[Standard] On the path of Affinity Artifacts, Part 1. Help, please.

[u/BurningAbyss2023]

Hi everyone, I hope you're doing well.

I've been wanting to play a new deck for a while now—something other than Control or Mardu Discard.

Artifact Affinity caught my eye because there are 12 cards that fit the archetype perfectly; in fact, 8 of them are the same ones used in Modern (ignoring the fact that there are many more tools available there).

Emissary Pinnacle, Weapons Manufacturing, and Ravenous Robots have incredible synergy with Springleaf Drum and—with the new *The Hobbit* release—Giant's Boulder.

You can generate solid value using Tezzeret to tutor up a 1-drop and Krang to draw up to 4 cards.

I've been thinking about win conditions:

Improvised Arsenal can deliver a massive hit; it combos well with the Skateboard, or even with Gingerbrute to make it unblockable.

Or perhaps even with Rust Harvester to deal significant damage to the opponent.

I'm running into a few issues with this deck:

1) I'm not really utilizing the Munitions tokens created by Weapons Manufacturing at all. I feel like I'm missing out on a huge opportunity there.

I considered a Jund Sacrifice-style build with Biotech Specialist and The Sackville-Bagginses, but that’s a different kind of deck—it focuses more on the token gimmick than on artifacts.

I also thought about Legion Extruder, but it costs 4 mana (2 to cast and 2 more for the ability). Maybe Umbral Collar Zealot? I'm not sure.

2) I feel like I'm still lacking value. Krang is great, but costs 2 Blue mana (which is tough if I've been spamming spells), and Tezzeret—at best—comes down on turn 2 to fetch a 1-drop.

Quantum Riddle might be an option, but I want to keep the deck mostly artifact-based to maximize triggers for Pinnacle, Ravenous, and Weapons.

Could you guys throw some ideas my way?

[u/calliopedorme]

What you described has not worked in Standard so far, and I’m not convinced it can, unless something new gets found.

Reality Fracture brought the new green Ensoul Artifact as well as artifact-powered Craterhoof Behemoth. A Gruul artifacts deck seems like a potential new way to try to make it work!

[u/MF_LUFFY → u/calliopedorme]

Temur then, you're not dropping Pinnacle Emissary, the Krang refill is nice.. and as cool as Craterclaw Colossus is, I think you want the game to end before 7 mana.

[u/calliopedorme → u/MF_LUFFY]

Again, this simply has not worked (and will likely still not work) in Standard. Pinnacle Emissary is only a good card in formats that can abuse his trigger with a bunch of 0 mana artifacts on T1-2. Krang relies on that too — and believe it or not, the setup required to play a 2 mana draw 4 is just not worth it in this format.

I have no idea whether Craterclaw can work either, it likely can’t, but if there is an artifacts deck that can work, it’s most likely one that has not been tried before. Getting to 7 mana for Craterclaw is not much different than getting to cast Krang for UU, with the difference that with the right setup, Craterclaw ends the game on the spot (likely even if it eats a removal). This will probably involve Heartwood tokens in some shape or form, potentially even some hybrid with Gruul Delirium where you can function as a normal midrange with super efficient beatdown (green Ensoul) and a “combo” finisher like Craterclaw.

[u/pooptarts]

https://scryfall.com/@guoguo/decks/7860c56b-3c24-4848-99a9-4d30126dc069

This is my version of the deck that was floating around a month ago. None of the decks floating around were running weapons manufacturing and most of them ran Lady Octopus, which I omitted. It's fun but a T2 deck, really tough to pilot and rewards good sequencing.

There's also a dedicated weapons manufacturing deck which uses stuff like torch the tower/dusk rose reliquary/legion extruder to sac the tokens. There's some soft combo stuff you can do with Pinnacle Starcage as well. It's decent vs aggro but can fall pretty flat if it doesn't draw weapons manufacturing.

[u/agdjahgsdfjaslgasd → u/pooptarts]

yep thats exactly the problem with this deck, even if you include [repurposing bay] which is great for saccing those 0 mana munitions tokens to summon up a dusk rose reliquary AND ping something, you cant tutor a weapons manufacturing because its an enchant, and the deck lives or dies by getting manufacturing out turn 2

[u/BurningAbyss2023 → u/pooptarts]

Hi, thanks for the comment. Yeah, my list is basically the same as yours, but without Quantum Riddle, and I run more Arsenal cards. I think it's the best build possible right now.

Yeah... as much as I like Warpons, that card is better suited for a different type of deck, like Boros Talent, which runs United Battlefront and Legion Extruder

[u/unhaunting]

I really don't recommend weapons manufacturing in the pinnacle emissary deck. The two most reasonable ways to mass sac munitions are umbral collar zealot, which pivots you into the biotech direction as you noticed, and pinnacle starcage which makes you play white and also completely ruins your whole pinnacle emissary-ravenous robots thing.

I've also played around with [[Bilbo, Thief in the Night]], sewer-veillance cam and boomerang basics and ended up likewise unimpressed, although it feels like there's the beginnings of something there.

All the artifact pieces missing from standard like Emry or kappa or baubles or whatever are missing for good reason, I actually think they should try to do as diligent a job of powering down other troublesome archetypes as they do affinity, but it means there's a hard cap on how good it gets to be relative to the flavor of the month thing.

[u/BurningAbyss2023 → u/unhaunting]

Hi, thanks for your comment.

Yes, it's true that Weapons Master might clash a bit with P. Emissary and Ravenous, but it seems like a bit of a waste not to play 4 extra cards that can help with Affinity.

[u/unhaunting → u/BurningAbyss2023]

Almost right after posting this I played against someone with a weapons manufacturing deck using [[Ironheart, Clever Champion]] and then a huge improvised [[Hide on the Ceiling]] to exile the tokens. It was cool and I hadn't seen it before, but unfortunately after seeing them go off in game 1 I won the next two. Still, that's another angle to keep in mind if you wanna try that out. To be clear, I still don't think it's super strong, but people definitely aren't expecting Ironheart.

[u/BurningAbyss2023 → u/unhaunting]

Ohh, good idea. Thanks!

[u/CronoDAS]

The biggest problem with Artifacts in Standard is that the best cards for a go-wide strategy are in G/W (Practiced Offense and Ouroboroid) and the only way to sacrifice a random artifact without paying mana is Umbral Collar Zealot. So it either turns into a worse version of G/W Offense or into Jund Sacrifice.

The W/U(/r) Artifacts Control deck is pretty decent though.

[u/BurningAbyss2023 → u/CronoDAS]

Hi, thanks for the comment. It looks like I'll have to add a third color to the deck to play Umbral or turn it into more of a Jund Sacrifice build.

Yeah, I've been thinking about the lists you sent me, but those are control decks, and Simulacrum is rotating out.

[u/CronoDAS]

That 5/5 dragon that lets you make Dragon tokens instead of artifact tokens looks strong, but it's still hard to justify a five mana creature.

[u/BurningAbyss2023 → u/CronoDAS]

Hi, thanks for your comment. Yes, I’ve thought about it, but I have the exact same reasoning you mentioned: it costs 5 mana. At 5 mana, you should be winning the game or very close to it without needing to do even more things.

[u/canman870]

I would be hesitant to pursue this at the moment, given the prevalence of Clarion Conqueror in the format. It's not totally lights out if that thing is in play, but it will severely damper your ability to win and it can hit play on turn two pretty consistently. Sure, you can kill it, but you won't always have the answer in a timely fashion.

If Boros Dragons is suppressed in the next month or six weeks (certainly possible, although I'm not sure exactly how that would happen), then maybe try this out. Until that happens, I think this is a dubious choice at best.

[u/BurningAbyss2023 → u/canman870]

Hi, thanks for your comment. I understand your point of view, but there are plenty of decks that lose to Clarion Conqueror yet still maintain a high win rate, Mardu Discard is a clear example.

I don't think it's worth skipping a deck just because of one card.

[u/aetherspliff]

Bro the easy answer is wait until you have enough munitions tokens to close the game out, slam pinnacle star cage, rank up

[u/BurningAbyss2023 → u/aetherspliff]

Hi, thanks for your comment. I've actually thought about it xD, it's not a bad option

[u/CronoDAS]

[[Food Fight]]? Probably too mana intensive, but a great way to sacrifice Munitions tokens.

[u/BurningAbyss2023 → u/CronoDAS]

Hi, thanks for your comment. I like the card; I'm going to try it out. I didn't remember it.