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I've been out of the magic scene for a while... Onslaught Block Constructed died after Grand Prix: Genova, where I only managed to get a 5-3 record. (Not that bad, considering that I was running U/W Control, and in six of the eight rounds I was paired against Goblin players... Those pesky red men!)

Then came Mirrodin. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't attend any prereleases, nor practice Mirrodin Limited at my local store. This, together with my poor limited experience, made me unable to write anything about magic for a while...

And then came States. Unfortunately, we don't have a Spanish substitute for them, but we had been tinkering with some ideas for Mirrodin Type 2, so we were very excited to see which decks would perform well in the States championships.

One of the decks some of the guys at Team Red Dragon had been testing (as well as everybody else, it seems,) was an Affinity-based deck. I disdained the initial builds of some of my teammates (which included, amongst others, things as Tooth of Chiss-Goria and Ornithopter) and was confident that U/W Control and MBC would be powerhouses. Anyway, I suggested to my Affinity loving friends cards such as Welding Jar or Bonesplitter (hey, it's a cheap artifact, it boosts Affinity... and 4/2 Frogmites seemed a good idea at the time), but my thoughts on the deck were that it was too irregular, and it would take some time to find a good build of it...

But now States is over, and Affinity has reached quite impressive results (head-to-head with U/W as a Tier 1 deck, and better than MBC, which was the"deck to beat" at the beginning of the Type 2 season). So I've taken a look at the winning/Top 8ing Affinity decks, and written an essay on what I've found. The effort has taken me quite a long time, and other people have already written about the deck (most notably Jim Ferraiolo and Geordie Tait), but I think this is the most extensive study of the archetype so far. So, without further ado, here are my conclusions after studying the forty-four Affinity decks that Top 8'd at States...

What Are The"Correct" Colors For An Affinity Deck?
Obviously, Blue is the base color for an Affinity deck. It has the best non-artifact Affinity spells (Thoughtcast, Assert Authority) and the deck's main finisher (Broodstar). Due to the similarities with madness that everybody found in Affinity, cheap counters (Mana Leak, Override) and card drawing (Thirst for Knowledge) fit perfectly into the deck's core. So, once it becomes clear that Blue is a must in every Affinity deck, which color (or colors) should we mix it with?

Well, Kai Budde himself wrote an article on the archetype, so what does he think?

Like me, most of the people took a look at Kai's article, and decided (in most cases) to build a Blue/Red Affinity deck. Those two colors were present in 77% of the Affinity Decks that made Top 8 at Champs, and 80% of the winning Affinity Decks.

(I have divided that Affinity decks I studied into two groups: The ones that won an event, and the ones that made Top 8 but didn't take the whole thing).

But why Red? If you take a look at Kai's build, Red is there mainly to provide Atog/Megatog as finishers. Of all the winning Affinity decks, though, only two played Atog (20%), and none carried its big brother. If we take a look at the rest of Affinity decks that Top 8'd at Champs, six of them (17.64%) were running Atog, and only one ran Megatog.

Does this mean Kai was wrong? Maybe. Both 'togs leave you in a very bad position against Wing Shards, and every deck with White in it is sure to pack some of those. Anyway, Kai says that his Affinity build was geared towards an Aggro environment - and maybe that's why most players, more afraid of MBC and W/U Control, chose not to run Atogs in their builds.

That leads us to the next question. If most decks were U/R, and just a few ran Atog/Megatog; why did they want Red for? The main red choices for Affinity deck were:

a) Pyrite Spellbomb (80% of winning decks running an average of 3.75 copies, 55% of Top 8 decks running an average of 3.78 copies)
b) Shrapnel Blast (30% winning decks ran an average of 3.33 copies; 26,47% of Top 8 decks ran an average of 2.77 copies)
c) Sideboarded Pyroclasm (90% of Winning decks carried an average of 3.44 copies, 73.52% of Top 8 decks had 3.28 of them). The main choice to deal with Goblins, and, to some extent, White Weenie.

The general problem that we face when trying to build an Affinity deck is that two colors are not enough. We want more artifact lands! Eight is far from enough, and this takes us to the next thing to consider when building an Affinity deck:

Sideboarding And The Third Color Dilemma
As I already said, an Affinity deck needs, at least, twelve artifact lands that serve as what I call"Affinity boosters" (more on this later). This leaves us with three colors to build our deck upon. This same"rule" was followed in 80% of the winning Affinity decks, as in 61.76% of the rest that made Top 8. The last ones were running more than twelve artifact lands, but never less. As the core of the deck is made of artifacts, one would feel tempted to pack as many artifact lands as possible (to ramp up Affinity), but the key is to find the amount needed to be able to lay an artifact land most turns, and also have the right colored mana for our non-artifact spells. This quantity seems to be twelve.

So if we are supposed to build a three-color Affinity deck, how come most decks at Champs were just two color? They had a"sideboard splash."

Most States decks were like that. The main deck was U/R, and a third color was found in the sideboard. How can the mana base support three colors?

As you'll see in any Affinity build, Glimmervoid is everywhere. (90% of Winning decks, 3.77 copies; and 85.29% of the rest of Top 8 decks, 3.72 copies.) It's easy to see why, as the drawback is not likely to affect our deck (if you have no artifacts in play, the game is probably going very badly for you) and a painless City of Brass is always useful. Not to say that the"city of pain" wasn't used at all - it was present in 30% of the winning decks (2 copies average), and in 11.76% of the rest of the decks (2.5 copies).

The third way to help mana development is in the form of Talismans. 80% of the winning States decks ran four Talismans, and every Affinity deck to Top 8 at States had at least two of them (the average is 4.11, because quite a few decks had four or five different-colored ones) These"artifact pain lands" serve as mana acceleration, mana smoothing, and Affinity boosters, so I'd never consider less than four of these, usually U/X, where X should be our"sideboard splashed" third color.

Which was the third color of choice at States? It seems to be White. U/R decks splashing White in their sideboard comprise 40% of the winning decks, and 35% of the rest of them. The rest of color combinations are too spread to constitute a viable trend. Why run White? Mostly because it gives Affinity an answer to Akroma's Vengeance in Second Sunrise, and to Goblins/Scepter Burn decks in the form of Circle of Protection: Red. Second Sunrise was present in 40% of the winning decks (an average of 2.25 copies), while in the rest of the decks, 32.3% of them had an average 2.54 Second Sunrise.

As for Circle of Protection: Red, 40% of the winners had 2.75 copies each; and 35.29% of the rest of players had 3.08 Circles in their sideboards.

Surprisingly enough, Karma was not a very popular choice (only four players ran it), and Sacred Ground was used by some players in fear of Land Destruction decks, and as Akroma's Vengeance insurance.

Right after White, Black was the second most popular color, present in 20% of the winning decks, 35% of the ones that made Top 8. With cards such as Persecute or Dark Banishing, Black has some very interesting cards to help the control and mirror matches, so I wouldn't dismiss it at all.

After all this data, we know that an Affinity player's maindeck should contain:

• Affinity Cards
• Cheap Counters
• Card Drawing
• Twelve Artifact lands (at least)

We still have a lot of slots to fill. How should it be done?

First Things First: The Mana Base
We already have filled twelve spots for mana with artifact lands. Clearly, this is not enough. How many mana sources should we run in an Affinity deck? States decks had between twenty-one and twenty-four mana sources, including lands, Moxen, and other mana fixers (mostly Talismans, but sometimes Chromatic Sphere). The optimal build should allow us to lay a land almost every turn, and to be able to play every colored spell in our deck. The land configuration that seems better is:

• 12 Artifact Lands
• 4 Multicolored lands (Glimmervoid, City of Brass)
• 4 Chrome Mox
• 4 Talismans.

A total of twenty-four mana sources - twenty of which also serve as Affinity Boosters. The mana base is light, though, and sometimes four Moxen is too much due to the large quantity of artifacts in the deck, and the fact that sometimes we really need all the colored spells we have in our hand. But Affinity is an aggressive deck that will sometimes require an aggressive/risky mulligan policy. (Once more, I totally agree with Mr. Ferraiolo.) Moreover, we have to think that, once we get an optimal quantity of artifacts in play, mana will no longer be a problem... and that takes me to consider which artifacts we need in the deck.

Affinity Boosters. The Artifacts You Just Want To Have There
What are Affinity Boosters? I consider any Artifact that costs two mana or less in an Affinity deck to be one. This includes mana sources (Artifact Lands, Moxen, Talismans), Aether or Pyrite Spellbombs, Equipment cards (mainly the awesome Lightning Greaves) and others (Welding Jar). These cards are the core of the Affinity deck... Dropping a turn 1 Frogmite or turn 2 Myr Enforcer would not be possible without them. They are not our main win condition, but they allow the deck to lay faster, bigger threats. It's obvious we need them in our deck, but... how many? I already explained the need for twelve artifact lands, so we can already count them....

What was the average amount of boosters that people ran in States? The median was twenty-eight. Of those twenty-eight cards, most of the time sixteen had a casting cost of zero (usually twelve artifact lands and four Moxen or Welding Jar, but almost never both). An average of six had a casting cost of one (the most popular choices were Pyrite/Aether Spellbomb, followed by Chromatic Sphere). The last six cost two mana, and were split between Talismans and Lightning Greaves.

It's interesting to note that the winning States decks were the ones closer to that configuration, while the rest that made Top 8 tended to differ from it. Some decks had an amazing twenty-nine to thirty three boosters, and a lot of zero-mana ones.

In theory, this is a good idea, helping us to deploy a faster board position and drop faster, bigger threats. The problem is that in order to do so, we cramp the deck with off-color artifact lands and zero-drops, which are sub-par compared with more expensive ones (Lightning Greaves, for example, is a must, and the mana smoothing/acceleration provided by the Talismans is vital to the deck). Also, decks containing too many Boosters tend to have less card drawing and countermagic resources, something that hurts the aggro-control approach of the archetype.

Speaking of countermagic and card drawing resources, what are the results in these areas from my study?

The Cheap Counters
Affinity is an aggro-control deck. That's why it's been quoted as the"New Madness," but what does this mean? Well, an aggro-control deck is supposed to be able to lay large, undercosted threats, so as to manage to keep some mana open for cheap countermagic, thus being able to disrupt the opponent's early play (in the pure aggro matchup) or avoid his board sweepers or countermagic (in the control matchup).

This kind of deck wants to end the match quickly with the aforementioned threats. So, an aggro-control deck is both proactive and reactive by nature. (I disagree with Jim Ferraiolo's Affinity article in this.) When playing Madness, you always wanted to be able to play Circular Logic. Now you always want to be able to stop a Siege-Gang Commander, Oblivion Stone, Akroma's Vengeance, and so on...

As for which countermagic to run, the obvious choice is Mana Leak. The only problem I find with that is in the mirror, where most of the time it sucks. Override is a better option, but sometimes three mana is just too much. Assert Authority is neat, but the double Blue hurts quite a bit, Dispersal Shield is one of those cards that is sometimes great, but other times just sits in your hand making you feel like a fool.

As you can see, this one is probably the hardest choices you can make when building an Affinity deck. My choice is four Mana Leak plus two Override, with two more Override in the sideboard for the mirror. But that's just a personal choice. I think four counterspells just falls short, as sometimes that Vengeance is able to resolve and that means game over. I'd run eight, but only if there was a cheaper counter available (maybe in Darksteel). Having two Overrides available helps both in the mirror and in the control matchup.

That's all about counterspells in Affinity. As everybody knows, if you want to cast counters, you need to have them in your hand; that's what card drawing is for! (Though technically, it's also there to provide card advantage - something people say wins you games.) So let's take a look at card drawing...

The Drawing Engine
The problem with card drawing is that we have so many good options for such few spots... Thoughtcast is mandatory, Thirst for Knowledge is really good, and Rush of Knowledge wins games by itself. Most decks (80% of the winners, 65% of the rest) ran the full complement of four Thirsts and four Thoughtcasts, but the rest of the decks chose to cut one Thirst for knowledge. Why? The deck is supposed to be able to leave mana open for a end-of-turn Thirst. The only reason I'd cut one is for lack of space, as it inferior to Thoughtcast.

In my version, I chose to substitute the fourth Thirst of Knowledge for a single Rush of Knowledge. (And here I agree with Jim Ferraiolo - one copy is enough, and sometimes it's just an"I win" card). Some people tried Future Sight at States, but three Blue mana is just too much.

Right now we have the means to lay our threats quickly, protect them with countermagic, and keep the pressure with card drawing. The last question is, which threats do we run?

The Creatures In Affinity
This is, at first sight, an easy step. The only points of discrepancy are:

a) Frogmite: yes or no?
b) Atog/Megatog
c) Does Lodestone Myr have a place in the deck?

As for Frogmite, the three average copies throughout the States decks say that it is worth including. It stops early beats, and once two artifacts are in play it becomes another Booster. Not to mention that sometimes it's just free. I myself used to put three in, and sometimes I found myself longing for the fourth one, so I included it.

The problem regarding Atog and its big brother is that in order to use it effectively, you have to sacrifice what makes your deck powerful: Affinity Boosters. Yes, sometimes a giant Tog will go through and get the job done... But usually a hasted Broodstar, combined with the bounce Spellbombs, will do the same, and without having to lose any artifacts. Most players in States chose to say no to the Tog, and I agree with them.

Finally, we have to decide whether we want Lodestone Myr in our deck or not. It can be a huge trampling finisher, a Megatog of sorts that just requires us to tap our artifacts, not destroy them. Sounds quite good. However, the point is that we want to build a quick deck that should always have two or three open mana during our opponent's turn. A four-mana creature doesn't fit well in this strategy.

Most Madness decks ran four Wild Mongrels, four Basking Rootwallas, and four Arrogant Wurms as base creatures, with flying Roar of the Wurm tokens as finishers. In an Affinity deck, four Frogmites, four Myr Enforcers, and four Broodstars are our base creatures. We can't have Lodestone Myr as the finisher because we don't have Circular Logic/Daze substitutes.

So that leaves us with one final question: Do we need another"finisher" besides Broodstar?

Kai suggested Atog/Megatog with Temporal Fissure as an Upheaval of sorts. Some people tinkered with the Fissure at States (20% of the winning decks had two copies, while 35% of the rest ran an average of two Maindeck, one sideboard). I myself have tried it, but I find it a little too irregular. Sometimes it's nuts (most of the time just after a successful Rush of Knowledge for seven to ten cards), but other times it just sits there or ends up imprinted in a Mox. My conclusion is that, with the current card pool, Broodstar is enough.

So what is the"standard" build that emerges of the comparison between the Affinity decks that did well at States? If we take a look at what I've said so far, this should be...

• 12 Artifact Lands
• 4 Moxen
• 4 Multicolor Lands
• 4 Talismans
• 6 one-mana Affinity Boosters
• 2 two-mana Affinity Boosters
• 6 Cheap Counters
• 8 Card Drawers
• 12 Threats

If you make the sum, it all adds fifty-eight cards. We have two"free" slots, which in States were mostly taken by more Boosters or some sort of finishing tech (Atog, Temporal Fissure, Lodestone Myr, Shrapnel Blast). In my case, I decided to ramp up to either one-mana boosters (with four Blue and Red Spellbombs). The decklist would look like this:

4 Seat of the Synod
4 Great Furnace
4 Ancient Den / Vault of Whispers *
4 Glimmervoid
4 Chrome Mox
4 Mana Leak
2 Override
4 Talisman of Progress/ Talisman of Dominance*
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Aether Spellbomb
2 Lightning Greaves
4 Thoughtcast
3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Rush of Knowledge
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Broodstar

As you can see, I've included a different set of Artifact Lands and Talismans, which allow you to include either Black or White as a sideboarded third color. The sideboards would look like this.

White Splash Sideboard:
3 Second Sunrise
4 Circle of Protection: Red/Karma (metagame choice)
3 Pyroclasm
2 Override
3 Shatter/Stifle/Annul (Metagame choice)

Black Splash sideboard:
4 Persecute
4 Dark Banishing
3 Pyroclasm
2 Override
2 Shatter/Stifle/Annul (Metagame choice)

As for the cards marked"Metagame choice," you should adjust or replace these cards depending on your metagame. Stifle is good against W/x decks (it stops Decree of Justice and Wing Shards Storm effect, and is an all-around useful card), while Shatter and Annul are better in the mirror and against MBC's Oblivion Stones.

In the case of Circle of Protection: Red versus Karma, it depends on the number of Goblin/MBC players in your area. I must admit that the sideboard has been the area least covered in my analysis, as the decks from States had a very diverse content and sideboard is, by itself, a very situational resource.

Anyway, just remember that this is a study I've made to be able to get a decklist for testing in our team. I do not believe it to be the best build, but I do believe it has all the elements you are likely to find when building/facing an Affinity deck.

I hope that you enjoyed my journey through the sea of Affinity that almost drowned States, and help you to play your own version on your next Type 2 tournament - or at least to know your enemy better!

Fernando Rosal
Team Red Dragon MTG