[DECK] Mad Mask

[Vood]

Hello folks,

   Being a regular reader of Mana Drain, I thought I could share a little bit to the community. In my constant quest to build the perfect mask deck, I tampered with a lot of different build. The problem that I found with most mask build is that they relied on them to win. I found out that mask are better as a supplement than building around them. So I took a look at the current decks to see if I could not integrate them easily. I liked Vengeur Mask for its survival engine so when I've read about Oshawa Stompy, I knew that it would be a good template.
 
    So let's begin by presenting you: Mad Mask

MAIN DECK

//Mana (19)
11 Forest
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring

//Draw Engine (4)
4 Bazaar of Baghdad

//Creatures (24)
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Basking Rootwalla
3 Arrogant Wurm
4 Squee Goblin Naboob
1 Viridian Zealot
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought

//Spells (13)
3 Survival of the fittest
4 Illusionary Mask
2 Oxidize
4 Root Maze

SIDEBOARD

4 Null Rod
4 Ground Seal
2 Naturalize
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Hidden Gibbons

Comments :

Mana Base : Basic lands are a must in our environment. With no spells costing more than 3 mana, 22 mana sources is plenty. Being Mono Green, a full complement of Waste/strip is a must!

Engine : The deck engine is all about the bazaar/squee/survival/mask. Mask + Survival is deadly since you will always get out a dreadnought. Bazaar + Squee is already an established engine

Madness : with 12 madness Outlet, it is usually quite easy to enable madness.

Root Maze : Since we are using mask, Null rod had to go. Root maze is actually better against Combo and Control.

Sideboard : Null rod are still a must against combo and slaver. Siding out mask + dreadnought against them allows for Null Rod and Ground seal to easily come in.  

Matchups :

Fish/4CC/Mono Blue : This deck is engineered to beat Control. Too many threats to counter. It puts a lot of pressure against them.

Slaver : This a hard matchup. Ground Seal and Null Rod helps a lot against them. Root maze is also very good.

Combo : Root maze is the star against Combo. Being an enchantment helps a lot since their hurkyl's recall becomes useless. After sideboard, null rod reinforce the deck.

Goblins, Squirrels : Naturalize are needed. It is usually a race against them.

Aggro Workshop : Annoying Welders and Duplicants...Ground seals are key against them.

I don't have time to play very much type 1. But I test droved this deck twice in Montreal monthly type 1 tournament to strong finish (3rd/4th and 1st/2nd), So I am very confident into its capabilities.

Let me know what you think! Mad Mask

Edit : The deck is more streamlined. What was I thinking? no mongrels...

[Necrologia]

Aggro Workshop : What can they do against the mighty Dreadnoughts? Colossus is just a wimpy.

Welder much?

This is definately an interesting idea, but I think you'll need some more madness outlets. What about LED? It can still sac when it's tapped so it works well with rootmaze, gives you another madness outlet, and slightly ups your chances of just going broken.

Is it really worth it stay mono green? A small red splash would give you access to Anger and REBs, while blue would give you walk and other similar goodies.

[JuJu]

Aggro Workshop : What can they do against the mighty Dreadnoughts? Colossus is just a wimpy.

Welder much?

...

Is it really worth it stay mono green? A small red splash would give you access to Anger and REBs, while blue would give you walk and other similar goodies.

Well. Red can give you Lavamancer, Anger, Rebs, Rack, lots of other goodies. But blue can give you Energy Flux, Propaganda(Lovely with root Maze) and Old man of the sea, Beb, even Volrath's Shapeshifter if you're more of the combo type, then there's the rest of the goodies.

[jpmeyer]

Madness decks without Wild Mongrel make the baby Jesus cry

[Rico Suave]

Aggro Workshop : What can they do against the mighty Dreadnoughts? Colossus is just a wimpy.

Welder, Duplicant, Platinum Angel, and a load of SB answers.  Don't forget that many versions also focus primarily on not letting you do what you want, by using disruption and whatnot.  It's not as easy as just "play Mask, Dreadnought, win."  

In fact, I'd find it hard to believe it's even in your favor at all.  Last time I played against Survival Mask in a tourney I 2-0'd it with Aggro Workshop, so I'm a bit skeptical about a one-line rhetorical question being enough evidence here.

[Kowal]

I can't believe it took me this long to move this thread to newbie.

[Triple_S]

I think a big part of the Survival/Mask match up is mental...Mask allows for a degree of bluffing with the opponent.  I personally would suggest you run something of the Vengeur or Ninja Mask variety as it allows for a fast kill and allows you access to cards that say "I don't lose or I don't lose nearly as fast":  FoW and Duress.  Also using black allows the use of Wretch which will somewhat hose the usefulness of Welders.

[AngryPheldagrif]

To be perfectly honest, Vengeur Mask is just simply better. And zilch for destruction is not savage tech.

-Dan

[Vood]

Aggro Workshop : What can they do against the mighty Dreadnoughts? Colossus is just a wimpy.

Welder much?

...

Is it really worth it stay mono green? A small red splash would give you access to Anger and REBs, while blue would give you walk and other similar goodies.

Well. Red can give you Lavamancer, Anger, Rebs, Rack, lots of other goodies. But blue can give you Energy Flux, Propaganda(Lovely with root Maze) and Old man of the sea, Beb, even Volrath's Shapeshifter if you're more of the combo type, then there's the rest of the goodies.

I've tried it with Blue in it for ancestral, time walk. But everytime, I was getting screwd up by wastelands. Fetch are no good with root maze.

[Vood]

When I first tried this deck, I was very skeptical about its capabilities.  But after two strong showing, I believe in it. However, I admit welder are true annoyance.  First game is very tight, but once Ground seals comes in,  they helps a lot.  

As for adding a color,  do you think weakening the mana base is very good in the current Crucible environment?

The deck performs very well against control, can survive combo, but have problems against welders first game until ground seals comes in.

[Apollyon]

//Mana (18)
11 Forest
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus

//Draw Engine
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Squee Goblin Nabob

//Creatures (22)
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Wild Mongrel


//Spells (15)
4 Illusionary Mask
4 Hidden Gibbons
4 Oxidize
2 Ground Seal

This is how I would make this deck if I were to bring Oshawa Mask to a tournament. 4 MD Oxidize is a must if you aren't running Null Rods.

I'm not sure why you would run Masknought over Null Rods, to be honest, especially if you expect to see Control Slaver and combo decks. Hence why I wouldn't run this in favor of an Oshawa build with Null Rods.

Hidden Gibbons is a MUST, because a 4/4 for G is a house against control.

Survival is a bad card in this deck, because it's far too slow.

Troll Ascetic is a weak card, because a 3/2 for 3 isn't nearly the hotness that you'd think that it was.

Same with Eternal Witness: what are you going to recur? Seriously, why run a Gray Ogre when you can run a 2/2 for 2 that pumps?

Crucible belongs in some decks, but not an aggro deck with disruption. I'd prefer to drop an Arrogant over spending 3 mana on a card that doesn't shorten their clock by a decent margin.

[Vood]

I'm not sure why you would run Masknought over Null Rods, to be honest, especially if you expect to see Control Slaver and combo decks. Hence why I wouldn't run this in favor of an Oshawa build with Null Rods.

Hidden Gibbons is a MUST, because a 4/4 for G is a house against control.

Root maze is doing the job instead.  Doesn't affect Mask and excellent against control and combo. And it is an echantment, harder to remove.

Survival is a bad card in this deck, because it's far too slow.

Survival is card advantage.  I agree that it is a little slow, but it gets bazaar going and find dreadnoughts.

Troll Ascetic is a weak card, because a 3/2 for 3 isn't nearly the hotness that you'd think that it was.
Same with Eternal Witness: what are you going to recur? Seriously, why run a Gray Ogre when you can run a 2/2 for 2 that pumps?

Troll is untargetable, Eternal witness often get back mask or bazaar.

Crucible belongs in some decks, but not an aggro deck with disruption. I'd prefer to drop an Arrogant over spending 3 mana on a card that doesn't shorten their clock by a decent margin.

[/quote]

If I was not running bazaar I wouldn't have played crucible. Every land becomes a squee when crucible is in play.

[AngryPheldagrif]

When I first tried this deck, I was very skeptical about its capabilities.  But after two strong showing, I believe in it.

Did you know that in it's first testing Auriok Salvagers.dec went 12-3 against good decks?

[Vood]

After more playtesting, deck has been updated. It now uses Mongrels (What was I thinking) and removed the crucible (effectively slow).

[JamesPr]

I think hidden gibbons is too narrow and this deck needs more acceleration especially with you playing bazaars which can't give you mana.