Here's our vow: Every workday during preview season, Insight is taking a quick look at another deck featuring the latest cards from the upcoming Innistrad: Crimson Vow. Affinity is already one of the best decks (if not the best) in the current Pauper metagame. Now we can turn one card and one mana into two artifacts!
The recent addition of indestructible artifact dual lands made the deck more resistant to effects like the one of . The metagame had to adapt and bring in slower but more effective exile effects, most frequently in the form of .
Looks like Crimson Vow brings another toy for artifact lovers. invites comparisons to the already played —favorable comparisons. fits perfectly into the current strategy. It helps increase the number of artifacts on the board by creating a Blood token, allowing us to cast on turn two and much earlier. Blood tokens can sacrifice themselves, which goes well with . The token is also great with to get even more value out of it, or it makes a simple meal for .
I have already pointed out a lot of synergies but didn't even discuss the main ability of Blood Fountain yet. Bringing back previously countered or destroyed creatures is huge in grindy matchups. I see no way for other deck to keep up with Affinity's card advantage with four copies of , , and a few Fountains. It also frees up one of our sideboard slots, because with the Fountain, we probably don't need anymore.
It appears the Fountain helps us in two key aspects—it speeds us up in the early stages of the game and helps us in the late game when we need to recur our biggest threats from the graveyard. I'm sure it will find a place in Affinity. The only question is: how many? I would begin with two to three in the main and add/reduce after testing.
Worth pointing out— may be playable in other archetypes, some a little bit forgotten. For example, I'm looking forward to trying Black-Red Madness with Fountains and .
| Blood Fountain Affinity, Pauper |
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| Main Deck | Sideboard |
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