Is Anyone Else upset with the new emphasis on Artifacts?

[the zealotpker]

Originally Posted by AKA:Battousai

even raffinity decks are using oxidize and naturalize against each other, and astral slide...

How can astral slides be used against raffinity? I mean, I know that it has some effect, but seriously, isn't it a bit much? There seems to be a lot better stuff than astral slide for side-board options.

I'm just glad Tolarian Academy and Fastbond aren't Type II legal (or Type anything legal other than Type I in which they are both restricted). I already have a deck planned out that can win as soon as a veldaken archmage hits the field if they WERE Type 2 legal.

[AKA:Battousai]

hmm how do they beat affinity...

astral slide itself is a neat way to do it

you see one of the main ways a ravager deck wins is it'll attack with like 3-4 creatures including ornithopter and ravager and enforcer etc...

usually a deck can't block that many that early especially a wasted block on a flyer with a power of 0...

so if anything would get through the ravager sacks things and makes your opponent lose life to the numbr of the things it sacked...

then they are hit with even more combat damage that usually kills em when all they need to sac is like 6 artifacts...

the slide deck will first target the disciples with either rifts, bolts, after targeting the ravager with the slide...

this forces the ravager deck to respond by sacking things too early in the combat step, which allows the slide deck to either block with a life gaining angel...

also the slide deck can bun away creatures, etc... before they can recieve the bonuses from modular

the ravager deck is just too fragile against slide but it's lucky for ravager that not many people play slide to give it that much trouble

[Lich123]

actually I'm wholly disgusted with the mana bases in most decks in the currnet type II format. Now its just who gets their post or tron out faster, there is no variety, remember invasion where you actually needed an intensive mana base that evenly blended your colors? I'm SOOOOO SICK OF THIS COLORLESS CRAP. lets look at type two you have almost all raffinity, a couple slides (few and far between) and a couple tooth and nail, but if you go to any tournament you are GAURENTEED to see some form of affinity. There is as little variety on decks as when tog came out.

[Sailor Mars Dragon]

Well said. I completely agree. I still play the Invasion block because of this. More variety means more things to try out.

[x0xRedEyesx0x]

Okay, for all the people who are posting here that say they can beat an artifact deck easily...let me ask you one simple question...
Would you run that deck in a tournament????
Answer: No...you would not.
If you're going to have a deck with nothing but artifact hate in it, you're going to get demolished by anything else you play against, I know...I've seen it...

[SaneHuman]

It's true. I saw countless MRC decks kill about every ravager deck they faced the whole day, and lose to every round they played goblin bidding, or tooth and nail, or astral slide, even MWC beat it up pretty well.

[vodkam]

I don't have a problem with the all the artifacts. My problem is with the Affinity mechanic. It created a very bad imbalance... I think WotC forgot to include "colorless" as part of the color wheel since right now, RAffinity rules and most other decks have a very hard time against it. There's just too much speed with all the free spells that Affinity gives you. Ravager simply makes all your artifacts unkillable... Try to Naturalize or Oxidize something, it'll just get sacrificed to the Ravager. If anything, they should have made Ravager's ability "Use only when you could play a sorcery" which would have made it far more balanced.

You can maindeck all your artifact hate but it won't be very competitive against anything else.

Even cards like Trinisphere don't help... Sure, you slow down your opponent but you're not going to get it into play before turn 3 which means your opponent will probably have a Disciple, 2 Ornithopters, 2 Frogmites and a Ravager on the field already. Trinisphere would have been cool if it also had Affinity.. then you could get it into play on your first turn... then again, it would make it insane for Type 1. (Tolarian, Lotus, Mox, Mox, Trinisphere... go)

Damping Matrix is about the only thing that shuts down Ravager right now but it's not really usable in any deck except for all the white control variants.

I will say... the most fun I have is when I get to use a Mindslaver when my opponent has a Ravager out and I have my own artifact creature. (Sac everything, including Ravager and put all the counters on my Silver Myr... which is now 15/15)

I'm very bored of my RAffinity deck since it only exists for playing in tournaments. There's really very little strategy with Affinity. I'd rather be playing my fun Memnarch deck.

[spartan4life]

One thing that pisses me off about Raffinity is that the Ravager has a lot of tricks. vodkam brought up the mindslaver thing. a good raffinity player will just make the ravager eat himself at the end of turn to stop him. Try blasting a ravager with Oxodize, only to make him eat himself and put his 12 +1/+1 counters on a Myr Enforcer. It's just annoying...but when that new Pernicous Deed card from Fifth Dawn (I know that's not the name, but it's something like that) comes around, Raffinity is done. Put 0-2 counters on it. Kill Ravagers and Disciples easily. Basicly shuts the deck down. Then throw a Oxodize on a stick (Scepter really) and that's game.

[DemontheStorm]

if you look at some of the older cards you could find some cool stuff, like builder's bane, destroy X target atrifacts and player takes damage from it, i thought that was cool. I especially hate the indestructable stuff they just came out with, it's soooooooooo stupid. It just ruins magic altogether. And i agree that they need to go back to the color based stuff, that IS so much more fun.

[vodkam]

Originally Posted by spartan4life

but when that new Pernicous Deed card from Fifth Dawn (I know that's not the name, but it's something like that) comes around, Raffinity is done. Put 0-2 counters on it. Kill Ravagers and Disciples easily. Basicly shuts the deck down. Then throw a Oxodize on a stick (Scepter really) and that's game.

Engineered Explosives won't shut down RAffinity because it's more like Powder Keg than Pernicious Deed. It only destroys things with a converted mana cost equal to the number of charge counters... no more, no less. It also won't kill artifact lands like Pernicious Deed will.

2 counters means it only kills Ravagers... no Frogmites, Myr Enforcers or Disciples.

What I would have really liked to have been reprinted is Spike Cannibal... Comes into play and steals every +1/+1 counter and only costs 3 mana.

Shatterstorm is probably the best hoser for RAffinity but I doubt we'll see it until 9th Edition if at all.

[x0xRedEyesx0x]

What he's saying is that the artifacts in play will have nothing to be sacrificed to...since there is no ravager in play...which will give players a better chance of winning against it...
Personally, I'd love to see broodstar affinity make a comeback...

[spartan4life]

Server said 1 minuet. I didn't know it'll post. Sorry.

[spartan4life]

I did say put 0-2 counters on it. So you can have the chance to kill ravagers or Disciples. An affinity deck without Ravagers or another killer (Atog or Broody) is very easy to deal with.

[Lich123]

aether snap..... IF ONLY it costed like 3 less and was 1cc, THAT would be the answer to ravager.

[spartan4life]

Yes, AEther Snap would be the answer if it was lower CC. But it isn't, so we have to find ways around it.