Fungal dreams

We finally ran an ATL tournament, with Fallen Empires in. I was not the organizer, so this is not a full tournament report - instead some musings on my deck of choice.

I played thallids back in the elementary school days, and still got the playsets in binder. I originally started magic with green cards, and thallids were among the first decks I built. Now having change to play with Fallen Empires, I heard their call again. But what kind of deck to build?

Winter derby 2022 was also using ATL rules, so to get some food for thought, I checked what kind of fungal takes the brewers there had. https://sentineloldschoolmtg.com/2022/02/21/2022-old-school-magic-winter-derby-results-and-deck-photos/

There was of course monogreen thallids by Chris Dirico, but I suspected the normally used creatures may be better fit to monogreen deck - fungus grows a bit slower…

Then there was this multicolored deck by Nicolai Herring Rasmussen. I like the idea of slowing opponents with Geddon, but was unsure on the speed of the deck, and dearth of answers to big guys & artifacts.

Most strikingly, there was the deck below that went 6-2 in the swiss. I like the plan of growing board and protecting it with counterspells! But I was worried about the amount of double-colored casting costs in both colors, and was also a bit uneasy about Fungal blooms - if I have no board, those do nothing…

I then dug around the internet, and found also this gem below (Thanks Anarchy&Atogs!). Lots of things I like:

• Single U requiring counter set.

• Stasis, time walk and time vault help fungus grow.

• Sylvan libraries help you find stuff, and mirrors close game.

• Multiple answers to big guys.

Now this is a deck to my tastes, just needs some answers to artifacts like Disk…

Below is what I ended up playing with. Elvish farmer - Sylvan - Mirror setup was really nice, and Juxtapose was good in many games. Played three rounds 2-1, 1-2, 2-1, having good, tightly fought games facing mostly agressive decks.

In hindsight I would:

• Use 2nd Mirror if I had it - same for fair, non-combo time vault.

• Put one more Juxtapose to board

• Use Crumbles instead of Scavengers (mirror synergies).

• Second bottle would also be good if I had it (cutting that last city, and library)

• Side should have some tranguilities, really, cutting e.g. Derwishes

• Second maze in main or side would be nice.