R(U)/g Madness in 2020

[FTW]

Yeah, fast mana could be enough to make Careful Study and Breakthrough a lot more explosive. Deserves testing in a Grixis build.

Deep Analysis could be better than Cephalid Coliseum (which has more restrictive conditions, takes up a land drop, makes mana worse, conflicts with Anger), and it's a better version of Asylum Visitor for decks with uncontrolled discard (LED, Breakthrough, Inquiry). It's easier to flashback than Looting. Deserves testing.

Some background about that thread. The RUG Hollow Vine decks were based on the Vintage build. But the Vintage deck was built around 2 Legacy-banned engines:
Survival of the Fittest (1-card Vengevine+madness engine, banned in Legacy for it)
Bazaar of Baghdad (repeatable uncounterable "discard 3" and digs)

Bazaar's "discard 3" is big. It's the magic number to enable free Hollow Ones and Vengevines. It's also repeatable and dodges counters. Both are 1-card engines. Legacy has no real replacement for either.

The Legacy ports tried to replace Bazaar with Careful Study + Faithless Looting and friends, the way Legacy Dredge does. But they fall short of Bazaar in only discarding 2, being counterable, and not being repeatable. They need additional support to work (Street Wraith cycle, or fast mana to play 2 at once). Legacy Dredge doesn't have this problem, since it can go off after discarding 2 or dodge counters with DDD, with the dredgers doing the rest of the work. MadVine relies more on the enablers.

To avoid these obstacles we just went in a different route, using a Legacy-based engine that consistently discards 3 instead of trying to replace Vintage engines with Legacy cards. But maybe fast mana is enough. Breakthrough is the most promising card to exploit.

Edit: This could be interesting


//Creatures: 32
4 Putrid Imp
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Anje's Ravager
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One
3 Kitchen Imp
3 Anger
2 Ox of Agonas

//Spells: 8
4 Breakthrough
4 Burning Inquiry

//Fast Mana: 8
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

//Lands: 12
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Arid Mesa
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Badlands
2 Volcanic Island

//Sideboard: 15
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Firestorm
2 Bone Shards
2 Wonder

[Purple Blood]

That is very similar to the next build I wanted test i.e. Grixis without Faithless Looting or Careful Study. Unfortunately I'm going out of town soon so that will have to wait.

Has Mind Bomb ever been tested (better than Breakthrough for broken T1 plays)? How about Bomat Courier (probably too weak)?

I've been searching around and the only discard three (or more) for 1 CMC or less appears to be Breakthrough, Courier, Coliseum, LED, Inquiry, Mind Bomb, and One With Nothing.

[rufus]

...
I've been searching around and the only discard three (or more) for 1 CMC or less appears to be Breakthrough, Courier, Coliseum, LED, Inquiry, Mind Bomb, and One With Nothing.

There's also Rites of initiation, Phantasmagorian from the graveyard, and Manabond, Putrid Imp and Tireless Tribe from play.

[FTW]

The appeal of Breakthrough is how deep it digs. Draw 4 really finds more gas and fuels Ox.

If you want to cut it for Mind Bomb for explosive turn 1s without drawing cards, Tireless Tribe does that better. That we have extensively tested. And it is great at broken T1 plays (or slowrolling, since you can discard at any time). The only drawback is the color. If only there was another Putrid Imp in RB colors. We originally had Tribe in a rainbow manabase, which does not support Anger. But in the above list it could just swap for Breakthrough with white splash instead of blue...


//Creatures: 36
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Anje's Ravager
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One
3 Kitchen Imp
3 Anger
2 Ox of Agonas

//Spells: 4
4 Burning Inquiry

//Fast Mana: 8
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

//Lands: 12
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Arid Mesa
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Badlands
2 Plateau

//Sideboard: 15
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Firestorm
3 Prismatic Ending
1 Meltdown


Maybe some small changes like +1 Kitchen Imp, -1 Petal or -1 Inquiry.

With that type of build we usually had Once Upon A Time (finds PImp or Tribe or land or a 4/x) in the slot taken by Burning Inquiry, but Inquiry could be good here.