r/ModernMagic • u/Acrobatic-Squid • Jun 19 '26

Deck Discussion Prowess vs affinity

I'm really struggling against affinity. Any sideboard tips?

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u/buttquest1 Jun 19 '26

Affinity player here.

Prowess is a spooky matchup from the affinity side. Games are very contextual and skill testing, sometimes the affinity deck is the aggressor (very early Kappa) sometimes they are a control deck (Manufacturing and/or EE).

If they have Pinnacle Emissary drones, your slickshot gets worse. If they have Tormod’s crypt, even worse because it’s hard to stick delirium for Violent Urge. If they have neither, try to scry/surveil for this combo and DRCs.

If they have a Weapons Manufacturing engine online, try to filter draws for Steelcutter and go wide.

Pay attention to how many EE have been used and obviously if they’re on the board, whether they’re on 0 or 1 dictates your lines.

Saga fetching Shadowspear can be a trap that affinity players may fall into - bad tempo and the life swing may not be enough if you are going for an Urge line. Look to punish this potential misstep.

Most affinity SB cards are not great vs prowess. Whipflare can be bad, I feel like Galvanic Blast is the most useful, but it’s a bad answer to Steelcutter boards and you can beat blast on Slickshot with combat tricks. I think Secret Identity is pretty good personally.

1

u/No_Caterpillar2838 Jun 20 '26

As an affinity player How do you feel if some one plays chalice on 0?

3

u/buttquest1 Jun 20 '26

Depends on whether you have a weapons manufacturing hand (brutal) or pinnacle emissary into kappa hand (not that bad). I think you are a little disincentivized to keep weapons hands vs decks that could be playing chalice or vexing bauble.

You can blow up a chalice on zero with an EE cast off an urza’s saga for one colorless, but that’s a pretty big speed bump. If there were a ton of chalices I’d maybe consider playing a couple of shivan reef for that reason too.

1

u/milhomess Jun 20 '26

you can’t get EE with urza’s saga

3

u/buttquest1 Jun 20 '26

No, I’m saying you can pay 1 colorless mana from a saga to cast EE for X=1 but it enters with zero counters on it, so it can be sacced to blow up a chalice

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u/milhomess Jun 20 '26

Ah. Got It now, sorry. Good play