Yeah, I took tron as the first example that passed trough my mind. In any case, in my meta, blood moon has been under-performing lately, but maybe I will be putting it back in to replace shapers' sanctuary.
There aren't really any artifact decks where I play (at least not with good pilots), so grudge is mostly pointless, I think. I'd either cut RIP, whipflare, or moon for grudges depending on what you don't need for your meta. Also, I'm thinking of cutting moon for the new Damping Sphere. Thoughts?
You think a tezzeret or karn scion o mf urza would be good vs the tron matchup?
I tried Tezzeret, agent of Bolas a while ago but because of the two color requirement was a bit too inconsistent for me.
Concerning Karn, Scion of Urza I am willing to give it a try. I think it might have the potential of making your very good draw even better (turn 2 Karn ), and helps with grindier matchups thanks to the card draw. On the other hand 4 cmc might be too much, I guess we'll see.
There aren't really any artifact decks where I play
Unless your meta is full of eldrazi or tron why don't you go for more Etched champion main?
About Damping Sphere I don't know. On one side I don't like to play artifact sideboard cards, but on the other it's less narrow than some enchantments.
There aren't really any artifact decks where I play
Unless your meta is full of eldrazi or tron why don't you go for more Etched champion main?
About Damping Sphere I don't know. On one side I don't like to play artifact sideboard cards, but on the other it's less narrow than some enchantments.
I used to have 4 etched 1 master main when I had 16 lands, but I decided it was the best cut to go up to 17. I've slowly been adding more masters because there's more aggro and combo showing up, elves being my main concern. I don't really lose to Jund or other midrange decks unless I make one of those dumb mistakes I'm so fond of.
As for sphere, all I really know is that it hits storm which I've heard is a bad match up for us.
Hey I meant to post this earlier in the week but its exam week at my college so I never had the time. I took affinity but with Bomat Couriers in place of Galv-Blast to some decent success. I ended up going 2-2. I beat RUG Control(i think, it had goyfs, cliques, bolt but it didn't do a whole lot) 2-0, beat burn 2-1. In both games Bomat put in a ridiculous amount of work, against the burn player i ended up drawing 4 cards off of a single bomat.
However my next game was against RUG Midrange, i lost it 2-1 with games 2 and 3 being very close. I was 1 point of damage away from getting it game 3. However i got outvalued by 2 Huntmasters that he force-flipped a couple times. After that, i went against Blue Moon which was rough for me. He kept my board rather small with burn spells. Post board i really didnt feel that much better either.
The deck still played well although im not sure if bomat is the best bet. It has some explosive plays but i also felt like i had to hold back at times to keep a red mana available to draw off bomat.
Momsie/FitzRolf, since this comment kinda blends your two questions together.
I don't have a sideboard guide for two reasons. The first and main reason is that there are too many decks in the field, too many different sideboard cards for Affinity, and too much of a changing metagame to be able to make a sideboard guide that stays relevant for more than a few months. It's just not worth the effort to try to construct it. The second reason is that I think sideboard guides generally do too much telling and not enough teaching. The key to sideboarding properly is to understand how each side of the matchup typically wins the game in that specific matchup. It is insufficient to say that "X is a key part of deck Y, so when I play against deck Y I will bring in hate against X", because it could be the case where X is a key part of deck Y in most matchups, but is actually quite minor and unimportant in the matchup that you are playing.
If you guessed that the example I just gave was talking about the graveyard in GDS against Affinity, you would be correct. When you play Affinity against GDS, there's generally two ways you're going to lose. The first is the most common: the GDS player plays discard and removal spells to strip away your resources until you have nothing, and then finds some way to kill you before you draw a threat that can stick on the board. The second it that you get into a race, and then on the turn before they die they attack with a gigantic Death's Shadow and cast Temur Battle Rage on it. The ways you win are either you are much more explosive than they are and are able to deploy threats much faster than they are able to answer them, possibly because they are wasting time with Serum Visions and Thought Scours. The second main way you win is by sticking something that they can't answer - Etched Champion or Blood Moon, and making basically everything else that's going on in the game irrelevant. You'll notice that in none of those descriptions of how you win or lose did I ever really mention the graveyard, delve threats, or Snapcaster Mage. Sure, sometimes the thing that clocks you before you find an answer is a delve threat, and sometimes the thing that disrupts you just enough was a snapped push - but just as often the graveyard doesn't matter at all. The times you're dying to a delve threat, it's not the delve threat that won the game - it was the IoK into Push into Kommand. The delve threats were just as much of a formality as the Jace that the UW control deck plays after they Verdict away everything you had.
Going into why I sideboard like I do:
Thoughtseize lets you take a key component of their disruption and know exactly what answers they are working with, allowing you to find all the best lines to minimize the impact of their cards, making your plan A much better.
Blood Moon and Etched Champion can just steal the game flat.
Memnite goes out because it's easily blocked and low impact.
Galvanic Blast is not great most of the time - it's often better to have another threat because you can basically only go face with it, which makes it only good later in the game. The exception is if they have Staticaster, which does need a Blast to kill it.
Rest in Peace doesn't come in because you generally don't care about the delve threats, and if you draw a card that does nothing but prevent snap from getting a card of value you're just doing their work for them.
I hear tell that you've been testing Karn, Scion in the Master of Etherium spot. In such builds I was wondering if you were still playing Glint-Nest Crane? If so, I was wondering whether that's still the choice or if Karn is game deciding enough to swap the Crane for Board the Weatherlight.
I never played Glint Nest Crane, and I would never put Board the Weatherlight into my deck - 2 mana do nothing is useless. Karn has been pretty good - the less linear the metagame the more absurd it is. If Jund and Control were popular I'd probably have 4 between the main and side, as it is online I'd only play a couple since combo and hyper-aggro are too prevalent.
I never played Glint Nest Crane, and I would never put Board the Weatherlight into my deck - 2 mana do nothing is useless. Karn has been pretty good - the less linear the metagame the more absurd it is. If Jund and Control were popular I'd probably have 4 between the main and side, as it is online I'd only play a couple since combo and hyper-aggro are too prevalent.
This.
Been playing Karn, scion of urza all weekend in side events at GP Bologna. It's good even in racing situations (at least G1), the ability to attack and keep a relatively big blocker back is awsome.
Not sure if I'd go to 4 even in a slower meta, the only way it has been bad for me it's when it was stuck in my hand.
I guess it remain to be seen:
Ive been playing affinity for long while, and tried different variants over the last year. From Days Undoing variant, to old school with frogmites and cutting inkmoths, to running bomat courious and hazoret, to my current list below.
I want to shape up this SB for GP Vegas. I never had a firm grip on it except try to balance to a few decklists and meta at the time, but I kind of just want to shape it to be balanced in prep for GP.
No, really, Dark Confidant is in my current list, as I persistently do not like Steel Overseer...,and I do not like Ghirapur Aetherworks in the side. Always felt they were too slow, lol!
Main
1x Island
4x Darksteel Citadel
4x Blinkmoth Nexus
4x Inkmoth Nexus
2x Glimmervoid
2x Spire of Industry
17
2x Memnite
4x Ornithopter
4x Signal Pest
4x Vault Skirge
4x Arcbound Ravager
4x Dark Confidant
2x Etched Champion
2x Master of Etherium
26
1x Welding Jar
4x Mox Opals
4x Springleaf Drum
4x Galvanic Blast
4x Cranial Plating
17
I ran bob back in 2005, so it's not like no one has thought of it. The problem with not running overseer is that you're playing a bunch of *****ty 1/1's that you can draw with bob, but that probably won't be winning you more games than overseer. Also with spire of industry now there's no reason to risk getting blown out with the glimmervoid + 1 drop that gets killed. You're running an island, even though you only have 2 blue cards md + 2 in the board, but 4 red md with 5 in the board and 4 black with 2 in the board?
Yes, I know I need to replace island to swamp.....
Always felt oversser in itself never did much, cause I saw it killed prior to it bei g a payoff. Itz like if when signal pest on T1. Both feel like auto bolt,
MTGO iteration is a great way to build tiered decks, and I'm sure the Affinity crowd would be interested to see this track record. Just thought I'd share this here; stumbled across it while browsing decklists and crunching numbers.
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
2 Ghirapur Aether Grid
2 Whipflare
2 Bitterblossom
2 Thoughtseize
2 Rest in Peace
3 Etched Champion
I tried Tezzeret, agent of Bolas a while ago but because of the two color requirement was a bit too inconsistent for me.
Concerning Karn, Scion of Urza I am willing to give it a try. I think it might have the potential of making your very good draw even better (turn 2 Karn ), and helps with grindier matchups thanks to the card draw. On the other hand 4 cmc might be too much, I guess we'll see.
Unless your meta is full of eldrazi or tron why don't you go for more Etched champion main?
About Damping Sphere I don't know. On one side I don't like to play artifact sideboard cards, but on the other it's less narrow than some enchantments.
I used to have 4 etched 1 master main when I had 16 lands, but I decided it was the best cut to go up to 17. I've slowly been adding more masters because there's more aggro and combo showing up, elves being my main concern. I don't really lose to Jund or other midrange decks unless I make one of those dumb mistakes I'm so fond of.
As for sphere, all I really know is that it hits storm which I've heard is a bad match up for us.
However my next game was against RUG Midrange, i lost it 2-1 with games 2 and 3 being very close. I was 1 point of damage away from getting it game 3. However i got outvalued by 2 Huntmasters that he force-flipped a couple times. After that, i went against Blue Moon which was rough for me. He kept my board rather small with burn spells. Post board i really didnt feel that much better either.
The deck still played well although im not sure if bomat is the best bet. It has some explosive plays but i also felt like i had to hold back at times to keep a red mana available to draw off bomat.
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
Do you have a sideboard guide that is updated?
Modern
GBRJundGBR
GBWAbzan TraverseGBW
GBRockGB
GBRUJund ShadowGBRU
I don't have a sideboard guide for two reasons. The first and main reason is that there are too many decks in the field, too many different sideboard cards for Affinity, and too much of a changing metagame to be able to make a sideboard guide that stays relevant for more than a few months. It's just not worth the effort to try to construct it. The second reason is that I think sideboard guides generally do too much telling and not enough teaching. The key to sideboarding properly is to understand how each side of the matchup typically wins the game in that specific matchup. It is insufficient to say that "X is a key part of deck Y, so when I play against deck Y I will bring in hate against X", because it could be the case where X is a key part of deck Y in most matchups, but is actually quite minor and unimportant in the matchup that you are playing.
If you guessed that the example I just gave was talking about the graveyard in GDS against Affinity, you would be correct. When you play Affinity against GDS, there's generally two ways you're going to lose. The first is the most common: the GDS player plays discard and removal spells to strip away your resources until you have nothing, and then finds some way to kill you before you draw a threat that can stick on the board. The second it that you get into a race, and then on the turn before they die they attack with a gigantic Death's Shadow and cast Temur Battle Rage on it. The ways you win are either you are much more explosive than they are and are able to deploy threats much faster than they are able to answer them, possibly because they are wasting time with Serum Visions and Thought Scours. The second main way you win is by sticking something that they can't answer - Etched Champion or Blood Moon, and making basically everything else that's going on in the game irrelevant. You'll notice that in none of those descriptions of how you win or lose did I ever really mention the graveyard, delve threats, or Snapcaster Mage. Sure, sometimes the thing that clocks you before you find an answer is a delve threat, and sometimes the thing that disrupts you just enough was a snapped push - but just as often the graveyard doesn't matter at all. The times you're dying to a delve threat, it's not the delve threat that won the game - it was the IoK into Push into Kommand. The delve threats were just as much of a formality as the Jace that the UW control deck plays after they Verdict away everything you had.
Going into why I sideboard like I do:
Thoughtseize lets you take a key component of their disruption and know exactly what answers they are working with, allowing you to find all the best lines to minimize the impact of their cards, making your plan A much better.
Blood Moon and Etched Champion can just steal the game flat.
Memnite goes out because it's easily blocked and low impact.
Galvanic Blast is not great most of the time - it's often better to have another threat because you can basically only go face with it, which makes it only good later in the game. The exception is if they have Staticaster, which does need a Blast to kill it.
Rest in Peace doesn't come in because you generally don't care about the delve threats, and if you draw a card that does nothing but prevent snap from getting a card of value you're just doing their work for them.
I hear tell that you've been testing Karn, Scion in the Master of Etherium spot. In such builds I was wondering if you were still playing Glint-Nest Crane? If so, I was wondering whether that's still the choice or if Karn is game deciding enough to swap the Crane for Board the Weatherlight.
Cheers!
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
This.
Been playing Karn, scion of urza all weekend in side events at GP Bologna. It's good even in racing situations (at least G1), the ability to attack and keep a relatively big blocker back is awsome.
Not sure if I'd go to 4 even in a slower meta, the only way it has been bad for me it's when it was stuck in my hand.
I guess it remain to be seen:
I want to shape up this SB for GP Vegas. I never had a firm grip on it except try to balance to a few decklists and meta at the time, but I kind of just want to shape it to be balanced in prep for GP.
No, really, Dark Confidant is in my current list, as I persistently do not like Steel Overseer...,and I do not like Ghirapur Aetherworks in the side. Always felt they were too slow, lol!
Main
1x Island
4x Darksteel Citadel
4x Blinkmoth Nexus
4x Inkmoth Nexus
2x Glimmervoid
2x Spire of Industry
17
2x Memnite
4x Ornithopter
4x Signal Pest
4x Vault Skirge
4x Arcbound Ravager
4x Dark Confidant
2x Etched Champion
2x Master of Etherium
26
1x Welding Jar
4x Mox Opals
4x Springleaf Drum
4x Galvanic Blast
4x Cranial Plating
17
SB
1x Etched Champion
1x Spellskite
2
1x Grafdiggers Cage
1x Relic of Progentius
1x Pithing Needle
1x Dispatch
2x Spellpierce
2x Thoughtseize
1x Whipflare
1x Ancient Grudge
2x Blood Moon
1x Wear // Tear
13
Always felt oversser in itself never did much, cause I saw it killed prior to it bei g a payoff. Itz like if when signal pest on T1. Both feel like auto bolt,
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1071683#paper
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1067219#paper
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/competitive-modern-constructed-league-2018-05-04 (scroll to his list)
MTGO iteration is a great way to build tiered decks, and I'm sure the Affinity crowd would be interested to see this track record. Just thought I'd share this here; stumbled across it while browsing decklists and crunching numbers.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Zyrnak/playlists
Karn has sat in my hand dead every so often, but for every time he's a dead card there's another where he wins the game almost by himself.
I have a question: what do you side out against storm besides the karns and Etched Champions?
My current deck is the same 75 as yours (except I run a 3rd galvanic blast instead of the 4th steel overseer).
I’ve been watching your videos and been learning a lot! Keep up the good work!