The Fish Tank: Dominaria United Week (September 18-24, 2022)
Welcome back to The Fish Tank, the series where we sneak a peek at sweet viewer-submitted decks and maybe, with our powers combined, turn them into real, fun, playable lists! This week, we've got sweet brews for Standard all the way back to Pioneer! What spice did you all send in? Let's find out. Oh yeah, if you want your deck considered for next week's edition of The Fish Tank, leave a link in the comments, or you can email it to me at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
Standard
In Standard, Correntis is looking to drive to some wins with Esper Vehicles! We've seen Greasefang, Okiba Boss be extremely powerful in older formats, and even though we don't have a vehicle on the level of Parhelion II to cheat into play with the Rat in Standard, it can still be a very powerful value engine. The idea is to use Guardian of New Benalia and Tezzeret, Betrayer of Flesh to discard Vehicles like Reckoner Bankbuster, Surgehacker Mech, Unlicensed Hearse, and even Mechtitan Core and then get them back onto the battlefield for free with Greasefang. At the end of turn, we'll bounce the Vehicle back to hand so we can discard it and do it again the next turn. This is especially impressive with Surgehacker Mech, which should be able to kill our opponent's best creature or planeswalker each turn! I've been messing around with Vehicle a bit myself, and I will say that I don't find Hotshot Mechanic very impressive. I've been playing Fleeting Spirit instead, and it seems perfect for a Greasefang Vehicle deck, giving us another way to discard our Vehicles, a three-power crewer, and a hard-to-deal-with threat thanks to its ability to flicker itself. It's also worth mentioning that Vehicles line up pretty well with Standard's black-heavy meta, dodging things like Liliana of the Veil, The Meathook Massacre, and some sorcery-speed removal. If you're looking for something different to try in Standard, give Vehicles a shot!
If Vehicles aren't your thing, then Rose W. has a really interesting take on mono-red for Standard in Mono-Red Artifacts! While the deck is, at its heart, a Mono-Red Aggro list, it has a lot of really cool artifact-based synergies. First and foremost, Defiler of Instinct lets us cast a big chunk of the cards in our deck for free, including artifacts like Reinforced Ronin and Experimental Synthesizer, which in turn grow our Patchwork Automaton while also giving us some free Defiler damage. We can also grind out value with Containment Construct allowing us to cast the cards we discard to Voldaren Epicure's blood token or Fable of the Mirror-Breaker's rummaging ability. After playing with Dragonspark Reactor on this week's Against the Odds, I almost wonder if there is a way to fit that into the deck as another artifact payoff and finisher. Either way, the deck looks super unique for being a Mono-Red Aggro list and has a lot of unique synergies to mess around with!
Explorer
First up in Explorer (or Pioneer), NajeelaSwordFTW's looking to combo off with Meria, Scholar of Antiquity and Paradox Engine! Even as a five-mana artifact, Paradox Engine has been close to being a competitive combo piece in the past, and now, going infinite with it is much, much easier thanks to Meria. The idea is to get some random artifacts on the battlefield, ranging from Ornithopter to Mox Amber to Prophetic Prism, and get Meria, Scholar of Antiquity and Paradox Engine onto the battlefield. We can tap all of our artifacts to make a bunch of mana and then cast a spell to untap them, generating an absurd amount of mana. If we ever fizzle on having a spell to cast, we can tap artifacts to impulse draw cards with Meria, Scholar of Antiquity's second ability or use Paradoxical Outcome to pick up all of our free artifacts, draw a bunch of cards, and then recast them. Eventually, we'll find Aetherflux Reservoir to finish the game storm style! The deck is a true combo deck—it doesn't really play any interaction at all in the main deck, instead trusting that it will be able to combo off before the opponent manages to win the game. Is it fast enough to be truly competitive? I'm not sure, but it does look super sweet, fun to play, and worth testing, at the very least!
Speaking of Explorer, Johnny R. is mutating but with a Dominaria United twist, with Ivy Mutate! Much of the deck looks like past mutate lists, with all of the good mutate creatures, but there are two fun twists. First is Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief, which can double up our mutate creatures once it's on the battlefield. If we mutate on something other than Ivy, we'll also mutate a token copy of the mutate creature on Ivy itself, making it, in a weird way, mutate-Panharmonicon. If that's not enough, we can use Vesuvan Duplimancy to make copies of our mutate piles as we target our creatures! Perhaps even more hilarious are the planeswalkers. Sarkhan the Masterless can turn our planeswalkers into creatures, which allows us to mutate onto them and also make copies of them with Vesuvan Duplimancy. No one knows for sure what happen after this, but it should be fun to find out! (Note: We actually do know what happens if you mutate on a planeswalker, and it mostly depends on if you put the mutate creature on the top or the bottom. The most beneficial plan is to put the creature on top, which will give you a creature with the planeswalker's abilities, so you'll still be able to get planeswalker value, but your opponent won't be able to attack the planeswalkers. If you put the creature on the bottom, you end up with a planeswalker with the creature's abilities, which generally isn't all that beneficial).
Pioneer
In Pioneer, The Forbidden Alchemist is playing an interesting twist on Mono-Black Control built around Tergrid, God of Fright. While much of the deck is a pile of removal, discard, and sweepers, there are a couple of really sweet ways to potentially steal a bunch of the opponent's permanents with Tergrid. First is Invoke Despair, which we've seen be super powerful in Standard, but it's even better with a Tergid on the battlefield since you'll snag all the the permanents your opponent sacrifices. Even more spectacular is Torment of Hailfire, which we can cast with Cabal Stronghold mana! If it doesn't kill the opponent outright, we should end up with a battlefield full of the permanents the opponent discards and sacrifices! If you're not already sick of black decks because of Standard Mono-Black, Tergrid looks like a really interesting take on control for Pioneer!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today! Thanks to everyone who sent in their sweet and spicy brews! If you want your own deck considered for the next edition of The Fish Tank, leave a link in the comments, or you can email me the deck at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
