New Affinity Deck in Vintage!!!

[Mr Hairy 2005]

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!!!

[Necrologia]

How much would it hurt this deck to splash black for Will, tutors and maybe some Duresses? If nothing else it allows the deck to use plating as an excellent combat trick, and Will is simply retaded in a deck running Ravager. Duresses also seem to be much less conditional than say Stifles in a lot of matchups. Stifles have simply never worked for me. It seems like it'd be a great card, but combo will usually duress it out of your hand, and they get stuck in your hand far more often than you'd think.

The matchup analysis seems a little biased (out-countering Oath?) but this seems like a really interesting build.

[Hatt0ri Hanz0]

I think this is Deffinatly something that people have never been able to truly belive (the idea that such an inherntly powerful and dominating deck in standard and its appearance in Extended would not find a place in T1).

The premise of the build is remnicent of a Metagamed extended version of affinity, that in the presence of notable artifact destruction opted to run affinity with somber hovergaurd and meddeling mage rendering hate useless.

The idea of a more controling Affinity sounds intresting, but even with cranial plating and moxes its doesnt seem capable of a fast enough clock while offering enough the same disruption/protection that a more control oriented deck like slaver/tog is capable of.

Disruption in the form of Duress/Cabal Therapy seems like it could also be a viable option, while providing more Aggresive MD options and overall more brokeness. For this deck i think that the presence of 4 stifles as well as the Mis-D's might be supurflous, and with less nonbasic hate, a splash for black seems nessisary: Y.Will, Dtutor, Duress ect.

[Matt]

AEther Spellbomb would seem to be superior to Echoing Truth.

[kirdape3]

If you splash black and the absolute first card you splash for isn't Disciple of the Vault, you need to be shot in the head.  Repeatedly.

This seems really threat-light.  You only have 12 creatures, four of which attack for precisely 0 damage and four others are only 2/2s.  Arcbound Ravager is pretty silly, but how often do you have a draw that's literally just a bunch of Platings, counters, and nothing to do?

I'm really not convinced at all in the viability of this version of this deck.  There exist Ravager decks in this format that kill turn 2 with an alarming probability - why bother slowing that down?

[SecondDeath]

im with kird ape on this one.  theres a reason a big whack of these cards got banned from standard, and the little 1/1 that could is a big part of it.  uses invovle killing opponent faster, or to jus tkilling them period agaisnt when a spell like bargain or doomsday resolves.

[Mr Hairy 2005]

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...

[Matt]

I've tried a very similar deck for awhile now:

//Jan. 24th, 2005
// Threats - 16
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Somber Hoverguard
4 Frogmite
4 Cranial Plating

// Draw & Tutors - 11
4 Thoughtcast
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk

// Control - 8
4 Force of Will
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Cursed Totem

// Mana - 25
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald

4 Seat of the Synod
2 Vault of Whispers
1 Great Furnace

3 Glimmervoid
2 City of Brass
1 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy

2 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

// SB - 15
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 4 Pyrostatic Pillar
SB: 2 Arcane Laboratory
SB: 1 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Cursed Totem
SB: 3 AEther Spellbomb

I wasn't so much worried about Waste-Crucible as I was making my manabase Rod-proof. And I did that, and even managed to fit in 4 FoW and a total of 18 blue cards. Plus a couple Wastes for additional disruption.

Chalice was really, really good, because you can set it to X=1 "blindly" on turn one and it leaves almost the whole deck untouched, while severely disrupting most vintage decks. Cursed Totem is generally good against a lot of stuff, including Psychatog, Goblin Welder, and Ambassdor Laquatus. Not to mention Triskelion and Gorilla Shaman. Obviously if you're going with Ravagers, Totem isn't an option, but if you're expecting Tog and CS you could do worse - it's one of the few cards good against both.

I thought about fitting Daze in but I never got around to trying such a build.

I found that the deck, for all the wonderful elements I added, just did not have what it takes to compete against combo. No amount of SB hate seemed sufficient. I played this deck in three in-team tournaments, each time adding more combo hate, but it was never enough. You might think that 4 Chalice, 4 FoW, 3 Waste, plus a decent clock is a good bet, but it never turned out that way. Even a few turns was always too slow, they'd find a way out.

[cardiffgiant]

Ravager/Affinity really feels like a deck begging for a transformational sideboard. Pre-SB standard aggro. Post-SB combo hosing.

The good Ravager decks I've played against are as fast as Sligh or ArtiFat and seem more resilient. It's seems the get a lot of god hands.

FWIW, I think the starting point should include:
Mishra's Workshop
Ravager
Frogmite
My Enforcer
Skullclamp
Disciple of the Vault
Jewelry
Some combination of Myr Retriever, Myr Moonvessel, Archbound Worker
Glimpse of Nature
Demonic Tutor
Yawgwill
Cabal Therapy (this gives you another outlet for activating Skullclamp)
Bounce or Naturalize (Platinum Angel, Null Rod, etc)

SB includes:
white disciple (lifegain is good against TPS and Belcher)
Tormod's Crypt
Duress
Stifle or Bind
Tsabo's Web

[andrewpate]

A guy was running U/B Affinity in a side event at PT: Atlanta (he made finals, but I had to leave before I saw who won).  He had piles of card draw including several Draw 7s and 4 of Thoughtcast.  He also had Dark Ritual and Tendrils of Agony.  Basically, the idea was to just keep drawing cards and playing spells until either you got enough artifacts to kill with Disciple (usually with 2 or 3 in play at a time) or got enough spells to kill with Tendrils.  It seems really good to tutor for Tolarian Academy to make a huge pile of blue mana so you can play a couple of Thoughtcasts, play Timetwister, cast a couple of more Thoughtcasts, cast Yawgmoth's Will, replay your Thoughtcasts... this deck basically gets to play 4 of a mini-Ancestral Recall at 2 cards for 1 mana (by the time you are going off on turn 2 or 3 you will almost always have 4 artifacts).

What this build of the deck has going, for me, over other combos is the ability to recover from Stifle on a Tendrils, a countered Draw 7, etc. in a way much more difficult in other combos.  Occasionally (esp. against combo), you can even sack a few artifacts for Disciple damage and then swing for the rest with the Ravager.

What do you think the control version has going for it over this or other more traditional versions of Vintage Affinity?  For me, the combo build has over the control:

Faster clock
Ability to get downright abusive with tutors (esp. Tinker)
More paths to victory
Ability to change plans suddenly
Ability (through Tendrils and sacking) to actually execute two individually lethal combos in a single turn

I see that the control build is a bit more resilient to disruption.  Furthermore, it packs significantly more disruption of its own.  But to quote something JP said a long time ago, "Winning is so the best answer in Magic."  In other words, if I can use the same engine to win right now, why would I want to win by beating with 2/2s?  I could build a Stax deck with Draw 7s and fast mana that would put down a bunch of lock parts and make it virtually impossible for the opponent to win.  It would be vulnerable to the same hate that kills combo while getting a more effective lock much faster than a normal Stax deck.  But the question would arise, "Why do I want a deck that loses to Arcane Laboratory AND Energy Flux?"  Your deck begs the same.  Null Rod gives both builds fits, but your deck loses to anything that is designed to kill beatdown decks, as well.  Combine that with the fact that the combo version will probably have Hurkyls Recall as a Storm accelerant in the maindeck anyway (which answers Null Rod), and I just don't get why I would want basic Islands and Cranial Platings.

[Matt]

Yes, Tolarian Academy is one o the very best tutor targets for Affinity. That alone was one of the primary reason I went with black as my second color, for Demonic->Tolarian.

[Pizzatog]

Try some arcbound crushers!! when using workshops and jewelry they get crazy very very fast, and those extra counters bouncing around do beautiful things....

Some time ago there was a very nice deck here  which I still like, brown aggro:

Arcbound crushers, genesis chambers, skullclamp and platings (and ornithopters of course).... add to that a crucible wasteland strip mine lock. That deck had no use for ravagers. Im sure if you look up that old thread, youll get some great ideas for this deck (I think the discussion on it went on for like 8+ pages.)

[xrobx]

hmmm...

IF it were viable to run, say, glimpse of nature, would it not then be an auto-include to run crop rotation?? It's an instant tutor-academy...seems decent..

[andrewpate]

Try some arcbound crushers!! when using workshops and jewelry they get crazy very very fast, and those extra counters bouncing around do beautiful things....

Some time ago there was a very nice deck here  which I still like, brown aggro:

Arcbound crushers, genesis chambers, skullclamp and platings (and ornithopters of course).... add to that a crucible wasteland strip mine lock. That deck had no use for ravagers. Im sure if you look up that old thread, youll get some great ideas for this deck (I think the discussion on it went on for like 8+ pages.)

Please explain why I would pay twice the mana for a creature that doesn't work with artifacts that come out before it does and doesn't have synergy with Disciple of the Vault (not to mention sizeably less synergy with Yawgmoth's Will).  The only thing Arcbound Crusher has going for it over Arcbound Ravager is trample, which should hardly ever matter at all.  Also, the fastest Cranial Plating Affinity deck I've been able to put together only goldfishes on like turn 3 unless you run so many combo components that it begs the question, "Why am I playing a winning condition with summoning sickness when I could be using something much more reliable?"  It is possible that Crusher may be better in aggro Affinity, but I don't see any reason why I would play that over either version we've been discussing.

[J J P]

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

You forgot to mention that your deck lacks the draw Fish had. 4x Thoughtcast is slightly worse than 4x Standstill and 4x Curiosity

[Methuselahn]

AEther Spellbomb would seem to be superior to Echoing Truth.

After boarding, Echoing Truths come in to take care of Null Rods.

I'm guessing removing Null Rod is much more important here than the affinity that Spellbombs offer.

I was shocked to see 4 stifle + 2 Misdirection. What did your testing say of Mana Leak in those slots?