Arrogant Wurm

Creature — Wurm

Trample

Madness {2}{G} (If you discard this card, you may cast it for its madness cost instead of putting it into your graveyard.)

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (28)

Spell_Slam on Hunting Dogs

3 years ago

This type of deck is actually an old archetype called "Dead Dog", developed in the mid 2000s. It's a great deck!

There are a few important pieces I think you should consider:

Tortured Existence is usually associated with control decks, but it is extremely useful here to recur dogs or important pieces. It also works well with Madness creatures.

Arrogant Wurm. A 3-mana instant speed 4/4 with trample is amazing.

Golgari Brownscale is a great way to beat Burn decks. Recurring them for 2 life is great, but they get even better with Tortured Existence. It also gives you a guaranteed creature every turn for your dogs.

Crypt Rats is a good way to finish off an opponent or clear the way for your dogs.

Check out my deck and videos attached here: Dead Dog by Spell Slam

Boza on Build around cards

4 years ago

Tortured Existence is the ultimate pauper build-around card. You can build any colors of deck around it.

Barring the established decks, there are tons of fun to be had:

Pestilence is very fun to build around.

Briarhorn + Mortician Beetle.

heck, I have even made a deck around Erratic Explosion.

Keep Watch + Rites of Initiation + tokens.

Madness decks with something like Arrogant Wurm.

hothmagoth on Cascexhume, 2019 BLOOD SPORT

5 years ago

MrCuddlefish I appreciate the suggestions. I like the idea, the only problem I ran into with early discard was due to the fact that cascade would hit it instead. I made the mistake on MTGO, built an entire deck and would regularly cast a faithless looting or cathartic reunion, instead of an exhume. So I'm not sure there's a clear/concise answer for early discard.

I might try the affinity idea, put in the artifact lands for Jund colors and see if that makes for a better defense plan.

The only thing I dislike about Reckless Wurm or Arrogant Wurm is that most of the discard I have at present, are the spells themselves. So discarding the wurms most likely wouldn't result in being able to cast it anyway. If there was a way to discard a card without a cost, or if the deck was able to run cheaper discard outlets, it'd be ideal. The only problem, is it means you can't cascade into exhume.

I like the affinity idea though, I might just try that. Need to figure out what I'm slotting in/removing. Will also need to find a home for snuff out, cus I always forget that's an option!

HomesickAli3n on Pauper UG

5 years ago

So I modified your list a bit, but I don't know if you want to see it. I'll offer some suggestions and leave a list at the bottom if you're interested in what it could look like.

1. I'd cut Hooting Mandrills. You're deck seems more interested in getting Threshold online. This card is contrary to that strategy and I think you found your beatdown body in Arrogant Wurm, which is just strictly better with trample.

2. After testing Rites of Refusal, I think it is just too cute and clunky. I found that this iteration of the deck doesn't run enough pure card advantage to justify "2-for-1"ing yourself. 8 counterspells may be enough anyway, but if you feel like you could use more, running Counterspell or Daze aren't bad options. They come with a little risk, not being mono U, but could be worth it.

3. I think you can cut Werebear. Breaks my heart to suggest it, but it might be risky to over-saturate your deck with threshold creatures. He's more vulnerable than Nimble Mongoose in the early game and I've already mentioned that the Arrogant Wurm seems like your 4/4 of choice. You aren't an aggro deck so, rather than just throwing a ton of 4/4's in the opponent's face, the tempo deck's concern is laying down select threats in the early to mid game and protecting/disrupting your way to victory.

4. I've found that with Careful Study and other looting effects, I'd rather have card advantage that gave me more to discard to cards like Waterfront Bouncer and Wild Mongrel. Accumulated Knowledge or Deep Analysis are good cards for stocking your hand to give strength to your discard engines.

5. Merfolk Looter and Obsessive Search feel super good in conjunction. The looter offers another instant speed dicard outlet that isn't as mana hungry as Waterfront Bouncer and, when combined with madness, it reads "tap: draw a card." Obsessive Search offers increased value to your discard engines and helps you to dig for relevant cards.

6. Consider Just the Wind. It's effectively a Vapor Snag in your deck which is a tempo staple in pauper. It can clear the way for attacks or save one of your own creatures while fizzling a removal spell.

7. AEther Tradewinds is another card I was looking at. This can bounce back pesky non-creature that dodged one of your counterspells the first time. Once again, fizzles removal while tempoing your opponent. Also, never hurts to have Basking Rootwalla back in hand.

8. Lastly, I toyed around with a mana base that is slightly slower but much more consistent. Ash Barrens and Thornwood Falls offer you fixing. Simic Growth Chamber does this as well and allows you the ability to cut back on lands (as one Growth chamber is effectively two lands on one card). Being able to bounce back a basic you no longer need to discard to one of your engines, all while hitting your land drop, is also not half bad.

Deck List: UG Madness Sample Deck

PS. Let me know if you have any sideboard questions.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Casual Madness

6 years ago

As a side not: Noose Constrictor is a strictky better wild mongrel.

Besides: cool list. Arrogant Wurm and Honored Hydra are great payoffs for madness. I really like Hammer of Bogardan as well, as it can be discarded and be a reccuring source of damage later.

Captain_Howel on Welcome to the Jungle - Harambe Edition

6 years ago

Hey, really dig this deck! I'm new to Pauper, so take all this with a grain of salt, but my thoughts:

I tried the deck out a few times with TappedOut's playtest feature. The biggest problem is mana fixing; even when the starting hand managed to have lands in it, there were always problems with making the colors match the costs. I get the impression that Pauper makes it difficult to run a multicolored mana base (do mono-color decks tend to win more by avoiding this issue?). Because of that, I'd upgrade those Emissaries from a Maybe to a Definitely, and consider adding 2-4 Wild Cantor as well. The R/G mana cost means you'll never have the wrong color to play them, Wild Cantor is flexible to fit your needs, and Burning-Tree Emissary pays for itself, offering both EXCELLENT tempo and surprisingly decent mana fixing (picture your opponent's face if you played all 4 in one turn and then still had 2 extra mana to play with, lol).

You look like you're pretty much all set for small creatures, but Rip-Clan Crasher also pairs well with Burning-Tree Emissary and gives you that classic Gruul Aggro feel, but might not work nearly as well on its own due to the aforementioned mana problems.

Other users mentioned taking further advantage of Madness. Unfortunately no other Common R/G card I could find had the greatness of Madness 0. I can only second the previous suggestion of Arrogant Wurm. It's a shame that you can't take more advantage of it, because Wild Mongrel is fairly reliable in this deck. I have to wonder if Rakdos or Golgari can make it work better.

The only other suggestion I can make, though I have no idea if there are cards to support it, is get a decent draw engine going (emptying your hand hurts your tempo significantly) and use more creatures that buff themselves/each other by discarding, and you've got a deck that could take on budget Standard/Modern decks.

JavuPote on Dredge&Delve

6 years ago

Teniendo en cuenta que la gran mayoria de tus cartas terminan en el cementerio, yo cambiaria los removals por cartas con madness como por ej:

Murderous Compulsion, Dark Withering, Psychotic Episode, Alms of the Vein

en ese sentido, Deepcavern Imp podria reemplazar al Putrid. Aunque tambien Arrogant Wurm o Basking Rootwalla podrian funcionar en su lugar.

El Seal of Doom parece bastante injugable, pero siendo un encantamiento, puede terminar en tu mano con la Commune.

Alguna Mortuary Mire no me parece que este de mas, por si se te cae un Gurmag al cementerio o si te matan la 3/3 vuela.

yonyon2002 on Pauper Golgari Tortured Existence

6 years ago

Thank you very much franjimen421! I really hope that you will see my answer to your comment.

1. I didn't know about the deck's hubs, so thanks a lot for telling me about it! After reading your comment I went and added a few things in that section.

2. When I built this deck, I really wanted to add instants - things like combat tricks and removals. When I tried I came across a problem: considering the fact that once you can you want to start dredging, non-creature card that get into the graveyard this way can't be used, the deck doesn't have a way to get these cards back into your hand. I know, I can use cards with Flashback, but I preferred the cards that I have right now. If you want, it is possible to add cards like Chainer's Edict as additional instants. By the way, the activation of Tortured Existence and Madness can be done during the opponent's turn - a great way to get a dredger into your graveyard on their end step, or to madness in a creature like Arrogant Wurm during combat, before blockers for example.

3. I know, there are more black sources on purpose. This is a an example of the problem in TappedOut's color pie: take a look at the cards Tortured Existence and Crypt Rats. Both cards are super important to the deck and both require lots of black mana to activate. If you think about it, you want to activate Tortured Existence many times each turn and in the late game Crypt Rats for at list four, usually on the same turn you cast it to avoid creature removal that will kill Rats. And if you take a look at the cards Arrogant Wurm and Golgari Brownscale, both have two green mana symbols in their mana cost, when in reality you're almost never going to cast Brownscale, and almost always going to cast Wurm for its madness cost. So when the color pie says that there are 22 green symbols, its an effective 15 symbols - there are 3 Brownscales and 1 wurm, so its minus 6 + minus 1 symbols.

I really appreciate your comment and upvote! it helps a lot, and I'm always happy to learn more and improve this precious deck. Thank you!