Head in front of the wall
Sometimes failure leads to better insights. Right now, i'm just like "head in front of the wall" until the wall breaks.
In preparation for GP Madrid i've put Affinity to the test and my failure rate is great. By all means, now i know what a real great aggro deck is - and how complicated board states could be. I didn't respect this for all years playing magic and that makes me sad again :(
No matter what, after the GP i'm likely running Bant Knightfall or (even better) Vengevine Aggro / Hollow One. Here's what i'm running for now.
First: Super Vengevine
A MTGsalvation user created the following beauty:
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Stomping Ground
4 Copperline Gorge
3 Mountain
1 Forest
4 Insolent Neonate
4 FAithless Looting
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Vengevine
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Hidden Herbalists
4 Reckless Bushwhacker
3 Hooting Mandrills
3 Myr Superion
4 Gather the Pack
4 Commune with the Gods
I've played this deck from time to time because it's just super fun, aggressive and has some good sideboard-Cards (Blood Moon, Fulminator Mage, Kitchen Finks, Scavenging Ooze, Ancient Grudge). Right now i've switched a single Mandrills for an Scourge Devil, which gave some opponents quite some headaches.
Either way, the deck plays like this:
An opener with a discard-outlet (Neonate, Looting), 2 lands and some amount of action is quite reasonable. Most importantly look for some action, meaning that this deck is capable of puting 7+ power on board by turn 2 (or 3 at least).
The tricky part: Hidden Herbalists needs a Revolt-trigger to be at his best. Neonate and Fetchlands are a perfect match. The next restricment is the double-green Mana he provides. Upside: Myr Superion can be reliably casted. Downside: Reckless Bushwhacker cannot.
This leads to some hands that can't go off turn 2. Help comes in many shapes and sizes. GAther the Pack and Commune with the Gods can be casted too of GG. So here comes the clunky part of the deck: A turn 2 Hidden Herbalist into Commune with the Gods is perfectly fine. 5 Cards milled, hopefully milling a Vengevine, feeding Hooting Mandrills and digging for a useful Creature.
This play is ok'ish if someone could reliably go off turn 3. Somehow better is this one:
Head for turn 3 with Herbalists in hand (hopefully Vengevine in graveyard already). Make your 3rd land drop (this is important).
With GG in pool 2 great plays are possible: Either play Commune / GAther, hitting a 1-Mana-Critter (Hooting Mandrills costs 1-Mana too from now on) and play it or cast a REckless Bushwhacker with 1 green Mana left (beforehand Mandrills for 1 is even better).
This one results in a lot of power onboard. The mill-spells serves double-duty because they hopefully hit Vengevine and put a cheap critter in your hand. GAther the pack is a really nice one here because Spell Mastery can be achieved quite quickly and than this becomes a 2-for-1.
Myr Superion is a pretty conditional Creature, it can only be casted by 8 Creatures in the deck and eats a lot of Fatal Push's the last days. It shines wherever Combo needs to be raced because it's a huge Beater and some removal spells can't deal with him (Bolt, Anger of the Gods, Kozilek's Return, Flaying Tendrils).
Sadly he gets hit by Kolaghan's Command, a staple in Grixis and Jund Decks nowadays. It's boarded out because of this flaw and replaced with better Cards. The deck is weakest against both of these contenders because they have plenty of disruption, removal and huge Beaters.
Post-board the deck has some great options in Kitchen Finks, Scavenging Ooze, Thrun, the Last Troll, Blood Moon and Lightning Axe. Right now i had some pretty tough and amazing Games with the deck, but it's too early to come to a final conclusion about the deck's competitiveness.
I'll keep track of my results for the upcoming month's and may present to you the next funny thing i'm experimenting with:
Second: Assault Loam
Seismic Assault and Life from the Loam hadn't put up results for years. One of the first Modern Events that Assault Loam won was GP Lincoln in 2012, where Bronson Magnan grinds people to death (GP Lincoln Final Round).
After this i recognized that the deck vanished for some time. What may become new entries are
Flameblade Adept and Hollow One:
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Stomping Ground
1 Sheltered thicket
3 Mountain
1 Forest
4 Copperline Gorge
1 Arid Mesa
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Flameblade Adept
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Hollow One
4 Street Wraith
4 Cathartic Reunion
4 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
4 Seismic Assault
4 Lightning bolt
I'm not sure if 20 Lands is the amount a Loam / Assault Deck is looking for, but this brew is super-sweet (the same user that created SuperVengevine). Birds ramps out an early Assault, Adept has a lot of synergy with Looting / Reunion / Assault, Goyf has Enchantment and Artifact for growing huge, Hollow One is a possible turn 2 play.
The most intruiging about this deck is the fact that with the Loam-Engine it is able to grind out games. Once the Aggro-plan has gone the late-game machine-gun gives plenty of room for board-control or shocking people to death.
One thing about the new emerged HollowVine-Decks that utterly drives me crazy are the amount of dead-draws it has. For reference, here's the list of Julian-Grace Martin: HollowOne by Julian-Grace Martin
2 Hooting Mandrills and 3 Become Immense are 5 Delve Cards. Looting and Reunion "mill" 2 Cards, which results in the fact, that a Delve-Card cannot be casted for 1 with a single Loot-Card. Nevertheless there are 5 of these (i sincerely cutted the 3rd because it was sometimes too clunky) and only 4 additional Street Wraith to feed the grave.
I've watched some streams of the deck and this assumption is nothing to scoff about - players held 2 Delve-Threats in hand and had too few Cards in there graveyard to cast it on curve. What makes things worse is, that Reunion is a pretty awkward card - if you rip it from the top and don't have those 2 necessary cards - what are you going to do?
I don't want to get into more detail here because i haven't played the deck and it's just my (very biased) oppinion. More important, the deck above should fix some of these flaws at the cost of being less explosive (although it'll have some explosive starts).
Third: Last Words
The Modern-Format is wide open and this kind of deck has plenty of room for improvement. Finding the single best build is difficult.
There's a lot of brewing-potential and i'm a strong believer that it'll come up from time to time to sneak in a Top 8 or Top 16 finish at higher level tournament, rushing player's that are unprepared for a Turn 2 - 10 Power Deck.
.
In preparation for GP Madrid i've put Affinity to the test and my failure rate is great. By all means, now i know what a real great aggro deck is - and how complicated board states could be. I didn't respect this for all years playing magic and that makes me sad again :(
No matter what, after the GP i'm likely running Bant Knightfall or (even better) Vengevine Aggro / Hollow One. Here's what i'm running for now.
First: Super Vengevine
A MTGsalvation user created the following beauty:
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Stomping Ground
4 Copperline Gorge
3 Mountain
1 Forest
4 Insolent Neonate
4 FAithless Looting
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Vengevine
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Hidden Herbalists
4 Reckless Bushwhacker
3 Hooting Mandrills
3 Myr Superion
4 Gather the Pack
4 Commune with the Gods
I've played this deck from time to time because it's just super fun, aggressive and has some good sideboard-Cards (Blood Moon, Fulminator Mage, Kitchen Finks, Scavenging Ooze, Ancient Grudge). Right now i've switched a single Mandrills for an Scourge Devil, which gave some opponents quite some headaches.
Either way, the deck plays like this:
An opener with a discard-outlet (Neonate, Looting), 2 lands and some amount of action is quite reasonable. Most importantly look for some action, meaning that this deck is capable of puting 7+ power on board by turn 2 (or 3 at least).
The tricky part: Hidden Herbalists needs a Revolt-trigger to be at his best. Neonate and Fetchlands are a perfect match. The next restricment is the double-green Mana he provides. Upside: Myr Superion can be reliably casted. Downside: Reckless Bushwhacker cannot.
This leads to some hands that can't go off turn 2. Help comes in many shapes and sizes. GAther the Pack and Commune with the Gods can be casted too of GG. So here comes the clunky part of the deck: A turn 2 Hidden Herbalist into Commune with the Gods is perfectly fine. 5 Cards milled, hopefully milling a Vengevine, feeding Hooting Mandrills and digging for a useful Creature.
This play is ok'ish if someone could reliably go off turn 3. Somehow better is this one:
Head for turn 3 with Herbalists in hand (hopefully Vengevine in graveyard already). Make your 3rd land drop (this is important).
With GG in pool 2 great plays are possible: Either play Commune / GAther, hitting a 1-Mana-Critter (Hooting Mandrills costs 1-Mana too from now on) and play it or cast a REckless Bushwhacker with 1 green Mana left (beforehand Mandrills for 1 is even better).
This one results in a lot of power onboard. The mill-spells serves double-duty because they hopefully hit Vengevine and put a cheap critter in your hand. GAther the pack is a really nice one here because Spell Mastery can be achieved quite quickly and than this becomes a 2-for-1.
Myr Superion is a pretty conditional Creature, it can only be casted by 8 Creatures in the deck and eats a lot of Fatal Push's the last days. It shines wherever Combo needs to be raced because it's a huge Beater and some removal spells can't deal with him (Bolt, Anger of the Gods, Kozilek's Return, Flaying Tendrils).
Sadly he gets hit by Kolaghan's Command, a staple in Grixis and Jund Decks nowadays. It's boarded out because of this flaw and replaced with better Cards. The deck is weakest against both of these contenders because they have plenty of disruption, removal and huge Beaters.
Post-board the deck has some great options in Kitchen Finks, Scavenging Ooze, Thrun, the Last Troll, Blood Moon and Lightning Axe. Right now i had some pretty tough and amazing Games with the deck, but it's too early to come to a final conclusion about the deck's competitiveness.
I'll keep track of my results for the upcoming month's and may present to you the next funny thing i'm experimenting with:
Second: Assault Loam
Seismic Assault and Life from the Loam hadn't put up results for years. One of the first Modern Events that Assault Loam won was GP Lincoln in 2012, where Bronson Magnan grinds people to death (GP Lincoln Final Round).
After this i recognized that the deck vanished for some time. What may become new entries are
Flameblade Adept and Hollow One:
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Stomping Ground
1 Sheltered thicket
3 Mountain
1 Forest
4 Copperline Gorge
1 Arid Mesa
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Flameblade Adept
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Hollow One
4 Street Wraith
4 Cathartic Reunion
4 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
4 Seismic Assault
4 Lightning bolt
I'm not sure if 20 Lands is the amount a Loam / Assault Deck is looking for, but this brew is super-sweet (the same user that created SuperVengevine). Birds ramps out an early Assault, Adept has a lot of synergy with Looting / Reunion / Assault, Goyf has Enchantment and Artifact for growing huge, Hollow One is a possible turn 2 play.
The most intruiging about this deck is the fact that with the Loam-Engine it is able to grind out games. Once the Aggro-plan has gone the late-game machine-gun gives plenty of room for board-control or shocking people to death.
One thing about the new emerged HollowVine-Decks that utterly drives me crazy are the amount of dead-draws it has. For reference, here's the list of Julian-Grace Martin: HollowOne by Julian-Grace Martin
2 Hooting Mandrills and 3 Become Immense are 5 Delve Cards. Looting and Reunion "mill" 2 Cards, which results in the fact, that a Delve-Card cannot be casted for 1 with a single Loot-Card. Nevertheless there are 5 of these (i sincerely cutted the 3rd because it was sometimes too clunky) and only 4 additional Street Wraith to feed the grave.
I've watched some streams of the deck and this assumption is nothing to scoff about - players held 2 Delve-Threats in hand and had too few Cards in there graveyard to cast it on curve. What makes things worse is, that Reunion is a pretty awkward card - if you rip it from the top and don't have those 2 necessary cards - what are you going to do?
I don't want to get into more detail here because i haven't played the deck and it's just my (very biased) oppinion. More important, the deck above should fix some of these flaws at the cost of being less explosive (although it'll have some explosive starts).
Third: Last Words
The Modern-Format is wide open and this kind of deck has plenty of room for improvement. Finding the single best build is difficult.
There's a lot of brewing-potential and i'm a strong believer that it'll come up from time to time to sneak in a Top 8 or Top 16 finish at higher level tournament, rushing player's that are unprepared for a Turn 2 - 10 Power Deck.
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