[Free Article] Don't Feed the Animals

[voltron00x]

I finally got a chance to get some Legacy action in last month. Due to a series of unfortunate events, the resulting article was delayed by four weeks, but is now up, and is free. I played a relatively normal Zoo build, going 5-1 in the Swiss of a 40-person local tournament before losing to Landstill in the top 8.

Some people might find Zoo "miserable", but I really enjoyed playing the deck and can't wait to play it again...

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/19188_The_Long_Winding_Road_Dont_Feed_the_AnimalsTop_8_with_Legacy_Zoo.html

[RogueMTG]

I dug it. Enjoyed seeing dredge get rolled by Zoo. You really didn't face any good match-ups (except maybe Elves) and still managed to do well which was cool. Landstill considers Zoo to be pretty much a bye so props for stealing a game there.

Are the top 8 decklists from that event posted anywhere? I'd like to take a closer look at the other decks you faced/mentioned.

[voltron00x]

Sure, the decklists are here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?8090-Top-8-Decklists/page9

about 3/4 of the way down. I believe there were 2 Zoo decks and 1 Goyf Sligh in the field, and the Sligh deck won. Landstill is much better equipped to beat a legit Zoo deck than something closer to a burn deck, in my experience.

[alderon666]

I dug it. Enjoyed seeing dredge get rolled by Zoo...

Dredge #1
"...I break another set of Bridges using Qasali Pridemage to destroy the Pithing Needle, and promptly rip Tormod’s Crypt..."

Dredge #2
"Game 2: On the play, Lucas keeps again, and leads out with Cabal Therapy naming Tormod’s Crypt, which is in my hand. That makes me feel a lot worse about my chances, but it turns out that Lucas has no Dredgers. So, I just play out my hand and keep sending the team. Lucas eventually draws a Breakthrough and plays it with x=1, but I get very lucky and he whiffs on Dredgers again, which effectively ends the game."

"Round 5: Lose 0-2 vs. John with Belcher (4-1)"

So, he lucked out against the 2 Dredge deck and lost against the Belcher deck. Still looks pretty miserable to me.

[voltron00x]

In Rd 1, game three, I'm still in a very strong position as I can break Bridges at my leisure and John had no blockers. The Crypt locked up the game, but I'm still probably going to win against an opponent that's slow-dredging with nothing that can block and no Bridges. If I had won the die roll before game one, the game might’ve been different, as I can play Teeg before John plays his Breakthrough. I still probably lose, but its most certainly going to be a much closer game.

In Rd 3, Lucas chose not to mulligan in either games 1 or 2; I probably would have shipped the hand he kept game 1. It probably beats any blue deck however, so possibly he thought I was on a different deck. His game two hand was perfectly reasonable, and I was fortunate he didn’t have any Dredgers. However, he did keep a hand with mana, a draw spell ,a discard outlet, and a anti-hate piece. That hand is very strong, and I still won. Even if he has 12 Dredgers in the deck, that Breakthrough has to hit both a Dredger and another draw spell to have an effect at that point in the game.

You can explain it away however you want… I just don’t think Legacy Dredge is strong enough, especially now that there’s some extra incentive to Graveyard-hate due to Reanimator and Loam decks.

Belcher is obviously an unfortunate match-up, but I had a shot to win game one and could’ve been in game 2 had I drawn one land in the first four turns of the game or not had to mull to 5. I think Rogue’s point is more that I hit 3 bad match-ups and 1 mirror match in 6 rounds of Swiss and still went X-1 with a deck purported to essentially be the nut-low of the format. Trust me, I’m not that lucky OR that good.

[Aggro_zombies]

I'm not buying the logic on not including Library. If you're not including it because you're afraid of Reanimator and Storm combo, you shouldn't be playing Zoo in the first place, as adding a singleton Teeg and Jitte is not going to help you in these matchups - with no library manipulation, how do you expect to find them in a reasonable time frame? Lucksack into the opener with Teeg every time? Seems like a really shitty plan. Granted, Library isn't that hot against Dredge, but neither is Teeg unless you get him down before the Breakthrough...but then again, if the other guy opened with land, Nomads, self-inflicted Mind Twist, Teeg's best career choice is to nobly sacrifice himself in combat to try to nab the other guy's Bridges. That also seems pretty bad. Including Library gives you a better midgame against not just aggro-control, but other Zoo decks and a lot of random rogue decks you might expect to face. Granted, you cut it for a metagame call, but I'm just not feeling it here.

[voltron00x]

As I believe I explained in the article, the deck should probably have at least one Library. I get the argument for two, I just can't say it was working out for me. The single night I tested for this event, I had 3 times where I drew 2 Sylvans in a mull to 6. That's not acceptable to me. I realize, small sample size etc, I'm just perfectly happy with 1.

The reason why I played those two cards main was to effectively pack in 17 sideboard cards. Not saying that's "correct" deck-building or anything, just that it's what I did.

I also think Zoo was strong enough against the majority of that field that it's worth running in the face of the poor combo match-up. There were maybe 2 Storm decks and 3 Dredge decks, plus 1 Lands, out of 40 players. Dredge and Storm were shut out of the top 8 entirely while 2 of the 3 Zoo-ish decks made top 8.

[General_Norris]

I also think that Dredge is somewhat inconsistant. Don't get me wrong, it's a great deck but sometimes your hands are horrid and need to mull way too much.

As you say the difference is huge if you are used to the Vintage version.

[Rico Suave]

Dredge #1
"...I break another set of Bridges using Qasali Pridemage to destroy the Pithing Needle, and promptly rip Tormod’s Crypt..."

Dredge #2
"Game 2: On the play, Lucas keeps again, and leads out with Cabal Therapy naming Tormod’s Crypt, which is in my hand. That makes me feel a lot worse about my chances, but it turns out that Lucas has no Dredgers. So, I just play out my hand and keep sending the team. Lucas eventually draws a Breakthrough and plays it with x=1, but I get very lucky and he whiffs on Dredgers again, which effectively ends the game."

"Round 5: Lose 0-2 vs. John with Belcher (4-1)"

So, he lucked out against the 2 Dredge deck and lost against the Belcher deck. Still looks pretty miserable to me.

So there were what, 6 decks out of 40+ at the tournament that would have been bad matches for him? And he happened to face 3 of them?

And then you're going to call him lucky for this?