MTG Brewing Madness - Midnight Madness (Standard / Casual)

by Richard Rowell, Gaming Successfully

So I wanted to brew a deck around a few bulk rares that seem to work well together: Ghirapur Orrery, Midnight Oil and Key to the City. The best way to do this was to build a Madness deck.  In the end, Midnight Oil ended up not being a key component to the deck, although it has drawn me enough cards to be useful enough that its drawbacks don't matter. Having no hand size is fine with Ghirapur Orrery and Asylum Visitor drawing you cards when you're Hellbent (no cards in hand). If you play it right, you can actually create a decent amount of card advantage for yourself.
 
Before we go any further, let's take a look at the deck list:
 
Creatures (14)
4 Falkenrath Gorger
4 Asylum Visitor
4 Furyblade Vampire
2 Bloodhall Priest

Non-Creature Spells (22)
3 Avacyn's Judgment
3 Cathartic Reunion
3 Harnessed Lightning
3 Key to the City
4 Fiery Temper
2 Ghirapur Orrery
2 Midnight Oil
2 Murderous Compulsion

Lands (24)
4 Foreboding Ruins
4 Smoldering Marsh
9 Mountain
7 Swamp

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The creatures basically chose themselves for the deck, because we need lots of Madness cards. Falkenrath Gorger is not only a 2/1 with no drawback, but he gives your other Vampires madness. While this seems pointless with Asylum Visitor and Bloodhall Priest both having Madness already, it means that the one Vampire we do have that doesn't have Madness, Furyblade Vampire, gains it. This turns out to be very, very important.
 
Asylum Visitor is only 1B and she's a 3/1 that can draw you a card when you have no cards in hand. You only have to pay 1 life for this, too. Believe me, she will draw you cards. Considering how aggressive she is helps, too.

Furyblade Vampire is probably the best creature in the deck! It's a 1/2 for 1R, but at the beginning of each combat, you get to discard a card to give her +3/+0 until end of turn! That's not a drawback at all, since so many cards in this deck have Madness! Also, having Trample is actually quite relevant as 1/1's don't help anybody much against the Furyblade.
 
There are only 2 copies of Bloodhall Priest in the deck because running more ended up clogging up my hand. Two copies are enough because the true value of the Priest is when you have no cards in hand. A 4/4 for 4 is ok, but her Madness cost is only 3 mana. Then if she enters the battlefield or attacks when you have no cards in hand, she deals 2 damage to a target creature or player. This effect has won me games by itself. You would think more would be better, but really, you end up just getting a 4/4 for 3 most of the time. While this is good, you're trying to move so fast that sometimes you need another spell instead of her.

The non-creature spells are what really make the deck work! Avacyn's Judgment is decent in the early game picking off 1 or 2 toughness creatures, and late game this can deal 4-6 damage pretty easily with its Madness cost! Cathartic Reunion both enables Madness and nets you 3 cards. The full four copies were too much, and at times you end up discarding your third copy, but it's a great card. Harnessed Lightning isn't a Madness spell, but it's just too good to not play three of. The energy does make a difference, too, as you play more in a game. And it's instant speed removal!

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Fiery Temper is one of the best spells in the deck. You're often going to just send the 3 damage to your opponent's face. In this deck, Temper really is just Lightning Bolt. The last Madness spell in the deck are 2 copies of Murderous Compulsion. I'm thinking these should just be Unlicensed Disintegration. While Compulsion is a Sorcery, if you happen to discard it for Madness, you get to play it at instant speed. However, Unlicensed Disintegration is probably better overall, so I may switch these two spots to that card. As I build a sideboard, I may shift these there to combat more aggressive decks in which Midnight Oil really doesn't help me.

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Speaking of Midnight Oil, there are only two copies. In some matchups, these are great, as you can draw extra cards and play around its drawback of having no hand size. Also, it's ruled that if you play a second copy while one is on the board, you get to set your hand size to the second copy, which is very helpful. Plus, even with no hour counters on them, you still get to draw cards!

 But wait, there is another drawback! Whenever you discard a card, you lose 1 life. This is kind of bad, but it can be fine if you're going to win the game anyway. But you can see why we only want 2 copies. You also don't want to be drawing all these cards, because you can actually kill yourself with these triggers (although it only happened to me once). Also, these can be dead in your hand and cost you the game by not being another spell that you need instead. The good news is, that you actually don't mind discarding to hand size if you have the mana to cast your Madness spells. Also, there are some other synergies with other cards as you'll see in a moment.

Ghirapur Orrery is a really good card that is popping up in Vintage Stax on Magic Online. While its a symmetrical effect that can benefit both players by dropping extra lands, it benefits you more to speed up your land drops just so you can get them out of your hand. Then, when you're out of cards, you get to draw three cards. Yes, your opponent gets this boon as well, but you're usually moving quickly enough that they just die anyway. Do keep in mind that you want the Orrery trigger to activate instead of your Asylum Visitor's if that's the case. Again, you only want two of these, because they are 4 drops in an aggressive deck. Plus, you don't really need more.

 Then there's Key to the City. This card a great Madness enabler and a great way to consistently push through 3 or 4 damage that can't be blocked. Also, whenever it becomes untapped, it can draw you a card. If you stack your triggers correctly, you get 4 cards off of Orrery and the Key instead of just three. This card is really good, and you really don't mind having multiples. A fourth copy may end up coming in out of the sideboard.

Final Thoughts

 This deck seems pretty solid, but it hasn't been played against the Top 8 decks just yet. It really needs a sideboard, and as I said, Unlicensed Disintegration would definitely be in there. A fourth copy of Key to the City should be in there , too. I'm not entirely sure just what to add otherwise and am very open to suggestions. If anyone wants to give this deck a spin and finds that the list needs to be adjusted (Chandra, Torch of Defiance perhaps?), please let me know what you've found! This deck is cool and while I'm not sure it's Tier 1, I think it's good enough for a Friday Night Magic run.