The Fish Tank: Streets of New Capenna Edition (April 24-31, 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 is Streets of New Capenna week. All of the decks are built around spicy New Capenna cards, for formats ranging from Standard back to 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

Brokers Ascendancy is an interesting card. I'm not sure that putting a +1/+1 counter on each creature every turn is enough to make it worthwhile in Standard, but putting a loyalty counter on each planeswalker is unique. There just aren't many cards that add loyalty to planeswalkers, and even fewer are in Standard. Fiskerton is looking to take advantage of this ability with a Bant Superfriends deck. The goal is to play as many planeswalkers as possible, keep the board clean with removal and sweepers, and use Brokers Ascendancy to rush toward various planeswalker ultimates. If you like planeswalkers and tap-out control, Bant Superfriends seems like a really sweet option for Streets of New Capenna Standard!

Pioneer

In Pioneer, Theluvshak is revisiting a spicy old Standard combo: Eldrazi Displacer combo. If you've never seen the deck in action, the idea is to get Eldrazi Displacer onto the battlefield alongside Brood Monitor. Brood Monitor makes three Eldrazi Scion tokens (which we can sacrifice for colorless mana) when it enters the battlefield, which is exactly enough to activate Eldrazi Displacer to blink Brood Monitor, giving us three more tokens to do it again and again. The end result is infinite enters- and leaves-the-battlefield triggers, which means we gain infinite life if we have Prosperous Innkeeper on the battlefield and deal infinite damage if we have new Streets of New Capenna addition Witty Roastmaster! In general, the deck looks solid, although I do wish we had more ways to make colorless mana outside of Brood Monitor itself so that we could use Eldrazi Displacer for value while we get getting things set up. This is mostly just a Pioneer issue since only half of the painlands are legal in the format. Thankfully, this issue doesn't really impact the combo itself since, if we have Brood Monitor, it will make its own colorless mana. If you like sneaky creature synergies, Naya Displacer Combo looks like a fun option for Pioneer!

Ob Nixilis, the Adversary is one of the most hyped cards from Streets of New Capenna, and WeebMano has a really sweet way to take advantage of the planeswalker in Pioneer: A The Rack–style discard deck! The idea is to combine Ob Nixilis, the Adversary's +1 with Shrieking Affliction to punish the opponent for running low on cards in hand. Backing it up is a ton of discard spells, ranging from Devour Intellect to Thoughtseize. While I really like the idea, I do wonder if just four Shambling Ghasts and four Burglar Rats are enough creatures to support Ob Nixilis, the Adversary and Deadly Dispute. Finding a way to squeeze in a few more bodies to sacrifice might be a good idea. Regardless, it's exciting to see an actual Ob Nixilis, the Adversary brew, rather than just seeing the planeswalker jammed into a tier sacrifice list!

Modern

Meanwhile, in Modern, Andrew Huang is brewing with perhaps the best Modern card from Streets of New Capenna: Luxior, Giada's Gift. While the equipment can do a ton of cool things, Luxior Druid Combo is using it to go infinite with Devoted Druid. Since Luxior, Giada's Gift gives +1/+1 for each counter on the equipped creature, we can activate Devoted Druid to make a mana, untap it by putting a –1/–1 counter on it, and do this an infinite number of times (to make infinite mana) since Luxior essentially cancels out the –1/–1 counter. We can then win in any number of ways. Finale of Devastation lets us win with combat damage. Walking Ballista gives us infinite damage, Shalai, Voice of Plenty makes our creatures infinitely large, and Viridian Longbow (on Devoted Druid) gives us infinite pinging. While we've had Devoted Druid infinite-mana combos in the past, mostly involving creatures like Vizier of Remedies or Melira, Sylvok Outcast, using Luxior, Giada's Gift instead offers a huge upside: consistency! Since Luxior is an equipment, we can tutor it up with Stoneforge Mystic. Since it costs one mana, Urza's Saga can also tutor it up, and since it's an artifact, Karn, the Great Creator can snag a copy from our sideboard, which greatly increases our odds of finding both pieces of our combo. The list looks great, although it might be worth considering some number of Duskwatch Recruiters as another infinite-mana payoff (drawing our deck to find Walking Ballista for the win). Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised to find that this new build of Druid Combo is pretty good in Modern. With its best draws, it can win on Turn 3, which is more than fast enough to be competitive. It is true that creature removal can fizzle it, which is a bit of a concern in a world of Fury and Solitude. Regardless, if you want a safe bet for early best New Capenna deck in Modern, this might be it!

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. If you have some idea for how to improve these decks, make sure to let us know in the comments, and if you want your own deck considered for a future Fish Tank, leave a link there as well (or email it to me at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com). 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.