Chris Taylor
Contributor
10 creatures? That's so absurdly low!
Card/Deck Madness Theme
- Thread starter Diakonov
- Start date
10 creatures? That's so absurdly low!
Oh, I played with my paper cube today with my girlfriend. Played a mono black deck with this guy:
Forgot how great it is in a zombie/sac deck. Putting it here to remind myself.
How does this play out? It just seems... weak. Cool that you can restart your gravecrawlers.
i'm starting to seriously doubt your card evaluation skills man
Yeah, I mean, I get it. It looks bad, but it played out like kind of an OP Hellspark Elemental. Except it doesn't kill itself the first turn.
In the games I had, I was generally opening T1 Gravecrawler into T2 Dregscape Zombie. Opponent was playing a red deck with board wipes, but already I had wrath protection. When you unearth it, it's just
, so you still have plenty of mana to bring your crawlers back, and it hits for an extra 2 before getting sac'd to whatever you want. Also, the deck had Entomb. Sometimes the play to restart the chain was to entomb for Dregscape Zombie, Unearth it, replay crawlers, go.
I know it looks bad. If it was a 3/1 everybody would be all about it, but even as a 2/1 I think it's pretty effective in the right circumstance.
Oh wait, I found the proper response.
"Big words from someone who's never 3-0'd with Skaab Ruinator."
Chris Taylor
Contributor
and you even had the grim lavamancer to make things more awkward
and you even had the grim lavamancer to make things more awkward
They avoid each other pretty nicely. Just have to be mindful of what you exile.
I'm building a madness module which will either be 0% or 100% in a draft.
The biggest challenges are white, where I've used a reanimator theme, and surprisingly green, in which I had to dabble in threshold for the lack of "things that like being discarded".
Another thing I found is that while madness shares enablers with graveyard-matters (threshold, delirium, dredge, etc), these themes do not synergize with each other well, so I chose to go almost all the way in the direction of "discarding matters" than "cards in graveyard matters".
Thoughts?
The biggest challenges are white, where I've used a reanimator theme, and surprisingly green, in which I had to dabble in threshold for the lack of "things that like being discarded".
Another thing I found is that while madness shares enablers with graveyard-matters (threshold, delirium, dredge, etc), these themes do not synergize with each other well, so I chose to go almost all the way in the direction of "discarding matters" than "cards in graveyard matters".
Thoughts?
I'm trying to work these kinds of synergies into my cube as I reconstruct it and have looked at a lot of these cards. I haven't finished it yet so much of what I'm about to say is theorycrafting.
I agree that white's role in a theme like this is reanimator. I think the best place to house this white reanimation is either jeskai and esper control or in white midrange decks where the reanimation is more of a generic value kind of thing.
I think the best analogue to this kind of control deck are the UW Gifts Tron and Esper Gifts deck in modern where you're playing as a control deck that has graveyard synergies. In cube I see this as white reanimation being the beneficiary of blue and red spells that tend to discard cards. In my mind, this creates a control deck that does things like discards a finisher to a spell like Lightning Axe or Thirst For Knowledge or discarding a Fiery Temper to Vengeful Dreams. Some other cards that I think are nice in this type of control deck would be Think Twice and Deep Analysis since they allow you to get some value even after being discarded. The nice thing about this stuff is that it can also lead to a grixis deck that exploits a lot of the blue and red synergies with black reanimation. I think Nahiri, the Harbinger is a slam dunk for the jeskai control deck as well.
The green deck I see being the biggest beneficiary is a RG Zoo type deck that benefits from being able to use removal that wants to be discarded and threats that are discounted when discarded/ want to be discarded. In this type of deck you would be using red removal like Lightning Axe to either play more removal cheaply Violent Eruption for your attackers to get through or as a discount for your threats like Basking Rootwalla and Arrogant Wurm. Some other cards that this deck could utilize are threats that can be recurred. Vengevine, Chandra's Phoenix, and Hellspark Elemental all are aggressive threats that wouldn't mind traveling through the graveyard first. I especially like Wild Mongrel and Noose Constrictor with the red madness removal spells as the pump themselves.
I think that a UG Madness type deck could potentially work where the threats are mostly green and you're using blue loot spells and the mongrels to get value out of blue bounce spells like [Just the Wind/c] and
Discard outlets are plentiful, but things that like being discarded are not (and need to compose most of the module). I have Deep Analysis and Vengevine in high consideration. I'd actually have used Vengevine if I had one, it's at 22 bucks right now (in 5 years somebody will read this and laugh at me "you idiot, should've bought before it hit 200").
Some of the cards mentioned are good filler for the deck, but are also good enough for the main cube - the flashback cards mostly, plus other enablers.
I'm super torn about Compulsion vs Aquamoeba, though. Compulsion adds 2 to the madness costs which is a huge problem, but makes them all cantrip and isn't fragile like Jace. Sell it to me?
Some of the cards mentioned are good filler for the deck, but are also good enough for the main cube - the flashback cards mostly, plus other enablers.
I'm super torn about Compulsion vs Aquamoeba, though. Compulsion adds 2 to the madness costs which is a huge problem, but makes them all cantrip and isn't fragile like Jace. Sell it to me?
Hmm...
"Compulsion gets significantly better with each successive turn. It is at instant speed, and does not die to creature removal."
Compulsion takes games, it actually might be too powerful depending on the cube. I would play it in a power cube also, it's that good. Reanimator / Madness synergy or just a way to cycle through your deck to the juicy parts. It also just draws a card if you happen to be in a sticky situation.
idk if this has been addressed elsewhere in the thread or not, but I would assume with Chain of Smog as a madness enabler, you'd target yourself, and then choose to send it to the opponent. That seems like a pretty sweet play to me, although not likely a line that players will quickly recognize (I can't tell you how many confused looks I've gotten Blackmailing myself only to set up a T2 Reanimate play but it's always a hoot)
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I mean I guess. It's kinda like cheaper delirium skeins? or last rites?
Will players get that though, because I certainly didn't
Will players get that though, because I certainly didn't