The Fish Tank: November 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! In this edition, we have a bunch of Standard along with a bit of Explorer, Pioneer, and Modern! 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
First up in Standard, we have a spicy Chaotic Transformation deck from William Deck. The idea is to overload on cards that are not artifacts or creatures but make artifact tokens or creature tokens, like Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, Azusa's Many Journeys, The Wandering Emperor, and Saheeli, Filigree Master. Once we get up to six mana, we can sacrifice an artifact and a creature (and if we want to, an enchantment, for value) to Chaotic Transformation, which will get us our one real creature (Titan of Industry) and our one real artifact (Portal to Phyrexia), which will hopefully be enough to win us the game! While the four-color mana base is ambitious and Saheeli, Filigree Master without any blue lands scares me a bit, the deck looks like it should be pretty powerful when it can find and resolve a Chaotic Transformation!
Meanwhile, in Standard, Robert C. is building around one of the sleeper cards from The Brothers' War, Queen Kayla bin-Kroog. The three-drop looks powerful, but so far, I haven't seen anyone playing it in Standard. The goal is to overload on creatures and artifacts that cost one, two, and three mana to maximize the power of Queen Kayla's activated ability. When things go well, we can loot away our hand and reanimate six mana worth of artifacts and creatures for just four mana, which is a great deal, and doubly so when we can potentially be doing this every turn! Eventually, this should allow us to overwhelm our opponent with a big board of small creatures, and with a bit of luck, we can even mutate Mishra, Claimed by Gix with Phyrexian Dragon Engine. Or, if we want an even spicier kill, we can Voltron Mechtitan Core by sacrificing the random artifact creatures that Queen Kayla bin-Kroog reanimates! One thing I really like about the deck is that even though it is built around Queen Kayla, it looks like it has a reasonable aggro plan for games when Kayla dies. The only card that's strange to me is Oni-Cult Anvil, which is missing some of its traditional support pieces. I assume the idea is to use it for value by fizzling removal spells that target our artifact creatures, although I'm not 100% sure that is worth the effort. Regardless, the deck looks super sweet and like it should be a blast to play!
Explorer
In Explorer, egbertian413 is looking to combo off with Danitha, Benalia's Hope and some spicy equipment. The main goal is to use Danitha, Benalia's Hope to equip itself with Helm of the Host in order to make non-legendary copies of itself. The copies can equip things like Colossus Hammer, Shadowspear, and Mirror Shield for free to make an unbeatably huge, lifelinking threat that should be able to Voltron the opponent out of the game. While the plan is probably a bit weak to instant-speed removal (Danitha, Benalia's Hope dying in response to its free-equip enters-the-battlefield ability is a blowout), when it works, it seems like a hilarious way to win a game of Explorer!
Pioneer
In Pioneer, we have a janky combo deck built around Cradle Clearcutter. You might remember an old combo deck built around Marwyn, the Nurturer where the idea was to pump it and untap it to make a ton of mana. Well, Cradle Clearcutter does essentially the same thing. The idea is that we can use cards like Phytoburst and Might of Murasa to grow and untap Clearcutter to make a bunch of mana. Once we get its power high enough, we can make infinite mana with Gauntlets of Light or High Alert to untap Cradle Clearcutter an infinite number of times with Energy Refractor, allowing us to turn Cradle Clearcutter's green mana into mana of any color. Once we make infinite mana, we can infinitely venture through dungeons with Secret Door, draw our deck with Spectral Sailor or Triskaidekaphile, and eventually use the latter to win the game by having 13 cards in hand on our upkeep! Is the plan competitive? Probably not—removal on Cradle Clearcutter mostly ruins our day, although it does seem like a spectacular Against the Odds–style win when it works!
Modern
One of the most interesting The Brothers' War cards for non-Standard formats is Diabolic Intent, which offers Modern players a Demonic Tutor, assuming their deck can afford to sacrifice a creature. Staxi_Boi has a budget-friendly plan for abusing the new tutor: Zombie Intent Combo! The primary goal is to find Thran Vigil, Putrid Goblin, and a sacrifice outlet like Altar of Dementia or Carrion Feeder with the help of Diabolic Intent. With this setup, we can sacrifice Putrid Goblin, and when it turns to the battlefield thanks to persist, we can use Thran Vigil to put a +1/+1 counter on it, which removes the –1/–1 counter from persist, letting us sacrifice Putrid Goblin again. If we have Altar of Dementia as our sac outlet, we win the game by milling our opponent out on the spot. Otherwise, we can draw through our deck with Undead Augur, grow massive Carrion Feeders and Champion of the Perisheds, and drain our opponent out of the game Blood Artist style with Plague Belcher. While graveyard hate does shut down our primary combo, the backup plan of beating down with random Zombies seems reasonable enough for games where we face a Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace. The best part is that the deck only costs $100, which means we might have to give it a try for Budget Magic!
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.
