Anje Falkenrath - Worldgorger Combo

[Guerte]

Anje at the helm of a Worldgorger Combo deck. Using Madness cards to rummage through the deck to find the combo and an outlet.

I take no credit for this list, as it is based off of another on TappedOut, with a few cards swapped.

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

//Commander (1):

1 Anje Falkenrath

//Creatures (21):

1 Asylum Visitor

1 Anje's Ravager

1 Big Game Hunter

1 Bloodmad Vampire

1 Simian Spirit Guide

1 Stromkirk Occultist

1 Bloodhall Priest

1 Brain Gorgers

1 Grave Scrabbler

1 Insatiable Gorgers

1 Nightshade Assassin

1 Weirded Vampire

1 Gorgon Recluse

1 Incorrigible Youths

1 Muck Drubb

1 Reckless Wurm

1 Street Wraith

1 Twins of Maurer Estate

1 Voldaren Pariah

1 Worldgorger Dragon

1 Archfiend of Spite

//Artifacts (2):

1 Mana Crypt

1 Sol Ring

//Sorceries (25):

1 Burning Inquiry

1 Call to the Netherworld

1 Faithless Looting

1 Gamble

1 Magmatic Insight

1 Restless Dreams

1 Scheming Symmetry

1 Vandalblast

1 Winds of Change

1 Avacyn's Judgment

1 Cathartic Reunion

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Distemper of the Blood

1 Murderous Compulsion

1 Tormenting Voice

1 Alms of the Vein

1 Doomsday

1 Ichor Slick

1 Psychotic Episode

1 Wheel of Fortune

1 Biting Rain

1 Gisa's Bidding

1 Malevolent Whispers

1 Alchemist's Greeting

1 From Under the Floorboards

//Instants (14):

1 Dark Ritual

1 Entomb

1 Pyroblast

1 Red Elemental Blast

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Imp's Mischief

1 Mausoleum Secrets

1 Plunge into Darkness

1 Shadow of the Grave

1 Abandon Reason

1 Fiery Temper

1 Psychotic Haze

1 Violent Eruption

1 Dark Withering

//Enchantments (7):

1 Animate Dead

1 Dance of the Dead

1 Senseless Rage

1 Strength of Lunacy

1 Necromancy

1 Necropotence

1 Stensia Masquerade

//Lands (30):

1 Ancient Tomb

1 Arid Mesa

1 Badlands

1 Barren Moor

1 Blood Crypt

1 Bloodstained Mire

1 Canyon Slough

1 Cavern of Souls

1 City of Brass

1 Command Tower

1 Exotic Orchard

1 Forbidden Orchard

1 Forgotten Cave

1 Graven Cairns

1 Luxury Suite

1 Mana Confluence

1 Marsh Flats

2 Mountain

1 Polluted Delta

1 Prismatic Vista

1 Scalding Tarn

1 Shadowblood Ridge

1 Smoldering Marsh

1 Sulfurous Springs

1 Sunscorched Desert

2 Swamp

1 Verdant Catacombs

1 Wooded Foothills

Approximate Total Cost:

[darrenhabib]

First of all I can see some of these cards are specifically in there as win conditions with infinite Worldgorger mana or blinks. These are not necessary in my opinion.

Torment of Hailfire, Cut // Ribbons, Exsanguinate, Comet Storm, Sunscorched Desert, Stensia Bloodhall.

The reason is that with Anje Falkenrath and infinite Worldgorger Dragon blinks you can literally filter through your entire deck. Anje Falkenrath can discard ANY card, it doesn't even need to have madness, because she gets exiled and comes back into play with haste with the Gorger combo.

We already have a win condition with Avacyn's Judgment and to a slightly lesser extent From Under the Floorboards.
If you've already discarded these earlier on to filter then there is Shadow of the Grave that will get them back.

So instead of playing these unnecessary cards you can go for draw efficient cards to get you out of situations where you've run out of madness cards, which should be the only time you fail.

I'm going to try goldfishing a version and make the below changes.

Add

• Faithless Looting
• Magmatic Insight
• Burning Inquiry
• Winds of Change
• Cathartic Reunion
• Tormenting Voice
• Barren Moor
• Forgotten Cave

Remove

• Torment of Hailfire
• Cut // Ribbons
• Exsanguinate
• Comet Storm
• Sunscorched Desert
• Stensia Bloodhall
• Demonic Consultation
• Tainted Pact

[Guerte]

Fair enough. I just figured it would be better to have more than a couple outlets in case of a bunch of counters, but your argument for running out of gas is very logical, so I'll try out those changes as well.

At the very least, I want to keep Sunscorched Desert in as a way to win without casting any spells outside of the combo.

SPOILER

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First of all I can see some of these cards are specifically in there as win conditions with infinite Worldgorger mana or blinks. These are not necessary in my opinion.

Torment of Hailfire, Cut // Ribbons, Exsanguinate, Comet Storm, Sunscorched Desert, Stensia Bloodhall.

The reason is that with Anje Falkenrath and infinite Worldgorger Dragon blinks you can literally filter through your entire deck. Anje Falkenrath can discard ANY card, it doesn't even need to have madness, because she gets exiled and comes back into play with haste with the Gorger combo.

We already have a win condition with Avacyn's Judgment and to a slightly lesser extent From Under the Floorboards.
If you've already discarded these earlier on to filter then there is Shadow of the Grave that will get them back.

So instead of playing these unnecessary cards you can go for draw efficient cards to get you out of situations where you've run out of madness cards, which should be the only time you fail.

I'm going to try goldfishing a version and make the below changes.

Add

• Faithless Looting
• Magmatic Insight
• Burning Inquiry
• Winds of Change
• Cathartic Reunion
• Tormenting Voice
• Barren Moor
• Forgotten Cave

Remove

• Torment of Hailfire
• Cut // Ribbons
• Exsanguinate
• Comet Storm
• Sunscorched Desert
• Stensia Bloodhall
• Demonic Consultation
• Tainted Pact

[Rumpy5897]

Huh, I was expecting a ton of super early mana rocks (Lotus Petal, Mox Amber?) to help get the party rolling as quickly as possible. darrenhabib's observation on not needing that many dedicated finishers is correct, but in a classic "what if?" counterpoint - what if you had to pitch both madness finishers and used up Shadow of the Grave en route to getting the combo online? As such, it'd probably be safe to keep a single one (I'm leaning towards Comet Storm due to the instant speed, but an argument could be made for Cut // Ribbons) just in case. You won't need to prematurely pitch it to keep the combo dig chain going.

[Guerte]

Huh, I was expecting a ton of super early mana rocks (Lotus Petal, Mox Amber?) to help get the party rolling as quickly as possible. darrenhabib's observation on not needing that many dedicated finishers is correct, but in a classic "what if?" counterpoint - what if you had to pitch both madness finishers and used up Shadow of the Grave en route to getting the combo online? As such, it'd probably be safe to keep a single one (I'm leaning towards Comet Storm due to the instant speed, but an argument could be made for Cut // Ribbons) just in case. You won't need to prematurely pitch it to keep the combo dig chain going.

Fast mana rocks could definitely be an option; I opted to not include them cuz some tend to get pricey if I decided to build this in paper (like Mox Diamond). I would sub out Badlands and the fetches for basics and Mana Vault for Mana Crypt in that scenario.

Barring budget constraints, any ideas as to safe cuts for said fast mana rocks?

Comet Storm could be a viable secondary option for an outlet in which I wouldn't have to have a second creature in the bin to stop the combo.

[darrenhabib]

Huh, I was expecting a ton of super early mana rocks (Lotus Petal, Mox Amber?) to help get the party rolling as quickly as possible. darrenhabib's observation on not needing that many dedicated finishers is correct, but in a classic "what if?" counterpoint - what if you had to pitch both madness finishers and used up Shadow of the Grave en route to getting the combo online? As such, it'd probably be safe to keep a single one (I'm leaning towards Comet Storm due to the instant speed, but an argument could be made for Cut // Ribbons) just in case. You won't need to prematurely pitch it to keep the combo dig chain going.

You also have Bloodhall Priest. You should be able to get "hellbent" with Worldgorger combo. You can cast all the spells from your hand, so only lands are the sticking point, and you can just keep discarding lands with Anje Falkenrath, so eventually you'll get an all spells hand.

The other thing is that at the point that you assemble the Worldgorger combo, you are actually casting the rest of the spells in your deck. Sure a lot of them are underwelming, but if it's like turn 3 or 4, which is likely, then still flooding the board with creatures is still probably going to be too much for opponents a lot of games. They need mass creature removal or bust.
Plus you have access to removing their creatures with infinite Nightshade Assassin blinks.

If you actually wanted more insurance then technically I would say that Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed is the best card. It can recover a number of win conditions, including getting Shadow of the Grave if you had used that to keep the train rolling.
The main reason it's probably the best because you have a number of return creature cards from graveyard in Grave Scrabbler, Call to the Netherworld, Restless Dreams. This means that even if Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed got discarded along the way or whatever, then you have access to it.
With infinite mana you can actually loop all your madness cards infinite this way by getting back Shadow of the Grave and then getting back Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed with the return creature madness cards. You can Fiery Temper your opponents to death for example.
You also have a little bit more access to Xiahou due to Entomb and then using Grave Scrabbler, Call to the Netherworld, Restless Dreams.

I agree on the artifact mana. I would play some over the lands. Most games you are hoping to "cast" two spells that whole game.
Anje Falkenrath and then Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead/Necromancy.
So I wouldn't get too carried away, but I think I'd go Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Lotus Petal.
Now there is a good argument that Sol Ring and Mana Crypt might actively be bad in this deck for the reason that I mentioned you are only wanting to cast 2 spells and colorless mana is horrible to draw during when you are filtering.
The Anje Falkenrath and then Animate Dead are probably not being cast in the same turn either as it'll most likely be 5 mana (1rb+1b). More likely is that you cast out Anje Falkenrath and wait till you get to untap (with lands), and then go off with the 3 mana you already had.
Maybe Mana Crypt is good enough, but honestly Sol Ring I think is pretty weak, I think think I'd prefer to play a Thoughtseize instead to clear the way of potential disruption from a player.
On that note maybe a discard suite will help and might just be better than trying to fight off disruption with the likes of Pyroblast. Red Elemental Blast, Imp's Mischief, as you need to hold up mana which is going to be very unlikely a lot of games. At least discard can be done proactively in the previous turns freeing up mana. Thoughtseize, Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek are the best for early interaction.

I haven't actually put a deck together yet, Anje Falkenrath is like $17 tix on Magic Online, so put me off. But the thing is that there might in fact be too many madness cards and/or draw cards. Until you goldfish to see what sort of hit/miss on the indefinite filtering it's hard for me to remove any madness cards. But it might be that you can trim on them for more interactive/proactive cards.

Necropotence is a really tricky one in this deck. I know you can get around the exile effect with madness cards by casting them, but it's actually the Worldgorger Dragon where you have the problem. You can't discard the Worldgorger without it getting exiled. So the only card you can use is Entomb and that's only if you haven't drawn the Worldgorger already. You could cast Psychotic Episode in this instance on yourself to put it back into your library, but it does make winning much more complicated.

These are the changes I would make upon more thought.

Add

• 1 Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
• Thoughtseize
• Duress
• Inquisition of Kozilek
• Mox Diamond
• Chrome Mox
• Lotus Petal

Remove

• Necropotence
• Sol Ring
• Imp's Mischief
• Street Wraith
• Swamp
• Swamp
• Mountain

[darrenhabib]

There are 40 madness cards you can play, so 40% of the deck. You are likely to have around 3 madness cards in your hand around the time you cast Anje Falkenrath around turn 2 or 3. Even if you gave yourself a 50% chance of replacing madness cards, you'll only get 6 cards deeper on average and that's only the first time. Then you are top decking again.
That's not really very good too be honest. You can see how the draw cards are vital to keep any semblance of further traction going on subsequent turns.
Now that I think about it mathematically, I don't think it's really a concept that's going to work.

There needs to be some more meat into the general concept of the deck.

I'm think some more reanimation cards and then Garna, the Bloodflame and Underworld Cerberus can be used to get back cards you discarded.

Reanimation cards. Reanimate, Exhume, Goryo's Vengeance, Living Death, Balthor the Defiled.

Bone Miser to get further draw from the non-creatures you discard.

Empty the Catacombs to return creature madness cards on mass.

Reaping the Graves is probably not quite good enough.

I think you need Mesmeric Orb in order to fuel the above cards more consistently as well.

[EDIT]
Did some more research.

Chains of Mephistopheles can be used to filter non-madness cards.

Alhammarret's Archive to double up on draw giving twice the chance of success in filtering.

Tectonic Reformation to cycle lands.