Mendicant Core, Guidelight | Aetherdrift | Art by Dan Mumford
3, Feb, 25

Busted 22-Year-Old Mechanic Could Terrorize MTG Again In Aetherdrift

(Mirrodin flashbacks ensue.)

For Magic: The Gathering players of a certain age, the mere whisper of the word ‘Affinity’ will be enough to elicit a cold sweat. Debuting back in 2003’s Mirrodin this was one of the most overtuned mechanics of all time, requiring multiple rounds of bans to fully address. Since then we’ve only seen it sparingly, largely in supplemental products. Aetherdrift, however, fittingly enough given its strong artifact focus, is bringing Affinity back to MTG Standard in a big way.

Though only four new Affinity cards are actually being added here, they’re some of the best we’ve seen in a while. Combined with the plethora of artifact support in the set and in Standard as a whole, a new meta menace could be brewing right under our collective noses. If you don’t have your playset of Abrade at the ready, you might want to get on that soon.

Affinity In MTG Aetherdrift

Affinity MTG Aetherdrift

Let’s take a look at the new Affinity cards from MTG Aetherdrift. We’ve actually covered the best of these, Voyage Home, in detail before. The ability to draw three and gain three for only two mana is, unsurprisingly, fantastic. Affinity is a highly aggressive deck that tends to empty its hand quickly, and past versions have relied heavily on Thoughtcast to refill. Despite being slightly more expensive, Voyage Home will fulfill the same role in new Affinity decks.

Beyond this, Aetherdrift also packs some excellent new Affinity threats. Memory Guardian can easily become a 3/4 flier for one, which is great even by old Affinity standards. Demonic Junker is similar, if a bit harder to fully discount. It’s not a creature by default but it crews for just two, and it takes out an opposing threat in the bargain. The main downside here is that Junker pulls you into black, while the rest of the Affinity support only requires Azorius colors. An Esper brew splashing black just for this card could be worth it, but I can see a lot of players streamlining things to just blue/white.

Finally, we also get a reprint of Kaladesh classic Gearseeker Serpent to round out our Affinity suite. This is another impressive body you can cast for cheap, though two blue is definitely trickier than one. Serpent also isn’t an artifact itself, unlike Guardian and Junker, which is a significant downside. You can tell Wizards has learnt its lesson from old Affinity since none of these cards can be cast for free. They’re still potentially very scary, however, especially given the volume of support in the rest of the set.

Stalwart Support

Affinity MTG Aetherdrift Support Pieces

To enable its new Affinity cards, MTG Aetherdrift has a plethora of great artifact support cards. As I mentioned above, Affinity is fundamentally an Aggro deck. The plan is to get artifacts on the board early, then drop your cheap Affinity threats and ride that tempo wave to victory.

To that end, Nesting Bot is an incredible place to start. A one mana artifact creature that leaves behind another when it dies is stellar for Affinity, ensuring you maintain at least a one mana discount in the early game. It also starts your engines, which is relevant for Mendicant Core, Guidelight. Max Speed looks tricky to achieve, but even without it Guidelight is a beefy attacker and an artifact himself; an ideal addition to Affinity. If you do hit Max Speed it gets even better, letting you double down on your cheap creatures for just one more mana.

There are a bunch of other great options for the deck in Aetherdrift too, like Sundial, Dawn Tyrant as an efficient artifact beater, and Thopter Fabricator as a way of going wide. The one that really catches my eye, however, is Salvation Engine. Five is a lot of mana for an Aggro deck, but giving every creature in your deck +2/+2 is massive. Crew 6 is also deceptively easy to hit due to the anthem effect. All you need is a Nesting Bot and a token and you’re golden.

Recurring your dead artifacts is a great way to stay in the game, and 6/10 stats are monstrous. You can even drop this for less than five if you decide to run accelerants like Voyager Quickwelder, which could turn out to be the play. As a top-end threat for Affinity in Standard, Salvation Engine looks like the real deal.

A New Meta Breaker?

Standard Support Pieces

That there’s in-set support for the new Affinity cards in MTG Aetherdrift isn’t particularly surprising. Nor is it a guarantee that the deck is playable in the new format. We also have to consider what’s in Standard already, and how Affinity could make use of it.

When Affinity decks have been dominant in the past, it’s typically been down to a combination of free artifacts and artifact lands. Believe it or not, we actually have both of those things in Standard right now. Leyline Axe can come down for free on turn zero, immediately giving you a one mana discount on your Affinity plays.

We also have an artifact land in Standard right now: the easily-overlooked Scene of the Crime. This is a bit of a dicey inclusion since it enters tapped, which is usually the last thing you want in an Aggro deck. The fact that it discounts your Affinity cards and can cycle for a card later, however, more than makes up for that in my view.

This deck could also be Simulacrum Synthesizer’s time to shine at last. Your cheap Affinity plays will generate easy tokens off of this, and it’s an artifact itself. While a bit slow for Aggro, the potential here if you can untap is massive. Throw in some early speed bumps like Novice Inspector to make up the tempo loss and you should be fine.

Being an Azorius or Esper deck also means that Affinity will have access to top-tier interaction, the lack of which is the number one reason most fun-looking decks like this fail. There are no guarantees of course, but I could really see Affinity being a new player in Standard post-Aetherdrift.

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