Catfish (Blue zoo No FOW, delver, brainstorm, goyf)

[jnosrati]

This deck is a variant of blue zoo that depends on maximizing tempo, while hosing combo.

How is this deck different from Blue zoo.?
Lynx-our MVP
a) Goyf now costs 1. We don’t want to block, this is a tempo deck
b) Daze makes it better
c) We play more lands that blue zoo
Ooze- amazing in the current meta.
a) Maindeck grave hate
b) Better than goyf here, much better with lavamancer
c) Good in later game
Fire/Ice
a) Kills delver, lavamancer, scryb ranger, bob, mystic, dryad arbor, Mom, lynx,
b) Burn to face
c) Cantrip and tap annoying things, can even tap lands at upkeep for tempo.
Not playing Brainstorm
a) Costs mana, no second turn double 1 drop
b) Takes card slot, we could have more dudes. slower clock
c) More landsplays around wasteland better than brainstorm.
No delver
a) Needs brainstorm
b) See above
Not playing FOW
a) We can deal with combo unless theyre on the play and winnign that turn
b) Card disadvantage is bad
c) Not enough blue cards
d) This is an aggro deck.

If you don’t like these choices, please refer to the blue zoo thread 

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20129-Deck-Blue-Zoo&p=619110#post619110

Sample decklist- POP strategy
Land: 20
2 tundra
1 tropical island
2 plateau
2 taiga
4 scalding tarn
1 arid mesa
4 wooded foothills
4 windswept heath

Creatutes : 19
4 steppe lynx
4 wild nacatl
4 goblin guide
2 gaddock teeg (not locked in)
2 ooze
3 Grim lavamancer (not locked in)


Instants/sorceries :21
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Daze
4 spell snare
4 fire ice
3 chain lightning
2 pop (not locked in)


Sample sideboard-
SB: 15
4 Surgical Extraction
2 oblivion ring
2 ancient grudge
2 pithing needle
3 spell pierce
1 pyroblast
1 POP
0 EE (could be good, so I’m leaving this in) With 4 colors, I know this can be abused.


Cards not in sb-
Mind harness-
- Mainly shines in maverick matchup. By the time we see knight, we have mana, and can play o rings. Also, we are more scared of equipments than knights. O-ring hits both.
Submerge-
-bad version of mind harness in this deck. We have mana by the time we need it.
-We also like to kill things for Ooze food.
Path-
-We play the best 1 drops. Lets not accelerate out opponent into batterskulls and knights
Swords-
-giving opponent life in a tempo deck- bad idea

Matchups :

1) Maverick G/W
On the play it is in your favor, on the draw it is not. Sideboarding is rather tough as well, as it can be argued what we take out.

Cards to possibly board in are O ring, grudge, needle.
Cards we take out for sure are – teeg. Then it gets tricky.

We cant race maverick on the ground. Here we need an alternate strategy. at the moment, I have POP. It seems good, but its still a hard MU.


2) RUG- snapcaster, delver, mongoose and goyf in a nutshell.
Similar to Maverick, We have a better MU here though. Still hard.

3) Tendrils.
Snare counters all 8 tutors. This is big. Daze and pierce help as well. surgical is also great vs past in flames combo, which is what is played.
Teeg is amazing here, as he stops empty, past in flames, ad nauseum, and tendrils.

4) Hivemind
We have blasts, pierces, dazes, and o rings.
We can surgical extract in response to the resolution of intuition. This is GG.
We are faster than emrakul


5) UW stoneforge
This matchup seems to be more than slightly in our favor. Bring in o rings, needle, grudges. You get to be the beatdown while having a lot of answers to every possible win condition they have. It's pretty good.

[capitacom]

First off four-color aggro decks already have serious mana problems; in your deck this is exacerbated by focusing on one-drops and cards like daze, while not compensating by having mana fixing such as noble hierarch and adding more lands (20 lands is not more than blue zoo which commonly plays 20 + dryad arbor, 2-3 gsz and 4 noble hierarch. Compare 20 mana sources to 25-28. Adding wasteland is therefore a terrible idea. One wasteland is probably enough for you to lose the game.

Fire//ice just seems underpowered and brainstorm would probably be a lot better. Especially in a deck with this many fetches and a blatant need to fix mana a cantrip like brainstorm is necessary. Cards like fire//ice are dead in some matchups while cards such as daze/steppe lynx are dead lategame and brainstorm fix this.

And your matchup analysis seems overly optimistic. Since all the reasons zoo normally beats delver decks (knight/goyf/a lot of removal) are missing in this deck, this doesn't seem at all a good matchup as your creatures are easy to answer with burn. Your deck also doesn't have an answer for goyf which conveniently also kills all your creatures.

Maverick seems like a bad matchup as you have few answers for the equipment plan, punishing fire ruins you and they have more creatures than you and knight is a big issue.

Your deck is also very weak against zoo which has a more stable manabase and more solid creatures which you can't get rid of since you don't play path / swords.

Daze and snare isn't enough to 'hose' combo.

I doubt blade control is as easy as you assume it to be, because especially before boarding you have few answers for the equipment route and your manabase is extremely vulnerable to wasteland.

In blue zoo the addition of blue serves a defined purpose. This deck would be better by taking out white and going for RUG delver. It would also be better as one-drop naya zoo, or as uwr tempo. This deck will also suffer from burn hate and is thus a bad meta choice as well. You would be better off trying to design an effective blue zoo list for the current meta.

[jnosrati]

Take a look at the blue zoo forum, zenith, and noble hierarch are almost never played there. It's all 18-19 lands and cantrips. I wasnt refering to the slower blue zoo with jace and knights.

On combo, teeg and ooze do wonders.

On maverick, My current dl, (pop version) used to have 2 pridemage mainboard. This is also an option; although im not sure which is better vs maverick.

The matchup can really go either way. snare pop and fire ice go a long way here. ooze and lavaman do a decent bit of damage as well.