The Fish Tank: Sweet and Spicy Viewer Decks (June 27-July 3, 2021)
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 more Modern Horizons 2 decks! What sweetness did you all send in this week? Let's take a look! But first, to have your own deck considered for next week's edition, make sure to leave a link in the comments, or email it to me at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
Modern
First up this week, we have a fun, janky combo from Staxi_Boi built around Goblin Bombardment and Koll, the Forgemaster. Here's the idea—we need four pieces to win the game: a free creature (Ornithopter), an equipment that we can equip for free (Shuko or Lightning Greaves), a free sacrifice outlet (Goblin Bombardment or Altar of Dementia), and Koll, the Forgemaster. Once we get everything assembled, we can equip the Ornithopter, sacrifice it to Goblin Bombardment to ping our opponent for one (or Altar of Dementia to mill them for one), return the Ornithopter to hand thanks to Koll, the Forgemaster's ability, replay and re-equip it for free, and repeat the process, giving us infinite damage or infinite mill! By far the biggest problem with the combo is consistency. Needing four pieces, some without much redundancy, is a big ask. Thankfully, we have Goblin Engineer (which can find all of our combo pieces except for Koll, the Forgemaster), Urza's Saga to find Shuko and Ornithopter, and Search for Glory to find Koll, which should help, to some extent. Another interesting possibility would be to include a Stoneforge Mystic package in the deck since it can find our equipment combo pieces while also functioning as a backup plan with Batterskull or Kaldra Compleat. Although it would cost us the ability to play Lurrus of the Dream-Den as our companion, it still might be worth it because, currently, the deck looks like it will have a hard time winning without the combo since our creatures are more synergistic than rawly powerful. While my guess that is Boros Bombardment Combo is more of an Against the Odds–style combo deck than a top-tier competitive option, it looks like a blast to play, and when the combo comes together, it wins in a really unique way!
Apparently, it's Goblin Bombardment week here on The Fish Tank, with Daniele Margo M. coming in with a sweet Zombie Bombardment list! The main synergy is being able to sacrifice Gravecrawler to Goblin Bombardment to ping something for one and then recast Gravecrawler for just a single mana (assuming we have another Zombie, which we should, with 24 Zombies in the deck), which basically gives us one damage for each black mana we have. In the early game, we can use this combo to keep our opponent's board in check; then, later, we can go face to close out the game! We also have some other Zombie sacrifice synergies, with Undead Augur drawing us through our deck, Dreadhorde Butcher offering a bit of extra damage when it dies, and Carrion Feeder as a backup sacrifice outlet. The one card I'm not sold on in the deck is Mortician Beetle. Not being a Zombie hurts, and I've tried Mortician Beetle in some Aristocrats decks in the past, and it usually ends up disappointing. Something like Blood Artist or even Yawgmoth, Thran Physician (which goes infinite with two Geralf's Messengers) could be worth trying in its place. Another option would be to trim back a bit on removal, add in a couple more creatures, and splash into green for Collected Company, which seems like it should offer a decent amount of value in the deck. Either way, the deck looks powerful and synergistic!
Harmonic Prodigy—a new supercharged Panharmonicon for Wizards and Shamans—is (perhaps unsurprisingly) one of my favorite cards from Modern Horizons 2. We've played it a couple of times in decks focused on Shamans and Wizards, but Alexander R. has one of the most unique Harmonic Prodigy plans I've seen so far: using it to double up the trigger on Bitterheart Witch (which I totally didn't realize was a Shaman). The plan is to get a Bitterheart Witch into the graveyard with the help of Glowspore Shaman, Seasoned Pyromancer (both of which are Shamans, so they double trigger with a Harmonic Prodigy out), or things like Vile Entomber or Lightning Axe. We can then reanimate it with Footsteps of the Goryo, sacrifice it on our end step, and double trigger the "tutor a Curse to the battlefield" ability (since Harmonic Prodigy works on any triggered ability from Shamans or Wizards, including death triggers) to grab two copies of Cruel Reality (or maybe one Curse of Misfortunes and one Cruel Reality so we can tutor up more copies of Cruel Reality over the next couple of turns). Then, we can eat away our opponent's board and eventually kill them with Cruel Reality's life-loss mode! If that doesn't work, we can simply blow up all of our opponent's stuff with Woodfall Primus (which I also totally didn't realize is a Shaman). If we can reanimate a Woodfall Primus using Footsteps of the Goryo with a Harmonic Prodigy on the battlefield, we'll be able to blow up four lands (two when it first comes into play and two more after we sacrifice it on our end step and it returns to play, thanks to persist), which will often be a one-sided Armageddon, especially if we can do it early in the game! While the deck is very dependent on the graveyard—which means we'll probably get blown out by graveyard hate on occasion—and it looks pretty janky, it also seems like it should be able to do some really hilarious, powerful things if we can dodge the hate!
We've played Dragonstorm in Modern a couple of times in the past. While the deck is really powerful when it works, it usually fails spectacularly when we can't up our storm count and play a Dragonstorm since the rest of the deck is overloaded with expensive dragons that are either hard or literally impossible to cast. Well now, thanks to Modern Horizons 2, Dragonstorm has an interesting backup plan in Thrasta, Tempest's Roar! Rituals and Manamorphose are already Dragonstorm staples, as easy ways to up our storm count and get to nine mana for Dragonstorm, and they also happen to be the perfect ways to reduce the cost on Thrasta, Tempest's Roar. If we don't have a Dragonstorm, we can cast three or four rituals and free spells, get the cost on Thrasta, Tempest's Roar down to two or three mana, and potentially have it hit the battlefield and start smashing our opponent as early as Turn 2! The other big new addition to the deck is Goblin Anarchomancer, which gives Gruul its own version of UR Storm staples Goblin Electromancer and Baral, Chief of Compliance, with the added upside that it reduces the cost on any green or red spell, not just instants and sorceries. Goblin Anarchomancer super-charges our rituals, making it much, much easier to (potentially) get up to nine mana for Dragonstorm as early as Turn 3! While I'm not expecting Dragonstorm to become a top-tier deck as a result of the new Modern Horizons 2 addition, the addition of a new backup plan and a powerful new enabler should improve the deck quite a bit. If you're looking for a different twist on Dragonstorm, EdwardMarkAvers' list looks solid a fun, solid starting point!
The banning of Simian Spirit Guide mostly killed one of my favorite Modern archetypes—Free Win Red, which really needed the monkey mana to get Blood Moon on the battlefield as quickly as possible. Well now, as Alex F. realized, we might have a replacement of sorts from Modern Horizons 2 in Strike It Rich. While Strike It Rich doesn't offer the possibility of a Turn 1 Blood Moon like Simian Spirit Guide did, it does offer a way to get it on the battlefield as early as Turn 2. The other interesting aspect of the deck is its artifact theme. Rather than overloading on things like Chalice of the Void and Ensnaring Bridge, we're only playing one copy of each, with the idea being that Goblin Engineer can help us find them and get them on the battlefield. While I'm not fully sold on Servo Schematic, the idea is unique at the very least, and having a bunch of sacrificable artifacts to turn Breya's Apprentice into a steady source of card advantage does seem like it could be powerful. But regardless of how strong the new artifact-y build of Free Win Red ends up being, it's sweet to see Turn 2 Blood Moon back on the menu!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for this week! Do you have some ideas on how to improve the decks we looked at today? Let us know in the comments! Have a deck for next week? You can leave it in the comments too! Thanks to everyone who submitted lists this week, and as always, you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
