Madison Has the Best Jank

Mike Flores

In a typical Limited deck, you will have 15-18 lands, and some combination of 22-25 in-color spells that will almost always make the cut (Agonizing Demise, Rushing River, Tahngarth, Talruum Hero) and filler spells (Kavu Recluse, Phyrexian Reaper, Tundra Kavu).


It's in - no questions asked.
The above states the "typical" card selections for the "typical" Limited deck. However, there is another class of cards that sometimes makes the cut. This is the class that raises eyebrows from the opponent... no one is surprised when they see a Slimy Kavu or Crosis's Attendant in your deck... they know that you just had to throw in that Grey Ogre or other warm body because you didn't have quite the best spells or mana balance; you just needed to fill out the forty. It is the jank that surprises the opponent. It's the jank that wins a similarly surprising number of games.

Janky cards are not good. Janky cards are the Searing Rays that your opponent discards when you slam him with a turn-two Gerrard's Verdict. His teammate shakes his head and he explains that the only way he could possibly beat your broken draft is to punch through and hopefully win with that universally reviled red spell. No one thinks janky cards are good. Sometimes people say they're undervalued, but have specific applications. For example, Tony "the Shark" Tsai of Team Deadguy will tell you to play Whirlpool Rider when you have a Cavern Harpy... though Whirlpool Rider will sometimes be stuck in your hand at an inopportune time, he will nonetheless sometimes help you find a critical copy of Cavern Harpy and serve as a useful gating target for that selfsame broken animal.


You'll often snag this jank fifteenth
Not everyone will agree about the viability of these janky spells. Some players will shake their heads at your choice to play them. Other players will wreck their opponents with them. Another example of Tony Tsai's sucky spellcasting is Mind Extraction. I once saw the Shark play a u-w gold 2/2 and then sacrifice it to cast Mind Extraction in the u-w mirror. The opponent discarded six cards; clearly this was a worthwhile exchange. If you haven't heard of the wonders of Mind Extraction, that may be because janky spells are often regionally based. As they are generally not valued very highly, they don't see much play, and the word of their situational effectiveness has less opportunity to spread throughout the Magic universe. Some other examples of New York jank are Keldon Mantle in the r-b mirror match (if the opponent doesn't have Terminate, he's facing a nigh-unkillable Firebreather) and Daring Leap (or Neutral Ground "Kill your Silver Drake" tech).

Having spent the Pro Tour-New York 2001 weekend with such Wisconsin notables as Righteous Babe's own Brian Kowal and two-time Grand Prix Top 8 competitor Dustin Stern, I think I can safely say that for Invasion Block, in the "regional" sense of the word, Madison has the best jank.

Due to cheesy influence, I drafted with a ridiculous number of Reviving Doses. Reviving Dose doesn't look very good. While it is a cantrip card, it is a bit expensive for its not-quite-as-good-as-Healing Salve ability. Oddly enough, Reviving Dose also makes a lot of sense in some u-w, especially u-r-w Invasion Block draft decks.

I first saw Reviving Dose (and its little brother, Restrain) in action in one of Adrian Sullivan's draft decks at Grand Prix-Columbus. Adrian was playing a u-w control deck splashing double Breath of Darigaaz. If you look at the synergies between these cards, you can almost see that Reviving Dose and Restrain are almost as good as Repulse in this deck. Almost. You see, Repulse is a powerful tempo card that, from the defensive position, will save damage from about one offensive creature swing, but will also force the opponent to recast the creature and buy you a turn of mana tapping (or perhaps will open up a window for a counter-attack). Reviving Dose and Restrain are "bad Repulses" in the sense that they save about the same amount of damage, but also do not force the opponent to recast his threat. Because the opponent has free mana in the Reviving Dose/Restrain rather than Repulse situation, he can continue to play threats... if your deck has a bomb or two on the order of Breath of Darigaaz, you want the opponent to cast multiple creatures, and commit more of them to doom by your single resource. At the same time, the fact that these are cantrip spells is very helpful: they actually help to dig you to that critical Breath, or to find one of the mountains you are splashing to cast it. While Reviving Dose doesn't look very good, in the proper deck, its synergy is amazing.

As I said, many a Reviving Dose was drafted at last week's Pro Tour by Righteous Babe. Neither Brian or I was ever unhappy to play one. In most of my matches, I was running a u-w-based mid-range deck against a b-r- or g-r-based beatdown deck. In many cases, the Reviving Dose helped dig to a bomb that would handle multiple creatures, such as a Breath of Darigaaz or Teferi's Moat. In one case, it helped save me from my opponent's Life/Death alpha strike. In situations such as these, when the opponent commits powerful cards to an apparent kill, it is the jank that can save you: he doesn't expect you to be playing a silly thing like Reviving Dose, so he plays into exactly the wrong situation.

Just imagine an opponent sending a Magma Burst or Urza's Rage to your head for that critical last three points of damage. With a Reviving Dose, you just countered the best card in his deck... and drew a card. I'm certainly not saying that you should move a Samite Pilgrim, Hobble, or Aurora Griffin to the sideboard to make room for such jank as this, or Whirlpool Rider, or Daring Leap, but you would be surprised at the kind of effectiveness an unexpected cantrip has on your opponent's play, and consequently, his ability to win a close game.