New Tinker target of choice?  After all, he does kill in one shot.

Yes.  Dizzy's twice (although you can't exactly count that store for much), Fantasy Shop a few times, and this past saturday at GG.

There aren't many T1 tounries here (3 or 4 small ones per month), so most of my playing is done in our group at various other tournies during the week.  I advocate the deck for what it is, not for what it usually faces here in underpower So-Ill (Fish, Dragon, GAT, 4c-Tog, Tomb-Welder).




Whoops extra er in there.




I've tried the UG with 4 logics and Forces, and it just did not do it.  Rather than playing multiple threats each turn, I sat around waiting for theirs.  This was a good strategy against 4cc and tog, but fell by the wayside against Fish and Welder based decks.

Long time reader, first time poster.  Anyway.  

With Fish being as prevelant as is currently is, I'm suprised that madness has not been showing the numbers that I feel it should.  I've been playing with the deck for a couple months here in Southern Illinois, and its results are rather impressive.  I won't go as far as to to call it the best deck in the format (*cough*), but I do feel that it should be considered as one of the better decks in T1.

The versions that I've been seeing here, namely the one posted by Zherberus, look rather good however, is playing with counters really better than the entirely aggro approach?  I played in a small 5 proxy on Saturday, and went 5-0-1 with the draw being a split in the finals (more on this later).  This makes 2 for 2 at tournaments with competent players (original report can be found here).  At any rate, here is the list that I played:

4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Arrogant Wurm
2 Roar of the Wurm
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Wonder
1 Anger
1 Gilded Drake
1 Gorilla Shaman

4 Survival of the Fittest
3 Fiery Temper
2 Deep Analyses
1 Firestorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Tropical Island
4 Bazzar of Bagdhad
3 Taiga
2 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Island
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Black Lotus (my proxy)
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald

Sideboard
3 Stifle
2 Naturalize
2 Groundseal
2 Gilded Drake
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Magus of the Unseen
1 Viashino Heretic

Somewhat Unusual Card Choices[/u]

Viashino Heretic: Target Matchups- Fish, Stax/Welder
MVP of the day.  Against Fish, I brought him in as a way to stop Null Rod and keep Mishra's Factories at bay.  With so many must counter cards in the deck (Survival, Roar/Arrogant, Dog) forcing him into play was never a problem.  Once he resolved, he was always gained, at the very least, 2-for-1 CA.

Magus of the Unseen: Target Matchups- 7/10, Stax/Welder[/b]
Fortunately, I never got to try her out.  Fish was everywhere at this tournament.

Firestorm: Target Matchups- any thing with guys[/b]
I think that running only 1 Firestorm was a mistake.  The amount of tempo that it creates is astonishing, often acting as 1-sided wrath a body or 2.

Gaea's Cradle:
This is a love hate card.  It allows all sorts of Bazaar tricks, but can be dead draw.  Having often Bazaars takes away from its drawback, but I do think that 1 is the right number.


Back to the track;  At this particular tournament, Fish was everywhere (yeah creatures with ass 3+).  I played against U/r three times (Rounds 1, 2 and 4) and Ug once (Round 5).  What I found from these matches was love for Aggro element of the deck.  Why should I try to counter the Force of Will, when I could just lay another threat?  Bazaar and Deep Analyses provide a steady stream of biguns on their own, it should be enough, no?

As for the other matchups, so far we've (we being MrZeroPing, TheAdvantage, Layertes, and myself, inconjunction with 3 non-TMDers) tested the deck against 4cc, Tog, and Drain-Slaver, with this deck posting good records against them all (I don't have exact numbers.  What I can say is that inconsistent decks annoy me, and the fact that I've kept this together for the past 3 months should say something).  

Please post your comments.  I'll post some actually data, rather than an initial discussion later.

Congrats on the Vamp.  Oh so Shiny.  South Ill had planned on going up, but the 6 hour drive is kinda rough, and the cash thing also put a damper on the idea.  Keep me informed on up coming events.  Perhaps Layertes (sic), The Advantage and I will make the trip.  We ended up playing at a low level T1 locally on saturday, and got pissed at random things.

[rant]
1) Who plays oath?  Or better yet, who forgets to mutate a plat angel?
2) When did Collector's Edition become legal at sanctioned events?
[/rant]

Anyways, congrats on the vamp.   Be glad that me and my madness did not make the trip.

The combo seems fun, but I have to agree with the others on your lack of disruption/protection worries me.  I would like to see how this does in the field, simply because I like quirky combo decks.

You may also want to run Oath of Druids in the board.

It was indeed sanctioned.  24k to be exact.

I'm split on this card.  From a Vintage perspective, I do see him as a power house (Smmenen summed it up pretty well in his first post).  The fact that he functions under Matrix/Rod is enough to sell me.  However, I think that his usefulness is limited only to Vintage and Limited.  I won't go into my thoughts on his implications in other formats due to the scope of this forum, so for what its worth, a great addition to Welder based decks.

The judge said that I had to pass priority back to my opponent before I could get the mana from the LED, thus losing my opportunity to play an Arrogant Wurm off it.  I just said "sure thing", and went on with the tourney.  It didn't matter much though.  I only "attempted" to cast a Wurm off LED mana once during the tournament, and the judge let it go through since he did not inquire about the play until 3 or 4 turns after it had taken place (round 1 game 3).  No big though.

Oops.  That was my fault.  I wrote down the wrong number of Trops, and when counting the cards, did not notice the missing Lion's Eye Diamond.  Its been corrected.

Should...Could they mean the same thing in this scenario




You said it was good!  I trusted you!  You betrayed me!  AAUUWWWGGH (runs to room sobbing; slams door; pull out diary)



Mwuhahahahahaha!  Experience my caribbean wrath!  MWUHAHAHAHAHA!

I guess I should post a report too eh?  I’m Jeff Blyden, the other madness player at the tourney.  All in all, it was a great tournament, although I should not have taken the split that I ended up accepting due to peer pressure (bad card and an equally bad influence).  I thought that the split was a little off-balanced, but Nick, and Jeff assured me that they thought it decent, so I said “What the hell!” Anyways, I shouldn’t ramble.

The List

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
3 Forest
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Survival of the Fittest
3 Hidden Gibbons
3 Fiery Temper
2 Roar of the Wurm
2 Deep Analyses
1 Frantic Search
1 Wonder
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Gorilla Shaman
2 Anger

Sideboard[/b]
2 Stifle
2 Dawnstrider
2 Naturalize
3 Ground Seal
1 Duplicant
2 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Null rod

Yeah.  Yeah.  I'm not fully powered yet, and proxies where not allowed, so give a couple moxen

Looking back at this list, I should have changed the board a bit. With Nick being the only Slaver/Welder player, the Ground Seals just sat there.  Oh well.


Round 1: vs Sean Mangner playing FCG

This match is more or less a coin flip.  I won the die roll, and chose to go first.  Nothing eventful happens, and he does the triple Piledriver thing.  The funny thing is, I put his as Madness until turn 2, in which dropped a driver.  I had only seen his board prior to the start of the match, and since it looked a lot like mine, I foolishly assumed it.  Oh well, on to game 2.

+2 Stifle, + 2 Naturalize; -3 Hidden Gibbons, - 1 Uktabi Orangutan

Game 2 went a little better.  I get some early beats on the table, then Sean plays Goblin Recruiter.  This normally would have been a bad thing for me, if he had more than 2 lands on the table.  You see, Sean forgot to activate his Wooded Foothills before stacking, so the Recruiter was for not.  A few flying dogs later, its game 3 time.

Game 3 was probably the best start that I had all day.  Sean plays mountain and passes the turn.  I draw, then play Taiga, Mox Peral, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Wild Mongrel, Basking Rootwalla, Arrogant Wurm, ditching Anger and Deep Analyses, swing for 7.  Good Times.

1-0  [2-1]


Round 2:  Really Cool Guy playing Sui Black

This guy was awesome, even though he plays supposedly bad decks, and beats me with them.  He’s the guy the guy that just randomly has 4 Bazaars for trade, when your'e in need of 2.  Extra’s anyone?  

I thought that Sui Black was supposed to lose…a lot.  Not the case here.  I win game one rather easily, but game 2, he clears the board via Nevinyrral’s Disk and proceeds to smash my face with a Nantuko Shade, while sitting at 3 life.  Game 3 went like this:  Wasteland, Sinkhole, Wasteland, Sinkhole, Strip Mine.  And I had the Anger, Wonder, Wurm, Bazaar, Squee hand.  Damn Sui Black.

1-1 [3-3]


Round 3:  ???? Playing FCG[/u]

I’m sorry for all of the Question marks in the names sections.  I’m just really bad with names, and never remember to record my opponents name.

This was a tense match.  I did the whole, my creatures are bigger than your creatures thing in game one, and he did the whole I can combo like Magneto/Storm/Cable in game 2.  So I’ll only write about game three.  Sideboarding was done the same as in round 1.

I open with some fast beats (Rootwallawallawallawalla), but he has a Lackey to trump.  We trade as he swings into me, and he then makes a Piledriver.  The Piledriver is met with his buddy, Mr. Warchief, the following turn and they make an attempt at my life points.  I do some stuff and pass the turn.  Now it gets silly.  He drops a food chain, and trades some guys for a Siege-Gang.  With the Gang-bang commander on the stack, his FC is hit with Naturalize.  Frown; or so I thought.  He has another and soon makes a Recruiter find some troops.  The guys are found, and presented to me, and I could not believe my luck; he had forgotten to grab Ringleaders, and stacks his deck 10 or so goblins thick.  I do some fancy stuff and get him down to 1 with a pair Wurms and Rootwallas.  I attack into his double Siege-gang, 4 tokens, Piledriver, Warchief, and get 3 for 1 on my wurms.  I then drop a dog, and its game over.

2-1 [5-4]


Round 4:  Allen Cavaness with Sui Black[/u]

I’ll spare you games 1 and 2, because the only game that mattered here was game 3.  Have you ever been a position that looked so immensely hopeless, that you just wanted to concede?  That was this game.  We did the whole nothing plays for a couple of turns, then it gets ugly.  He strips my lands down to 2, and plays a Masticore, to oppose my Arrogant Wurm.  Frown.  I fail to draw land, and pass him the turn.  He feeds the Masticore, draws, then attacks.  I block, and surprisingly He lets the core die!  This can mean only one thing…Yawgmoth’s Will.  I look through his graveyard, and notice the Ritual, double Sinkhole play.  Not wanting him to do this I say out-loud “DAMNIT!!  Ritual Core!”

And guess what?  He took the bait.  I dance inside for a while, and he passes the turn.  Seeing that I’m on a 5 turn clock, I go into topdeck mode, and rip a Survival of the Fittest.  I play it and pass the turn.  He feeds, draws, and attacks (16 life).  I rip a land, and pass the turn back.  He once again, feeds, draws, and attacks (12 life).  However, he has a Shade to follow his swing, a die a little inside.  EOT, I activate survival, ditching a Rootwalla, for Rootwalla2, then Rootwalla2 for a Squee.  I draw an LED, play it and pass the turn. He shoots down a Rootwalla and attacks.  After a bit of thought, I chump the Core with Rootwalla2.  He pumps the Shade twice and passes the turn (8 life).  EOT, I survival Squee into Squee2, and Squee2 into Anger.

I return the Squees, rip a Wurm, think for a bit, and make the following play:  activate Survival, discarding Arrogant Wurm.  With Survival on the stack, I activate LED for 3 green discarding a Fiery Temper, which I then play, for its madness cost, targeting the Nantuko Shade.  Survival resolves, and I find Wonder.  I then activate Survival again, trading Wonder for Uktabi Orangutan, and cast it targeting Masticore.  He taps one, and casts Dark Ritual, regenerating the Core, and burns for 1 as I swing into him.  He shoots down my monkey before the Core dies, and then passes the turn after he draws.

I return the Squees, and rip a Wild Mongrel, the last one in the deck!  The Mongrel hits the table and swings in deep for 3.  He draws, and passes the turn.  I survival a Squee for another Squee during his EOT, and then a Squee for the last Arrogant Wurm during my turn.  A couple of swings later, its game.  What a turn around!  Survival is the best card in magic (next to Ancestral Recall, and Yawgmoth’s Will, and Necropotence, and Yawgmoth’s Bargain, and Force of Will, and…lets just move on).

3-1 [7-5]


Round 5: ?????? with Mono-brown[/u]

I’m currently 4th , and am paired down and play the guy in 10th.  If he wins, he won’t make Top 8, but I we draw, I do make it.  I ask him for the draw, and he says “Nah.  I’m going to try to keep you out of the top 8.”  What a bag!  So reluctantly, I smash his face with 4 ARROGANT WURMS and 2 Basking Rootwallas.  All he sees are 2 Metalworkers and a couple of lands.  After his defeat I game one, he gives me the win.

4-1 [9-5]


Quarterfinals 1:  Jeff Cosgrove (Layerties) with Tog[/u]

I hate playing friends in the top.  Notes are sparse with this match, but I managed the win in game 1, and he top decked a 4th land in game 2 to wish for Berserk wit a full hand and yard.

Game 3, however, was nuts.  I’m beating him down with a Wild Mongrel, and get him down to 3.  He has 1 card in hand, and draws his card for the turn.  He then taps 4 and casts FoF revealing: Force of Will, Force of Will, Mana Drain, Yawgmoth’s Will, Diabolic Edict.  I thought for quite a while on this, and decided to do the 4-1 split leaving the edict in a pile by itself.  Surprisingly, he takes the pile of 4 cards.  Did he have another edict in hand?  Nope.  He had better.  BLACK LOTUS  He goes Lotus, Will, Lotus, Mox Pearl, Sol Ring, Ancestral Recall, Brainstorm, Tog, Diabolic Edict.  I thought that that was an amazing run, but he forgot to recast FoF.  5 turns later, a flying Rootwalla, methinks it was a Rootwalla, goes the distance.  After we shook, he reveals the top card of his library…Cunning Wish.

5-1 [11-6]


Semifinals:  Chad Daugherty (Metabubbles) with Keeper[/u]

A couple minutes before the registration, I was stricken with a sickening thought.  What do I do about Exalted Angel?  Nick (The Advantage) told me that I could just race them, but what if I couldn’t?  I changed my Sideboard at the 11th hour, swapping the 3rd Tormod’s Crypt for 1 Duplicant.  I’m glad I did.  Even though I never got a chance to steal an Angel,  it was nice knowing that I could if the need be.

Both games against Chad were rather uneventful.  I got incredible hands in both games (game 1: Lotus, Sapphire, Land, Gibbons, Wild Mongrel, Deep Analyses; game 2: double Gibbons) and just overran Chad.  I recall a Mox Monkey getting hungry in one of the games and that’s about it.

6-1 [13-6]


Finals:  Sean Mangner with FCG[/u]

I beat him earlier, so why did I split?  He’s a friend of mine, and I always split with friends in the finals.  Now, why did I agree to the split that seemed so grossly unfair to me at the time?  I guess it was a combination of peer pressure (Chad, Nick, Jeff, and Dale all thought that it was fair) and the fact that I got the Sapphire that I gave him in the split for somewhere near $0 a couple of months ago ($350 for 1x Lotus, 1x Pearl, 1x Sapphire).  So I foolishly took the split against my gut instinct.  Oh well.  Ce la vie.


Looking back at the tournament, I would haved modded the board a bit.  

• Dawnstrider is a house!  She gives you so many free turns.  The down side?  I can only draw her in non-tourney games!
• Stifle also proved insane.  I wish that I had a 3rd in the board.
• WotC needs to allow 16 cards in the board so that I can play an extra Naturalize too.
[/list:u]

PROPS
Nick Woolery (The Advantage):  For giving me lift to the tourney and for letting me borrow a Bazaar for about 2 hours.
Really cool guy from round 2:  For trading me a set of Bazaars.  You are awesome
Joel, Chad, Marc, Robert, Dale, Jeff:  They’re just cool.
Carlos:  For getting Jeff and myself some Subway subs.
Dustin:  For holding such an awesome event.
Tim:  For being the only person that agreed with me that the split was a off.

SLOPS
Jeff:  For letting my finish a footlong sub before he could finish his first half.  AND YOU CALL YOURSELF A MAN!!!!
The hotchick from The Saint Louis Bread Co.:  I wanted your number damnit!
Mana Drains:  cause I need some now.

Hi there.  My name is Jeff Blyden, and I'm a Computer Programmer for the US Air Force.  I'm currently stationed at Scott AFB, IL, and am 21 years old.  I've been playing magic for about 8 1/2 years now, but only recently started playing for points.  I'm from the St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, so the Magic scene was rather stagnant.  There was Hugo Etienne and Danny Somethingoranother, and they were the only players that I knew of that actually had power while I was growing up.  Enter adulthood.

I did the college thing and recently joined the Air Force.  Now rather than chucking on the beach in shorts, I do it in the snow with cammies.  No worries though.

The scene around here is rather healthy, with a smiggen of T1 going on ever so often.  We draft at the shops in the area 3 - 4 times a week, and do T2 at least once a week.  I'm currently trying to peace together the power9++ (1 Sapphire, 1 Pearl, 1 Lotus, 2 Bazaars, 4 Drains, 1 library, 1 abyss, 1 candelabra acquired so far), so If you got some spare give me a yell.

I also play fighting games (names MvC2, Third Strike, and Alpha 3) and enjoy long walks on the beach .  Well, thats about it.  HELLO TMD.