Lets talk madness

[xrobx]

okay, as we all know there have been some severe changes to the way combo can now run; restrictions = bye bye long.dec...ok, that aside, i want to talk about the metagame in general, and the matches i've been facing.  First off, I'll tell you that I've not been playing magic in a long time, and usually only do play now over MWS and things like that; dont have time/money for MTG in real life anymore.

Now, I've been noticing recently that people are going artifact crazy.  Whats the deal with this? =P  Sure MR brought in shitloads of new stuff, but let's not forget some old great artifact control cards like hurkyl's recall.  Hence, in my sideboard of the deck I'm about to discuss, I'm running 3/4 Hurkyl's Recall, because in reality, there isn't one deck I've faced that DOESNT use some sort of artifact engine in it.  Maybe its the win condition, maybe its for it's stupid giagantic broodstar, maybe it's academy, maybe it's tangle wire, etc.  Whatever the case, I feel that Hurkyl's recall is a great current sideboard card and has a very nice spot in many decks sideboards, specifically this one.

On to the deck, as mentioned, I havent been playing MTG so much lately, and haven't been using/playtesting any 'netdecks' for madness, but I've come up with my own version of U/G madness and so far have been very successful with my build.  What I'm trying to do is make this madness deck more well known/played 'cuz I think many people are just looking right by it as a sub-par aggro deck, where in reality, it beats pretty much any aggro deck you throw at it.  Here it is:

// Lands
    4  Bazaar of Baghdad
    4  Tropical Island
    4  Polluted Delta
    4  Island
    6  Forest

// Creatures
    4  Basking Rootwalla
    4  Arrogant Wurm
    4  Wild Mongrel
    2  Wonder
    2  Brawn

// Spells
    4  Call of the Herd
    4  Roar of the Wurm
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Ancestral Recall
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Lion's Eye Diamond
    1  Time Walk
    4  Deep Analysis
    4  Accumulated Knowledge

// Sideboard
SB: 1  Capsize
SB: 3  Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 3  Wash Out
SB: 4  Circular Logic
SB: 4  Back to Basics

The sideboard is still sketchy, but I know Hurkyl's Recall is a good choice, as mentioned earlier. So..

Capsize:  A way to deal with anything; I'm not running cunning wish (have never liked this card), so I'm not sure of the effectiveness of this card.

Hurkyl's Recall: see above.

Washout: helps me against the aggro matchups, could be replaced by powder keg possibly (for sligh), or null rod possibly.

Circular Logic: Not so important here I don't think, the main reason is for matchups when I'm playing against combo (whats left of it), and possibly for dumping Brawn and Wonder against control/keeper.

Back to basics: Pretty obvious choice, again, the metagame is flooded with nonbasic lands, but would wastelands be better?  My lands too are also nonbasic..

Anyways, I'd like some feedback to hear what people think and if they doubt the deck I'd love to play with you on MWS anytime We'll swap contacts on MSN or something.

Cheers.

[David Hernandez]

i don't play Madness much, but if you want to run B2B you might want to replace one of your DA's with a Frantic Search.  At least that way you can untap some land while discarding for your engine.

i play artifact prison and aggro, and i run 4x Chalice.  I think that Hurkyl's will be weaker in Madness because the CotV can come into play for 2 very easily, and you aren't running any counter spells of any kind.  Energy Flux might be better because it's 3cc, or mix it up a bit, althogh WelderMUD is somewhat resilient (against Energy Flux) because of the mana producing ability of Metalworker.

--Dave.

[Brendan]

There is a lot of colourless in your spells, so the off colour moxen are a definite inclusion.

Also, brawn is inferior to wonder, and many people only run 1 of those, if any.

You might consider a red splash, for fiery temper and sideboard cards like pillar, reb, and possibly blood moon.

[Rico Suave]

Your deck is way too slow.

To clarify, you could take out the LEDs from old Madness and they'd still have more acceleration than you.\n\n

[VideoGameBoy]

So what are you saying, Rico; add ESG?

And Brawn is quite useless.

[BreathWeapon]

Running ESG is a good idea in Madness, the deck needs more raw acceleration in the absence of LED. The off color Moxen just aren't enough, and Manacrypt has bad synergy with DA.

[Rico Suave]

I'm not sure about ESG because I haven't fooled around with that one yet, but the off-color Moxen just don't cut it by themselves (and even this build lacks those).

Mana Crypt has bad synergy with Deep Analysis, but on the other hand it has awesome synergy with winning.  I am of the philosophy that I'll take 1.5 damage a turn to make my Roar of the Wurms come out two turns earlier, resulting in 6 a turn.  

It was debateable even with four LED.  With only one now, it's a lot easier to find room for it.

[iLL_Dawg]

Red should be in there just because Anger exists.  Not running him makes you a full turn slower, since you can't play stuff and just win that turn.

Here's the build I played most recently:


Bombs Over Baghdad
Created by: iLL_DaWg

Where My Dawgz At?
4 Wild Mongrel

Team Lizard Beatz™
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla
3 Roar of the Wurm

Mad Phat & Supa' Fly
3 Anger
2 Wonder

This Tastes Like Burning
3 Fiery Temper

I Make Drawing Fun
3 Deep Anal
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Wheel
1 Timetwister
1 Crop Rotation
1 Time Walk

Lands That Don’t Draw Me Cards
3 wooded foothills
3 trop
2 volc
3 tiaga
2 Riftstone Portal
1 Strip Mine

Lotuses (Loti?)
4 LED
1 black lotus

Bling
1 jet
1 sapphire
1 ruby
1 emerald
1 pearl
1 sol ring

Board Advantage
3 REB
3 Ray of Revelation
3 Artifact Mutation
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Riftstone Portal
2 Blood Moon

And, as always, cheering me on from the sidelines
3 Wurm Tokens (with the Trogdor the BURNiNATOR alternate artwork

This thing won me the recent Brockton Sapphire tournament.  Post-restriction, I will be cutting 3 LED and 1 Deep Anal for 4 Careful Studies, I think.

-=ADAM=-

[BreathWeapon]

Actually, I think Red should be cut. This deck needs to return to its roots with Force of Will and Circular Logic. Keeping Anger is like saying this deck is still viable as pure Aggro, and it isn't. I used 4 Anger in my Madness, cuz Wonder is gay, and I have definately felt the extreme loss of speed without LED regardless of his presence. You don't lose anything major in your SB, Hurkyl's Recall > Artifact Mutation and Pyrostatic Pillar isn't so hot with Long gone. I want to use Stifle in the SB I think, but thats another story.

Scepter are the SUCK vs Madness, and MD answer are Tech. I am loving FoW like a lost child.

I also think that Strip/Wastes are probably a better idea than ESG if you decide to adapt to the Aggro-Control Madness build.

So I guess what I am getting at is that Madness needs to be a juiced up version of T2 Madness to be worth a damn.\n\n

[protoman108]

Anyone ever consider Breakthrough for this deck?

Sorcery - XU
Draw four cards, then choose X cards in your hand and discard the rest from it.

Played for 1 blue, it's basically double a Bazaar's effect.  Granted, it is less effective first turn than Careful Study (you don't want to discard everything, after all), but with the loss of 3X LED's, you might be needing more ways of dumping your hand.

EDIT::Added -

Part of the beauty of madness is being able to blindly Bazaar with an empty hand.  A deck like this cannot run countermagic, even Circ Logic, because it works off dumping its hand.\n\n

[SummenSaugen]

Hmm, what goes better with undercosted fatties at the cost of pitching your hand, an aggro strategy or countermagic?

It doesn't work.

Trust me, we've tried.  Making it bad aggro-control doesn't make it a good deck.  It needs to be focusing on its aggressive development.  Red is a necessity.

[BreathWeapon]

Um, apparently it does work, or people wouldn't bother playing the strategy in other formats. Without LED, FoW and Circular Logic are more than viable. Your not looking for a long term control game plan, tho' its possible if we return to Squee.

I'll tell you this, I have played Jan 1st Madness with 4 Anger and 4 Careful study with the off Color Moxen and 4 ESG and its still slower than Stacker. Frankly, this meens Madness in its pure Aggro form is total sh!t come Jan 1st.

See for yourself if you don't believe me. Go ahead and walk into an environment full of Sceptered Fire/Ices and STP's with MD Stifles boarding Grave Hate. Its like putting your head on a chopping block.

[iLL_Dawg]

I walked into exactly that sort of environment last weekend.  See my report.

-=ADAM=-

Edit: The SB changes every tournament.  it's metagame dependant.  I have 4 pages of my binder devoted to it.  Hurkyl's is only better than mutation if you run the draw-7's.\n\n

[MuzzonoAmi]

I used to think that you could play countermagic in this deck. I also used to thihnk that LED was the most important outlet you have. I have since learned that I was mistaken. With Bazaar in the deck, you're still dumping your hand with regularity. I haven't tested Breakthrough in my build, but then again I haven't played Madness for awhile. It looks better than Careful Study, though. (granted, that isn't saying much) I do know that Red should never be cut. I think I'd be more likely to cut Blue if I need to drop a color. Yes, Adam boards Logics (2, correct?) but from what I've read of his tourney reports, he only brings them in against Combo. The reason Madness decks in other formats use countermagic is that they lack the explosive Madness outlets that exist in Vintage (LED, Wheel of Fortune, Windfall, Bazaar of Baghdad) that make the deck function better when played aggressively.

[iLL_Dawg]

I bring in the logics for 2 reasons:
1) people bring in hate against me, I like to say no to the hate.
2) Logic beats the hell out of REB in a fight.

They come in against control as well as combo. Ask Eastman how it feels to drain a Roar, only to have a logic and an arrogant wurm played off an LED in response, pitching Anger.

-=ADAM=-

[BreathWeapon]

Adam, you walked into that environment with 3 more LED than you would Jan 1st ... don't you think that makes a slight difference?

[doublej20]

This is a good discussion, but I believe one of the most important madness outlets has gone largely ignored in all of this. SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST is a beast in this deck, and is another MUST counter spell that control has to contend with while attempting to save their ass from hasted flying guys coming to beat their face in. I'm well aware that it was discounted in the past because of the speed of the original version of the deck, but with the restriction of Lion's Eye Diamond the deck is going to be slightly slowed no matter what you do. I've been playing this version for a while now in Type 1 and 1.5 (except for the 4 LEDs), and it actually is more aggro control. Not with counterspells like Circular Logic and Force of Will per se, but with Survivals and a few utility creatures that help deal with problems existing on the board. At the risk of filling this thread with BS decklists (I will risk it because mine is NOT BS), I will present my version and explain a few choices:

Survival Madness 1.0, by JACO 10.12.03 (updated 12.02.03)
Creatures (21)
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel
3 Roar of the Wurm
3 Arrogant Wurm
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Wonder
1 Anger
1 Flametongue Kavu
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Other Business (15)
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
2 Violent Eruption/Fiery Temper/Fire/Ice
1 Crop Rotation
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Timetwister

Mana Sources (24)
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
5 Moxes
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Taiga
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
2 Riftstone Portal
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland

Sideboard (15)
3 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Ray of Revelation
3 Artifact Mutation
1 Naturalize
**Survivalable Targets**
1 Genesis
1 Ravenous Baloth
1 Gilded Drake/Waterfront Bouncer
1 Rootwater Thief
1 Goblin Welder
1 Masticore

First of all, you will notice there are no Deep Analysis. In my metagame all these ever do (literally, every time) is get Misdirected and I lose 3 life, so they have been abandoned. The 3 Squees will also be something you look at and question, but they help to replace the loss of Deep Analysis are a necessity with 4 Survivals and 4 Bazaars, and help to generate insane card advantage if either of those is present. The direct damage slot changes frequently, but I usually use Violent Eruption over Fiery Temper because it just flat out kills more targets on the opponents' side, and is less Misdirectable. Crop Rotation is great in this deck to either fetch a Bazaar or Strip Mine effect, or in response to an opponent Wasting one of my own lands. Intuition is also very good in this deck now (Intuition fo r Wonder/Anger/Squee/Roar of the Wurm/Riftstone Portal/Ray of Revelation/etc.), but I do not have room for it currently.

The sideboard is constructed to shut down what I usually face (control, aggro, other Bazaar decks, Workshop decks, etc.), but can be peppered to taste for your meta accordingly.

I truly believe this should be the template that most madness fueled decks should be based on in the future, as Careful Study simply cannot make up for the lost speed of losing 3 Lion's Eye Diamonds to restriction, and Survival of the Fittest provides answers and a better option than Careful Study after the first turn and throughout the rest of the game.\n\n

[Matt The Great]

Why Naturalize instead of either the last Mutation or a third Ray? It seems to me that you should commit.

[Rico Suave]

If I were to play Survival in a deck with fat, I would like to be able to efficiently get that fat on the board.  For example, TnT can abuse Workshop and Welder to get fat on the board.  Your deck cannot.  In fact, it does the opposite and makes every creature effectively cost G more.  That puts a lot of stress on the mana base, and that's the biggest problem area post-LED.

I don't see how a deck that is slowed by restrictions is going to benefit from adding cards that will further slow it down.  Granted you can call it an aggro-control deck, but the control aspect of the deck is really, really weak.

It's not a bad idea.  I just wish it worked out better in practice.

Quote I'll tell you this, I have played Jan 1st Madness with 4 Anger and 4 Careful study with the off Color Moxen and 4 ESG and its still slower than Stacker. Frankly, this meens Madness in its pure Aggro form is total sh!t come Jan 1st.

That's the only reason I found in all your posts as to why you think aggro-control is better than more aggro versions.  To be frank, that's not a good reason.  

Not only are there other deciding factors aside from speed, but I doubt that a well built version is slower than Stacker.  Just throwing in cards which "accelerate" does not make it better, or even necessarily faster.

[Ultima]

I have to concur with Rico Suave about the Survivals.  The reason why survival is a must counter most of the time with TNT and other artifact aggro is because after it hits the board, the control player cannot effectively counter anymore, and is thus forced to rely on spot removal.

In this version, it seems that you are using survival and bazaar as way to outdraw the control player when in this metagame, the control player will likely have strip effects and 1-2 counters putting you in topdeck mode.  Although aggro is one of the better decks to have in topdeck mode, its futile when control has a 3-4 card advantage with answers coming.

[Matt The Great]

TNT also has the nice trick of using Survival to put a tubby in the graveyard then fetching a Welder and (with Anger) putting that tubby into play for 'free' (not R because that got you a Welder). Madness can't do that - you're still paying full price for all your stuff.

[David Hernandez]

I know that Red doesn't typically belong in this deck (or rather "there typically isn't much red in the builds i've seen"), but could Gamble find a place here?  Go get a card you need, and if you discard a card with madness, you could cast it...

dave\n\n

[Matt The Great]

The only reason other formats don't use red is because they lack the dual lands which make Incarnations possible (also, they help ease the strain of needing G, and U or R early).

As for Gamble, I've tested it a bit...and i's decent, but never great. It really doesn't do much as the deck is already so consistent that you don't need tutors. It could work in some sort of Intuition-based silver bullet madness, but not here.\n\n

[BreathWeapon]

Gamble is a little inconsistant, but being able to secure a Bazaar of Baghdad early can be priceless. That said, I don't think its better than Careful Study or more reliable alternatives.

[SummenSaugen]

Most of the time Gamble would be fetching an incarnation or roar of the wurm.  Alternatively a flashback sideboard card, like Ray of Revelation.  Fetching a Bazaar, if done at all, would be done in a very early hand with five or more cards still there.

I've been prodding Adam to use Crop Rotation for a long time now to act as Bazaar #5, and he's finally switched to using it.  His results have been phenomenal, and I suggest everyone else trying to play Madness post LED restriction also try it.

[xrobx]

After much more playtesting I've come to my own conclusions that straight aggro madness > aggro control madness. I'll give you some of the reasons why...

First of all, we look at the whole point of this deck; its aggro, and its big fast creatures.  I want to deal as much damage to your face as I can right away.  Why waste time running counters/other elements of control?? I know with a Bazaar on the table, I'm going to be dropping onslaughts of creatures very quickly, and the control player (opponent) IS going to have a hard time dealing with that.  Lets look at old sui black; it did extremely well against a blue-control based metagame.  Why? Disruption+fast devastating creatures that quickly killed the opponent while I wreaked havoc on his hand/land.  The point here is that the aggro player didn't run 'counters' per say, but did need a way to deal with the counter players spells, so they went about it by disruption (some could argue duress as being a counter/control card, but whatever, still its disruption).  With madness aggro, I'm dumping my creatures faster than Sui black ever could, but I'm lacking the disruption to deal with the control player.  How do I make this up?? The same way fish does; tempo.  It may not seem like I'm out drawing my opponent, cuz my hand may frequently be empty, but almost all of that drawing is utilized because of flashback.  Hence, even if the control player can counter my shit, I can play it again and again until they just can't deal with it.  Also, as mentioned, this is MUCH faster than sui black ever was (when I drop anger in grave), and has evasion techniques that Sui black lacked.  At this point I'm drawing the conclusion that madness > control.

As far as aggro is concerned, I can pump out more critters faster than pretty much anyone else, and they aren't weenies, they are ranging from 1/1s to 6/6s, usually with haste and flying =P  Again, evasion is key when facing other types of aggro.  You can make a 12/12 with trample, fine, I can make 2 6/6s this turn with haste.  Next turn I'll make another...then another...etc etc..I feel that madness > almost all other aggro.

Combo is the only MAIN concern, which can be a problem.  My hardest matchup is dragon, which i went 2-3, 3-2, 2-3 against.  Long.crap is pretty much finished now...I can't think of any other really competitive "tier 1" combo decks out there that pose a huge threat for madness...?

So again, I'm preaching maddness aggro > madness control aggro.  We looked at the matchups briefly,  a few other things I'd like to discuss are the card choices and how each benefits each deck.  Circular logic/FoW/Survival of the Fittest.  With each of these cards, you ARE going to be sitting around waiting to play them.  Survival would be great first turn yes, but think about drawing into it when your running 0-2 cards in hand consistently using Bazaar every turn.  Lets say you draw into a choice between discarding down to another bazaar, or a survival.  Survival loses out here.  I want to draw 5 cards a turn yes; yes I do.  Same thing with Fow/logic; you NEED to hold on to those and slow down your whole game just so you can be ready to counter something if they cast it.  Why bother?? Literally, pitch those away.  You know you will anyways  I find fiery temper is GREAT when I'm blowing through my deck to act as a quick 3 shot to the face.  I've been winning most games turn 3/4 lately, about 50/50 for each.  Sometimes combo has trouble matching that speed BEFORE I sideboard.  I'll through my current decklist up so people can look at/tear it up/whatever, please continue discussion on this deck and card choices/explanations.

//Lands (still in progress for best combination, running 18 including the 4 bazaars)

//Creatures that smash face.
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla
3 Anger
1 Wonder

//Spells that smash face.
4 Fiery Temper
4 Roar of the Wurm

//Mmmmmmmmmana
1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt

//Drawing time...
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Time Twister
1 Wheel of Fortune
4 Deep Analysis
1 Breakthrough
(4 bazaar included in land)

//SB: Quest for the dragon stopper??
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Ray of Revelation
4 Artifact Mutation
4 Blood Moon

Card choices/explanations/updates!!! :

Blood Moon: Haven't been liking this card so far with this deck, it does help with anger/fiery temper/wheel of fortune but I run all nonbasic lands myself =P  I often need green BADLY for mongrel/roar/wurm.  Reconsidering this...?

Breakthrough: Testing, so far so good.  You hate these in opening hands, you love them later on.  They're basically the effect of 2 bazaars for 1 blue mana.  Considering cutting this for Windfall.

edit:: also considering crop rotation as 5th bazaar, but don't know what to cut yet.

edit #2 :: ray of revelation is seeming to do fairly well against dragon; problem being dragon can explode often before i can through it down/into my graveyard...maybe playing crypts soon to deal with dragon...\n\n

[David Hernandez]

xrobx:
for a dragon stopper, you could run a Gaea's Blessing in the side.  It only takes one...

ankh of mishra would also ruin Dragon's day, but i dont know that you want that in your SB.

dave.\n\n

[Smash]

Quote (David Hernandez @ Dec. 12 2003,20:23)xrobx:
for a dragon stopper, you could run a Gaea's Blessing in the side.  It only takes one...

ankh of mishra would also ruin Dragon's day, but i dont know that you want that in your SB.

dave.

Even Krosan rec. can be OK against the dragon. It stops the combo when held, and when milled it lets you stack your deck

Besides dragon, I don't think any other combo is really worth worrying about.\n\n

[BreathWeapon]

Drat, I lost my previous post ... so i'll start again.

@ XrobX. Pre-Mirrodin, I would have agreed with your assertions of Aggro-Madness to the letter. However, with the loss of LED, Madness can no longer establish its threats at the same speed of Pre-Restriction Madness. With that said, the environment has also changed significantly in the wake of Scepter and Stifle for Control. Madness can no longer rely on an active Bazaar of Baghdad to over load a Control players permission base. A Sceptered Manadrain or STP will quickly bottle neck a Madness deck into submission if it is allowed to do so. Stifle, is a powerful card vs Madness, and it has given Fish and various other forms of control improved win percentages vs Madness when it is included at 3-4x. IMO, a pure Aggro deck even as fast and hard hitting as Madness with the staying power of Bazaar must have some form of Disruption to make it viable against Neo-Control.

I fail to see the merrits of pure Aggro-Madness incomparison to Stacker. Stacker is arguably faster with Mishra's Workshop, more resistant to Stifle and Grave Yard Hate, has an equaly long lasting game plan with Goblin Welders, has an alternate kill condition with Goblin Charbelcher and better disruption in the forms of Pillar, Ankh, Chalice and even Bloodmoon. When you combine this with Stacker's healthier Manabase and lack of dependance on discard outlets ... what does Madness have to offer anymore over Stacker game 1?

[MuzzonoAmi]

A decided lack of hate being thrown at it, and bigger fat. If you want aggro-control Madness, then drop Bazaar, because it's 100% counterproductive in that deck. Try it out, then you'll see why you want to go all out aggro with the deck. And most Stacker builds have dropped Charbelcher because it's inconsistent as hell. And I want to see proof that Scepter.dec is any good. I fear no Drain on a stick.