Pauper's Most Hated Deck

Every ban cycle in Pauper follows the same script: a flood of social media posts and YouTube comments calling for some Affinity card to get banned. The most frequent target is the Bridges — the indestructible artifact land cycle from Modern Horizons II that removed the mana base's vulnerabilities, the deck's original Achilles' heel.

A few weeks ago, I published an article (and a video) explaining how Sneaky Snacker is slowly becoming more omnipresent in Pauper. since it serves as the ideal payoff for any looting or discard effect. As more archetypes adopt cards like Pursue the Past, Snacker's presence grows to the point where it risks homogenizing core mechanics — not unlike Deadly Dispute did in its heyday.

A sizable portion of the comments, predictably, complained about Affinity. One commenter even went so far as to call it criminal to suggest banning any card other than Refurbished Familiar. Criminal.

Affinity does not need a ban right now. It holds a clear role in the format as the primary Midrange representative alongside Jund Wildfire and Black Gardens, and it also happens to be the most famous and most played of the three.

The resentment toward the archetype comes from its history and resilience. Since Modern Horizons II, the deck became one of the biggest problems Pauper ever faced, took seven bans — Sojourner's Companion, Atog, Disciple of the Vault, Prophetic Prism (now legal again), Deadly Dispute, All That Glitters, and Cranial Ram — and yet it remains a top contender in the competitive Metagame. The anger persists because Affinity refuses to die, the interventions that could have killed it never came, and every new addition becomes another reason for frustration.

At the same time, much of the community still attacks Affinity as if it were 2016. The main strategy remains hitting the mana base, and Affinity players have become so accustomed to this that Jund Wildfire is essentially a new take on the Bridges/Artifacts core that traded Affinity's dependency for better individual card quality.

So who bears responsibility for the hatred Affinity attracts after five years of constant presence? Is it the inherently broken mechanic that makes every new addition a potential threat? Is it the Pauper Format Panel for refusing to ban the Bridges? Or is it the community itself, still treating the archetype the same way it did for years and, when that approach no longer works or requires more effort, simply chanting "death to Affinity!" ?

Affinity has stirred controversy in Pauper since Day 1 of the format in 2008. Cranial Plating was the first card banned without ever seeing play. In an all‑commons environment with low power, combining Plating with Mirrodin's Artifact Lands was impossible without breaking the Metagame. Over time, other mechanics and combos (Storm and Infect) proved just as fast, but those also lost key pieces to bans, and Pauper developed its own ecosystem.

For many years, this was Affinity's shell. An aggressive deck with a shaky mana base that relied on cards like Prophetic Prism and Springleaf Drum for fixing. The potential for explosive turns was balanced by color access issues, which required setup and, consequently, turns where it did very little. The deck also struggled with resources, running only Thoughtcast as a card advantage source, making even setups with Atog and Temur Battle Rage less consistent.

But the biggest problem was the mana base.

Gorilla Shaman, once nicknamed "Mox Monkey" for its ability to destroy Moxen in Vintage for a single mana, played the same role against Affinity's artifact lands. The existence of such a cheap, devastating answer placed Affinity in a position similar to Dredge in Modern: it thrived when opponents skimped on dedicated hate and shrank again when the amount of answers — Gorilla Shaman in Pauper, Rest in Peace in Modern — increased.

Thus, a balance existed between how explosive Affinity could be and how well other decks could adapt, even if Affinity tried to adjust by trading speed for consistency.

Jeskai versions with Kor Skyfisher and sometimes Auriok Sunchaser, and Grixis versions built around sacrificing artifacts and triggering Disciple of the Vault, emerged from this premise as new artifact‑interaction cards appeared. Some lists ran basic lands or even Bounce Lands, but the threat of Gorilla Shaman still endangered their mana access.

Modern Horizons II changed Affinity forever. The Bridges made Gorilla Shaman far less consistent as an answer while simultaneously solving the deck's consistency problems.

The set also brought Sojourner's Companion, extra copies of Myr Enforcer that also fixed mana, and Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, released the month after MH2, gave us Deadly Dispute, which would later become Pauper's premier card advantage engine. It started in Affinity as extra copies of Thoughtcast.

Affinity became one of the dominant strategies in the worst competitive Metagame in Pauper's history. Over 70% of Challenge top 32s were commonly a mix of Storm, Affinity, and Blue Tempo. Anyone playing something else was many steps behind.

The Grixis Affinity of the pre‑ban era was the closest competitive Magic has ever come to "another Hogaak" since the Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis deck in Modern. It had everything: an aggressive, free clock with Myr Enforcer and Sojourner's Companion, abundant card advantage with Thoughtcast and Deadly Dispute, a well‑balanced mana base, reach and removal with Galvanic Blast, and potential combo‑kills with Atog and Disciple of the Vault / Fling / Temur Battle Rage. Keeping up with fair strategies was impossible, and answering it required dedicating many sideboard slots without any guarantee of success in time.

Dust to Dust, a forgotten common from The Dark, one of Magic's earliest expansions, became a staple during this period. It was the only card that could, in a two‑for‑one trade, answer the Bridges while also handling two 4/4s that cost zero mana.

Even so, it was not enough. Unless deployed assertively on turn two or three, Affinity would build a board and resources that made mana shortage a non‑issue. Moreover, white decks had serious trouble against Storm, the other dominant strategy of that era.

The bans eventually arrived. First Sojourner's Companion, then Atog and Prophetic Prism, then Disciple of the Vault. Each piece that pushed Affinity beyond Aggro/Midrange left the format, but the deck also gained new tools from every set, allowing it to transform and adapt to the Metagame.

Blood Fountain, Kenku Artificer, Reckoner's Bargain, and Cast Down were just some of the additions in recent years. The archetype continues to receive tools that stay in the format because they fit within the role the PFP envisions for Affinity.

When a card steps outside that role or offers too much benefit for the Metagame to handle, a ban follows.

All That Glitters was one such case. Pauper certainly did not need a Cranial Plating in Aura form, and the archetype adapted by shifting from Grixis to Azorius, with mana efficiency and Tempo plays at its core.

This was the most dominant Affinity version since Atog left the format. It offered nearly the same risk: a potential hit‑kill in one or two turns with little window for response. It also marked the time when full sets of Dust to Dust and Revoke Existence in Sideboards became the norm, sparking another wave of notoriety and problems for the deck since MH2.

Eventually, Boros Synthesizer adopted the same approach, with more resilience to traditional hate and more card advantage and grind mechanisms. It could execute the same hit‑kills as Affinity without folding instantly to Dust to Dust. This version was the most popular in Pauper until All That Glitters was banned.

Modern Horizons 3 brought another elephant into the room that met the same fate as the card it mimicked: Cranial Ram was banned before the set even released, to avoid the gameplay patterns Glitters had shown just weeks earlier.

The set delivered a dozen staples to the format, from the now‑banned Basking Broodscale to Writhing Chrysalis. For Affinity, Refurbished Familiar and Eviscerator's Insight were the main additions. The Metagame, again, coalesced around a few specific archetypes, with Affinity among them, but the format largely revolved around the Broodscale combo.

Deadly Dispute, the most recent intervention, fell alongside Basking Broodscale and Kuldotha Rebirth. The PFP aimed to slow down the format with those bans, but Dispute also left Pauper because of its ubiquity. The combination of creating a Treasure token and artifacts that draw cards when they hit the graveyard made it comparable to Ancestral Recall — and it required few concessions to work, making it the format's primary card advantage engine.

As in other moments, new artifacts or cards that interact with artifacts have allowed Affinity to keep evolving. Black Mage's Rod gave more reach outside combat, Cryogen Relic offers extra copies of Ichor Wellspring, the interaction of Krark-Clan Shaman with Hunter's Blowgun and Toxin Analysis (two relatively old cards) became popular and then faded, and Utrom Monitor was the most recent threat added to lists.

Today, Affinity remains among the five most played decks in Pauper. In some regional environments, it is even more popular: at the Next Level Super Pauper 30k, it was the second most used archetype, behind only Mono Red Madness. This popularity stems not only from its power level — where it matches other top competitors — but also from loyalty. Many players have piloted Affinity for years, and the deck, with all its historical baggage inside and outside Pauper, is simply too famous beyond the format's bubble, even when it is no longer seen as a good entry point for a newcomer showing up to a tournament cold.

Its current Metagame position is that of a Midrange deck. Grixis Affinity is a good deck because it can answer almost anything, has solid card advantage sources, reach, and efficient threats: both those that generate two‑for‑ones and those that provide a fast clock. If this sounds familiar, it is because it is the same description that pre‑MH Modern Jund once had.

The difference is that our notion of Midrange is still tied to a stereotype. Pauper used to match that stereotype with slower value tools like Monarch and longer, grindy games. But Midrange spans a wide spectrum because it sits between Aggro and Control. In today's ecosystem, Affinity leans toward the aggressive side, Black Gardens toward the control side, and Jund Wildfire sits in the middle.

Jund Wildfire, incidentally, was born from the release of Writhing Chrysalis — the closest thing Pauper has ever had to a Tarmogoyf — combined with the player base's obsession with answering everything Affinity does with a full set of Dust to Dust. Wildfire can suffer against that card with a bad keep, but it plays around it much better than any Affinity variant.

Problems with Grixis Affinity (or any variant) may arise whenever new support appears, just as they have with Delver of Secrets decks in Legacy when a card steps out of line, or as has happened — and may still happen — with blue or red archetypes in Pauper. But that does not mean the strategy deserves a ban every time it remains a strong competitor. If Affinity holds its spot after seven interventions, it only proves that it is a genuinely good and reliable deck, and that the Pauper Format Panel has done a solid job "pruning" a strategy without going straight to its enablers.

Refurbished Familiar, the main target of complaints alongside Krark-Clan Shaman, which I have previously argued should be banned in another Metagame, draws its infamy from the bitter feeling when an opponent chains multiple copies. No one enjoys being unable to play, and there are lines both inside and outside Affinity that make Familiar the kind of card that grinds out resources. Add to that the resentment toward Affinity's own resilience, and the hatred is understandable.

But a card being unpleasant to play against does not make it oppressive or ban‑worthy every time. No one likes losing for free to Guttersnipe with Lava Dart / Fireblast, getting hit by a Spellstutter Sprite on turn two only to see it bounced back by Moon-Circuit Hacker, or facing two Tolarian Terrors on board too early. Unpleasant patterns can exist because Magic is a game of variance, and unless such a pattern consistently reduces diversity and win rates, it remains part of the game.

Right now, calling for a ban on Refurbished Familiar is like saying Counterspell needs to leave Pauper because banning Gush, Daze, Treasure Cruise, Mystic Sanctuary, Fall from Favor, and Cloud of Faeries was not enough to push blue decks out of Tier 1. Moreover, Familiar currently has checks and balances from the various archetypes that somehow rely on the graveyard.

The community continues to treat Affinity as it did before Modern Horizons II, believing the solution is to attack the mana base. Many rely too heavily on Dust to Dust to justify how unfair it is to need four sideboard slots in White Weenie for that matchup, without questioning what they are actually gaining from Affinity and, above all, why they are gaining it.

Despite the abundance of silver bullets, Pauper is a more complex format than simply slotting in specific hate cards against a dominant archetype. Match dynamics matter, and how players approach certain matchups can be a clearer indicator of what truly works.

As long as players continue to blindly depend on Dust to Dust and similar cards as the "only viable answer," Affinity will keep adapting. Experienced Affinity pilots already know how to dodge silver bullets or play around them.

So how does Pauper intend to handle Affinity without demanding yet another ban?