[Deck]: The Plague

MANA

4 Bayou

2 Forest

2 Tropical Island

2 Windswept Heath

2 Wooded Foothills

1 Black Lotus

4 Elvish Spirit Guide

1 Lotus Petal

1 Mox Emerald

1 Mox Jet

1 Mox Pearl

1 Mox Ruby

1 Mox Sapphire

SQUEE’S

4 Krovikan Horror

4 Squee, Goblin Nabob

CARD ADVANTAGE

4 Bazaar of Badgdad

4 Survival of the Fittest

THREATS

1 Arrogant Wurm

4 Basking Rootwalla

4 Wild Mongrel

4 Zombie Infestation

DISRUPTION

4 Duress

1-OFF’S

1 Ancestral Recall

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Time Walk

1 Viridian Shaman

Origins

This deck finds its origin in the Bode Dragon-Madness deck that I played to T8 in Eindhoven.
Pre-tourney, what I liked about this deck is that you get to play the best Madness cards and have a suitable gameplan in the combo to fill in the last 8 slots. The remaining Madness cards, which would otherwise fill in those 8 slots, are weaker than the rest of the deck. Adding Dragon will avoid these cards.

After the tourney I was not that happy about the dragon component. Sure, it won me a few games but I was drawing dead cards too often. I did have occasional mana issues, because {U}

, and

were not always available. Also, without any form of disruption I was a sitting duck.
I was trying to come up with ideas how to replace the Dragon cards, while not diluting the deck with the suboptimal Madness cards.

Card choices

My solution was to add more Squee-abusing cards in Zombie Infestation, and to add more Squee’s in Krovikan Horror.
A Horror can often be used twice, in both your and their turn.
Zombie Infestation is fast enough against Aggro, and can be used aggressively with non-Squee cards if necessary. The card also provides enough late game punch against Control, with free Squee-enabled 2/2’s. As a bonus, it wrecks Landstill.

I added 4 Duress. I also added 4 Elvish Spirit Guide and 1 Lotus Petal. I think they are required to compensate tempo for the land drop loss of Bazaar. Moreover, since most of the spells are 2 mana they virtually allow a turn 1 play. On occasion even with a Bazaar as land drop. They are not completely dead later on, as they always allow an extra activation of Survival.

A few other points about the ESP:

- As a creature it has good synergy with Survival and Krovikan Horror

- Additional protection for Blood Moon

- Can be Grey Orge

- It is easy for this deck to dump excess cards in Bazaar, Infestation etc.

I cut 3 Arrogant Wurm, as I was not happy with their performance. I kept 1 for Survival. The deck doesn’t use much colorless mana, so no Sol Ring or Mana Crypt. Therefore, the CC of 2 {G}

can be an issue sometimes. Especially since I’m using land drops for Bazaars. So not running 7 Wurms (4 Arrogant 3 Roar) allows me to save slots on Sol Ring/Mana Crypt.

Anger and Shaman alone do not add enough for an additional color, and were cut as well.

Overall, the deck gains a lot of consistency and synergy as both the number of Squee’s and the Squee abusers are increased. The mana base is more stable as well.

Playing the deck

The following table defines the characteristics of each Squee-using card.

Bazaar of Baghdad: Enabler+Utilizer
Survival of the Fittest: Enabler
Wild Mongrel: Utilizer+Threat
Zombie Infestation: Utilizer+Threat

An "Enabler" helps to find Squee’s
An "Utilizer" uses Squee’s for advantage
A "Threat" is a win condition

Note that Survival is not listed under Utilizer. The reason is that you only need 1 creature to start the Survival chain. Additional copies of Squee will not make Survival more effective.

This table is important in deciding which card to add to your board when playing. You generally want to play cards that complement each other, rather than doing the same. So mix Enablers with Utilizers, for example. You also want tot make sure that you have a threat fast enough.

To explain, consider the following starting hand:

Black Lotus
Bayou
Bayou
Survival of the Fittest
Wild Mongrel
Zombie Infestation
Squee

Playing Lotus and Bayou for Mongrel and Infestation is the bad play. Both cards need the Squee you can use only once. Playing Survival and Mongrel makes much more sense. You can Survival next turn, and build up Squee’s to abuse with Mongrel. The table is a tool to make the best play in the earlier turns of the game.

Discussion

I have tested, but not enough to give a definite answer about the decks validity. The deck seems reasonable against Aggro and Control, but has a weak match-up in Combo. I’m not sure about the Slavery match up, but Mongrel and Infestation is dangerous vs a Slaver.
It needs to compete in the high-powered Dutchie metagame.

For a sideboard I have used some standard hate cards (Null Rod, Crypt) but it would require additional work. Please discuss this deck.