Combo-Midrange RG Lands, based on Conley Woods' 7/7/2015 article
Hello all!
Here is the link to the article by Conley Woods from 7/7/2015. He pretty much explains all of the possible card choices and certain numbers. I'd recommend reading the article before going over the deck.
After reading his analysis of the cards at around three in the morning, I decided to load the deck up on Cockatrice and see how it played out. After about five random matches against primarily Abzan decks, I came to a few different conclusions. But first, let me just start with the decklist I'm running through the gauntlet right now:
If you've read Conley's article, you undoubtedly see a good number of similarities. However, after playing an 8-man with the exact version he posted, I noticed I continued to lose to any deck that could put pressure on in the first four turns. Even with all of the lands that can gain the deck life, the deck had no way to put itself significantly out of reach from Siege Rhino and Stoke the Flame decks. And enter a singleton Bow of Nylea.
In a deck with as much consistent draw power as this deck, combined with the ability to be pulled out of the deck by Genesis Hydra, we have a lifegain engine that shoots two damage into Dragons (making our Vortex two dmg closer to a kill), pumps our Thopter tokens against Control, gains life against Aggressive decks and allows us to play a long-term game against creature-based decks (don't have to worry about running out of lands to launch at your opponent's face).
The Genesis Hydras feel pretty self-explanatory; they find your Vortex when you're ready to pressure for game, they find Atarka when you're in need of some 'walker removal, Bow of Nylea when you need to gain some quick life, and Aggressive Mining when you're in need of some extra cards.
I opted to cut Courser of Kruphix because it doesn't actually do a lot in this deck. Yes it leaves more lands in hand for Vortex to pitch later. Yes, it technically is card advantage. But the lack of impact on the game leaves the deck in want of a more proactive gameplan, which is why I opted to remove them. If you feel the extra lifegain is instrumental in the meta, then by all means play the Coursers over Hydras. Both have pros and cons
Even though it isn't perfect, I'm going to quickly go over the sideboard I prefer and the potential sideboard that I've considered.
As you can see, this is a transformative sideboard from the days of old. A Tron-style deck changing into an aggressive midrange deck isn't a huge change, but this helps in the Midrange matches where your game is pretty much hosed. That's the only matchup this deck seems awful against. Everything else seems entirely winnable once you become familiar with how the match plays, but this sideboard allows you to aggressively challenge an opponent and make the most of your excess mana.
In this plan, I generally remove 4 Foundry, 4 Bivouac, 4 Fountain, 3 Insight. I've considered playing 3 Draconic Roar over the 3 Crater's Claws in this version since it generally does the same thing - removes creatures - except it does so more efficiently, and it also makes for a good ole "Bolt to the dome" post-board. Also signals to the opponent that I may run Dragons early game, which may change their playstyle. Hopefully they don't suspect the Dragons out of the board ;-)
4 Anger of the Gods - basic aggro hoser, also works well to stall the game into your favor against midrange decks.
2 Chandra, Pyromancer - helps play under Aggressive Mining if you can't get the game sealed, as well as ping the opposing walkers and creatures.
3 Hornet Nest - good against Aggro, non-Black decks. hoses mono-red most of the time.
1 Nissa, Worldwaker - control has a difficult time beating us, and Nissa lets us make sure of that. Also good against midrange decks.
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - against Dragons, Ugin is a solid wipe spell. Also helps us remove Aggressive Mining if we're in a rough position. Obv. Control hoser
2 Gaea's Revenge - another card to help us hose control, it doubles as a threat that Abzan can't deal with very easily.
1 Hornet Queen - another card to bring in against Dragons/creature-based decks. Maybe 2 of these/1 Gaea's Revenge
1 Bow of Nylea - to replace any card in the list that is dead in a specific match-up, doubles as answer to counterspell.dek (pump a small threat)
The deck and sideboard are by no means perfect, I've only had two days of playing with it as of writing this (posted after vacation b/c no signal for internet!), so please offer up any ideas to be included! I want to eventually make a primer for the archetype, once I've gotten the kinks worked out and played it in more diverse environments.
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Honestly, I binge play decks. So I spent about 4-5 days straight playing this in my testing group and then put it down a couple days ago.
I really feel like it could be a contender, but the land number is perhaps a little high. Idk if Conley did some higher power magical number crunching, but I like the deck a lot less when I draw a 7-land opener than I do when I draw a 2-land opener.
Ali Aintrazi posted a very similar deck the very next morning, so perhaps his thread can warrant some more ideas. His deck went in a little bit of a different direction, and as Conley was calling the 3GG Enchantment that makes 2/2s for landdrops (can't recall the name) trash, Ali based his deck on it. So it's up in the air on that one I guess. I personally loved it against everything that didn't have access against Bile in Blight, but that's just me.
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I just put together the version of this deck in the first post, minus the Crater's Claws and adding the Nissa back in. I'll be testing it out and tweaking it over the next few weeks. Seems like a fun deck.
Not a huge fan of the new Nissa, she seemed underwhelming almost every time I played her. So few creatures means she usually ate whatever removal had previously been dead in their hand.
Xenagos could be an option, not sure how well he'd sit in here but I could see it providing a board state to at least chump block with. I'll try those changes in testing this evening with my playgroup. The roil isn't so great as I thought, decks playing Bile Blight just wreck you out of a well-developed board state.
Multiple Aggressive Mining isn't a great option, it's a card you only want to draw once you've played all of the rest of the hand and would like to start replenishing/shooting for damage. The Bow is great though, a second one might be worth playing but it's usually easy to find with the Hydras shooting for 5-10 cards and all of the lands being pulled out.
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Hello all!
Here is the link to the article by Conley Woods from 7/7/2015. He pretty much explains all of the possible card choices and certain numbers. I'd recommend reading the article before going over the deck.
After reading his analysis of the cards at around three in the morning, I decided to load the deck up on Cockatrice and see how it played out. After about five random matches against primarily Abzan decks, I came to a few different conclusions. But first, let me just start with the decklist I'm running through the gauntlet right now:
2 Aggressive Mining
4 Magmatic Insight
4 Animist's Awakening
Lands
6 Forest
4 Foundry of the Consuls
4 Frontier Bivouac
7 Mountain
4 Radiant Fountain
4 Rugged Highlands
4 Temple of Abandon
1 Temple of Mystery
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Molten Vortex
3 Genesis Hydra
1 Dragonlord Atarka
3 Crater's Claws
Lifegain/Graveyard Cycling
1 Bow of Nylea
4 Anger of the Gods
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
3 Destructive Revelry
1 Nissa, Worldwaker
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2 Gaea's Revenge
1 Hornet Queen
1 Bow of Nylea
If you've read Conley's article, you undoubtedly see a good number of similarities. However, after playing an 8-man with the exact version he posted, I noticed I continued to lose to any deck that could put pressure on in the first four turns. Even with all of the lands that can gain the deck life, the deck had no way to put itself significantly out of reach from Siege Rhino and Stoke the Flame decks. And enter a singleton Bow of Nylea.
In a deck with as much consistent draw power as this deck, combined with the ability to be pulled out of the deck by Genesis Hydra, we have a lifegain engine that shoots two damage into Dragons (making our Vortex two dmg closer to a kill), pumps our Thopter tokens against Control, gains life against Aggressive decks and allows us to play a long-term game against creature-based decks (don't have to worry about running out of lands to launch at your opponent's face).
The Genesis Hydras feel pretty self-explanatory; they find your Vortex when you're ready to pressure for game, they find Atarka when you're in need of some 'walker removal, Bow of Nylea when you need to gain some quick life, and Aggressive Mining when you're in need of some extra cards.
I opted to cut Courser of Kruphix because it doesn't actually do a lot in this deck. Yes it leaves more lands in hand for Vortex to pitch later. Yes, it technically is card advantage. But the lack of impact on the game leaves the deck in want of a more proactive gameplan, which is why I opted to remove them. If you feel the extra lifegain is instrumental in the meta, then by all means play the Coursers over Hydras. Both have pros and cons
Even though it isn't perfect, I'm going to quickly go over the sideboard I prefer and the potential sideboard that I've considered.
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
3 Destructive Revelry
1 Nissa, Worldwaker
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2 Gaea's Revenge
1 Hornet Queen
1 Bow of Nylea
4 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Thunderbreak Regent
As you can see, this is a transformative sideboard from the days of old. A Tron-style deck changing into an aggressive midrange deck isn't a huge change, but this helps in the Midrange matches where your game is pretty much hosed. That's the only matchup this deck seems awful against. Everything else seems entirely winnable once you become familiar with how the match plays, but this sideboard allows you to aggressively challenge an opponent and make the most of your excess mana.
In this plan, I generally remove 4 Foundry, 4 Bivouac, 4 Fountain, 3 Insight. I've considered playing 3 Draconic Roar over the 3 Crater's Claws in this version since it generally does the same thing - removes creatures - except it does so more efficiently, and it also makes for a good ole "Bolt to the dome" post-board. Also signals to the opponent that I may run Dragons early game, which may change their playstyle. Hopefully they don't suspect the Dragons out of the board ;-)
4 Anger of the Gods - basic aggro hoser, also works well to stall the game into your favor against midrange decks.
2 Chandra, Pyromancer - helps play under Aggressive Mining if you can't get the game sealed, as well as ping the opposing walkers and creatures.
3 Hornet Nest - good against Aggro, non-Black decks. hoses mono-red most of the time.
1 Nissa, Worldwaker - control has a difficult time beating us, and Nissa lets us make sure of that. Also good against midrange decks.
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - against Dragons, Ugin is a solid wipe spell. Also helps us remove Aggressive Mining if we're in a rough position. Obv. Control hoser
2 Gaea's Revenge - another card to help us hose control, it doubles as a threat that Abzan can't deal with very easily.
1 Hornet Queen - another card to bring in against Dragons/creature-based decks. Maybe 2 of these/1 Gaea's Revenge
1 Bow of Nylea - to replace any card in the list that is dead in a specific match-up, doubles as answer to counterspell.dek (pump a small threat)
Other deck/sideboard options (to be edited later):
Destructive Revelry, Courser of Kruphix, Atarka's Command, Nissa, Vastwood Seer
The deck and sideboard are by no means perfect, I've only had two days of playing with it as of writing this (posted after vacation b/c no signal for internet!), so please offer up any ideas to be included! I want to eventually make a primer for the archetype, once I've gotten the kinks worked out and played it in more diverse environments.
@Robo_Memer on Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, and YouTube
Feel free to PM me about Affinity decks in any format!
I'm not sure what I would consider taking out, any suggestions?
@Robo_Memer on Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, and YouTube
Feel free to PM me about Affinity decks in any format!
3/5ths of the siege cycle isn't worth considering, but Outpost Siege is still very good and Frontier Siege was played quite heavily before DTK introduced Dromoka's Command.
Otherwise, I like the deck. Keep us updated on how it performs, I might consider playing it if it does well.
I really feel like it could be a contender, but the land number is perhaps a little high. Idk if Conley did some higher power magical number crunching, but I like the deck a lot less when I draw a 7-land opener than I do when I draw a 2-land opener.
Ali Aintrazi posted a very similar deck the very next morning, so perhaps his thread can warrant some more ideas. His deck went in a little bit of a different direction, and as Conley was calling the 3GG Enchantment that makes 2/2s for landdrops (can't recall the name) trash, Ali based his deck on it. So it's up in the air on that one I guess. I personally loved it against everything that didn't have access against Bile in Blight, but that's just me.
@Robo_Memer on Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, and YouTube
Feel free to PM me about Affinity decks in any format!
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Xenagos could be an option, not sure how well he'd sit in here but I could see it providing a board state to at least chump block with. I'll try those changes in testing this evening with my playgroup. The roil isn't so great as I thought, decks playing Bile Blight just wreck you out of a well-developed board state.
Multiple Aggressive Mining isn't a great option, it's a card you only want to draw once you've played all of the rest of the hand and would like to start replenishing/shooting for damage. The Bow is great though, a second one might be worth playing but it's usually easy to find with the Hydras shooting for 5-10 cards and all of the lands being pulled out.
@Robo_Memer on Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, and YouTube
Feel free to PM me about Affinity decks in any format!