Foundational Ottering

Hi y'all!

I've been getting lots of good questions about adjustments to Otters and how Foundations will change the deck, so I wanted to consolidate all of those into one place. Think of this as the post-Foundations "update" to the guide. It's going to be a lot less long and somewhat less structured, because I'm trying to cover a lot of disparate bases, but I hope it'll be a useful resource nonetheless.

I'm going to release this alongside some gameplay & game log review that Mora & I did of Otters vs. Boros Burn, one of the new decks from Foundations that has been somewhat popular online. You'll see why I think this type of content is important shortly :)

Table of Contents

• General Thoughts

• Potential Cards to Add

• What to Cut if You're Adding

• Otters... with a dark side??

• Boros Burn Matchup

• The Mirror!!!!!! (Feat. Friends)

• Conclusions

General Thoughts

It's been really cool to see people picking up the deck and having success with it! The main person I want to shout out is MTGO player JustAlice (@justmiyuzuki on Twitter), who has been racking up challenge top8s alongside CFT. While I'm at it, I should note that Jason and CFT are going to be streaming Otters tonight as I write this (yesterday if you're reading), and more generally streaming regularly together at twitch.tv/jointexploration.

Otters has also been dominating VML, putting no less than 3 pilots into top 8 last week and winning almost all of the matches it's been played in. There's a lot of overlap between Sanctum and VML folks so this isn't surprising to me, and specifically I want to shout out Raini/Autumn (@autumnlilypad) and Nicole Dubin (@nicoledubin.bsky.social), who are unfortunately playing each other in the quarters. Raini was actually involved in the earliest versions of the deck with Jason, and was helping us develop it for Worlds. Nicole is just a strong pro level player who has picked the deck up super quickly and whose opinions I trust on it.

Overall, and I don't mean to toot our own horn but I think it's a reasonable takeaway, the people having the most success with the deck are very strong technical players who say the deck "clicks" for them and are making very few changes to the Sanctum Worlds list. I don't think this is a fluke -- I think mastering the nuances of decision-making with the deck is the single most important thing to do if you want to succeed with it (and remarkable success is possible). I truly think every minute spent figuring out what kinds of gameplay mistakes you're making and how to structurally understand each matchup better is more effective than every minute spent trying to tune the list as the metagame shifts - at least from a purely selfish, short-term perspective, if you want to win matches.

As such, while this article is going to focus on list changes, I strongly believe that the Worlds list is still "mostly" correct, and it's much, much easier to make it worse than it is to make it better.

I want to advertise that I have some biases here - Not just from having success with the deck at Worlds and being invested in the card choices we made/understanding the reasoning behind them, but I also tend to be a pretty conservative deckbuilder who doesn't have a lot of practice in innovating decks in new directions. I'm sure there are vastly smarter folks out there who can find ways to improve or adapt the deck in meaningful structural ways going forward, I just think doing so is extremely difficult. Proceed with caution.

Specific List Changes

All that being said, let's get into some of the changes I've seen suggested or attempted, and why I think they're good/bad ideas. I will be saying I'm suspicious of most of these, but there are some good ideas in here, so read on!

Let's start with one of the changes I've personally attempted, and one I have mixed, but mostly negative feelings on. Beastbinder was a card not on our radar in a significant way going into Worlds, but I faced it when I played against Shuhei's UB midrange list, and was impressed with how it currently lines up into the format. It's a very solid midrangey threat that is great at forcing your opponent into a fair game, and it's luckily an "otter" (floodcaller creature).

I've been running 2 Beastbinder in my maindeck for a couple days on ladder now (cutting Qdruid and a Furnace/Sauna), and I think ultimately, it's just not quite strong enough with the deck's core plan. While it's nice having additional developmental 2-drops to build a board presence for when you get down an Enduring, having a card that doesn't dig you to other cards in this deck ends up being a large cost. Beastbinder sorta makes up for it by prolonging the game enough for you to topdeck a bit more, and can win some games you'd otherwise lose, but I'm almost always playing Thundertrap Trainer on turn 2 if I have one, which makes this less flexible 2-drop hard to justify.

Verdict: Doesn't make the deck significantly worse, but doesn't make it better.

I pretty strongly think stormsplitter is bad. The first list we tested with had one, and although my first instinct when playing with it was to tutor up Stormsplitter a lot (since I understood how that combo worked and didn't really understand the floodcaller one 😂), I soon realized that in pretty much any scenario where you can win with Stormsplitter, you can win with Floodcaller. Floodcaller is a much better fair card, and costs a whole mana less (a canyon in Magic).

Verdict: Don't put this card in your otters decks.

This is a card we definitely considered for the sideboard as extra cheap removal, but ended up unimpressed by. The main issue is that lots of aggro decks in this format play pump spells, which UTS isn't a great answer to, even if you can cast it at instant speed. It's also not great against haste threats. However, I think I could see this being played in a different metagame, it's a strong card, and while it doesn't synergize with much else in the deck in the same way torch does, sometimes you just need cheap, narrow answers in your sideboard.

Verdict: It's an option, but not one I think you want to use right now, against these specific aggro decks.

This is a new option that we get from foundations, and another that I've actually tried out personally. Unfortunately, I was unimpressed. The reason to play this would be that we want a 5th (or even 6th) torch, as that card is just our best card by a mile in a lot of matchups. Burst being able to go to the face mitigates some of the downsides of drawing multiple cheap removal spells against a control deck, because in theory you could craft a gameplan where you can get them down to 8, and then burst + rebuy with talent for the kill.

Unfortunately, it didn't really work out that way. Torch and Burst really don't do the same amount of damage in this deck - Torch can almost always deal 3 if you need it to, and Burst very rarely can. Not exiling is obviously another very real downside when Heartfire Hero exists. The face damage didn't come up for me after multiple days of playing with the card (beyond spots where any spell would have done it because I was using them to trigger floodcaller).

Verdict: Promising in theory, but a bu(r)st in practice.

I love this card. I wanted to build decks around it so often during Worlds testing, and it was never good enough. The idea of gaining 2 life while filling your yard and cycling for just 1 mana is so appealing to me, but you whiff just enough and just aren't getting enough out of your 1 mana for it to be worth it (think of it this way - spending a mana to do nothing is usually not worth 2 life, and you're only filling your yard by 2 cards in the ideal scenario.)

There's also the factor that your early green mana is already super taxed in this deck with analyzes and bushwhacks, and those cards are just much more consistent ways to develop your mana.

Now, I haven't actually tried this card out in the deck, so I could be totally wrong here. If someone wants to prove me wrong, I'd be ecstatic!!

Verdict: Please prove me wrong, I want this card to be good so bad!!

This card says Otter! And Spell! And Prowess! And Taps to do things!!!

Because of all of these reasons, we obviously considered this card. However, 2-drops that don't dig through your deck immediately come at a big cost in this deck, because the rest of your cards are already somewhat mana inefficient, and you can't really wait around digging for your pieces. The card's not bad, it's just not very... focused/streamlined?

If the body was better able to play a fair game (for example, actually being a good blocker on turn 2 against the red decks), it might have a chance, but I think Kitsa is, unfortunately, not quite good enough.

Verdict: It says all the words, but it doesn't do the right structural things.

This is another card that sorta "says all the words", and does genuinely work quite well in the deck in the sense that if you resolve it, you're a deck that can really take advantage of Ral and ride him to victory.

If this were a midrange deck (and it plays like a good one sometimes!), I think Ral would definitely be in it. I like the card a lot and think there's probably a good control shell for it in the format. If you put him in your sideboard for the grindier matchups (specifically ones where floodcaller is weak because of a lot of 1-for-1 removal), he'll put in some good work.

The fundamental issue is that Ral doesn't help the deck where it needs help. Otters already has a better grindy engine in Talent-TTABE, a better way to kill with a flurry of spells (combo), and generally has no problem outmaneuvering the midrange decks with its infinite flexibility and play patterns that put you ahead on material. Ral does all those things just slightly worse than your deck's engine, and he doesn't really do much more than that.

Verdict: Not a bad card, but really, really not the card that this deck needs to shore up its weaknesses or make its strengths stronger

This one's pretty simple actually - I think this is a great option to have access to! Now that mirrors are a thing, this is basically the red equivalent of Anoint With Affliction, and well worth considering as a sideboard slot that also has lots of play against aggro.

Verdict: This is a real card that you should probably consider playing 1-2 of in the 75!

Invasion is a card that was in a lot of early versions of the deck. It's good at digging for combo pieces and playing a fair game sometimes. There were really good versions of the deck with this card in them, but ultimately the Up the Beanstalk / Bitter Reunion package was clearly a better use of the 2-drop "do nothing, dig for my stuff" slot.

Verdict: Not an embarrassing card to put in the deck, and I could easily see a version where this card is good. However, I don't think there's room in the current one.

This card is now legal in standard because it's in the Foundations starter kit, and the ability to bounce your own creatures we think is slightly more valuable than Into the Flood Maw's gifting ability. The main utility of the other mode of Flood Maw is countering Gleeful Demolitions, and convoke is not really a big player anymore. There's also bouncing Monstrous Rage role tokens, but a lot of the time you're not going to be playing fancy and just bounce the creature anyways, especially because Snakeskin Veil is no longer prominent in red decks.

Verdict: Swapping Flood Maw out for this in the board is Sanctum-endorsed, though if you're going with 2 of this effect, maybe consider a 1/1 split?

This is a card we considered in the deck as it was being developed, but ended up deciding wasn't good enough in the core gameplan, nor good enough against the fastest aggro decks to justify inclusion

However, we've recently been liking Entrancer as a replacement for Dissection Tools against the current versions of the red decks in VML champs testing. Dreamdew costs a whole mana less, which can be very valuable in a matchup where survival is the main goal, and it lines up particularly well into the card Screaming Nemesis.

It's also got some more meaningful flexibility in scrappy/weird games by virtue of being a frog that gets untapped with floodcaller, and a source of card advantage if you have a spare Thundertrap Trainer to tap in a topdeck war.

Verdict: Possibly a better option against red right now than dissection tools, but if the meta swings back to Leylines instead of Screaming Nemeses, that could easily change.

With the UW oculus deck becoming a little less popular and UB midrange becoming the default midrange deck, it makes sense to move away from Ghost Vaccum and find a slightly more flexible SB card. Barrage is still excellent against Oculus, but also has real play against one of the most played decks in the format.

Verdict: A good swap for Ghost Vaccums if you don't expect much Oculus or random graveyard decks

I saved the spiciest one for last!

This is a very new development (roughly 24 hours old as I'm updating this piece before it becomes free), but I wanted to include Jason's latest idea for off-the-wall cards to add to this deck.

The basic theory is this -- Otters is a deck with a lot of inevitability and structural synergies, but is gated by its mana engine. Jace is a card that generates large amounts of mana for you over a medium-to-long game, and also helps with finding key synergy pieces. It also helps that a lot of your best cards (Enduring and Floodcaller) cost exactly 3, so you're getting great value out of the plotting.

I don't know if Jace is good, but I know you should listen to Jason when it gets a wacky idea. Even if it's wrong, you'll end up learning something about Magic theory.

Right now, I'm trying one of these out in place of the 3rd Up the Beanstalk in the board. It might also be a viable replacement for the maindeck Bitter Reunions.

Verdict: Some Jason nonsense, but exciting Jason nonsense that makes sense at a structural level. Watch this space!!

What to Cut if you're Adding

Of course, finding cool cards to add to the deck is only one half of the equation, and arguably the less difficult one. The real skill comes in figuring out which parts of this Jenga tower you can pull out without losing key functionality. Here I'll go through every card I'd consider cutting, and what scenarios I think you could get away with it in.

Here's the only card I'm confident actually SHOULD be cut from our Worlds list. Nemesis was a last-minute, very specific choice for the Innkeeper's Red deck that was gaining popularity in the week before Worlds, and I think it's a lot less effective against the other forms of red. Swapping in a Scorching Dragonfire for this card is a Ryan-endorsed list change!

Furnace/Sauna is a solid card, but it can be a very awkward one, and is the card in the maindeck I'm most comfortable cutting to make room for more things. Of course, what you're doing when you do that is going down on removal and some grinding ability in control/midrange matchups, so make sure you plan accordingly.

A sneaky thing you're also losing out on when cutting Furnace/Sauna is Analyze evidence. Sacrificing this card to Torch or discarding it to Bitter Reunion is one of the best ways to fuel Analyze in the deck, so just know this is something you're losing out on too (as well as a Tarnation Vista/TTABE permanent).

This is another card that the deck doesn't strictly need, it just happens to fit really well at very low cost. A 1-of QDruid can be a key part of combo turns if you need to tutor up an extra spell with an Analyze, and the fair modes are still very good in the deck. However, the card is hard to play with and definitely not essential to the core gameplan. I think it's valid to cut it if you're trying out a new idea, or maybe if you're a weaker technical player who doesn't trust yourself to figure out how to maximize your Seek the Beasts.

A lot of people have been copying CFT's list, since they're the person putting up high level challenge results, so I wanted to make sure I have thoughts here on 3 vs. 4 floodcallers.

Playing only 3 floodcaller is definitely a valid choice. I remember the last-hour debate in the testing house well. Most of the team were convinced that the deck was fundamentally a combo deck, and you wanted to maximize the occurence of your combo pieces - especially because Floodcaller is actually one of our best "fair" cards in the aggro matchups. CFT was unconvinced, and decided to go with an extra Qdruid for some more midrange game. The main issue with 4 Floodcaller is that it's awkward to draw 2, which often forces you to deploy them tapped out into removal, and can get you out-tempoed. However, Floodcaller is still one of the strongest cards in the deck, and you always want 1, which is why most of us thought 4 was right. I'd strongly advise anyone going down to 3 Floodcaller to play 4 analyze, so that they have the same virtual number while minimizing drawing duplicates.

This is just a good card in current standard. It's really nice to have an answer to flyers and enchantments, and this deck doesn't mind the cycling mode at ALL. This card is good, playing 1 is almost never wrong and I'm very sure you want at least 2, probably 3 in your 75. But it's obviously cuttable from the maindeck, especially if you want to try things out without diluting the core plan too much.

This is a card I'm hesitant to even include in this section, because it feels like giving people permission to cut it. Most lists I've seen have gone down on Reunions, and I think that is mostly wrong. The card just does so many little things - extra haste on combo turns, giving you a real chance to reshape your awkward draws, being an extra permanent for TTABE & Vista, and maybe most importantly, fueling your analyzes better than any other card besides TTABE (and often you'd rather be able to leave TTABE in yard for comboing).

That being said... it is clunky, and it is cuttable. It's the worst fair card in the deck, and can often be awkward in spots where it makes sense tempo-wise to cast it but you have nothing clearly discardable in hand (in those spots, I'd mostly encourage casting it anyways and making an executive decision so as not to lose out on tempo).

You can cut Bitters if you really feel like you know what you're doing. Don't if you don't.

Beans is also quite slow, and I could definitely see planning on having a different card engine than beans + TTABE. What you're losing out on here is pretty clear: card advantage, so if you want to cut beans, make sure you're structurally accounting for that with the other cards you're putting in. Beans/TTABE is a hell of a drug though, so personally I'm chilling.

This was the best anti-aggro SB plan we found for Worlds, but I could reasonably see someone finding a better one!

If Oculus declines as a metagame player, these would no longer be necessary in the board (this would also be good news for Otters, since Oculus is one of the tighter matchups along with red!)

This is a very strong SB card for Glissa/Archfiend/Annex decks, but it's really narrowly targeted at this current version of GB. If the typical shape of GB changes to move away from that package, or if you just need an extra SB slot and are okay sacrificing some percentage in an already good matchup, feel free to cut this.

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Don't cut Enduring, Talent, TTABE, Torch, Thundertrap, Analyze, Song, Bushwhack (unless it's for an Analyze #4), or Floodcallers #1-3.

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Otters... With a Dark Side??

https://x.com/TheAdonisMTG/status/1859492231637254417

Jason & Nate have both had some success with a version of the deck splashing for Nowhere to Run.

An instant speed removal spell that's also a permanent (bounceable with TTABE) and adds more mana with Tarnation Vista is definitely very appealing in this deck. We actually messed around quite a bit with UB enchantment decks with Nowhere to Run, Nashi, Entity Tracker, and TTABE in our Worlds testing! Having some access to black for sideboard cards is also nice.

The black splash looks somewhat free off of Endurings and a single swamp, since you have so many land searchers, but this is a deck with very finnicky mana requirements, so although I haven't tried this version personally, I can't recommend it as "optimal". Nate & Jason both agree that while the black splash is promising and can put up results (at least in the hands of a player like Nate), it's probably ultimately not "correct".

Boros Burn Matchup

One of the more obvious decks from Foundations that's been popping up online is a new version of red, with Boros Charm & Boltwave. Mora & I decided to record some testing of this matchup this week partly to help them with VML champs prep and partly for content purposes!

You can watch that here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7bzlbCkPf0&list=PL7j14iqGIs5xbCa-QTN9pzqg3bG1acGc7&index=4

But I'll also share my general thoughts here in text form. This is another red matchup that requires very different play patterns from the Otters side!

This is a matchup all about winning the early turns. Boros Burn is a lot less capable of grinding through a long game with Otters and continuing to put up pressure through interaction. All but their absolute best hands will fold if you make it to turn 5 at 15+ life.

However, Otters, at least preboard, has zero ways to deal with a set of burn spells being pointed at its face, which means it's crucially important to stay above 10 life if you can help it. Kill their early threats right away, consider chump blocking to preserve your life total, just make sure you won't be dead to multiple boros charms over a few turns.

If you can't accomplish this, make sure it's because you're setting up a combo that will kill them before they get a chance to unload all the burn in their hand. This becomes more possible when they have land-light hands and are bottlenecked on mana. Sometimes you figure out that they won't be able to cast all their spells even if you are "dead" in theory to a specific sequence of burn.

For more in depth analysis, please watch the videos we recorded! I'll put them in a separate post as well.

The Mirror!! (Feat. Friends)

Here is a cumulative list of times I have played the Otters mirror:

• Two matches in the hotel room the night before Worlds against Mora before I went to bed

• One match against Minh next to Nate & Etienne's Standard Cup top 8

...I believe that's it.

My general thoughts are that Enduring Vitality is by far the most important card, because it unlocks all of your mana, and that it's an insanely complicated & difficult matchup to play, even more so than most, because both of your decks are Otters.

Luckily, I now have some friends who are incredible magic players, and have had to prepare for the mirror for VML/VML champs! Specifically, I was able to get extended thoughts from Autumn, which I'll just directly quote from here:

The mirror is ultimately about tempo. Given a long enough timeline, games degenerate into someone assembling a combo because of how Floodcaller is very hard to permanently answer, whilst Torch and Town serve to ensure you have access to Vitality beyond a certain point as well. The aim, ultimately, is to constrict your opponent's ability to develop the mana engine just long enough such that you can develop your own mana engine.

Torching Vitality is great, obviously, but a lot of the time your opponent will be setting up to respond with their own Torch or Town to protect it, so you don't often get to do this, and Torching Floodcaller is great but there's a pretty narrow window in the game where that will reliably work.

Because of this you end up Torching otter tokens and Trainers much more often than you'd expect, but with the desire to do it at times that develop some notion of tempo (Torching an otter in response to your opponent casting Vitality to restrict how much mana they'll have access to and trip them off of their tools for a turn) or resource advantage (Torching a Trainer in response to it being bounced by Town).

Now some thoughts from Jason:

Song is, imo, the most important card in the matchup, bc it gives you a lot of resources that are very hard to interact with, and which can be easily used. five rats on board will always have the opportunity to tap for five mana when you cast a vitality or grow 1-2 times when you cast floodcaller, even if the 3 drop gets answered immediately

In fact i have come to believe that developing early creatures is just as important as having the 3 drops to leverage them, as there aren't clean answers to the early creatures.

And back to Raini:

[Early creatures being important] is why you end up having to Torch the small creatures so often (which obviously is very much not ideal in a broad sense lol). I felt like I was doing a lot of Towning opposing otter tokens too, of note, as another way of keeping mana dorks in check

I feel like otter tokens and non-creature Vitality were the two opposing things I'd end up bouncing really really often (sometimes Floodcaller too ofc, especially if your opponent is putting Vitality on the stack).

I feel like there's a lot of ways to leave things until the last possible moment to either generate tempo or give your opponent a chance to mess up.

Because of these play patterns, we think both Pyroclasm and Negate are good sideboard cards to keep your opponent off of big boards and key spells.

The main takeaway I'd personally give to someone about to play their first Otters mirror?

Focus on mana advantage, knowing that any Creatures will eventually become mana.

Conclusions

It's been incredible to see this deck take off post-Worlds and prove that it was not really Sanctum's first miss, just a rough tournament from a variance angle.

I'm not normally one to try and ride a deck beyond the tournament I prepared for with it. My general Magic philosophy is that you prepare to win the tournament in front of you, then you wipe the slate clean and begin preparing for the next one. I was an advocate for Quintorious Combo after it carried me to the finals of the Arena Championship, but I was clear at the time that it was a deck with a lot of weaknesses and much more of a metagame call than a deck with incredible staying power. After the pioneer bans, I strongly advised folks who approached me about Quint against playing it at their RCs.

After playing on and off online with Otters for a few weeks and seeing others pick up the deck, I believe Otters is either the best or second best deck in Standard (Quinn Red would be the other candidate) -- of course, assuming strong piloting. The Amulet Titan copypasta remains true. Playskill is still a huge factor in evaluating the strength of decks, and decks that require lots of difficult decision-making are naturally going to be capped in terms of success and popularity in the general metagame.

This, however, is an opportunity to gain massive advantages if you're willing to put in the work! I currently feel like the month I spent playing Otters makes me able to win at a comfortable clip in standard without much effort, and I'm hoping I can turn this into some meaningful results either in the Arena Qualifier this weekend or at the Spotlight Series in Atlanta, assuming the metagame doesn't significantly shift (though of course it likely will somewhat).

Otters is by no means broken in half - it requires a lot of skill to get to the point where it feels like you're playing the best deck in standard, but the evidence now shows that it's possible to get there. Good playskill with any deck will lead to winning at a consistent rate, but I do believe that if you're determined and able to reach close to the skill ceiling with any one deck, and your goal is winning matches, that deck should be Otters. I will stop saying this when I no longer believe it to be true.