The Fish Tank: Sweet and Spicy User Decks (October 25-31, 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
Lately, in Standard, there has been a renewed interest in Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast and Transmogrify, even though there isn't one clearly overpowered creature to Polymorph into and win the game. Jeppew has one of the most unique plans, with the goal being to make a ton of tokens with cards like Forbidden Friendship, Rally for the Throne, The Birth of Meletis, Omen of the Sun, and Outlaws' Merriment and then use Lukka or Transmogrify to turn a token into Harmonious Archon to make all of the 1/1 tokens into 3/3s and potentially win the game with one big attack! If that isn't enough, we could also hit the only other real creature in our deck, Moraug, Fury of Akoum, then make a land drop and take two combat steps to close out the game! Of course, the downside is that if our opponent can kill Harmonious Archon at instant speed before we attack, we're back to a board full of 1/1s, which could be an issue, but in theory we can just Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast up another Archon the following turn and try again until we eventually run our opponent out of removal. It's also worth mentioning that the deck is designed for best-of-one play, which might be its best home since the opponent won't have the option in sideboarding in more answers for our somewhat janky Polymorph combo plan. Whether the deck is good or not remains to be seen, but it's super sweet to see Harmonious Archon not only seeing play but also looking like it might actually be pretty good!
So much craziness has happened in Standard over the past few months with rotation, set releases, and bannings that I honestly forgot General Kudro of Drannith—a card that has quickly developed into a Modern and even Legacy staple—was still legal in the format. Thankfully, Elesh didn't forget, sending in a sweet Humanz deck headlined by the lord. In reality, there isn't a ton to say about the deck: it's Human tribal with the most efficient, aggressive Humans backed by a small Lurrus of the Dream-Den package to recast our cheap Humans and maybe make a 5/5 Demon or two with Archfiend's Vessel after General Kudro of Drannith sacrifices it to kill something. Being in black and white makes the mana consistent and also offers really good removal in Skyclave Apparition, Bloodchief's Thirst, and Dire Tactics.
While the deck looks sweet as is, it's also worth mentioning that the possibilities are endless. According to Magic Online, there are 172 "Human" cards in Standard. Going into Red offers threats like Robber of the Rich, Kargan Intimidator, and Stormfist Crusader. Green offers Chevill, Bane of Monsters. Blue has Barrin, Tolarian Archmage and Niambi, Esteemed Speaker. The mana is good enough in Standard that going into three colors shouldn't be a problem, so if you have some ideas on how to expand the deck into other colors, let us know in the comments! Perhaps together, we can make a really sweet Standard Human Tribal list built around General Kudro of Drannith!
Historic
Collected Company has quickly proven itself to be one of the best cards in all of Historic, but Finn Balor is REALLL has a REALLL fun and unique way to take advantage of the instant: Walls! Thanks to Jumpstart, we now have Overgrown Battlement in Historic, and the two-mana Wall can make an absurd amount of mana in a deck full of creatures with defender. The idea is to use Overgrown Battlement, Llanowar Elves, Saruli Caretaker, and Llanowar Visionary (all of which can be found with Collected Company) along with card-drawing defenders Wall of Blossoms and Carven Caryatid to make tons of mana and then finish the game with a Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or massive Craterhoof Behemoth. While the deck looks super fun, I am a bit skeptical that Craterhoof Behemoth is the best finisher in a deck full of creatures that can't attack thanks to defender. Another Jumpstart addition to the format—Towering Titan—might be worth considering, at the very least. While the lack of haste is a drawback, the six-drop should be massive in the deck, and then we can easily sacrifice a creature with defender to give it trample for a one-attack kill. If you're a fan of ramping but bored of Growth Spirals, Explores, and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wraths, CoCo Walls looks like a really unique and potentially powerful option for the Historic format.
Modern
Since the release of Zendikar Rising, we've seen several no-land decks built around the modal double-faced lands take off in Modern, like Oops, All Spells and Belcher. JamesZahh has a super-unique take on the no-land archetype: Selective Memory Combo! The idea is that since the deck has no actual lands (instead using MDFCs to cast its spells), when we resolve Selective Memory, we can exile literally our entire deck except for our one copy of Thassa's Oracle, which we'll draw the next turn and cast to win the game, hopefully with the protection of Teferi, Time Raveler, Disrupting Shoal, Commandeer, or Force of Negation. If the combo doesn't work, we can always win fair(ish)ly by Mind Twisting away our opponent's hand with Narset, Parter of Veils and a spell like Day's Undoing or by flipping a Thing in the Ice.
The big question is whether Selective Memory can compete with other no-land decks like Oops, All Spells and Belcher, and I think there is at least some reason to believe that it can. Oops, All Spells and Belcher are certainly faster, potentially winning on Turn 2 or 3, while Selective Memory Combo is more of a Turn 5 deck. On the other hand, both Oops, All Spells and Belcher are glass-cannon combo decks filled with cards that aren't especially helpful outside of the combo itself, while Selective Memory Combo can play a fair, controlling game plan, with the combo being a way to close out the game, which, in some ways, makes it reminiscent of old-school Splinter Twin decks, except Selective Memory is essentially a one-card combo.
Whether it ends up being truly competitive or not, the idea is super unique. It's always fun to see cards like Selective Memory, which looks super bad at a glance, actually find a home and a way to not just be useful but also potentially game-winning!
High Priest of Penance is a really sweet card but one that is really difficult to build around without playing really bad and overcosted effects to make it indestructible. However, as BananeCamembert realized, a new Zendikar Rising card offers the perfect support option for turning High Priest of Penance into the ultimate permanent sniper: Luminarch Aspirant. The idea is to use Luminarch Aspirant (or an equipment like Maul of the Skyclaves, Sword of Fire and Ice, or Batterskull, which we can find with Stoneforge Mystic) to grow High Priest of Penance's power. We can then use Walking Ballista to ping our own High Priest of Penance and blow up any non-land permanent. With a big enough High Priest of Penance and enough counters on Walking Ballista, we can potentially blow up our opponent's entire board. Plus, since we have Walking Ballista, we also get to play Heliod, Sun-Crowned as a two-card combo to close out the game. In general, the deck looks extremely solid, although I'm not sure about Aether Vial. While emptying our hand quickly is nice, it might be better to have something like Path to Exile in the main deck for early-game interaction in order to buy us time to set up our combo, especially considering that Walking Ballista is a non-bo with the artifact. Really though, this is a small quibble. In general, BananeCamebert's High Priest of Penance deck looks like something that you could take into a Modern league, win some matches with, and maybe even 5-0, with a bit of luck and good matchups.
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.
