Steelshaper's Gift always comes back... I know the theory says it is a good card, the problem is that it doesnt with what you want to do with this deck. Unless you are playing against a slow deck, you may have to loose an entire turn looking for a cranial and, maybe u are not even able to cast it in the same turn.
Nearly every affinity player tested that card, like tempered steel or even boros charm. Those are like the top 3 cards every affinity player have to test during their entire life. I can just recommend you to forget about that card at the moment.
If you want to test it, feel free. The card is really good, but thats something affinity doesnt want to play
None of those statements are valid. And, it shows you have never even tested the card. Lastly, SG is not TS or BC. I can dig in deeper, but test a card before completely cast it off.
Dude he says he tested it... most of us tested it... it does not work. All of his points are valid. Affinity is known for being much too fast for anything cute like that.
He did in the second post. And, I agree to disagree. This conversation will go nowhere. Just table the conversation.
Steelshaper's Gift always comes back... I know the theory says it is a good card, the problem is that it doesnt with what you want to do with this deck. Unless you are playing against a slow deck, you may have to loose an entire turn looking for a cranial and, maybe u are not even able to cast it in the same turn.
Nearly every affinity player tested that card, like tempered steel or even boros charm. Those are like the top 3 cards every affinity player have to test during their entire life. I can just recommend you to forget about that card at the moment.
If you want to test it, feel free. The card is really good, but thats something affinity doesnt want to play
None of those statements are valid. And, it shows you have never even tested the card. Lastly, SG is not TS or BC. I can dig in deeper, but test a card before completely cast it off.
Affinity wants to kill people, not tutor for cards. It would be turn four before Ancient Stirrings could get Cranial Plating AND allow it to be cast AND to be equipped. Affinity wants to be killing its opponent on turn-four.
Those cards could kill a turn and they require colored mana. Some colored mana spells are inevitable, but they need to considered carefully.
Those are some quick thoughts, someone more thoughtful than me might chime in.
Steelshaper's Gift comes up in the discussion now and again and it gets shouted down, but it wouldn't hurt much to try it though, would it?
Let me step in for a moment.
I ran Steelshaper's Gift in Robots before I retired the deck (2011-2015). It was the best thing I ever added to Robots. I asked myself, "Self, what closes games for Robots?" That answer is CP. There are other ways to close a game, but CP is the preferred way to go about it. Now, there was a strong argument that interaction was needed when twin and pod was around; however, they are gone leaving SG to rack up the body count. And, lets be real, you are not always going to draw CP before turn four. And, every turn past that you are loosing the advantage. SG solves that problem. The reason you don't see it is that people do not know, do not like change, or if it has not topped in large tournament that alone is proof that it is sub-par (a.k.a net deckers). But, those are my strong opinions. Bottom line, if you do not need interaction in most of your games you should be sporting three SGs.
Ah, I missed that power 1 requirement. I can see that being an issue, but is it really that major with a deck sporting 36 counting man lands? I don't like the bolt test as most everything in the game dies to it. Typically, low quality creature threat saturation is the way to go with spot removal and we do it better than most. And, flying is one of the best parts about the Copter as it is in sync one of robots main pillars - evasion.
What about support shaving?
I've noticed the support spells: Plating, Mox, Drum, Choice Card have remained strong at 16 slots. But, has anyone shaved the support spells down to 12? The know the reasoning to keep Mox and Drum at 4 each; however, do we ever really want to see more than one of each support spell? Why not shave each support spell down one? I would be curious how the data would look if crunched over a series of 25 to 50 games.
The winning deck was UW Eldrazi. How can Affinity beat this? Or anyone? Eldrazi Displacer can bounce our Ravagers, recur all of their ETB triggers, 3 Stony Silence and 2 Disenchant in the board, 4 path & 2 Dismember main as well as the token making Eldrazi. Maybe now is not the right time to be playing Affinity
All of the silly things like that are why I went back to 4 blasts main. Too many stupid utility creatures that just need to die.
I know UWR is a bad matchup, they just have so many good answers to our stuff. My buddy wasn't playing Electrolyze, but I think more than 2 copies of Stony Silence. He plays a Vandalblast and Wear/Tear among other cards for Affinity, he's pretty set on not losing to me. As good of a matchup as it is for UWR, he struggles against it for whatever reason. His list has Geists, Young Pyromancers, Snapcasters, and Restoration Angels, plus the Colonnades. I'm assuming he cuts Geists post-board, so with 8-12 creatures plus the Colonnades, I'm not sure it's worth playing Galvanic Blast. As much as I've gotten into situations where it would have been a great draw, that's more confirmation bias than anything, I think.
I had two Masters and two Etched Champions in the mainboard, with a third Etched Champion in the board. I only own two Masters so that's what I'm going with for the time being (I know Frank advocates for 4 copies). I also run Sea Gate Wreckage main over one of the Glimmervoids, which has been fine for me so far. It's not great in every matchup, but I find losing the coloured source doesn't hurt enough to make me want to use a sideboard slot on it. Some people at the PT ran it main, Frank ran it in his side. I may end up just adding the 4th Etched Champion somewhere, if I'm going to play against UWR fairly regularly, it doesn't seem like a horrible idea. The weekly events I play at tend to have some set from a group of 20 or so players, and UWR has been showing up regularly.
I took out Vault Skirges because I know Frank Karsten suggested it in his old guide, but then I guess he also suggested taking out Master against decks with Paths, which I evidently didn't do. His board only brought in 4 cards whereas I'm bringing in 7 or 8. He took out Vault Skirge, Galvanic Blast, Ornithopter, and Master, leaving in multiple copies of Master even. My thought process was that Vault Skirge is slow as far as a payoff card goes, but then it's also good in the face of Stony Silence, better than Ornithopter. I definitely didn't think hard enough about the fact that I wanted to play a grindy game with Aether Grid, thinking that I wanted to keep most of the fast cards in. I guess if I'm bringing in 8 cards, I probably board out 2 Galvanic Blast, 2 Ornithopter, 2 Vault Skirge, and 2 Masters. We'll see what Frank says about the deck/matchup after his new deck guide. Probably won't be 100% relevant though, since his list is aimed at beating Eldrazi whereas my local events tend not to share the overall metagame amounts of Eldrazi.
I dislike the idea of cutting Overseer because I'm scared of Stony Silence alone. I think the Overseer has very high upside compared to Vault Skirge, and the downside is very minimal. Assuming they can't block, they're both 1/1s, just that Overseer costs more to cast. But especially if I'm bringing in my Stony Silence answer, I don't care as much about being slightly slower when I'm aiming to slow the game down myself.
You are trying to beat a deck that was designed to control us specifically. UWR IMO is unbeatable; however, if you want to hedge your bets you need to change a whole lot up. You want 3x MoE, 3x EC, 3x AR, 3x Spellskite and 4x Ensoul Artifact over CP followed by 2x Duress and 2x Stubborn Denial to stop Stoney Silence. Even with all these changes you just increased your odds of winning, but not by a whole lot.
I'm building Affinity and I'm wondering (sorry if it's a stupid question) why all recent lists play 2x Spellskite in the maindeck? When I look back most lists run it in the sideboard (maybe 1 copy in the main but not 2).
No major winning affinity deck has to my recollection, but I ran three with great success before I retired Affinity.
The winner of GP Singapore ran 2x spellskitw mainboard if i'm not mistaken.
I followed the same deck list pre-eldrazis n it was quite good. I removed 1x SO for the 17th land though. Went 3-0 a few times on modern nights..
Spellskite makes opponents eyes bug out with a "you run that in the main board?!" He improved my match percentages over a very diverse meta and added to the evasion theme robots typically win by - enough said. I found three to be right for me as I only want to see one a game to included EC, AR, and SO. Plus, it freed up SB slots. I also used Steelshaper's Gift to increase threat density over gas from Thoughtcast, which improved my win rate considerably. However, most people simply abhor that idea which I cannot explain for the life of me. Good luck.
I'm building Affinity and I'm wondering (sorry if it's a stupid question) why all recent lists play 2x Spellskite in the maindeck? When I look back most lists run it in the sideboard (maybe 1 copy in the main but not 2).
No major winning affinity deck has to my recollection, but I ran three with great success before I retired Affinity.
I've been back to the primer, but it doesn't look particularly up to date.
Could anyone tell me briefly what the good / bad match-ups are for affinity. I'm considering what decks I want to build, and this is 1 that I'm thinking about!
Good: Anything without MD board wipes or heavy field removal.
Bad: Anything with MD board wipes or heavy field removal. Enemy #1 is UWR Control; however, that deck isn't played as much any more.
Robots can be made to do most anything as it has several win vectors and is surprisingly resilient, but it suffers from inconsistencies and our creatures are very thin skinned.
I've been playing around with Tempered Steel's myself and using builds with 4 Masters with 3 Overseers. With so much spot removal running around, making memnites, ornithopters, signal pests and manlands into legitimate threats has been pretty solid. There are so many times I'm left with 1 or 2 mediocre or worthless threats on the board in games 2/3 because of all the hate. Tempered Steel would make those fliers into legit problems for our opponents to handle. A lot of people are posting in the forum that affinity has recently / needs to evolve into a style of deck that wins the war of attrition over pure speed. Hence the insertion of spellskites main deck. If that's true, adding synergistic cards to make smaller threats larger and more of an issue for the opponents to deal with seems like an option worth pursuing. I'll post some match results as soon as I can.
I have always like Tempered Steel but pulling off the double white and it being a non artifact spell hurt more than helped. With the basic shell you can add MoE, Chief of the Foundry, Steel Overseer, and Ensoul Artifact to accomplish your plan without having to use Tempered Steel.
CREATURES:
- Overseer
- Arcbound Ravager
+ Glint Hawk Idol
+ Glint Hawk
+ Hope of Ghirapur (Uses the Flex Slot)
SUPPORT:
- Springleaf Drum
+ Steelshaper’s Gift
RESOURCES:
- Inkmoth Nexus
+ Plains
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He did in the second post. And, I agree to disagree. This conversation will go nowhere. Just table the conversation.
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None of those statements are valid. And, it shows you have never even tested the card. Lastly, SG is not TS or BC. I can dig in deeper, but test a card before completely cast it off.
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Let me step in for a moment.
I ran Steelshaper's Gift in Robots before I retired the deck (2011-2015). It was the best thing I ever added to Robots. I asked myself, "Self, what closes games for Robots?" That answer is CP. There are other ways to close a game, but CP is the preferred way to go about it. Now, there was a strong argument that interaction was needed when twin and pod was around; however, they are gone leaving SG to rack up the body count. And, lets be real, you are not always going to draw CP before turn four. And, every turn past that you are loosing the advantage. SG solves that problem. The reason you don't see it is that people do not know, do not like change, or if it has not topped in large tournament that alone is proof that it is sub-par (a.k.a net deckers). But, those are my strong opinions. Bottom line, if you do not need interaction in most of your games you should be sporting three SGs.
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What about support shaving?
I've noticed the support spells: Plating, Mox, Drum, Choice Card have remained strong at 16 slots. But, has anyone shaved the support spells down to 12? The know the reasoning to keep Mox and Drum at 4 each; however, do we ever really want to see more than one of each support spell? Why not shave each support spell down one? I would be curious how the data would look if crunched over a series of 25 to 50 games.
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And, if so, what was your evaluation of it?
Thanks.
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Use forked bolt then.
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You are trying to beat a deck that was designed to control us specifically. UWR IMO is unbeatable; however, if you want to hedge your bets you need to change a whole lot up. You want 3x MoE, 3x EC, 3x AR, 3x Spellskite and 4x Ensoul Artifact over CP followed by 2x Duress and 2x Stubborn Denial to stop Stoney Silence. Even with all these changes you just increased your odds of winning, but not by a whole lot.
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Spellskite makes opponents eyes bug out with a "you run that in the main board?!" He improved my match percentages over a very diverse meta and added to the evasion theme robots typically win by - enough said. I found three to be right for me as I only want to see one a game to included EC, AR, and SO. Plus, it freed up SB slots. I also used Steelshaper's Gift to increase threat density over gas from Thoughtcast, which improved my win rate considerably. However, most people simply abhor that idea which I cannot explain for the life of me. Good luck.
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No major winning affinity deck has to my recollection, but I ran three with great success before I retired Affinity.
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Good: Anything without MD board wipes or heavy field removal.
Bad: Anything with MD board wipes or heavy field removal. Enemy #1 is UWR Control; however, that deck isn't played as much any more.
Robots can be made to do most anything as it has several win vectors and is surprisingly resilient, but it suffers from inconsistencies and our creatures are very thin skinned.
YOUTUBE CHANNEL: GOBOTS
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I have always like Tempered Steel but pulling off the double white and it being a non artifact spell hurt more than helped. With the basic shell you can add MoE, Chief of the Foundry, Steel Overseer, and Ensoul Artifact to accomplish your plan without having to use Tempered Steel.
YOUTUBE CHANNEL: GOBOTS
YOUTUBE CHANNEL: GOBOTS