There's nothing wrong with it; like I said it's preference. Plus, if you have enough mana to 'cast for U and then 'cast for U again and then make a play, you're probably already winning. However, as you said, it's great for RE-fuel. I prefer to draw into a 'cast than to start with it, and I usually don't want to start with 2 in hand. It's a conditional draw that depends on artifacts, so every non artifact card takes a little away from the consistency of the overall scheme. Suffer a board wipe and draw into a 'cast instead of your threat than it can end up useless or tapping you out completely. Either way, I always consider any extra thoughtcasts and galvanic blasts past 2 to be filling extra slots. I don't see them as full playset essentials.

But if the full playsets work for you then run them (; this is a great game because you get to personalize your deck/playstyle.

As jonathanveedot pointed out and why I made the original comment, the effectiveness of Thoughtcast is actually inversely proportional to how much you need it. The less stuff you have, the more it costs.

In the mirror match, a playset is super important as you need to be the guy with the most stuff on the board, but against midrange decks sometimes having an extra Etched Champion might be worthwhile. It all depends on what is more common in the meta so you have access to on game 1.

Just some food for thought. And as said, the great thing about affinity as a deck archetype is that you can personalize the deck to your specific tastes so easily.

That's true. I have in fact like you said used thoughtcast 2 times on first turn. Then unloaded 9 artifacts on board, saw 11 cards first turn.. Turn 2 swung for something like 10.

For your sideboard (at least), I would add some Dispel. But it's mainly because almost everyone I know are playing Smash to Smithereens and Hurkyl's Recall. I'm also thinking for Witchbane Orb (maybe even Orbs of Warding) but I'm not sure. I just ordered some cards for my artifact deck and haven't receive them yet, so I didn't test any of these..

Choke comes to mind versus most hate decksThorn of Amethyst as well although they're mainly used in legacy affinity sideboards (currently have paper modern affinity) Ideally you would run thorn for a death/taxes style approach to slowing them down even though it slows you down as well. This also gives you another card to have ravager eat up (mild synergy)Personally I feel cards like Hangarback Walker net good synergy for removal but require too much boardstate/mana investment to be effective, if you were to try out Shrapnel Blast I would recommend a 2 of Disciple of the Vault for the game 2/3 matchup to help against certain hate cards like Kataki, War's Wage. Nihil Spellbomb is another good grave hate when an opponent decides on pithing needle in their sideboard

Dispel is actually a great suggestion once I started thinking about it.

why not Seat of the Synod instead of the island? more artifacts

sixwatt Seat of the Synod is not legal in Modern. Trust me, every Modern Affinity player wishes that it was lol.

You might want to change your deck's sideboard since amulet bloom and splinter twin is banned.

what is thoughtsieze sided in for?

I_has_a_Leg, Thoughtseize is for Glass cannon decks like Instant Re-animator.

ok thx

how has using Thoughtcast over Memnite played? I really liked thoughtseize, but most compeititve decks don't use it anymore. TBH, it doesnt feel unnecessary, and you can speed the list up by swapping those for 3 memnites and another galvanic.

@CricketYT

If you are playing Robots or Affinity and you aren't running Thoughtcast, you should stop playing that deck immediately. The ability to draw two cards for a single blue mana is powerful. Many of games, I dumped large chunks of my opening hand, 4 or 5 cards, tapped a Mox Opal for a blue, played Thoughtcast, drew two more, and dumped more cards onto the field or end up drawing/playing another Thoughtcast. Imaging dumping your hand, restocking your hand, and dumping again all in 1-2 turns. I've had opponents scoop when I play two back to back Thoughtcasts on turn 1 before they've had a chance to play anything.

More often than not, Memnite gets sided out in game 2 or 3 because there are better things to bring in. So I've just cut it out of the equation for now. Aside from chumping blocking/trading, Memnite isn't exactly more than an enabler for your Mox Opal or fodder for your Arcbound Ravager.

As for Thoughtseize, combo decks aren't necessarily super relevant these days, but looking at my opponent's hand, picking a nonland card and having them pitch it to the graveyard is rarely a bad thing. Truthfully, I tend to use it more as a catch-all for Affinity/Robot Hate in Games 2 and 3. If I hit their artifact hate, then they can't hate with it. Just some food for thought.

So, would there be any point in mentioning how Ancestral Vision is unbanned in modern given you have Thoughtcast?

Also Sword of the Meek + Thopter Foundry is allowed again. Would those require too much build around to be useful to your own build?

I personally am far from a competitive modern player, so I don't recognize what the difference in playstyles would be. Could this at least be maybe a sideboard win con?

@TheRedGoat

Ancestral Vision is a fantastic card, don't get me wrong. When it ticks off, it pays out nicely. That said, the suspend 4 is just super slow for a deck like this. By turn 4, I'm hoping to have you dead and be half way through our second game. All joking aside though, it is a really good card, but the pay off is very slow compared to Thoughtcast. I know 3 cards for one mana is great, but you have to wait 4 turns for it (unless you are playing with counter removal, which my deck is not), whereas with Thoughtcast, you can play it for one mana on turn 1 or 2 and immediately get 2 cards.

With that said, this deck relies on flooding the board with artifacts to enhance things like Cranial Plating or Master of Etherium, or even Steel Overseer. The more we can put out, the faster we can overwhelm and win. As for the Sword of the Meek+Thopter Foundry combo, it is a great combo, but you need a sac outlet for mana generation to keep the combo going. My only issue with combo pieces are that they are "glass cannons." A well placed Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek cripples your combo and renders the remaining pieces useless. Now, there are decks designed around this combo, but my deck is not one of them. I can play the fast paced aggressive strategy which many decks struggle to keep pace with. In the second game, that is when I have to change up my plan of attack. The combo would be a nice addition to the sideboard, however, I would have to eat up at least 8-12 spots for enough copies of the combo pieces. Since there is so much sideboard hate for Affinity, I am opening myself up to a blowout if I were to pursue such a strategy.

I hope my explanation helps clarify my position on the Foundry/Sword combo, as well as my Thoughtcast > Ancestral Vision argument. Thanks for the questions.

I figured that was the case with Ancestral Vision, but I didn't know if maybe it was not and you just hadn't heard it was unbanned or something. As a theoretical question, what kind of build do you think could support running both cards?

As far as the other goes I can understand not wanting to leave yourself countered by your opponent even when you sideboard. Although I must admit to some confusion as to how your current sideboard prevents that unless it is because you just turn from an aggro build to a midrange one.

Either way it is an amazingly well tuned build that I think I would thoroughly enjoy playing myself.

Wondering about Necropede and maybe some Path to Exile. What are your thoughts?

I play abzan and its number 4 deck in the format so I don't have much say here. affinity is number 2 in the format. maybe just run more of your best cards like full playsets for consistent fast wins. maybe your just trying to fit more in there which is cool. it looks good mostly 4 ofs and some 3s and 2s. nice deck.

@Lacour

Necropede is an interesting card, but it isn't a Robots/Affinity card. It actually finds more of a home in an infect deck, and more likely a budget infect deck at that. Path to Exile is a great card, however, if I was going to run a white card, I would run Dispatch over Path to Exile as I am already hitting Metalcraft, and that way, my opponent isn't getting an extra land off the spell. However, the inclusion of such a card would take away from the current synergy of the deck. As a sideboard card though, i might consider it. However, it is currently in my toolbox for just such an deck evolution.

@Viceroy1

I appreciate the feedback, in most case the cards that make up the backbone of the deck are an auto-include of four. Some of the win conditions have been varied to deal with cards like Slaughter Games, Surgical Extraction, or Infinite Obliteration. While not common in all decks, (cards like these) they can remove four copies of a win condition in a heartbeat, and since Affinity/Robots already has so much hate out there, I see no reason to make it even easier for my opponents to be me post boarding. Thanks for the feedback and the comments!

Why is there a single blood moon in the sideboard?

@Smileycorp

I use the singleton sideboard for many of my modern decks. The inclusion of the single Blood Moon is to slow down or punish decks running non-basics. Since my deck functions on mana rocks and most of my creatures and spells utilize colorless mana, the Blood Moon hardly affects decks like mine. My sideboard is diverse enough to handle most major threats effectively.

Sideboard (15)2x Ancient Grudge - This is for the mirror match, and the flashback means that I can get two uses per copy.

1x Blood Moon - This is to punish 3 and 4 color control decks, or any other decks with lots of manlands or non-basics.

2x Ethersworn Canonist - This slows down storm and control, or even Zoo style decks. Anything with low costs that could be casts in multiples.

1x Grafdigger's Cage - Shuts down graveyard strategies.

1x Relic of Progenitus - Another graveyard shutdown tool.

2x Spellskite - Eats Burn and Infect decks for breakfast. Makes it so much harder for them to win.

2x Thoughtseize - This kills combo decks and hits Affinity hate post sideboard.

1x Torpor Orb - Stops ETB effects.

1x Wear / Tear - Deals with enchantments or more artifact hate or both.

2x Whipflare - Deal with swarm style creature and token decks like Elves for example.

While I obviously can't deal with everything, I can deal with a lot of decks. Some folks don't like this sideboard technique, but it does offer more silver bullets for more opposition. I hope this clarifies this issue for you.

Just seems odd to have a single one and in affinity of all decks.

@Smileycorp

I could probably cut something else and run two copies of it in the sideboard, but one seems to be enough. Beyond that, it does wonders for slowing down Tron/Eldrazi strategies, slows decks that run 10-12 Fetchlands, and a bunch of other decks that have a lot of sideboard hate for Affinity. A lot of folks struggle with the singleton sideboard strategy. Perhaps you can suggest a different sideboard, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

One of the best Pink Floyd songs.