[Primer] Modern Affinity (Modern MTG Deck)

Affinity, also known as Robots, is one of the oldest decks in Modern. The descendant of the 2004 Standard deck, which used Atog and Disciple of the Vault to deal massive amounts of damage, as well as Skullclamp (which was quickly banned, and for good reason) to refuel. A Skullclamp ban in 2004 was not enough to slow down the deck, and in early 2005, Arcbound Ravager, Disciple of the Vault, Darksteel Citadel, Seat of the Synod, Vault of Whispers, Tree of Tales , Great Furnace, and Ancient Den were ALL banned: the largest banning in the history of Standard.

When Modern was announced in 2011, Affinity had a second chance. Arcbound Ravager and Disciple of the Vault were not on the preliminary banlist, and Chikara Nakajima made T8 with an extremely aggressive mono-red list, playing 4 Atog and 4 Frogmite alongside other powerful artifacts, and using Atog + Fling for a combo-esque finish. The deck has been a force to reckon with ever since.

Affinity has the potential to be one of the most explosive decks in Modern, while also playing a surprisingly strong middlegame. It is not difficult to play Affinity, but it is very difficult to play Affinity well, due to the sheer number of possible lines, as demonstrated in the following anecdote from PVDDR:

"I remember when we were testing for the last PT and I was playing Scapeshift against Ben Lundquists Affinity deck. We got into a fork where I could dome him with a Valakut, or a creature, or two creatures, and then we tried to figure out what my best play was. We eventually settled on what I thought was a good choice for Scapeshift and moved to his side of the board to figure out if he could beat it. After about 15 minutes of deliberating, we found out that my best option was a play he could still beat. He then said 'lets count this as a win for Scapeshift, because there is no way anyone in the tournament could figure out the winning line in this game in a reasonable time, that was so hard.'"

In a deck with Mox Opals, Arcbound Ravagers, Blinkmoth Nexuss, and many other complicated cards, it's going to be very difficult to play perfectly. Affinity has a relatively high floor, due to the forgiving nature of Arcbound Ravager, but it has an insanely high ceiling. Played perfectly, Affinity can beat almost anything.

Deck Style

Affinity is an aggro-combo deck, using a combination of enablers (Ornithopter, Memnite, Springleaf Drum) and payoff cards (Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager). The deck attempts to assemble enough enablers to make the payoff cards strong, while drawing enough payoff cards to actually win the game.

Many people have a misconception that Affinity plays something like this: "Play my entire hand turn one, pass." While hands like this do come along, they are by no means common, and aren't even necessarily that good. Affinity has the ability to outrace almost any deck in Modern, but it also has a strong middlegame, thanks to cards like Etched Champion.

Card Choices

Creatures:

0 CMC:

Ornithopter: Ornithopter is one of the decks best enablers. It's free, it counts for metalcraft, it flies, and it carries a Cranial Plating very well. Ornithopter has always been a 4-of in the deck, and probably always will be. 5/5.

Memnite: Memnite is the other free artifact creature. Having power naturally is good, but the toughness boost and lack of flying hurt. Memnite is worse than Ornithopter, and is normally played as a 2-3 of, just because we need more cheap enablers. 3.5/5.

1 CMC:

Signal Pest: Signal Pest is our cheapest "payoff card," although it's more of a backup plan than anything else. It doesn't deal damage on its own, but in multiples it's deadly, and it goes well with our enablers. Signal Pest also works as an enabler itself, because it's a cheap artifact creature. Signal Pest is normally played as a 4-of. 5/5.

Vault Skirge: Technically, Vault Skirge's CMC is 2, but we cast it for 1 in 80% of all scenarios, maybe more. Vault Skirge is another one of our enablers, and is really, really good at holding a Cranial Plating. It's very good in aggro matchups, where it can provide 20+ point life swings (this actually happens a lot in the Bogles matchup.) Vault Skirge is a 4-of. 5/5.

Frogmite : It's really hard to put a CMC on Frogmite , but when I've tested it, I've played it for 1 mana most often, so I'm putting it here. Frogmite is an enabler, and enables some of our most explosive draws (Playing 3 Frogmite s on Turn 1 is entirely possible, if you play that many) However, Frogmite is a pretty bad lategame topdeck, and requires other enablers to make it work, which makes it subpar. 2.5/5.

Disciple of the Vault: Disciple of the Vault was one of the cards that made the original Affinity deck tick. However, in Modern, it just doesn't have a high enough ceiling to really be playable. It is really, really good in the mirror, though, so there's that. 2.5/5.

Arcbound Worker : Arcbound Worker is a decent card in Affinity. Modular is pretty relevant, and it goes nicely with Arcbound Ravager. However, it doesn't fly, which ultimately means that there's not room for it in the deck. 2.5/5.

Bonded Construct : I'm only including Construct in this list to make sure you don't play it unless you have a really, really good reason. Having 2 power instead of 1 isn't normally relevant in this deck, so this is almost strictly worse than Arcbound Worker . 1.5/5.

2 CMC:

Arcbound Ravager: Ravager is one of the best payoff cards in the deck, second to maybe Cranial Plating. Ravager is a very difficult card to master, but it's also incredibly forgiving. One of the most important things to know in Affinity is when to go all-in on Ravager and when to hold back. Ravager gives the deck both speed and resilience, and should be a 4-of. 5/5.

Steel Overseer: Steel Overseer is another payoff card. Even 1 Overseer activation is normally enough to win the game, so the opponent is forced to deal with it immediately. Overseer normally eats removal upon resolving, but if it doesn't, it wins the game. Overseer fluctuates between 1-of and 3-of, with higher numbers corresponding to removal-light formats. 4.5/5.

Spellskite: Spellskite is a powerful card in the deck. Spellskite is unique in that it is neither an enabler nor a payoff card, though it can fill in for either in certain matchups. Spellskite protects our payoff cards from Abrupt Decay/Path to Exile/Lightning Bolt, as well as being stellar in certain matchups. Spellskite is normally played as a 1-2 of MD, with one or two more in the sideboard. 4/5.

Hangarback Walker: Hangarback is strong in grindy games, and decent in most other matchups. Potentially playable as a 1-2 of, depending on your meta. 3/5.

Etherium Sculptor: Etherium Sculptor is playable, but not very good. The biggest problem with Etherium Sculptor is that it isn't an enabler, it isn't a payoff card, and it doesn't ever win the game on its own. Ultimately, Etherium Sculptor probably shouldn't be in the MD. 2.5/5.

Chief Engineer : Chief Engineer is powerful, but a bit awkward in Affinity. Affinity is already prone to flooding, with 24 mana sources and a curve topping out at 3. Chief Engineer isn't powerful enough to slot into a regular Affinity list, and would have to be built around with cards like Myr Superion . 2.5/5.

Atog : Atog was included in the first few iterations of the Modern Affinity deck, but has since been dropped, as people learned that Affinity can be more than an all-in aggro-combo deck. Atog is just worse than Arcbound Ravager, and shouldn't be played. Do not play Atog as a budget replacement for Ravager: it takes up too many colored slots, and if you're dead-set on playing the deck without Ravagers, it's probably better to just run a set of Frogmite s and play a more explosive deck with a worse lategame. 2/5.

Glaze Fiend : DO NOT PLAY GLAZE FIEND. Did you get that? I'll say it again. DO NOT PLAY GLAZE FIEND. Glaze Fiend is in a terrible spot in this deck. It dies to every removal spell, requires you to sandbag your enablers in order to really make a difference, and will not work on its own as a payoff card. Besides that, it's a 2 mana 0/1. 1/5.

3 CMC:

Etched Champion: Etched Champion is interesting. On one hand, it's terrible against most aggro decks. On the other hand, it facilitates most of our middlegame play, and tends to single-handedly win the game against Midrange decks. In Jund/Abzan-heavy metas, Champion can be very successful as a 4-of. In aggro-heavy metas, it could be right to go down to 1 Champion MD, or forgo them altogether in favor of the more explosive Master of Etherium. 4/5

Master of Etherium: Master of Etherium has the potential to be the single most powerful card in the deck. A 3-mana 8/8 lord in a swarm strategy? Yes. Unfortunately, the lack of flying or trample complicates things a bit. Master can be chumped forever, and although the pump is nice, it's not necessary to close out games. Master is normally a 1 or 2-of MD. 3.5/5.

Spells:

0 CMC:

Mox Opal: So, playing a strictly better Mox is nice. Mox Opal enables our broken draws, and also has a secret Lotus Petal mode, which is very powerful. Mox Opal is a 4-of. 5/5.

Welding Jar : Welding Jar saves our payoff cards, as well as allowing us to play them earlier with Mox Opal, making it a cheaper Spellskite. Jar is a solid 1-of in grindy metas. 3/5.

1 CMC:

Springleaf Drum: Springleaf Drum is Mox Opal 5-8. It doesn't produce mana the turn it's played, but it's still good on Turn 2, and enables us to play and equip Cranial Plating on T2 or other such nonsense. Many new players try to drop down to 2-3 Springleaf Drums, which is a mistake. It's worse than Mox Opal, but we really need the acceleration. Play 4. 4.5/5.

Galvanic Blast: Blast is a strictly better Bolt. Galvanic Blast is currently a 4-of, although the Blast/Thoughtcast split fluctuates from time to time. 4.5/5.

Thoughtcast: Thoughtcast is the most powerful draw spell in Modern. Thoughtcast is good in Midrange matchups, but it's normally worse than Etched Champion, and so it normally isn't played as more than a 2-of. 3.5/5.

Steelshaper's Gift: Gift is an extra Cranial Plating, at the added cost of 1 mana and a colored slot. Steelshaper's Gift is fine, but the deck simply doesn't have enough colored slots to play all the colored cards we want, and Steelshaper's Gift is edged out by Galvanic Blast, Thoughtcast, Master of Etherium, and sideboard cards. 3/5.

2 CMC:

Cranial Plating: Cranial Plating is arguably the best card in the deck. It provides a giant pump, and the instant-speed attach is ridiculous. Play 4. 5/5.

Ensoul Artifact: Ensoul Artifact is a powerful card. Ensouling a Darksteel Citadel is insanely good. However, the 2-for-1 potential is there, and Ensoul ends up being pretty risky, although entirely playable. 3.5/5.

Shrapnel Blast: Shrapnel Blast is sometimes played as a 1-2 of as a bigger Galvanic Blast, but isn't a part of the stock list. Sacrificing an artifact and paying an extra mana is too high a price to pay, and although Shrapnel Blast can be played in more aggressive lists, perhaps utilizing multiple Hangarback Walkers, it isn't usually played in the MD. 3/5.

3 CMC:

Day's Undoing: Days Undoing is great when it works. In my testing, I played one game in which I fired off a T2 Days Undoing with an empty hand, and forced my Twin opponent to shuffle away the combo, winning on the following turn. Days Undoing is a very risky play, however. Since your opponent is the first player with a chance to utilize their new 7, DU has a pretty high chance of losing a won game. 2.5/5.

Tempered Steel : People have been trying to make TS Affinity work since the beginning of time. Unfortunately, the deck just isn't as good as regular Affinity. You want 2 White sources on T2, so you end up cutting Inkmoths for White sources, and you lose a lot of the resiliency, as well as some explosiveness. Additionally, the deck runs 4 Memnites to capitalize on Tempered Steel. While the deck is better when it works (i.e. when you drop a Tempered Steel on T2,) it's significantly worse when it doesn't, and you just don't get enough mileage out of Tempered Steel to justify warping the whole structure of the deck around it. The deck is playable, and does have some upsides (it actually does well against Tokens, unlike the stock list, which gets crushed by any competent pilot,) but all in all, it's better to stick with the stock list in a blind meta. 2.5/5.

Lands:

Darksteel Citadel: The only artifact land legal in Modern, Darksteel Citadel is actually a powerhouse. Play 4. 5/5.

Blinkmoth Nexus: We play Blinkmoth and Inkmoth as our 5-12 "artifact lands." They're essentially free, and the extra damage is good. Play 4. 5/5.

Inkmoth Nexus: Inkmoth is played for the reasons listed above. Inkmoth deals Infect damage, meaning that throwing an Inkmoth into the fray doesn't contribute to our primary plan, but since we play Cranial Plating and Arcbound Ravager, Inkmoth has a high one-shot potential, allowing us to be blisteringly fast. Also, it helps beat lifegain strategies, especially Bogles. Play 4. 5/5.

Glimmervoid: Glimmervoid is one of our few colored mana producers, making it very strong. However, it does die to Hurkyl's Recall/lots of removal spells, so we don't normally play the full 4. 4/5.

Mountain: A colored source for Galvanic Blast that doesn't die to Hurkyl's Recall. Play 0-1, depending on your color split. 3.5/5.

Island: A colored source for Thoughtcast and Master of Etherium that doesn't die to Hurkyl's Recall. Play 0-1, depending on your color split. 3.5/5.

Academy Ruins: Potentially useful in grindy games, but ultimately too slow. 2.5/5.

Sideboard:

Note: Sideboard cards will not have ratings or descriptions, because sideboards are very meta-dependent. Instead, I will just list potential cards and decks that they are good against.

Thoughtseize: Good against all Combo decks

Duress: Good against most Combo decks (use your discretion), Burn

Stain the Mind : Good against most Combo decks, Fish (name Hurkyl's Recall and they lose.)

Spell Pierce: Good against most Combo decks (again, discretion), Bogles, Burn, white decks (Stony Silence,) Tron (hits 'walkers; make your own decision.)

Blood Moon: Good against Bloom, Tron, Abzan, Bogles, and greedy decks. Use your discretion.

Whipflare: Good against Merfolk, Tokens, Bogles (kind of.) Use your discretion.

Dismember: Good against Twin, some others. Use your discretion.

Dispatch: See above.

Ancient Grudge: Good in the mirror.

Wear / Tear: Good against White decks (Stony Silence), Bogles, Twin, the mirror, and some others.

Etched Champion: Good against Midrange, or, in general, grindy matchups.

Spellskite: Good in grindy matchups, Infect, Bogles.

Ethersworn Canonist: Good against Storm.

Relic of Progenitus: Good against graveyard combos.

Rest in Peace: See above. Also great against Grixis.

Grafdigger's Cage: Good against most graveyard combos (NOT LIVING END. DO NOT BRING IN CAGE AGAINST LIVING END. VERY BAD.) and Collected Company.

Torpor Orb: Good against Twin, UW Control (the Kitchen Finks/Wall of Omens/Snapcaster Mage monstrosity.)

Ghirapur AEther Grid: Good against Tokens and some grindy matchups. Use your discretion. Often, Aether Grid can be either very good or very bad, depending on how your opponent chooses to sideboard.

Chalice of the Void: Good against Storm, Living End, Bogles, Infect, some others.

Dispense Justice : Good against Bogles, Infect.

Deckbuilding

Play either 15 or 16 lands. Most players play 16, but with 8 more mana sources in Mox Opal and Springleaf Drum, 15 is doable. Don't cut down on Springleaf Drum to make room for other cards. You don't want to have more than 7 colored spells in your deck at any given time (8 is doable, but bad), so take that into consideration when sideboarding. Don't oversideboard: you can't really afford to bring in more than 5 cards. For this reason, it's good to have a diverse sideboard.

Hate Cards

Affinity loses to hate. T2 Stony Silence, for example, is one of the surest ways to beat the deck (besides stupid broken stuff like T1 Grishoalbrand wins.) Thus, we need to be ready for all of the following hate cards:

Stony Silence: The best card against the deck. Watch out.

Kataki, War's Wage: Not as good as people think it is, but still very powerful.

Hurkyl's Recall: Normally out of Fish. This is actually their only way to win the matchup, so be ready for it.

Ancient Grudge: Beatable, but very good. Watch out for Grudge from a seemingly UR Twin deck; they often play a 1-of Breeding Pool/Stomping Ground so that they can bring in Ancient Grudge out of the board.

Shatterstorm: Is pretty good. Try to kill them before it resolves. If you can't, try to hold up Spell Pierce.

Creeping Corrosion: See above.

Vandalblast: See above. Note that this is commonly played in Tron, because they can't pay the RR for Shatterstorm.

Cool Stuff

Arcbound Ravager: If you sac Ravager to himself, then he doesn't pass an extra +1/+1 counter on to whichever creature gets the Modular trigger :(. Also, Ravager is very good against Living End. Let them put Living End on the stack, then sac your board to Ravager. If you sac Ravager before LE resolves, then you get it back along with everything else. If you let LE resolve with Ravager still on the board, then you get to use the modular trigger.

Cranial Plating: Cranial Plating can be equipped at instant-speed for . Use it.

Vault Skirge: Vault Skirge is actually CMC 2. Spell Snare hits it. Watch out.

Spellskite: Spellskite can eat Modular triggers. Since Modular says "target artifact creature," which Spellskite is, Spellskite can legally redirect the trigger. However, since Modular is a "may" ability, you can choose not to put the counters on Spellskite, effectively fizzling the ability.

On our side, Spellskite is still super weird. Against Merfolk, for example, you can use Springleaf Drum to tap your Spellskite in response to Harbinger of the Tides to make Spellskite a legal target for Harbinger's ability, letting your dude with a Cranial Plating stick.

Rest in Peace: Rest in Peace also stops Modular triggers. Since RIP has a replacement effect, Ravager never "dies," meaning no trigger.

Daybreak Coronet: Spellskite can't redirect Coronet unless it's already enchanted, meaning that T3 Coronet on the play normally beats Spellskite. Note that Ensoul Artifact allows Skite to be enchanted, if you play that.

Matchups

MIRROR:

The mirror is interesting, although it normally ends up going to the player with the most Ancient Grudges. Etched Champion should always come out, Spellskite can be very good (eats Blast and Ravager activations), and Vault Skirge can be a beating.

JUND:

Jund is an interesting matchup. Etched Champion is so much better than anything else you can do in this matchup, including (debatably) Ravager and Cranial. Watch out for Kolaghan's Command. It's a very beatable card, but it gives the opponent a lot of play. I like to let Bob live G1, especially if I have an Etched Champion, because we really appreciate the extra damage. G2 and G3, Bob is a KOS, because he draws them into Shatterstorm, which ends the game 80% of the time. Bring in Spellskite to beat Abrupt Decay and Kolaghan's Command (Note that Skite can double-redirect Kommand, because it says "target" twice,) and Ghirapur AEther Grid to prevent them from stabilizing. Matchup is about 50/50.

BURN:

Burn is a good matchup, although the MU has a deceptive amount of play. Unanswered Vault Skirge wins the game, so that's good. Unfortunately, their deck is 50-70% answers for Vault Skirge, so it's unlikely to get through. Cranial Plating makes us faster than them, so G1 is normally good, although Eidolon of the Great Revel can be problematic. G2 and G3, Destructive Revelry blows up Cranial Plating, so watch out. I bring in Spell Pierce (counters anything), Spellskite (takes 1 damage off of their spells and stops Destructive Revelry), and 1 Wear / Tear (Eidolon is too important in this matchup.) Blood Moon is also reasonable (shuts off Destructive Revelry/Atarka's Command/Deflecting Palm/Boros Charm), especially if you suspect Stony Silence, which some burn decks run. Overall, the matchup is around 60/40 in our favor.

RG TRON:

Tron is a bit slow, which is good for us. We can beat a T3 Wurmcoil by going over the top T4, and although Karn is big and scary, we can beat that too. The key here is to keep fast hands, preferably ones that also beat Pyroclasm. G1 is pretty good here, although Pyroclasm blowouts do happen. G2, we need to watch out for Vandalblast, which is sometimes played, along with Nature's Claim and occasionally Platinum Angel. I like Spell Pierce to stop searching/walkers, and Thoughtseize to get rid of their threats, because the deck is actually incredibly threat-light. All in all, the matchup is about 65/35 in our favor.

TWIN:

Oof. Don't get me started on Twin. Twin is the reason that there are other decks in the format.

OK, now to seriousness. This matchup is really bad. We struggle to beat their T4 combo, and their disruption is very good (Cryptic-Snap-Cryptic to fog and draw into the combo is strong.) Grixis Twin is even worse, because Kolaghan's Command. We can win grindy games here, because Etched Champion is way too good, but it's not easy to keep them off of the combo. Luckily, they can struggle against a resolved Cranial Plating, meaning we have a chance with our faster starts. Dismember, Spell Pierce, Spellskite, and Wear / Tear are all strong out of the board, and Steel Overseer and Master of Etherium are pretty weak out of the main (they're just too slow and too vulnerable to do anything.) Watch out for Ancient Grudge out of the board; some lists run a single Green shock for the flashback, which can be scary. Bring in Wear / Tear, Thoughtseize, Spellskite, and Spell Pierce to stop the combo. This is really the only matchup where we can afford to dilute our MD, because we are so dead to the combo that we need to have an answer to it. Luckily, most the the cards we bring in do more than just stopping the combo, so it's not all bad. All in all, the matchup is about 30/70 against us (This is one of the worst, if not THE worst, matchup between T1 decks. Yay for polarization.)

MERFOLK:

To make up for out awful Twin matchup, we have a great Merfolk matchup (it doesn't really make up for it, but it's still nice.) G1 we have the speed advantage, so we just have to make sure that we don't keep a slow 7. They have a technically nonzero amount of play with Spell Pierce, Vapor Snag, and Harbinger of the Tides, but we should almost always win G1. G2 and G3 are a bit trickier, since they bring in Hurkyl's Recall, which is very strong. I bring in Thoughtseize and Spell Pierce to stop Recall, plus a Ghirapur AEther Grid in case the board stalls, and I side out Etched Champions and Spellskites, which just aren't that great here. I can see the possibility of keeping in a Spellskite, though, because some lists bring in extra spot removal. Overall, the matchup is about 65/35 for us, assuming that they play 4 Recall in the board. If they don't (some lists just give up on the Affinity matchup), then it's somewhere closer to 100/0 (not really, but realistically, they won't win without resolving Hurkyl's Recall.)

Well, that's about it! If you have any questions that aren't covered here, or if you think I've missed something, please leave a comment below. Thanks!

Suggestions

Updates Add

Image View Timeline

Card Odds v1 Draw hand

Add to folder Copy

Download / Export / Embed Code

Comments

Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

Comment:

Become a supporter of TappedOut and hide ads for only $3/month!

Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

Please login to comment

Top Ranked	Achieved #18 position overall 9 years ago
Date added	9 years
Last updated	9 years
Key combos	Atog + Fling
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 2 Mythic Rares 24 - 2 Rares 26 - 9 Uncommons 5 - 2 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	1.43
Folders	testing, Stolen Decks, Modern, Dr. Modernlove, or How I Learned to Stop Netdecking and Love the Brew, wanted decks, Favorites, Robots Guide, Testing Decks
Votes
Ignored suggestions
Shared with
Views

Magic the Gathering, FNM is TM and copyright Wizards of the Coast, Inc, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This site is unaffiliated. Articles and comments are user-submitted and do not represent official endorsements of this site.