facebook

CoolStuffInc.com

Turn your cards and minis into cash! Maximize your value with our 25% store credit bonus!
  
Account Meeple
Location IconLocations
Account MeepleLogin
0 Item
Advanced Search
   Sign In
Create Account
Main » Articles » Descent into Madness

Descent into Madness

Blake Rasmussen
Posted on April 19, 2013
 Reddit

Day 1

It started as an idea. Barely even that, really. I sliver of an idea. A mere notion. A joke from someone’s lips that didn’t sound enough like a joke to ears attuned to flights of fancy.

I had traveled down such paths before. I paired Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind with Mindmoil and Null Profusion, played Cryptic Command alongside Colfenor's Plans, even played with the fire from Burning Vengeance and Shared Animosity.

But never like this. Never has the urge been to destroy. It has always been constructive, an intricate puzzle to dazzle and amaze. It was a side of my personality that had often found challenge in the unknown, in the wild and untested. But the whimsical nature of that personality kept it in check, kept it from going . . . too far.

But when I heard that challenge uttered, I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist. Couldn’t resist. Wouldn’t want to resist. What else are Friday Night Magics for if not to try something new. Something dangerous. Something mad.

Only now, I would be bringing death and destruction. And I would bring everyone down with me.

Descent into Madness

I can’t. I have to push the notion to the back of my mind, where I hide all darker thoughts. I peer down the winding staircase and step back.

Day 2

Assemble the Legion
The idea hasn’t left me, though I dare not say anything out loud, for fear of rousing the insanity further. Instead, I begin scribbling things on paper.

The mana curve was . . . not pretty. I knew the cards I would want—should I ever attempt such a folly—but they didn’t matchup to any realistic mana curve I had ever seen. Rakdos Keyrune could help, but–

. . . Why do I entertain such thoughts? The exercise must be purely theoretical, it must, it must, it must.

But the lure of such theoretical exercises is strong. I am The Joker, just wanting to watch the world burn. I am Topher Brink, bringing about the end of the world merely by thinking it. Thinking of Thragtusks and Farseeks and Angels of Serenity or Geist-Honored Monks and Gather the Townsfolk. Dreaming of Sphinx's Revelation and Esper control.

Assemble the Legion and Descent into Madness is just so . . . elegant. Sure, two 5-drops that have no effect on the board for at least a turn, and even then merely incremental ones, do not typically make sound strategies.

But the inevitability. The slow grinding of resources until there are none left. It’s intoxicating.

I knew I had to survive early and keep my opponent low on permanents in order to make the slow, winding descent matter. After several early revisions, I arrived at this:

"Descent into Madness"

I stare down the winding staircase. The darkness is oddly inviting.

Day 3

Initial results were . . . troubling.

Several decks simply ran me over. I didn’t do much in the early game, and even then, all I did was kill creatures. I won several games without Descending anywhere. And when I did Assemble the Legion at the brink of the precipice, only to push them in several at a time, my opponents rarely followed me down the hole, instead opting to walk away from the duel and hold onto their sanity.

I can’t say I blame them. I was probably winning if Assemble the Legion stayed in play anyway. In order to truly drag my foes down with me, I would have to embrace the madness rather than send sacrificially-obedient Boros twits down the hole on my behalf.

I began again, standing on the precipice once more.

"Descent into Madness Again"

The pendulum had swung too far in the other direction. This deck barely cared about Descent into Madness. It was a blank piece of paper, a slip of digital cardboard that may as well have said, “Ignore me.” Unless you were my opponents, who blew it up every time I cast it. I no longer was going mad . . . I was just mad.

Games were ending too quickly, one way or another. I needed to draw things out, to play with our sanity like so many gremlins gnawing on the edge of our minds. Then, I had a revelation.

Or, rather, four.

"Descent into Madness Revelation"

It seemed such a simple thing, to adapt the long game of Esper control to the long, slow Descent into Madness. I still saw the spirits that lingered, the Ghost Council who were already far too mad of their own accord to take the stairs, and the all-to-willing Vampire thralls of the Lord of Innistrad.

But the Sphinx. He spoke to me, as he often does. He whispered and yelled and handed me more. More thoughts to cast down the well. More thoughts to lose forever.

Day 4

Prime Speaker Zegana
My writings have become stranger, harder to make out.

No. I have to pull back from the edge. Before it’s too late.

But I catch a glance at my notes . . . Prime Speaker Zegana calls to me. A permanent and a card-drawer. It wasn’t madness, per se, but the despair in her eyes. She knew the staircase all too well.

I was too far gone to care.

"Prime Descent into Madness"

I looked into the cold Merfolk’s eyes and saw the cold despair I was looking for. The grind, grind, grind of the Garruks—were there really two cast of different times or had the madness more than taken hold?—and the pick, pick, pick of the Architect of Thought were never far from me.

The Descent did not defeat my opponents alone. It was every drip, drip, drip from the faucet. Every 2/2 and 3/3 and card here or there and . . . then there was silence.

Had I found the bottom of the staircase? Was I there?

Day ??

Sire of Insanity! Sire of Insanity!!

You Collect the Sins, you Descend to Madness, you Sire Insanity!

I see dreams of the future. There is nothing in my present, little in my past, but much in the Dragon’s Maze. I cannot see the picture. It’s cloudy, and I’m not. But everywhere I look, the Sire of Insanity drags me down with it. If the madness has no hand to eat, it must it must it must consume permanents. We must Descend to Insanity.

"Descent into Madness, Sin and Sire"

I descend the stairs once more. If you should hear from me again, I have returned, burdened with the knowledge of the madness that lies at the bottom.

If not, well . . .

Order Dragon's Maze singles and boxes today!

TAGS articles, standard, constructed, analysis, deck lists, brewing, brew, blake rasmussen

Recent Articles

View Archive
Sell your cards and minis 25% credit bonus