Fish Five-0: Sultai Varok (Standard, Magic Arena)
This week I had the privilege of piloting a decklist by IRollTwnties
Gameplan
The deck pilots like a midrange deck trying to just play the best creatures and winning on board. It has the ability to get crazy value off of cards like Yarok, the Desecrated.
The card is absurdly powerful if left unchecked as cards like Risen Reef can randomly reload your entire hand or double the tokens off of Biogenic Ooze. I can't help but feel like post rotation, Yarok will still find its way into some decks as it doesn't need more than just a few activations to get its value. It sits as a 3/5 with Deathtouch and Lifelink so at the very worst, its a solid stat line with a very relevant creature type and isn't too crazy of a splash as we only need one black source for it. Speaking on the mana, did you know Yarok triggers on permanents and not just creatures? Eldraine doesn't look to have many ways to destroy Field of the Dead so I don't see why we can't just throw a few Fields in here to give us inevitability.
After playing the deck, Vannifar has been a powerhouse if you get to untap with it. I really hope we get to make this work after rotation. Being able to replicate a Birthing Pod in any way is so much value. The biggest drawback from the card is really that it doesn't do anything immediately when it hits the board and requires a slight build around. As you can see the deck has a ton of creatures and rightfully so because you want a high creature density to work your way up the mana cost chain.
Matchups
The deck can definitely play the long game against other midrange decks as long as it doesn't go up against board wipe and removal crazy decks. Control decks with sweepers like Time Wipe or Kaya's Wrath hurt as we need time setting up. I've found that post-board, Kitesail Freebooter helps with control but as we move into rotation, we might have to retool our disruption. I've also found that we really struggle with Field of the Dead decks or anything that goes way over us. However, I feel that our aggro matchup is amazing as we can clog up the board with big bodies easily as we have 36 creatures. We really should look to having Veil of Summer in the sideboard or more non creature spells somewhere in the 75. I also think with how the deck is tooled, we should look to playing more Vannifars and build around her more. Maybe we try to do Bant to try to protect our Vannifar with Gods Willing?
Conclusion
We were able to grind our way through some unfavored matchups which were super sweet. Thank you IRollTwnties for the list! I had a lot of fun and I'll look to trying to build around Prime Speaker Vannifar after #MTGEldraine releases! Rotation is almost here so its time for a whole new standard.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you at the next one!
-Your Friendly Neighborhood AsianAvenger
Twitter: @TheAsianAvenger || Twitch: twitch.tv/TheAsianAvenger || Email: theasianavenger@mtggoldfish.com
