Plum dives into Explorer for the first time with a wild mono-blue combo brew. It’s a loop-heavy, otter-fueled pile that generates infinite mana, infinite casts, and infinite chaos!
Hey. You good? You look a little… surprised. Like you clicked expecting some Historic jank nonsense and instead got slapped in the face with a format change. That’s fair—up to this point, I’ve been lurking in Historic like a crypt rat with a deck list and a dream. But guess what? It’s Episode 26, baby. And what better way to keep things moving after our first milestone (25 episodes) than diving headfirst into the wild, wide waters of Explorer?
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Plum, why the sudden format shift? Did Historic finally ban fun?” Not quite. Explorer just happens to be a beautiful little sweet spot for brewing—enough cards to get spicy, not so many that your combos get outpaced by turn 2 Sorin + Elenda. So here we are. Blue mana. Combo nonsense. Creature loops. A Stormchaser’s Talent and a dream.
Now, if you’re expecting me to tell you how this deck lines up against Rakdos Sac, Mono-Green Devotion, or whatever other midrange slop people are flinging in Explorer these days… good luck. I have no idea what’s actually going on in this format. Seriously. I saw a list kind of like this one floating around on Twitter, thought, “Hey, that’s neat,” and just ran with it. Shoutout to the unknown brewer who planted this otter-brained idea in my hands—whoever you are, you’ve done a great service to jank scientists everywhere.
4.) Tap your creature to bounce Mox Amber back to your hand. Then replay it. Casting Mox again will trigger Rona/Floodcaller to untap.
5.) Tap your Mox for mana.
6.) Repeat steps 4 and 5 ad nauseam
That’s it. You’re casting Mox Amber, making mana, bouncing it, and doing it all over again. It’s also possible to make infinite colorless mana with “Mutavault” and Floodcaller. Animate Mutavault and since it counts as an otter, it’ll be untapped everytime you cast a noncreature spell with Floodcaller. It’s annoyingly click-intensive on Arena, but functionally very simple—and the payoff is worth it.
Once you have infinite mana, as well as infinite noncreature spell casts, you can win through combat damage or by destroying our opponent’s desire to keep playing. Valley Floodcaller, Kitsa, Otterball Elite, and the tokens from Stormchaser's Talent will all grow infinitely large as we keep casting Mox Amber. If you need additional bodies, Floodcaller will also pump both Thundertrap Trainer and Mutavault.
“But Mr. Plum…sir…..what if my opponent has creatures to block??????”
That’s where This Town Ain't Big Enough comes into play. I freakin‘ love this card guys. Not only does it help us stall and replay our creatures, but with infinite mana, we can loop Stormchaser's Talent over and over. That means we can bounce our opponent’s entire board, while also generating and growing an otter army to massive proportions. If we don’t win that turn, hopefully losing an their entire board will make our opponent concede anyways.
Outside of the combo and our win conditions, we’re playing 10 other pieces of card advantage and selection.
Sleight of Hand is a simple cantrip that digs two cards deep, but the real engine of this deck is Stock Up. This card is an all-star in multiple formats and it doesn’t shine any less in Explorer either. Digging five cards deep and being able to grab two of them makes assembling the three pieces of our combo each game incredibly consistent. It’s also quite strong to rebuy off of a Stormchaser's Talent if we happen to go into a grindy late game.
We round out the list with two Treasure Cruise. We’re not a deck that actively tries to fuel delve because we want to be able to rebuy our spells with Stormchaser's Talent frequently. Two feels like a solid number for our deck and we can support casting it for 1-3 mana most games.
Gameplay and Notable Matches
1.) Gruul Heartfire Hero (42:50) – This was the first game we played in Explorer and we we’re able to combo off against them. Honestly, I spent a lot of time durdling in this game as I figured out how the deck works. We ended up bouncing their entire board to pave way for all the otter tokens we made off of Stormchaser's Talent. Great start.
2.) Rakdos Midrange (1:05:00) – Like I mentioned earlier I’m not well versed with the Explorer metagame, but I have heard that some flavor of Rakdos is a solid contender. We had to play a grindy game early on as we hedged Stormchaser's Talent and Stock up to dig for the combo (which we didn’t get to assemble). This is also the match you can see me finally realize you can combo with Floodcaller in place of Rona. Just another example of my Big Brewer’s Brain™ coming in clutch. Always RTFC!
3.) Mono Black (1:11:30) – Mono Black seems like a tough matchup. Discard combined with well timed spot removal eats this deck alive, but we were able to stand our ground pretty well in this match. This Town Ain't Big Enoughand Stormchaser's Talent was a strong value engine that let us keep our opponent on the back pedal as we established a board presence. Also yet another example of how good Stock Up is.
Closing Thoughts
So, what did we learn today?
Well, for starters: Stormchaser's Talent is feels busted. Like, sneakily busted. The kind of card that makes you feel clever every time you cast it. It adapts to whatever role you need it to fill over the course of a game. It creates aggressive bodies, grinds well by rebuying spells, and can create a game-ending army. It’s a good card. No notes.
Beyond that, I gotta say—I had a blast playing this in Explorer. I might not know the meta, but sometimes it’s more fun to crash the party and start sprinting before you can walk. I think I’ll be revisiting the format more in the future.
Thanks for reading.
As always feel free to comment and leave any questions you have below! Make sure to come back next week for even more Fun & Jank!
If you want to see these decks in action, come hang out with me on stream where we test, refine, and have a ton of fun together!
Happy Brewing!
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Plum is the creator of the Jank Tank.
He started playing at the ripe old age of 12 and immediately fell in love with the infinite possibilities that deck building could lead to.
He truly understands that jank is a mindset, and spends most of his free time brewing and concocting new and exciting deck lists to help inspire and promote creativity within the MTG community.
