18/08/2026
Last Thursday, we headed up to Robins Hobby Cafe in Belfast for their MTG Premodern night, and it’s great to see a local scene starting to get established. Hopefully, it’s something that continues to grow.
It was great fun playing something a bit different with my Green-White Madness/Mad Dogs deck.
Round 1 – Sly, Red Deck Wins: 2-1
Red really struggles against the creatures in this deck. It just doesn’t have enough direct damage to deal with them, especially when that damage needs to be going at my life total instead. In some ways, it was a fairly comfortable win.
Round 2 – Loïc, Angels/Cycling: 0-2
Probably my favourite game of the night was the first one against Loïc. The deck did exactly what I wanted it to do. I was getting creatures out early by discarding cards, while actually being rewarded for doing it.
Having Glory in the graveyard and being able to give my creatures protection was huge. Glory was an absolute workhorse and was worth its weight in gold.
I made a few mistakes and was just edged out in the first game. The second game was close again. I got the pressure on, but Loïc managed to get his Angels down and was just gaining all his life back. I simply couldn’t find those last couple of points of damage.
Round 3 – The Rock: 0-2
This was where the deck really struggled.
How can you be a Madness deck if you can’t actually discard anything? 😂
The first game went pretty badly. After sideboarding, I managed to get a Mystic Enforcer down and establish a bit of a board presence, but eventually I had to sacrifice it and that was pretty much the game.
Having played the deck, I’d probably make a couple of changes. I think I’d get rid of the Anurid Brushhopper and put another Glory into the main deck. The sideboard did okay, but I think it needs a bit of a rethink as well.
Final Standings
1st – Standstill
2nd – Slide
3rd – Moneyball
4th – The Rock
5th – Stiflenaught
6th – GW Madness
7th – UG Madness
8th – Burn
So I finished 6th with GW Madness. Not the result I was hoping for, but honestly, I’m pretty happy with how the deck played. There were definitely things I’d change, but it did what I wanted it to do in a lot of the games.
You learn a lot more in defeat than you do in victory, and that’s one of the things I really like about Premodern. You learn something from pretty much every game.
Great night, great players and good to see some new faces. I’m really enjoying playing something completely different, and it’s brilliant to see a local Premodern scene starting to take shape and a big thank you to Robins.
