Picked up Affinity back in November and have loved playing it but decided to tech it out a bit. Last 5 tournaments:
4-0
3-1
2-1-1
4-0
4-0
Before i post my build, yes it is different than traditional affinity but in my meta it really puts in work because 90% of my Meta is slaughtered by a t1 Chalice for 1, not to mention all the other lines of play this build has. Not saying it is for every meta but Trawler is insane in this particular build.
So many lines of play but basically you asap get either:
1) Ravager/Trawler going- This allows you to sack 0 cost to ravager then recur them, its why chalice doesnt hurt you because you can sack it, play what you want, then recur and recast it. same with EE, Opal for mana, Citadel for an extra mana, crypt to screw goyfs over and over
2) Map/Fair/Crucible- Go grab the bullets you need to win the game, thinning your deck of lands, and if trawler is out everytime you map you can get a 0 cost back to EE/Chalice/+1 Ravager.
So yes the build is different, but it is badass, and i suggest you play atleast 2-3 matches just for fun to see what you guys think. So many decks it shuts down and just completely wrecks so many strategies because of all the answers it has. Yeah ill bridge YOU every turn, and take my +1/+1 counter. Or EE for 5 because of Chromatic Lantern. Blood moon who?
Only thing i could see is running either Atog or Gargadon in the side for an extra sac outlet
To be perfectly honest this decks does not look terrible. Looks fun.
Hi guys. I've been keeping an eye on the Amonkhet spoilers and I'm seeing things like Dispossess, By Force, Harsh Mentor, Dissenter's Deliverance and Manglehorn. Can we expect much of an impact against us in modern pr are these going to be pretty low on our radar?
Picked up Affinity back in November and have loved playing it but decided to tech it out a bit. Last 5 tournaments:
4-0
3-1
2-1-1
4-0
4-0
Before i post my build, yes it is different than traditional affinity but in my meta it really puts in work because 90% of my Meta is slaughtered by a t1 Chalice for 1, not to mention all the other lines of play this build has. Not saying it is for every meta but Trawler is insane in this particular build.
So many lines of play but basically you asap get either:
1) Ravager/Trawler going- This allows you to sack 0 cost to ravager then recur them, its why chalice doesnt hurt you because you can sack it, play what you want, then recur and recast it. same with EE, Opal for mana, Citadel for an extra mana, crypt to screw goyfs over and over
2) Map/Fair/Crucible- Go grab the bullets you need to win the game, thinning your deck of lands, and if trawler is out everytime you map you can get a 0 cost back to EE/Chalice/+1 Ravager.
So yes the build is different, but it is badass, and i suggest you play atleast 2-3 matches just for fun to see what you guys think. So many decks it shuts down and just completely wrecks so many strategies because of all the answers it has. Yeah ill bridge YOU every turn, and take my +1/+1 counter. Or EE for 5 because of Chromatic Lantern. Blood moon who?
Only thing i could see is running either Atog or Gargadon in the side for an extra sac outlet
Cool deck Incredibly different though XD. Have you thought of starting a new thread on the deck creation area as well?
Hi guys. I've been keeping an eye on the Amonkhet spoilers and I'm seeing things like Dispossess, By Force, Harsh Mentor, Dissenter's Deliverance and Manglehorn. Can we expect much of an impact against us in modern pr are these going to be pretty low on our radar?
I can see that Modern now will be getting a lot of hate for artifact based decks, especially Affinity. By Force and Harsh Mentor will be the ones that I sense will be in decks a lot now. Burn has been really talking about adding those cards for sure. Any deck that runs artifacts will be hurt by this unfortunately.
Dispossess is too slow to affect us and doesn't even deal with copies on the battlefield, Manglehorn is a Reclamation Sage that only hampers the Moxen and Drums cast after turn 3 (which is when they've exhausted their usefulness), Dissenter's Deliverance is just a worse Ancient Grudge on every level and By Force costs 1 net mana more than Shattering Spree in any case as well as it's also countered by just one Spell Pierce as opposed to Spree which puts a ton of copies on the stack. On 3+ you might as well cast Shatterstorm.
The only thing remotely relevant for us in Amonkhet is Harsh Mentor.
Dispossess is too slow to affect us and doesn't even deal with copies on the battlefield, Manglehorn is a Reclamation Sage that only hampers the Moxen and Drums cast after turn 3 (which is when they've exhausted their usefulness), Dissenter's Deliverance is just a worse Ancient Grudge on every level and By Force costs 1 net mana more than Shattering Spree in any case as well as it's also countered by just one Spell Pierce as opposed to Spree which puts a ton of copies on the stack. On 3+ you might as well cast Shatterstorm.
The only thing remotely relevant for us in Amonkhet is Harsh Mentor.
I sense quite a bit of decks will sideboard Harsh Mentor if a deck is playing Red. I can also see that quite a few decks that run green, might bring in Manglehorn. I do feel that Harsh Mentor is going to be the biggest problem for us in the long run. It does really hurt Arcbound Ravager, Steel Overseer, and Cranial Plating.
Hey guys, I'm thinking about buying into affinity and have two questions.
1) Do you think that there is any chance of a Mox opal banning?
2) If it happens will the deck survive as a tier 1 (I remember that Frank Karsten said it would not)?
Hey guys, I'm thinking about buying into affinity and have two questions.
1) Do you think that there is any chance of a Mox opal banning?
2) If it happens will the deck survive as a tier 1 (I remember that Frank Karsten said it would not)?
1) I don't see Mox Opal being banned, especially this update, considering that a) Death's Shadow is by far the "biggest" deck and b) Affinity doesn't have a strikingly large share of the meta
2) Mox Opal is possibly the most important card in the deck. I don't see Affinity remaining Tier 1 without it, but it'll still be decent
Thank you! I've been wondering - what exactly are Whipflare and Blood Moon (I've seen many lists with it) for? I've seen that Moon is good vs Titanshift and meh against Tron.
I'm not really a fan of Blood Moon. I'd rather just kill them and not spend a whole turn on a mana-hoser. Slower decks than Affinity could benefit from it. If you think it's worth a try, go for it, it's not the worst idea anyone ever floated in the thread.
I tend to disagree, as I'm a huge fan of Blood Moon and run two copies in my SB. I've found it to be a complete noose around the neck of Jeskai and Grixis lists -arguably our worst matchups- if you can drop it on turn two or three. On multiple occasions my opponent has just scooped to a T2 blood moon, even on the play in game 2. Although it does generally require spending the entire turn on casting Moon, you're almost guaranteed to get that turn right back, plus some due to the tempo swing it causes. It has been my experience that an early Blood Moon will create enough of a shift in the game's tempo that it functionally changes the speed disadvantage from being on the draw in game two, to a situation wherein we have the advantage as though we were on the play. And with this deck just as much as with any linear deck, that extra shift in tempo is all we generally need in order to kill our opponent.
Against Titanshift, my experience has been that they are going to bring in a lot of sweepers and artifact destruction, which means we have to lean on our Ravagers and Champions all that much more. This isn't a problem, except that doing so takes away our speed advantage, which means we actually have to worry about Titanshift's inevitability, which would otherwise be too slow for us to care about. As such, Blood Moon is excellent in the match-up because it takes away their principle wincon until Moon can be dealt with, which will often give us the extra turn or two that we need in order to put them away.
Blood Moon is great against Tron because it means their prime cards won't activate until they have 5 mana at the earliest (for Oblivion Stone, and we should have been able to kill them in by then. The only reason I would consider Moon to be 'meh' against Tron is just by comparison, because our entire deck just wrecks Tron so badly (it's almost a free win) that the power of Moon isn't as apparent as it might be in another match-up.
Mox Opal ban would be the most devastating ban for Affinity and I don't think Affinity would be competitive without it. It can go away with Plating or Ravager ban but Mox is too crucial for the deck in my opinion. I don't see this happening though.
I'm with you on this. I think if the deck loses relevance it'll be due to power-creep.
Dispossess is too slow to affect us and doesn't even deal with copies on the battlefield, Manglehorn is a Reclamation Sage that only hampers the Moxen and Drums cast after turn 3 (which is when they've exhausted their usefulness), Dissenter's Deliverance is just a worse Ancient Grudge on every level and By Force costs 1 net mana more than Shattering Spree in any case as well as it's also countered by just one Spell Pierce as opposed to Spree which puts a ton of copies on the stack. On 3+ you might as well cast Shatterstorm.
The only thing remotely relevant for us in Amonkhet is Harsh Mentor.
Don't disagree that stony silence is probably the worst hate we can see and I'm not particularly phased with Shatterstorm or Creeping Corrosion. Ancient Grudge is annoying. But I'm not happy with the increase in the abundance and accessibility of hate.
On a separate note, have you seen Archfiend of Ilfnir? The living end matchup is likely to depreciate in their favour. Feeling pessimistic here. Maybe wizards will make up for slowly killing us off with an artifact land unban. That would be great. It would make ravager fantastic but not so sure I'd want to ditch the manlands. Maybe I would, it would be nice to be able transition between something like the current build and the older iterations of the deck to complicate SB hate choices. Hell, I'd love to beat down with Frogmites and Myr Enforcers.
This deck has proved resilient in the past. Thinking I might start ditching Master of Etherium in favour of more copies of Etched Champion mainboard. Is this wrong?
Does anyone think As Foretold will have an impact on us in our Ux match-ups. I keep imagining As Foretold + Ancestral Visions with no suspend and remember the days when UR Delver was king. Would something like Jeskai Nahiri want to make room for it, for instance? And what would we do to play around it? Would anyone consider possibly cutting ancient grudge from their sideboards for Wear//tear?
Hey guys. I've get a pretty heavy 3-color meta, and was wondering what everyone thought of main decking a Moon. I know against some matchups it will be less than useless.
Also, how are you supposed to play against lantern control? I had never gone up against one until yesterday, and had no idea how to respond to it.
Perhaps the best plan against Lantern Control is to kill them quickly.
Ornithopter and Signal Pest can attack under Ensnaring Bridge so there's hope even if they get the lock, provided you've got some of those things out. Attaching Cranial Plating at instant-speed after the attack can get it done.
Side-board isn't necessarily going to do much good; if you don't have what you need to kill them in play before they get the lock, you never will. Plus they run discard. It's probably best to not side too much in because you need gas more than hate. Ancient Grudge is probably still worth bringing in if you have it.
It's difficult to get the Bridge out of play because of Academy Ruins so you have to get them close to dead quickly even if you can destroy their first Bridge because it will be back.
Got housed vs the newest version of UW Control this weekend. I had a great hand 1st game and then was shut down by Supreme Verdict. Game 2 got housed as he played stony silence out of the gate and I got mana screwed and had to mull to 5. Just curious what the best way to combat this matchup is for us as it seems to be more and more popular right now. Thanks!
Perhaps the best plan against Lantern Control is to kill them quickly.
Ornithopter and Signal Pest can attack under Ensnaring Bridge so there's hope even if they get the lock, provided you've got some of those things out. Attaching Cranial Plating at instant-speed after the attack can get it done.
Side-board isn't necessarily going to do much good; if you don't have what you need to kill them in play before they get the lock, you never will. Plus they run discard. It's probably best to not side too much in because you need gas more than hate. Ancient Grudge is probably still worth bringing in if you have it.
It's difficult to get the Bridge out of play because of Academy Ruins so you have to get them close to dead quickly even if you can destroy their first Bridge because it will be back.
Thanks! I thought as much. I was actually chipping away at his life with a signal pest, but then he brought in an abrupt decay and shut me down. Pithing needle on the plating and so on.
I thought about siding in Thoughtseize, but after reading your reply, I guess having the grid and artifact destroyers could be better, because a late game thoughtseize is useless once the locks are down.
Picked up Affinity back in November and have loved playing it but decided to tech it out a bit. Last 5 tournaments:
4-0
3-1
2-1-1
4-0
4-0
Before i post my build, yes it is different than traditional affinity but in my meta it really puts in work because 90% of my Meta is slaughtered by a t1 Chalice for 1, not to mention all the other lines of play this build has. Not saying it is for every meta but Trawler is insane in this particular build.
So many lines of play but basically you asap get either:
1) Ravager/Trawler going- This allows you to sack 0 cost to ravager then recur them, its why chalice doesnt hurt you because you can sack it, play what you want, then recur and recast it. same with EE, Opal for mana, Citadel for an extra mana, crypt to screw goyfs over and over
2) Map/Fair/Crucible- Go grab the bullets you need to win the game, thinning your deck of lands, and if trawler is out everytime you map you can get a 0 cost back to EE/Chalice/+1 Ravager.
So yes the build is different, but it is badass, and i suggest you play atleast 2-3 matches just for fun to see what you guys think. So many decks it shuts down and just completely wrecks so many strategies because of all the answers it has. Yeah ill bridge YOU every turn, and take my +1/+1 counter. Or EE for 5 because of Chromatic Lantern. Blood moon who?
Only thing i could see is running either Atog or Gargadon in the side for an extra sac outlet
Hi I must be missing something about the Trawler/Ravager loop here. Are you saccing your 0 mana artifacts then saccing your 1+ mana artifacts to recur them? Or is there some continuous loop I'm missing here? I thought 0 mana artifacts can't recur themselves with Trawler.
We could easily stay tier 1 with a opal ban and an artifact land unban
I'm assuming this is a joke / jest. Artifact lands will never be unbanned. As much as I love Affinity, I don't anticipate (nor do I want) artifact lands unbanned. No amount of artifact removal can make up for the broken shenanigans artifact lands allow, and every card Wizards prints going forward would have to take into account the existence of artifact lands.
We could easily stay tier 1 with a opal ban and an artifact land unban
I'm assuming this is a joke / jest. Artifact lands will never be unbanned. As much as I love Affinity, I don't anticipate (nor do I want) artifact lands unbanned. No amount of artifact removal can make up for the broken shenanigans artifact lands allow, and every card Wizards prints going forward would have to take into account the existence of artifact lands.
Meh. They would just have to ban Krark-Clan Ironworks, and it would be fine. Maybe Seat of the Synod would have to stay banned, but the other 4 could come off no problem without KCI.
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WoTC, thank you for finally announcing the Modern format, an eternal format where everyone can participate.
Hey guys. I've get a pretty heavy 3-color meta, and was wondering what everyone thought of main decking a Moon. I know against some matchups it will be less than useless.
Also, how are you supposed to play against lantern control? I had never gone up against one until yesterday, and had no idea how to respond to it.
How in the heck can an affinity player beat Lantern Control? Stony Silence?
Affinity and Lantern have been my two Modern decks since the Birthing Pod ban.
The Affinity vs. Lantern matchup is a strange one, because in my experience it's maybe the only time that Affinity is the underdog G1, and then favored after sideboarding.
G1 you generally have to race against the Ensnaring Bridge. Once they drop that -assuming they're hellbent- then you become dependent on your signal pests and 0-power creatures. While it's possible to equip Cranial Plating at instant speed after attacking with a 0-power creature, or sacrificing your whole board to Ravager in order to kill the Lantern player in one shot via modular and a 0-power creature, this is basically another race against the Lantern player's Pithing Needles. And they will almost always name Plating and Ravager as their first two needle choices.
The other problem is based on what flavor of Lantern you're up against. The BUG version will typically run 2-3 Glint-Nest Cranes, whereas the Jund version will often mainboard 2-3 Pyroclasms and/or 1 Pyrite Spellbomb, which can be recurred. And both versions generally run between 2-4 Collective Brutality and 1-2 Abrupt Decay, so you're going to have an extremely unfavorable uphill battle ahead of you if you're in a position where you have to rely on Signal Pest.
After sideboarding, you have a much better game against Lantern. It goes without saying that Thoughtseize and Spell Pierce are great if you can hit the Bridge before it's resolved.
If you're running Ancient Grudge, put those in. A well-timed Grudge hitting the Bridge will kill the Lantern player. Even if they strip it from your hand with discard (which is less likely as a lot of the discard will get boarded out by the Lantern player), it's still live thanks to flashback. That means the Lantern play needs to find a welding jar (most lists will have 2-4 in their sideboard), Spellskite (if they even have one) or a second bridge before the first one is destroyed. Grudge is one of the most problematic cards for the Lantern player due to flashback, as most Lantern lists will only run 1-2 Pyxis of Pandemonium, which is their only clean way to mill away a Grudge from your library.
Ghirapur Æther Grid is also huge against Lantern, because it gets around Bridge. The Lantern player will have to use another Needle on it, which starts to stretch them thin. You can expect a full playset after G1, but with Plating and Ravager, Grid brings the total up to 3 must-needle threats out of 4 possible needles. Just keep in mind that they're likely to side in some artifact and enchantment hate. Seal of Primordium, Quiet Disrepair and Nature's Claim are the most likely candidates, but don't expect more than 3 total cards between them.
Board out your Masters and Champions. Champion is just a Gray Ogre in this match, and Masters actually stop your backup plan of using 0-power creatures. After those go, start boarding out Overseers to make room for your hate.
This post should be linked in the OP. It's really good.
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WoTC, thank you for finally announcing the Modern format, an eternal format where everyone can participate.
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To be perfectly honest this decks does not look terrible. Looks fun.
Cool deck Incredibly different though XD. Have you thought of starting a new thread on the deck creation area as well?
I can see that Modern now will be getting a lot of hate for artifact based decks, especially Affinity. By Force and Harsh Mentor will be the ones that I sense will be in decks a lot now. Burn has been really talking about adding those cards for sure. Any deck that runs artifacts will be hurt by this unfortunately.
Dispossess is too slow to affect us and doesn't even deal with copies on the battlefield, Manglehorn is a Reclamation Sage that only hampers the Moxen and Drums cast after turn 3 (which is when they've exhausted their usefulness), Dissenter's Deliverance is just a worse Ancient Grudge on every level and By Force costs 1 net mana more than Shattering Spree in any case as well as it's also countered by just one Spell Pierce as opposed to Spree which puts a ton of copies on the stack. On 3+ you might as well cast Shatterstorm.
The only thing remotely relevant for us in Amonkhet is Harsh Mentor.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
I sense quite a bit of decks will sideboard Harsh Mentor if a deck is playing Red. I can also see that quite a few decks that run green, might bring in Manglehorn. I do feel that Harsh Mentor is going to be the biggest problem for us in the long run. It does really hurt Arcbound Ravager, Steel Overseer, and Cranial Plating.
1) Do you think that there is any chance of a Mox opal banning?
2) If it happens will the deck survive as a tier 1 (I remember that Frank Karsten said it would not)?
1) I don't see Mox Opal being banned, especially this update, considering that a) Death's Shadow is by far the "biggest" deck and b) Affinity doesn't have a strikingly large share of the meta
2) Mox Opal is possibly the most important card in the deck. I don't see Affinity remaining Tier 1 without it, but it'll still be decent
Retired
Modern
Burn
Legacy
Burn
I tend to disagree, as I'm a huge fan of Blood Moon and run two copies in my SB. I've found it to be a complete noose around the neck of Jeskai and Grixis lists -arguably our worst matchups- if you can drop it on turn two or three. On multiple occasions my opponent has just scooped to a T2 blood moon, even on the play in game 2. Although it does generally require spending the entire turn on casting Moon, you're almost guaranteed to get that turn right back, plus some due to the tempo swing it causes. It has been my experience that an early Blood Moon will create enough of a shift in the game's tempo that it functionally changes the speed disadvantage from being on the draw in game two, to a situation wherein we have the advantage as though we were on the play. And with this deck just as much as with any linear deck, that extra shift in tempo is all we generally need in order to kill our opponent.
Against Titanshift, my experience has been that they are going to bring in a lot of sweepers and artifact destruction, which means we have to lean on our Ravagers and Champions all that much more. This isn't a problem, except that doing so takes away our speed advantage, which means we actually have to worry about Titanshift's inevitability, which would otherwise be too slow for us to care about. As such, Blood Moon is excellent in the match-up because it takes away their principle wincon until Moon can be dealt with, which will often give us the extra turn or two that we need in order to put them away.
Blood Moon is great against Tron because it means their prime cards won't activate until they have 5 mana at the earliest (for Oblivion Stone, and we should have been able to kill them in by then. The only reason I would consider Moon to be 'meh' against Tron is just by comparison, because our entire deck just wrecks Tron so badly (it's almost a free win) that the power of Moon isn't as apparent as it might be in another match-up.
I'm with you on this. I think if the deck loses relevance it'll be due to power-creep.
Don't disagree that stony silence is probably the worst hate we can see and I'm not particularly phased with Shatterstorm or Creeping Corrosion. Ancient Grudge is annoying. But I'm not happy with the increase in the abundance and accessibility of hate.
On a separate note, have you seen Archfiend of Ilfnir? The living end matchup is likely to depreciate in their favour. Feeling pessimistic here. Maybe wizards will make up for slowly killing us off with an artifact land unban. That would be great. It would make ravager fantastic but not so sure I'd want to ditch the manlands. Maybe I would, it would be nice to be able transition between something like the current build and the older iterations of the deck to complicate SB hate choices. Hell, I'd love to beat down with Frogmites and Myr Enforcers.
This deck has proved resilient in the past. Thinking I might start ditching Master of Etherium in favour of more copies of Etched Champion mainboard. Is this wrong?
Does anyone think As Foretold will have an impact on us in our Ux match-ups. I keep imagining As Foretold + Ancestral Visions with no suspend and remember the days when UR Delver was king. Would something like Jeskai Nahiri want to make room for it, for instance? And what would we do to play around it? Would anyone consider possibly cutting ancient grudge from their sideboards for Wear//tear?
And I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but has anyone experimented with Bastion Inventor? Would it have a place, for instance, in one of the older iterations that run the "affinity" mechanic? Like this one: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/instant-deck-tech-real-affinity-modern
Also, how are you supposed to play against lantern control? I had never gone up against one until yesterday, and had no idea how to respond to it.
Ornithopter and Signal Pest can attack under Ensnaring Bridge so there's hope even if they get the lock, provided you've got some of those things out. Attaching Cranial Plating at instant-speed after the attack can get it done.
Ghirapur Æther Grid is a serviceable card here.
Side-board isn't necessarily going to do much good; if you don't have what you need to kill them in play before they get the lock, you never will. Plus they run discard. It's probably best to not side too much in because you need gas more than hate. Ancient Grudge is probably still worth bringing in if you have it.
It's difficult to get the Bridge out of play because of Academy Ruins so you have to get them close to dead quickly even if you can destroy their first Bridge because it will be back.
Frenzy-Affinity-Ghost Quarter-Rock-Tokens- RGWPhyrexian Zoo- WVial KnightsStandard:
BW Knights(Rotated)Pioneer: RW Knights - BW Rally Zombies - UW Heroes
Commander:WUG
Jenara, Asura of War- WGSigarda, Host of HeronsCasualties of economicsLegacy: Good-night, sweet prince. Mono-R Burn
Some people were talking about this a page or two back. Some people like it, but wouldn't take anything out of the SB for it
Thanks! I thought as much. I was actually chipping away at his life with a signal pest, but then he brought in an abrupt decay and shut me down. Pithing needle on the plating and so on.
I thought about siding in Thoughtseize, but after reading your reply, I guess having the grid and artifact destroyers could be better, because a late game thoughtseize is useless once the locks are down.
Hi I must be missing something about the Trawler/Ravager loop here. Are you saccing your 0 mana artifacts then saccing your 1+ mana artifacts to recur them? Or is there some continuous loop I'm missing here? I thought 0 mana artifacts can't recur themselves with Trawler.
Thanks. This build looks cool.
I'm assuming this is a joke / jest. Artifact lands will never be unbanned. As much as I love Affinity, I don't anticipate (nor do I want) artifact lands unbanned. No amount of artifact removal can make up for the broken shenanigans artifact lands allow, and every card Wizards prints going forward would have to take into account the existence of artifact lands.
Meh. They would just have to ban Krark-Clan Ironworks, and it would be fine. Maybe Seat of the Synod would have to stay banned, but the other 4 could come off no problem without KCI.
See my post on page 212 for tips against Lantern
This post should be linked in the OP. It's really good.