Affinfinity: Changing Everything you know about Card Value (AGM)

[Eshai]

So the story behind this is that Kyumi made cards that let your opponent draw and I had a bunch of ideas for how the archetype would work in the review. So much I had to do something on my own, which I then proceeded to test on the Duel-Portal (great way to know if your archetype works or not.)

 

This Deck is basically giving your opponent Maxx “C” every turn. Your opponent is drawing typically 2-10 cards in a turn, or none, since you can brick at times. You might think this isn’t worth it AT ALL, and that it’s an offense to everything card value has taught us in this game. Well, the Field Spell is a bit amazing. It decreases the Hand Size Limit to 5, which is fine I guess, but then it makes your opponent discard for the Hand Size Limit at the end of your turn. This essentially means no matter how many cards you’re giving your opponent, it’s going to go down to 5, which is the starting hand size (which is intentional so you don’t reduce their hand size to lower than 4 before they can even play the game.)

 

Alright so here are the cards

 

Affinfinity Empath

LIGHT - Level 4 - Winged-Beast/Effect - 1600 ATK/1400 DEF

When this card is Normal Summoned. or when your opponent draws a card(s), except during the Draw Phase: You can add 1 “Affinfinity” monster from your Deck to your hand, and if you do, your opponent draws 1 card. You can only use this effect of “Affinfinity Empath” once per turn.

 

Because searching is cool. This card seems a bit bad at first. I mean, why would you want your opponent to draw cards? However, you can activate this effect several times in a duel. So while your opponent gets random cards, you can get prepped to sweep your opponent. Also, LIGHT Winged Beasts. May seem a bit weird but LIGHT Fairies are a bit oversaturated at the moment so this is inherently more interesting.

 

Affinfinity Sympath

LIGHT - Level 4 - Winged-Beast/Effect - 1200 ATK/1800 DEF

If a card(s) is discarded from either player’s hand (Quick Effect): You can Special Summon this card (from your hand or GY). If this card is Special Summoned, or when your opponent draws a card, except during the Draw Phase (Quick Effect): You can reveal 1 “Affinfinity” card in your hand: Add it to your opponent's hand revealed, and if you do, add 1 “Affinfinity” Spell/Trap from your Deck to your hand. You can only use each effect of “Affinfinity Sympath” once per turn.

 

The Level 4 naming convention is essentially the states of caring, whether Empathy, Sympathy, Apathy, or Antipathy. This card allows you some leverage over Spells/Traps, while simultaneously giving you some search power. However, you have to give your opponent a card from your hand first. May seem weird at first, but most of these cards can be at least a bit useful in any Deck, especially against itself if it wants.

 

Affinfinity Apath

LIGHT - Level 4 - Winged-Beast/Tuner/Effect - 1500 ATK/1600 DEF

“Affinfinity” monsters you control cannot be destroyed by card effects.If your opponent adds a card(s) to their hand, except during the Draw Phase (Quick Effect): You can add 1 “Affinfinity” monster from your GY to either player’s hand (keep it face-up), and if you do, that player has their Hand Size Limit reduced by 1 until the end of the next turn. You can only use each effect of “Affinfinity Apath” once per turn.

 

More of a protector, which is a bit ironic considering the name. This lets you recover your monsters back to your hand. You could use it then and there, but you could also be a bit tricky and add 1 to your opponent's hand and reduce their hand size. There are cards that take advantage of this which we’ll get to later on, but think Fabled for now.

 

Affinfinity Antipath

LIGHT - Level 4 - Winged-Beast/Effect - 1800 ATK/900 DEF

If a card(s) is added to your opponent’s hand, except during the Draw Phase (Quick Effect): You can return 1 face-up Spell/Trap card you control to the hand to Special Summon this card from your hand. If either player draws a card(s), except during the Draw Phase: You can Special Summon 1 “Affinfinity” monster from your hand, and if you do, your opponent draws 1 card. You can only use each effect of this card’s name up to twice per turn, and only up to twice that turn.

 

Genex Ally Birdman much? Again, a bit weird, but you typically have to Summon it at the end of a chain so nothing weird like recycling activated Spells/Traps is going to happen. There is a card I’d like to mention here though. Appropriate is the first thing everyone thinks of when a Deck says “your opponent draws cards”. It really helps the speed of the Deck, and not acknowledging that would be stupid. I have tested the card and it’s a great include, but it doesn’t break the Deck or anything.

 

Affinfinity Graveheart

LIGHT - Level 1 - Rock/Tuner/Effect - 100 ATK/2000 DEF

If your opponent adds a card(s) from their Deck to their hand, while you control a “Affinfinity” monster (Quick Effect): You can banish 1 of those card(s), and if you do, add this card from your hand to your opponent’s hand revealed. If this card is is discarded and sent to your GY, you can Special Summon it. You can only use each effect of “Affinfinity Graveheart” once per turn.

 

This is the “Fabled” kind of card I was talking about. If they try to search, screw them. If they draw a card that happens to be good, screw them. This card could be really helpful, but your opponent can play around it if they want since all they really have to do is run over your monsters without searching for cards. These are a lot of fun, since you can put them into your opponent’s hand, which makes them rather discard this or a card that’s actually in their Deck. If you like Dark Law and Psy-Frame Omega, this might be the kind of card for you. This also gets put in your opponent’s hand revealed face-up, which is weird (like most things in this Deck were made to be) but it’s for a good reason I promise.

 

Affinfinity Soulstone

LIGHT - Level 1 - Rock/Tuner/Effect - 300 ATK/200 DEF

While you control a “Affinfinity” monster, you can reveal this card in your hand (Quick Effect): Add this to your opponent’s hand (keep this card revealed). Negate the effects of other monsters in your hand the turn this card was revealed. If this card is discarded and sent to your GY, you can Special Summon it. You can only use each effect of “Affinfinity Soulstone” once per turn.

 

Same kind of card, but with less of a condition. You can essentially do this any time you want, which was weird in testing so I might change that later, but it wasn’t broken so, for now, it is what it is. This is an Anti-Hand Trap, which is awesome, especially in this archetype. In the process of fighting the meta with this Deck, giving your opponent cards isn’t necessarily the best idea. These Rock monsters alleviate that, with this card, in particular, negating Ghost Ogre and Ash Blossom. It has come to my attention that this also negates typical Nomi cards that would Special Summon themselves from the hand, as well as Skill Drain, Malefic, and Decks of the sort. Unless you’re willing to go great lengths, that’s not happening for more than a turn. Also, you may be wondering wtf am I doing with Rock monsters. Lore-wise, they’re tombstones

 

[spoiler: Awesome Spells]

Infinity, Affinity, and Affinfinity

Field - Spell

The hand size limit of each player becomes 5. While you control a “Affinfinity” monster, both players must discard cards from their hand at the end of each turn to meet the Hand Size Limit. Once per turn, while your opponent has more cards in their hand than you do: You can return any “Affinfinity” cards from either player’s hand to the Deck (min. 1), then draw cards equal to the amount of cards returned to your Deck.

 

The card that makes all of this work. Your opponent has to discard to meet the hand size limit at the end of your turn, which means you can overdraw your opponent with this card. It also means your opponent’s hand isn’t going to get worse than 5 cards after giving them 10. It also has a ability to shuffle all of your archetype cards back to your Deck. This means you can take back the cards you gave to your opponent. This is pretty cool, and can really get your plays going if you just so happen to draw all of your Field Spells at once (this actually happened on Duel-Portal).

 

Out of Affinfinity

Normal - Spell

Excavate the top 3 cards of their Deck, you can add any “Affinfinity” cards to your hand, and if you do, your opponent can draws up to an equal amount of cards, also send any remaining cards to the GY, or if you did not excavate any “Affinfinity” cards, return them to the top or bottom of the Deck in any order. You can only activate 1 “Out of Affinfinity” per turn.

 

This card is always a -1, yet it’s amazing. If this archetype was released, this would be the $80-$100 card. The fact you can get up to 3 cards from your Deck is pretty spectacular, and depending on the situation, giving cards to your opponent isn’t so bad. While you’re winning from an advantage standpoint, probably not as helpful, so sometimes it becomes Field Spell reload food, but it’s really good at the start of the game when you need to get your plays off and you don’t have Appropriate up. Actually when you do have Appropriate up, your opponent pees themselves a bit at the sight of you going from 0-5 cards with a 2 card combo. Tbh though most of the times it’s just scare tactics though, since you can mill your own hand with the Field Spell and you can clog pretty fast if you use Appropriate like a madman.

[spoiler: Synchros]

Affinfinity Letter Bee

LIGHT - Level 5 - Spellcaster/Synchro/Tuner/Effect - 1900 ATK/2500 DEF

1 Tuner + 1+ “Affinfinity” monsters

If a card(s) is added to your opponent’s hand, except during the Draw Phase (Quick Effect): You can target 1 monster your opponent controls; return it to your opponent’s hand. While this card is in your GY: While this card is in your GY: You can return this card to your Extra Deck, and if you do, your opponent draws 1 card. You can only use each effect of “Affinfinity Letter Bee” once per turn.

 

Returns cards to your opponent's hand, which means you could mill more from the Field Spell and get rid of pesky Extra Deck cards. It also recovers itself from the Extra

 

Mercury, the Boundless Affinfinity

LIGHT - Level 9 - Spellcaster/Synchro/Effect - 2300 ATK/3000 DEF

1 Tuner + 1+ “Affinfinity” monsters

If this card is Synchro Summoned: You can return cards your opponent controls to the Deck, up to the number of “Affinfinity” Synchro Materials used for the Synchro Summon of this card, and if you do, your opponent draws cards equal to that amount. While this card is in your GY: You can return this card to your Extra Deck, and if you do, your opponent draws 1 card. You can only use each effect of “Mercury, the Boundless Affinfinity” once per turn.

 

So while testing I used Mist Wurm A LOT. It was a great card with the archetype bouncing the opponent’s cards back to their hand. I did however, want something a bit more useful and more synergetic. This card has your opponent draw cards, which enables your Affinfinity monsters, and can recover itself while simultaneously enabling your Affinfinity monsters. Really nice boss monster to have for the Deck.

 

In the future, I’m thinking an additional Monster, an additional Spell/Trap, and a LV 8 Synchro Monster.

 

Hope to hear your thoughts, because I worked really hard on this one and tbh it’s probably one of my favorites so far. My next project is rather going back to Pendulum Ritual Spell Counters with Crystal Beast-esc recovery effects that protect the Spell Counters, Coin Toss effect shenanigans similar to Arcana Force that are able to switch from their Heads and Tails effects, or Ignition Beasts which have Fusion monsters that destroy themselves while simultaneously destroying other cards, with a Field Spell that Summons them back, which evades Link Format and typical. You can vote below.

 

Also some recommended cards to include in the Deck and a Decklist that I settled on.

 

[spoiler: Good cards to use in the Deck]

Cup of Ace - 1 of 2 Player draws 2 cards (50/50)

One Day of Peace - Each player draws a card + an extra effect; limited

Appropriate - Draw 2 each time your opponent draws a card.

Grand_Horn_of_Heaven - Negate Inherent Special Summons, skips a Phase, opponent draws

Recall - Negate Monster Effects and your opponent draws

Dark_Bribe - Negate Spell/Traps and opponent draws

Heavy_Slump - Screw your opponent’s hand, your opponent draws 2 cards (For this Deck, I’m going to ban it. It’s too good to draw this on turn 1, and ruins the whole point of the Deck.)

Present_Card - More consistent than Heavy Slump, but they draw 5 cards and actually mills

Trickstar_Reincarnation - Present card but it banishes and they get the same number of cards (Be sure to know this card is limited to 1 when using this card in the archetype. Probably getting limited anyway)

Finite Cards - The hand size limit of each player becomes 3

Santa_Claws - Kaiju but your opponent draws

Mist_Wurm - Boss monsters that returns cards to the hand

 

[spoiler: Decklist I used]

Monsters: 19

Affinfinity Empath x3

Affinfinity Sympath x3

Affinfinity Apath x3

Affinfinity Antipath x3

Affinfinity Soulstone x3

Affinfinity Graveheart x3

Honest x1 (this actually helped quite a bit)

 

Spells: 10

Infinity, Affinity, and Affinfinity x3

Out of Affinfinity x3

Cup of Ace x3 (Rather a Draw 2 or an enabler for the Deck.

One Day of Peace x1 (Deck stalls a tiny bit so this helps for when you brick)

 

Traps: 11

Appropriate x3 (DUH. Although in some games I don’t use the card at all, so maybe 2 is better)

Grand Horn of Heaven x3 (Skipping to your opponent’s Battle Phase is pretty helpful)

Recall x2 (Monster effect negation + enabler)

Dark Bribe x2 (Spell/Trap negation + enabler) (This is why they aren’t Fairies)

Trickstar Reincarnation x1 (I would run more but I would hate to make another Trickstar Deck)

 

Extra Deck: 15

Mercury, the Boundless Affinfinity x1

Mist Wurm x1

Any of the Generic LV 8 Synchros you care to use

Affinfinity Letter Bee x2

Ally of Justice Catastor x1

Rank 4s are also nice but unnecessary

Links if you’re in Link Format, AKA the official format

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

Since I promised a review, yeah.

 

Empath - Well, it's a searcher so not much to say about it except it getting stuff. Obvious combo with Sympath is obvious. 

 

Sympath - Considering the Ghost Girls are still somewhat common lately (well, Ash is anyway), this should be getting summoned often. Grabbing the field is always nice. Iffy about the whole concept of giving the opponent a card, but yeah.

 

Apath - I guess you can block getting Raigeki'd (or whatever is commonly used to blow up stuff nowadays), though iirc a lot of the newer stuff targets but doesn't destroy. Maybe you could change it to targeting, but then might be too much and you'll lose to other Decks that heavily destroy via effects. (Do you want the added card to be kept revealed or something else; if you're adding cards to the hand but keeping it revealed, term for it is "but keep it revealed" (off Golden Ladybug for anything recent / does that). Card is fine.

 

Antipath - If Winged-Beasts ever got their equivalents of Tenki (or if they already do), then would be nice to clear up some backrow space and all. But yeah, draw the opponent out; trigger Sympath, etc and you get it. Also decent beater if you need to.

 

Graveheart - I have some skepticism about it being a Dark Law/Omega like card, even with you needing another member out; considering nearly everything can/will search. I mean, it does its job well though, but...

 

Soulstone - You just posted this in AGM recently (and presumably because Draco made that new card, but that won't be considered here). Most it does is just shut off hand traps (or even the other cards you end up giving them); that's about it. Otherwise, U.A.s are dead (well, in terms of actual Decks that get hit by this if ever released; also Honest and a few other stat boosters from the hand, plus Battle Fader, etc. as singles)

 

The field - Yeah, this one is kinda dirty, especially since you're cutting hand size down and making the opponent draw. Shuffling stuff is just icing, because quite frankly, you're leaving them no options (either discard this and you get to revive, or they ditch their own cards [which may backfire in certain Decks because they play off the GY]). 

 

Out of Affinifinity - I mean, we already got Koi Koi (and its counterparts) for Cardians; comparatively, but least this doesn't burn you and all. At worst, yeah, you just waste activating a card.

 

Letter Bee - In the context of this Deck, just bouncing monsters after stuff happens; nothing special in general, but here, you trigger other effects. So yeah, there's this.

 

Mercury - You at least get about 2-3 cards being bounced, so that's fine, I guess. If the opponent does draw any hand traps like the Ghost Girls, you can just use Soulstone to negate them for a while.

 

====

I guess the reason for last two is that they don't have any form of revival, and the field is the only way you're going to reuse everything. The concept forces players to limit their searching effects unless they want to trigger this Deck (which is somewhat questionable; yes, the game got autopilot after a while, but that's Konami's fault for promoting it). Deck is technically okay, but as mentioned above, concept is iffy (especially with the field forcing discards and lowering hand size).

 

(Note that I did not read the Decklist or recommended card spoilers)

[Eshai]

I kinda balanced it in that it's worse than milling your opponent, so the Deck is faster than mill to compensate.

 

Antipath in particular is so you can rather recycle the Field Spell's Reload eff or Appropriate, which can overdraw you instead of your opponent at times. Tbh I was surprised how little I needed Appropriate, and how often it could've screwed me over because the Field Spell affects you as well. Nice that I at leasted balanced the Pot of Greed Continuous Spell for the Deck that you'd think would abuse it to oblivion.

 

Graveheart wasn't broken when I was playtesting it, so I think it should be fine. Most of the time you're just banishing the cards you have them draw off your own effects.

 

The Field is hilarious and can bring some anime moments when they realize what's happening (I loved that part). The reload effect is so you can return the other Field Spells and the cards you gave to your opponent back to your Deck for recycling their effects, because, for the most part, they don't want you Synchro Summoning. 

 

Out of Affinfinity yeah I guess Super Koi Koi would be a card you would compare this too, so I guess it's fair. I don't think I have ever drawn 0 cards with it, and there was 1 time I drew only 1 card. Even then, it's One Day of Peace (which you run anyway).

 

Synchros were a bit last minute, since I was originally not going to have any, but with how much I was using Mist Wurm I wanted some bounce cards for a sort of removal.

 

 

The Deck is fun. I think I balanced it for a similar tier to Trickstars, but I would rather they have another Trap or Monster, maybe a Level 8 that you can Special Summon by having your opponent draw cards. I would make a Trap, but with Dark Bribe, Recall, Grand Horn of Heaven, Trickstar Reincarnation, and Appropriate there isn't much room for another Trap.

 

So yeah thx for the review.