Madness in Vintage: Aggro's Back

[Kowal]

As many of you may know from this thread, I've been tinkering with Madness again for the first time in like a year or two.  Though the lack of LED makes it a totally different deck from what I remembered, I stuck with it and managed to do decently enough to consider it worth exploring more.

As I updated and tweaked the list, I realized that the best opportunity to test it in a varied metagame would be a larger tournament, like the SCG Richmond power tournament.

Boy oh boy was I wrong.  There were nine (I think?  maybe eight) identical Oath lists, plus at least five or six people playing the suboptimal oath with Darksteel Colossus.  Though this looked grim, I came upon something that gave me a lot of hope for the deck.  I had won more than I had lost against Oath, of all things, proving that the deck has enough of a combo potential to pretend it's something bizarre like Survival Mask or FCG.

Here's the updated list I played in Richmond.

Bombs Over Baghdad, Dixie Remix

where my dawgz at?
4 Wild Mongrel

team lizard beatz (tm)
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Arrogant Wurm
3 Roar of the Wurm

mad phat and supafly
2 Anger
2 Wonder

this shit is hot!
3 Fiery Temper
2 Violent Eruption

i make drawing fun!
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
2 Deep Analysis
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Timetwister
1 Windfall
1 Ancestral Recall

b0rk3n
1 Time Walk
1 Crop Rotation

bling
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Lotus Petal

lands that don't draw cards
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Taiga
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
2 Riftstone Portal
1 Strip Mine


cyborg
4 Artifact Mutation
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Circular Logic
3 Ray of Revelation
1 Krosan Reclamation

The list felt very solid, and though PTW complained it felt a little inconsistant, I blame that on the fact that he plays freaking Fish.  Apparently people love those QnD reports, so here's one to show you how things went.

Round One:  I lose to teammate Eric Miller who combos me out turn two in two games.

Round Two:  I eruption away a bunch of decree tokens and win.  Game two he gets two exalteds out, but I can race them and win.

Round Three:  He has some random 5/3 lookin stuff, but I have fatter fat he can't weld out, and removal.  Game two I float RG in response to Sundering Titan, killing both of our manabase, and I peel the strip for his workshop to lock him under his own trinisphere.

Round Four:  He casts first turn Fact or Fiction in to three more draw spells.  A first turn wild mongrel goes all the way without other stuff needing to resolve.  Game two he resolves oath, and I have both lethal damage and the ray of revelation.

Round Five:  He puts a Dragon in the yard, so I apply lethal damage.  I was sitting on seven points of burn the whole game, but I didn't need it.  Game two I sit on Lotus, Pearl, Diamond, holding two Rays in hand, until he tries to go off.   A lonely Roar token finishes him off.

Round Six:  Saucemaster owns me with a first turn Oath in game one, but in game two I can combo him out despite having to mull to six.  Game three he mulls to six, but those six are orchard, mox, oath, force, blue card.  I can't remove the oath before he gets to use it twice.  If I had chosen to block one of his beaters with a pumped rootwalla, I'd have had enough life to flashback DA in to the second draw7 I needed to get lethal damage past his Akroma and win out.

Round Seven:  Scoop to a teammate who doesn't make the t8.  We tested the matchup at Sliverking's pad, and it felt pretty solidly in my favor.  (He was running the control madness)

I decided to test against some random people strictly for the purpose of having a few more results, but nothing of interest came up except a game against Meandeck's Joe Bushman where I blocked and killed Spirit of the Night with a Wild Mongrel, and then used all the junk in my yard to make two roar tokens and draw two cards.


history
There isn't a whole lot to tell here.  Bowers and I got drunk at his pad one night and I decided to play this monstrosity that was his first madness list.  After getting owned by a type two playing Eastman's Roar token, we added the roars and started actually considering the deck as a contendor.  The deck developed in two different directions, ill_dawg continuing on the draw7 route, and Hyperion running the set of Careful Study instead.  Both of them stopped playing it around when ill_dawg moved to Poland, which was shortly after LED's restriction.  


card choices and whatnot

The beats in the deck obviously haven't changed.  Despite the retardedly high casting costs, I don't fear Drain in this deck.  It usually does something cool for them, but almost always makes them take a bunch of burn, especially off Roar.

We've gone off and on with a third Anger in the second Wonder's slot, but one Wonder feels terribly strange and Anger is obviously crap in multiples.

The burn is something I've been trying to tweak in to perfection, but ended up just going with the old configuration of 3/2.  Temper is mostly a fire to the dome style spell, and strictly better than Lightning Bolt because it allows you feed the mongrel and rawdog the win off bazaar with zero in hand.  Eruption rarely aims at the face, and is more for the purpose of having a maindeck solution to Platinum Angel or multiple welders.  It just so happens to rape Fish too, or even take out a welder and a juggernaut at the same time against 5/3.

A great deal has been said on the topic of the draw engine.  Hyperion very solidly believes Careful Study is the way to go over draw7s, which I still can't really get behind at all, but I will say that I've never been unhappy with my draw7s.  They allow the deck to go combo, which, in a new field of things like Oath and Slaver where time actually IS an issue, it proves invaluable.  So very many times have happened in the past couple months that a Careful Study just wouldn't cut it, and a draw seven was the only thing that would win.  Combined with a Wild Mongrel, they pretty much guarantee you go lethal.  And on top of that, they can usually find you a random burn spell or two to remove something very dangerous right away, such as Goblin Welder.  Timetwister can obviously be detrimental to the "put shit in the graveyard" plan, but it also can be used to mess with a Welder player or someone using AKs or Tog.

-note-
Many of you may remember from the Madness primer I wrote a loooooong time ago, that I don't actually enjoy seeing Ancestral Recall in this deck.  It's kind of like a lightning bolt that you can't raw-dog off bazaar.  If there were another 3cc Draw7 that didn't require me running shitty cards like Memory Jar, I would seriously consider replacing Ancestral with it.  That being said, consider this to be similar to when Smmenen used to run Prohibit and had to leave a disclaimer saying he still ran it, but it wasn't in his posted list because he didn't feel like taking shit for it.

Nearing the end of the list, Crop Rotation is included because seeing a bazaar is good, but seeing AND protecting that bazaar is better.


the sideboard

Obviously the sideboard can change pretty easily for a different metagame, but this one is picked especially for a random and unknown place.  You can guarantee however that in any metagame, artifacts and spells that cost less than three will exist.  One of the greatest strengths of running red and green in the same deck is artifact mutation, and being that the deck is an aggro deck with incarnations, those saprolings go from being an annoyance to game ending.

Pillars are necessary as a 4-of if you're interested in not losing to Deathlong, Draw7, or TPS.  They're also very strong against Tog, but that's already a good matchup.

Circular Logic is probably the weakest slot in the sideboard, and should be considered if you're looking to run something else and can't find space.  Logic is mostly to keep TPS from removing Pyrostatic Pillar, but can also be used to stop an Oath of Druids from resolving, or make sure your Ray of Revelation resolves to kill it.

Ray of Revelation is a VERY solid card and should almost never be considered for removal.  It's the only way to break through decks with cards like Back to Basics, Oath of Druids, or Control Magic.  In addition, it can hit random crap like if someone runs Moat, or god forbid, Humility.  It's also part of the combo win against Dragon.

Krosan Reclamation being the other half.  Though Krosan Rec is good for messing with a deck like Titan which pretty much relies on the first turn welder, second turn intuition plan, it's mostly there to hose dragon.  Picture this scenerio.  They animate Dragon, get a bunch of mana, and mill you.  Your graveyard suddenly contains Ray, Krosan Rec, Anger, Wonder, and Roar of the Wurm.  On their endstep, you flashback Ray to remove the Laquatus from play.  On your upkeep, you flashback Krosan Reclamation to put Lions Eye Diamond and Black Lotus on top.  Cast one, flashback a Roar token or two, and win.  Very simple.


playing the deck:  relevant matchups, tips to keep in mind, etc.

The deck looks fairly simple to manage and pilot at first glance, but there are a lot of stupid little things that a good deal of people forget to do.  Things such as pumping Rootwalla, throwing cards to Wild Mongrel, or even how to bazaar properly separate the decent players from the strong players.  Klep and PTW both ran the same list I did at Richmond, and both could cite scenerios where inexperience with the deck caused them to make a play error that meant a great deal, usually the game.  Pay a good deal to the creatures you've got in play, and try to maximise damage.

As for the matchups, you obviously have a large concern against Oath, at least if your opponent is skilled.  I would say this matchup is in the Oath player's favor, but it's by no means an autoloss.  I'd be interested in hearing Saucemaster's take on the matchup from his side of the table.  Other problem matchups include TPS (because they pack more than enough removal for the first turn pillar) and Doomsday (because they don't really care about pillar so much)   Deathlong is surprisingly solid, because they deal themselves a LOT of damage with Death Wish, and you can actually race them half the time.  The other half the time, you should mulligan aggressively in to a pillar no later than turn two.

Some matchups that can really go either way are things like monoblue, because Back to Basics, Wastelands, Chalice at 0, and Control Magic are all very obnoxious.  Also look out for Keeper, because Exalted Angel and non-Vendetta removal can be extraordinarily damaging if you're caught unprepared.

Your very best matchups are things like Tog, anything with Workshops, and other aggro.  Workshops especially are in for a bad time, because you have fatter fat that their removal (welder and rack and ruin) doesn't touch.  Meanwhile, you get a million artifact mutations and already have a zillion permanents against Stax.  The sideboard plan against Dragon would put that deck in this slot too.


closing remarks

I decided to release this list because it's time I moved on to something else, and I figured I might as well show people what I think is very solid aggro deck in the current environment.  Obviously there have been Madness works on TMD before, but the most recent one is a little outdated, and really takes the deck in a different direction than how I feel the deck has to go.

I welcome any and all comments and questions.  If you're afraid of getting flamed, or can't post on this thread, go ahead and ship a PM.

[Saucemaster]

As for the matchups, you obviously have a large concern against Oath, at least if your opponent is skilled.  I would say this matchup is in the Oath player's favor, but it's by no means an autoloss.  I'd be interested in hearing Saucemaster's take on the matchup from his side of the table.

Oops!  Didn't see this until today.

My general feeling about the matchup pretty much tracks with yours.  Especially when the Oath deck in question is the Meandeck build from Richmond, where you have no way to remove a Mongrel once he hits the board.  I would say that the matchup for Oath is favorable, but dangerous.  If you're with Oath and your opponent is a bad player and doesn't really know his outs, you might be in great shape.  If your opponent (like Kowal) knows that they need to treat the deck as Mongrel-combo in order to beat you, and aim for precisely that, then you have to be very wary of them.  Treat BoB like a wild animal--you have it backed into a corner, but that just means it's going to fight back harder.

That means if you have the Force of Will for their first-turn Mongrel, even if that Mongrel will be walking right into your Oath, use it.  Even if it's an Orchard-less Oath hand.  They can race you with a decent Mongrel hand, and even if they play a Draw-7 next turn and end up laying a Mongrel THEN, who cares.  That one turn is usually enough.  Actually, that's the only reason I remember that this:

Game three he mulls to six, but those six are orchard, mox, oath, force, blue card. I can't remove the oath before he gets to use it twice.

is *slightly* inaccurate--I didn't have the Force in hand in my opening six (though I drew one the next turn), which had me worried, because I remember worrying that I couldn't stop a first-turn Mongrel.  By the way, all three of those were great games just because we both went all-in and straight for the throat each time.

The only other card you're really guarding against, as the Oath player, is Ray of Revelation.

All in all, the Madness deck is fun and almost psychotically aggressive.  That makes for pretty tight matches.  I'd recommend to anyone just beginning to test it out that they treat it as a combo deck and just goldfish it for a while before they start playtesting.  It helps to know exactly how fast you can kill someone with a Mongrel on the board.

Oh, and Wonder is going to be worth its weight in gold if the Akroma/Spirit builds--in UG, BUG, or whatever form--start to rise in popularity following Richmond.

EDIT: Oh, and as far as the draw-7's go, I think they make this deck what it is.  If you don't want to run the draw-7's, I think the deck should probably Dojo drift to the more aggro-controllish U/g route.  The Draw-7s are the big "combo" engines here, and are the primary justification (in my mind) for the burn, for example.