Dragon/madness

[Smash]

over in the crazy morphling.de land I have been seeing madness/dragon decks. Has anyone else been working on which way to go? It looks like a fun deck at least, though I am confused by the lack of moxen. Goes it need GG THAT bad, and hate bloodmoon THAT bad to run so many forests?


1. Peter Matyssek (5-0)
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
4 Animate Dead
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla

2 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Viridian Zealot
4 Wild Mongrel
1 Anger
1 Shivan Hellkite
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
2 Worldgorger Dragon

Lands:
3 Bayou
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
5 Forest
1 Strip Mine
3 Taiga
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath

4 bazaar, 4 survival, and 4 mongs seem like a lot of discard outlets, for a deck that has 12 creatures vs. beat and a semi-hard to find combo.

Would adding in some extra moxen, and trading survivals for 3x roars be a bad thing? You could also take out  the Viridian Zealot for dragon #3 and increase the anger count to 2-3 as well.

I guess survival would be key against control, but so slow vs other decks.

Ideas?

[Hyperion]

I am assuming he just didn't have access to an Emerald, else it would almost certainly be in there.

I am not sure what you mean about taking out Survival, as it enables the combo kill by letting you find Dragon (if you have Animate Dead), then generate infinite mana and find Hellkite or Survival up every creature in the deck. Did I misread your post?

I have my reservations about this deck but I certainly can't argue with its results. Going aggro/combo makes it difficult to side against it because it has two completely different strategies.  However, it also looks and feels very inconsistent from the little play I've managed with it so far.

[dicemanx]

This deck barely qualifies as a combo deck. I view it more as a potent aggro deck with an "oops, I win" factor thrown in. To enable the "oops" factor you have to play with jank cards like Dragon which will be completely useless at times, and you have to play with Survival which slows the Madness part of the deck down.

Decks like this always straddle that thin line of flexibility vs not doing *anything* right (ie you weaken the individual components, hoping that the sum total of those components compensates). In practice, sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. In the case of this deck, without much tutoring power and only 4 Animate effects, you cannot reliably combo off. And to find a WGD, you pretty much *need* to resolve a Survival, which is no small feat. Still, the powerful aggro component compensates nicely, and who am I to argue with the good results so far?

[RoadTrippin]

I'm playing the deck in an upcoming tourney and I can't see why people don't run a Rifstone Portal. Bazaars that tap for mana are nice as well.. The deck can consistently go off turn 3 but can go aggro vs. hate. I like it a lot.  I also run 6 animates and 4 Dragons, however.

[Smash]

I'm playing the deck in an upcoming tourney and I can't see why people don't run a Rifstone Portal. Bazaars that tap for mana are nice as well.. The deck can consistently go off turn 3 but can go aggro vs. hate. I like it a lot.  I also run 6 animates and 4 Dragons, however.

Yah, I guess the entire point of the aggro is to dodge hate, so this makes roar worthless. savage bastardss, wallas, and arrogants will eventually kill... I would almost be tempted to use necro over animate dead, to a) dodge some more hate and b) be able to bring back an arrogant on your turn when you just want a dude, and a 3/4 dude won't cut it.


I haven't seen much aggro-combo since some versions of AOS, so this idea is interesting me.

As to cutting survival, I was planning to go "opps I win" with a bazaar out. Survival is so slow, it pisses me off most of the times when I play it in TnT, although I realize it is the only way the deck can win certain matchups.  I guess it is a good mana dump for all your extra mana, and a nifty madness outlet.


6 reanimate effects would also let you side in some fat like verdy when you just want to take the combo out. Do I main 6, or main 4 and side some reanimates? Humm.

To get started on the deck, what is a safe manabase?
4 Bayou
2 Forest
1 Strip Mine
4 Taiga
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire

26 mana sources.  17 G, 9 (useful) Black, 8 (useful) Red

I would fear bloodmoon less because I can run portal and still go aggro/use rays to mow down the moons.  I could cut some B and R for more basics, but I am not sure they are needed.

[dicemanx]

The deck can consistently go off turn 3 but can go aggro vs. hate. I like it a lot. I also run 6 animates and 4 Dragons, however.

I would endorse running these numbers. With 4 Bazaars maximizing the number of WGDs makes the most sense, but only if you have enough Animates.

I'm not sold on Rifstone portals yet - they haven't made the cut in Madness, O.Stompy or Dragon, so by extension they might not be good enough for inclusion here.

[RoadTrippin]

Well, I only run one Portal, and for me it's definitely been useful in testing. I also run some neat utility like 1 MD Xantid, 1 MD Viridan Zealot, 1 MD Verdant Force (because I can't stand artifact prison, plain and simple)