The Fish Tank: Sweet and Spicy Viewer Decks (January 16-22, 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, we have a bunch of sweet lists for 60-card formats, from Historic back through Modern! What 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.
Historic
Goblins has been a real deck in Historic ever since Muxus, Goblin Grandee was printed in Jumpstart, but 6armedgamer has a very different plan for the tribe, one that doesn't involve Muxus at all, which is refreshing: infinite-combo Goblins! Here's the plan: First, we need either Metallic Mimic or Grumgully, the Generous on the battlefield to put a +1/+1 counter on our Goblins when they enter the battlefield. Next, we need Putrid Goblin, which has persist, meaning that whenever it dies, it will return to play with a –1/–1 counter. But the rules of Magic state that if a creature would have both a +1/+1 counter and a –1/–1 counter, the counters cancel each other out, so with either Metallic Mimic or Grumgully, the Generous on the battlefield, Putrid Goblin will come back into play as a normal version of itself, without any counters at all. Finally, we need a sacrifice outlet to repeatedly sacrifice Putrid Goblin, with Skirk Prospector giving us infinite mana and Sling-Gang Lieutenant giving us infinite drain. While finding all three pieces might sound like a problem, the deck has a ton of tutors, with Fauna Shaman, Goblin Matron, and Wishclaw Talisman all snagging whatever combo piece we happen to be missing! If you like the idea of Goblins but are tired of janking people out by rushing into a Muxus, Goblin Grandee, Gahbo's Combo'n looks like a really fun option for Historic!
Pioneer
We've played Oketra's Monument decks in Modern and Historic, and they've always been fun and usually surprisingly competitive. But bioprofdude is looking to move the archetype to Pioneer! While Pioneer is lacking combo pieces like Whitemane Lion, there are tons of solid value creatures to chain together with Oketra's Monument on the battlefield to make tokens and hopefully overwhelm the opponent; plus, we get protection like Selfless Spirit and tons of card draw in Mentor of the Meek and Welcoming Vampire! If you like drawing cards and going wide, the list looks super solid and like it should be a blast to play!
Modern
First up in Modern, we have a Sultai Ultimatum list from Jack4761, who was kind enough to attach a very good primer to the deck. (You can check it out if you click on the deck page button.) On one hand, the idea of the deck is the same as basically every other Emergent Ultimatum deck: resolve Emergent Ultimatum and tutor up a combination of cards that allows you to win the game. What makes this deck unique is which cards it's looking to tutor up. The primary Emergent Ultimatum pile is Iona, Shield of Emeria, Omniscience, and Sway of the Stars! Sway of the Stars basically resets the game with everyone at seven life. The idea is that if your opponent chooses Omniscience and Sway of the Stars, you'll immediately get to cast the seven cards you draw for free. If they choose Iona and Sway of the Stars, you get to name whatever color your opponent is built around (and start the game with a 7/7 flier), which should be enough to win before your opponent can rebuild. If they choose Iona and Omniscience, well, then you get an Iona and Omniscience. I don't think I've ever seen a Sway of the Stars deck in Modern, but it actually looks really solid here! The rest of the deck is a bunch of ramp, removal, and planeswalkers that can help close out the game quickly and serve as backup plans if we can't resolve Emergent Ultimatum. Anyway, check out the primer for more tricks with the deck, but the idea is really cool!
Meanwhile, Blitz124 is brewing around Lullmage Mentor. The Merfolk is a pretty interesting card. It makes a 1/1 Merfolk token whenever we counter a spell, and we can also tap seven Merfolk to counter a spell. Once we get a bunch of Merfolk on the battlefield, we can hard-lock our opponent out of ever resolving another spell with Intruder Alarm, which allows us to tap seven Merfolk to counter a spell, making a 1/1 token with Lullmage Mentor, which will trigger Intruder Alarm to untap all of our creatures, so that the next time our opponent casts a spell, we can tap a bunch of Merfolk to counter that one too! To finish the game, we have Baral, Chief of Compliance (which loots whenever we cast a spell) and Thassa's Oracle, with the idea being that we just keep countering stuff until we loot through our entire deck and then play Thassa's Oracle for the win! While the idea is really cool, I am pretty skeptical of Chalice of the Void in the deck, in part because a Chalice on one or two shuts down a big chunk of our deck and in part because even though Chalice of the Void can technically counter spells, in reality, it just keeps players from casting spells of a specific mana value, so it's unlikely to actually trigger Lullmage Mentor. It might be better as a normal counterspell, like literal Counterspell or Archmage's Charm. While the deck could probably use some tuning, the concept is really interesting, and the potential for hard-locking an opponent with Lullmage Mentor, of all things, is pretty hilarious!
Last week, for Much Abrew, we played Asmor Surprise in Modern, an Asmor deck that also has the potential to reanimate a hasty Emrakul, the Aeons Torn as early as Turn 2. But the real surprise is that the deck was super inconsistent and not very good. Well, EvergreenWolf is looking to fix that with Asmor Reanimator, an Asmor build much more focused on the reanimation plan. While we can still do Asmor shenanigans, the main goal is to use Asmor to find The Underworld Cookbook so we can discard reanimation targets like Terastodon, Dream Trawler, and Feasting Troll King to reanimate with Persist. As a backup plan, we can also tutor up Urza's Saga with Elvish Reclaimer, use it to find The Underworld Cookbook, and even loop it from the graveyard with Life from the Loam to make a bunch of big Constructs! The deck looks way more consistent than the build we played and like it has some really sweet tricks cooked up!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today! Thanks to everyone who sent in a deck, and if you want one of your decks considered for next week's Fish Tank, leave a link in the comments, or you can email it to me at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
