MTG Salvation

I use rule of law because decks we want canonist Against are already bringing in creature/artifact hate against us. Instead of stork needing 1 of 4 cards (3 bolt 1 bounce) they have only the bounce Spell.

I also hate dispatch, by and far my least favorite tech. I don’t even play the 4th blast, I’d play that before dispatch. Dispatch is good for goyf, shadow, and eldrazi — decks we are already fine Against. Bringing it for storm is just medium, I’d rather have another dedicated hate card. I’d play 2nd whipflare over 1st dispatch because it helps against lingering souls, which are everywhere after the pro tour.

Just my take!

I don’t think it’s too bad for us.

In other news, in my first two leagues of MTGO with Affinity I went 3-2 (6 misclicks led to losing a very close and winnable Bant Humans MU in my first round), 4-1 in the second one (t3 combo both games against vizier druid in last round)

Just finished my last league of the night at 3-2, started out 0-1 then win 3 straight, lost in last round g3 against nut draw from 5C humans.

My g2 hand would’ve trashed his g3 hand and my g3 hand would’ve trashed his g2 hand. The MU feels very winnable, favorable even. His last two cards had to be meddling Mage and reflector Mage to Beat the 2 champions he knew were in my hand about to be cast. Second and third meddling Mages followed up to name every other relevant spell.

I’m locked in on this for the Indy Open, playing a Zyrnak special. SB has 1 Spell pierce, should probably be a Temur Battle Rage or something — every game I lose feels so close to winnable it’s not even funny!

Anything you guys are doing in preparation for the new unbannings? I play exclusively MTGO and I expect it to be very Jace + BBE heavy tomorrow. Any cards to add/remove. Still new to the deck. Thanks!

I figure I’ll focus on it after this weekend, it doesn’t affect my Open so I’m not putting any thought into it

Quote from aparthia »

4 Etched Champions are probably a must now lol..

4 in the 75 definitely, but how many in the main?

I play a 3/1 split between main and side, I believe Ragan had his 2/1. He finished a little higher than I did today at the Open, I barely missed T16 and settled in at 18th on Robots. Our decks were 1 card different MB and 3 cards different SB. Lost to him in the 12th round today.

I played 3 Jeskai and 3 mardu pyromancer this weekend and beat all of them (even gave Nikolich his 2nd loss!) all on the back of Champion. I’m really high on that card in the main.

Quote from kodieyost »

I play a 3/1 split between main and side, I believe Ragan had his 2/1. He finished a little higher than I did today at the Open, I barely missed T16 and settled in at 18th on Robots. Our decks were 1 card different MB and 3 cards different SB. Lost to him in the 12th round today.

I played 3 Jeskai and 3 mardu pyromancer this weekend and beat all of them (even gave Nikolich his 2nd loss!) all on the back of Champion. I’m really high on that card in the main.

Nice result! I also am on a 3/1 split and definitely think it's the right way to go going forward

Have you tried bitterblossom yet?

That card is the TRUTH.

Quote from FitzRolf »

I have yet to try it, but in theory it seems a bit overkill to me. How many would you run and what would you replace it with? My board is packed with Enchantments so my first choice would be to shave one of those. Possibly Shaper's Sanctuary...

I played two at SCG Indy, and it singlehandedly won me two matches against Mardu Pyromancer, and it was absolutely gas vs Jeskai and UW Control also. Several decks are just stone-cold to enchantments, so post-board my plan is "jam all of the enchantments". Basically, any deck trying to grind is going to auto-lose to a 1/1 Flying Faerie every turn. They carry equipment well, and they allow you to hold your creatures in hand while you continue to flood the board with flyers. Against Jeskai and UW, forcing them to use real cards on tokens will put you very far ahead.

I put it in the slot where most people have some flex slots. The list I played at SCG Indy: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=118916

Ben Ragan (he Top 8ed that event) and I talked about the card at SCG Indy after we played, it performed really well for him as well; my main point of contention is that a hand of mana + [sideboard card] should be all you need to see in order to convince you to keep that hand. That’s my personal opinion. I will keep any hand vs Dredge that has mana + Rest In Peace. I’ll keep any hand vs [insert deck] that has mana + [sideboard card for that deck], because my sideboard cards are specifically game-ending cards.

I didn’t lose a single game to Jeskai or Mardu pyromancer day 1, and three of those G2s were singlehandedly won on the back of an unanswered Bitterblossom.

Shapers sanctuary requires you to play your hand into spot removal to gain value. If your opponent just lets you build a board then wraths, you gain zero value, you’re down a card, and they can now pick your guys off only when they begin to threaten lethal — to hell with whatever random draw you may get.

With Bitterblossom, you know exactly what you’re getting. Every turn, you present 1 new threat. It can wear equipment very well, and it provides an avalanche of advantage if your opponent doesn’t answer it quickly.

This isn’t to say sanctuary is bad; if you go back a couple pages, I played two in my board for a few events. I’ve just found that Bitterblossom gains me more “oops I win” factor than the Sanctuary. I’m considering a split in the future if Jace and BBE make an impactful shift to the meta.

Kodie, can you explain to me your reasoning for RIP over a card like Grafdiggers? Also, what is Rule of Law for, when do you bring that in?

When your hate card is an artifact, and your opponent is going to bring in artifact hate, you are going to have a bad time.

RIP is also good against Goyf, which helps against Abzan (gets rid of Souls, Goyf, and other aspects of the deck)

As for Rule of Law, it typically comes in against Storm and Living end. Again, those decks bring in artifact/creature hate usually so running Canonist or Eidolon of Rhetoric is worse than just slamming a rule of law. I personally don’t run it, but when storm was popular I did.

Right, but RIP turns off our ravagers, which are huge cards in our deck. It also costs colored mana, takes up a two-drop spot, and doesn't pump platings or count towards metalcraft or pump a ravager. I think that Grafdiggers hits more decks than RIP too...Is my thinking just way off here?

Ironically, decks that you bring in RIP against (Mardu, Abzan) Ravager is bad against so oftentimes you take them out.

Dredge, Grishoalbrand and Storm are an issue that you keep in Ravager’s with RIP, but Dredge and Storm are such bad matchups that it’s fine to slow you down if you completely turn them off.

Having Synergy =/= a Good card. If you are only winning because of a Grafdiggers Cage against Lingering Souls decks, and they Ancient Grudge you, did the 1 extra damage for Plating really matter now that you can’t attack through souls? And if you are siding out Ravagers in some matchups does it really matter that you are taking up a 2 slot?

At the end of the day, RIP hoses decks harder than Cage does. You can absolutely run 1/1, and that’s fine. Do what you think is best. Sideboarding isn’t an exact science it’s a fluid art. So run 1/1. Or run 0/2 or 2/0.

Fair enough I suppose. I have plans to get some bitterblossoms in my sideboard soon, that card does seem like a house for sure against control decks, and with Jace coming into play, I'm sure there will be an uptick in control.

Quote from DXI-Edge »

Ironically, decks that you bring in RIP against (Mardu, Abzan) Ravager is bad against so oftentimes you take them out.

Dredge, Grishoalbrand and Storm are an issue that you keep in Ravager’s with RIP, but Dredge and Storm are such bad matchups that it’s fine to slow you down if you completely turn them off.

Having Synergy =/= a Good card. If you are only winning because of a Grafdiggers Cage against Lingering Souls decks, and they Ancient Grudge you, did the 1 extra damage for Plating really matter now that you can’t attack through souls? And if you are siding out Ravagers in some matchups does it really matter that you are taking up a 2 slot?

At the end of the day, RIP hoses decks harder than Cage does. You can absolutely run 1/1, and that’s fine. Do what you think is best. Sideboarding isn’t an exact science it’s a fluid art. So run 1/1. Or run 0/2 or 2/0.

He hit the nail on the head in both replies. I play Rest In Peace because worst case scenario, they have an immediate answer for it, but I still wiped their GY. Rest In Peace is also relevant vs Living End whereas Cage is relevant vs Coco and Nahiri decks, personally I’d rather hate the decks who absolutely lose to my hate than hate the decks who pack in 6+ ways to deal with artifacts.

I always side out at least 1 ravager vs the decks I want RiP, however I disagree that you don’t want Ravager vs Mardu. I still side 1 out because of RiP, but ravager starts blanking their removal and once you can make a ravager bigger than 3/3 you’re pretty much in the red zone, because they’ll only have hard kills for it and then you can make something else bigger yada yada. I beat my round 13/14 (can’t remember) Mardu opponent with a 6/6 ravager and a RiP in play, he couldn’t do anything except chump block with an elemental every turn while I got in for 2-3 chip damage a turn with my Blinkmoth. RiP shutting off Reveler, souls, faithless, and Kommand -> regrow Pyromancer is a serious thing.

Decks you want grave hate against, you typically win if you resolve RiP. You could play a deck full of vanilla 1/1s and still beat them as long as it’s on the field.

Re: colored mana

I know a lot of people shy away from playing too many colored mana spells, but we play 13 colored sources (12 rainbow). Assuming we are on the draw game 2, that means we are 90% to hit colored mana by t2. We’re 88.7% to hit one of the 12 rainbow. That’s as many colored sources as most tri-color decks (I aim for 12 sources each in most of my decks). We are fine on colored mana.

Anyone know of any recent articles for Affinity that I could read? I'm getting back into Affinity and wanted to read back up on it. Any help would be greatly appreciated

CTony,

It might be shameless self-promotion, but I have a hundred or so matches of Affinity up on Youtube if you'd like to take a look. I've heard other people find them useful, so you might too.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Zyrnak/playlists

Quote from zyrnak »

CTony,

It might be shameless self-promotion, but I have a hundred or so matches of Affinity up on Youtube if you'd like to take a look. I've heard other people find them useful, so you might too.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Zyrnak/playlists

How do you feel about Affinity in the new meta?

I've read in articles that it seemingly would have a tougher time, but I'm curious about in practice. I played in a 1K with Bogles and lost to an opponent who either tried to cheat me 4 times or made 4 similar mistakes and missed the top 8 while a friend with Affinity 3-0-2ed into the top 8 and split (I wouldn't have done so) $140 cash. He also is a somewhat newer player, but definitely eager to learn.