Regardless of balance, having a matchup come down so much to SB cards and how many Myr Enforcers are in the Affinity players top 20 cards just isn't fun. Who else thinks Affinity creates somewhat unskilled, linear game plans in its matchups?
Posted Mar 18, 2022, 3:13 PM UTC
I really wish they just banned Deadly Dispute before anything else. Sure, it’s used in a lot of decks, but Affinity is in a unique position to use it in such a way that it just takes it’s high level of card advantage to unfun heights
But to be honest, most decks don’t really take that much skill in pauper from that point of view. Faeries only requires that you have enough counter spells to slow down your opponent. Bogles only requires that you get enough good enchants early on. Arguably the most skill-based deck in the top tiers is Wildfire lol, maybe like Mono-Black devotion too idk
I hope they don't ever touch Deadly Dispute, as it gives so many decks access to decent draw card if they build around it (especially traditional mono-colour decks that can easily splash in for it) and feels like a decent uno-reverse card for interactions (kill spells, blocking etc)
all good points, but they could at least reprint it!
As an affinity player I can confirm it's not skillful at all. I personally love the style of it but wish it could be taken down a notch.
I used to play it when it was URG, and even though it was still powerful, it was still more fair. I was hoping it would regress back to that with the bans, but black is just too powerful for the strategy.
Atog died for Dispute’s sins (I actually like the bridges, I wish they had more downside but not being locked out of the game by a gorilla is great)
Atog had a huge target upon its head from the very second that busting all of affinity's lands wasn't viable plan anymore.
Sorry, I meant <card you haven’t mentioned yet> died for <random good but not broken card>’s sins.
Ah the salt is strong.
I play on both sides of the table dumbass. Sorry for caring about the format.
Ah my apologies, I didn't realize you play unskilled linear decks too.
Oh now I get it you're dumb enough that you think affinity takes skill.
Any deck takes skill , no matter how linear or how much it revolves around counting to 7 . Calling people dumb for not agreeing with just shows how mature you are and just decreases the value of anything you say in this topic going forward. And ye you can say whatever you want but playing affinity takes skill , playing around powerful hate witch is plentiful in pauper is not easy, there is a reason some people have 10+ trophies with the deck and some have 2-3
Ok.
I personally like playing against affinity now, as there are a little more varieties of builds now that the problem pieces have been banned. They feel strong but fair, and I never feel cheated when I'm beaten by them now. Yes it is a fairly easy build to pilot that plays the same, but that is also its disadvantage as most of us know how to play around its tempo or targets.
Dude they’ve hit like 4 cards out of the deck, if you still can’t beat it, your skill/deck is bad
I didn't say I can't beat it, I said the matchup is unfun. It's hilarious how many idiots miss that. Playing against Delver is fun, playing against affinity is like playing yahtzee.
Counting the cards banned kind of makes it seem like you're a salty affinity player.
Dude, all play styles should playable, even helmet decks like affinity, because it helps people get into the format, if you don’t like it, go play a different format,
That's pretty subjective. It's like saying Tron makes the format unfun or storm decks makes the format unfun. I think you just don't like the matchup. It's a lot better now. They can be interacted with (unlike Bogles) and doesn't win out of nowhere that much anymore. It has bad matchups with some tier 2 decks now like Fangren Tron or Turbo Fog.
Just because you interact with a deck doesnt mean you have a good matchup. Very few decks have a 50% or above matchup without playing hate against affinity. And most of those decks are even more linear decks. The format is better when Hexproof isnt a tier 1 deck just because it beats affinity.
Right, so cripple all linear decks until they're T2?
If the game plan is totally linear that's an advantage for the person not on a linear deck 90% of the time precisely because linear decks are easier to hate on and disrupt. So either A. Affinity is too fast for pauper, I disagree B. There are no good hate cards against affinity, again I disagree although bridges were absolutely a mistake, make mana monkey great again C. Affinity in not a linear deck in its entirety and therefore can play through hate without big concessions or D. Respecting the affinity matchup in sideboard hurts your other matchups too much, I disagree. Affinity is not my favorite matchup especially since I play a lot of black but I don't think it makes the format unfun or that it's too busted post bans, although on the latter part we'll have to wait and see I suppose. Calling it unskilled is a bit of a stretch since there are a lot of difficult and skilled decisions you need to make to pilot through hate. Also, many decks line up pretty well against enforcer draws. Personally, as a mono black enjoyer, I love it when I can remove affinity's wincons because that's not always the case, myr enforcer draws are a corrupt control pilot's wet dream against affinity game 1
My overall point was linear decks should be tier 2, in terms of raw power level. Allowing linear decks to be tier 1 makes the format about sideboard cards which, while requiring metagame skill, doesn't require any skill during games making the matches themselves a formality/coinflip. No one liked Modern when it was majority linear decks.
Sure but I think you're massively overstating the case, affinity is absolutely not an unwinnable matchup without hate for most decks, so it's not really a coin flip. And you missed the point, the point is that affinity is not a completely linear deck and that's why it can adjust so easily and still be a great contender even after losing its best cards. Affinity can vomit out its hand and kill you, sure, but it has interactive slots that aren't dedicated to protecting any combo and recursion which allow for a lot of decision points especially when piloting through hate. I think losing its easily set up disciple kills makes it much easier to interact with and harder for it to combo you out. Saying the games against affinity where you don't draw hate are a formality means you're saying you can't beat affinity game one, which clearly isn't true because the deck is very popular and people aren't mainboarding hate for it like they did with sojourners companion. And besides, having a linear deck at tier 1 isn't necessarily the problem, the problem is when respecting it destroys your matchups with other decks, which isn't the case for pauper affinity. If I may use an example from legacy, reanimator is absolutely a linear combo deck, the interaction it plays is primarily for the purpose of protecting a combo, and it is tier 1. However, it is by far not the problem deck and most decks should have decent game against reanimator because of the sideboard (exceptions being things like burn, which can side in hate but has an inherent horrible matchup against reanimator and show and tell). That being said, even for a linear combo deck like reanimator there are a lot of decisions, and similar to affinity, the decisions can be made a lot more difficult when everyone is packing premium GY hate games 2 and 3 (in affinity's case, artifact hate).