The Fish Tank: Sweet and Spicy User Decks (November 7-13 2020)
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 have a bunch of Standard and Modern, with a bit of Historic slipping in as well! What cool brews did you all submit this week? Let's find out! 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
Rielle, the Everwise is a card that has the potential to be extremely powerful but can be tricky to build around since it requires not just ways to discard cards but also a deck full of instants and sorceries to be fully powered. How can we up the number of instants and sorceries in our deck? As gleemer realized, the answer is to overload on Zendikar Rising's MDFC lands. Thanks to cards like Sea Gate Restoration, Spikefield Hazard, Silundi Vision, and more, Everfling only has four "real" lands, with the rest of our mana technically being instants or sorceries that we can also play as lands. This gives us a massive 47 instants and sorceries in our deck to power Rielle, the Everwise. Perhaps even more exciting, one of our MDFCs—Kazuul's Fury—potentially allows us to win the game out of the blue by Flinging a massive Rielle at our opponent's face! Otherwise, the deck is basically an Izzet Control shell with a ton of removal and card draw, much of it coming in the form of MDFCs. Gleemer did a short primer that is attached to the decklist, if you are interested, but the big takeaway is that you shouldn't play Rielle, the Everwise on curve unless you are desperate for a blocker. Instead, the plan is to wait to play Rielle until it is big enough that we can immediately use Kazuul's Fury to Fling it for the win.
Historic
Everyone has been so focused on the awesomeness of the soon-to-be-released Commander Legends that it's easy to forget that we have another set releasing this week: Kaladesh Remastered on Magic Arena! Along with energy and powerful artifacts, one of Kaladesh's claims to fame is that it has the best Chandra of all time (and perhaps the best red planeswalker of all time) in Chandra, Torch of Defiance. Cajoma01 is ready to take advantage of our new-to-Arena Chandra as soon as it releases in a Chandra Tribal deck. The main goal is to play a ton of Chandras; use them to crew another powerful new Kaladesh Remastered addition in Heart of Kiran to deal some damage or, at worst, defend our Chandras; and then eventually beat our opponent down with 4/4 flying Chandras after we find Sarkhan the Masterless. Along with the planeswalker plan, we have some good ramp (Mind Stone), card draw (Mazemind Tome), and removal (Abrade, Anger of the Gods, and Scorching Dragonfire). While the deck looks really sweet and like it could be pretty powerful, a couple of possible upgrades come to mind. Since we have 10 Chandras in the main deck and a couple more in the sideboard, Chandra's Regulator might be better than Mazemind Tome in the two-mana card-draw rock slot. Doubling up planeswalker activations is really powerful. Meanwhile, Chandra's Triumph is probably good enough to join our removal package, maybe over Scorching Dragonfire or Abrade, depending on how the metagame shakes out. That said, the deck looks really solid as is, and if you're a fan of planeswalker tribal–style decks, Cajoma01's build looks like a blast!
By far the best part about Kaladesh Remastered is the return of Panharmonicon and all of the sweet Panharmonicon lists that people have been sending in. Nogladin's Mine Now-amonicon list takes the Panharmonicon plan to the max, with Yarok, the Desecrated joining Panharmonicon as a way to double up our enters-the-battlefield triggers. What are we looking to double up? While we do have plenty of card draw in Seekers' Squire, Champion of Wits, and Risen Reef, the main goal is to steal as much of the opponent's stuff as possible with Gonti, Lord of Luxury and Hostage Taker (which can steal multiple cards if we have a Panharmonicon or two on the battlefield) along with Thief of Sanity, which doesn't work directly with Panharmonicon but does offer further support to our plan of stealing our opponent's cards and using them for our benefit. The deck looks like it should be a blast to play and like it should be able to generate absurd amounts of value, although I am a bit worried about decks like Goblins or Gruul Aggro. Is Mine Now-amonicon fast enough to keep up with the most aggressive decks in the format? I'm not sure. A touch more removal for aggro could help. Either way, Mine Now-amonicon looks exactly like something I'd love playing. Win or lose, the deck should be able to durdle and generate lots of value. What's better than that?
Legacy
Nic Fit is one of my favorite Legacy archetypes, in part because it's less expensive than most Legacy decks (although still not cheap) and in part because you get to play a lot of weird, random midrange cards that other Legacy decks don't play. Well now, thanks to Commander Legends, we have another new Nic Fit variant from Robin S.: Shuffle Fit! The key card in Shuffle Fit is Opposition Agent, perhaps the best Legacy card from Commander Legends. While Opposition Agent is a good card on its own thanks to its ability to shut down fetch lands, it's an oddly perfect fit for Nic Fit strategies since Nic Fit is all about ramping by sacrificing Veteran Explorer to Cabal Therapy. The problem is that Veteran Explorer lets both players search for two basic lands and put them into play. And while Nic Fit decks are built to take better advantage of the extra mana than opponents can, it's still a drawback. With Opposition Agent, this problem goes away since if the opponent chooses to search, we'll be able to play them, rather than our opponent!
The deck has a bunch of other sweet Opposition Agent tricks as well, like Scheming Symmetry as a one-mana double tutor where we'll end up with the best card from our opponent's deck and our deck, Collective Voyage as a backup Veteran Explorer, and even one Maralen of the Mornsong as a Diabolic Intent tutor target to hard lock our opponent out of drawing cards while also allowing us to tutor from our opponent's deck every turn! How good is Shuffle Fit? I have no idea, but I do know that it looks super fun to play. We might need to have an episode of Series TBD in the near future to give this sweet Legacy brew a spin!
Pauper
Looking for something different to play in Pauper? Like killing opponents super quickly, maybe on Turn 3? Well, then, Alberto A. has the perfect deck for you. Turno 3 Kill is basically a Mono-Red Kiln Fiend deck, with the primary goal being to kill the opponent on Turn 3 as consistently as possible. How do we make this happen? First, we need either Kiln Fiend or Immolating Souleater on Turn 2. Then, on Turn 3, we need Temur Battle Rage. If our two-drop is Immolating Souleater, then just a single copy of Temur Battle Rage is lethal! We spend 18 life to pump Immolating Souleater nine times, making it a 10/1, and then use Temur Battle Rage for double strike and trample to win with one attack. If we have Kiln Fiend on Turn 2, we're hoping to cast a few free spells (Lotus Petal, Manamorphose, or Rite of Flame) and / or pump spells (Brute Force or Mutagenic Growth) to grow it big enough that it can trample over for lethal with the help of Temur Battle Rage. Speaking of Lotus Petal and Rite of Flame, while the deck is most likely to win on Turn 3, with the help of our fast mana, we could theoretically win on Turn 2 by playing Immolating Souleater or Kiln Fiend on Turn 1! Of course, all this power comes with a drawback: the deck is pretty fragile, and a single targeted removal spell can ruin our day. And since we only have eight game-ending threats, it might be a while until we find another one, although Apostle's Blessing does offer a bit of protection. Basically, Turno 3 Kill looks really good at putting the opponent to the test early in the game. If they pass with a removal spell, they'll likely end up winning, but if they fail, our reward is a free win on Turn 2 or 3!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for this week! If you have any ideas about 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.
