EVERYTHING MUST GO!

Massive Board Control Can Defeat Affinity

by Jeff Zandi


Whether you are tuning up your constructed game for Regionals, playing
Friday Night Magic or just playing Standard Constructed with your buddies,
you just might be tired of getting crushed by the deadly fast synergy of the
current Affinity decks. (Those of you playing the powerful Affinity deck,
take a break, this deck is for US OTHER GUYS!) One way to beat Affinity is
to play a control deck that has the ability to consistently and repeatedly
erase their entire board. What you need is a Massive Board Control Deck that
tells your Affinity wielding opponent that EVERYTHING MUST GO!

First of all, let's face some facts. You can't beat Affinity all the time. I
don't think there is going to be a deck invented in the next month that
beats Affinity all the time. All you and I are looking for is a fair chance
for victory. I believe massive board control decks provide such an
opportunity. But first, a history lesson from the Land of Television.

Before Magic Online, before Magic, before cell phones and the internet,
before MP3s, CDs and DVDs, before most people even had VCRs, there was
television. Almost thirty years ago, I learned an important lesson about
life from a television show. It was Tuesday night, October 14th, 1975. I was
ten years old. The show was Happy Days. On this particular episode, the
straight-laced, super nice guy Ritchie Cunningham is being forced into a
fist fight with a tough guy high school dropout named Frankie. Ritchie, who
obviously has never been in a fight before asks his cool friend Fonzie for
some advice. Fonzie, who knows how to handle himself, is more than happy to
help his nerdish friend. Fonzie tells Ritchie to wait until the tough guy
starts taking off his jacket, and then to sucker punch him while his arms
are tied up in the jacket. Ritchie thinks he understands, saying, "So you
mean if I trick him, I can win the fight?" Fonzie immediately corrects his
friend, "No, you're going to lose, but you get in ONE GOOD PUNCH!" For the
past week, I've been working on a deck that can give you that "one good
punch" against Affinity. Basically, you're going to have to cast Wrath of
God on turn four EVERY GAME, and then you are STILL going to have to follow
up with more board-clearing answers. Still interested? Then read on, sturdy
yeoman!

It all started last week when we were play testing Affinity decks and some
decks that our team thought might be good against Affinity, like Goblin
Bidding and the GW Tooth and Nail deck. I saw a deck that had done well in
the German Regionals tournament held last month in Berlin

Blue/White Control
Frank Schafer
Wrath of God x4
Akroma's Vengeance x4
Oblivion Stone x4
Renewed Faith x4
Pulse of the Fields x2
Thirst for Knowledge x4
Eternal Dragon x3
Decree of Justice x4
Mindslaver x4
Stifle x1
Cloudpost x4
Coastal Tower x3
Flooded Strand x4
Island x3
Plains x8
Temple of the False God x4
SIDEBOARD
Circle of Protection: Red x4
Purge x3
Sacred Ground x2
Stifle x2
Weathered Wayfarer x4

I built this deck, to be honest, simply because it had done well against
Affinity in a Regionals that I believe contains a lot of good players.
Looking at the deck initially, I had all kinds of problems with it, and I
had a lot of questions in my mind. The amount of mana looked okay for a
control deck, but how, even with 26 total lands, could this deck afford to
run four copies each of Cloudpost and Temple of the False God? Why did Frank
Schafer think Thirst for Knowledge and Stifle were important enough to
endanger his mana base by including blue to what could have been a more
reliable mono white deck? Why dedicate FOUR slots to Mindslaver? I built the
deck anyway, remaining true to Frank's decklist in every respect except for
the mana.

There is an important lesson here. When you decide to try out some deck you
find on the internet, do yourself a favor and stay as true to the original
deck design as possible until you have tested the deck enough to know what
you REALLY don't like about the deck. Before I built this deck, I almost
pulled out the blue spells and mana, along with the Mindslavers and the
Pulse of the Field cards. That would have been a mistake. Even though I felt
I could judge these cards well enough, the fact is that you don't know what
a card is like in a particular deck design until you actually play with it
in a deck.

We tested this deck against a very standard Affinity deck with Disciple of
the Vault, Ravagers and Shrapnel Blasts. We played ten games unsideboarded,
taking turns going first. The white deck won six out of the ten games. Every
game was competitive. I believe the biggest key to this control deck
involves how often you can blow up the world. Four each Wrath, Vengeance and
Oblivion, twelve cards in all that say EVERYTHING MUST GO to Affinity decks.
Wrath is bad for Affinity decks, but Akroma's Vengeance and Oblivion Stone
are even worse because they remove EVERY permanent on the Affinity player's
board except for Glimmervoid, which sticks around until the end of the turn,
whereupon it joins the rest of the Affinity player's cards in the old
boneyard.  In the ten games we played, I was able to play Wrath of God on
turn four NINE TIMES OUT OF TEN. The one game when I was unable to Wrath of
turn four, and believe, I REALLY NEEDED TO, I would have been able to cast
Akroma's Vengeance on turn five.

HOW DO YOU CAST 'WRATH OF GOD' ON TURN FOUR EVERY GAME ?

A couple of factors help. First, you ARE playing 26 land. Even with Frank
Schafer's mana base, you can count on having four mana, at least two of them
able to produce white mana, on turn four in the great majority of games. The
other factor is cycling, you can cycle a Decree on turn three if you have
to, or even a Vengeance if land is the issue. Of course, you ALWAYS get a
land when you cycle Eternal Dragon. Cycling Renewed Faith is a tricky issue.
Chances are, you will need to hold onto this card in case you have to cast
it to gain six life on your opponent's third or fourth turn. Finally, Thirst
for Knowledge, a card that seems to have no business being in this deck with
hardly any blue or artifact cards in it, becomes CRUCIAL against Affinity to
help you dig deeper into your deck on turn three to make sure you can Wrath
on turn four. Basically, when I "obeyed my Thirst" on turn three, I simply
discarded two cards if I didn't draw into a Mindslaver. In fact, being
discardable for Thirst of Knowledge was almost Mindslaver's only function in
this match up. Obviously, Mindslaver is in this deck for matchups against
other control decks, as is the lone Stifle in the Frank's design.

The ability to play Wrath of God so consistently on turn four can seriously
mess with the head of your Affinity wielding opponent. Knowing how powerful
the Wrath can be on turn four, he will need to try to kill you on his third
or fourth turn. Unfortunately, everything that helps him beat you in four
turns also makes your fourth turn Wrath of God that much more devastating.
The possibility of turn four Wrath gives the Affinity player a chance to
make one of two mistakes. He can either over-commit, fail to kill you, and
then have little chance to come back after your Wrath, or he can
under-commit and hold back some of his cards, saving you lots of damage.

TURN FOUR WRATH OF GOD IS NOT ENOUGH

If the good news is that you ALWAYS get to Wrath on turn four, the bad news
is that turn four Wrath of God will not be good enough. One or two turns
later, you will need to drop Oblivion Stone or Akroma's Vengeance to
completely crush the dreams of the Affinity player. Luckily, you can look
forward to being able to do exactly this, since your deck has four of all of
these cards.

DECK CHANGES I WOULD LIKE TO CONSIDER

I liked this deck well enough after a week of testing to keep it in our deck
testing "gauntlet". I would like to change the deck to make it even more
focused against Affinity decks in game one. I don't mind the fact that these
changes will make the deck worse against other control decks in game one. To
this end, I would like to replace all four Mindslaver cards and the single
Stifle. The Stifle's replacement is simple, I want to add the fourth Eternal
Dragon. For the Mindslaver, which I doubt I will even put in the sideboard,
I will consider bounce spells like Chain of Vapor or Echoing Truth but
probably not the double blue costed Boomerang. Other blue cards that are a
possibility are Index to look at more cards, Vex or Mana Leak to provide a
little more control on turns two and three. White cards I am interested in
include Healing Salve, Holy Day, Rain of Blades, Silver Knight or EVEN Raise
the Alarm. While an obvious anti-Affinity artifact could be Damping Matrix
(which could also be thrown away to Thirst for Knowledge), I am also
interested in Bottle Gnomes and, get ready for this, Sunbeam Spellbomb.

As always, I'd love to hear what YOU think!

Jeff Zandi
Texas Guildmages
Level II DCI Judge
jeffzandi@thoughtcastle.com
Zanman on Magic Online