Goldfish Gladiators: Momir Madness (Momir, Magic Arena)
by SaffronOlive // Jan 11, 2019
Welcome to Goldfish Gladiators! Last time we played Momir Madness on Arena, the format was dominated by its only nine-drop: Zacama, Primal Calamity. How has it changed with the addition of a new set of cards? Let's find out, as we wait for Ravnica Allegiance to be released and shake up Standard!
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Goldfish Gladiators: Momir Madness
If you're not familiar with the Momir format, we talk about the basics here.
Strategy
While I'm not going to write an entire article about Momir, the strategy has changed a bit since last time. Before Guilds of Ravnica, the format revolved solely around Zacama, Primal Calamity, with the first person getting the nine-drop Dinosaur being almost guaranteed to win the game. Now, we have three nine-drops in the format, so while getting the first Zacama, Primal Calamity is still great, there's more risk with the "rush to Zacama" plan, since you can whiff and hit a bad nine-drop instead.
That said, we still have one converted mana cost with a very powerful guaranteed hit: 10 mana with Impervious Greatwurm. My basic strategy for the current run of Momir Madness is to focus on getting to 10 mana and start making an Impervious Greatwurm every turn, which is pretty much unbeatable if you aren't too far behind on board. Of course, this is also dependent on who gets to play first. Getting the second Impervious Greatwurm is less exciting, since you're pretty much locked into using your Wurm on defense to block your opponent's Impervious Greatwurm.
As such, my plan for Momir Madness is to focus on getting to Impervious Greatwurm if I win the die roll, which means skipping as many drops in the early game as possible while not falling too far behind on board (you need to skip a total of five if you are on the play). Meanwhile, if you lose the die roll, your plan is to try to curve our starting at two mana and hopefully keep the opponent from being able to skip their early drops and get to nine or 10 mana for Zacama, Primal Calamity and Impervious Greatwurm.
Of course, this also depends on the opponent. A surprising number of Momir Madness players start by making one-drops and just make a creature every turn. This is a horrible strategy, since you run out of cards at seven mana and miss out on the most powerful, game-ending creatures in the format. While we did lose to a couple of one-droppers in our league, this was more because of blind luck strategy (they both managed to hit Tendershoot Dryad—arguably the best five-drop in the format—even though there are roughly 80 five-drops in Standard, so the odds are under 2%).
All in all, Momir Madness has gotten a lot better since its first run back in September. While the format is super-high variance, that's what you sign up for with Momir. For me, it's fun in small doses, but after a while, the variance gets me to the point of pulling my beard out, and I need to play something else. Still, if you're looking for a fun, random way to kill time until Ravnica Allegiance is released, Momir Madness is a solid option, even if the payout could be improved a bit (going 3-2 and losing gold is rough).
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
