Mad Scientist deck building is a concept I've learned and developed from top players. It is basically building something unorthodox, unordinary, extraordinary, etc. Building something so off the wall people look at you with raised eye-brows and raised curiosity. The first person I saw to build this way was Jihan or Goo on the ffg forums. This beast is mad crazy and inspired me and other top players such as Paul Bittner to build 80, 90, or even in my case 100 card decks!! These decks usually contain tons of damage reduction, life gain and mill/draw cards.

Now you might be asking yourself, isn't it a little more consistent, logical, not NUTS to build a 60 card deck? Why yes young jedi it is, but free your mind as Morpheus would say and let's see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

These type of builds are usually really potent and consistent off the all symbol, with the main culprits in the deck being Vast Resources to draw tons of cards, Military Rank with Revitalize, Blood Runs True are also mill cards in these decks. Just ask Omar or GouHadou about his voldo deck he won nationals with and he will tell you blood runs true was a mill card more than control check hacking for his deck. In block 3 look for the newly released bishamon promo to be wrecking havoc in your meta. Making checks off your deck and living behind huge brick walls of grey and green cards to deck you. 

I will present to you in this article, my take on the mad scientist build with ***Jon Talbain*** This dude is a beast, literally, he has two amazing static effects, that tie in with his foundation support to set up the before mentioned brick wall. The main culprits of this deck are Revitalize, Loner, The Beast Within and Vast Resources. Co-stars include bleeding internally and Cathedral Overlook, which lets you pick up cards from your staging area and put them in your hand. It is not fun facing a mill deck that recycles injury assets. Military rank is amazing as well, to pick up whatever you need from the huge graveyard a 100 card deck gives you. Trust me, it's like playing in the ball pit at McDonalds when your seven, it's going to be tons of fun for you and not so much for your parents, or opponents in this case. 

The one and only real weakness in my eyes to these decks is that they take a few turns to set up, and fast aggro can kill them turn 2, or maybe 3 if things go wrong. But even on that 2nd turn if you draw that Injury asset, you usually live or that rejection as well in some builds. But beyond the fourth turn of the game you better have something to reset the board or you are never touching them again unless the deck pilot makes a huge critical error, or if your deck can do something nuts like triple Feline Spike :)

Another huge advantage of running a deck like this is that you can get answers to almost anything your opponent can throw at you. Lynettes Shop is huge in these type of decks as well, because copying your opponents blood runs true, higher caliber, shinobi tradition(which is just WRONG with vast resources) is downright disgusting.

Also these builds with Seal of Cessation is amazing as well, as these decks can run Contemplation off of the Death symbol that the Seal of Cessation gives you. This turns these decks into mill monsters. Draw, draw, draw with vast then contemplate your opponent. Do you realize how amazingly jank that is :) Especially when combined with Jon Talbains free drop foundations down effect. Dropping that for free is really, really mean.

Also in Talbain Bleeding internally is better as all of talbain's effects are static. This is a huge advantage over most of the field who have to run broken leg instead(which lets your opponent commit 2 foundations) b/c you don't care if your character is committed and it also gets you around tag along, the biggest staple there is in this game for anyone that can run it.

Here is my take on a monster mill deck, the wolf man himself. 

101 cards TRIPLE DIGITS BABY!

1x***Jon Talbain*** 

Characters 3
3x Jon Talbain Promo

Assets 31
4x Bleeding Internally
4x Addes Syndicate
4x Seal of Cessation
3x Heishiang Jian
3x Olcadan's Mentoring
3x Lynette's Shop
3x Cathedral Overlook
3x Fatigues
2x Twilight Field
2x Stone Mail

Actions 10
2x Revitalize
4x Kung-Fu Training
4x Tag Along

Foundations 56
4x Vast Resources
4x Military Rank
4x The Red Cyclone of Mother Russia
4x Blood Runs True
4x The Beast Within
4x Loner
3x Evil Shunned
3x The Curse Broken
3x Roam The World
3x Chester's Backing
3x Independant Operative
3x Contemplation
3x Psycho Style
3x Cute and Innocent
3x Shinobi Tradition
3x The Red Lotus of the Sun
2x Blind Stance

Sideboard
3x Chinese Sword Style
3x Rejection
2x Broken Leg

The main craziness of the deck is the number of assets it runs. This forces your opponent into playing foundations on your turn and letting you build for free. Then once you have the game locked you can safely spam out your foundations. Then proceed to vast/shinobi and contemplate for free. Don't be surprised when you make you and your opponent draw 30 cards in one turn and then mill them completely with blind stance.

This deck is crazy, lets break it down card for card, better get a lunch ^_~

Characters

• Jon Talbain promo: makes you 9hs on token turns, Helps with absurd resource building and card advantage. Also is amazing when you are drawing up on your opponents turn.

Assets

• Bleeding Internally: This card is nuts in the wolf man, all his abilities are static.
• Addes Syndicate: Cancel any r your opponent plays. Protects your revitalize from KFT's etc.
• Seal of Cessation: Stops anything but an attack being played and a foundation being played into the card pool. NUFF SAID.
• Heishiang Jian: Stops olcadans dead. Also helps against opponents contemplations as it's an attack too.
• Olcadan's Mentoring: One of the best cards in the game. So good to get rid of any hate cards against you.
• Lynette's Shop: basically makes your opponent unable to play down some foundations or assets if they want to win :)
• Cathedral Overlook: OMG amazing, picks up your injury assets for you from staging area and is a awesome action that gains life!
• Fatigues: Amazing e on both sides of this card. Gets any block from grave on the asset side. NICE!!
• Twilight Field: Amazing life gain and a 0 dif asset. Helps with the Talbain asset lock.
• Stone Mail: Stops e damage pumps dead for discarding a card. Great at thinning your hand and helping you live!

Actions

• Revitalize: Amazing card draw and life gain. NUFF SAID, we all know how jank this card is. It will be the king of block 3.
• Kung-Fu Training: Stops actions dead, good block, symbols etc. Nuff said.
• Tag Along: Amazing recursion, picks up vast, military rank and shinobi from grave. Also stops opposing characters dead.

Foundations

• Vast Resources: Amazing draw/mill. Drop this baby down and go to work. Combo with blind stance for game :)
• Military Rank: We all know what this does as well, nuff said. Pulls back revitalize for uber lameness ^_^
• The Red Cyclone of Mother Russia: Just damage redux and a good block, plain and simple.
• Blood Runs True: Mills and mills some more. Also stops problem cards if you get it early.
• The Beast Within: Amazing static life gain for the wolf man and -2 damage reduction. 3/4 with no block but so worth it.
• Loner: Static damage reduction and -1 off it's e. 2/5 with a +1 mid block, definitely an auto include for the wolf.
• Evil Shunned: Great damage reduction and card draw. 2/5 + 2 mid block, yes please.
• The Curse Broken: Hate on any negation your opp does. Can combo with your own death seal to tap down your opponent. WOW.
• Roam the World: Helps against anything that can stop your draw, or anything you want to do on your turn. nuff said.
• Chester's backing: The best negation in the game, yes it really is. rolls a 6 with a +1 mid block.
• IndependentOperative: E commit: gain x vitality, x equals the number of cards in your hand. YES it really says that.
• Reprogrammed: Mill city combined with vast. Only playable off death seal, but it's viable in builds like this.
• Psycho Style: amazing board tap on both sides. helps against things that roam would go after as well and slows down aggro.
• Cute and innocent: -2 or -4 to an attack is good for mill. great block as well +0 low.
• Shinobi Tradition: An absolutely insane combo with vast resources. Too good not to play.
• Red lotus: Hates on any commit effect or infiltrating. Too good not to run. Esp when you can drop it down easy with wolfy.
• Blind Stance: Rolls a 2 but is the best mill card besides vast in the game. It and vast equal game for your opponent.

Sideboard: all tech against aggro and discard. just more mill with the discard hate and more reduction :)

So don't look down on mad scientist deck building, it first of all is amazingly fun and secondly works so well it's frightening. This deck has never lost a game for me and i've played it against so many dif decks. I am taking it to locals this weekend and I'll give you a tournament report in the next mad scientist article, which will also feature another crazy deck, it might even be all block 3, who knows?? I'm a mad scientist!! *cue evil laugh sound effect*

Fell free to reach me on the ffg forums at ScottGaines or at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Until next time may all your control checks be 5 or 6 and all your attacks not get rejected.

Thanks for reading,
Scott Gaines