Discard my own cards. Why? Cuz I'm craaaaaazy!!!! (well, mad)
This deck has two main win cons that revolve around discarding your own cards, and a decent amount of disruption in the form of discard. Especially now that Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, and Birthing Pod have been banned, I think this deck has a lot of competitive potential. Tell me your thoughts!!
The Core
The two main win cons are Zombie Infestation and Pack Rat.
3x Pack Rat definitely has more potential of the two as it provides a faster clock and bigger creatures. That being said, it is vulnerable to creature removal early and board wipes later.
4x Zombie Infestation is less vulnerable to removal and has synergy with Gravecrawler making it a solid choice as well. With a good hand, you can make two 2/2 zombies per turn at instant speed.
Discardables
Both of these win cons require a taxing amount of discard, so the rest of the deck is built to take advantage of that fact in several ways:
1) Cards that come back to your hand from the graveyard. Having at least one of these cards in hand or graveyard is completely necessary to fully utilize Zombie Infestation.
- 4x Squee, Goblin Nabob is probably the best card in the deck. It's almost always the first choice to discard. Every time it comes back, you get card advantage, and since you discard almost every turn, that's a lot of card advantage. It's great in multiples.
2) Cards with low madness costs. In my opinion, madness is one of the coolest mechanics in Magic, and it's the inspiration for the deck! Originally there were a lot more cards with madness in this deck, but any converted madness cost greater than 1 proved inhibitive. Now I only play one madness card.
- 4x Fiery Temper is this deck's gimmicky Lightning Bolt. Honestly there are times when I'd rather just have a Lightning Bolt in hand, but every time you cast it for it's madness cost, you gain card advantage, and that opportunity comes around fairly often after turn 2 or 3. Worst case scenario, it's still feasible to hardcast it (unlike Dark Withering).
3) Cards that can do things from the graveyard.
4x Gravecrawler is a good turn 1 play, and a very viable discard option. If you have a zombie on the field, and you discard him, it's almost like he has Madness .
4x
Rotting Rats
is one of favorite cards in this deck because it's typically such a lackluster common, and it has synergy with every part of this deck. The "zombie rats" creature type gives it synergy with both Pack Rat and Gravecrawler, the ETB effect almost always works in your favor, and it's not a problem to discard it because it has Unearth , which you can use to surprise your opponent with bigger rats and a Gravecrawler. Sometimes, I even prefer this as my turn 2 play over Pack Rat if I'm worried about removal.
4x Lingering Souls is a staple of the current modern metagame. I splash white solely for this card, because it is so strong in that it often forces your opponent to trade multiple cards for it. With Flashback it's not a bad choice to discard it.
Faithless Looting has Flashback , but I'm gonna talk about it in the next section.
Filler Spells
Those are all of the spells that are needed to win the game, the last 9 just help to round things out.
4x Faithless Looting provides a turn 1 play and very efficient card advantage - easy money.
3x Duress protects our combo-y things. Playing Pack Rat turn two feels a lot better if you've seen their hand and removed the removal.
3x Demigod of Revenge is the third potential win con. This provides a use for extra mana later in the game, and it's discardable. If any copies are in your graveyard when you cast it, it's probably game.
1x Infernal Tutor works really nicely in this deck. The deck has a couple different strategies, and generally you want multiples of whatever cards you're going with. Common targets are, Squee, Goblin Nabob, Demigod of Revenge, or one of the rats.
Lands
2x
Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace
is the only interesting land in the deck. It provides another avenue for gaining card advantage mid to late game.
Sideboard
I don't actually own it, so I don't know much about it. Mostly I expect a lot of graveyard hate post-board, so I was thinking targeted discard, and artifact removal. Suggestions are welcome :)
Important Synergies
I thought I'd list a few for people who don't want to read the whole thing.
