The original Forgetful Fish list, on which this box is based, centers on its two namesake cards: Dandân and Memory Lapse. After listening to Rhystic Studies' video on the topic and seeing the deck in action on Friday Night Paper Fight I was inspired to pick up the list and play it for myself because it looked like a ton of fun. The problem? Due to the renewed public interest in this fringe format, everywhere I looked cheap copies of Dandân were sold out and only the highly coveted Arabian Nights printings remained. My solution? Reinvent Forgetful Fish.

The Fish

Part of the elegance of the original Forgetful Fish list is that it uses every part of the fish. Magical Hack effects like Vision Charm and Crystal Spray play with Dandân's islandhome and turn these otherwise mediocre cards into targeted removal/board wipes. Dance of the Skywise becomes either a way to give you fish evasion or save it from removal because removing the ability text from the creature is an upside. Because Dandân is the only creature in the environment 20 life can be reduced to 5 since each Dandân hit represents exactly 1/5 of the starting life total.

As a result, when I was considering making my own take on the deck, I wanted to ideally a 2 mv creature with 4 power and some kind of uniqueness/downsides that make it possible to explore unique card interactions. This is how I stumbled upon Dorothea, Vengeful Victim. A fairly recent bulk rare Dorothea has several exciting bits of rules text.

1. It sacrifices itself after combat.
2. It's castable from the graveyard as an aura.
3. It's legendary so you can't control more than one at a time.

Ok, I thought, I can work with this. Reality Ripple allows you to phase Dorothea out in response to her sacrifice trigger, saving her from destruction. Additionally Reality Ripple phasing out means that any Retributions attached to your Dorothea phase out as well. Flicker of Fate can also save your Dorothea from getting sacrificed to her own trigger but any attached auras will fall off and any of those auras that are Retributions will be permanently exiled. However, Flicker of Fate can also target Retributions so you can flicker the Retribution in response to the Dorothea's attack trigger and get another Dorothea in play to use next turn. Additionally Dress Down is a cantrip that can save Dorothea from her own ability by causing her to lose all abilities while False Demise can put your (or your opponent's) self-sacrificed Dorothea into play under your control.

Another way around this is taking advantage of the legend rule See Double can essentially save your Dorothea by allowing you to make a second copy of her that allows you to just sacrifice the doomed copy while Word of Undoing is a fun an unique take on the classic Unsummon that can allow you to save you Dorothea from sacrifice as well as getting you back any Retributions that were attached to her as more Dorotheas in hand. Word of Undoing also works with Cho-Manno's Blessing; an interesting additional piece of the puzzle that you can put on your own Dorothea to make it unblockable or save it from removal or on your opponents' Dorothea block it from being enchanted with a Retribution or block it from being saved by a blink or bounce effect after combat. Last but not least Aura Graft allows you to steal your opponent's reanimated Retributions as well as False Demise or Cho-Manno's Blessing.

The Forget

The other key part of the original list is the exploration of the shared library. Tuck effects like Memory Lapse and Metamorphose explore this space by turning tempo removal into potential theft effects.

In place of Memory Lapse is it's colorshifted counterpart Lapse of Certainty as well as Reprieve to fill the role that Unsubstantiate had in the original list. This list also includes some hard countermagic with the acknowledgement that a Dorothea in the graveyard is not a dead card. Ojutai's Command is a fun spell that can undo one Dorothea's worth of damage (gain 4 life), reanimate a Dorothea (return a creature with mana value 2 or less), draw a card (get a tucked card off the top at instant speed) or counter target creature (counter an opponent's Dorothea before it hits the board or potentially save your own from getting tucked and put a potential future Retribution in your graveyard instead). Similarly, Tale's End can counter a Dorothea or save a Dorothea from getting sacrificed to its own ability. Importantly neither of these spells can counter the Retribution side because on the stack Dorothea's Retribution is a non-legendary non-creature spell.

Additionally the list also leverages the white in the environment to explore some tuck effects that the original list could not include. Unexpectedly Absent is a flexible tuck that can be used to try to mind game your opponent if you expect that they have a way to try to draw cards off the top of the deck and Aura Extraction is a fun way to put a Retribution or one of the other utility auras back on the top of the library or have instant -cycle to get the tucked card from the top of the library. Also Reinforcements is a fun way to restock Dorotheas if you can take advantage of it before your opponent can.

The Odds and Ends

For manipulating the top of the library and looking for more Dorotheas to play with the box also includes two copies of Dream Cache as well as New Benalia and Halimar Depths to manipulate the top of the library. Azorius Chancery allows you to reset some of these utility lands while Irrigated Farmland is another -cycler you can use to get tucked cards off the top of the shared library. Mission Briefing acts as a pseudo-Snapcaster Mage that can simultaenously manipulate the shared library and the shared graveyard while Spiritualize is a cantrip that can serve as a lifegain spell or a psuedo-fog effect. Scout's Warning fills the role that Ray of Command had in the original list as a surprise psuedo-haste enabler to close out games.