General Modern Horizons

I consider the madness archetype like the old blue green madness odyssey deck which included deep analysis, wonder, centaur garden and roar of the wurm. The mechanic is it's namesake but there's always been support from other complimentary mechanics
 
Don't you think that means it's more of a discard deck then? Like, Drake Haven decks are discard decks, but they aren't madness decks.

Well, in the case of Hollow One e.g. yes, that one's just a discard matters card. But for the rest: When I get the advantage from discarding the card itself, it is a madness payoff for me. Roar of the Wurm for example could have a madness cost of 4 instead of the flashback and would play basically the same in that deck. Anger could be an enchantment with that effect with a madness cost of 0 and would pretty much play the same. In both cases, the cards actually are just better, because roar you can cast later after discarding it and anger can be a topdeck hasty attacker.

Aggro Madness has become my favorite cube archetype currently.
 
But then we are all in agreement, aren't we? I do think you can make a "discard matters" archetype. But that archetype won't have any actual madness cards on it. It can be a bit like Modern Affinity, that has no Affinity cards but it's a misomer. I'm just saying that cards like Circular Logic, Basking Rootwalla and the like are trap cards.
 
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Get. In. My. Cube.
 
Pre-Phyrexia Yawgmoth is perfectly designed and is perfect for my cube (and I can imagine most other cubes)

I love when I can cut a custom design to replace it with an actual MtG card of similiar function!

String of Disapperances is a terrible card. A nerfed Unsummon. Also whenever they print such cards, they never function they way they feel like they should function. See Trade Secrets or Chain Lightning as examples. I feel like they are intended to create a complex political setup and instead they never really do anything other than their basic effect. This might actually be the intended design but then why not just make something cooler?

The Talismans are beautiful and finally complete. Now people will start complaining that they want new art for the old Mirrodin ones :p Top bad we are not running 2 mana rocks anymore here on Riptide ;)

I have everything I need from the set. I won’t mind if nothing more gets spoiled.

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5 Full art foil Snow-Covered Basic lands
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Goes perfectly into Gruul lands or Temur lands.

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Goes perfectly into Prowess spell matters and reanimator. Also has some other graveyard synergy.

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Goes perfectly into reanimator, Aristocrats, Abzan counters and Superfriends/Supervillains

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Goes perfectly into blue artifact theme.
 
Yawgmoth is like the best aristocrat ever, right? He's about 1000x more interesting than Kalitas, that's for sure, though Kalitas is probably more powerful.
 
Am I the only one who looks at this art and gets Star Wars vibes from it? I will never not refer to this card as Darth Yawgmoth.

You can legit see Yawgmoth growing artificial kyber crystals.

I mean yes, but why? Chain lightning was an admission that lightning bolt was too powerful, and unsummon doesn't really need the same treatment


I see String of Disappearances as Horizon's common bounce effect for limited with callbacks to Chain Lightning and Chain of Vapor.
 
Holy shit Yawgmoth is so freaking cool. The payoff that Aristocrat decks needed for a long time. I'm so excited to run this in W/B Humans or as a curve topper for recursive aggressive decks. You can have a really really disgusting turn with Gravecrawlers and enough black mana. I currently have W/B Humans as the dedicated aggressive archetype, but I think I might be looking to flesh out W/B Tokens as well with the introductions of Yawg and Serra. There could be some potentially disgusting interactions that I'm excited to see.

I can't really think of many ways for me to currently take advantage of the Proliferate as I don't have much counter generation in Black, but I do like that being an option to gradually murder bigger creatures that are in the way. Such a flavorful card and great design, they knocked it out of the park.
 
I got some playtesting in with new cards. Ayula's Influence is absolutely disgusting in the lands shell. Easily the first playable seismic assault variant. It might even be too good but I need to test it more. At least its mana cost keeps it somewhat honest.

Wrenn&Six is amazing. Got it down quickly vs control and got the same fetchland back a bunch of times. I think this is staying around for a long time to help solidify RG's lands matter theme for me. Farewell 3+ CMC RG walkers.

Urza went off with Jeskai Ascendancy once, that was beautiful. The 5 mana ability was activated once and whiffed. I think this is my #1 favorite artifact matters card for cube because of how high the floor is and how easy it is to make it work with other artifacts.

Giver of Runes was exactly the fair mom I thought it would be. Shock and awe.

The lands are amazing. RIP painlands. Also RIP Ash Barrens.
 
But then we are all in agreement, aren't we? I do think you can make a "discard matters" archetype. But that archetype won't have any actual madness cards on it. It can be a bit like Modern Affinity, that has no Affinity cards but it's a misomer. I'm just saying that cards like Circular Logic, Basking Rootwalla and the like are trap cards.

Not quite. Madness.dec and discard matters is not the same to me, even though they have quite a bit of overlap. And Basking Rootwalla is a great example of a card, that has a decent enough floor without and is incredible with madness, so for me that happy little lizard is an archetype-cornerstone instead of a trap. And it's not the only one, for example:



And if the power level is adequat and the archetype supported well enough, I think it is also defendable to run a few narrower cards like Arrogant Wurm. Yes, they only go in decks with a bunch of discard outlets, but if a (free) 4/4 trample for 3 is strong enough in the meta, it can be absolutely worth it.
 
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This feels like a bit of a weird hill to die on. It's difficult to argue that madness cards are good by themselves and so everything is fine. Fiery temper isn't efficient by itself and requires discard effects to be 'good'.

The only reason it matters is to communicate to your players and us what you're trying to achieve with your archetype design. If you call something aggro madness people will naturally assume you are talking about building a deck with lots of madness cards, where perhaps its more about ways to gain advantage of discard cards by utilising discard triggers (madness), and cards that have effects in the graveyard. Just saying you might want consider how you refer to it, but at the end of the day not a massive issue and you do you! :)
 
I got some playtesting in with new cards. Ayula's Influence is absolutely disgusting in the lands shell. Easily the first playable seismic assault variant. It might even be too good but I need to test it more. At least its mana cost keeps it somewhat honest.
I think all of the seismic assault variants have been playable. I've had a lot of good success with molten vortex, and seismic assault is only difficult because it costs {R}{R}{R}. Influence has the same cost issue, and there are times when making 2/2s is worse than dealing 2 damage.

Never thought I'd see Lindsey Ellis on here in meme format.

That's why they pay me the big bucks to stick around...

hmm so kess means they are potentially printing more commander fanfiction cards into modern?

weird

I hope not. Kess is like, actually kind of cool. I don't really want her in modern, but that's only because I think she's way too annoying in Grixis Control decks. The rest of the EDH lot though... not something I really want to see. God forbid they put something like Meren of Clan Nel Toth into modern.
 
Decks/archetypes no longer using their namesake mechanic isn't that rare in Magic. See Affinity in Modern, etc.

If someone said they had a madness archetype in their cube, I'd assume that it could either be A) literally built around the mechanic or B) just shorthand for discard value. I would probably ask them to clarify before we draft.
 
Decks/archetypes no longer using their namesake mechanic isn't that rare in Magic. See Affinity in Modern, etc.

If someone said they had a madness archetype in their cube, I'd assume that it could either be A) literally built around the mechanic or B) just shorthand for discard value. I would probably ask them to clarify before we draft.

Yeah I said I had a "Drake Haven/Cycling Deck" in my cube before our draft the other day, yet no one ended up in the deck because they quote unquote "didn't see enough cards with cycling," despite the fact that many of the good discard outlets ended up in the early packs. Language is important, especially if your drafters haven't had much experience with your list.
 
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