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BMoor's Magic The
Gathering
Deck Garage
A few years ago, one deck tormented every format it reared its ugly head in. It made men weep. It made women give up Magic in frustration. It made other women who were playing it laugh maniacally and grow to hate their friends. It was Affinity.
That deck eventually rotated out of Standard, and even though it lingers on in Extended even today, the larger card pool makes other archetypes viable there. On the whole, the Affinity horror has been contained into no more of a threat than any other deck type, and has even split into Ravager Affinity (the most dangerous of the versions), Broodstar Affinity, and Atog Affinity (the least degenerate). As such, I have no qualms assisting an aspiring Atog Affinity afficionado.
Okay, Joshua, let me see what I can do for you. Now, you say you need "better creatures and spells". I can handle that. But then, the Affinity deck didn't win because its creatures and spells were BETTER, it won because of the incredible synergy between the creatures and spells. Almost every spell had Affinity for artifacts or was an artifact. But Affinity was also B/U/r, while yours is B/R. Not using Blue is a risky step for an Affinity deck, but I bet we can make it work.
As I once told another Black/Red player, playing two colors works for three reasons: taking advantages of awesome multicolor cards, a combo with pieces in each of the colors, and one color filling in the weaknesses of the other. I suppose you sort of have a "combo" in that Shrapnel Blast and Disciple of the Vault are both crippling cards in an artifact-heavy deck. You're not really filling one color's weaknesses, though, except that Necrogen Spellbomb is more effective control against noncreatures than Red usually gets, and Skeleton Shard does something Red can't easily. And as for multicolor cards, you have Terminate. That's a good basis for a B/R deck, but let's make it stronger.
We'll start with some cool multicolor spells, wh
 ich Rakdos gave the world in droves. Wrecking Ball is the first candidate. Rakdos Guildmage is the second. But in a deck with Disciple of the Vault, I actually think Rakdos the Defiler-- that's right, the Demonlord himself, big R the 7/6 flying trampler-- is what the deck mechanic's ordering. Think about it: Rakdos attacks. You sacrifice half your non-Demon permanents. Most of these will be artifacts, and so Disciple exacts massive life loss. Your opponent's life totals plummets before Rakdos even deals his damage. And when His Unholiness does connect, if the opponent survives somehow, he'll have to sacrifice half of his permanents, which will make a come-from-behind win all the more unlikely. We'll slip in a copy or two of him for you.
I don't want to add more than one copy because you did say your deck was too "slow and underpowered". This is odd, because usually Affinity is notorious for turn 3 wins. But I'll speed this up for you however I can. First of all, the Iron and Leaden Myr should be 3 more Rakdos Signets-- Signets don't get summoning sickness, and 1/1 artifact creatures are very easy to kill. Next, Feedback Bolt and Braid of Fire become 3 more Shrapnel Blast-- they're worth it, trust me. We can bring the mana curve down a little by replacing the Megatogs with regular Atogs, since trample doesn't matter much as long as you wait until it doesn't get blocked. Goblin Replica is not needed here. And with the high percentage of colorless spells here, you can get away with having 4 Darksteel Citadel and 4 Cloudpost in place of some basic lands. The Citadel will help power up your artifact-loving cards (like Shrapnel Blast and Myr Retreiver) that much faster, and the Cloudpost will give you more mana.
I just realized, you don't have any cards with Affinity for artifacts. No wonder you're not doing well! All right, replace Myr Servitor with Frogmite or Myr Enforcer. Preferably Myr Enforcer, since it's more powerful, but Frogmite becomes free all the sooner. A Mycosynth Golem would be even more powerful, but that might be a little tricky to get out soon enough. Depends on what you need sooner-- speed or power.
And finally, somehow, someway, make room for a Cranial Plating or two. I don't care what gets dropped-- this is the power card. This is what will win you games. Go with it.
Well, that's all for today's history lesson. Good luck at the tournament!
~BMoor
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