The Fish Tank: Sweet and Spicy User Decks (May 17-23, 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've got an interesting mixture of decks from across formats, mostly featuring new Ikoria stuff! Let's talk about the decks. But first, 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

Ultimatums are some of the most interesting cards to build around from Ikoria, but their massive seven-mana price tags means it requires some ingenuity to even cast them. Weyjaw has an interesting plan for cheating Ultimatums into play on the cheap: Omnispell Adept. With the help of our companion Zirda, the Dawnwaker, Omnispell Adept can tap and, for just one mana, let us cast an instant or sorcery spell from our hand for free! This means that our various Ultimatums are suddenly just a single mana, and with the help of Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner's untap ability, we can potentially do this multiple times each turn. Of course, the plan comes with a downside: it revolves around having the five-drop Omnispell Adept stick around on the battlefield for a turn until we can activate it, which means removal and bounce effects can ruin our deck. But the turn should be pretty spectacular and maybe even game-winning if we ever get to untap with an Omnispell Adept!

As I'm sure you know, I'm a sucker for Yarok, the Desecrated and decks that draw a ton of cards, and Peter C.'s Sultai Nethroi Combo does both! The idea is to stock the graveyard with cards like Fiend Artisan, Cavalier of Thorns, Corpse Churn, and Tamiyo, Collector of Tales and eventually mutate Nethroi, Apex of Death to reanimate Yarok, the Desecrated, four Risen Reefs, four Leafkin Druids, and three Healer of the Glade, which should give us enough Risen Reef triggers to draw our entire deck and then win the game with Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. One of the deck's upsides is that it seems to have a pretty good fair game plan without the combo. Just casting Risen Reefs with Yarok, the Desecrated on the battlefield can generate a lot of card advantage, and cards like Brokkos, Apex of Forever and Cavalier of Thorns are solid threats on their own (and even more so when we play our companion Kaheera, the Orphanguard to pump them). 

Historic

Historic is a format on the rise, and InkStain is ready to take Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast to new heights in the format. The deck's idea is to overload on one-drops that do two things: make mana (like Arboreal Grazer, Gilded Goose, Llanowar Elves, and Skirk Prospector) or give haste (Torch Courier and Footfall Crater). We then play Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast, sacrifice a one-drop to get Drakuseth, Maw of Flames, and (hopefully) give it haste to immediately attack, sweep our opponent's board, and deal a ton of damage. If we can get our companion Obosh, the Preypiercer on the battlefield first, then a single attack from Drakuseth, Maw of Flames represents a massive 22 damage—enough to win the game on the spot. With the help of all of our mana dorks, we can potentially be casting Lukka as early as Turn 3 and then win the game by Turn 4, which is quite fast, even in a format like Historic. If you like Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast but are burnt out on Agent of Treachery shenanigans in Standard, Lukka-Seth seems like a fun way to take advantage of the planeswalker in Historic. And while consistency is probably an issue, the deck should be pretty powerful with the right draws.

Modern

While most people are excited about companions or mutate, some of our viewers are finding joy in some of the less obvious impacts of Ikoria. For example, the set offers a bunch of new support for Modern Fox Tribal. While I'm not sure how many games Fox Tribal can actually win (if any), as someone who appreciates janky tribes, I think the idea is fun enough to show off. Keep in mind that while the deck looks expensive, that's mostly because of Cavern of Souls and Windswept Heath in the sideboard. The price tag drops down near the budget range if you play an all-Plains mana base. If Ikoria can make Fox tribal a thing in Modern, what other underappreciated tribes does the set's mashup of keywords enable? If you have some ideas, make sure to leave them in the comments, and if we get some other sweet-but-janky Ikoria tribal decks, we'll feature them next week!

Bant Grandeur Lock from Jeremy S. is one of the more unique ways I've seen of locking someone out of a game (one of my favorite things to do in Magic) in quite a while. The deck's main goal is to get a copy of Oriss, Samite Guardian on the battlefield along with another copy in hand and a Genesis in the graveyard (with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Chart a Course, and Eladamri's Call helping us get all of this set up). This puts us in a position where we can discard our extra Oriss, Samite Guardian on our opponent's upkeep, thanks to grandeur, and make it so our opponent basically skips their turn (they can't play any spells or attack). Then, during our turn, we can pay three mana and use Genesis to return the Oriss we just discarded to hand, which allows us to again discard Oriss on our opponent's next upkeep to (essentially) make them skip their turn. Basically, once we get this set up, we can lock our opponent out of playing anything but instants (and if we can also stick a Teferi, Time Raveler, we lock out instants as well, forming a hard lock) and from attacking for the rest of the game! While the plan sounds janky, the deck actually has a lot of good cards and plenty of card draw and tutors to put everything together, which makes me think it might be a lot more competitive than the "lock you with two Oriss and Genesis" plan sounds at first. If you like making opponents not play Magic and are looking for a new way to do so in Modern, this seems like a really fun way to go about it.

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.