We already have seen Fiery Temper. I can imagine at least 2 other "madness" cards from the past... but what what?
Trying to keep w/ the flavor of the set, I see Circular Logic and Gorgon Recluse. The only thing I am struggling with is how a gorgon would fit the flavor of SOI. I know they are heading into a Cthulhu-esque/Illuminati/Mason-like world this time, so a gorgon can kinds work w/ a lot of Gothic architecture and styles that "borrow" Greek architecture and styles, w/ the Gothic manors and such.
Lately I've been wondering how a zombie madness deck would look like with enough support, and a couple of spoiledcards seem to hint at a discard theme for the tribe. So Grave Scrabbler and maybe Brain Gorgers are my guesses for now.
I could see gorgon recluse in the set. It could be a nice excuse to include a new Vraska card. Which would fit the madness theme; yes they have plenty of monsters on innistrad but no gorgons to my knowledge. How that fits madness is the idea that people are now beginning to see monsters they have never even imagined. Plus the clue mechanic; a turned to stone creature or human is a pretty big clue for Jace as to one of the things going wrong on innistrad. (Yes clues from the mechanic are artifacts and not stone, but wouldn't have thought a Gold statue would be an artifact either)
Lately I've been wondering how a zombie madness deck would look like with enough support, and a couple of spoiledcards seem to hint at a discard theme for the tribe. So Grave Scrabbler and maybe Brain Gorgers are my guesses for now.
Notably both of those are blue, which is one of two colors that looks primed to support Madness (the other being red). Not to say that black won't have its share of madness cards and support.
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MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Notably both of those are blue, which is one of two colors that looks primed to support Madness (the other being red). Not to say that black won't have its share of madness cards and support.
That's probably just because the rest of the madness cards haven't been spoiled yet. Traditionally, Black always had the greatest number of Madness cards, I'd be surprised if it didn't have at least as much support as the other colors this time around.
Each color had two Madness cards in Odyssey block. Time Spiral saw black get a lot and red get a couple, but as Maro says, Time Spiral block should never be used as a precedent for anything. The fact is, blue and red are primed to support Madness through looting and rummaging effects, and compared to black are still better equipped to enable Madness as a mechanic. Black can draw you cards, and it can make you discard, but it generally doesn't make you draw then discard or vice versa at the same time. But like I said, black will have its share of Madness support, and in all likelihood will be third behind blue and red.
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MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Each color had two Madness cards in Odyssey block. Time Spiral saw black get a lot and red get a couple, but as Maro says, Time Spiral block should never be used as a precedent for anything. The fact is, blue and red are primed to support Madness through looting and rummaging effects, and compared to black are still better equipped to enable Madness as a mechanic. Black can draw you cards, and it can make you discard, but it generally doesn't make you draw then discard or vice versa at the same time. But like I said, black will have its share of Madness support, and in all likelihood will be third behind blue and red.
My mistake, for some reason I thought a few of those cards in the Time Spiral block were reprints. Still, I think looting effects are a poor reason to give more madness cards to blue and red. If anything that makes it too easy to break the balance, which in turn would push them to either give the other colors better effects or more enablers.
My mistake, for some reason I thought a few of those cards in the Time Spiral block were reprints. Still, I think looting effects are a poor reason to give more madness cards to blue and red. If anything that makes it too easy to break the balance, which in turn would push them to either give the other colors better effects or more enablers.
Is lifelink a poor reason to give WB a lifegain matters theme? Is deathtouch a poor reason to make BG the primary Morbid colors? Looting effects are the perfect reason to make UR the primary Madness colors.
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MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Is lifelink a poor reason to give WB a lifegain matters theme? Is deathtouch a poor reason to make BG the primary Morbid colors? Looting effects are the perfect reason to make UR the primary Madness colors.
That's a false equivalence, though. Lifelink and lifegain matters or Deathtouch and Morbid are analogous to each other because they share the same color identity, unlike Madness. The latter has been present in all colors since its conception (despite the fact Time Spiral moved it towards Black for flavor reasons, which would be understandable if they repeated it for this block), but the same can't be said about the former two. Just because looting makes it easier to cast Madness spells doesn't mean blue and red should necessarily have most cards with the keyword. It's just unbalanced design otherwise, with U/R decks drawing and casting cards simultaneously while the other colors do nothing. They might as well make Madness exclusively U/R and give the remaining colors mechanics of their own, sparing themselves the trouble of printing enablers. Then again, if the overarching theme of SoI is madness descending upon the entire plane, it only makes sense that the mechanic is represented in every color equally, as it was in the Odyssey block.
Granted, a lifegain matters theme is only viable in colors that regularly get lifegain. But red also got a Morbid card, and white and blue in theory could have as well. But black and green got the most because they were the best equipped to support the mechanic, just as blue and red are the best to support Madness.
Madness is not going to be represented equally; two colors are going to focus on it the most, and two other colors will get less. Bestow and Devotion were major mechanics in Theros, but not every color got them in equal numbers. An old block like Odyssey should not be used as precedent for how they're designing blocks today, especially not one that is considered a design mistake.
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MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Granted, a lifegain matters theme is only viable in colors that regularly get lifegain. But red also got a Morbid card, and white and blue in theory could have as well. But black and green got the most because they were the best equipped to support the mechanic, just as blue and red are the best to support Madness.
Madness is not going to be represented equally; two colors are going to focus on it the most, and two other colors will get less. Bestow and Devotion were major mechanics in Theros, but not every color got them in equal numbers. An old block like Odyssey should not be used as precedent for how they're designing blocks today, especially not one that is considered a design mistake.
White and Blue getting Morbid cards makes little sense flavor-wise. Green by itself doesn't make much sense because it's rarely ever about killing or sacrificing creatures. Only in combination with Black that it made sense for Green to have the number of Morbid cards it did. And considering they needed a theme for B/G back then and the Morbid mechanic needed Black to work, all they had to do was to give Green more Morbid cards than they gave Black, never mind the fact Green alone has a hard time making it work. But in the case of Madness, it doesn't really need Blue or Red to work, and there's no reason yet to presume it'll be represented in these colors more than it'll in the others. For all we know, U/R may actually get less Madness cards precisely because it already has a greater number of enablers, forcing players to combine either color with Black, Green, or White in order to take full advantage of the interaction with looting effects.
Also, if Odyssey can't be used as a precedent, and neither can Time Spiral, then obviously there's no valid precedent for the mechanic. Here you're assuming that they'll have to start from scratch with Madness and follow the route of just making it a U/R mechanic, as if looting was THE way to enable the mechanic because you draw a card in addition to having to discard one, which is far from being true. Cards like Wild Mongrel and Aquamoeba, for example, are still the best Madness enablers, even powerful looting cards like Careful Study aren't as good in comparison despite the fact they provide card advantage.
White and Blue getting Morbid cards makes little sense flavor-wise. Green by itself doesn't make much sense because it's rarely ever about killing or sacrificing creatures. Only in combination with Black that it made sense for Green to have the number of Morbid cards it did. And considering they needed a theme for B/G back then and the Morbid mechanic needed Black to work, all they had to do was to give Green more Morbid cards than they gave Black, never mind the fact Green alone has a hard time making it work. But in the case of Madness, it doesn't really need Blue or Red to work, and there's no reason yet to presume it'll be represented in these colors more than it'll in the others. For all we know, U/R may actually get less Madness cards precisely because it already has a greater number of enablers, forcing players to combine either color with Black, Green, or White in order to take full advantage of the interaction with looting effects.
Green does get creature sacrifice, flavored as predation. And while it may be true that green needs creatures to kill creatures (at least the ones that aren't made of metal and don't fly), green happens to have the creatures that are best at killing other creatures, whether through brute strength or deadly poison. And in a world as black-influenced as Innistrad, blue could easily justify having Morbid just like it was able to justify having Undying (or Exploit in the black-dominated Silumgar Brood, for that matter). A blue stitcher or Zombie with Morbid would not feel weird at all. In the case of white cards aligned with a WB faction, like Orzhov or a heretic offshoot of the Avacynian church, Morbid could make sense as long as it fits that faction's interpretation of white sensibilities. A monster hunter or angry mob seeking vindication could be an example of Morbid in white.
And if UR doesn't get Madness as its SOI theme, what does it get? UB and BR already have Zombies and Vampires, and UB also looks like the most probable Delirium pair. UR should be the main Madness pair precisely because it is the best at enabling it, not only by merit of the looting effects providing better support but also because players will be more comfortable playing Madness in that pair.
Also, if Odyssey can't be used as a precedent, and neither can Time Spiral, then obviously there's no valid precedent for the mechanic. Here you're assuming that they'll have to start from scratch with Madness and follow the route of just making it a U/R mechanic, as if looting was THE way to enable the mechanic because you draw a card in addition to having to discard one, which is far from being true. Cards like Wild Mongrel and Aquamoeba, for example, are still the best Madness enablers, even powerful looting cards like Careful Study aren't as good in comparison despite the fact they provide card advantage.
Discard costs are another viable way to support the mechanic, yes. But they still don't provide that "safety net" feel of a looting effect; a player discarding their Madness card to Tormenting Voice feels as though they are basically getting two spells with a cantrip each.
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MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Green does get creature sacrifice, flavored as predation. And while it may be true that green needs creatures to kill creatures (at least the ones that aren't made of metal and don't fly), green happens to have the creatures that are best at killing other creatures, whether through brute strength or deadly poison. And in a world as black-influenced as Innistrad, blue could easily justify having Morbid just like it was able to justify having Undying (or Exploit in the black-dominated Silumgar Brood, for that matter). A blue stitcher or Zombie with Morbid would not feel weird at all. In the case of white cards aligned with a WB faction, like Orzhov or a heretic offshoot of the Avacynian church, Morbid could make sense as long as it fits that faction's interpretation of white sensibilities. A monster hunter or angry mob seeking vindication could be an example of Morbid in white.
Those are all very fringe applications of what kill spells look like in their respective colors. Green's predation is the most common and still wouldn't be prevalent enough to handle Morbid, unless there was a heavy emphasis on this particular aspect of the color to the detriment of others (something like a Green-centered Jund maybe).
Blue stitchers and White heretics would certainly need Black in one way or another, or else they'd only get Pongify/Boomerang and exile effects, Wrath at most.
And if UR doesn't get Madness as its SOI theme, what does it get? UB and BR already have Zombies and Vampires, and UB also looks like the most probable Delirium pair. UR should be the main Madness pair precisely because it is the best at enabling it, not only by merit of the looting effects providing better support but also because players will be more comfortable playing Madness in that pair.
Discard costs are another viable way to support the mechanic, yes. But they still don't provide that "safety net" feel of a looting effect; a player discarding their Madness card to Tormenting Voice feels as though they are basically getting two spells with a cantrip each.
But as I pointed out, looting effects aren't better than permanent discard outlets as Madness support. There's just more of them. And until Wizards comes up with a non-random Burning Inquiry and low costed Madness spells that can be chained consistently I don't see that changing. Furthermore, how do you know players will feel more comfortable playing U/R Madness if there was never such a deck before? I'm not sure if this card advantage safety net is that important to most players when they could just cast a Wild Mongrel-like creature and start unleashing spells while beating face at the same time. I mean, if card advantage is such a problem then it's only a matter of adding a few looting cards, like in the old U/G Madness decks. You don't actually need that many blue cards with Madness anyway, unless you really want to play U/x. So I could see Red getting more Madness cards if U/R doesn't have anything else but looting. Hopefully they won't "accidentally" break Prowess with it.
Those are all very fringe applications of what kill spells look like in their respective colors. Green's predation is the most common and still wouldn't be prevalent enough to handle Morbid, unless there was a heavy emphasis on this particular aspect of the color to the detriment of others (something like a Green-centered Jund maybe).
Blue stitchers and White heretics would certainly need Black in one way or another, or else they'd only get Pongify/Boomerang and exile effects, Wrath at most.
You forget about saccable creatures like Selfless Cathar, Alchemist's Apprentice, and Eldrazi Scion tokens. And white and blue creatures can attack and block just like creatures in any other color, allowing for combat death. By sacrifice effects, I mean stuff like Evolutionary Leap and Scourge of Skola Vale.
But as I pointed out, looting effects aren't better than permanent discard outlets as Madness support. There's just more of them. And until Wizards comes up with a non-random Burning Inquiry and low costed Madness spells that can be chained consistently I don't see that changing. Furthermore, how do you know players will feel more comfortable playing U/R Madness if there was never such a deck before? I'm not sure if this card advantage safety net is that important to most players when they could just cast a Wild Mongrel-like creature and start unleashing spells while beating face at the same time. I mean, if card advantage is such a problem then it's only a matter of adding a few looting cards, like in the old U/G Madness decks. You don't actually need that many blue cards with Madness anyway, unless you really want to play U/x. So I could see Red getting more Madness cards if U/R doesn't have anything else but looting. Hopefully they won't "accidentally" break Prowess with it.
It's the fact that looting + Madness turns into a cantrip effect. Permanent discard outlets provide convenience, sure; you can discard a Fiery Temper to Heir of Falkenrath without feeling as though you've lost a card, and no doubt discard costs will be black's primary form of support. But a Jace, Vryn's Prodigy or Mad Prophet type of card looks even better as you get to replace the Madness card you're discarding. "Tap Jace, discard Fiery Temper, cast Fiery Temper for R."
And again, if UR doesn't get Madness as its archetype in SOI, what does it get?
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MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
You forget about saccable creatures like Selfless Cathar, Alchemist's Apprentice, and Eldrazi Scion tokens. And white and blue creatures can attack and block just like creatures in any other color, allowing for combat death. By sacrifice effects, I mean stuff like Evolutionary Leap and Scourge of Skola Vale.
Killing through combat isn't enough and R&D noticed it when they were trying to make Morbid for green cards. Also, I didn't forget about saccable creatures, the problem is that they are so few in number that it makes them irrelevant.
It's the fact that looting + Madness turns into a cantrip effect. Permanent discard outlets provide convenience, sure; you can discard a Fiery Temper to Heir of Falkenrath without feeling as though you've lost a card, and no doubt discard costs will be black's primary form of support. But a Jace, Vryn's Prodigy or Mad Prophet type of card looks even better as you get to replace the Madness card you're discarding. "Tap Jace, discard Fiery Temper, cast Fiery Temper for R."
And again, if UR doesn't get Madness as its archetype in SOI, what does it get?
You're ignoring the fact that replacing cards one by one usually isn't as powerful as casting them in the same turn with a discard outlet and also hitting your opponent with it. I understand your point that cantripping works as a safety net in such cases but I think you're overestimating it's value.
About what U/R gets if it's not Madness, I really have no idea. If it happens that U/R doesn't get anything else then it would be like B/G in the original Innistrad block getting all the Morbid cards, but I doubt that'll happen this time. They could also give a bigger portion of Madness to U/R like they did with Flashback cards back then. Either way, and going back to my first point, these seem better reasons to make Madness primarily U/R than looting.
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Trying to keep w/ the flavor of the set, I see Circular Logic and Gorgon Recluse. The only thing I am struggling with is how a gorgon would fit the flavor of SOI. I know they are heading into a Cthulhu-esque/Illuminati/Mason-like world this time, so a gorgon can kinds work w/ a lot of Gothic architecture and styles that "borrow" Greek architecture and styles, w/ the Gothic manors and such.
Commander: WUBRG Superfriends, GW Rhys Tokens, WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon
Kitchen Table (now that's real Magic): WUBRG Domain, GU Biovisionary, UB Korlash Grandeur, UW Merfolk Mill
Notably both of those are blue, which is one of two colors that looks primed to support Madness (the other being red). Not to say that black won't have its share of madness cards and support.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
That's probably just because the rest of the madness cards haven't been spoiled yet. Traditionally, Black always had the greatest number of Madness cards, I'd be surprised if it didn't have at least as much support as the other colors this time around.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
My mistake, for some reason I thought a few of those cards in the Time Spiral block were reprints. Still, I think looting effects are a poor reason to give more madness cards to blue and red. If anything that makes it too easy to break the balance, which in turn would push them to either give the other colors better effects or more enablers.
Is lifelink a poor reason to give WB a lifegain matters theme? Is deathtouch a poor reason to make BG the primary Morbid colors? Looting effects are the perfect reason to make UR the primary Madness colors.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
That's a false equivalence, though. Lifelink and lifegain matters or Deathtouch and Morbid are analogous to each other because they share the same color identity, unlike Madness. The latter has been present in all colors since its conception (despite the fact Time Spiral moved it towards Black for flavor reasons, which would be understandable if they repeated it for this block), but the same can't be said about the former two. Just because looting makes it easier to cast Madness spells doesn't mean blue and red should necessarily have most cards with the keyword. It's just unbalanced design otherwise, with U/R decks drawing and casting cards simultaneously while the other colors do nothing. They might as well make Madness exclusively U/R and give the remaining colors mechanics of their own, sparing themselves the trouble of printing enablers. Then again, if the overarching theme of SoI is madness descending upon the entire plane, it only makes sense that the mechanic is represented in every color equally, as it was in the Odyssey block.
Madness is not going to be represented equally; two colors are going to focus on it the most, and two other colors will get less. Bestow and Devotion were major mechanics in Theros, but not every color got them in equal numbers. An old block like Odyssey should not be used as precedent for how they're designing blocks today, especially not one that is considered a design mistake.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
White and Blue getting Morbid cards makes little sense flavor-wise. Green by itself doesn't make much sense because it's rarely ever about killing or sacrificing creatures. Only in combination with Black that it made sense for Green to have the number of Morbid cards it did. And considering they needed a theme for B/G back then and the Morbid mechanic needed Black to work, all they had to do was to give Green more Morbid cards than they gave Black, never mind the fact Green alone has a hard time making it work. But in the case of Madness, it doesn't really need Blue or Red to work, and there's no reason yet to presume it'll be represented in these colors more than it'll in the others. For all we know, U/R may actually get less Madness cards precisely because it already has a greater number of enablers, forcing players to combine either color with Black, Green, or White in order to take full advantage of the interaction with looting effects.
Also, if Odyssey can't be used as a precedent, and neither can Time Spiral, then obviously there's no valid precedent for the mechanic. Here you're assuming that they'll have to start from scratch with Madness and follow the route of just making it a U/R mechanic, as if looting was THE way to enable the mechanic because you draw a card in addition to having to discard one, which is far from being true. Cards like Wild Mongrel and Aquamoeba, for example, are still the best Madness enablers, even powerful looting cards like Careful Study aren't as good in comparison despite the fact they provide card advantage.
Green does get creature sacrifice, flavored as predation. And while it may be true that green needs creatures to kill creatures (at least the ones that aren't made of metal and don't fly), green happens to have the creatures that are best at killing other creatures, whether through brute strength or deadly poison. And in a world as black-influenced as Innistrad, blue could easily justify having Morbid just like it was able to justify having Undying (or Exploit in the black-dominated Silumgar Brood, for that matter). A blue stitcher or Zombie with Morbid would not feel weird at all. In the case of white cards aligned with a WB faction, like Orzhov or a heretic offshoot of the Avacynian church, Morbid could make sense as long as it fits that faction's interpretation of white sensibilities. A monster hunter or angry mob seeking vindication could be an example of Morbid in white.
And if UR doesn't get Madness as its SOI theme, what does it get? UB and BR already have Zombies and Vampires, and UB also looks like the most probable Delirium pair. UR should be the main Madness pair precisely because it is the best at enabling it, not only by merit of the looting effects providing better support but also because players will be more comfortable playing Madness in that pair.
Discard costs are another viable way to support the mechanic, yes. But they still don't provide that "safety net" feel of a looting effect; a player discarding their Madness card to Tormenting Voice feels as though they are basically getting two spells with a cantrip each.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
Those are all very fringe applications of what kill spells look like in their respective colors. Green's predation is the most common and still wouldn't be prevalent enough to handle Morbid, unless there was a heavy emphasis on this particular aspect of the color to the detriment of others (something like a Green-centered Jund maybe).
Blue stitchers and White heretics would certainly need Black in one way or another, or else they'd only get Pongify/Boomerang and exile effects, Wrath at most.
But as I pointed out, looting effects aren't better than permanent discard outlets as Madness support. There's just more of them. And until Wizards comes up with a non-random Burning Inquiry and low costed Madness spells that can be chained consistently I don't see that changing. Furthermore, how do you know players will feel more comfortable playing U/R Madness if there was never such a deck before? I'm not sure if this card advantage safety net is that important to most players when they could just cast a Wild Mongrel-like creature and start unleashing spells while beating face at the same time. I mean, if card advantage is such a problem then it's only a matter of adding a few looting cards, like in the old U/G Madness decks. You don't actually need that many blue cards with Madness anyway, unless you really want to play U/x. So I could see Red getting more Madness cards if U/R doesn't have anything else but looting. Hopefully they won't "accidentally" break Prowess with it.
You forget about saccable creatures like Selfless Cathar, Alchemist's Apprentice, and Eldrazi Scion tokens. And white and blue creatures can attack and block just like creatures in any other color, allowing for combat death. By sacrifice effects, I mean stuff like Evolutionary Leap and Scourge of Skola Vale.
It's the fact that looting + Madness turns into a cantrip effect. Permanent discard outlets provide convenience, sure; you can discard a Fiery Temper to Heir of Falkenrath without feeling as though you've lost a card, and no doubt discard costs will be black's primary form of support. But a Jace, Vryn's Prodigy or Mad Prophet type of card looks even better as you get to replace the Madness card you're discarding. "Tap Jace, discard Fiery Temper, cast Fiery Temper for R."
And again, if UR doesn't get Madness as its archetype in SOI, what does it get?
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
Killing through combat isn't enough and R&D noticed it when they were trying to make Morbid for green cards. Also, I didn't forget about saccable creatures, the problem is that they are so few in number that it makes them irrelevant.
You're ignoring the fact that replacing cards one by one usually isn't as powerful as casting them in the same turn with a discard outlet and also hitting your opponent with it. I understand your point that cantripping works as a safety net in such cases but I think you're overestimating it's value.
About what U/R gets if it's not Madness, I really have no idea. If it happens that U/R doesn't get anything else then it would be like B/G in the original Innistrad block getting all the Morbid cards, but I doubt that'll happen this time. They could also give a bigger portion of Madness to U/R like they did with Flashback cards back then. Either way, and going back to my first point, these seem better reasons to make Madness primarily U/R than looting.