MTG Salvation

I'm for cantrips, so here's another thing to consider, expanding on something kt mentioned earlier:
Infect has 12 engines + 4 hierarch and their fuel doubles as protection.
Bogle's has 12 engines + some number of dryad arbor, 8 of which have hexproof while the other 4 doubles as a draw engine AND their fuel doubles as protection. They can also gain a bunch of life, so even more protection.
We have 8 engines, 4 of which are legendary(minor thing, but is there), maybe 4 backups, but often fewer or even none and minimal protection (Only against burn, typically only if paladin is out due to tight mana, revival can count, but has many uses).

So, we have less engines, less protection, usually no backup plan AND have to chain our fuel together instead of the 3-5? or so they need. We just have a lot more hoops to jump through. As of now, the easiest and most effective way to make up for these deficits appears to be cantrips. Bird(who is part engine/protection depending on what you consider the scry, part backup plan, not terribly surprising people are trying it, even if I'm not a fan of it atm) showing up may change this, but that is inconclusive as of this moment.

Tldr; we have a consistency issue compared to other combo decks and cantrips have, so far, been the best solution.

I haven't played in awhile, but I don't see how Artificer's Assistant is good for the deck and this line

Bird puts you in a scenario where you might need to play 3-4 non-cantripping equipment just to scry an engine to the top, at which point now you have to also get Retract to play engine, bounce equipment, and restart the combo.

is exactly why I don't like it. I can't think of any scenario not during the combo where Serum Visions is just better. As kt alludes to here, in order for the bird to see as many cards SV, you need to cast 3 cheerios(or opal, but I don't think that's relevant enough to matter) and even then, you haven't drawn a card.

I don't see what mox amber does for the deck. It only taps for mana if you have Sram, Senior Edificer out, and even then, it only taps for W. Even if we add one of the new legendaries, they all cost 3 or more, so this can't be used to ramp into anything and only one of them is U, often the important color due to retract.

The hearthstone mulligan is mostly the same as the old EDH one, partial paris. You see your hand, chose which cards to replace, refill and shuffle the cards you chose away. You only get to do this once, however.

Small thing, but I almost want Pelakka Wurm to be an anchor for ramp. It's not super important for it to work necessarily, but it is, as of now, the go-to, number 1, ramp target in mono green for most people.

540 Peasant, Lansing MI, USA

Fire Imp actually isn't a good blink target due to its "from hand" clause. It's still good, but not sure if that affects the rating or not...

About modal spells having more than one choice; no, it doesn't matter. See Sultai Charm

Here's a write-up about the top 4 list. https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/comments/4uqfln/modern_tournament_report_monow_death_and_taxes/

The all in version that tries to kill ASAP would/does play those lands. They do less damage, like you said, but the other main reason is the all in version needs black mana for spoils of the vault. This was basically what the original version of this deck looked like. The main issue people ran into was you either drew/saw puresteel paladin and it lived or you did literally nothing. It didn't really matter how well you could find him, that wasn't the problem, the problem was keeping him in play when you have, usually, no mana, so counters aren't playable.

Over time, the deck transitioned from explosiveness to consistency/additional threats. The first big addition was muddle the mixture, to tutor for paladin, grapshot, Hurkyl's Recall and the occasional counterspell. Around that time, the deck transitioned from the rainbow lands to straight UW plus grapeshot. Then people started trying gitaxian probe/serum visions for more consistency. At some point around here, additional threats were considered, Glint Hawk being the obvious one. Before monastery mentor, people tried myth realized, but that tended to die too easily and also worked best when we had paladin, so kinda defeated the purpose. Someone tried Goblin Gaveleer, but that didn't seem to go anywhere, but I liked it, so it's what I run. Mentor also adds mass hysteria to kill in one shot, but also works with gaveleer. The general consensus for number of threats is 10-12, 4x paladin, 3-4x glint hawk, 2-3x mentor, 2x gaveleer. The only basics you run are plains so any two lands cast paladin.

I had a local modern event where I was the only 3-0 deck going into the last round and lost to the pre-oath BW eldrazi when he went dismember/surgical extraction your paladins on turn 2. I beat burn attacking for 4 a turn with glint hawks, beat jund by comboing off turn 2 and swinging for 14 with gaveleer on turn 3, don't remember the other match. Favorite moments were winning on turn 2 and one game against burn. I played glint hawk, they suspended rift bolt, I played and equipped spidersilk net to the hawk, making it a 2/4. Also, 3/10's with vigilance and flying(and reach!) are great.

tldr: The original version, the all in one, used to run those lands for the reasons you stated. Consensus reached was paladin to easily disrupted. Deck moved from 4-color to 2 splashing grapeshot. This, along with adding consistency, then additional threats and less about turn 2ing people, lead to the fetch/shock mana base.

My decklist

I assume one of the main reasons is if you ever draw it early, at best, it makes it extremely difficult cast more than one spell a turn and cast anything at worst. If you see plains/forest, it is actually impossible to cast atarka's command/eidolon/boros charm or lightning helix until until your third land.

Quote from volrathy »

this is infact the very first card that is a strictly better serra angel we have had "close" to being strictly better Avacyn, Guardian Angel

but this herald is actually deemed "strictly better" and is a disgrace way to ruin my childhood

Baneslayer Angel was pretty damn close, trading vigilance with lifelink(ALMOST always makes up for the vigilance), first strike, pro demons and dragons and +1/+1, also not legendary.

Regardless, not a big fan of the myriad creatures. The blue one seems like the only one that isn't complete trash while the white on is by far the worst. Black at least does something when it hits and the red one comes from nowhere.

For reanimating without a target, look at Extract from Darkness and Breaking // Entering.

I tried day's undoing and it didn't impress me. If you dump your hand and cast it turn 2 or 3, then it's good. However, if you have the 3+ 2 drop hand, it gets much, much worse. I lost a post-sideboard game against jund who mulled to 4 because my hand was just a bit slow and he IoK my plating (Granted, this was against a friend, wasn't for anything and was mostly for testing purposes, but it does remind us that the card can in fact help our opponents just as much as us). I think for undoing to be good in affinity, you have to either max out on the burn, galvanic blast and shrapnel blast, and/or max out on the memnites/cut most, if not all, 3 drops, at least in the main deck. The reasoning being you HAVE to dump your hand for it do be good/be able to interact on their turn. Then there are the decks it's just actively bad against; burn, infect, non-G twin lists.

I WANT to like it, I really do, but from my testing with it in a stock list, it just doesn't do enough.

Quote from joekinguyr »

Relgar Earthfury
Legendary Creature-Giant Wizard
When You cast a red spell, Relgar Earthfury deals 4 damage to target creature or player.
When you cast a blue spell, draw two cards.
3/3

OP as all hell. Compare to Mercurial Chemister. While not a cube staple, chemister is one of the nuttiest bombs in its limited format. This has a slightly bigger body and can be activated/triggered more than once a turn.