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By: JXClaytor, Joshua Claytor
Feb 01 2016 1:00pm
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This weekend while everyone else was playing in Grand Prixs or the Oath of Gatewatch prereleases I was playing Modern and Pauper.  I guess I swore an oath to not play in expensive events that I did not enjoy.  I have been enjoying the flashback drafts more than anyone possibly should, and while I understand the need to take them down while the prereleases were going on, I needed to do something on the client.  I needed a few cards from Oath for decks, and after picking up my Wandering Fumaroles and Goblin Dark-Dwellers, I decided to start testing the blissfully awesome combo of Boom/Bust, Flagstones of Trokair, and the goblin.

There really is nothing better than blowing a land on turn two and following that up with an Armageddon on a body on turn five.  Testing went well, going 4-1 in a league, before I decided that I wanted to take a look at Pauper.

Cloud of Faeries made the format miserable.  Look, I get your point; it wasn't that broken, Cloud is fair.  Whatever you want to say to defend it, you were wrong.  I'm sorry for that, but let me tell you a story.  Before the Cloud ban, I played in a few leagues.  I try very hard to like Pauper, because I respect Alex and the work that he has put in while supporting the format.  I tried to be fair, but in these leagues, while I am playing stuff like Tron, or Izzet Blitz, my opponents were either playing Mono Blue Cloud, or Esper Cloud.  There was a period of time where every league I played featured a match against one of those two decks. 

Not to spoil anything, but I played against five different decks yesterday.  It was super nice. 

In this new cloudless world, I decided that I would jump in to the format with Affinity.  Fast beefy threats seem like a good thing, and well with the Mirrodin Flashback Drafts coming to a close I really did not need a bulk of the deck! 

Here is what I played.  


Cheap fliers?  Check.  Cheap 4/4s?  Check.  Combo kill with Atog and Fling?  Check.  This is pretty much a stock list of Affinity, nothing super fancy or groundbreaking here.  Trying to redo Affinity would be like trying to reinvent the wheel I reckon. 

Let's watch the league matches that I played. 

Match one



Match two



Match three



Match four



Match five



Well that went...poorly.  A 2-3 is nothing to be proud of, but I for sure learned a few things.  The first being that 16 lands in Affinity is about four lands too few.  Yes you have Chromatic Star and Springleaf Drum, but that's not enough.  Yes, Modern Affinity plays 16 lands.  It also has access to a land that taps for any color of mana, and an artifact that costs zero that taps for any color with Glimmervoid and Chrome Mox, respectively.  Another thing that Modern Affinity has going for it is that all of its creatures are colorless.  Can this be fixed in Pauper?  I'm not sure. 

The second thing I learned is it does not take much for your Myr Enforcers and Carapace Forgers to become outclassed.  Gurmag Angler is bigger than your creatures and can come out just as quickly.  Fangren Marauder is also a huge threat.  Ulamog's Crusher is like Big Pun, as he's not a player he just crush a lot.   I felt the Delver, Tron, and Mono Black control matchups were only slightly winnable because of Atog. 

The third thing I learned, even with a small sample size, is that Pauper feels a lot more open, a lot more competitive since Cloud is gone, and I was less miserable playing the format now than I have been in the past. 

We have another sixteen days until Flashback drafts start up again (with Champions of Kamigawa instead of Ninth Edition!) so for the next two weeks I'll be recapping some Pauper leagues.  Hope you enjoyed this look at Affinity, and let me know what you want to see played in the next couple of weeks! 

3 Comments

Affinity is a lot of fun, I by AKMatt at Tue, 02/02/2016 - 17:14
AKMatt's picture

Affinity is a lot of fun, I played it a bit in the pre-ban format. 16 land felt pretty good to me, but I always wondered if lotus petal might be a fun addition, possibly dropping a hoverguard for it from my previous list.

Is it bad that the article by Cheater Hater at Wed, 02/03/2016 - 01:16
Cheater Hater's picture

Is it bad that the article didn't make me want to play Pauper (though I still should probably try that, now that the best deck isn't A Million Clicks: The Game), but instead brew with Goblin Dark Dwellers+split cards? Granted, I wasn't using Boom/Bust, but instead Breaking/Entering--the idea being to chain a bunch of GDD+Entering, end with a big threat, and just win, but it's been clunky so far :(

no not at all, dark dwellers by JXClaytor at Wed, 02/03/2016 - 07:22
JXClaytor's picture

no not at all, dark dwellers and boom bust (and I guess other split cards) are so far my jam in modern.