Greetings, fellow sentient beings!
Today I am going to share a build of a deck for the Magic: The Gathering format called Pauper that I just made with the original paper cards that were currently at my disposal.
The archetype is called RG Madness for short. It means Red and Green deck with the Madness mechanics being at the core of it.
The Mechanics
Madness means that when you discard a card, you may play it instead, usually for a lower mana cost than its original cost, while the card is in the process of being discarded. At an instant speed — any phase in the game, even in opponents'turns, whenever you have priority and the Discard conditions are met.
The Format
Pauper is a format created for fun, not big-tournament competitive but still competitive enough for unofficial tournaments. It means that only Common rarity cards can be played. If a certain card was ever reprinted as a common, even if you have other rarity versions of it, it's legal.
It is one of the eternal formats which means cards do not rotate out of it.
There's a relatively short list of banned cards in the format:
Arcum's Astrolabe
Cloud of Faeries
Cloudpost
Cranial Plating
Daze (well, that's a new thing, I think I have played against that in Pauper)
Empty the Warrens
Expedition Map
Frantic Search
Gitaxian Probe
Grapeshot
Gush
Invigorate
Mystic Sanctuary
Peregrine Drake
Temporal Fissure
Treasure Cruise
High Tide
Hymn to Tourach
Sinkhole
The Build
While my deck is not currently optimal and I am looking for a couple of substitutes, here's what it currently is, Mainboard only:
(sideboard not done yet).
Here's the main 60:
22 Lands
9 x Forest
8 x Mountains
4 x Evolving Wilds
1 x Terramorphic Expanse
21 Creature Spells
4 x Insolent Neonate
4 x Basking Rootwalla
3 x Kird Ape
4 x Wild Mongrel
4 x Reckless Wurm
2 x Hooting Mandrills
1 Dual Card — a Creature Spell and an Instant Spell
1 x Merchant of the Vale / Haggle
2 Sorcery Spells
1 x Faithless Looting
1 x Tormenting Voice
3 Enchantment Spells
3 x Rancor
11 Instant Spells
3 x Vines of Vastwood
4 x Lightning Bolt
4 x Fiery Temper
How the deck works
I rely on good tempo casting cheap but almost mid-range heavy creatures to put some early pressure on. The Madness mechanics allows me to play some of them easily if I meet favorable conditions and I have enablers for that.
Basking Rootwalla has Madness cost 0 which means I get to play it for free instead of discarding it. Reckless Wurm is not free but its Madness cost is only 3 for a 4/4 Trample creature usually costed at 5. Fiery Temper is a Madness burning spell that can be cast for 1 mana only.
I have Insolent Neonate, Wild Mongrel, Faithless looting, Merhcant of the Vale, and Tormenting Voice as Madness enablers. Those are cards that require me to discard other cards in order to do something but in my case, Madness is a card-advantage mechanics which allows me to both have the effect of the enabler card and the enabled card.
Among those enablers, Wild Mongrel is the key creature that I would like to keep alive as long as possible. It can grow and it can shift colors. It is a repeatable enabler that requires no additional mana spent.
Insolent Neonate is an experiment on my part. I would rather substitute it for more Merchant of the Vale cards later one since they are more card advantage. Still, the Neonate is 1 mana creature with the menace ability. Put a Rancor enchantment on it and it becomes a threat to be reckoned with.
Vines of Vastwood is a trick that can help me save some of my creatures, put some extra damage in, and sometimes — disrupt an enemy attempt at buffing their own creatures since it can target any creature in the game and its effect is still the same — other players cannot affect the target.
Rancor is a card that just keeps getting back into the game and is hard to deal with permanently.
Lightning Bolt and Kird Ape are just too cost efficient to not play them in these colors. Although, Kird Ape is just a cheap beater and can be swapped for something else if it feels right after some testing. Lightning Bolt is simply the best offer when it comes to turning mana into damage — 3 for 1 to any target at instant speed.
Hooting Mandrills is there to take advantage of my graveyard getting full with used cards relatively fast. Its Delve mechanics means I can play it for 1 green mana only in the best case scenario if I can remove 5 cards from my graveyard. They can prove to be not efficient enough and can be swapped for something better.
Of course, I could have more copies of Faithless Looting and/or Tormenting Voice in. Replacing what? That is to be determined by some play-testing.
In general, I have built this deck to take the initiative and it's not a Meta build. I don't know if my plan will work but it is to make the Meta try and stop me instead of me trying to stop the Meta.
Famous last words, no?
We shall see.
Someday.
Good luck and have fun!
Yours,
Manol