Aaron and I were entranced with the idea of our deck Sacrificial Bam!… But a week later after sweating over what cards to play, we were no closer to a winning deck. We had refined the original concept several times, unearthed tech, but our playtesting showed that, like many aggro decks, we lost to control. Honestly? Control owned us. And realizing that a lot of control was going to be played, a few days before States we both shifted into control.
Through the course of this article, I’ll reveal to you what I consider to be the best Affinity build, show you how to play it, and reveal the theory behind it. It’s the Ancient Tomb and Mind Stone theory, which will be revealed to you inside. The important thing is that you learn to understand exactly why the Affinity deck is so robust, and once you do that, it will serve you in a proportionately greater fashion. You will be able to capitalize on the strengths of the deck – namely the fact that it essentially gets to play cards that aren’t even legal.
I asked my friend Tom Kelleher, who has so much confidence that we call it”Tomfidence” whether when he goes to a PTQ, he expects to Top 8. He said,”Of course, since I expect to win, I would necessarily have to Top 8 first.” And, not infrequently, he does. Three times, on the way to Maryland PTQs, Tom has stated that”since he was winning today, the rest of you must be along for the ride. Though I appreciate the company.” Twice, he won. So what effect does this ridiculous confidence have on your game, and how can you develop it?
No single deck’s”nuts draw” is more nuts, not even Goblins. You have the most flexible and adaptable mana base available, high powered creatures, card drawing, permission, direct damage, and blazing speed – all in the same deck. Whether you agree or disagree, I promise that after finishing this article, you will become a master of All Things Affinity.
Hi.
My name is Joe Gagliardi and I probably draft more than you. That’s really all I can say that is not misleading in any way about myself. I mean, sure, I had a money finish at a Team Pro Tour (Boston 2003), but I’ve really done nothing special in my years of gaming. However, I play Magic an awful lot, and I think I have a strong grasp on Mirrodin Drafting.
So what am I here to do? Hopefully after reading this, you’ll understand a bit more about the different archetypes in Mirrodin Draft, what cards are better in which archetypes, and why. Plus, I enjoy feedback and discussion, and I hope to inspire some of each. Today I’ll start with what can be a very tricky, but powerful archetype: R/W.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always wanted to get the behind the scenes of what happens before a Pro Tour and examine the contributing factors to both team and player success. Since I knew I was going to attend New Orleans well ahead of time, I figured I’d start chatting with various pros in the month leading up to the tournament, in order to see how their testing was progressing. I wanted to find out what decks they thought looked good (or bad) ahead of time, examine their predicted metagame, then look at what they ended up playing, and analyze what went right or wrong and contributed most strongly to their success.
Ken has bestowed upon me the honor of being the newest debater in the Dilemma series. I now have the ability to rip apart his draft pick orders in the public eye. Normally, I save this sort of thing for my friends and close companions, but I suppose the world should be granted this wonderful opportunity as well…. And I was shocked when I heard Ken’s original pick order of Leonin Den-Guard, Skyhunter Cub, and Arrest. I immediately proposed Arrest, Cub, Den-Guard if forced to choose only among those three – but I think that the Skyhunter Patrol is also better than the Den-Guard.
Mike is going to try and tell you about how great the Cub is. He is right – the Cub is fantastic, but the Guard edges it out in my mind for several reasons. If you are drafting these cards, you are hoping for the nuts Bonesplitter draw. In the nuts Bonesplitter draw Den-Guard is simply better. It is the same clock, only it gives you a 4/4 blocker while you are attacking for four. Not tapping to attack has been an underrated ability for years now. It is a form of implied card advantage, since in essence you get to use the same card twice.
After a dozen test games, I came to some preliminary conclusions which held true. Spoils of the Vault was amazing in a MaskNaught deck. Furthermore, in many ways, a budget build of this deck gets some huge benefits against certain matchups. One of the more frustrating aspects of Type 1 tournament play is that the people who own power have the best chance at winning more power and thus expanding their collection. Well, this deck gives all you budget players an excellent shot at those prizes, too.
As many of you no doubt know, as both editor and webmaster I’ve been nearly overwhelmed by workload, working regular sixty-hour weeks in an attempt to keep up with the flow of articles and technical issues. Thankfully, Pete decided to hire an extra person for the job as managing editor in order to handle the day-to-day articles while I took on more wide-scale tasks. And that managing editor is….
My first two Mirrodin drafts took place at the top table after going 7-1 on Day One at Grand Prix: Kansas City. I made a lot of mistakes in those drafts, but I also learned a lot in the process. I just scratched my way up the steep part of the learning curve, so the path is still fresh in my mind. Those of you who are more advanced will be able to get a little out of this article – but it’s really intended for the players who are still trying to figure this draft format out.
What sold me on the deck eventually was my theory on Type 1: The deck that can do the most broken things wins most. I figured that the same must hold true for Type 2! So for the next day or so, I thought a bit about the deck and what I’d do with it and the sideboard (which turned out to be so-so) and how to make Affinity even more broken.
Every year after States, I like to review the top decks and see what new cards have made the biggest impact. In years past, this has been my”See, I told you [Set X] didn’t suck as much as you thought it did” effort to shut up the naysayers that crop up after each release – only this time, most people seemed to really like Mirrodin. So while I’m not really trying to make a big point this year, it’s still fun to see what’s working from Mirrodin. So what are the best Constructed cards to emerge from the artifact set?
Getting a 4-3-1 record isn’t exactly a badge of pride…Unless you’re playing with a deck built as a joke.* My roommate had the idea of using a Daru Spiritualist, targeting it with some of the en-Kor gang, and making lots of clerics that were very hard to kill. As it turns out, en-Kors weren’t legal, but Lightning Greaves was, and we could routinely get a trillion life by turn 4.
As I’m sure all or most of you are aware, www.MagicTheGathering.com is once again allowing we, the Magic players, to design a Magic card of our very own! What we’ve got so far looks really good; all we’re missing is a flavor text. And as anyone who’s looked in on my”The Real Story Behind…” series knows… I’m a big fan of flavor texts!
