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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
U/G Madness
July 30, 2007

Hey BMoor. i just discovered this deck garage, so i was hoping you could help me with my deck. My deck is a Blue and Green decj that uses a lot of Flashback and Madness to get creatures into play faster. it has 4 basking rootwallas, 4 roar of the wurms and 4 wild mongrels. My deck also has 2 arrogant worms. It has a wonder in it to get my creatures to fly. I hope you have some good ideas for my deck. The cards in the deck are as follows.

CREATURES (22):
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Wild Mongrel
2x Arrogant Wurm
2x Echo Tracer
1x Hunted Wumpus
1x Assault Zeppelid
1x Phantom Warrior
1x Silverback Ape
1x Ursapine
1x Wonder
1x Snapping Drake
1x Quirion Elves
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Thriss, Nantuko Primus

INSTANTS/SORCERYS/ENCHANTMENTS/ARTIFACTS (15):
4x Roar of the Wurm
2x Fertile Ground
1x Repulse
1x Vulshock Morningstar
1x Opt
1x Sleight of Hand
1x Exclude
1x Lay of the Land
1x Inspiration
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Pulse of the Tangle

LANDS (23):
12x Forest
11x Island

I really hope this deck is somewhat good. If not, i
would love to know about any changes you would make
and please email me back with your response. Thanks a
whole lot.

Sincerely,

Dan Steinberg

Ah, U/G Madness.  Today's players know it as a fond memory, a historical footnote, a possible metagame consideration in Extended, or a popular Magic webcomic.  Now it comes strolling into my Garage, looking oh-so-much like the very first deck I ever played myself.  It was a gift, given to me in high school by...

Well, enough about old parables.  The good thing about fixing decks that were once tournament staples is that there's plenty of sample decklists to look for from Pro Tours and the like from years past.  I encourage all of you to see if you can find any information on this deck, or any deck from years past that resembles your own.  It can be quite the learning tool.

However, I'll leave that as your homework, and rely solely on my own experience with the deck.  Wild Mongrel and Basking Rootwalla are definitely good choices here, as are your Wurms, Arrogant and "Roar of the".  Everything else is a little.. how can I say... patchwork.  But that's what I'm here for: to patch things up!  Let me get my soldering iron...

Okay, let's start with the creatures (as I usually do).  The first ten on your list look really good.  From there it just starts to look like a shoebox.  Ursapine?  Hunted Wumpus?  I do like the Wonder in there, but the old tourney jockeys played 4 Wonder to ensure a flying Mongrel to the opponent's face with regularity.  I also like your innovative addition of Assault Zeppelid, to further stymie any attempt to fly over your creatures.  You'll want four of those too.  Especially replace Snapping Drake; if you're tapping four lands, it's almost certain one of them will be Green.  So, in practice, a 2GU card and a 3U card in your deck cost the same.  For the "same" cost, the Zeppelid is +0/+1 bigger than the Drake and adds trample for free.  Finally, the next best creature in your list is Llanowar Elves.  By taking out all your singleton creatures, plus the two Echo Tracer, you can have 4 each of Wonder, Assault Zeppelid, and Llanowar Elves.  That should put you in good condition creature-wise.

Now, for your other spells.  Roar of the Wurm, as I've said, is good.  Your other spells are fairly good, but too disorganized.  If you've got only one copy of so many effects, what will you discard to the Mongrel?  First, you've got Opt and Sleight of Hand.  These are both good spells, but in a Madness deck, you may prefer Careful Study or Obsessive Search-- one is a Madness enabler, the other has Madness.  Speaking of spells with Madness, you should look into Circular Logic.  Not only does it give you a potential answer for a wide variety of problems, but it fits the theme and is very cheap if you can Madness it out.

Next, you've got Fertile Ground.  Which isn't bad, but I'd prefer something more Rampant Growthish.  Enchanting your land leaves your mana base vulnerable to a Naturalize or the like.  You could try Kodama's Reach or even Seek the Horizon, to give you not only lands but cards in hand that you could discard to pump your Mongrel if you needed to.  Then there's that Inspiration that should be another Fact or Fiction, or at least a Deep Analysis.  And finally, Repulse and Exclude aren't good enough either.  If you want bounce spells, go with Repeal, Boomerang, or Wipe Away.

One last card I'd like to suggest to you before we move on, is Breakthrough.  For this deck to work, you need to draw cards.  Lots of them.  Wild Mongrel needs food.  Breakthrough is good for this.  Usually, it's correct to discard what you will to the Mongrel before you play your Breakthrough though, since the less cards in hand when you play it, the better you can do off of the same X payment.  Let's face it; you weren't going to keep all those cards anyway, right?

And so, your lands.  Keeping with the "we like cards in hand" theme, replace two of each basic land with a playset of Simic Growth Chamber.  This lets you get three land drops off of two lands, and gives you more potential mana, so you may be able to drop a land later on if you find you need the room.

After all the time I spent playing this deck when I started out, I'll be pretty embarassed if this deck doesn't start working better!  Good luck, Dan!

~BMoor