I made a video explaining the deck: https://youtu.be/71Tg0xHtP9o , but here is the transcript if you prefer text:
Hello y’all! I just wanted to showcase a madness pioneer and explorer format deck that I have been working on for a bit :)
So, for those of you unfamiliar, madness is a mechanic that allows you to play a card when you discard it.
For example, Fiery Temper lets you cast if for 1 red mana if you discard it.
The primary synergy of this deck is to utilize cards that have powerful effects requiring you to discard a card, and then utilizing these madness cards to not lose card advantage.
For example, Smuggler's Copter functionally turns each madness card into a cantrip since you just cast the madness card you discard and then draw a card.
So, let's walk through the madness cards I am running first.
I play 4 Fiery Tempers since it functionally becomes Lightning Bolt in the pioneer/explorer format, which is pretty good.
Asylum Visitor and Stromkirk Occultist are my 2-drop madness spells. Asylum Visitor lets you draw extra if you have no cards in hand, Stromkirk Occultist gives you the top card of your deck to play when it deals player damage. The effects are better in different circumstances, but I think Asylum Visitor is a little better overall since its actual mana value is 2 so you can still cast it easily without a discard outlet, which is why I am running that at 3.
Gisa's Gidding and Bloodhall Priest are my 3 drop madness spells. Bidding just gives you 2 2/2 zombies and the Priest is normally just a 4/4 beater that sometimes gets a shock trigger on enter or attack. I run both at 2 since sometimes having chump blockers is better, sometimes having a larger creature is better.
Now let's go through our discard outlets.
The main mentality that I have with discard outlets is that if they let you discard on a later turn that you play them on, they are a good discard outlet for a madness deck. Our 3-drops become very hard to play if you have to pay mana to discard on the same turn you play the madness card.
Insolent Neonate is a 1 mana 1/1 with menace and sacrifice to discard and draw a card. Lots of fun things to do with this card beyond the obvious. You can block with him, then sacrifice before damage to negate the attack and get a madness trigger. You don't need to tap to activate its effect, so you can attack with him, make your opponent think the coast is clear so they attack with a lannowar elves or something, and then you sac to instant-speed cast your Occultist to eat the elf. Voldaren Epicure is here as a 1-off to help with discard and crewing copter, but only at 1 because the 1 mana you have to pay with the blood token to discard is inhibitory in a lot of cases.
Inti and Smuggler's Copter are the heroes of the deck. Both are 2 drops that are essentially a card advantage engine when combined with the madness mechanic. Inti has 2 effects. When he attacks, he lets you discard to give a creature a +1/+/1 counter and trample for the turn. Additionally, whenever you discard a card, you exile to the top card of your library to play for the rest of the turn. Important to note is that this second effect triggers whenever you discard, so all your other discard effects give you an additional card off the top of your deck. The +1/+1 counters and trample are also very nice, especially on something with evasion like Neonate or Copter. I think Copter is a bit self-explanatory, all your madness cards now just let you draw after you play them.
Attacking with Inti or Smugglers Copter and casting a Fiery Temper off their discard to kill an enemy creature is also a great play from a tempo perspective.
Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is just a good card all around, and its second step allows you to discard 2 cards, so it synergizes well with the deck.
I have 2 additional spots that I keep for 3-mana discard outlets. Right now, I have these as Cruelclaw. Effect is similar to Inti's, but you don't have to pay the mana of the exiled card to cast it, which is helpful since with Inti's effect, casting both the exiled card and the madness card is difficult due to mana limitations. This was Liliana of the Veil (Vayle) before Bloomburrow, and I think I like Cruelclaw better in the main board because he's a threat where Liliana is an answer, and Liliana just feels bad to play when your opponent already has a low number of cards in their hand.
And then Thoughtseize and Fatal Push round out the main board. I prioritize using them to protect the creature-based discard outlets and allow them to get attacks in, since that is really necessary for the deck to go off.
For this version of the deck, I just want to say that the main pro is that if the engine comes together, you can get an insane amount of card advantage, and the main con is that most of your threats are mediocre. If Inti goes off you can get a large creature, but most of your stuff is small.
I am playing the sideboard as primarily just a standard Rakdos midrange sideboard, so I'm not going to go into that, but you can see what I am running in the following BO3 match. I am now going to go through other cards that I have played around with, and I think are honorable mentions and worth considering if you want to play around with this deck.
Liliana of the Veil- this card is currently in my sideboard but playing it in the main board is also acceptable, I think. Cons are that it can cause what I consider to be not fun games- games where both players are topdecking for the last few turns. Pros are that those games will trigger the effect of some other cards we run, like Asylum Visitor and Bloodhall Priest.
Rotting Regisaur- I played around with this card since, as I mentioned, we don't have a lot of standalone big threats. With trample from Inti it can do some real damage, but unlike most of what we have in the deck, the discard effect is MANDATORY, which can backfire in some very bad ways.
Incorrigable Youths- this card is very good, but not in the version that I am running currently. Most of the discard effects trigger after attacks are declared so the haste does not matter. I still wanted to mention it here because if you run Liliana and Regisaur as your main discard outlets, the haste is very helpful with applying pressure.
Stingerback Terror- if playing with the above discard outlets, Stingerback Terror can steal some games since you will commonly have very few cards in hand so it's just a 4 mana 7/7 flying creature with trample.
Highway Robbery- with the plot mechanic, you can cast this for 0 mana on a later turn, which is very helpful for casting the larger madness creatures. I have left it out since although it's a very good card advantage play, the tempo loss always felt bad.
Splashing blue- if you want you can splash blue to get cards like Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel to get some attack discard triggers you don't need to crew for like with Copter. This also gives you access to The Royal Scions, which can be very good for card advantage with their draw/discard effect and can apply more pressure with their damaging abilities. Blue also gives access to Spell Pierce which is helpful for keeping your creature-based discard outlets alive. However, when playing with blue splashed, I generally did not like it due to the mana base, and there were many games where I dug myself into an inescapable hole with mana confluence.
And the finally some honorable mentions for sideboard are Bitter Triumph and Lightning Axe. Both allow you to discard for removal, but using them can feel a little awkward, because as I mentioned before paying mana to discard and then casting a madness card all in the same turn can get very expensive mana-wise.
So, thanks for reading :) Feel free to comment if you have any ideas. What do you think can make the deck more threatening? Are there other powerful cards that synergize well with discard that I am missing?
