[Modern] Ravager-less Affinity

Creatures [23]:
3x Steel Overseer
4x Memnite
4x Ornithopter
4x Etched Champion
4x Signal Pest
4x Vault Skirge

Artifacts [10]:
4x Cranial Plating
1x Welding Jar
3x Springleaf Drum
4x Mox Opal

Instants [8]:
4x Galvanic Blast
4x Shrapnel Blast

Sorceries [2]:
2x Steelshaper's Gift

Lands [15]:
4x Blinkmoth Nexus
3x Inkmoth Nexus
4x Darksteel Citadel
2x Glimmervoid
2x Mountain

Sideboard [15]:
1x Torpor Orb
1x Blood Moon
3x Whipflare
2x Ancient Grudge
4x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Spellskite
2x Relic of Progenitus

Built this with a friend of mine on the concept that Arcbound Ravager, as good a card as it is in Affinity, is too bursty and susceptible to removal post-boarding. It's a good deck, albeit it can have times when it opens slow, which is of course bad, but it's practically unavoidable based on the components of the deck.

Cranial Plating is also the best card this deck could ever want. <3 Turn 3 kills ftw.

Probably going to adjust some numbers in the board.

Whoa. This is toally my deck without ravager. Copy cat.
Top Affinities are running overseer @4. Etched isn't seen as much in mainboard. Welding Jar would be interesting at a higher number, 2 if your want it to be as low as you want.
Now Sideboard.
Blood Moon should usually be at 3. Or at4 w/ a Magus of the Moon at 1. It is too good in the meta and amazing for this deck itself.
Shattering Spree is imo a lot better in mirror matches than Ancient Grudge.
Ethersworn would normally be at 2.

Steel Overseer's kind of sketchy at 4, I've felt much more comfortable playing it at 3.

Champion would be in the side if I had an actual replacement for Ravager in the main, but that's why I play it main. It's really good against a lot of the meta if you main-deck it, let alone the fact that it swings hard with Cranial Plating.

I was considering pumping Jar to 2, although I'm not exactly certain what I'd consider taking out for another.

Blood Moon's actually not as good as you think it is this format, since the deck to beat is either Jund or Pod, and both of them tend to feel pretty good regardless of you dropping either Moon. Only deck this really hurts is the blue version of Affinity or UW Tron, and neither of those are really played that much.

Shattering Spree would be really good if it wasn't sorc speed. The main reason I play Grudge in the board is the fact that I can pop Pod or another artifact mid-fight or whatever simply to prevent loops/damage if I really feel like it. Essentially, Spree's good if you side in Blood/Magus, and I've already explained my take on that.

I'm willing to take Canonist to 3, but it's too valuable against the Storm variants that keep popping up at Modern to take below that number.

Steel is kind of slow, but stops a lot things from being targets from burn and -/- counters. Plus it is a boost, a nice target and is rather good just to have as presence on the board itself, can be a target and doesn't hurt to have it as a target than another creature.

Champion is great, but comes in too slow against some decks, and usually good against jund and stuff. Kind of why it isn't seen in many top decks.

Welding is normally a great card because it is easily a target for Ravager, but this is completely Ravager less anyways.

Normally against Jund, people would side in Dismember, Relic and Champion all together. And blue affinity is more of a paper topper lately, which is a great reason to side in Blood Moon with Shatter Spree, imo. You would get rid on big threats on your turn, they would use there turn to stack up on them again, and you could have a lot more plays. Same thing against Sunny Sunrise, Blood Moon would slow them down But Grudge is strictly better than Spree because of its speed, just in my experience, Spree is one of the better choices.

Nah, I see why Champion would be considered slow in the main based on the fact that Ravager was solely a 2-drop, whereas Champion is jumping the end of the "curve" to 3. I put curve in parentheses since it's all relative via Drum. Regardless, there's not really many other options for the slot, so I moved Champion to main since it's a catch-all except in the mirror match or Pod, where it's basically aggro them first and/or Grudge their Ravagers/Pods.

Jar is the reason people still play Ravager. I just don't see it as valuable as Cranial Plating is based on the bounce logic.

Again, Moon's not really that big of a deal, considering the amount of red that's actually present in the format in comparison to what used to be. I could bump it up to two to be safer than one, but I really don't see what that's going to change, since there's little to no chance Eggs is actually going to top again.

Spree would be better if it was instant speed. In fact, I would jump on it even if it was +1 CMC more to initially cast. That'd probably be broken, even, based on the logic behind Replicate. Grudge is just faster and more reliable considering the things you actually want to blow up in Modern.