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What's the cheapest competitive deck? What do you play when you have no rares? or at least... none of the good ones... What do you do when you've spent all your time trading for the rares you need for your deck, and then a friend wants to borrow a deck... but all your good rares are tied up in yours? What do you hand the guy (or girl)? "Sorry, all I've got is my deck" isn't really a good answer, especially since having more people is generally a good thing for the game. Building these decks has become common place for me. I've taken it upon myself to build the decks that my friends play when we go to tournaments, since I'm the one with the largest card pool and the only one who tries to keep up with the met game. This article is to showcase a deck that can be competitive, but that doesn't rely on expensive cards. Not all good decks rely on rares. I mean, take a look at blue/green madness. Affinity is supposedly the new madness. While that is debatable, it is true that you can build a decent affinity deck without any rares at all. Right now, Broodstar and Glimmervoid are a little too high priced on eBay for me to consider buying either one individually (and dealers are generally even higher than eBay). It is much more cost-effective to wait until the hype dies down and I can either buy them cheap or trade not-so-top-of-the-line rares for them. In the meantime, what I need is a deck that I can build from commons and uncommons... something competitive that I can mass-produce and hand out to anyone who wants to come with me to a tournament. Allow me to introduce Slim-finity. So here we go... a competitive deck that costs about 5 dollars to throw together. Slim-finity Lands: 4 Seat of the Synod 4 Vault of Whispers 4 Ancient Den (or Tree of Tales, or Great Furnace... take your pick) 4 Salt Marsh 2 Island 2 Swamp Creatures: 4 Nim Shrieker 4 Myr Enforcer 4 Frogmite Other: 4 Welding Jar 4 Aether Spellbomb 4 Talisman of Dominance 2 Lightning Greaves 4 Mana Leak 2 Dark Banishing 2 Reaping the Graves 4 Thoughtcast 2 Assert Authority I'm not giving a sideboard simply because making the deck optimal is not my goal here. The goal is to be able to build a competitive deck that doesn't confuse new players. Affinity is pretty straightforward. Play artifacts and fast efficient creatures, equip with Lightning Greaves, and attack. Generally, decks made for this purpose (handing off to a friend to play) have sideboards that aren't as well thought out as they should be anyway. I'll say more about sideboards later. Card Choices: The core of Affinity decks are all basically the same: Welding Jars, Talismans, Lightning Greaves, Thoughtcasts, Spellbombs, Myr Enforcers, etc. etc. etc. I see no need to explain why all these cards are good. I'd be insulting your intelligence and wasting my breath. Salt Marsh: Without Glimmervoid, Affinity decks are subject to mana screw. If you've ever tried to run a 3 color deck with just basic lands, you know what I'm talking about. You could run more basics and drop down to playing only Seat of the Synod and Vault of Whispers. But in my opinion, Salt Marsh with more artifacts is the better choice. It is easily the best non-rare substitute for Glimmervoid in the format (for this deck, at least). Yes, they come into play tapped and that slows the deck down... but would you rather play your cards a turn later or fall victim to an Akroma's Vengeance without the second blue mana to cast the Assert Authority in your hand? Reaping the Graves: This is insanely good in Slim-finity. However, it is a back-up plan that doesn't always work. In Slim-finity, its a weak version of Patriarch's Bidding. You play it and then instead of putting your creatures directly into play, you just play them for free. However, unlike Goblin Bidding, Slim-finity can't "just win" with the recursion. Goblin Bidding can go off with hasted creatures, sacrifice effects, and the sharpshooter. For Slim-finity, recursion is "just" card advantage. Heh, I talk like card advantage is a bad thing. Reaping the Graves is GOOD... its just not good enough to warrant more than two maindeck. In match-ups with lots of wrath effects, you may want more in the sideboard though. Nim Shrieker: This guy is Broodstar on Slim Fast. Yes, he is more vulnerable. And yes, he is MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE, which is the goal of this deck. The Metagame: Against Goblins: Goblins has for the most part been hated out of the environment (according to the top 8 lists from States). However, if we don't continue the hate, the Moggs will rear their ugly heads once more! We must remain vigilent!!! (yes, I know Moggs haven't been around for a while... but Mogg Maniac is still my favorite red card of all time...) Sideboard heavily for this match, because honestly, its horrible. Run Infest against goblins. While too mana-intensive for most Affinity builds, Slim-finity is blue/black heavy and doesn't splash at all except for the odd-colored artifact lands. Against White Weenie: This deck also posted poor results at States... so maybe it will fall off as well. The good news is that most of your sideboard cards that slow down goblins should do the same for WW. White Weenie doesn't have the burn to kill your Nim Shriekers, but it does have blockers. Play around the blockers and this match-up shouldn't be TOO difficult as long as you survive the early beats. Against R/W Slide: This match-up really highlights the weakness of this deck as compared to more expensive Affinity builds. Lightning Rift is the bane of Nim Shrieker!!! The best strategy is to hold Shriekers back until they've tapped out sufficiently and can't burn him on your turn. This allows you time to equip with Lightning Greaves and attack for lots. COUNTER AKROMA'S VENGEANCE!!! If you can find Stabilizers, use them. They aren't too expensive. I think I saw a set of 4 sell for $1.50 on eBay the other day. These are good in Affinity sideboards... simply because they force your opponent to find an answer and count for Affinity at the same time. Failing that, Withered Wretch is good for killing Eternal Dragons (and don't forget that if you play him with some mana open, you can kill dragons in response to your opponent rifting away your wretch). Scrabbling Claws is good too (**see below for my rant on the claws**). Dark Banishing is less effective because they can slide creatures out in response. Temporal Fissure, Boomerang, Regress, and Chain of Vapor all deal with enchantments temporarily. You still need to counter them to get rid of them permanently, but in this match you need to save counters for Akroma's Vengeances. Against MBC: This is one match where Slim-finity is actually a little better than normal Affinity (at least before sideboards come into play). Broodstar can fall to a Terror or a Dark Banishing. Nim Shrieker is immune. COUNTER OBLIVION STONE!!! Some versions of MBC run Undead Gladiator. He can be a pain in the butt. Wretch and Claws work wonders against that little zombie. There isn't any sideboard tech I can think of for MBC other than that. It might be good to side in a few more counters. You'll want to counter those Consume Spirits... they hurt AND they take away a good bit of the advantage Slim-finity's speed normally grants. Against U/W Control: Counter Akroma's Vengeances, smash Exalted Angels with Nim Shriekers, and hope for the best. What more can I say? Play conservatively because U/W packs a lot of counterspells. This (alongside Affinity) looks like its the deck to beat at the moment. If you lose the match 1-2, I'd say you've done well. Sideboard in whatever graveyard hate you have because you'll want to get rid of Eternal Dragons, and put in spot removal for Exalted Angels. U/W Control can't protect its angels like Slide can. Against R/G Land Destruction: This is supposedly Affinity's worst match-up, according to several writers on Starcitygames.com. I haven't tested this match-up, but I can see their reasoning. A Stone Rain on an artifact land robs you of two mana in most cases - one actual mana and another that you normally wouldn't have to pay just for having the artifact land in play. On the other hand, Slim-finity's finisher (Nim Shrieker) is much easier to get into play with a fixed mana cost of 4 than a Broodstar would be, so perhaps that will swing the match more in favor of Slim-finity. As I said, I haven't playtested this, so I don't know. I would say board in spot removal for the beasts who will inevitably do you in. Molder Slug needs to be dealt with IMMEDIATELY if it can't be countered. Overall, I'd guess Slim-finity can post a 35-40% win percentage against the field as a whole. Most decks can reliably claim 40% to 60% depending on the match-up. Slim-finity isn't bad for a deck without any rares. If you build it, they will come... so build it and get more people into the game! Okay, that was cheesy... please forgive me... Improving Slim-finity: Obviously, Glimmervoids and Broodstars are good. They are also EXPENSIVE (note: by expensive, I mean $4 or more per card. I'm a college student. That's a lot of money to be spending on a card... especially when food-from-somewhere-other-than-the-cafeteria is my other option). Personally, Glimmervoids would be my first priority... because they take the place of the lands that come into play tapped AND give you access to a 3rd color. If you go green, I'd leave the maindeck unchanged and load the sideboard with Naturalizes and Viridian Shamans. If you go white, I'd go for Circle of Protections in the sideboard (and Second Sunrise as well). If you go red, I'd start picking up burn... most notably Shrapnel Blast and Pyrite Spellbomb. On the other hand, Broodstars are BEEF. I prefer a more versatile maindeck and better sideboard options over beef, but some like the straightforward approach of bashing your opponent with the biggest creature you can find. In this case, the Broodstars can either replace the Nim Shriekers, or add to your airborne assault... depending on what you feel is the weakest link and should get the boot. Random Rants: Now, my rant on Scrabbling Claws: I can't figure out why people on Starcity games keep dogging the claws. They all say that your opponent gets to choose, and they're right... at least partially. But it can come down on turn one and eat a card every turn (leaving them without many choices). Also, if you happen to draw it late game or if they manage to fill their graveyard quickly, the second half of the card reads "1, sacrifice Scrabbling Claws: remove TARGET card in a graveyard from the game, draw a card." Just eat a dragon and draw a card... I'm not seeing the downside here... except that Withered Wretch is better IF you're playing black. Slim-finity is not a reference to Eminem. I apologize for any confusion. This deck is Affinity on Slim Fast... not Slim Shady's favorite Type 2 deck. This is also by far the best deck name I've ever come up with just because its kind of catchy. And I have once again fallen victim to the "open mouth, insert foot" condition. I underestimated Broodstar. <insert your "I told you so" here> However, my mistake came in the approach I took to Affinity. In Decree (the deck I built as soon as I busted my first box of Mirrodin), the goal was to blow up all the lands on the board and leave control players scrambling to get back in the game. The deck failed for 2 reasons. 1) Too many other decks are also playing Talismans. Decree of Annihilation doesn't blow up artifacts when cycled, and my opponents generally had about as many sources of mana as I had. The goal was to recover more quickly... but when they're on the same level, that takes away almost all the advantage I was gunning for. 2) The artifact lands are just too important for Affinity builds to work properly. Without them, Broodstar is either overcosted or ineffective. Broodstar just had no synergy with that deck. Scenario A - Cycle Decree of Annihilation, then try to drop Broodstar... oops... now he's 6 or 7 mana again and I have no lands. Scenario B - Drop Broodstar, then cycle Decree of Annihilation... oops... now he's just a 3/3... he was still undercosted at 2 mana, but what's he going to do about that Exalted Angel that my decree didn't get rid of? For my defense, I'll just say that Broodstar isn't good in Decree... but it is VERY good in every other Affinity build I've seen. And that, folks, is all... until next time. Good luck trying to convince your little brother or girlfriend (or whomever you're trying to convince) to try Slim-finity... maybe somebody's little bro can pull off a win against Andre and we can all laugh at him... HA HA HA HA HA HA No offense, Andre... heh heh heh |
| Slim-finity By Josh |