Carassius Swarm (no DLC)

This deck is played like a sturdy tri-color midrange deck, with Carassius providing an alternative win condition. Carassius (1 Forest 1 Desert) is supposed to be played alongside Aurora's Creation (3 Lakes) to maximize its effectiveness long-term. This being the case, we're capitalizing on the fact that we need 3 different land colors anyway, to play some of the strong multicolored cards, such as Towship, Swordfish, Octopus and Frog Tosser. You'll almost always want to build a Lake first, and then alternate between colored lands to suit whatever's in your hand. Mulligan for Towship first, Water Elemental second, and Carassius third. If you can get a Towship, get it into double-collection immediately, and once you're on your opponent's well, build a land close to their face so you can be aggressive with your sturdy Octopi and Swordfish. Once that's done, try going for the wells on the other side with Jump creatures, using Water Elemental to ramp up. Once your 6 special lands are built, start going +1, drawing, and building prairies to deny land placements to your opponent.

You usually don't want to bring Carassius out too early, otherwise it's going to stay alive long since your opponent's creatures will be far away from it, and you don't want that. You want your first Carassius to die FAST.

Towship can get you into double-collection very fast, Octopus is very adaptable to any situation, and Swordfish has a really good body that's difficult to trade favorably into. Lore Thief and Biomancer are there to help you get to your Carassius as fast as possible. Frog Tosser is just... good. Emperor's Command is mostly here because this deck is VERY weak to Combat Burn (nothing here can one-shot a Shedim Brute, only Towship can one-shot Grim Guards (also Octopus, if it survives a turn), and Blood Singer can kill you quickly since you're swarming the board). Creation can absolutely be used on cards other than Carassius, depending on what you need. Face it, what can 32 SCs do that 16 can't? Except get you an achievement? If you're winning and need to make an extra push, don't hoard Creation. Fugoro is mostly here for the Ulani's Medallion memes, but Urn of Gabria is also nice anytime.

This deck doesn't play the likes of Failed Experiment and Demon Wrangler because... Carassius is really the only thing you actually WANT to kill with those cards. They don't work well with anything else here. Gift of the Rakoa is too expensive and situational. You're already packing a lot of tight bods, and GotR only really gets good when you have a million Carassius on board, at which point you've probably won anyway. Unless you didn't play around Garudan.