[Free Article] Split: What If / Reanimator vs. Zoo

[voltron00x]

Split article for this week, both halves pertaining to Legacy.

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/19633_The_Long_Winding_Road_Split_ArticleWhat_If_Zoo_versus_Reanimator.html

First, a bit of a spoof on the Mystical Tutor banning. I just want to say that I didn't do it with malicious intent. The format is going to be fine, Legacy is still awesome, etc. The problem I have is that the banning seems 100% unnecessary in terms of actual tournament results, and therefore sets a bad precedent for similar decisions in the future. Regardless, I'm still going to keep playing Legacy. This is meant to be all in fun.

Second, 30 games of Zoo vs. Reanimator post-July 1. These games aren't meant to be analyzed for high-level strategic decisions, but rather offer a brief synopsis of how these games can play out. The Reanimator list in the article is already a little out of date compared to what I'm carrying around, and I think you're going to see some different versions out there after July 1 (to the extent that people just don't give up on the archetype).

Also, to briefly answer a question on my article on the Philly Open: yes, the Merfolk deck from BoM that Alex Bertoncini played in the St Louis Open this past weekend is much harder to beat with Zoo than a normal version of Merfolk with Stifle / Standstill. Kira plus 16 Lords gives the deck much more ability to race and to push its guys to similar power/toughness as Zoo's creatures. That build is still vulnerable to Jitte and the more Pyroblasts / REBs you have in the Zoo board, the better off you'll be.

Ok, that's all I've got for this time.

[MMogg]

First, a bit of a spoof on the Mystical Tutor banning. I just want to say that I didn't do it with malicious intent. The format is going to be fine, Legacy is still awesome, etc. The problem I have is that the banning seems 100% unnecessary in terms of actual tournament results, and therefore sets a bad precedent for similar decisions in the future. Regardless, I'm still going to keep playing Legacy. This is meant to be all in fun.

I enjoyed the first bit, actually. Quite funny and very poignant.

[Rico Suave]

I counted like 7 or 8 of the Reanimator wins that went like this:

"I showed him Dispel and won the game."

[jazzykat]

I only read the second part of the article. It was enlightening. Obviously the reanimator build may or may not have been optimal. Unfortunately, I don't see a post banning Reanimator coming out unweakened. Given that zoo already won games vs. reanimator, and this new evidence leads me to the conclusion that the match is about 50/50. When combo is 50/50 with aggro it seems kind of pointless to play combo.

[pippo84]

The first part of the article was hilarious!!

[Cthuloo]

Very good article, the first part was brilliant, the irony was very clever, The second part was also very well done. Even if for obvious reasons the Reanimator list is still a work in progress, you still manage to enlighten some importan patterns, like the difficoulty of finding an early reanimate or a later exhume. Something that also appeared interesting to me is that the best bet for zoo is now probably to try to goldfish as fast as possible, given that Reanimator is now slower. Losing punch to bring in hate appeared as a bad choice. Dispel looks quite strong, maybe better than spell pierce. With this slower build you're probably destined to go for reanimation on turn 3 or later, and at this point dispel is still guaranteed to be effective, while pierce not.
As a last question, given how often reanimate was a dead card, do you think it's worth to have some slots in the board for animate dead or other reanimation spells? Or do you think show and tell will be sufficient?

Edit:


Zoo plays Wild Nacatl and is miserable. [...] Zoo plays two more Wild Nacatls, causing McCall’s Misery Meter to explode.

Just to say that this almost made me laugh out loud.

[mchainmail]

First part was brilliant. Second half was solid as well.

[denial]

First, a bit of a spoof on the Mystical Tutor banning. I just want to say that I didn't do it with malicious intent. The format is going to be fine, Legacy is still awesome, etc. The problem I have is that the banning seems 100% unnecessary in terms of actual tournament results, and therefore sets a bad precedent for similar decisions in the future. Regardless, I'm still going to keep playing Legacy. This is meant to be all in fun.



Holy Shit. That was funny as fuck.

[Aggro_zombies]

Man, I was so pissed when they banned Counterbalance. The card was fine; all you had to do was splash green and play Krosan Grip, which every deck should have been doing anyway because of Tarmogoyf. Then they had to go and ban it and now the format has been 16-counter Landstill versus Tendrils for a year.

What douchebags.

Nice article, by the way.

[frogboy]

Zoo plays Wild Nacatl and is miserable. [...] Zoo plays two more Wild Nacatls, causing McCall’s Misery Meter to explode.

I missed this the first time around, but it was pretty good.

I think you need a second Sphinx pretty badly; it's quite crucial against most beatdown decks.