LEGACY: B/R Madness

[Jofiel]

B/R Madness in Legacy, It's possible? Let's try.

[Jofiel]

The Madness was fameous deck in Odyssey Block and next it figured in Extended.
Idea of this deck was simple - discard some cards, with "madness and flashback" ability and win thanks to their cheapness.

In 2003 decklist were like this:

4th Place 2003 Worlds Deck

Lands:
8 Forest
11 Island
1 Centaur Garden
2 City of Brass

Creatures:
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Aquameoba
3 Arrogant Wurm
3 Wonder

Spells:
4 Careful Study
4 Circular Logic
2 Deep Analysis
1 Krosan Reclamation
2 Quiet Speculation
1 Ray of Revelation
3 Roar of the Wurm
3 Unsummon

Sideboard:
1 Deep Analysis
2 Envelop
1 Krosan Reclamation
2 Mana Leak
2 Nantuko Vigilante
2 Phantom Centaur
1 Ray of Revelation
2 Stupifying Touch
1 Unsummon
1 Wonder

Anyway, we had in the past R/G Madnes (rather not in Legacy)

Generally about U/G Madness people has written a lot of posts.
In 2011 we had for example proposition likie this (as a potential Legacy deck):

Aggro U/G Madness

// Lands 21
4 Island
4 Tropical Island
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Forest
3 Flooded Strand
4 Wasteland

// Creatures 19
3 Aquameoba
2 Waterfront Bouncer
4 Basking Rootwalla
3 Wonder
4 Wild Mongrel
3 Arrogant Wurm

// Spells 20
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Roar of the Wurm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
2 Basilisk Collar

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 Spell Pierce
SB: 2 Echoing Truth
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Naturalize

Some experst suggest to play Intuition or Tarmogoyf - but I don't like Tarmo, and I will never use this stupid card :p

So I want to present you somethig different R/B Madness :D

R/B Bloody Madness - YES, THIS IS THE DECK TO DISCUSS (not U/G) :)

//Lands:
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
6 Swamp
6 Mountain

//Mana Source:
3 Dark Ritual
2 Lion’s Eye Diamond

//Creatures:
4 Avatar of Discord
4 Bloodghast
3 Demigod of Revenge
3 Reckless Wurm

//Burn:
4 Lightning Bolt

//Draw & Others:
4 Faithless Looting (http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&c...t:429,r:15,s:0)
3 Recurring Nightmare / Victimize
3 Infernal Tutor

//Discard:
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize

SIDEBOARD:
4 Surgical Extraction
3 Ratchet Bomb
3 Terminate
3 Pithing Needle
2 Firestorm

Another cards to consider:
* Fiery Temper
* Big Game Huneter (but we need to decige for what put it)
* Ill-Gotten Gains / http://deckbox.org/mtg/Duress / Hymn to Tourah
* Ghastly Demise, Go for the Throat, Diabolic Edict
* Liliana of the Veil / Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
* Gamble
* Pyroblast

[Aggro_zombies]

I highly doubt a madness deck works anymore.

For starters, pretty much all of the creatures with madness (or the outlets that enable them) are shit. Survival of the Fittest and Vengevine were the exception to this, but without the ability to reliably Fireball people out with Vengevines, the concept gets significantly worse. Wild Mongrel is worse than both Tarmogoyf and Knight of the Reliquary in basically every relevant way, and he's the absolute BEST reusable enabler in the format right now. And what reward do you get for Mind Twisting yourself? A 1/1 that can become a 3/3 for two mana (compare to Wild Nacatl, a 1/1 that can become a 3/3 if you have lands), and a 4/4 trample for three (compare to Knight of the Reliquary, often a 5/5 or 6/6 with a useful ability). I guess you do get Wonder so that you can avoid ground combat, which is important because you're going to lose in most ground combat situations.

And...past that, what else? You can run a similar draw spell and counter suite to a normal blue tempo deck, but then you're just a worse blue tempo deck because holding cards in your hand makes your dudes worse.

RB seems like it would be a vastly worse version of UG. The madness guys in RB are even worse than the UG ones, you have no way to give them evasion without Wonder, and the discard outlets all suck.

Yeah, I'm not seeing it.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Dragonskull Summit? That's not right. I'd rather play a filter land or something before that junk.

[264505]

Needs more Big Game Hunter.

[Jofiel]

I highly doubt a madness deck works anymore.

For starters, pretty much all of the creatures with madness (or the outlets that enable them) are shit. Survival of the Fittest and Vengevine were the exception to this, but without the ability to reliably Fireball people out with Vengevines, the concept gets significantly worse. Wild Mongrel is worse than both Tarmogoyf and Knight of the Reliquary in basically every relevant way, and he's the absolute BEST reusable enabler in the format right now. And what reward do you get for Mind Twisting yourself? A 1/1 that can become a 3/3 for two mana (compare to Wild Nacatl, a 1/1 that can become a 3/3 if you have lands), and a 4/4 trample for three (compare to Knight of the Reliquary, often a 5/5 or 6/6 with a useful ability). I guess you do get Wonder so that you can avoid ground combat, which is important because you're going to lose in most ground combat situations.

And...past that, what else? You can run a similar draw spell and counter suite to a normal blue tempo deck, but then you're just a worse blue tempo deck because holding cards in your hand makes your dudes worse.

RB seems like it would be a vastly worse version of UG. The madness guys in RB are even worse than the UG ones, you have no way to give them evasion without Wonder, and the discard outlets all suck.

Yeah, I'm not seeing it.

Ok, but B/R version I put in forum now. I agree that U/G is impossible to play, but Avatar and Demigod have flying ability and have advantage in battlefield. :) But if you have idea about Red Wurms (maybe something will be better than they?) I'm waiting for advice

[Jofiel]

Needs more Big Game Hunter.

It's possible, but what do you want to exchange for BGH.

[Jofiel]

Dragonskull Summit? That's not right. I'd rather play a filter land or something before that junk.

Done. Bloodstained Mires are ok?

[sco0ter]

I don't understand most of your choices:

2 LED: Why 2, why at all? It is only good with Life from the Loam or in Storm decks.
Recurring Nightmare: Why?
Victimize: Why?
Infernal Tutor: What do you want to tutor? Nothing wins you the game, and else, too much temp loss.

I think you need more permanent discard enablers. Something like Putrid Imp.

I play 4 Zombie Infestation + 4 Squee, Goblin Nabob in my RB Madness Deck. Not bad actually. Probably becomes even better with Looting.

[optml]

No anger?
I agree with scoOter; get rid of the junk and make it more madness focussed. It just seems like a collection of different decks thrown together.

My thoughts would be:

-2 LED
-3 Recurring nightmare
-3 infernal tutor
-1 dark ritual
-4 lightning bolt

+4 Putrid Imp
+4 Squee, goblin nabob
+1 reckless wurm
+4 BGH

[Dark Ritual]

...You have a total of 3 cards with the madness mechanic in your deck those 3 being reckless wurm. I would suggest you add big game hunter and actually good discard outlets. The decklist you have up right now is all over the place terrible. I would at least go jund for vengevine's and basking rootwalla at this point in time, black red just limits your options significantly. And liliana seems like a perfect place to abuse madness, you go liliana, +1, play this basking rootwalla, next turn, do it again only this time play arrogant/reckless wurm or maybe pitch vengevine or something that's good in the graveyard like bloodghast. I laughed when I saw infernal tutor in here. Why is infernal tutor in here? The occasional synergy with LED, which you run as a 2 of? Overall this deck looks like a mess to me right now. Amazed you don't even run fiery temper maindeck over lightning bolt as fiery temper has synergy with discard stuff such as avatar of discord. And why is there recurring nightmare in here again? You aren't reanimator. I see no point to running this card over other real cards. Recurring nightmare hasn't cut it in legacy for a long time.

[Jofiel]

I don't understand most of your choices:

2 LED: Why 2, why at all? It is only good with Life from the Loam or in Storm decks.
Recurring Nightmare: Why?
Victimize: Why?
Infernal Tutor: What do you want to tutor? Nothing wins you the game, and else, too much temp loss.

I think you need more permanent discard enablers. Something like Putrid Imp.

I play 4 Zombie Infestation + 4 Squee, Goblin Nabob in my RB Madness Deck. Not bad actually. Probably becomes even better with Looting.

I wanted to use Tutors for draw another Demigod to discard them and reanimate thanks to Bloodghasts which is very simple to sacrafice for Nightmare. If I have one Demigod in Grave and reanimate it - all others back too. LED I treated like a suppor for Wurms and other potential stuff

[Jofiel]

No anger?
I agree with scoOter; get rid of the junk and make it more madness focussed. It just seems like a collection of different decks thrown together.

My thoughts would be:

-2 LED
-3 Recurring nightmare
-3 infernal tutor
-1 dark ritual
-4 lightning bolt

+4 Putrid Imp
+4 Squee, goblin nabob
+1 reckless wurm
+4 BGH

Ok, Putrid and Squee are tipcial madness creatures but they are generally week in my opinion. 4 Reckless Wurms are very interesting, but they haven't flying (which was great advantage for U/G Madness...

[Jofiel]

...You have a total of 3 cards with the madness mechanic in your deck those 3 being reckless wurm. I would suggest you add big game hunter and actually good discard outlets. The decklist you have up right now is all over the place terrible. I would at least go jund for vengevine's and basking rootwalla at this point in time, black red just limits your options significantly. And liliana seems like a perfect place to abuse madness, you go liliana, +1, play this basking rootwalla, next turn, do it again only this time play arrogant/reckless wurm or maybe pitch vengevine or something that's good in the graveyard like bloodghast. I laughed when I saw infernal tutor in here. Why is infernal tutor in here? The occasional synergy with LED, which you run as a 2 of? Overall this deck looks like a mess to me right now. Amazed you don't even run fiery temper maindeck over lightning bolt as fiery temper has synergy with discard stuff such as avatar of discord. And why is there recurring nightmare in here again? You aren't reanimator. I see no point to running this card over other real cards. Recurring nightmare hasn't cut it in legacy for a long time.

True... Tempers could be better in this combination. Liliana - yes, she is reather necessery. Rootwala... I don't think that it's better than bloodghast, which are grave returners.

[Jofiel]

R/B Bloody Madness - YES, THIS IS THE DECK TO DISCUSS (not U/G) :)

//Lands:
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
6 Swamp
6 Mountain

//Mana Source:
3 Dark Ritual
2 Lion’s Eye Diamond

//Discard:
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize

//Discarders:
4 Avatar of Discord
2 Liliana of the Veil

//Creatures:
4 Bloodghast
3 Demigod of Revenge
3 Big Game Huneter - for other big creatures, which could stop avatars and demigods.

//Burn:
4 Fiery Temper

//Draw & Others:
4 Faithless Looting (http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&c...t:429,r:15,s:0)
3 Recurring Nightmare / Exhume

SIDEBOARD:
4 Surgical Extraction
3 Ratchet Bomb
3 Terminate
3 Pithing Needle
2 Firestorm

Another cards to consider:
* Reckless Wurm
* Ill-Gotten Gains / http://deckbox.org/mtg/Duress / Hymn to Tourah
* Ghastly Demise, Go for the Throat, Diabolic Edict
* Liliana of the Veil / Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
* Gamble
* Pyroblast

[sco0ter]

I wanted to use Tutors for draw another Demigod to discard them and reanimate thanks to Bloodghasts which is very simple to sacrafice for Nightmare. If I have one Demigod in Grave and reanimate it - all others back too. LED I treated like a suppor for Wurms and other potential stuff

No. You don't cast Demigod, that's why the others won't come back.

By the way: You have 2 permanent discard outlets (Liliana). How do you think that should work with Madness?
This is no madness deck, this is a random BR deck.

You should at least run 8-10 permanent discard outlets (as the UG version do, too), and then some more quality discard like Looting or Lightning Axe.

I suggest:
4 Zombie Infestation
X Kris Mage / Putrid Imp / Oona's Prowler / Tortured Existence
2 Liliana of the Veil

4 Faithless Looting
2 Lightning Axe

3-4 Reckless Wurm
2-3 Big Game Hunter
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
X Nightshade Assassin (depending of your amount of black cards)

I don't like Putrid Imp that much, because it does not benefit you, but it's cheap and should be played, if you want to be the beatdown.

[Malchar]

The cards with madness are underwhelming by legacy standards. The key to abusing the mechanic is to have really strong discard effects, like survival of the fittest. Lion's eye diamond and liliana seem pretty strong as well. Oona's prowler is probably good. You can just discard madness creatures to it at the end of the opponent's turn an still be attacking for 3 in the air.

[sderenatore]

The cards with madness are underwhelming by legacy standards.

Not really:

// Lands
3 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
3 [A] Bayou
4 [DDG] Forest
4 [ISD] Swamp
3 [JGC] Polluted Delta
1 [A] Underground Sea
1 [ROE] Island
2 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest

// Creatures
4 [TO] Basking Rootwalla
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
4 [DDD] Wild Mongrel
3 [MM] Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 [ROE] Vengevine
3 [FNM] Wonder
2 [MM] Waterfront Bouncer

// Spells
4 [M12] Zombie Infestation
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [NPH] Dismember
3 [GPX] Maelstrom Pulse

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [M11] Duress
SB: 4 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [M11] Leyline of the Void
SB: 3 [AP] Pernicious Deed

First of all I have to say that I don't like cards that win your game by themselves such as Jace and decks that do not have any strategy except for mixing the Mindsculptor, Stoneforge & Batterskull.
The fun of magic is in decks like this: totally made by me (thanks to the precious ideas you gave me in this thread) and still ass-kicking as any tier deck.
I suggest you to try its potential.
Finally a powerful deck list with no Stoneforge, no Snapcaster, no Jace and no anything that everyone uses.

P.S. The sideboard is not definitive as the main board ;)

P.P.S. Probably i would go just for -1 Wonder +1 Lands. Just more tests will tell!

[Jofiel]

UGR Madness in Legacy could back. Why? Becouse of this:



And yes. It is able to kill other top decks. :D

Lands:

4x Gemstone Mine
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Taiga
4x Volcanic Island
2x Waterlogged Grove

Creatures:

4x Basking Rootwalla
3x Noose Constrictor
2x Wild Mongrel
2x Arrogant Wurm
2x Reckless Wurm
2x Honored Hydra
3x Wonder
1x Brawn

Artifacts:
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
2x Basilisk Collar

Spells:

4x Faithless Looting
4x Lightning Axe
4x Fiery Temper

3x Echo of Eons
2x Deep Analysis

Sideboard:
4x Circular Logic
3x Ground Seal
3x Firestorm
3x Ancient Grudge
2x Ray of Revelation

Test the build by yourselves and let me know. :)

[Mr. Safety]

If I were to build a B/R 'madness' deck, I would start with:

Arclight Phoenix
Young Pyromancer
Bedlam Reveler
Buried Alive
Dark Ritual
Faithless Looting
Cabal Therapy
Kroxa


Other cards to consider would be Hollow One, Reanimate, Liliana, the Last Hope, Lightning Axe, Manamorphose, maybe Burning Inquiry. You need big payoffs for utilizing your graveyard, especially in the face of graveyard hate. You don't have a combo that gives you decisive wins, just a lot of value agro.