Grixis Madness viable?
Standard Deck Help forum
Posted on April 5, 2016, 2:36 p.m. by Rothus
So I've been fooling around with the whole Madness concept in standard since the full SOI list came out and was really underwhelmed by the pure Dimir and Rakdos colored decks.
Both decks would ultimately suffer from not having enough good cards to make them viable in Standard in my opinion.
Yet as I was looking at all the possibilities; I noticed that if I went Grixis; then I can have a very fast but consistant deck. The main bulk of the deck is going to be Izzit UR with black splash.
One of the main kill conditions will be cheap madness spell damage with Alms of the Vein and Fiery Temper. I would be using Tormenting Voice, Lightning Axe, Tormenting Voice, and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy Flip as Madness outlets.
All the while the madness deck would help boost Stormchaser Mage and Thing in the Ice Flip.
The secondary kill condition would be through Fevered Visions and Sin Prodder. I would also constantly keep my hand full with the help of Jori En, Ruin Diver.
Only downside I see at the moment is mana fixing due to the loss of fetch lands. I just want everyone elses thought on if Grixis would be viable.
VampireArmy says... #4
As a midrange or control deck, it should be fantastic
April 5, 2016 3:45 p.m.
I don't think the three color mana bases are strong enough to support the sort of aggressive three color deck you're suggesting. However, as VampireArmy suggested, a slower more controlling version of the deck that doesn't doesn't need untapped red mana, into untapped blue, into untapped black on the first three turns could be slightly viable.
If that is the case I don't think there's any point in trying to jam a madness theme down your throat. The strength of madness lies in the incremental advantage it creates which you lose if you have to play worse cards to make it work in the first place.
April 5, 2016 5:24 p.m.
From my testing, and what I've seen work for other people on cockatrice (so take that as you will), you want as many of the new lands as you can fit or you want as many of the battle/tango lands as you can fit but not both. Then the rest is rounded out with sufficient basics, pain lands, and the possible utility land depending on how color intensive you really are. I've found that the more aggressive decks prefer the new lands while the more midrange decks prefer the battle/tango lands. While it's true that the battle/tango lands help the new lands come in untapped, jamming both in your deck makes it hard to have sufficient enough basics in the deck to allow your battle/tango lands to come in untapped later.
Also, the main reason to run the new lands is to help have untapped mana of multiple colors early. If your not running a deck that is consistently playing things of different colors on turn 1 and 2 they become clunky. Playing them untapped early does nothing for you if you have nothing to play early and they become worse later in the game as your less likely to have a second land in hand to reveal, making it more likely that it enters tapped turns 3 and later. Then if your running the battle/tango lands along side them then that means cutting back on the number of basics that can fit into the deck and you force yourself into a position where your dual lands are entering tapped far too often to play things on curve and use your mana efficiently.
This is why, from what I've seen and through testing, I've found that midrange decks would prefer the battle/tango lands. Not forcing the new dual lands allows you to run pain lands along with enough basics, so you have plenty of dual lands to help the color fixing and also have more lands that enter untapped throughout the game, including your battle/tango lands as your curving out past the early game. Allowing you to stay efficient with your mana and hit your colors.
Obviously, there's more to it than this, like building your deck properly, but I've seen this work the most consistently for more decks. So, 3 color decks are still very possible. Unlike with Khans though, you have to be more careful about what you choose and how color intensive they are. Think of them less as 3 color decks and more as 2 color decks with a splash of something else, Only having to hit 2 colors regularly early on is will take a lot of pressure of the mana base.
Arcaneful says... #2
There are a lot of dual land in standard right now. Idk I feel it could work. The two new dual lands plus Wandering Fumarole, and Shivan Reef. I feel it would work well enough, heck some Evolving Wilds in their to also thin out the deck.
April 5, 2016 3:17 p.m.