Creature (17)
- 4x Bloodmad Vampire
- 2x Crimson Fleet Commodore
- 4x Insolent Neonate
- 4x Reckless Wurm
- 3x Underworld Rage-Hound
Sorcery (6)
Instant (13)
Land (24)
Sideboard
Instant (11)
Creature (3)
Artifact (1)
I've been searching for an interesting way to run Red-based Madness in Pauper for quite a long time and it turns out that the solution was staring me in the face: Mono Red! Red has most of the discard outlets we want anyway and a whole lot of really good Madness cards to boot. The final piece of the puzzle is some special tech from Theros Beyond Death which I'll talk about in detail below. Once you take out color troubles and add in our special sauce, it turns out that Red Madness actually has some legs to it.
Without further ado...
Diary of the Madman - Ozzy Osbourne
Discard Outlets
Madness is a fun mechanic and all but it doesn't do anything without discard outlets! And since those discard outlets need cards-in-hand to function, that means we want most of our discard to come with draw as well.
Faithless Looting is so good it's banned in Modern, and it's just spectacular for this deck. So efficient, so much digging, and we can even get value if we have to pitch it. However, it doesn't let us fire off our spells on our own terms. For that, we have the absolutely fabulous addition from Throne of Eldraine: Thrill of Possibility! It's hard to overstate how much of an upgrade this is from Tormenting Voice. Ambushing our opponent's 2/2 or 3/3 with a Madness creature and then draw 2 cards? So sweet. Last but not least, we have Insolent Neonate, our best turn-1 play. It's surprisingly good at chipping in for damage, and then we can upgrade it to a Madness spell at any point in the game thereafter and still get our card back.
We also have two copies of Lightning Axe, because it's just way too efficient not to run. It doesn't draw us cards, but it kills almost anything in the format for a mere 1 mana and that's a hard rate to beat.
Basket Case - Green Day
Madness Creatures
There are two creatures in the deck which we want to pitch. Reckless Wurm is the big-daddy, the haymaker, the beater that flies onto the scene so very early. It's a magnet for removal and doesn't often last for much longer than one or two good thwacks, but our opponents usually have to trade up on resources to kill it.
Next, Bloodmad Vampire. This thing is terrifying on an empty board, a 2-mana must-kill threat that can often get in several times before dying thanks to all our removal. Neonate into Bloodmad Vamp is a seriously scary one-two punch.
Killing in the Name - Rage Against the Machine
Burn
Speaking of removal, we have a lot more than just Lightning Axe!
Fiery Temper is here, because of course it is. It's basically a Bolt that cantrips in this deck. Nothing feels better than casting Looting on T3 then discarding two Tempers.
Next, we have Alchemist's Greeting. I gotta say, I didn't think much of this spell when I first tried it but it's the real deal. 2 mana to kill almost everything except Atog and Gurmag Angler? Oh yeah, we'll play that every day of the week.
We round things out with the full playset of Lightning Bolt. We're in Red, so we run Bolt. Fiery Temper is usually better for us but Bolt is still amazing, plus we often need the burn damage to help finish off our opponent.
We're Not Gonna Take It - Twisted Sister
Secret Sauce
I'll bet you've been wondering what the special ingredient here is? Well, wonder no longer: Underworld Rage-Hound is the real deal. I have been so impressed by this innocuous little card. We fill up the graveyard very efficiently and all our rummaging means we'll get to 4 lands pretty consistently, so it isn't at all difficult to re-cast this little puppy three or even four times in a game. That's a maddening level of board advantage that few Control decks can fight. Rage-Hound is how we stay in the game even while hellbent. Unless there's a must-kill threat on the battlefield, you pretty much always want to Escape the Hound rather than cast spells from your hand. Plus, you can also just cast it in the early game when you may not have enough mana to Madness out your other spells, or you can pitch it freely, secure in the knowledge that it's coming back soon.
I really like this card. Can you tell?
We're also running two copies of the new Crimson Fleet Commodore to give us that sweet, sweet Monarchy card draw. I don't know how much of a "secret" this card is but it's exactly what the deck needs to keep up with grindy decks. It's also a big honking hammer that can trade with most defenders while still taking back a stolen Monarchy.
Prison Song - System of a Down
Lands
I started with a much lower land count but after a fair amount of testing, 24 feels like about the right number. We really want to get to 4-5 lands so we can Madness anything off Thrill and having to blow Looting just to dig for lands feels terrible.
That said, we also have to be careful about our utility lands. There's less room for these than I thought there might be. To that end, we're running 18 Mountains, 2 Forgotten Caves, and 4 Radiant Fountains. Pretty straightforward.
The Forgotten Caves are fairly self-explanatory: we want to hit our land drops, but we still want to protect against flooding. They also help fill the yard for Rage-Hound, so they do double-duty here.
Radiant Fountain is for the Burn match-up. Sometimes we just need one more turn to swing with our Wurms and Hounds, and the Fountain gets us there.
I'm Going Slightly Mad - Queen
Sideboard
Now, for the sideboard! As always, tailor this to your local meta.
Pyroblast is an obvious inclusion. If our opponent is in Blue, there are our best weapon. We really don't want Thrill to be countered.
For board wipes, we have Electrickery for Elves, and Fiery Cannonade for Stompy, Boros, and Mono-Black.
Now Atog is one of our boogeymen as our removal doesn't do anything to it and eventually we just die to a Fling. As such, our only hope is to use Gorilla Shaman to cut off Atog's food supply. We're also running Smash to Smithereens to help against Affinity, but also as a way to kill Pristine Talismans, which do really put a dampener on our clock.
Finally, we have one more copy of Crimson Fleet Commodore as well as a silver-bullet Relic of Progenitus. We do use our graveyard so Relic's not where we always want to be, but some yard control is necessary sometimes.
The Sounds of Silence - Simon and Garfunkel
Wrap-Up
And that's the deck! I hope you liked it. I'd be happy to hear any suggestions you might have. I'm especially unsure about the lands (are there better utility lands I could be running?) and the sideboard (Affinity, Stompy, and Mono-B are all rough matchups for us, and I don't know quite how to solve that). So please, don't be shy!
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Casual
91% Competitive
| Date added | 4 years |
| Last updated | 3 years |
| Legality | This deck is Pauper legal. |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.44 |
| Tokens | The Monarch |
| Folders | Battle Box Ideas, Interesting Decks |
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