The Fish Tank: Sweet and Spicy Viewer Decks (March 20-26, 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 decklists from Standard all the way back to Commander! What spice 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
Last week, we played PAINHarmonicon in Pioneer for Against the Odds, and magic90210 has a similar plan but for Standard! The idea is to combine Isshin, Two Heavens as One with the best attack triggers in Standard, ranging from Delina, Wild Mage to copy our creatures to Goldspan Dragon for ramp, Volatile Arsonist for removal, and Olivia, Crimson Bride for reanimation. While most of these cards are decent on their own, things get out of hand quickly when their attack triggers double up thanks to Isshin, Two Heavens as One! Beyond the PAINHarmonicon shenanigans, the deck is mostly a Mardu Midrange brew with plenty of good removal, card filtering, and value. As you can see from the seven-card sideboard, it's designed for best-of-one play, although I can't see any reason why the same list (or a very similar list) couldn't work in best of three with an upgraded sideboard featuring fewer lessons and more discard (Go Blank and / or Duress) and perhaps a sweeper or two. If you're a fan of Panharmonicon but also want to be able to kill your opponent rather than just durdle around and draw cards, Standard PAINHarmonicon is likely the perfect deck for you! Plus, there are endless customization options since pretty much anything with an attack trigger should be at least decent in the deck.
Historic
Meanwhile, in Historic, we have a new twist on one of my favorite combos from past Standards, with Jesper W.'s Timestream Combo. You might remember we had an Against the Odds deck several years ago that used Timestream Navigator with planeswalker deck all-star Ajani, Valiant Protector to take infinite turns by looping Timestream Navigator from the bottom of our library. Well, Jesper's list is looking to do the same thing but with Pyre of Heroes, Abiding Grace, and one-mana Humans rather than Ajani. Here's the idea: sacrifice a one-drop to Pyre of Heroes to tutor up Timestream Navigator to take an extra turn. When we activate Timestream Navigator, it will go to the bottom of our library, which means we can use Abiding Grace to reanimate our one-mana Human and then use Pyre of Heroes to tutor up Timestream Navigator, giving us infinite turns. The only downside of this plan is that because Timestream Navigator lacks haste, we do have to keep Timestream Navigator on the battlefield for one turn to start the combo, although counters like Archmage's Charm should help. But once we start the loop, it should be impossible for our opponent to stop, especially if we have Teferi, Time Raveler on the battlefield to prevent our opponent from casting spells during our turn. (Remember, we're playing Historic, so it's the nerfed version of Teferi, but it still serves our purposes.) As we take all the turns, we'll eventually find The Wandering Emperor, which will make a huge board of tokens and allow us to win by beating our opponent down! While the combo seems super fun, I'm not sure how competitive it will be, in part because it's a 2.5-card combo (we need Pyre of Heroes, Abiding Grace, and then one of several Human one-drops, which is what we're counting as 0.5 of a piece since there's so much redundancy) and in part because it does get shut down by graveyard hate. But if you're looking for a fun Against the Odds–style deck to try in Historic or you're nostalgic for the old Standard deck, Timestream Combo looks like a blast!
Pioneer
Speaking of updates on sweet combos from the past, JukeaWall is looking to take infinite turns in Pioneer with Sage of Hours! The main goal is to get Sage of Hours on the battlefield alongside Dragonscale General and a bunch of mana dorks. If we can get five mana dorks on the battlefield, we go infinite. We tap all the dorks for mana (whether we intend to use it or not), which will let Dragonscale General put five +1/+1 counter on Sage of Hours during our end step. We then can remove the counters to take an extra turn. We can do this over and over again until we eventually find Secure the Wastes to make a massive board of tokens and kill our opponent in just one or two attacks! While the combo is super fun, it is a bit weak to removal—a sweeper can clear away our mana dorks, and targeted removal like March of Otherworldly Light can kill Sage of Hours in response to the Dragonscale General counters. While we do have Absorb as a counter and can potentially snag Sage of Hours when our opponent is tapped out with Chord of Calling, playing a second Sage of Hours (or more protection) could be wise as a way to fight through removal. Either way, the deck looks super fun and might even be pretty competitive in the right matchups!
Also in Pioneer, n3onblue is looking to take a bunch of extra turns with Gideon tribal. (Apparently, it's extra-turn week on The Fish Tank.) The main goal is to get a Gideon of the Trials emblem and keep a Gideon on the battlefield. This allows us to take extra turns for just three mana with Alchemist's Gambit, Chance for Glory, and Glorious End while also avoiding the "lose the game" downside of these spells. Toss in a bunch of removal, and we should be able to win by beating down with our Gideons during our extra-turn loop. While the deck doesn't quite fit our definition of budget, coming in at $140 in paper, it's pretty close, and with a few small changes (like turning Sundown Pass into a cheaper dual land and trading Rest in Peace for Soul-Guide Lantern), the deck could sneak it at under $100! The main problem with Gideon Turns decks is consistency. If we don't manage to get the Gideon of the Trials emblem, we can't really cast any of our extra-turn spells, which can leave us in a situation where we've got a ton of dead cards in hand. But the deck looks like it will be super powerful when things come together!
Commander
Finally, we've got a fun Commander list from JarothAven: Myojin Tribal! Thanks to Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, we've got two cycles of Myojin now, which makes it much more practical to build a deck around the creature type. The deck is led by Atraxa, Praetors' Voice to proliferate the divinity and indestructible counter on our Myojin, allowing us to keep them indestructible while also using their abilities multiple times, with a bunch of other counter synergies included as well. I was considering playing this deck for an upcoming Commander Clash because it looks super fun, but I found out that several of the new Myojin aren't on Magic Online yet, so I had to cross it off my list for now, although it still looks like a blast!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. If you have some idea for how to improve these decks, make sure to let us know in the comments, and if you want your own deck considered for a future Fish Tank, leave a link there as well (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.
