Madcap Experiment

Sorcery

Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal an artifact card. Put that card onto the battlefield and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. Madcap Experiment deals damage to you equal to the number of cards revealed this way.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

wheels47 on Can't Lose

1 year ago

wallisface I agree that finding Madcap Experiment is a concern. I've recently been experimenting with dropping the other creatures and adding Indomitable Creativity, which has been promising, but not necessarily the strict upgrade I thought it would be yet. But I don't think I have my creature or artifact token generators quite right yet. I'm using Pact of the Titan, which has just not been good.

I think the comparison to Indomitable Creativity (the deck) is an interesting one, but I think the important difference is that this deck is much more of a combo deck than Indomitable Creativity is. The angel payoff is arguably higher than the archon's, but the archon doesn't immediately lose you the game when it leaves play. Maybe more card draw would help me draw into more protection for the angel, but I don't think more early-game interaction is the way to go.

wallisface on Can't Lose

1 year ago

I guess my concerns stem from an already established "hard to kill"/"pillow fort" deck, Ad Nauseum, struggling to stay alive despite having a LOT more resources at their disposal to do so effectively (yes, I get these decks are very different from one another, but I would say that Ad Nauseum has a more reliable gameplan, and still struggles to get 0.1% of the meta).

I think the biggest hurdle you're going to face realistically is getting Madcap Experiment into your hand to actually start all of this. You need that card to start enacting your plan, but you have no real card-draw in the deck, or no practical way to fish it out. And a lot of your cards are doing nothing until it's in play.

Comparing this deck to Indomitable Creativity (again, not a fair comparison, but a useful one, as they also rely on a single playset of a card), the deck does well by being able to maintain interaction, tempo, and card-draw to stall out until they get the card they need (Indomitable Creativity). I would say for your deck to perform well/better, that is a good path to go down. Try to worry a little less about maintaining the combo, and ensure that you can reliably get it running. Being able to have a good swath of tempo/card-draw spells as well as early-game interaction will be able to help ensure you can actually find a Madcap Experiment to cast. From there, it's just a case of maintaining the tempo advantage and stopping whatever counterplay your opponent might have.

Corrosive_Cat on Unconventional Lifegain

1 year ago

Interesting point is that cards like Madcap Experiment and Command the Dreadhorde deal no damage to you with Soulfire Grand Master out - not so useful here, but noteworthy.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Platinum Angel turn 2 Deck

2 years ago

Instead of Spoils of the Vault, Madcap Experiment is what you might have been looking for.

MaximumEdgeLord on Gideon Turns (It Up)

2 years ago

I love the idea. I especially like the idea of using a pact of the titan or two on the end of the opponents first turn then untapping to cast angels grace, then following that up with sundial and taking extra turns. I would definitely add more to the mana base, especially if you want to cast Madcap Experiment. I would personally remove the madcap experiment package, the Mishra's Baubles and the Slaughter Pacts and add some more lands, a few Sundial of the Infinites a couple of additional gideon Planeswalkers, and Glorious End. Glorious end is great because you can let the opponent take their turn then cast it in response to them casting it to effectively counter it, or let them attack with everything and cast it to take your turn with their board tapped, or you could just cast it on their upkeep to effectively take another turn. you can also use it to end the turn with a lose the game trigger on the stack if you're in a tight spot.

Coward_Token on Strixhaven spoiler season

3 years ago

Move over 60-format nerds, it's C21 time!

(Collapsible due to obnoxious wall of text) Show

Starting with the Prismari deck, because an actual reason:

Elementalist's Palette: Yeah this is pretty great. It's a Manalith by default, which is OK, but after a single X-spell it morphs into a Worn Powerstone and keeps going. Zaxara, the Exemplary will enjoy this, among others.

Reinterpret: Fair Mana Drain . Not spectacular but neat none the less.

Surge to Victory: Wow okay. I had to double-check to see that it didn't have the killjoy templating of "one or more"; it's like you're giving everyone a Spellbinder to share, only you're free to go to town with sorceries as well! Token spellslinging anyone? The pumping can be quite game ending in its own right if you got a source of trample. Otherwise, exiling an extra combat spell is probably a reliable thing to do

Rionya, Fire Dancer: Obviously fancy, but she seems a bit torn between spell cards and creature cards, although that could be mended by e.g. using big token spells.

Radiant Performer: Radiate is explosive and all, but would it have killed them to skip the hand casting templating? It seems to me that cheating it out in a timely matter is pretty hard anyway. Oh well, at least it cost the same and you're free to bounce it back to hand for another go

Creative Technique: Meh. Seems inefficient to me if you're just going to cast one random card, while going for two via Demonstrate seems hella risky. I'm guessing the mechanic was made for Archenemy situations in mind.

Sly Instigator: Seems kinda dependent on your playgroup including stompy things, although you might be able to make a themed deck in blue+ where you empower even your opponent's small creatures against each other

Octavia, Living Thesis: I though Quandrix was the college about counting things! Anyway, gogo mono-blue wide spellslinger!

Dazzling Sphinx: It's Chaos Wand on legs; feels kinda more red to me

Veyran, Voice of Duality: this kinda feels like the Elsha of the Infinite to Zaffai, Thunder Conductor 's Sevinne, the Chronoclasm . Bonus Round gets pretty funny here. Also, note that it doesn't double just triggers that explicitly mentions instants and sorceries, so don't forget your Birgi, God of Storytelling  ^Flips and Saheeli, Sublime Artificer s

Moving on to the Lorehold precon, which I must say I found quite disappointing seeing as R&D at that point had caught on to the struggles of boros in EDH and where seeking to address them, and the Prismari cards only amplifies that disappointment for me. Oh well, moving on to the actual cards:

Wake the Past: Starting on a positive note, this is way more castable than Triumphant Reckoning , and that haste addition means you can spring a Blightsteel Colossus on people

Angel of Ruins & Ruin Grinder: Oh come one Wizards, Landcycling is there to mitigate getting mana screwed, an anti-frustration mechanic. It doesn't warrant increasing the MV of the card they're on to a point where they should be bombs (and the ETB/death triggers don't really justify it either). Yes, I know the face commander can double them from the graveyard for prenium, I don't care.

Digsite Engineer: Not bad, a repeatable Karn, Scion of Urza -2 that could get out of hand in a reasonable and fair matter. Decent direction for white.

Audacious Reshapers: Repeatable Madcap Experiment s on legs. Give them lifelink to skip the downside. Probably abuseable

Bronze Guardian: Ey, Guardian Beast throwback! Meh on the whole tho.

Archaeomancer's Map: reasonable white Burgeoning , not bad; punishes landfall decks a bit. Still, while I'm probably in a bit of a minority on this, I don't think white has that big of a problem with ramp in EDH; the generic rocks work fine IMo

Monologue Tax: See above, even if this isn't bad; while its performance can vary, I don't think you can expect it to be much more than a Worn Powerstone most of the time

Battlemage's Bracers: slightly modified Illusionist's Bracers , I like this

Excavation Technique: With that drawback it could have gone all the way and included lands too. Anyway, again, anti-Archenemy tech right here, more so than the Prismari one, but giving the Archenemy six colored mana to play with seems risky in its own right

Laelia, the Blade Refored: red Phyrexian Arena on legs , kinda. The haste seems like kind of a trap since I think you're often out of mana/already played a land on the turn you get her out. I don't think there's a way to circumvent the "one or more" templating in mono-red; I couldn't find a card that cheaply exiles individual cards alá Alms .

Losheel, Clockwork Scholar: Speaking of color shifted Phyrexian Arena s on legs that can't be readily abused, here's an underwhelming attempt at giving white card advantage. Best I could find for drawing more than one card per turn rotation is Spawning Pit . Don't really expect this to be the mono white messiah we've all been holding out for

Alibou, Ancient Witness: Meh, Golem/rocks tribal I guess? And scry 8 or something seems kinda tedious.

Welcoming voiced disagreements here, I wouldn't mind being proven wrong

Dblegacy on Dark Deal

3 years ago

I may be wrong so please correct me if I am but before Platinum Emperion ’s ability can take effect doesn’t Madcap Experiment have to finish resolving. Just to cite my source here, directly from madcaps rulings... “any abilities that trigger as the artifact is put onto the battlefield aren’t put onto the stack until madcap experiment is done resolving.” I know it’s not an etb trigger but even as a passive ability does it still work? I am probably definitely wrong here because passive abilities don’t stack but shouldn’t the timing of madcap still be an issue? Still... very fun looking!

Snowmen1 on Flip Land Charbelcher! [ZNR]

3 years ago

Thought it was only a matter of time til someone made a good charbelcher deck using the flip lands. My take on it was complete garbage, but I think it may be worth looking at Madcap Experiment, Serum Powder, and Pact of Negation individually as maybeboard cards. I think Pact of Negation should definately be a one-of for miracle turns because there's no mana investment there.

A definate weakness of the deck is getting its feet taken out from under itself by getting the manabase attacked by Field of Ruin, Assassin's Trophy, Ghost Quarter, and now Cleansing Wildfire. I wonder if it is worth trying to include cards to get around this weakness.

Anyways, liking the deck.