Affinity: a History Lesson
For those of you who aren't familiar with Magic History, let me introduce you to Affinity- widely considered one of the most degenerate decks in the history of standard. The deck was so powerful, it justified the first bans in the history of standard, and boy did it justify a lot of them. Seat of the Synod, Vault of Whispers, Tree of Tales, Great Furnace, Ancient Den, Darksteel Citadel, and ArcboundRavager were all banned. Coincidentally, those cards sum up the strategy of Affinity; drop a ton of cheap or free artifacts, which snowball using cards with the (now infamous) Affinity For Artifacts ability (such as Frogmite and Myr Enforcer). The deck exploited extremely powerful starts that could drop a lot of very big creatures quickly, then further abused broken synergies to generate gas- such as making removal less useful thanks to Arcbound Ravager and occasionally Disciple of the Vault, or by using the cheap card draw of thoughtcast.
Pauper Affinity: Then as Now
You may have noticed that a lot of those "broken," cards happen to be commons; making them pauper legal. In pauper, we get to keep all of the artifact lands, Disciple of the Vaults, Thoughtcast, Myr Enforcer, and Frogmite. That's a start. That gives us most of the original Affinity, with the exception of a few important rares. And while we may not have Arcbound Ravager, we have the next best thing: Atog. If that's not a deck, I don't know what is.
Affinity Enablers: Lands and Mana
Before we can start doing broken things, we have to "Snowball," a bit- which means starting small and building our way up. We use the following cards as a foundation for our strategy:
- Seat of the Synod This land is a 4-of. It produces Blue Mana for Thoughtcast and Somber Hoverguard, and boosts your artifact count.
- Great Furnace Auto 4 of. It's an artifact, and it makes red for Atog, Galvanic Blast, Fling, and a lot of your sideboard.
- Tree of Tales Yet another 4 of. Produces Green for Carapace Forger, and one or two sideboard cards.
- Ancient Den Some lists run it as a 2-of. The only reason to run it, is if you have cards like Circle of Protection: Red or Standard Bearer in your sideboard. If you don't have those, you might consider...
- Darksteel Citadel Shows up as an occasional 1-2 of if you don't run Ancient Den. It's immune to artifact removal, which isn't usually relevant, but it does boost your artifact count.
- Springleaf Drum One of the enablers for your big dudes. Boosts your artifact count, fixes your mana, and has the almost inconsequential "drawback," of tapping a creature you control.
Affinity Creatures: Snowballing
Big effects for little mana. It's a combination that broke standard; so let's look at its Pauper iteration, shall we?
- Frogmite very frequently a 2/2 Artifact for zero or one mana, a staple of the deck, and consistently drops early and hard. Can easily overwhelm an unprepared opponent.
- Myr Enforcer This is Frogmite's BIG brother. Easily drops for around 2 mana, and can come down for free on turns two or three with a blazingly fast hand. Usually shows up as a 4 of, in spite of its cost, because it provides a major threat, and contributes to your explosive power.
- Thoughtcast So, you've just dumped your entire hand onto the field in the first three or four turns, and you still need more plays to win. The solution? Drawing 2 cards for , or . A very powerful effect that can keep you from running out of gas, even against removal heavy decks.
- Somber Hoverguard A big, evasive dude for roughly the same cost as thoughtcast. A very common 2-3 of, since it gives you a lot of (evasive) reach.
Cantrip Artifacts: Fuel for the Snowball
The 1 CMC cantrip artifacts (artifacts that cost , and sacrifice for colored mana and a card draw) are beautiful things in Affinity. They very cheaply amp up your affinity count, they fix mana, they can refill cards, serve as cheap fuel for Atog, and provide a nice alleyway for proccing Disciple of the Vault.
- Chromatic Star The most prolific of all the "Cantrip Artifacts because it still draws a card if you sacrifice it to Atog. Auto 4-of in most cases.
- Chromatic Sphere Almost as common as Chromatic Star, except that you don't get your cantrip if you sac to Atog. Sometimes shows up as a 2 of, sometimes skipped over.
- Terrarion Sometimes shows up instead of, or in addition to, Chromatic Sphere. The reason is unknown, though it may be for fixing mana in decks that need colored symbols from all 5 colors (because of Somber Hoverguard, Fling, Standard Bearer, Duress, and Carapace Forger, etc).
TO-DO LIST:
Stategy Overview
Beaters Section
Support
Sideboard
Matchups
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