Hey, thanks for posting everybody! Yes i've been trying to dash black in there. What do you think I should take out? If i'm going black, what black cards should i go with, and how many of each? Duress, Cabal therapy, Yawgmoth's will, demonic tutor, and disciple of the vault have all been mentioned. Also, about the mana base, if i'm going black, should i take out the four Darksteel Citadels, and four islands, and stick in 4 polluted deltas, and 4 underground seas? As for this build being threat-light, I can get a decent threat (i.e. , ravager or a cranial plating+creature) out turn 2 about 80% of the time. While this deck's clock may seem a bit slow, it's still considerably faster than fish, while packing just as much disruption...

I've been using a new affinity deck and it's been doing great against many local players (10 proxies allowed here, so there's alotta "powered decks running around). I've decided to post this in the form of an article. Please give your opinions and suggestions!!!

A Post-Trinisphere look at Affinity
George Wallace

   After the release of Darksteel, Affinity dominated Standard and was also a top deck in Extended. However, it couldn’t seem to make the jump to Vintage. Why? With the plethora of broken artifacts available in Vintage, it seemed that Affinity would do even better in Vintage than in Standard and Extended. Well a combination of factors all contributed to making affinity unviable. First of all there was Trinisphere. It shut down all of the cheap artifacts affinity tried to play, and then proceeded to drop bigger threats via Mishra’s Workshop. Another factor was Null Rod. It effectively shut down all of Affinity’s artifact lands as well as it’s Moxen. Lastly, Affinity played literally no disruption and could not hope to consistently outrace combo decks. With so much going against it, Affinity managed only occasional Top 8 appearances, never becoming the monster that many thought it had the potential to become. One deck that did make the Top 8 looked like this:


Nicola Grimal, 3rd at Milan 28.03.2004

4 Arcbound Ravager
3 Arcbound Worker
1 Black Lotus
3 Defense Grid
4 Frogmite
3 Gensis Chamber
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Myr Enforcer
4 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
2 Talisman of Dominance
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Disciple of the Vault
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Thoughtcast
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister

4 City of Brass
2 Glimmervoid
4 Mishra's Workshop
3 Seat of the Synod
1 Tolarian Academy

This was a typical affinity build at the time. As you can see, it lacked disruption of any kind and ran no basic lands whatsoever. Today, this deck would roll over and die to any kind of combo. It needed disruption. Therefore, I revamped the deck to look like this:

New Age Affinity
George Wallace

4 Ornithopter
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Frogmite
4 Cranial Plating
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtcast
4 Stifle
2 Misdirection
1 Time Walk
4 Daze
1 Ancestral Recall

1 Tolarian Academy
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
4 Darksteel Citadel
9 Island

Sideboard:
4 Echoing Truth
4 Tormod’s Crypt
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Extract/Blue Elemental Blast/Metagamed (I used Extract to help against Oath)

The Mana:
As you can see the new mana-base is completely Wasteland proof (with the exception of a single Tolarian Academy). 9 Islands allow me to run Daze. They also help greatly in the Fish matchup (as Null Rod would shut down artifact lands). This deck has a total of 24 mana sources.

The Disruption:
This deck runs much of the more disruption as a Fish deck. It includes 2 Misdirections, 4 Force of Wills, 4 Stifles, and 4 Daze. 18 blue cards in this deck can support the 6 pitch counters. The Stifles are a metagame call. They help greatly against storm combo, and Control Slaver (Stifling Mindslaver). There are very few (if any) instances in which Stifle is dead. You can always find a fetchland, or a Strip Mine to Stifle. Worst case scenario, pitch it to Misdirection or Force of Will. 4 Dazes bring the free counter total up to 10. This disruption greatly improves the previously almost auto-loss match against any combo.

The Beats:
Ornithopter and Frogmite are in there because they are usually free, and Cranial Plating often lets them hit for 6 or 7. Arcbound Ravager and/or Cranial Plating can put opponents on a 3 to 4 turn clock. However, this is not as fast as previous Affinity builds, because of the slots set aside for disruption.

Matchup Analysis:
Before I begin, I would like to say that I playtested 50 games with each deck against a friend. Because playtesting is subject to player error, and many other factors, I decided to scrap the numbers and simply give the matchup a rating between 1 and 5, one being a terrible matchup, and 5 being a great matchup.

Oath:
Pre-Boarding: 4
Post-Boarding: 4
Keys: Use your disruption only to keep Oath off the board. You have 10 pitch counters and they have 8 at the very most, probably more like 5 or 6. With a big Arcbound Ravager, you can even race them after an Oath activation. After boarding, they bring in Pristine Angel. This hurts quite a bit, but if you have two or more creatures including an Arcbound Ravager, you can simply give all of the +1/+1 counters to the unblocked creature, which will hopefully be enough to finish them off. Also, you will have 4 Echoing Truth and 3 Extract to deal with Pristine Angel.
Boarding: +4 Echoing Truth, +3 Extract, -2 Misdirection, -4 Daze (the threat of Daze is just as good as the actual card), -1 Island (Taking out Dazes allow you to take out one Island)

Workshop Aggro/Stax
Pre-Boarding: 2
Post-Boarding: 3
Keys: You can generally fly over them with a big Ornithopter, or simply run them over with a big Arcbound Ravager. The games usually come down to whether or not they get a Goblin Welder active. Stifles serve as Time Walks in this matchup. After boarding, you get 4 Echoing Truths to delay Goblin Welders.
Boarding: +4 Echoing Truth, -4 Daze (again, the threat of Daze is better than Daze itself)

Storm Combo
Pre-Boarding: 4
Post-Boarding: 4
Keys: Your disruption is generally enough to give you a good game against them. Whatever you do, do not try to race them. The fastest goldfish you can hope for is maybe turns 3-4, far too slow against storm combo decks. After Boarding, they might bring in Rebuilds, or Hurkyl’s Recalls. Anticipate this and do not sacrifice everything to your Arcbound Ravager. After boarding, you bring in Chalice of the Void. Chalice for one knocks out Dark Rituals, Chromatic Spheres, Duresses (in some decks), among others. Chalice for zero knocks out many of their mana sources (SoLoMoxen, etc).
Boarding: +4 Chalice of the Void, -4 Ornithopter

Dragon Combo
Pre-Boarding: 2
Post-Boarding: 4
Keys: Your disruption will not be enough if they can get a Bazaar of Baghdad online. The only hope is to try to outrace them (pre-boarding) and hopefully counter a few of their reanimation spells (or Stifle the Worldgorger Dragon trigger). After boarding, you can bring in Echoing Truth and Tormod’s Crypt, which both help greatly in this matchup.
Boarding: +4 Tormod’s Crypt, +4 Echoing Truth, -4 Thoughtcast, -4 Ornithopter

Control Slaver
Pre-Boarding: 3
Post-Boarding: 3
Keys: This is similar to Stax in that it comes down to whether or not they have Goblin Welder. However, they now have more draw with which to find the Goblin Welder, and Mana Drain and Force of Will to resolve it. If you can Stifle a Mindslaver activation, it might allow you to steal a few games you had no business winning. After boarding, Echoing Truth buys you turns against Goblin Welders, while Tormod’s Crypt keeps it from welding in a fatal Mindslaver.
Boarding: +4 Echoing Truth, +4 Tormod’s Crypt, -4 Frogmite, -4 Thoughtcast (They’re just screaming DRAIN TARGET!)

Fish (U/W and U/R)
Pre-Boarding: 3
Post-Boarding: 4
Keys: Fish simply cannot deal with big creatures. Big Frogmites, Ornithopters, and Arcbound Ravagers can each go all the way (with some help from Cranial Plating). The key for them is to resolve a Null Rod before you can equip Cranial Plating and before you get an Arcbound Ravager down. However, because you run tons more acceleration than them, you will usually be able to get a big creature before Null Rod hits. Even then, with 9 basic Islands, you are still able to lay addition threats. Your disruption basically cancels out with their disruption (you run much of the same stuff). After boarding, Echoing Truths come in to take care of Null Rods.
Boarding: +4 Echoing Truth, -4 Stifle

Psychatog 2005
Pre-Boarding: 4
Post-Boarding: 4
Keys: Simply run them over, if Psychatog hits, attack only with Cranial Plating-ed creatures, or with big Arcbound Ravagers. Eventually hordes run them over (but the Engineered Explosives for 2 hurts). Neither deck boards so there is no change after boarding.


After all this testing, I’ve come to the conclusion that this new build of Affinity is a lot like Fish, with it’s disruption, only with bigger threats that can put it’s opponents on a reasonable clock, unlike Fish, whose main problem was not being able to finish the opponent off quickly enough. Null Rod is not as big of a problem as in previous builds because this build runs only 4 artifact lands. Being Wasteland-proof almost translates to 1 card a game card advantage (their Wastelands are dead) as most decks run a full complement of them.

Discuss!!!