The Fish Tank: Ikoria Edition (April 5 to April 11, 2020)

Welcome back to The Fish Tank, the series where we peek at sweet viewer-submitted decks and maybe, with our powers combined, turn them into real, fun, playable lists! This week, we're right in the middle of Ikoria spoilers, and people seem hyped to build around the new set, so we'll be focusing exclusively on decks featuring Ikoria cards! 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

When Mark Rosewater teased the biggest aura in Magic's history coming in Ikoria, everyone immediately thought of Storm Herald. Well, now that we've seen the aura—Colossification—we know that it does offer the potential of a one-shot kill with Storm Herald, granting the enchanted creature an epic +20/+20, but it requires some extra work since Colossification taps the creature it enchants when it comes into play. How can we get around this drawback? BraveArcher325's plan is to put Storm Herald into play with Ilharg, the Raze-Boar. By the time Storm Herald comes into play, Ilharg, the Raze-Boar will already be tapped and attacking, so we can put Colossification on it with no drawback, making Ilharg a 26/26 trampler, which should kill our opponent with just one hit!

Mythos of Snapdax reads like a card that is designed to blow out your opponent by wrathing away all but their worst of each permanent type (assuming you have Mardu mana), but can it also be a combo piece? That's what beard1992 is looking to find out with their Mothra Recursion Control deck. The deck's main idea is to build a big board state of creatures, including a Luminous Broodmoth, and then resolve Mythos of Snapdax to sacrifice all of our non–Luminous Broodmoth creatures, returning to play some combination of Charming Princes, Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, Bonecrusher Giants, and Snapdax, Apex of the Hunt, generating a pile of triggers and hopefully emptying the opponent's hand with Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger. This should allow us to win by beating down with our random creatures while our opponent is left with little of relevance on the battlefield thanks to Mythos of Snapdax. Apart from the combo, the deck looks like a solid attempt at Mardu Midrange, with a bunch of creatures that seem like solid standalone threats, which means we should be able to pick up some wins fairly as well. 

Pioneer

One of the Ikoria cards getting the most hype is Luminous Broodmoth. Played fairly, Luminous Broodmoth offers a way to protect non-flying creatures from removal, but played unfairly, perhaps with the help of Solemnity, Luminous Broodmoth offers some interesting combo potential. The idea of Talespinner Lore's Unflying Combo deck is to get Luminous Broodmoth onto the battlefield with Solemnity, which essentially makes all of our non-Broodmoth creatures invincible, with Luminous Broodmoth returning them to the battlefield when they die and Solemnity preventing them from getting the flying counter. This allows us to sacrifice Dauntless Bodyguard to sacrifice itself an infinite number of times (or Cartel Aristocrat to sacrifice another creature an infinite number of times), draining our opponent out of the game with Cartel Aristocrat and Zulaport Cutthroat! While the deck does need three combo pieces to go off, it also has some redundancy, with Idyllic Tutor finding Solemnity and Dauntless Bodyguard and Cartel Aristocrat being mostly interchangeable. With the best draws, the deck can go infinite as early as Turn 4, which is pretty fast for a format like Pioneer!

While Lutri, the Spellchaser has already been deemed too good for Commander, maybe it's just good enough for some Pioneer jank? The idea of Mothin's Release the Lutri deck is to use Release to the Wind along with Lutri, the Spellchaser (or as a backup, Naru Meha, Master Wizard) to generate an infinite number of enters- / leaves-the-battlefield triggers and drain the opponent out of the game with Impact Tremors or Outpost Siege. So, how do we loop Lutri, the Spellchaser with Release to the Wind? The idea is to cast Release to the Wind and, while it is on the stack, cast Lutri, the Spellchaser to copy it, exiling Lutri. Then, with the first copy of Release to the Wind still on the stack, we can cast Lutri, the Spellchaser for free (triggering Impact Tremors or Outpost Siege along the way), copy the first Release to the Wind again, use the copy to exile Lutri, the Spellchaser, and keep repeating the process until our opponent's life total hits zero! The same plan works with Naru Meha, Master Wizard, although Lutri, the Spellchaser is strictly better since it costs one less mana, meaning we need a total of six mana to go infinite rather than seven. While I'm not sure how consistent the plan will be (a removal spell on Lutri, the Spellchaser in response to Release to the Wind can fizzle it), it should be spectacular when it comes together!

Modern

Finally, we head to Modern today for a deck built around Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast. If there is one thing we've learned about Modern over the years, it's that cheating Emrakul, the Aeons Torn into play early in the game is a good way to pick up wins. Well, Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast's −2 ability offers a really unique way to get the job done. The trick here is that all of the non-Emrakul creatures in our deck only cost one mana, which means we know that if we can −2 Lukka, we'll end up with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn since it's the only higher-converted-mana-cost creature in our deck. With the help of all of our mana dorks and rituals, it's possible that we can drop Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast and turn something into an Emrakul as early as Turn 2, and we're likely to do it by Turn 3, assuming we have Lukka in our opening hand. The only issue with the deck is consistency. If we don't have a Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast, our deck is mostly a bunch of mana dorks and rituals, so the rewards of a potential Turn 2 Emrakul comes with a lot of risk—our deck does very close to nothing if our opponent has Thoughtseize or we can't mulligan into Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast. Still, anytime a new card can potentially give you a Turn 2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, it's worth noting!

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for this week! If you have any ideas on how to improve these decks, make sure to let us know in the comments, and if you have a deck you want to be considered for a future Fish Tank, leave that there as well! Thanks to everyone who sent in decks this week! 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.