The Fish Tank: Sweet and Spicy Viewer Decks (March 21-28, 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, the focus is on Historic and Modern! What cool ideas did you all send in this week? Let's find out! But first, to have your own deck considered for next week's edition (and for our Fishbowl Thursday Instant Deck Tech), make sure to leave a link in the comments, or email it to me at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.

Historic

Normally, when I think of Storm, my mind goes to Modern, Legacy, Vintage, or even Cube Draft. Is it really possible to storm off in Historic? According to rkane_mage, the answer is yes! The idea of Birgi Storm is to use Birgi, God of Storytelling and Runaway Steam-Kin to generate mana as we cast spells like Crash Through and Warlord's Fury (which are free with one Birgi or Steamkin on the battlefield) or Cathartic Reunion and Thrill of Possibility (which are free with a Birgi and a Steamkin). Eventually, we'll find Underworld Breach, which doesn't go fully infinite since we don't have something like Burning Inquiry in Historic, but it can let us cast Cathartic Reunion a bunch of times from the graveyard, which should be enough to get us up to 50 life with Aetherflux Reservoir and win the game. While the deck looks like it can have some super-powerful turns, the biggest drawback is that we really need Runaway Steam-Kin and Birgi, God of Storytelling to stick around on the battlefield, which isn't all that easy against removal-heavy decks. Still, if you are looking to storm off in Historic, Birgi Storm seems like a great option and like it should have some super-sweet combo turns!

As you probably know, I'm a big fan of Hammer Time decks, but generally, this love is restricted to Modern since the format has most of the ways to equip Colossus Hammer for free. Well, GoblinWardriver is Hammer Timing on hard mode. In Historic, Hammer Time has a Warrior sub-theme since Resolute Strike is the best (and pretty much only) way to sneak a Colossus Hammer onto a creature. In theory, we can play something like Fireblade Charger or Grim Initiate on Turn 1, play Colossus Hammer on Turn 2, and Resolute Strike it onto our one-drop, letting us attack for 11 on Turn 2! Meanwhile, cards like Kor Blademaster, Halvar, God of Battle, and Akiri, Fearless Voyager help us to power up our Warrior equipment plan further. Worst case, Nahiri, Heir of the Ancients can make a token and equip Colossus Hammer onto it, although a Turn 4 Hammer equip is far less exciting than a Turn 2 Hammer equip. While Hammer Time is probably a bit less consistent in Historic than some other aggro decks are, no other deck in the format can offer faster kills when things go right. If you like equipment and being aggressive, Hammer Time seems like a blast to mess around with on the ladder!

A few weeks ago, we played some Historic Rats on Meme or Dream? While the deck worked better than expected, it still felt like it could be improved. Well, NotJake has some ideas on how to make Historic Rats even better, with Ratatouille CoCo Crossover Extravaganza! The biggest upgrades to the deck are Collected Company and Realmwalker, both of which help us flood the board with even more Rats—Collected Company by putting two Rats directly on the battlefield and Realmwalker by letting us play Rats off the top of our deck. While it might be worth trying to up the Rat count a bit more (26 creatures is a bit light for Collected Company, whereas 28 to 30 creatures is ideal), possibly by adding more copies of Realmwalker and Piper of the Swarm, in general, the new additions seem like they should really help to power up the deck!

Modern

Normally, when you see Mesmeric Orb in Modern, you know you're up against UB Mill, but Psychosmuft96 has a very different plan: using Mesmeric Orb to power an aggressive self-mill deck. The primary goal is to self-mill cards like Narcomoeba, Prized Amalgam, and Silversmote Ghoul (which comes back into play once we mill a Creeping Chill). Discounting Narcomoeba, all of our creatures are Zombies, which means we can also self-mill Narfi, Betrayer King, put it into play for three mana (possibly returning some Prized Amalgams to play along the way), and pump our team for even more damage! The deck looks like it can be extremely explosive, although it does come with a drawback: the main deck will really struggle against graveyard hate—hard casting Prized Amalgam or Silversmote Ghoul just isn't nearly as good as putting it into play for free from the graveyard. Thankfully, we have some sideboard cards to help fix this problem, with Feed the Swarm to remove things like Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void and some counters and discard to get graveyard hate from our opponent's hand before it hits the battlefield. That said, we'd still rather dodge hard graveyard hate if given a choice. Regardless, Orb Aggro is a really sweet idea, and it seems like it should be pretty powerful if it dodges the hate.

Speaking of milling in Modern, Christos K. has a really unique plan: Crab Rave Mill. While seeing a mill deck with four Hedron Crabs and four Ruin Crabs isn't surprising, the rest of the deck is. The main goal is to maximize the power of the Crabs with cards that can put extra lands onto the battlefield, like Growth Spiral and Harrow. If that doesn't work, we can use Increasing Vengeance to copy Archive Trap or Maddening Cacophony. While I do have a bit of worry about how the deck will function if we don't draw a Crab or two, the backup plan might be enough to pick up some wins, even if it is pretty unique and somewhat janky looking. If you want to see Crab Rave in action, make sure to check out next Monday's Budget Magic, where we battle against Christos K. playing the deck!

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for this week! If you have any ideas about how to improve these decks, make sure to let us know in the comments, and if you have a deck you want to be considered for a future Fish Tank, leave that there as well! Thanks to everyone who sent in decks this week! 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.