Has anyone considered a Zoo build with Raze? I’m wondering if Arcanist + Raze can give a hyper efficient deck like Zoo an edge by keeping opponents off enough mana to go wide. That was always Zoo’s soft spot. Nacatl and Reclaimer give the deck two 1cc 3/x creatures for the beats. W6 let’s you recycle lands for Raze.
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Elvish Reclaimer
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
4 Wrenn and Six
4 Raze
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Sylvan Library
2 something else decent
20 lands, including Wastelands
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Consider cutting the STP's and some Chain Lightning's for some Scale Up and/or Become Immense. Both have potential yet to be explored with DHAOriginally Posted by jrw1985
DHA can't normally cast Become Immense and the +6 doesn't help cast anything else in the GY. What's the interaction, just getting double Immense for +12/+12 to trample FTW?
Scale Up is beatdown, but again doesn't help cast anything and can't be doubled.
StP is a good cut. Zoo never ran it. Lifegain hurts.
You can scale up on Arcanist and then scale up on another guy after the attack I guess. Is Crack the Earth bad?
Crack the Earth forces you to sacrifice a permanent on the recast too AND lets the opponent choose.
Raze doesn't require a sacrifice on the recast and chooses a target. (Edit: Nevermind, it does. Still you get to choose the target.)
Maybe something like this
//Creatures: 22
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Elvish Reclaimer
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
2 Knight of the Reliquary
//Planeswalkers: 4
4 Wrenn and Six
//Spells: 13
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Raze
1 Become Immense
//Lands: 21
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Windswept Heath
3 Arid Mesa
2 Taiga
2 Savannah
2 Plateau
1 Karakas
//Sideboard: 15
3 Veil of Summer
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Bojuka Bog
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
2 Cindervines
1 Destructive Revelry
1 Sylvan Library
Last edited by FTW; 08-23-2019 at 06:04 PM.
I am pretty sure Raze still requires the sacrifice on the recast as its part of its casting cost.
I would run more heavy red/white with Steppe Lynx and Flagstones of Trokair.
Meltdown can only hit cmc 0 artifacts off of Dreadhorde though. Dreadhorde really needs to be able to hit for value. Smelt would probably be best, maybe jam a couple Qasali Pridemage as well.
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I think Smelt might be terrible, specifically because of Chalice on 1. If you go that route, I'd likely favor Shatter Spree because it can actually kill a Chalice on 1, even though it will cost you more mana to do it.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Yeah with chalice probably being the best reason to play artifact hate it seems bad for your artifact hate to get hosed by chalice
Yeah and as far as I know, Shattering Spree is the only 1 CMC Instant/Sorcery that can actually get rid of a Chalice on 1.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Yeah the reason I specifically went for 2cc effects (Cindervines) is because you need answers to Chalice @ 1. Cindervines also has value against Miracles and Storm as burn, helping shore up other matchups that Zoo hates, so it seems like an efficient use of SB space. (1-of Destructive Revelry was a hedge against them using Revoker on Cindervines, while still accomplishing the whole kill+burn thing, but Shattering Spree is probably better).
Smelt seems terrible. Nature's Claim lifegain hurts. Fragmentize is a card? But beating Chalice is important.
I think Cindervines is a hugely good sideboard card, since you can "set it and forget it" when facing junk like Blood Moon or Chalices.
But, I was just thinking along the lines of synergies with Arcanist. But indeed, especially given my local meta, if I am playing RGx, I am likely putting at least one Cindervines in the 75, minimum.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Cindervines seems pretty great. Not having as much synergy with Dreadhorde sucks, but it's fine. I'd rather play some more objectively powerful cards that are less synergistic than get completely hosed by being all in on one plan
Or how about instead of a Zoo shell you jam Raze into a RUG shell?
Play Raze in place of the odd man out cards like Spell Pierce. It seems to compliment Stifle nicely. If they fetch, you Stifle. If they play a mana land, you Raze or Waste. W6 recurs Wastes and Razed Lands. Arcanist recurs Raze. That’s two ways to recur land destruction in a shell that functions just fine on two lands.
4 Delver
4 Arcanist
2 Goyf
2 TNN
4 W6
4 Bolt
4 BS
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 FoW
3 Raze
3 Stifle
18 lands RUG manabase
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It's cute in theory but I still don't think RUG can afford to 2-for-1 itself like this
I think if this idea has legs it's going to be in some kind of RW shell with flagstones (maybe with the Weathered Wayfarer idea)
It could be relatively strong. Keep in mind that a good portion of "keeps" are executed on the basis of a single land and a cantrip. If you're on the play and have access to a play using Raze, it can be backbreaking for some decks - especially ones that think they're safe with basic lands against W6.
I think it would require a serious test in an active paper or competitive online environment to truly test its success rate.
Been testing this deck quite a bit... So far, can't find a favorable matchup. Sorry guys, looks like a dead end.
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