Overview:

The deck revolves around The Infamous Cruelclaw, leveraging its combat-damage trigger to fuel discard synergies and cast spells via madness/alternate costs. It focuses on incremental value through discard payoffs like Surly Badgersaur and Archfiend of Ifnir, supported by high-impact creatures and reanimation finishers like Rise of the Dark Realms. The strategy is midrange, aiming to disrupt opponents with removal while building toward overwhelming board states.

Primer:

Core Strategy:

1. Early Setup: Deploy 1–2 mana accelerants (e.g., Sol Ring, Arcane Signet) to cast Cruelclaw by turn 3–4. Protect it with equipment like Lightning Greaves or Whispersilk Cloak to enable consistent triggers.
2. Discard Engine: Use Cruelclaw’s combat damage to exile nonland cards, casting them via discard. Madness spells (Big Game Hunter, Fiery Temper) and value engines (Containment Construct, Surly Badgersaur) convert discards into removal, treasures, or +1/+1 counters.
3. Midgame Threats: Drop high-impact creatures (Drakuseth, Maw of Flames, Maha, Its Feathers Night) using treasure mana or reanimation (Defossilize). Overwhelm with extra combats (Karlach, Fury of Avernus) or stax-like effects (Maha, Its Feathers Night reducing opponents’ creatures to 1 toughness).
4. Endgame: Close with Rise of the Dark Realms or Breach the Multiverse to steal opponents’ graveyards, or Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest exiling multiple cards for burn damage.

Mulligan Priorities:

• 3 lands (prioritize untapped sources).
• 1–2 ramp pieces or protection for Cruelclaw.
• At least 1 discard payoff (e.g., Surly Badgersaur, Archfiend of Ifnir).
  Avoid hands lacking early ramp or discard synergies.

Key Tips:

• Prioritize equipping Cruelclaw with evasion/protection to ensure triggers.
• Save madness spells for Cruelclaw’s triggers to bypass mana costs.
• Use Massacre Wurm and Shefet Archfiend to clear boards before deploying threats.

Weaknesses:

Critical

• Relies on commander: Multiple removals on Cruelclaw cripple the engine.
• Graveyard vulnerability: Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void disrupts madness, recursion, and finishers.

Moderate

• Slow recovery: Limited recursion for noncreature permanents.
• High mana curve: Struggles under stax like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.

Minor

• Moderate interaction: Lacks free counterspells; relies on sorcery-speed removal (Hagra Mauling).

Most Important Cards:

• Surly Badgersaur
• Containment Construct
• Archfiend of Ifnir
• Maha, Its Feathers Night
• Rise of the Dark Realms
• Massacre Wurm
• Shefet Archfiend
• Drakuseth, Maw of Flames
• Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest
• Karlach, Fury of Avernus

Attribute Ratings:

Speed: 5/10
Can deploy Cruelclaw by turn 3–4 but requires setup for game-ending plays (T8–10).

Resilience: 4/10
Heavily commander-dependent; limited protection beyond equipment.

Consistency: 5/10
Madness redundancy and card draw from Tome of Legends, but few tutors.

Interaction: 5/10
Moderate removal (Noxious Gearhulk, Shriekmaw) but lacks counterspells.

Rating Justification:

The deck operates as a midrange Casual build with clear synergies but lacks the speed, redundancy, and protection of higher tiers. Its reliance on combat damage for value and high curve place it below optimized lists.

Power level: 4.0 - 4.5