[Deck] Blue Zoo

[4eak]

I really like Blue Zoo in Legacy. The deck, admittedly, loses free counters when porting to Modern. It remains both fast and disruptive. Wild Nacatl's efficiency is proportionately stronger in Modern than Legacy - he's one of the few 1-drops worth building around.

Here is a decklist:

// Lands - 21
1 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Steam Vents
2 Breeding Pool
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Arid Mesa
3 Misty Rainforest

// Creatures - 16
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Delver of Secrets/Insectile Aberration
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Tarmogoyf

// Tempo Counters - 12
4 Spell Pierce
4 Spell Snare
4 Remand

// Board Control - 11
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
3 Lightning Helix

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Qasali Pridemage
SB: 3 Grim Lavamancer
SB: 3 Rhox War Monk
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Engineered Explosives

It kinda plays like 4-color Thresh deck when you aren't in Zoo-mode. Hell, this might just be an aggressive Bant w/red splash. The idea is to drop mana-efficient critters and generally out-tempo your opponent through permission and board control, using burn to the head only when necessary. I think this deck performs fairly well against combo decks, having a nice mix of disruption and a clock.

Others may feel differently (with good reason, these are new cards), but I think Delver and Snapcaster Mage are quite good. I started with only 2 of each, and I've worked my way up to 4 of each.

Serum Visions may have a place in this deck. While it is no Brainstorm, it does a sufficient job in setting up Delver and interacts nicely with Snapper.


peace,
4eak

[264505]

May as well go deep and run Domain Zoo. Might of Alara and Tribal Flames are powerful cards.

[4eak]

Domain Zoo is another route, but I think it is important to see that it is a very different route. Domain has a streamlined role (and spell coloration) so that it can afford flexibility in its manabase (the last color or two are rarely or barely necessary for casting spells). Blue Zoo is not looking to play the same role, I think, and it can't afford the coloration either.

As far as I understand, Blue Zoo tries to play only the most cheap, efficient, aggressive, standalone-type creatures (Snapper being somewhat an exception). It trades the weaker 'filler' creatures and the weaker burn & board control cards (of traditional zoo) for blue-based tempo control and card filtering/advantage. The deck is capable of doing what traditional Zoo does best, but it often opens hands which enable and/or push you to play a different role, something more akin to thresh aggro-control.

I hear a lot of complaining about how Modern lacks good counters. This is true, to some extent, regarding dedicated control (which is a dying class of decks in eternal formats). I think the tempo counters of the format are still rather good. Granted, they aren't FoW/Daze, but they are quite relevant given the power levels and speed of Modern.

Blue Zoo loses the weaker aggro cards (losing some synergies and some consistency in reaching critical mass of these cards) to gain relatively stronger cards in blue. This trade may be worth it in many metagames.


peace,
4eak

[Kanti]

If you are running so many blue cards I'd consider running Clique and Disrupting Shoal. You'd pretty much have the critical number of blue spells allowing you to run FOWjunior. So far 1/3 of your deck is blue.

Tribal Flames seems especially saucy with Snapcaster. The deck might not be able to afford the colors, but getting in for 4 with Tribal isn't bad. It's just Pool+Foundry, Temple+Steam, or Fountain+Ground.

Edit: Honestly I'd even look into Wild Growth in a Modern deck with Snapcaster. It can act like Lightning Bolt or save creatures. Extraction also seems better in the board than Crypt since you run Snapcasters.

[brianw712]

So although Nacatl's banning weakened this deck, I think it's still viable:

Lands (20):

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
3 Steam Vents
3 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
2 Sulfur Falls
1 Mountain
1 Island

Creatures (20):

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Kird Ape
2 Goblin Guide
2 Figure of Destiny

Spells (20):

4 Lightning Bolt
3 Magma Jet
3 Spell Snare
3 Spell Pierce
3 Remand
4 Mana Leak

SB (15):

3 Surgical Extraction
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Koth of the Hammer
3 Deprive
3 Grim Lavamancer

Having 12 one-drops with tempo counters is really good. Has pretty good combo and control matchups due to fast clock + permission. Midrange is a little trickier, but I haven't been running into that much lately.