MTGGoldfish is supported by its audience. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn a commission.
Browse > Home / Strategy / Articles / The Fish Tank: Sweet and Spicy Viewer Decks (January 23-29, 2022)

The Fish Tank: Sweet and Spicy Viewer Decks (January 23-29, 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 some spice for Alchemy, Historic, and 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.

Alchemy

Loading Indicator

Slayer's Bounty is an interesting card. Its floor is basically a white Divination, drawing two for a total of three mana, which isn't super exciting (although not that bad for white, considering its card-advantage troubles. But what if you build around the artifact by playing a bunch of Clue-token makers? That's what Correntis is looking to find out with their Bounty Hunter deck for Historic. The deck is basically Bant Midrange but with cards like Antique Collector, Briarbridge Tracker, and Dennick, Pious Apprentice to make as many Clues as possible, hopefully turning Slayer's Bounty into a very consistent source of card advantage! While the deck looks fairly light on removal (with just Skyclave Apparition in the main deck), Slayer's Bounty mostly fixes this issue since its spellbook is almost exclusively removal spells. The end result is a fun-looking deck with an aggressive-ish midrange plan, backed by the Slayer's Bounty Clue-token plan for when the game goes long!

Historic

Loading Indicator

Meanwhile, in Historic, SquilliumFancyshot has a unique take on the toughness-matters archetype. Rather than just looking to beat down with high-toughness creatures, the deck is looking to go infinite with the help of Sanctum Weaver or Accomplished Alchemist and High Alert or Gauntlets of Light. The idea is that with the help of enough enchantments (or lifegain, in the case of Accomplished Alchemist), we can tap either creature for a bunch of mana and then untap it for less mana, with either High Alert or Gauntlets of Light, leaving us some mana left over every time we go through the loop and giving us infinite mana. We can then draw our entire deck with either Gretchen Titchwillow or Kenrith, the Returned King before eventually winning by playing all the creatures in our deck and hasting them up with Kenrith or by tutoring a Blue Sun's Zenith from our sideboard with Fae of Wishes to force our opponent to draw their entire deck! Of course, we can also just win fairly by playing high-toughness creatures like Nyx-Fleece Ram and then using Huatli, the Sun's Heart or High Alert to let them attack for oodles of damage. My main concern for the deck is that it doesn't really interact with the opponent at all. It might be worth finding room for at least a little bit of removal in the main deck, although perhaps having enough high-toughness creatures means we can just block until we get the combo set up. I really have no idea just how strong the deck is, although it does seem like it should be hilarious when it goes off!

Modern

Loading Indicator

For some reason, Wizards has never printed a real Armageddon into Modern, although as hungry000 shows, it is very possible to build your own Armageddon with a couple of extra steps. The idea of Kiran-ageddon is to do just that. Celestial Kirin is a weird old card. Once it's on the battlefield, whenever we cast a Spirit or arcane spell, we blow up all the permanents with that spell's mana value. When it was printed, there were no zero-mana Spirit or arcane spells, so Wizards left "non-land" off the card. Well, nearly two decades later, Wizards printed Ugin's Conjurant—a Spirit that can have a mana value of zero—which means we can play Celestial Kirin and immediately follow it up with a zero-mana Ugin's Conjurant to Armageddon away all of the zero-mana permanents on the battlefield, including lands! Thanks to mana dorks (like Noble Hierarch), Aether Vial, and Flagstones of Trokair, we should be able to function better than our opponent can post-Kiran-ageddon, until we (hopefully) win by beating down with various creatures. Toss in Eladamri's Call and Ranger-Captain of Eos to tutor up combo pieces, and the deck looks pretty solid, and it's certainly super unique!

Loading Indicator

Meanwhile, in Modern, TheDastardlyDrOd is getting caught Red Handed stealing their opponent's cards with Curse of Hospitality. The deck is basically the weirdest take on mono-red aggro I've ever seen. While we do have a lot of the good red creatures (like Dragon's Rage Channeler, Goblin Guide, and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer), the real plan is to win by stealing our opponent's cards with Curse of Hospitality, which turns all of our random aggro beaters into a weird source of card advantage by taking cards from the top of our opponent's library. Between our Curse, Robber of the Rich, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Dire Fleet Daredevil, and even You Find Some Prisoners, we have a ton of different ways to play our opponent's deck. While the idea sounds super fun, I'm not sold on Reverberate in the main deck. It's also possible that the Urza's Saga package could be expanded a bit. (It's weird that Shadowspear is the only non-creature it can find in the main deck.) Is Red Handed better than a more traditional mono-red aggro deck? My guess is probably not, but it certainly is way more interesting and seems like a blast to play!

Loading Indicator

A couple of weeks ago, I made a video about how to (almost) free-to-play Magic Online, with one of the main ways to play Magic Online for free being to take advantage of free card-rental programs that give you 5 or 7 tix (dollars) worth of cards to use at any one time. Since then, I've gotten a ton of sweet 5-, 7-, and 12-tix deck submissions, to the point where I might do an entire article on them in the future. But I wanted to show off Steeg's Martyr's Chicago deck because it's a really good example of just how far 5 tix worth of cards can go in Modern. Martyr's Chicago is a Martyr of Sands / Proclamation of Rebirth lifegain deck, with the idea being that we can gain a ton of life by reanimating Martyr of Sands each turn (with Proclamation of Rebirth or Abiding Grace) to gain a ton of life, which then turns on Serra Ascendant (which we can tutor up with Ranger of Eos), allowing us to close out the game quickly with a 6/6 flying lifelinker. While the 5-tix budget means we don't get Solitude or Ranger-Captain of Eos, otherwise, it looks surprisingly close to the optimal build of the archetype, and even in 5-tix form, it seems like the kind of deck that could win quite a few games! Oh yeah, if you have any sweet lists that you use to play Magic Online for free (on a 5-tix, 7-tix, or 12-tix budget), make sure to send them to me! I'm hoping to do an article with decks and resources for players looking to play Magic Online for free, and the more cheap decks, the better!

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. If you'd like your deck considered for the next Fish Tank, leave me a link in the comments, or you can email it to me at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, or you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.



More on MTGGoldfish ...

Image for Single Scoop: Mono Red Reanimator Exists? single scoop
Single Scoop: Mono Red Reanimator Exists?

When you think of Reanimator, its usually not in red! We had to try this standard deck out!

Mar 29 | by TheAsianAvenger
Image for Outlaws of Thunder Junction Spoilers — March 28 | Geralf, Pushed 2-drops and Terror of the Peaks Returns! daily spoilers
Outlaws of Thunder Junction Spoilers — March 28 | Geralf, Pushed 2-drops and Terror of the Peaks Returns!

Third day of spoiler is here with a new Geralf, some pushed 2-drops and Terror of the Peaks!

Mar 28 | by mtggoldfish
Image for Vintage 101: Vintage March 2024 Metagame! vintage 101
Vintage 101: Vintage March 2024 Metagame!

Joe Dyer dives into the current Vintage metagame in March 2024!

Mar 28 | by Joe Dyer
Image for Against the Odds: I Explode Yargle's Corpse on an Ill-Tempered Loner against the odds
Against the Odds: I Explode Yargle's Corpse on an Ill-Tempered Loner

What are the odds of winning by exploding Yargle and Multani's corpse on an Ill-Tempered Loner? Let's find out!

Mar 28 | by SaffronOlive

Layout Footer

Never miss important MTG news again!

All emails include an unsubscribe link. You may opt-out at any time. See our privacy policy.

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Twitch
  • Instagram
  • Tumblr
  • RSS
  • Email
  • Discord
  • YouTube

Price Preference

Default Price Switcher