THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO ESPER AFFINITY
Greetings everyone! My name is Nick and I have been playing competitive Magic for almost 15 years with a focus on Pauper in the last 24 months. Some of you may recognize me as the finalist in last year’s Invitational event at RIW. This past weekend I took down the 7th installation of the RIW Pauper Championship Series with Esper Affinity.
The deck has been around for a while, but got some brand new tools with the introduction of Zeta into the format. In this piece I’ll break down what Esper Affinity is, card choices and include a brief matchup breakdown so you can crush your next Pauper event with what I think is the current best deck in the format.
WHAT IS ESPER AFFINITY?
At its core Esper Affinity is a high synergy midrange deck utilizing the card advantage shell of Cryogen Relic + bounce creatures along with traditional elements of Affinity (Reckoner’s Bargain, Refurbished Familiar and Thoughtcast).
The goal of Esper Affinity is to go over the top of what the opponent is doing by burying them in card advantage and using efficient threats to close out the game. Along with this, Esper gets the best suite of removal, interaction, and recursion out of any other Affinity shell in the format.
Here is the 75 I used in the tournament and what I’ll be using as reference:
CARD BREAKDOWN
THREATS
Refurbished Familiar & Utrom Monitor
The bread and butter cards of any Affinity deck. Refurbished Familiar is one of the best cards in the entire format and is especially pronounced in this deck since you can bounce it multiple times to strip away significantly at the opponent’s hand. Utrom is the single best beater this deck has. Really tough to beat a one mana 3/3 flier that can come down as early as Turn 2. Just a ridiculous rate on this card and it’s one of the many reasons to play this deck.
Glint Hawk & Kor Skyfisher
When these creatures enter the battlefield (ETB for short), they require their controller to return an artifact or permanent back to hand, which triggers Cryogen Relic to draw an additional card since it left the battlefield and will allow another use of any powerful ETB triggers.
These creatures are the main draw to Esper and are how the deck creates these resource loops that are super hard to keep up with.
Baleful Strix
One of two Zeta cards this deck gained, Baleful Strix is in a league of its own. While not particularly fast, it will always trade positively with an opponent either on cards or on mana and blocks every single threat an opponent can produce. This card isn’t as good as Relic to bounce, but it still provides value on that front if it needs to. Strix is a great addition to the deck, but it has downside. Being a two color card is tough on the mana, and the deck has a bunch of two drops already. That said, I have a hard time playing less than 2 in this deck. Depending on what the meta game looks like, I could see anywhere from 2-4 being the correct number to play.
CARD ADVANTAGE
Reckoner’s Bargain
A staple of Affinity decks, this spell allows you to draw 2 cards for the small price of sacrificing an artifact or creature. Just drawing 2 isn’t enough though, as you also gain life equal to the mana value of the object sacrificed. Reckoner’s Bargain is weird in this deck since you would rather bounce Relic over and over again to draw cards as opposed to sacrificing it. But I did want some incidental life gain in my deck and some way to draw cards if the resource loop wasn’t in effect, so I settled on still playing 2 copies. This is the card in the deck that I am the most unsure about. I could see 0-4 being correct for a variety of reasons.
Thoughtcast
This is an Affinity staple, and for obvious reasons. It does not get more efficient than this. One mana, draw 2. Simple, efficient, and really good. Always play 4 copies, no question about it there.
INTERACTION
Dispatch
The other Zeta addition to the deck, this is the real reason to play white in your Affinity deck. For one white mana at instead speed, you can exile any creature. If you thought Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares were efficient, they have nothing on Dispatch.
Chrysalis in the way? Gone.
Snacker being a pain? Gone.
Bramble Wurm threatening lethal? Gone.
I cannot say enough good things about Dispatch, and it’s exactly what this deck was lacking. Previously Esper didn’t have a great one mana removal spell, and now it has the best removal in the format. If you can deck build around Dispatch, you should. The card is absolutely ridiculous.
Grim Bauble & Tithing Blade
These are the removal spells Esper used to rely on since they are recursive in this deck thanks to the eight bounce creatures. These cards weave in and out of the deck and that just depends on what the meta looks like. If decks like Elves, Rally Red and Faeries are popular, you’ll want some number of Grim Bauble. If decks like Terror, Bogles, and Monster Tron are popular, you’ll want some number of Tithing Blade.
Nihil Spellbomb
Pauper is a graveyard centric format, so until that changes all of my Affinity decks will have some number of Nihil Spellbomb in them. The exact number varies since there are a fair number of matchups where the card doesn’t actually do anything (besides cycle off) and having too many in the deck is a liability. Currently I am on 2 copies in the main deck with a 3rd in the sideboard to respect Madness, Spy, the mirror and other graveyard focused strategies.
ARTIFACTS
Blood Fountain
As my friend Bailey jokes about constantly, this card is basically Dark Ritual for Affinity. In a sense, he’s not wrong…
This card provides two artifacts on its own and its activated ability can grab any two creatures in your graveyard. Blood Fountain leads to the explosive draws the deck is capable of, but also gives inevitability via double Raise Dead. The biggest downside of the card is that it’s very slow and is rough to draw in multiples. The first one is so good that I have a hard time not playing 2 copies.
Giant’s Boulder
A recent addition from The Hobbit, Giant’s Boulder is right behind Dispatch as a huge upgrade for Affinity. For 1, you get to scry 2 when it ETBs. That alone is great since it gives the deck the ability to sculpt its draws and find any piece it’s missing.
Additionally, it has an ability to filter mana into any color. If you’re missing a color, Boulder will allow you to still cast those color of spells. Lastly for 7 mana you can sacrifice the Boulder to destroy any permanent on the table. While infrequent, this ability does come up especially in matchups where the games are long and grindy. It’s another way to insulate you from running out of stuff to do. I only played 3 at the PCS but I am heavily considering playing the full 4. One of the weaknesses of this deck is the mana, and Boulder helps with that in a pretty significant way.
Cryogen Relic
An innocuous card, but an important one, nonetheless. For 1U, this artifact draws a card when its ETBs or leaves play, providing the value engine with 8x bounce creatures.
Relic can also be sacrificed to put a stun counter on a tapped creature, which in turn draws a card. The deck will always play 4, no question about it.
MANA BASE
Esper’s mana base was the toughest part of deck construction for me. I settled on maxing out the untapped lands and spreading out my Bridges based on color requirements. Boulder also influenced this, since you want to cast it early and thus are more likely to want untapped mana. In total there are 10 black sources, 9 white sources and 9 blue sources and I had no issues with the mana throughout the event aside from my lands being destroyed. I would run it back in a heartbeat.
SIDEBOARD
Hydroblast / Blue Elemental Blast
As long as Red decks are at the top of the metagame, you cannot leave home without some number of these cards in your sideboard. For this event, I settled on 4 since I wanted variety among my sideboard cards. But I could see any amount in the 3-6 range unless the meta shifts drastically.
Envelop
Envelop has always been on the fringe in Affinity. It’s incredibly narrow but it does counter a fair amount of relevant things. It stops 2-mana draw 2s in Madness, Dread Return, Dust to Dust, and Winding Way/Lead the Stampede. I ended up playing it since I wanted some coverage for Dust to Dust and Vandalblast, while being good vs Spy. Certainly one of the more cuttable cards in the sideboard.
Dust to Dust
The Affinity boogeyman players are everywhere. For 1WW, D2D exiles two artifacts. In the early game, it is a double stone rain. Late game, it exiles two threats. No matter how you slice it this card is very annoying to deal with. Since the deck can run it and I expected to play a fair amount of mirror matches, I played 3. For as long as Affinity is present, I will have some number of these in my board.
Cut Down
Cut down is another piece of cheap removal that has coverage against a ton of different decks. Similar to Envelop, it’s a flex slot and metagame call.
Thraben Charm
Charm ended up not making the final cut, but I did want to mention it since it’s super modal and gives the deck something it currently doesn’t have; a way to remove an enchantment.
Two mana is still an awkward spot on the curve, so this is gonna take some more testing to make any conclusions.
MATCHUP BREAKDOWN
|
Good Matchups |
Close Matchups |
Bad Matchups |
|---|---|---|
|
Blue Terror |
Madness |
Tron |
|
Grixis Affinity |
Elves |
Bogles |
|
Jund Wildfire |
Spy Combo |
Gruul Ponza |
|
Red Rally |
White Weenie |
Turbo Fog |
|
Faeries |
Golgari Gardens |
Cycle Storm |
|
Jeskai Ephemerate |
Naya Gates |
|
|
Ruby Storm |
Familiars |
|
|
Boros Moxite |
|
|
|
Mono-Black Sac |
|
|
