Yeah Bone Picker is in the good deck

Opp played the Bone Picker.

Time for round six of playtesting, five decks remain, all 5-0 so far.

First up is Madness of Radkos by Red Acuta... win, 6-0. T2 heir into T3 Youth into T4 Heir with Alms. Love it.

Hellbent madness next...win, 6-0

Next up is Raggros by Modulo, win 6-0

The other two decks also won. All five decks are 6-0

Seventh round of playtesting later. I gotta fold laundry, cut the grass and then reward myself with some KFC or something

I love these decks


Ok here we go round 7

Black as night by Sjok first (no votes for this yet??) ...win! T4 discard bomat to trigger two fiery tempers. Ouch. 7-0

Old Brutal next...win against GBc ramp emerge (what's the symbol for colourless?) 7-0

Modulos Raggros up next...no votes yet for this monster either??...win against a cool madness Dimir deck. 7-0

Next is my favourite Hellbent Madness...against Natasha6!! A real test! Wasn't easy and I don't want to talk if Natasha's deck in case he's testing for fight club but we won . 7-0. I love this deck

Next up is Madness of Radkos...lost very badly to Abzan Snek deck. I got early removal twice and everything and couldn't handle the onslaught with tons of removal. Deck eliminated at 6-1


Four decks left for round eight of playtesting!


Let's start with Hellbent Madness...win against Sonic. 8-0

Raggros wins against a Gruul control deck? 8-0

Old Brutal is next...win against Orzhov 8-0. Beat draw yet. Apprentice heart welsfast UD lol

Black as night next against Gruul. Incredible draw too. Adept into Copter into Hellion into Brawler with fiery temper, lol. 8-0


Time for round nine! Four decks remain

Snake draft and start with Black as Night by Sjok...won against a weird mono green counters, landfall deck. 9-0

Well, I hit the gold cap so no more testing today. Got my 25 year high school reunion tonight so not sure I'll play later. Poker tomorrow. I've never been to any of these reunions. I have no idea what to expect, I imagine everyone got fat?

...played one quick game with old Brutal and won vs Mono black that went tall. 9-0

Day 5: InfamousGemini, Red Acuta

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/145786303

InfamousGemini: 1-1 (total 2-1)

G2 vs Bant. I saw a Selfless Spirit, Militia Captain, and Sylvan Advocate and then they were dead.

G3 vs Izzet. I had a rough start, having a few cards that needed artifacts to buff and not drawing one until T3 or 4. If I had it to do over again, I'd have mulled shooting for a better hand, but I had already mulled once and I had all my colors plus spells to cast so I thought it'd be ok. Opp burned out the only 2 creatures I started with and put me in a bad position for an aggro deck, as aside from those 2 creatures my hand was full of removal and Opp was creature light. Opp finally cast a Hazoret I couldn't deal with and took the game with him.


Red Acuta: 2-1

G1 vs Mardu Vampires. This game was over super fast. Had threats fast and hard to pressure and removal to kill the couple creatures they cast before dying.

G2 vs Monogreen Monsters. Opening hand had 2 mountains, 1 Hub, and spells to play the first 3 or 4 turns with what I figured would be plenty of time to draw a Swamp. I had a great start and things seemed good until I had to spend my Hub energy for black and couldn't draw another land to save my life. Kept drawing extra cards with Key but could not get the land I desperately needed. I kept playing even tho the game had gotten beyond my reach, but Opp bad mannered me in the end, playing out their hand (had like 10 lands to my 3, Elemental Bond and Lifecrafters Bestiary - had more than lethal on board but felt it necessary to play out hand and drawing more cards and playing those out and drawing more cards and playing them out etc etc) so I finally was like eff this noise and conceded. If anyone's been following these vids (prob not) you know I don't like to concede and rarely do, but **** like this is just obnoxious.

G3 vs Selesnya Stuff. Back on track, steamrolled with Furyblade and Youths until both were killed, then drew into another pair of them and finished steamrolling. Needed this after the abomination that was the previous match.


Not a great session, even tho I won more than I lost. Had some land issues throughout, and that one clunky hand I kept vs a creature lite deck. Still, the first round raps up with an overall record of 27-4. 2 of those losses were to mana screw, and one I'd like to reply with another shot at mulliganing - but all in all not too bad. Well done gentleman. Well done.

I'll start plucking away at round 2 next. It will be an elimination round, where losses retire decks.

Currently I like DJs best for vehicles and mine best for hellbent (I actually considered taking mine to fight club but I waited too long to decide if I wanted to bother with tourney this season and missed deadline). Honorable mention to Red Acuta and Gabrosin for having things I really like in their decks. However none have felt like bad decks so far.

Another win for Modulos Raggros, 9-0 against Boros. Ballista totally took over the game. That thing is a nightmare at 4 mana. I think he killed 3-4 creatures and piloted Heart of Kiran the entire time. I held up Fiery Temper without ever needing it. What a total workhorse

Hellbent madness is next...win versus Boros 9-0

Time for round ten !


Hellbent madness first...win vs golgari 10-0!

Modulos Raggros also wins, 10-0!

I only have three more evenings to playtest so I better get this down to two...


The Old Brutal by WW is next...wins against mono red. 10-0

Sjoks Black as Night is up...up against Azorious tokens, an insane deck around monument with captains and spell quellers. I got demolished. 9-1. Deck eliminated!

Only three decks left going into the 11th round of playtesting. Next one that loses will be in third place and we'll have our winners (assuming they both win their round of course) . At this point I feel stupid cuz I'm going to be eliminating a deck that went at least 10-0. I must be nuts


Ok 11th round starts with the old Brutal...omg I think I was sure to lose this match against Izzet Control but I played around Censor and got two cruisers to stick. I had to 2 for 1 bus Glorybringer with two tempers but it was worth it. Instant speed removal won me this game. 11-0. Beating Control feels great!

Next is Raggros by Modulo..win against mono white exert. 11-0

Hellbent madness next...against Abzan superfriends, really tough but I killed Lilly, A resolved Ajani too and Ob! Amazing. Not easy at all. Win! 11-0


Ok round 12 tomorrow, 3 decks left

Here we go... starting with Hellbent Madness...win vs mono green energy. 12-0

At this point I'm hoping none of these three decks lose before Wednesday and I'll be forced to keep and run all three.

Next up is Modulos Raggros...win against mono black zombies rank 40. 12-0

The old Brutal is up...win 12-0

RoUnd 13

Old Brutal...win 13-0

Raggros wins 13-0 tough match

Hellbent madness...win vs Orzhov Zombies 13-0

RoUnd 14

Screw this, I'm keeping all three decks. I'll keep going to find two winners tho

Hellbent madness...Izzet burn.. win 14-0

Raggros wins vs Izzet burn as well 14-0

These really are the best three decks btw. Unstoppable.

Old Brutal up next ...

which ones do you feel more confident playing with out of the three? must be the 25 land one.

You are doing a good job with these streaks Barney, most of these decklists are really solid. Some of them were sadly eliminated too fast.

That's a great question, WW

WWs deck is the most natural for me cuz it's pure aggro and is like an even better version of DJs deck which I have literally played a hundred times

I think Cuchos deck is the most fun but I'm often conflicted between playing a Bloodlust or another 2 drop créature. I never know what's right and base the decision on opponents open mana .

Modulos deck also feels very familiar to me and optimized. It always surprises me with how brutally it can win

I absolutely love all three. I'm hoping that Cucho and WWs deck win but I'm going to vote for whichever two last the longest. Best contest ever, thanks a ton Joker for making one for Barney

Ok back to playtesting, one deck left for round 14:

The Old Brutal by WW... up against Boros Vehicles. He gets an early siege modification on a Copter and I used a Fiery Temper a turn too late on a foundry inspector which let him play Copter and Cruiser in the same turn for massive damage. 13-1

Yay! Playtesting is over and Modulos Raggros ties with Hellbent Madness for 14-0 records, getting my votes. Congrats!

I can't believe I'm the only vote for Modulo, sick

So is it just Barney and me playing these decks (aside from Flakey's session with one list)?

Kinda bumming me out that Barney kept a bad hand with my list and got it eliminated on the spot so I'm not getting any feedback.

Prob some timing issues with the tournaments starting, but still... glad this was a challenge I happened to already have a deck for as opposed to building something special for it.

I've kept absolutely terrible hands with these other three decks and I won all the time. That's how good they are. I promise I kept terribad two landers with all ten decks at some point

DJs list is high quality and he got knocked out in your first game report too. Sometimes you roll snakeyes and there's nothing to be done about it. The point is less that you suck ( ) and more that I'm bummed about not getting reports.

I'm sure the upcoming tourney is at least partly responsible, but how are peeps gonna have time to submit a list but not have any time to play others and give feedback? More than the other challenges, I was really excited for this one because I think my list is pretty good rather than just something goofy I slapped together for a fun/unique theme. I'm pretty sure the Pauper challenge had more feedback even though there were only 5 or 6 lists and they were all pretty bad (thanks to the challenge restrictions of course).

Well, I started testing sjok's deck and went 4-1 with it. Then realized that the showdown submission deadline was close and I wouldn't have time to test all the decks, seeing as I didn't know what to play in the showdown and Probably ended up making a bad hasty choice.
Anyway, I've been trying out lots of rakdos builds since the update and played rakdos aggro in the showdown Last season, so I admit, I am kind of bored with it.
I tried to build something slightly different with my submission to add a little variety to the Competition, but I guess the deck isn't tuned as well as others.

First I have to say that I been checking obsessively this thread 3-4 times a day just to catch up Barney´s testing, (most of the time on the edge of me chair) I hold my self on the comments just to not give any sort of jinx to my deck (look what happened to WW ). That said I must tell that I have not been able to find the time to test the decks, I only play test one deck D: but between the organization of the iOS tourney and the crafting of my deck for it, all my "magic time" has been totally consumed.

I can give you some feedback as soon as I get my iPad on my hands ;D
it´s only fair to do so.

So glad the updates were fun for some

Love your deck, sure to play it a bunch still

So instead of testing one deck I will submit info on all decks so maybe we can get an argument going on the manabases and manacurves that I think is of extreme relevance on deck building.
I personally took this as reference, so given that our manabase is slower than modern we should round up but I was wondering how good a reference this is on Duels



Methodology /I took all the list and put them on magicduelshelper to get info on the decks here are the results and a coment

Black as Night, Faster than a Shadow - Sjokwaave

Sjokwaave is runnig 4 fiery tempers, madness enablers and 2 Bloodhall Priest so that puts -10cmc to the info leaving a total CMC: 33 curving at 4 and with 0,86 average CMC

Next is Gabrosin - Black Barney

Barney is running 4 fiery tempers 4 alms veins and 2 Bloodhall Priest casting them all on madnes that puts - 18!! leaving a total CMC: 19 curving at 4 and 0,5 average CMC!!!

The old brutal raw power - WoodlandWanderer

WW runs 4 fiery tempers and key of the city so: that´s - 8 leaving the Total CMC at: 35 curving at 5 and a perfect 1 on average cmc although he runs just 4 madness enablers

AKH Rakdos Vehicles - DJ0045

DJ runs no Madness cards so no adjustments to be made.

Scuderia Ferrari - Haven_pt

Haven runs improvise with Sweatworks Brawler so: -3 to the Total CMC leaving it at: 48 highest so far and 1,29 average cmc

Key of the city and our slow mana base compared to modern have and effect on the decks but how much do we have to adjust?

That´s all for now will post the rest of the decks a soon as I can.

Your calculation is slightly off... my avg CMC in this deck is 2.38, but I usually run it at 2.32. So slightly high for 23 lands, but with the card draw it's okay. I'm not sure how you are getting 1.14 for my deck.

Are you counting land as 0 CMC, because that's usually not done?

I took the info directly from magicduelshelper, I just sum manually all the cards and it gives me a total CMC of 84 (walking ballista as a 2 drop) /37=2,27 ?!

I think the magicduelshelper is only counting the mana cost of the cards as singles and is not multipliying for the number of copies -_- !

This info is cool and I like seeing it, but I wonder how much it really matters with Duels RNG? Like I know mathematically my deck should be running around 22 land. But 19 has been working despite that. I don't have hundreds of games in so maybe it's just been some crazy luck, but maybe the RNG is defective in that way. Recall the GB snake deck that was runner up in the last Showdown - it ran 19 lands with 4 of those being Evolving Wilds - everyone made fun of the fact its mana base was criminally low, but it won its way to 2nd place out of some 30 decks in the tourney.

Also, yeah, helper is doing something wrong. I did the math for Sjok's deck early in the challenge when we were discussing mana based then, and it came out to just under 2 (1.89 or something like that IIRC). That was counting madness spells at their madness costs, which helper is trying to say is 0.86.

Yeah, I was going to point out that you have to take those CMC with a big grain of salt - I've also had big issues with them - I think one of my builds with 2.7 CMC was reported as 1.3 or something like that. I guess we should make a bug report in the proper thread. *heads over there*.