Hi, for those of you who aren’t familiar with me, let me introduce myself...

I’m Andrew Jagger, although most people who know me in the U.K Magic community call me Jag (although some people use less desirable words to describe me). I hail from Worksop, Nottinghamshire, and have been playing Magic for around fifteen years starting with Revised, one of the last two players from my town who is still actively playing. I play paper formats in Sheffield, with the odd foray into Lincoln and Nottingham, and go under the alias of Jadesnake4 on MODO, where you will often find me drafting 2/2 bears in any limited format because hitting people with little guys is the only strategy I have any success with (and yes, I will be drafting me some Glory Seeker’s when I do my first Rise of the Eldrazi draft, bring on the walls!)

I don’t have a good reputation as a great player in Magic (despite my best efforts), but I am known for writing articles on several websites and giving Neil Rigby a free win at last year’s Nationals after my draft deck ‘disappeared’ when I left it on the table to get some basic lands (that even made the official event coverage, sort of). I’m also known for loving aggro decks, and hating Lifegain with as much passion as Mark Pinder loves it. One annoyed MTGO player even dubbed me the ‘Jackal Familiar’ of Magic after I bashed him to death with multi-copies in an M10 draft I won using Mono-red.

Recently, MTGO has started to have queues for one of the fastest growing formats in Magic, Legacy. I took this as an ample opportunity to play an update one of my favourite (and one time one of the most extremely broken) ever decks, Affinity.

I’ll not bore you with more mindless waffle for now, here’s the deck list that I’ve been playing with:

For those of you who are new to Magic or lived under a very large rock during the early last decade, Affinity has the ability to get blisteringly fast starts from in some cases as early as turn one and has the capability to goldfish kill consistently around turn four to five. This is due to some spells having reduced costs due to the Affinity mechanic (Frogmite can often be cast for zero on turn two) and a number of intricate little combo’s (i.e. Disciple of the Vault and Arcbound Ravager). Cranial Plating can turn even humble Ornithopter into an 8/2 flying monstrosity with ease!

By the way, If you think that Jund is broken in standard, you should have seen how Affinity ruined the standard format back then that it caused thousands of players to quit the game, although this exodus did happen around the time Champions of Kamigawa came out, which was just plain rubbish.

The advantage of playing Affinity is that it is one of the cheapest decks in the format, with Ravagers being the most expensive online for this deck at currently 4.5 tix, and a bulk of the cards needed just being common, it’s not a hard deck to play and it is very easy to learn how to play correctly with it after a few games.

The disadvantage of the deck is that it is pretty easy to hate out, Path to Exile against you is a one shot removal with no drawback and the deck just dies to Zoo as it cannot compete with their creatures. Sometimes this deck can get some very weak starts reliant on drawing a Thoughtcast to power out threats.

A quick word on taking mulligans with this deck needs mentioning here. Affinity is a deck where on occasion where you will have to take aggressive mulligans. It is often worth going down to five or six cards with this deck to get an optimum start, especially against combo decks. Affinity can reduce the pain of losing a card or two thanks to mechanic cutting the cost of certain cards like Frogmite and it’s worth taking the risk sometimes to get a quick start on an opponent.

Here are a few guidelines for playing this deck in Legacy:

* Where possible, always lead with a turn one Darksteel Citadel and/or Springleaf Drum if you have a one/zero drop, Wasteland is so common that leaving yourself open to being manascrewed isn’t a good idea.

* It’s generally a good idea to try and get as many threats on the table before you drop a Master or Cranial Plating, unless there is no other reasonably play.

* Play Thoughtcast as soon as possible, but NOT without at least one mana spare when playing against blue (Daze!).

* Use Fling or Shrapnel Blast either pro-actively or reactively depending on the match up, as blasting someone when they’re trying to Wasteland your Furnace or running low of life using ANT is always good...

Generally, I’ve found that Affinity is good against Enchantress, Merfolk, Dredge, Rock and some combo decks. It has a mixed match up with Mono Red, ANT, Goblins, Re-Animator and Counter-Top and isn’t so hot against Zoo, B/W Brew and Stax (The Sacrificing to the dreaded artifact hurts more than you think). The sideboard can be made better in my opinion but is generally pretty good against most decks in the format; there is always something that you can bring in. Engineered Plague is hilarious if you get it down early against Goblins!

When sideboarding, it generally not a good idea to bring too much in as too much can disrupt your own deck as much as your opponent could! Relic of Progenitus could be replaced by Tormod’s Crypt which would help speed up the Affinity count even more. Smother kills most of the creatures that you’ll see in this format in aggro to mid-range decks, which includes that omnipresent dreaded card everyone and their wallet fears, Tarmogoyf.

I am currently looking at versions of Affinity that include white in order to play Jotan Grunt instead of Master of Etherium, it is said that this version has a stronger game against Zoo with the Grunt’s ability to remove cards from the graveyard, which should nullify both Tarmogoyf and Grim Lavamancer, while also being good against Re-animator and of course, Dredge. One concern is stretching an already narrow mana-base, but it’s worth trying out.

Some other people have suggested that cutting a Glimmervoid for a basic land (probably an Island) in order to benefit for Path to Exile to some degree, but Glimmervoid can be crucial in helping casting the coloured spells at times.

That’s it for now, sorry the article is short compared to some others but I try to get straight to the point.

Regards,

Jag

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