I've just assembled my first modern deck. Anyone have suggestions? Also, I still need a sideboard..

LANDS
4 Darksteel Citadel
7 Swamp
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower

CREATURES
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Disciple of the Vault
3 Steel Overseer
1 Arcbound Ravager
4 Arcbound Crusher
4 Dross Scorpion
2 Myr Battlesphere

INSTANTS
4 Tragic Slip

ARTIFACTS
2 Bubbling Cauldron
3 Genesis Chamber
2 Trading Post
2 Myr Turbine
2 Contagion Engine

http://deckbox.org/sets/629182

Whats the goal of the deck?
How competative an environment are you looking to play in?
Have you seen Affinity?

I'm familiar with affinity but unfortunately I don't have many affinity cards. I was also looking to build something that was maybe slightly different than the usual for people to play against. This deck will mostly see casual game play but I will probably try it at a few FNM tournaments as well.

So the goal of this deck is to make a bunch of Myr tokens with Genesis Chamber or Myr Turbine to either feed one of my sac engines (Bubbling Cauldron, Trading Post, or my lone Arcbound Ravager) to deal damage with Disciple of the Vault. Arcbound Crusher is my second win condition since he gets freaking huge fast with all of the tokens entering the battlefield and can swing for a lot with trample. I included a play set of Dross Scorpion so that I can untap my artifacts whenever another artifact dies which will then allow me to sac more tokens or make more myrs.

depending on what kind of modern decks are in your area, this could be too slow. That would be my only concern.

The actual affinity list isn't hard to put together. Out side of the opals, most cards are <=$10

The majority of Affinity cards are >$1 though so it adds up.

~$120 on the lands alone.
He has the Steel Overseers so most of what he needs is Ravager and etched champion but still.


as a whole I like elements of the deck but Im not sure it will really do what you need it to. I did a quick search found a bunch of cards...
piston sledge
Throne of Geth
spawning pit

Culling Dias
Jinxed Idol
pentavus
rackdos riteknife
Blasting Station

The first three in particular stood out to me as good options for the deck. Spawning Pit and Piston Sledge both have the advantage of being cheap and not requiring any mana or tapping to activate. This lets you run with just 1 Dross Scorpion on the board and a Myr Turbine for example.

Throne of Geth stood out for the proliferate.

Im not clear on how to make this deck win exactly but I think theres some decent elements here.

Finally I would definitately pick up playsets of Ornithopter memnite these are both super awesome creatures, that work great with this sort of deck AND they get you started into Affinity too which is not a horrible idea really.

another option which I think would be really cool would be to do a variant on Heartless storm. Using 2 Myr Retrievers, Heartless summoning and Something to Protect a disciple of the vault. The Retrievers cycle one another for free chaining damage from the disciple till you win.


In the end I'd look at a list something like this:

Land ~22
Artifacts 16
4 Spawning Pit
2 Throne of Geth
4 Springleaf Drum
2 Myr Turbine
4 Trading Post

Creatures
2 Dross Scorpions
4 Memnite
4 Ornithopter
4 Myr Retriever
4 Disciples of the Vault

Spells
4 Thoughtcast

The majority of Affinity cards are >$1 though so it adds up.

~$120 on the lands alone.
He has the Steel Overseers so most of what he needs is Ravager and etched champion but still.

this is true, but the lands are 10 bucks each for the most part, trading for multiple 10 dollar cards is easier than one $50 card... opals are pretty clutch in the list though, i don't think affinity would work without them.

elpablo wrote:

The majority of Affinity cards are >$1 though so it adds up.

~$120 on the lands alone.
He has the Steel Overseers so most of what he needs is Ravager and etched champion but still.

this is true, but the lands are 10 bucks each for the most part, trading for multiple 10 dollar cards is easier than one $50 card... opals are pretty clutch in the list though, i don't think affinity would work without them.

The budget for some players/decks is <$100

I said, trade not buy, the guy has a pretty decent inventory depending on what he's willing to let go of. He has the cards to trade for the complete affinity list as seen at the pro tour and the recent GP.

And, budget can mean a lot of things... typically while individual players can have budget restrictions, formats have "budget" decks. Affinity is a budget deck for modern regardless of the price of individual cards compared to personal budgets. Soul sisters would be another example, but affinity is more a of a credible threat than soul sisters. Fish also comes to mind as affordable.

Thank you for all the feedback. Tonight I went ahead and picked up a play set of Ornithopter to replace Archbound Worker. I also had a time to do a few test runs and the deck does seem to play slower than I'd like but tends to dominate if the game is allowed to draw on. I definitely need to speed it up a bit. I had 2xThrone of Geth sideboarded but I plan on tossing it in on the next run. I also really like the Jinxed Idol and Blasting Station ideas as well. I originally had tried both Pentavus and Thopter Assembly in place of Myr Battlesphere but neither seemed to have quite as much impact as the battlesphere. I have also considered Salvage Titan but it is currently sideboarded. Thank you again for all of the feedback, you have given me a lot of food for thought. Also, can you remind me on which lands are used in the cookie cutter Affinity decks? Those may be my next bigger trade investments.

4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Darksteel Citadel
3-4 Glimmervoid
1 Island

Is the usual sort of array. if you were running without Mox Opals, I would probably make it 4 glimmervoid and also add in a swamp/mountain

If you go the white route instead of Galvanic Blast you could obviously use a plains.

I see you are playing Urza lands and lots of stuff in the 4+ mana range. I have to say you should consider including Expedition Map. Even just a couple of copies will help you have a greater consistency. A turn 3 Battlesphere can be the tempo swing you need to put you back into win mode. Also I'm a fan of any deck that looks to break Disciple of the Vault, that card can be quite underrated. Also consider Cranial Plating. It is cheap, and an all star in affinity lists, and is much cheaper than acquiring more Ravagers, but essentially allows you to get more mileage out of your artifacts. You can also move it at instant speed in here with no problem as you're running lots of Swamps.