A deck fueled by Key to the City and the new chandra, this list will keep removing dudes with a plus, be it with 3 damage to the face or a big body and lifegain. Dark Dwellers is here to buy back your murder/blightning and the rest are here to support the cast. Key to the City enables cards like Boumat Courier and Bloodhall Priest to finish the game. Imagine an instant speed 4/4 coming into play with Key to the City for 3 to defend, and later game attacking unblocked for 6, or perhaps shocking what would have been a blocker for your menace buddies. This deck aims to blend midrange and control.
A lot of red cards are barely playable or not playable unless they find a high cmc target, with the recent set I noticed a trend and saw enough cards to put together into a decklist that may allow for some really strong plays. The two cards featured in this deck are the two listed above. The deck relies on big cmc cards to be revealed or discarded, whether its Wrathing the board, finding a big target for Madcap Experiment, burning a creature off the face of the earth for 1 red in Spark, making an opponent make bad decisions on what I am allowed to draw, or just dying to Combustable Gearhulk, the deck wants to just go nuts with expensive cards. There isn't quite a lot of defense in this build, but its a rough draft. Its a big deck with big aspirations.
Hmm...I really love the idea of abusing high CMC stuff, but this deck lacks early game and lacks ways to refill its hand. Sin Prodder will probably backfire. They will put the high CMC cards in your hand (uncastable) instead of taking the damage, and you won't be able to do much with those Colossi in hand. There's looting and discarding, but not much value gained from discarding cards or putting things in the graveyard. Also, there's a fairly high probability (1/3?) that Madcap will whiff and hit the Caravan (without anything to crew it), dealing you as much as 10 damage to put a mana rock on the battlefield. I wonder if we can tighten up the synergy.
Thermo-Alchemist helps block and synergizes with the deck's high spell count. Tormenting Voice is probably safer than Cathartic Reunion, since you won't always have 2 things you want to discard. You should probably also run something like Fiery Temper to deal with early creatures and get some benefit from the discards.
What if the deck went Red-Black? Then we get access to 8 Gearhulks (12 artifact fatties), making Madcap less suicidal. The black one also gains life to mitigate the risk of taking damage. And we get access to Ever After to bring back two Gearhulks we discarded earlier. Would you be open to black?
for starters, Madcap Experiment...
you have 12 targets for it, 4 of which are Cultivator's Caravans that actually have LOWER CMC than Madcap Experiment and not that high of an impact in the battlefield, the best it does is pay 4 of the casting cost of Metalwork Colossus
with 12 targets in your deck, chances are you're taking 5, 6 damage when you cast Madcap Experiment, even if it hits Metalwork Colossus it might be not that good of a deal.
This deck REALLY needs to be able to use it's graveyard for something, making both Sin Prodder and Gearhulk a lot more relevant regardless of what your opponent chooses.
as the list is right now, I really think it will be awesome when it works, but will hardly work.
There are now 15 fat targets to Madcap Experiment into, so you lose a lot less life when casting it and always get something good. Noxious gains you life back. Both Noxious and Cataclysmic help with board control.
How do you value from fatties being dumped in the graveyard? Ever After. Returning any 2 Gearhulks is devastating. Cataclysmic + anything else means you get to keep 2 fatties while opponent only gets one creature.
There are now 15 fat targets to Madcap Experiment into, so you lose a lot less life when casting it and always get something good. Noxious gains you life back. Both Noxious and Cataclysmic help with board control.
How do you value from fatties being dumped in the graveyard? Ever After. Returning any 2 Gearhulks is devastating. Cataclysmic + anything else means you get to keep 2 fatties while opponent only gets one creature.
well, now we might be getting somewhere.
still think you won't have enough cards to discard though.
with this list and Nahiri's Wrath, Cathartic Reunion and Tormenting Voice, you're in for a lot of frustration....
all three spells will be completely dead cards more times than you'd like to admit. I think at least some of those need to go...
maybe, we can keep the core the same, and think about the deck less like a combo deck and more like a midrange one.
swap the excessive card draws for cheap removal and we just might get there.
Yeah, the idea was to go more midrange value than straight combo. The combo itself is too unreliable and weak.
15 fatties and 4 Fiery Temper, still not enough to discard for 9 spells? That's not including the times you'd just pitch redundant lands and draw spells as usual. I guess the 2 Cathartic Reunions could be cut, since they are dead the most often and Geier Reach helps discard things when you do want to discard.
Yeah, the idea was to go more midrange value than straight combo. The combo itself is too unreliable and weak.
15 fatties and 4 Fiery Temper, still not enough to discard for 9 spells? That's not including the times you'd just pitch redundant lands and draw spells as usual. I guess the 2 Cathartic Reunions could be cut, since they are dead the most often and Geier Reach helps discard things when you do want to discard.
I like Mortuary Mire. Reduces the variance from Madcap by a lot. Also reduces the variance from Combustible Gearhulk. +2-4 copies?
the problem with the discard spells isn't that you don't have enough cards to discard in your deck but in the fact they do absolutely nothing as topdecks, Cathartic Reunion even does absolutely nothing if you don't have at least 2 extra cards.
having 9 cards, which are roughly 25% of all your spells doing absolutely nothing if your hand is empty seems pretty bad.
just remember you don't really want to drop cards in your graveyard.
Plan A is to play Madcap Experiment and hit Gearhulks for cheap. Ever After is plan B....
it's mainly there so you don't waste your gearhulks if someone chooses to dump cards in your graveyard instead of letting you draw from Combustible Gearhulk, it would be even more necessary if you hadn't cut the Sin Prodders. without it, Ever After becomes a lot less impactful.
Mortuary Mire is great in this deck but you don't want to draw it early, you have to draw it in the same turn you cast Madcap or Combustible Gearhulk and you need to have a gearhulk in your graveyard when you do it. So, definitively not 4 copies.
I'm on the fence between 2 or 3... probably would try 2 at first.
thinking broadly here... we could ditch white for green to run Mina and Denn, Wildborn
it gives a 4/4 for 4, which is not awful, allows for some crazy shenanigans with Mortuary Mire and gives the so needed trample to Metalwork Colossus
I like where this is going, should I convert the thread name to R/B Madcap Hulks or something so we can develop it like an archetype?
I'm a huge fan of Noxious Gearhulk because it is essentially a better thragtusk, but instead of making a dude it kills a dude.
BR allows for a more control build with the Gearhulks and maybe narrow down the deck a bit for that same reason.
Jamming Gearhulks for removal and card draw is essentially what control does, which I like.
Second big deck edit:
I'm really proud of this one, Dark Dwellers buying back Murder/Blightning is awesome, Mortuary Mire pairs well with Devour in Flames, and gives an easy to cast removal tool.
I think there is some real synergy being fleshed out with this list, boumat courier doesn't look like much, but he could refill the hand you're discarding with key to the city at instant speed while you pound away with a cheap casted bloodhall priest.
This list I like the most, I think maybe Devour should be Chandra, and fill it out to 24 lands, but I'm trying to be realistic here, so we'll see how it goes, but I do love it, it looks like a mixture of midrange and control, but I didn't include madcap in this one, because I want Unlicensed Disintegration I needed artifacts that cost cheap, and I do love that card as well, so I went a removal route. I'm going to put the Flashy Version of the list in the OP.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I've tried to make a Mardu Nahiri Gearhulk type thing, but there was just too much going on, I do think R/W Nahiri Gearhulk might be really good, you could go both Refurbush and Madcap Experiment if you wanted in something like this, but all three cards cost 4cmc, so I figure it would be a bit too hard to fit all strategies into it. So if you want to go that route, I'd jam the already proven Nahiri and the gearhulks, due to ETB triggers and recasting them. It's unfortunate that the rest of the R/W cards are more or less based around the dwarves/vehicles deck archetype.
I don't quite like it though, I feel like its a bit weak in all aspects, but it can come together pretty well given some steam. Nahiri by herself could totally break a match finding a gearhulk and sweeping the board or drawing a new hand twice. I'm a bit biased towards Key to the City for control, I think its just a great engine that sort of forces that one creature to get in for no mana, I mean, if you nahiri ulted and played the red gearhulk, they would have to let you draw cards to avoid being blown out (possibly) due to the explosiveness of the card, I think turboing it out is a legitimate strategy, but in addition, if you have a card or they let you draw cards, key to the city allows it to get in for 6 for free also. If you were to play Caravan on turn 3 with a key in play, you could tap for a red to fiery temper or just cast spark to burn a dude if needed. I also included Fragmentize maindeck because I believe it will be used 90% of the time, and it'll be easily castable with caravan.
For the record folks, I'm a really big fan of Cultivator's Caravan, I think the card is very adaptable. It can support tri colors, it can support hard to cast high cmc colors, it can support top decks with 3 power that you weren't necessarily looking for, it's like an adaptable staple, and I think its possibly undervalued for these reasons. Mardu Control is definitely a possibility, but not in a combo so much with Refurbish or Madcap Experiment.
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The red mage lives by the variance and dies by the variance. May the variance be with you, always.
Starcity had a mardu Gearhulk deck video today. I goldfished a few times and it felt better than I expected, but it still got clunky at times. It abused Cathartic Reunion along with Ever After/Refurbish to really do work. Ever After felt really amazing in the late game and Refurbish giving you access to a t4 reanimate was powerful. I kind of want to stick some Eerie Interludes in, but that's more a personal thing.
I'm thinking about going Grixis to add Alms of the vein and Noxious gearhulk, but won't add it until I've played with my current version a little longer. In playing it I have to say it's really strange the decisions people make in regard to conbustible gearhulk. Some people will just refuse to give you the 3 cards and it sometimes just kills them ouright.
4 Bomat Courier
4 Asylum Visitor
4 Bloodhall Priest
4 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
4 Noxious Gearhulk
4 Key to the City
4 Fiery Temper
4 Unlicensed Disintegration
4 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
10 Mountain
4 Aether Hub
4 Foreboding Ruins
4 Smoldering Marsh
2 Mortuary Mire
A deck fueled by Key to the City and the new chandra, this list will keep removing dudes with a plus, be it with 3 damage to the face or a big body and lifegain. Dark Dwellers is here to buy back your murder/blightning and the rest are here to support the cast. Key to the City enables cards like Boumat Courier and Bloodhall Priest to finish the game. Imagine an instant speed 4/4 coming into play with Key to the City for 3 to defend, and later game attacking unblocked for 6, or perhaps shocking what would have been a blocker for your menace buddies. This deck aims to blend midrange and control.
BIG RED
4 Metalwork Colossus
4 Sin Prodder
4 Combustible Gearhulk
4 Bedlam Reveler
4 Cultivator's Caravan
4 Madcap Experiment
4 Nahiri's Wrath
4 Spark of Creativity
4 Cathartic Reunion
24 Mountain
A lot of red cards are barely playable or not playable unless they find a high cmc target, with the recent set I noticed a trend and saw enough cards to put together into a decklist that may allow for some really strong plays. The two cards featured in this deck are the two listed above. The deck relies on big cmc cards to be revealed or discarded, whether its Wrathing the board, finding a big target for Madcap Experiment, burning a creature off the face of the earth for 1 red in Spark, making an opponent make bad decisions on what I am allowed to draw, or just dying to Combustable Gearhulk, the deck wants to just go nuts with expensive cards. There isn't quite a lot of defense in this build, but its a rough draft. Its a big deck with big aspirations.
Thermo-Alchemist helps block and synergizes with the deck's high spell count. Tormenting Voice is probably safer than Cathartic Reunion, since you won't always have 2 things you want to discard. You should probably also run something like Fiery Temper to deal with early creatures and get some benefit from the discards.
4 Thermo-Alchemist
4 Combustible Gearhulk
4 Bedlam Reveler
4 Metalwork Colossus
4 Spark of Creativity
4 Tormenting Voice
2 Cathartic Reunion
4 Fiery Temper
3 Nahiri's Wrath
3 Madcap Experiment
2 Sea Gate Wreckage
2 Geier Reach Sanitarium
20 Mountain
What if the deck went Red-Black? Then we get access to 8 Gearhulks (12 artifact fatties), making Madcap less suicidal. The black one also gains life to mitigate the risk of taking damage. And we get access to Ever After to bring back two Gearhulks we discarded earlier. Would you be open to black?
Sin Prodder is really cool, Combustible Gearhulk seems best friends with it.
the issue is, everything will backfire.
for starters, Madcap Experiment...
you have 12 targets for it, 4 of which are Cultivator's Caravans that actually have LOWER CMC than Madcap Experiment and not that high of an impact in the battlefield, the best it does is pay 4 of the casting cost of Metalwork Colossus
with 12 targets in your deck, chances are you're taking 5, 6 damage when you cast Madcap Experiment, even if it hits Metalwork Colossus it might be not that good of a deal.
I tried to make a Sin Prodder / Combustible Gearhulk list, when I did, I went the Distended Mindbender / Abundant Maw route in a RB build, that didn't work out very well....
This deck REALLY needs to be able to use it's graveyard for something, making both Sin Prodder and Gearhulk a lot more relevant regardless of what your opponent chooses.
as the list is right now, I really think it will be awesome when it works, but will hardly work.
4 Metalwork Colossus
4 Combustible Gearhulk
4 Noxious Gearhulk
3 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
//Spells: 20
4 Tormenting Voice
2 Cathartic Reunion
3 Nahiri's Wrath
4 Fiery Temper
4 Madcap Experiment
3 Ever After
2 Geier Reach Sanitarium
4 RB dual
4 other RB dual
4 Aether Hub
10 Mountain
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
There are now 15 fat targets to Madcap Experiment into, so you lose a lot less life when casting it and always get something good. Noxious gains you life back. Both Noxious and Cataclysmic help with board control.
How do you value from fatties being dumped in the graveyard? Ever After. Returning any 2 Gearhulks is devastating. Cataclysmic + anything else means you get to keep 2 fatties while opponent only gets one creature.
well, now we might be getting somewhere.
still think you won't have enough cards to discard though.
with this list and Nahiri's Wrath, Cathartic Reunion and Tormenting Voice, you're in for a lot of frustration....
all three spells will be completely dead cards more times than you'd like to admit. I think at least some of those need to go...
maybe, we can keep the core the same, and think about the deck less like a combo deck and more like a midrange one.
swap the excessive card draws for cheap removal and we just might get there.
I guess I'd run at least a couple Mortuary Mires
drew a Madcap experiment?
cool, I'll just put the best Gearhulk in my grave at the top of library and cast it for crazy value.
also, if you're going to keep all the draw spells, you'd probably be playing the combo route and using Marionette Master, Verdurous Gearhulk and Metalwork Colossus for an instant kill from Ever After
but that's another deck... lol.
15 fatties and 4 Fiery Temper, still not enough to discard for 9 spells? That's not including the times you'd just pitch redundant lands and draw spells as usual. I guess the 2 Cathartic Reunions could be cut, since they are dead the most often and Geier Reach helps discard things when you do want to discard.
Sea Gate Wreckage does help refuel after discarding too many cards.
I like Mortuary Mire. Reduces the variance from Madcap by a lot. Also reduces the variance from Combustible Gearhulk. +2-4 copies?
the problem with the discard spells isn't that you don't have enough cards to discard in your deck but in the fact they do absolutely nothing as topdecks, Cathartic Reunion even does absolutely nothing if you don't have at least 2 extra cards.
having 9 cards, which are roughly 25% of all your spells doing absolutely nothing if your hand is empty seems pretty bad.
just remember you don't really want to drop cards in your graveyard.
Plan A is to play Madcap Experiment and hit Gearhulks for cheap.
Ever After is plan B....
it's mainly there so you don't waste your gearhulks if someone chooses to dump cards in your graveyard instead of letting you draw from Combustible Gearhulk, it would be even more necessary if you hadn't cut the Sin Prodders. without it, Ever After becomes a lot less impactful.
Mortuary Mire is great in this deck but you don't want to draw it early, you have to draw it in the same turn you cast Madcap or Combustible Gearhulk and you need to have a gearhulk in your graveyard when you do it. So, definitively not 4 copies.
I'm on the fence between 2 or 3... probably would try 2 at first.
thinking broadly here... we could ditch white for green to run Mina and Denn, Wildborn
it gives a 4/4 for 4, which is not awful, allows for some crazy shenanigans with Mortuary Mire and gives the so needed trample to Metalwork Colossus
I'm a huge fan of Noxious Gearhulk because it is essentially a better thragtusk, but instead of making a dude it kills a dude.
BR allows for a more control build with the Gearhulks and maybe narrow down the deck a bit for that same reason.
Jamming Gearhulks for removal and card draw is essentially what control does, which I like.
Editing in some lists I've made
BR Control number 1
4 Bloodhall Priest
1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
2 Distended Mindbender
1 Combustible Gearhulk
2 Noxious Gearhulk
Spells (26)
2 Die Young
3 Live Fast
4 Key to the City
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Nahiri's Wrath
1 Kozilek's Return
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Ob Nixilis Reignited
4 Fiery Temper
4 Unlicensed Disintegration
2 Mortuary Mire
10 Swamp
4 Smoldering Marsh
4 Foreboding Ruins
4 Aether Hub
Second big deck edit:
I'm really proud of this one, Dark Dwellers buying back Murder/Blightning is awesome, Mortuary Mire pairs well with Devour in Flames, and gives an easy to cast removal tool.
I think there is some real synergy being fleshed out with this list, boumat courier doesn't look like much, but he could refill the hand you're discarding with key to the city at instant speed while you pound away with a cheap casted bloodhall priest.
4 Bomat Courier
4 Asylum Visitor
4 Bloodhall Priest
4 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
4 Noxious Gearhulk
4 Key to the City
4 Fiery Temper
4 Unlicensed Disintegration
3 Devour in Flames
Lands (25)
7 Mountain
3 Swamp
4 Aether Hub
4 Foreboding Ruins
4 Smoldering Marsh
3 Mortuary Mire
This list I like the most, I think maybe Devour should be Chandra, and fill it out to 24 lands, but I'm trying to be realistic here, so we'll see how it goes, but I do love it, it looks like a mixture of midrange and control, but I didn't include madcap in this one, because I want Unlicensed Disintegration I needed artifacts that cost cheap, and I do love that card as well, so I went a removal route. I'm going to put the Flashy Version of the list in the OP.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
MtG Sales List
To the above poster, I came up with this:
3 Sin Prodder
3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
4 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
3 Combustible Gearhulk
Spells (23)
3 Refurbish
2 Fragmentize
3 Cultivator's Caravan
3 Nahiri, the Harbinger
4 Spark of Creativity
4 Fiery Temper
4 Key to the City
4 Aether Hub
12 Mountain
4 Needle Spires
4 Inspiring Vantage
I don't quite like it though, I feel like its a bit weak in all aspects, but it can come together pretty well given some steam. Nahiri by herself could totally break a match finding a gearhulk and sweeping the board or drawing a new hand twice. I'm a bit biased towards Key to the City for control, I think its just a great engine that sort of forces that one creature to get in for no mana, I mean, if you nahiri ulted and played the red gearhulk, they would have to let you draw cards to avoid being blown out (possibly) due to the explosiveness of the card, I think turboing it out is a legitimate strategy, but in addition, if you have a card or they let you draw cards, key to the city allows it to get in for 6 for free also. If you were to play Caravan on turn 3 with a key in play, you could tap for a red to fiery temper or just cast spark to burn a dude if needed. I also included Fragmentize maindeck because I believe it will be used 90% of the time, and it'll be easily castable with caravan.
For the record folks, I'm a really big fan of Cultivator's Caravan, I think the card is very adaptable. It can support tri colors, it can support hard to cast high cmc colors, it can support top decks with 3 power that you weren't necessarily looking for, it's like an adaptable staple, and I think its possibly undervalued for these reasons. Mardu Control is definitely a possibility, but not in a combo so much with Refurbish or Madcap Experiment.
4 Combustible Gearhulk
4 Lightning Axe
4 Incendiary flow
4 Fiery Temper
4 Collective Defiance
4 Fateful Showdown
4 Madcap Experiment
24 Lands
4 Sin Prodder
4 Galvanic Bombardment
3 Revolutionary Rebuff
4 Radiant Flames
I'm thinking about going Grixis to add Alms of the vein and Noxious gearhulk, but won't add it until I've played with my current version a little longer. In playing it I have to say it's really strange the decisions people make in regard to conbustible gearhulk. Some people will just refuse to give you the 3 cards and it sometimes just kills them ouright.