Quick Links
Introduced to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering in 2002, madness is a great mechanic that turns a disadvantage – discarding your cards – into another way of playing the game. ꧅After all, having a great card stare at you from the graveyard is like reading a cookbook on an empty stomach — you get all the ideas with none o𒁏f the results.
Madness keeps an opponent second-guessing your moves, lets you cast powerful spells to cast for cheap, and with a bit of graveyard recovery, c🥃an be cast at nearly any time. With that said, in this guide, we’ll go through what madness is, how to use it, and how many cards have the ability.
What Is Madness?
The ability text is a bit overwhelming, so let’s break it down. If you discard anything with the madness ability on it, that is, if you would place a card from your hand straight into the graveyard, it first goes into exile. Then you can choose to move it from exile to the graveyard – effectively completing your discard of it – or you can pay its madness cost and cast the spell.
Simply put, madness lets you play a card for an alternate (often cheaper) cost if it’s being🎀 discarded.
There are a few rules to bear in mind. Firstly, discarding the card is what counts as the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:triggered ability — putting the card on th🌠e stack and allowing opponents to respond.
Secondly, you’re not casting from your graveyard or hand — the card goes into exile, where you can choose to cast it. Permanents cast this way will enter the battlefield, while instants and sorceries resolve and go to the graveyard. If you decide to not play the spell, the card goes from exile into your graveyard.
Third, the madness cost of the card doesn’t replace its converted mana cost. The two-generic and one-black sorcery Alms of the Vein sti🧔ll has a conve⛄rted mana cost of three, even if you play it at the madness cost of one-black mana.
Lastly, it doesn’t matter why you’re discarding. It could be to pay for a different card’s cost like Abandon Hope,🌃 because a spell requires you to, or to reduce💝 your hand back to its maximum hand size.
You need to have a reason to discard. You can&rs🦄quo;📖t just drop cards from your hand because you want to.
How To Use Madness
Madness’ biggest advantage is that the ability lets you cast at instant speed. Meaning that if you have a way to discard it in the first place, creatures, enchantments, and sorceries with madness can be cast at instant speed.
The catch is making yourself discard it in the first place. There are great instant and sorceries for this, such as Faithless Looting, a single-red mana sorcery that lets you draw two and discard two cards. Not only can this trigger our madness abilities, but it also gives card advantage, and if that wasn’t good enough — it has f168澳洲幸运5开奖网:lashback too, giving you two opportunities to use it.
Many creatures and planeswalkers also have abilities that require you to discard in return for some benefit. Putrid Imp is a single-black mana zombie imp that gains flying if you discard, and gets +1/+1 but can&🐭rsquo;t block if you have seven or more cards i𓆏n your graveyard.
Meanwhile, Liliana of the Veil is a one-generic and two-black mana planeswalker with a loyalty ability that requires each player to discard. On top of that, she’s cap𝔉able of forcing opponents to sacrifice creatures, which gets around abilities like indestructible and hexproof and can half someone’s battlefield state with her ultimate ability.
But two of the best ways to discard is with Blood Tokens and c168澳洲幸运5开奖网:onnive. Blood Tokens are artifacts that for one-generic mana, can be tapped and sacrificed to discard a card and then draw one back — giving a madness opportunity and extra card advantage for one mana. Given their theme, creatures like Anje, Maid of Dishonor and other vampires will make generati꧑ng extr♊a tokens very easy.
The alternative is connive, a creature ability in Esper (white, blue, and black colours) that lets you draw X cards, discard the same number of cards, and then put a +1/+1 counter on the creature for each nonland card discarded this way. As most creatures with this ability connive when entering the battlefield, this ability is at its best when you can 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:blink permanents like Raffine’s Silencer constantly.
Countering Madness
There are lots of benefits for cards that use madness, but that also puts a target๊ on you at the table. With that in mind, your opponents will likely try and flummox your plans in one of three ways.
First, when you cast the spell from exile, it can be countered just like any other. This could be your classic Counterspell or something as exotic as Avoid Fate.
This spell type is very common in blue, specifically with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:control decks, but they rely on shutting down high-value plays and struggle to deal with lots of casts in a turn. Plus, if you can get something onto the battlefield, their 🌺battlefield is often lacking any real threats until the midgame, letting you go on the offensive uncontested.
Next, your opponent might counter the triggered ability of madness before you even get a chance to cast it. These are spells like Tale’s End, Repudiate/Replicate, and Stifle.
These cards are a double whammy since cards that only deal with activated or triggered abilities are often very cheap to play. While the more expensive variants come with extra goodies, such as Brokers Confluence, which can counter the madness trigger, and either 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:proliferate or phase creatures out.
One card to really watch out for is Trickbind, a one-generic, one-blue instant with split second — which will 🌸counter the madness ability and give you no chance to r🌃espond to it either.
The las🌜t way opponents might counter your madness cards is by stopping you from casting them in t🔯he first place.
The most notorious offender here is Drannith Magistrate, a one-generic, one-white creature that only lets you cast spells from your hand —meaning any cards with the madness ability will be discarded into exile as normal, before promptly going into your graveyar൲d.
But if Drannith Magistrate were Clyde, then Bonnie would be Ethersworn Canonist, a one-generic, one-white artifact creature that only lets players cast one nonartifact spell per turn. So yo♔🌃u could cast one madness spell per turn, and that’s it.
These cards are often found in Azorius (white and blue), and Esper (white, blue, and black) libraries as part of the infamous 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Stax deck, which aims to slow the game to a crawl, and winning by making ✨🍃everyone lose.
In a nutshell, both creatures are a nightmare for any madness deck and should be dealt with as soon as possible.
How Many Madness Cards Are There?
Whilst madness features in all colours, the vast majority of cards with this a🙈bility🔯 are in Rakdos (black and red).
61 cards have the madness ability in total, including one silver-bordered card. Plus, there are two cards with madness in their rules text (Anje Fankenrath and Falkenrath Gorger to be specific).
Of these cards, two ar𝐆e white, seven are blue, 28 are black, 22 are red, 2 green, and three are in Rakdos.