The Fish Tank: Sweet and Spicy Viewer Decks (June 19-25, 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've got spice from Standard back to Legacy! What sweet brews 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.
Standard
We played Widespread Thieving with Meeting of the Five on Against the Odds this week, and I was super impressed with the hideaway enchantment's power. Casey S. has a deck that might maximize its potential even more: Arcane Thieving! The deck is overloaded with cheap multicolor spells like Expressive Iteration, Faithful Mending, Rip Apart, Sacred Foundry, and Prismari Command, which let us generate mana with Widespread Thieving in the form of Treasures while ramping us to our big payoff: Arcane Bombardment! Once we get Arcane Bombardment on the battlefield, we can start recasting our multicolor spell for free, which will make even more mana and eventually let us cast whatever we've hidden away under Widespread Thieving. As far as closing out the game, we do have a couple of Magma Opuses along with things like Emeria's Call. But the main plan seems to be to just out-value the opponent with an endless stream of card advantage, throw some burn spells at their face, and maybe attack with some Devils from Burn Down the House until our opponent's life total hits zero. My one suggestion for the deck is to perhaps add some more top-end stuff—any of the big "discard to make a Treasure" sorceries from Strixhaven would work really well with Arcane Bombardment. A couple more Magma Opuses or maybe some Creative Outbursts might help us close out the game a bit quicker, hopefully before our opponent can find an answer for Arcane Bombardment. Either way, the deck looks like an absolute blast to play!
Explorer
A while ago, we played a deck called Torens Monument in Modern for Budget Magic, and it worked surprisingly well. Now, VarietyBlack is looking to bring the deck to Explorer! While a couple of Modern all-stars like Squadron Hawk and Whitemane Lion are missing from Explorer, which limits the deck's combo potential a bit, the list looks really solid in general. The combo of Torens, Fist of the Angels and Oketra's Monument allows us to flood the board with tokens; then, Intrepid Adversary can pump them to help us close out the game in one big attack. It's also sweet to see the full four copies of Rumor Gatherer in the deck. I've always felt like the Elf Wizard was a bit underrated, and Torrens' Monument, with its consistent token production, seems like the perfect shell for the three-drop. If you like going wide and are looking for something a bit different to try in Explorer, Torens' Monument looks like a fun and possibly even competitive option for the format!
Pioneer
In Pioneer, Brett G. has been working on an ultra-budget deck built around one of Magic's least appreciated tribes: Oozes! Costing just $55 in paper, the plan of the deck is pretty straightforward: cast as many Oozes as possible and then use Biogenic Ooze to grow them into even bigger threats. Tamiyo, Collector of Tales might look a bit strange at first, but considering that many Oozes (like Inexorable Blob, Slogurk, the Overslime, and Scavenging Ooze) care about the graveyard in one way or another, the planeswalker—alongside Vessel of Nascency—helps fill the bin to maximize the power of our tribe members. My main concern for the deck is that it has basically no removal or interaction at all. It might be worth dropping things like Enter the Unknown and Growth Spiral for cards that can slow down the opponent, like Fading Hope or Decisive Denial. While it seems unlike that Oozes will be a super competitive deck in Pioneer, especially on a $50 budget, it seems like a sweet option if you're looking for some tribal fun on the kitchen table!
Legacy
Meanwhile, in Legacy, GranitaHero is looking to grind some value from the graveyard with the help of Tortured Existence. Tortured Existence is a really powerful card that lets you discard a creature to return one from your graveyard to your hand for just one mana, but it doesn't really see play outside of Pauper because it's not legal in formats like Modern or Pioneer. The plan is interesting: discard cards like Colossal Skyturtle and Mirrorshell Crab to their channel abilities in order to bounce creatures and counter spells, and then use Tortured Existence by discarding recursive creatures like Master of Death and Stinkweed Imp to return them to hand to do it again, which can create a weird sort of soft-lock in the late game where we should be able to counter or bounce just about anything our opponent can do! While graveyard hate is a bit of a concern, the deck looks like it should be able to generate a ton of value once it gets going, and it plays a lot of unique cards that normally don't show up in Legacy. While the $6,500 price tag might be a bit jarring, it is nice that the deck is relatively cheap on Magic Online, at least, where most eternal play happens these days anyway. If you like grindy graveyard value decks, Legacy Torex looks like a super unique and fun option!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. Make sure to let me know in the comments if you have an idea for how to improve these decks, and leave a link there as well if you want your own deck considered for a future Fish Tank (or email it to me at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com). 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.
