LOLcat

[FTW]

Zoo is dead and I miss playing with my pussy cats.


4 Wild Nacatl
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Goblin Guide
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Plated Geopede
4 Knight of the Reliquary

4 Crop Rotation
4 Berserk
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt

4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Arid Mesa
3 Savannah
2 Taiga
2 Plateau
1 Karakas

//Sideboard:
3 Searing Blaze
2 Price of Progress
4 Chain Lightning
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Bojuka Bog


Suggestions? Most of the sideboard options are design with respect to playing the aggro-role in most matches. Crypt/Thalia are a concession to the fact that storm and GY-based combo will always be faster.

[(nameless one)]

Apparently from the most recent Everyday Eternal podcast, zoo needs that untargettable guy to get around removal to help Zoo's clause.

So what about Nimble Mongoose?

[lithiux]

What's going on with those Crop Rotations? Demonic Tutors for your Karakas and Bojuka Bog to shore up Reanimator and the Sneak and Show nut draw? Can you hold up green mana early in the game?

[Megadeus]

You play turn 1 steppe lynx, t2 fetch, crop rotation, get a fetch use it, berserk your man. Battle for 16 on T2

Alternatively it does double as disruption

[lithiux]

Knight of the Reliquary also does this if the game ever goes "late." Pretty sweet trick.

[Griselpuff]

Needs more Spirit of the Labyrinth.

[FTW]

You play turn 1 steppe lynx, t2 fetch, crop rotation, get a fetch use it, berserk your man. Battle for 16 on T2

Alternatively it does double as disruption

This. Hence "LOLcat".

8 landfall guys with 12 fetches+4 crop rotations to get the most explosiveness out of those landfall triggers early game. Later in the game, you have KotR and sandbagged Crop Rotations to keep the landfall going. Crop Rotations also fill your yard to make your Knight bigger. And yeah, they (and Knight) double as instant-speed tutors for disruption.

There are a ton of explosive turn 2-3 goldfishes possible with a combination of crop rotations/berserks/bolts/landfall guys. This is something aggro decks typically cannot do. Zoo usually sucks vs combo, but landfall tech gives you some legitimate outs to race combo and other aggro. The tradeoff is major vulnerability to disruption, so you have to play smart and try not 4-for-1 yourself against RUG. You don't have to play super-explosively; it's just that the option is there.

Why use this strategy? Fair zoo seems underpowered in the format. You need to gain an edge somehow. Speeding up the clock seems like one possible way. You can just outrace typical anti-aggro plans like PunishingFire/Deed/Bridge/Nausea effects/Engineered Plague/Toxic Deluge. Or if your board gets wiped, you can represent a win out of nowhere with 1-2 guys, throwing off the opponent. Sandbagging Crop Rotations and Berserks is obviously a weak strategy against heavy discard, but it seems like BGx decks are not playing Hymns as much anymore, which works in our favour.

The RUG matchup is probably abysmal. Spell Pierce+Fow+Daze+Stifle+Bolts+clock Oh my! Against decks packing lots of disruption, you can opt to board out a few Crop Rotations/Berserks/Geopedes for more Burn and/or Thalias, effectively morphing back into a fair zoo deck. The decks that REALLY wreck the Crop Rotation+Berserk plan tend to be bad against fair aggro with Thalias, so there's that.

Thoughts/suggestions?

If we need a hexproof guy, who would it be?

[FTW]

Needs more Spirit of the Labyrinth.

Yeah no kidding. SHE is the new LOLcat. Just WOW.