Decks of a Madman

Welcome to my lair of insanity. I'm Jack, I'm 19, and I have a tendency to appreciate the art of probing the boundaries of systems like Magic. Hopefully you like my nonsense as much as I do!

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I really enjoy your blog!

Thanks :) I'm trying to figure out a better update schedule though, once a day is just too much to do in addition to my day job and other hobbies.

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Johnny Card of the Day - Sovereign of Lost Alara

Cheating auras out is always fun, especially cheating them out during combat, and especially searching your library for whatever aura you want with Sovereign of Lost Alara. And where there's a tutor, there's a combo, in this case several. My favorite is Infinite Reflection.

Infinite Reflection is a powerful tool for Sovereigns of Lost Alara. It grants you the power to clone your entire army into a copy of a swinging creature. This actually works particularly well if you just stick it onto Sovereigns of Lost Alara itself, because it's non-legendary. You'll turn your entire army into a bunch of Sovereigns of Lost Alara, and the next time you swing with any creature you can throw four auras onto it instead of one. If you're looking for something a little quicker and a little flashier, I'd recommend throwing it onto Bloodshot Cyclops.

Swing with a cyclops, tutor up an Infinite Reflection and throw it onto it, and now all your creatures gain the ability to immediately throw themselves at an opponent's face for 4 damage each. In the right circumstances that can be game ending.

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Johnny Card of the Day - Academy Researchers

Academy Researchers gives you several combo options, with the simplest being just throwing on an Eldrazi Conscription and beating the living hell out of someone. There are subtler tools available, with far more interesting results. Staying in color grants you access to the fascinating card Fool's Demise.

When an Academy Researchers enchanted with Fool's Demise dies, the two triggers of Fool's Demise are both put onto the stack. When more than one trigger is put onto the stack at the same time, they are put on in an order named Active Player Non-active Player (APNP), which means that if you and an opponent are both at one life and both control a Blood Artist, and a creature dies, you do not both die at the same time. Whoever's turn it is is the Active Player, and their Blood Artist trigger is placed onto the stack first, and their opponent is the Non-active Player and place their trigger onto the stack second. Now the stack has both triggers on it, and the one that was placed on it last is the first to resolve. So in this scenario, if it's your turn and a creature dies, any creature, your opponent's Blood Artist will kill you before yours kills him.

However, in the case of a card like Fool's Demise where you control both triggers, you get to choose the order of the triggers. So in the case of a dying Academy Researchers, you would return the Fool's Demise to your hand first, and the academy researchers to play second. Then the Academy Researchers' enter-the-battlefield trigger happens and you get to re-enchant it with Fool's Demise.

Congratulations, your Academy Researchers is now immortal. Immortal creature, meet Blasting Station.

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Johnny Card of the Day - Psychic Spiral

What I like most about Psychic Spiral is that two maindeck copies pull double duty in a combo deck capable of drawing cards endlessly, by providing a win condition and a way to keep drawing cards after you've emptied your library. Assuming you've managed to set up some combo that lets you draw and cast as many cards as you want, as soon as your library is empty you cast Psychic Spiral to refill your library and nuke somebody else's library. The reason you need two copies is because when Psychic Spiral shuffles your graveyard into your library, it is still on the stack and won't shuffle itself into your library. So after you cast one, you draw cards again until you draw the second. Casting that shuffles the first into your library, and you can loop infinitely until you mill everybody.

I have a mono-blue multiplayer mill deck that relies on Psychic Spiral as it's win condition. To combo out, it ramps out a very large mana base and puts out cards like Font of Mythos to let me cast a large amount of spells, then plays extra-turn cards like Time Warp and the above Time Stretch. Because of the extra-draw artifacts, extra turns means drawing another three to five cards instead of one more card, usually enough to draw into another extra-turn card, thus fueling an infinite-turns combo. I keep drawing and casting and drawing and casting and using Psychic Spiral to start it over until I've milled everybody.

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Johnny Card of the Day - Manabarbs

I'd like to start out today's card by saying that Manabarbs has some of the most fantastic flavor text ever:

"I don't know why people say a double-edged sword is bad. It's a sword. With two edges." ~Kamahl, Pit Fighter

But on to the combo side of Manabarbs, I'd like to introduce you to Personal Sanctuary.

Not only does it prevent any damage you take from using your lands on your turn, at three mana it's on curve with Manabarbs and it's even in the same set! If that doesn't scream synergy, then I don't know what does. There is however, one other option that takes Manabarbs and goes a bit more... nuclear: Gisela, Blade of Goldnight

Doubling the damage to your opponents and preventing all damage from manabarbs to you, as well as just being a game ending threat on it's own, Gisela really is one hell of a follow up to Manabarbs. It is a completely must answer threat, and if it doesn't get countered your opponent is most likely taking four to six damage tapping to use a removal spell on Gisela, if you haven't found a way to play around that option by the time you cast her.

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Johnny Card of the Day - Magus of the Disk

Magus of the Disk is part of a five card cycle that showed up in Time Spiral, with each card being a Magus creature with an ability that was linked to a key card in Magic's past. In the case of Magus of the Disk, that key card is Nevinyrral's Disk. While it's nice to have a board wipe on a stick, the real advantage Magus of the Disk offers over it's namesake is in it's interaction with Darksteel Plate.

And there you have it. Blow up everything you want, sans lands and planeswalkers, as many times as you want. That's one hell of a two card board lockdown.

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Johnny Card of the Day - Massacre Wurm

I don't think it's possible to cast Massacre Wurm without laughing maniacally. It's got pure evil written all over it, and that's before you show it to a Johnny player who responds with "Use it with Hunted Phantasm."

Without even considering any weak creatures your opponent might already have on the board, those five goblins alone cause your opponent a loss of 10 life from the Massacre Wurm, and you now have both a 4/6 unblockable Hunted Phantasm and a 6/5 Massacre Wurm that should be more than capable of killing off your opponent. If you're looking for an extra special dash of madness, you might consider Natural Affinity. I'll just let the card speak for itself.

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Johnny Card of the Day - Floodtide Serpent

Floodtide Serpent is deceptively powerful in Limited, because returning cheap auras to your hand lets you trigger Heroic abilities again on creatures like Phalanx Leader or Ashiok's Adept. Throw in a few of the cantripping enchantments such as Fate Foretold, Stratus Walk, or Dragon Mantle, and you've got some powerful tools at your disposable for a draft or sealed tournament.

The 4/4 body is nothing to sneeze at either, providing solid offensive capabilities and enough staying power to dodge most red removal in the format. However, it falls short of the crucial 5 toughness needed by a high cost creature to overcome the inherent fragility any creature has in a format where effectively 4-power Minotaurs such as Kragma Butcher and Minotaur Skullcleaver are floating around the table at common. Keep this in mind if your plan is to run blue auras at all at your next Limited event.

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Johnny Card of the Day - Renegade Doppelganger

Renegade Doppelganger is perhaps one of the most interesting ways blue clan emulate haste. If you drop a Frost Titan, you can copy it with the Doppelganger and use its trigger both when it enters the battlefield and when it attacks in the same turn. But for a more comboriffic approach, try copying a Phrexian Dreadnought.

Following the same principle, we can use Renegade Doppelganger with giant creatures with effects like Evoke. Spitebellows and Walker of the Grove both come to mind.

If you evoke Spitebellows and copy it with the Doppelganger, that means you just dealt 6 damage to a creature and are now swinging with a 6/1 that deals another 6 damage to a creature if they kill it that turn. Provided you've got decent mana fixing, this is on curve too. Walker of the Grove is no slouch either when cloned, giving you a 4/4 elemental and a giant swinging 7/7 for five mana. That's a surprise most people wouldn't be ready for.

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Johnny Card of the Day - Mangara of Corondor

Mangara of Corondor is a card with a simple premise: "Let's both die." The trick to it is that exiling Mangara is part of the ability, not part of the cost. What this means is that if you were to, say, return Mangara to your hand or something similar after activating the ability but before it resolves, you'd get to exile something and get Mangara back to reuse her. Karakas, Flickerwisp, and Cloudshift all provide decent ways to abuse Mangara's ability, letting you exiling whatever you want with little to no cost.

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Johnny Card of the Day - Hidden Strings

Hidden Strings has a lot of potential for such a cheap common, and if you play it correctly you get two uses out of the first time you cast it. One when you actually cast it, and one when the creature you cipher onto it hits for damage that turn. This means it can be used as mana ramping if you target your lands with it, with the first casting allowing it to untap that lands you used to first cast it and the second casting letting you untap two more lands. But what makes this a Johnny card is it's absolutely astounding synergy with Heroic bombs like Agent of Fates.

Basically, you Cipher the Hidden Strings onto Agent of Fates, then swing with the agent. Provided he doesn't get blocked or killed, when he hits the Hidden Strings kicks in and you cast a copy of it, untapping Agent of Fates and doing something else tricksy with the other tap/untap effect. Then Agent of Fates' heroic ability triggers from the casted copy, causing a sacrifice. You can repeat this every time you deal combat damage to a player with the Agent of Fates, creating a very powerful aggro effect for Dimir colors.

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Johnny Card of the Day - Arcanum Wings

Future Sight was full of odd keywords that only showed up on single cards, with the idea being that they represented "future" mechanics that could happen years down the road. That actually was the case with Tribal, as the first Tribal card ever printed was Bound in Silence in Future Sight with other tribal cards showing up in the Lorwyn block.

But back to the card at hand, Arcanum Wings is probably best known for its ability to cheat out this fun piece of auramancy...

That's right, with an Eldrazi Conscription and five mana spread out over two turns, you get to turn any creature into an Eldrazi. At instant speed. Cast Arcanum Wings on a cheap creature that your opponent doesn't want to block, say something with low power and deathtouch, and next turn attack with it. After blockers are declared and your opponent lets it through, Aura Swap your Arcanum Wings into Eldrazi Conscription. That's going to hurt. A lot.

Aura Swap isn't limited to your own creatures. If you cast Arcanum Wings on an opponent's best creature, then during their next combat you can steal that creature by Aura Swapping into some sort of Mind Control aura. That means you steal their best attacker and most likely kill their second best attacker. That's a good deal given that you'll have the Arcanum Wings back in your hand to use for another Aura Swap.

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Johnny Card of the Day - Cloudshift

Cloudshift is one of those cards where its uses as a Johnny card are not defined by its ability to create combo with some specific set of cards, but rather by its ability to completely alter the flow of a turn in some unexpected and unusual fashion. At first glance, it might not seem like too big an effect, but here's an (incomplete) list of things it can achieve:

Untap a creature during an opponent's attack phase to have a surprise blocker

Make harmful enchantments, counters, or other "attached" objects fall off one of your creatures

Counter anything targeting one of your creatures, such as removal. When you "flicker" a creature like this (exile then return it to the battlefield) it is a new object, so anything that affected or targeted the old object doesn't apply anymore. This makes Cloudshift function as a one-mana hard counter against removal spells.

Trigger effects of creatures or other permanents that happen when it enters the battlefield, such as Clone

"Take back" an attack by flickering an attacking creature of yours to make your opponent waste a blocker

Play head games with your opponent by bluffing that you have a Cloudshift in your hand after using one earlier in the game

For those looking for a solid companion to Cloudshift, I recommend Flickerwisp

By flickering the Wisp during your opponent's combat, you both untap it to block and exile an opponent's attacker, giving you ample manipulation potential in combat. This also applies when you attack with the Wisp, as the three power with evasion lets you wear down your opponent's life until you force your opponent to over-commit blockers, at which point a Cloudshift on your wisp exiling any problematic blocker your opponent has can allow for a quick shift in board dominance. Cloudshift has a lot of potential for a one-mana white instant, and the toolkit of uses it provides makes it one of my favorite white instants.

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Johnny Card of the Day - Artificial Evolution

Artificial Evolution is perhaps the definition of "bizarre combo piece." In a vacuum it's near worthless, but the point is that if you're running this in your deck you've got a damn good reason. In this case, that damn good reason is named Xathrid Necromancer.

A lot of cards get printed that create unending nonsense that's kept in check by some simple assumption about the mechanics at play. Xathrid Necromancer, for example, assumes that the tokens you're putting out will be Zombie tokens. Which makes sense, since that's what it says on the card. Drop this, drop a sac engine (Looking at you Blasting Station), and it looks like you've got a pretty solid bit of board presence your opponent has to deal with. So they tap out, or otherwise overextend themselves to balance the board. In response, you cast Artificial Evolution, change the type from Zombie to Human, and use infinite sacrifice shenanigans to win immediately, and no person in their right mind would ever see it coming. Which is why it's so fun to play Magic without being in your right mind.

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Keyword Corner - Cascade

Cascade is one of those abilities where until you truly see what it's capable of, you're tempted to write it off as a gimmick. That's why it's important to see what it's capable of.

When you cascade, you get an additional semi-random free spell tacked on to whatever you cast. The limitation that cascade only casts the next spell that costs less than whatever you cast with cascade is actually one of it's greatest strengths, because it allows you to set your deck up for specific cascade combos. This is the idea behind Hypergenesis Cascade decks.

Cards with no mana costs like Hypergenesis can't be cast normally, because a nonexistent mana cost can't be paid. It's not the same as a spell with a mana cost of zero, such as Ornithoper. In the case of Hypergenesis this forces you to cast it through suspend, allowing opponents ample time to prepare. However, cascade lets you cast a spell without paything its mana cost, even if that spell doesn't have one. And since cascade searches through the deck until it finds something that costs less, if you had a deck where all of your spells costed four mana or more except Hypergenesis and you casted a Bloodbraid Elf, then the cascade would trigger and search through your deck until it found the Hypergenesis and cast it for free.

Other benefits include that cascade triggers when you cast the spell, not when it resolves. So in the situation above, you'd cast Bloodbraid, then before the elf comes into play Hypergenesis would go off. One huge benefit of this is you can't use a counterspell on the original spell to stop cascaded spells, you have to counter them individually. Additionally, if you cascade into another spell with cascade, then that spell cascades too. So there were decks whose entire purpose was to set off elaborate chains of spells that would all cast the next spell in the combo automatically. Imagine having an empty field and hand and casting Bloodbraid Elf, then into Shardless Agent, then into Restore Balance. Because each spell casts the next one before it resolves, the Restore Balance destroys all your opponents lands, discards their hand, and destroys all their creatures, then your Shardless Agent and Bloodbraid Elf come into play and there's nothing standing in your way.

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Johnny Card of the Day - Blood Artist

Blood Artist is an example of a simple effect with game changing consequences. Imagine for one moment if it's text instead read "Once twenty creatures die, target player loses the game." All you've got to do is throw out a bunch of cheap creatures and make sure you keep throwing them out. Either your opponent deals with them, and they (most likely) die, or your opponent doesn't and either they kill your opponent or you kill them off yourself. A friend of mine created a deck that revolved entirely around putting out a dozen or so Eldrazi Spawn tokens Brood Birthing and Emrakul's Hatcher, then sacrificing them to some sort of generic X-cost burn spell. The combined life loss from the fireball and even a single Blood Artist was usually enough to put a player out of the game. Taking this one step further, imagine if instead of sacrificing those spawns to pay for a spell, they were sacrificed to create some sort of conditional board wipe? This is where Killing Wave comes in:

If you've got one Blood Artist out and X spawns out, sacrificing each spawn and tapping one black leads to an immediate loss of X life on your opponent's side, then you can pay the X life you gained to keep the Artist alive. Now for each creature your opponent has, he's going to have to pay X life to keep it alive. And if he can't keep it alive, it dies and triggers the Artist again. With more than one Blood Artist, taking advantage of the fact that there's another creature with the same ability, Falkenrath Noble, who's got evasion and the ability to swing in for that last two damage you'll need, your opponent is going to severely regret loading his board with creature threats as you drain him to death.

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Fun and Flavorful - Shivian Meteor

If you read my last post, you caught me reveal that my favorite sets are the Time Spiral block sets, and cards like this is a big part of why. Planar Chaos was full of cards that were amazing not just for their uses, but because they felt awesome. Suspend was a mechanic that let you "delay" a spell, you could cast it for cheap and it would sit there exiled and waiting until it blasted into play some number of turns in the future. In terms of flavor, few cards made better use of this than Shivian Meteor.

Can you just imagine what it would feel like when your opponent suspends this? You have two turns before a massive fireball of death rains from the sky and annihilates your favorite creature. This is before we take into account that in the same set we had Fury Charm:

So now your opponent's got this massive fireball bearing down on your best creature, so you do what any sensible person does; you make sure that creature goes out swinging. You're going to lose him, so the turn after the Meteor is suspended you swing in attempting to beat face with whatever monstrous dude you've got. Suddenly, your opponent taps two more lands and casts Fury Charm, targeting his exiled meteor with it's last option, and now all that remains of your best guy is a Shivian crater.

For those of you looking for something a bit more combo-tastic, if your opponent managed to drop anything like Stuffy Doll or Boros Reckoner along with, Cthulhu forbid, a damage doubling effect such as Furnace of Rath, suddenly your life total is what's reduced to a crater.