Against the Odds: Two Hours of Turbo Spider Fog to Fall Asleep To
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Against the Odds! With Through the Omenpaths, we recently got three really spicy new Fogs on Arena, and you know what that means: it's Turbo (Spider) Fog time! Our goal today is simple: chain together Fogs like Tangle, Arachnogenesis, and Comeuppance each turn to prevent all damage, and then eventually win thanks to our opponent scooping in frustration or, if that doesn't work, with a single copy of Approach of the Second Sun! Can the plan work? Let's find out—and buckle up because it's going to be a long one!
Against the Odds: Turbo (Spider) Fog
The Deck
One of the weirdest parts of the special Marvel (or Through the Omenpaths) sheet released alongside the Spider-Man set is that it had three super-spicy Fogs that we've never gotten a chance to play with before since they have never been legal in constructed formats other than Legacy and Vintage. While all of these Fogs are a bit more expensive than literal Fog, they each come with massive upsides, which makes them more than worth building around. As I mentioned in the intro, the goal of our deck today is to let our opponent build a board and then simply Fog their damage every turn, which means these cards are essential to our deck. Without them, we literally die—and die quickly.
As far as the Fogs themselves, we kick things off with Tangle, which is almost a double Fog since it not only prevents all combat damage for a turn but also keeps all the attacking creatures tapped down for the next turn as well! Arachnogenesis is the reason I wanted to build this deck. The Spider-Fog is one of my favorite Commander Fogs, and it's absurd. For three mana, it not only prevents all damage from non-Spider creatures but also makes a 1/2 reach Spider token for each creature attacking us. In practice, this means Arachnogenesis is a Fog, a token producer, and even a removal spell (since we can block with the Spiders and kill something without losing them because only non-Spider damage is prevented). Finally, we have Comeuppance, which is our most expensive Fog, at four mana, but does a couple of unique things. First, it prevents non-combat damage, which is something none of our other Fogs can do. This means we can use it to fizzle storm kills and burn spells along with combat damage. Second, if the damage it prevents comes from a creature, the creatures deal damage to themselves rather than to us, which means that a lot of times, Comeuppance works like a Settle the Wreckage, not just preventing the damage but also wrathing our opponent's board.
We've also got some pseudo-Fogs. The only creature in our deck is Snapcaster Mage, which is essentially just another Fog since we can use it to flash back Tangle, Arachnogenesis, or Comeuppance. Cryptic Command is mostly known as a counterspell, but it's actually a Fog too since we can use it to tap down all of our opponent's creatures when they go to combat. Finally, The One Ring Fogs damage for a turn when it enters thanks to the protection it grants. But it's also our primary card-advantage engine, and drawing extra cards is incredibly important to a Turbo Fog deck. One of the problems with Fogs is that they cost us a card but don't actually remove any cards from our opponent's battlefield (outside of Comeuppance, sometimes). As such, we need to have a steady source of card advantage to make sure we keep drawing Fogs because if we miss Fogs for a single turn, our opponent will likely have a big enough board that we'll die to a single attack.
We also have a touch of hard removal and a few sweepers in case we need to deal with our opponent's board permanently. These cards are important because they can often buy us a turn or two without needing to Fog while our opponent rebuilds, which can give us a little bit of time to set up our card draw or finishers.
Growth Spiral and Explore offer a bit of ramp, which helps make up for the expense of some of our Fogs. Growth Spiral is especially strong since it is an instant. We can leave up mana in case we need to Fog, and if we don't need to fizzle any damage, we can use our mana to ramp with Growth Spiral.
Finally, when it comes to winning the game, we mostly are trusting that our opponent will scoop eventually once they realize that we're never going to let them deal us damage. But if we need to literally win the game, we have a single copy of Approach of the Second Sun. We can cast it, gain seven life, and then put it back in our deck seven cards from the top. And once we draw it and cast it again, we win the game on the spot! It works well with our Fogs since we can use them to prevent damage while we wait to draw the Approach. And it's also absurd with Consult the Star Charts, which, for two mana, can dig deep enough to find the Approach of the Second Sun from our library, allowing us to cast Approach of the Second Sun one turn, untap, and find it again with Consult to win the game the following turn.
Wrap-Up
Record wise, we went 4-2 with the deck for a solid 67% win rate, although in a small (but super-long) sample size of games. All of the new Fogs felt great, and we even managed to get a hilarious Comeuppance kill fizzling a High Noon activation! While the deck is pretty matchup dependent (our Fogs don't really do anything if we run into a creature-free control deck or something like Lotus Field Combo), a lot of the top decks in Historic are looking to win with creatures. And if our opponent's deck is mostly about attacking and blocking, Turbo Spider Fog is great!
Also, special shout-out to Arachnogenesis. The card felt incredibly powerful, to the point where I'm wondering if it should actually see play in generic decks. Most of the time, we managed to make at least three 1/2 Spiders, and a three-mana card that makes three 1/2s, prevents all damage, and maybe kills one of our opponent's creatures has to be good, right? I'm planning to experiment with it more in future decks, if not in the main then at least in the sideboard, but I think the card might actually be pretty legit!
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.
