you going to do that? How do you cast eggs, pay to crack them or map, but still have 1U or XU open for counters early? BlueTron is a draw-go deck, we wait patiently to crack our map or cast thirst so we can handle threats and assemble tron and drop our win condition on our terms.
Blue Tron is a completely different deck that plays in a completely different way than Gr Tron, if you try to play a quicker early game then monoBlue is the wrong color to do that. You may want to look into UW Tron or UR Tron or monoGreen Tron if you want a variant to fiddle with. Fiddle with monoblue if you like but the deck is really good as is and doesn't have much room for improvement right now.
The sleeves I use are pretty high quality, but I've found they split fairly easily. My opponents will often violently shuffle my deck by doing that 'mesh' technique, splitting one half of the deck and pushing it into the other.
Will it be seen as cheating if I just ask them to cut normally?
Unlikely, but they can either ignore you and make you call the judge to make your case, or they can call the judge to argue you won't allow them to cut/shuffle your deck. The judge will probably either empathize and ask them to do it another way, tell them go ahead, essentially our sleeve issues are your problem, or do it themselves.
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240 - Battlefield Forge
241 - Caves of Koilos
242 - Darksteel Citadel, Uncommon
243 -
244 - Llanowar Wastes
245 - Radiant Fountain, Common
246 - Shivan Reef
247 - Sliver Hive, Rare
248 - Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
249 - Yavimaya Coast
250 - Plains
You should really play a deck more than a day before you tinker with it.
Cranial plating can't be burned but obviously the thing its attached to can. I mean maybe you can go t1 gift, t2 champion or plating, t3 champion or plating and attach it and duck a counter 3 times, but probably not. I wouldn't really say plating is the most powerful cards. A lot of times I think that etched champion + something to increase its power is the best thing in this deck. It doesn't really matter if its an overseer that lives for 2 turns, a ravager that we can sack a pile of crap to power up the champion, or a plating.
I'm not a fan of it because sometimes you have a plating and if you topdeck a gift, it does NOTHING. Say you start with opal, 2 land, thopter, memnite, plating, blast. They burn out your two dudes. You are waiting to draw a creature. topdeck steelshapers. fantastic, wasted draw. If it had been a thoughtcast, it might have drawn you into creatures. if it had been a sideboard card, or a burn spell, or a discard spell, or a creature it would do something for you.
Round 1: Budget Affinity, 2-1. He had frogmites and city of brass replacing arcbound ravager and mox opals. Game 2 my hand should have been a mull, I kept a 1 mana source and he was able to race me. Overall I was just faster than him.
Round 2: Dega Control, 2-0. I don't know if he had bad draws or what, but I steam rolled him. Game 1 I dropped 6 cards on my opening hand, game 2 I dropped etched champions on turns 2 and 3. His deck was impotent to unremovalable unblockable creatures.
Round 3: Affinity Mirror, 0-2. His draws were more exposive and he had the removal come up more.
Round 4: Splinter Twin UWR variant, 2-0. g1 I vomit 5 card hand, stick a t3 champion and had a plating to attach to it. He saw the writing on the wall, he was dead in two swings and had no outs. g2 he played a t2 spellskite. I untap for my 3rd turn and galv blast he spellskite then swing. I quickly finished the match one or two turns later. After the match he says to me, "you killing the spellskite was what won you the game. I was kind of hoping you didn't know how the interaction between skite and ravager worked." I just looked at him and said "I make my share of mistakes but I know my deck."
So I got 2nd place! I got to choose play/draw.
Round 5: UWR Delver, 0-2. Every UWR control variant feels awful for affinity. The package of bolt, helix, path, leak just demolishes me. My main issue is my keep was two one drops, a land, mox opal, some two drops. So I got t1 land, 1 drop pass. I didn't play opal since it wouldn't be active, and why risk it getting destroy. So he untaps, fetches a shock, take 3, bolts my guy. Ok, t2 play another 1 drop. He kills it. He kept me off metalcraft for the first 3 turns, until I drew a 2nd land, and just kept remove/counter until it didn't make a difference, and ate me with 2 delvers. Game 2 my opener was more explosive, played 5 cards. I even stuck an etched champion, but I never got to ravager, plating, or overseer it to ramp it up. he removed everything else, the tide swung in his favor and 2 delvers and a goblin guide finished me.
Adding a 4th etched champion over my previous builds really made a difference. Its showed up more often, and in almost every game it showed up, I won. It crushed dega and twin. It could have won me a game against UWR twin had I found one other thing to go with it. The burn package was highly relevant. I don't feel I ever missed thoughtcast, but there were many games where removal or just being able to fling 4 or 5 at the face was game winning. What I really need to work on is what the **** to do against that UWR package. I'm debating cutting the spell pierces and adding two welding jars to my sideboard, or else going 3 bloodmoon 2 thoughtseize. Someone mentioned shrapnel blast vs. counterspells, that is awful, and they come out immediately if they have counters. For this event I was siding in thoughtseizes.
You will go on tilt when you are playing an event and they pick your grapeshot to ravings. Just my opinion. I've playtested a good bit with a friend who plays storm, and he's tried ravings, looting, scour, and peer. He settled on peer/looting and I tend to agree. looting gives you control, and peer gives you dig. With those two things you should be able to find your combo.
I have:
2 Dispatch
3 thoughtseize
2 wear // tear
1 ancient grudge
1 graffdigger's cage
1 relic of progenitus
2 spellskite
2 whipflare
1 torpor orb
Thinking about:
2 thoughtseize
2 wear // tear
1 graffdigger's cage
2 spellskite
2 whipflare
1 torpor orb
2 spell pierce
3 blood moon
No idea what to cut for illness in the ranks though.
If you drop mox opal and ravager the deck is slower and has less explosive power.
Basically ravager and cranial plating allow you to win fast, opal gets them out quickly. Take out some of those and the deck is just a bunch of 1/1's banging away against decks that will combo off or remove all your dudes quickly. You could try adding all 4 memnites, maybe 2 welding jars so you still have 10 0 drop artifacts, and some combo of frogmite or myr enforcer, but you'll be 1-2 turns slower than the "normal" build. You could also consider something like flingatog for fun, and/or disciple of the vault. All variants are inferior to having opals because it is how you have a t1 2 drop or t2 3 drop in play, and that can be really important.
You could also run something cheap like contested war zone replacing some man lands or glimmervoids for budget also.
That is a seriously awful matchup. You'll need land destruction, hand disruption, counterspells, and spellskites. The "normal" affinity list basically dies to UWR control unless you stick an etched champion with a plating. That is basically the only winning spells in affinity vs. UWR control. If you build a deck that does all that, it'll be more like Black White Death and Taxes than affinity.
Blue Tron is a control deck that can take its time to assemble tron, and even survive without tron if necessary. RG Tron is a fast combo/agro-ish deck that needs to assemble Tron as quickly as possible and is absolutely screwed without it. Eggs exist to ensure you can cast ancient stirrings, sylvan scrying, or pyroclasm on turn 2 and get tron online on turn 3 because the deck HAS to. Blue tron needs 1 blue source on 2 or 3, and it has 12. The weeny creatures that you mention are quite necessary. We don't have a sweeper or tutors that green does, so those two creatures are both defense against aggro and tutors for things we need. It would be equal to cutting ancient stirrings, sylvan scrying and pyroclasm from GR tron. You've gutted crucial cards in the deck. I mean look at your list. You have Fabricate, which is 2U find an artifact. You cut Treasure mage which is 2U find and artifact and get a 2/2 blocker. How is fabricate better than treasure mage??? Yes it can tutor the lower cmc artifacts, none of which are needed to win the game. If you are tutoring for expedition map you are not playing well.
Your explanation of your changes is contradictory. You want to assemble tron earlier, but still intend to have countermagic available for the early game. How are you going to do that? How do you cast eggs, pay to crack them or map, but still have 1U or XU open for counters early? BlueTron is a draw-go deck, we wait patiently to crack our map or cast thirst so we can handle threats and assemble tron and drop our win condition on our terms.
Blue Tron is a completely different deck that plays in a completely different way than Gr Tron, if you try to play a quicker early game then monoBlue is the wrong color to do that. You may want to look into UW Tron or UR Tron or monoGreen Tron if you want a variant to fiddle with. Fiddle with monoblue if you like but the deck is really good as is and doesn't have much room for improvement right now.
Unlikely, but they can either ignore you and make you call the judge to make your case, or they can call the judge to argue you won't allow them to cut/shuffle your deck. The judge will probably either empathize and ask them to do it another way, tell them go ahead, essentially our sleeve issues are your problem, or do it themselves.