The Fish Tank: Sweet and Spicy User-Submitted Decks (Nov. 10-16, 2019)

Welcome back to The Fish Tank, the series where we take a peek at sweet viewer-submitted decks and maybe, with our powers combined, turn them into real, fun, playable lists! This week, we have lists that run the gauntlet from Standard to Pioneer to Modern, with a bunch ofF spicy combos, so let's get to the lists! Oh yeah, and to have your own deck considered for next week's edition (and for our Fishbowl Thursday Instant Deck Tech), make sure to leave a link in the comments or email them to me at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.

Standard

Dance of the Manse has already seen some play in Standard as a finisher with Doom Foretold, but as DragouleDoomcaster's deck shows, there's more than one way to take advantage of reanimating a bunch of cheap artifacts and enchantments from your graveyard. The main goal is to flood the board with cheap artifacts and enchantments, blow them all up with Rampage of the Clans to make a board full of 3/3 Centaurs, and then reanimate all of the artifacts and enchantments with Dance of the Manse and maybe even make them into 4/4 creatures, if we have enough mana! Apart from the ability to make huge boards full of creatures, one thing I like about Dance of the Clans is that it gets to run four main-deck copies of Sorcerous Spyglass, which is one of the best answers to cards like Oko, Thief of Crowns and Nissa, Who Shakes the World. Most decks can't get away with this because Sorcerous Spyglass can be a dead card in other matchups, but in Dance of the Clans, when Sorcerous Spyglass is bad, at least it ends up a 3/3 Centaur and maybe a 4/4 beater! If you're looking for something different and spicy to play in Standard while we're waiting for the format to change, Dance of the Clans looks like a fun option. I have no idea whether it's actually competitive, so if you end up trying some games, make sure to let me know how they went in the comments!

Pioneer

So far, Pioneer has been a relatively fair format, but that doesn't mean that people aren't trying to break it with Turn 3 combos behind the scenes. Take, for example, this combo deck from KaiserChronic. The main goal is to set up the infinite loop of Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle, Metallic Mimic, Walking Ballista, and Salvager of Ruin, which gives us infinite damage by setting Metallic Mimic on Construct, casting Walking Ballista X = 0 (but it will come into play with one +1/+1 counter thanks to Metallic Mimic), pinging our opponent for one, and using Salvager of Ruin to return Walking Ballista to our hand. Then, when we cast Walking Ballista X = 0 again, Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle allows us to reanimate Salvager of Ruin to continue the loop for infinite damage! While this combo does require a lot of pieces to go off, we have Emry, Lurker of the Loch, Board the Weatherlight, and Witching Well to help find them. With a bit of luck, we can win the game as early as Turn 3 thanks to extra mana from Mox Amber!

Speaking of combos, with the printing of Lotus Field in Core Set 2020, Twiddle Storm became a deck in Modern. While the lack of Twiddles is problematic, with some careful deck building, Dylanmtg (and also ritual ritual who submitted a similar list) is looking to bring the combo to Pioneer! Since our Twiddles cost two mana (Hidden Strings and Vizier of Tumbling Sands), the way we go infinite is a bit convoluted. First, we need to not only get a Lotus Field but hopefully also copy it with Thespian's Stage so we have two Lotus Fields on the battlefield. Once we get to that point, Hidden Strings will generate four mana (we spend two to cast it but untap both Lotus Fields, which we can tap for six), while Vizier of Tumbling Sands makes one extra mana when we cycle it. This should get us enough mana to start drawing cards (and untapping Lotus Fields) with Pore Over the Pages, find more copies of Hidden Strings, and eventually Doublecast to copy Hidden Strings. With the help of cards like Finale of Revelation, Opt, and Shimmer of Possibility, we will draw through our deck and eventually generate enough mana when we can cast Apex of Power and then Banefire for lethal! While the plan is convoluted, it does seem like a really sweet way to win a game of Pioneer. The only question is how fast the plan will come together since we don't really have interaction to slow down our opponent, leaving us in a position where we need to goldfish for the win before getting run over by our opponent's threats. Oh yeah, one last thing: Tale's End to Stifle Lotus Field's enters-the-battlefield trigger is cute, although I have no idea if it's actually good in the deck. 

Speaking of updating Modern decks for Pioneer, how about Hollow One? While the lack of Faithless Looting means that Pioneer Hollow One will never be as fast as Modern Hollow One at its peak, because the format is slower, multiple free 4/4s on Turn 2 or 3 could be just fine. Cathartic Reunion, Thrill of Possibility, and Collective Brutality are our main enablers; then, surprisingly, most of the creatures from Modern Hollow One actually exist in Pioneer, so we can build huge Flameblade Adepts, get back free Flamewake Phoenixs, or cast 5/5 Gurmag Anglers for one mana. The end result is a deck that looks pretty powerful. While graveyard hate is a concern, worst case, we can beat down with Hazoret the Fervent and Rotting Regisaur after sideboarding. If you were a Modern Hollow One player, the archetype looks at least good enough to give a shot in Pioneer, and Dredge_89's build seems like a solid starting point.

Modern

ArsonWyrm's Heartless Myr takes a classic jank combo and updates it with the help of some powerful snow cards from Modern Horizons. If you've never seen the combo before, the main goal is to stick Heartless Summoning and then find two copies of Myr Retriever, which we can loop endlessly since Heartless Summoning makes them cost two less (so they are free) while also giving them −1/−1 (so they die when they enter the battlefield). If we throw Altar of the Brood into the mix, perhaps by tutoring it up with Trinket Mage, we can simply mill our opponent out of the game on the spot! While the deck looks solid in general, having a bit more graveyard hate in the sideboard seems important since something like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn fizzles our combo by shuffling our opponent's graveyard back into their library when it is milled, which leaves us in the awkward position of trying to win by beating down with 1/1 Mulldrifters and Trinket Mages. 

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today! If you have some ideas for these lists, make sure to leave them in the comments, and if you have a deck you want considered for next week's Fish Tank, leave that as well! As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.