U/G Madness vs G/u/r Madness. Which is better?

[Ginai Doma]

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.

[BreathWeapon]

Where exactly are you having success with this deck at in Southern Illinois? Have you taken home 1st place outside of Hannah's?

At any rate, Madness will probably be strong in SI considering no one plays serious combo or shops down here. Its very Control vs Fish vs FCG vs Sligh/Suicide and Oath in large numbers.

[wuaffiliate]

Zherberus

who is Zherberus?

[VGB]

who is Zherberus?

Sounds like a possible play on "Cerberus" to me.

@Ginai -

You looked at trying out Crop Rotation, Daze and/or Logic, what with all the control in the meta?

[Ginai Doma]

Where exactly are you having success with this deck at in Southern Illinois? Have you taken home 1st place outside of Hannah's?

At any rate, Madness will probably be strong in SI considering no one plays serious combo or shops down here. Its very Control vs Fish vs FCG vs Sligh/Suicide and Oath in large numbers.

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).

Zherberus

who is Zherberus?

Whoops extra er in there.

who is Zherberus?

You looked at trying out Crop Rotation, Daze and/or Logic, what with all the control in the meta?

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.

[Kowal]

Zherberus, eh?

[Arvid]

How has SotF been working out for you? I've tested it several times in several decks and I've almost always found it too slow. When the engine gets rolling it's great but that is to late, often. The only time I think it was good was in TnT, where you can use the discard to weld something in, and in MaskNought with lots of accelerators, such as 4 BoP. And there's a big difference between Mask and Madness being that with the right Survival tricks Mask can win in one turn while Madness "just" can pump out some fat.

[Hi-Val]

Check this out:

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=152

That's RG Madness from Ze Germans, and I think it's a tank. In such a fish-heavy meta, I might try to add in maindeck Firestorm, but the Pillars, REBs and Bazaars make it blazing fast.

[TheAdvantage]

Zherberus, eh?

That link was the first thing that entered my mind!

With regards to the questioning of this deck's success, I think it is imperative to note the lack of any combo played in this area.  You have your MD tech'd out to improve the matchups you expect to see(Drake, Firestorm, Fiery Temper), but I think you might be surprised at how valuable Force is against good combo.  Combo should already be a tough match for you; the only reason you arent losing to it is that you arent seeing any Draw7 or Belcher, and minimal Dragon(which you have SB for).  I'm not knocking the deck or your winning the last two T1's you entered; I'm merely pointing out that in a different metagame(one with combo present) you might feel differently about cutting the Forces and going pure aggro.  I guess I'm asking the following question:  Would you feel the same way if you faced combo on a somewhat regular basis?

[YossarianLives]

Hey, I was the fish player you smashed in round one at GG. You beat my friend playing virtually the exact same deck in the second round. In my defense, it's kind of hard to beat a wild mongrel, an arrogant wurm, and two basking rootwallas on turn one. I lost game two due to lack of experience with the deck.

One thing you might want to consider, Tog and Drain Slaver aren't the forces in the meta that they were a month ago.

I have to admit, I'm kind of glad you wont be at Hannah's on saturday. Even prepared, your deck is still a rough match up.

[PucktheCat]

Hey Ginai, I am the guy you drew with in the finals.

I have to agree with you that the /r version of Madness is much better than the version with Forces when you face a lot of Fish (as you did), however I am not sure it is better overall.

In our metagame, at least as much as I have seen of it, Hulk and Dragon have both made showings.  These two decks seem like they would prefer that you not run Force so they can combo you out in peace.  The top 8 at that tournament was one of the most matchup driven I have ever seen.  I played two control decks with my Gay deck and you faced two Fish decks with your Madness.  No surprise that we met in the Finals.

Leo