It affects little bit , but you still have a lot of options. Instead of using EMD keywords use Longtail keywords , because longtail keywords are often less competitive as compared to one word or two word keywords.
People were purchasing EMD's before the lunch of any famous product and they will get rank in Google first page after adding some articles. For Example Domain before the lunch of iPhone5
Now after Google Panda and Penguin updates it's very difficult to rank EMD's but not impossible :)
