2011)

Welcome back to Breaking into Legacy. In case you are new, this series is all about the deck options out there for those looking to start playing Legacy (or start doing better) without going broke. Last time we looked at Burn and this time we will check out the artifact creature strategy: Affinity. Today’s list comes courtesy of Dominik Chlorowski who was able to win a “grinder” and then make day two of Grand Prix Providence with his army of little robots:

Affinity

Land (12)
4 Ancient Den
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers

Creatures (27)
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Disciple of the Vault
3 Etched Champion
4 Frogmite
2 Memnite
2 Myr Enforcer
4 Ornithopter
4 Signal Pest

Other Spells (14)
4 Cranial Plating
4 Dispatch
4 Mox Opal
4 Springleaf Drum
1 Thopter Foundry
4 Thoughtcast

Sideboard
4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Pithing Needle
1 Sword of the Meek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Tormod's Crypt

General Explanation
So this is one of the cheapest competitive decks in Legacy. The only cards costing 10 dollars or more in the entire deck and sideboard are the 4 Mox Opals (16.99 on Cardshark), 4 Arcbound Ravager (14.44) and 2 Thoughtseize (17.35) Furthermore, there are only eleven other rares needed and none are more than two dollars. Everything else is literally commons or cheap uncommons. So how does a deck this cheap compete with $1000 monsters? Affinity has arguably the most synergy of any deck in Magic’s history. Since almost all of the cards in the deck are artifacts (including its lands), some of its creatures (Frogmite and Myr Enforcer) and its powerful blue card draw spell (Thoughtcast) are able to be played for free or one mana. Similarly, cards such as Arcbound Ravager and Cranial Plating are able to create very large threats quickly simply by playing permanents. Think about it like this, imagine an aggressive deck like elves except every land also reduced the cost of its creatures and/or gave all its creatures plus one power and toughness. Let’s take a minute and break the deck down into threats and support and you’ll see what I mean.

Threats
Frogmite may only be a two power creature, but when it is played on the first turn for no mana it still has to be respected. Similiarly, Myr Enforcer’s 4/4 body shows up on turn two, before many decks are prepared to deal with a threat that size. Etched Champion may only have two power for three mana, but his metalcraft ability makes him next to impossible for most decks to kill. Signal Pest may have no power by himself, but he pumps all your other creatures while being essentially unblock able. Cranial Plating is one of the most powerful equipments of all time since it routinely gives creatures (hopefully the last two unblockable ones mentioned or the flying Ornithopter) an additional seven or more power and can be equipped at instant speed. The two most powerful cards in the deck though, are probably Arcbound Ravager (which can convert all of your permanents into +1/+1 counters for itself or another creature) and Disciple of the Vault (which can make an opponent lose one life whenever any artifact is put into any graveyard). These two really put the deck over the top since they force an opponent to have multiple removal spells but also punish them for fighting back because the disciple “pings” them each time they are able to successfully destroy one of affinity’s artifacts. Of course, if Ravager and Disciple are left unopposed, they will simply “combo” out by making one very large creature and sending eight or nine points of life loss at an unprepared foe as early as turn three.

Support
The artifact lands are the heart of what makes the deck tick since they tap for mana while upping the count of artifacts for all its tricks. Mox Opal and Springleaf Drum serves a similar role while helping with the casting requirements of the few colored spells in the deck. Ornithopter and Memnite fuel the fast starts of multiple Frogmites and/or Enforcers by coming down for free themselves. Thoughtcast allows the deck to reload with two cards for the ludicrous low cost of one blue mana. Dispatch is present in this decklist (a choice I disagree with and will discuss momentarily) as a way to remove blockers or other troublesome hate cards like Kataki, War’s Wage that are hostile to Affinity. Thopter Foundry serves as another way to trigger Disciple of the Vault and to help with opposing removal spells.

The Sideboard is aimed primarily at dealing with other combo decks that can actually try to race affinity’s speed. Ethersworn Canonist slows down decks aiming to play a flurry of spells to generate one game ending combination like Ad Nauseum - Tendrils of Agony decks or the current big combo deck, Hive Mind, whose main game plan revolves around the three card chain of Show and Tell, Hive Mind and any of its Pact cards. Pithing Needle has broad applications, but stopping Aether Vial, equipment, and Goblin Charbelcher are some of its more common uses. Tormod’s Crypt slows down Dredge and other graveyard based strategies and Thoughtseize provides a little bit of disruption or proactive removal of hate cards opponents may side in for games two and three. Sword of the Meek is present in this particular list as a two card combo with Thopter Foundry that provides late game inevitability, but since it does not do much on its own and there is only one copy of each piece, I would not recommend it.

Overall Criticism of this Decklist
So, as I mentioned previously, there are a couple things I find odd about this particular list. I chose it because it is very recent and more budget friendly than the version that runs four expensive Tezzerets. However, a few changes could make it more efficient at accomplishing its goal of explosive starts with the potential of combo finishes through Disciple. Four Memnites (not just two as this list plays) seems like an obvious improvement since it is both a good support card and also is able to attack as well. Affinity needs a critical mass of artifacts to function and eight or at most ten non artifacts seems to be the limit of how much deviation is possible. Thoughtcast and Disciple are both essential for this particular brand of affinity. I would recommend cutting the Dispatches for Master of Etheriums since they fill a similar purpose (allowing affinity to ignore an opposing creature) while Master helps with the artifact count and is a game ending threat by itself. I acknowledge that Affinity can only play so many spells that aren’t free or close to it. One Etched Champion can easily be cut as it is a “late” game card for affinity that is only useful for breaking through blockers. I would argue that Disciple does that anyways, but conventional wisdom does seem to indicate that one or two Etched Champions are in fact optimal. Lastly, one copy of a spell (Thopter Foundry) that does not act as a redundant fifth copy of another and cannot be tutored for just does not make sense. So essentially, I am recommending the following:

+ 4 Master of Etherium
+ 2 Memnite
- 4 Dispatch
- 1 Thopter Foundry
- 1 Etched Champion

For the Sideboard I would only tweak for consistency to
+1 Thoughtseize
- 1 Sword of the Meek

Wrap Up
So that is the deck. It is blazingly quick and has had some recent success against its more expensive counterparts. Yes, this deck like the other Budget options covered earlier can have trouble if opponents bring an excessive amount of sideboard hate, but the same is true for most of the expensive options as well. The wonderful thing about Legacy is that the format is so broad with so many viable decks that the fifteen cards available to sideboard cannot possibly prepare a deck for all the strategies they will face. Embrace this wide open opportunity and give one of these decks a chance. Sure one week may be rough, but keep playing and as the metagame shifts, one week, one tournament will be your turn to shine. Good luck everyone!

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