Zoo

[Mr. Safety]

There's a modern 1K coming up, not sure if I want to go or not. The format doesn't interest me nearly as much as legacy, but I see an opportunity to take advantage of a shifting metagame with zoo. It's consistent and proactive, likely slightly faster than traditional burn but slightly slower than Prowess Red. The difference is resilience with a go-wide strategy. Heavy emphasis on 1-drops and blasting with Bushwhackers. Rancor is to make Lynx a 2 powered threat even without land drops and to make 1-drops huge.

4x Wild Nacatl
4x Loam Lion
4x Kird Ape
4x Steppe Lynx
4x Experiment One
4x Burning Tree Emissary
4x Reckless Bushwhacker
2x Goblin Bushwhacker
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lightning Helix
4x Rancor
4x Windswept Heath
3x Wooded Foothills
3x Arid Mesa
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Stomping Ground
2x Sacred Foundry
2x Temple Garden



Sideboard is a crap-shoot, probably something like this:

3x Tormod's Crypt
3x Destructive Revelry
2x Grim Lavamancer
3x Kor Firewalker
4x Path to Exile

[Mr. Safety]

Uber-necro here, I haven't played Modern in 2020 yet...

Looking at this dude and thinking it might be time to rebuild Zoo with possibly 8 Steppe Lynx. Being red is a pretty big upgrade, which means it can be played off Burning-Tree Emissary. The amount of absurd 1-drops will be incredibly powerful, blitzing for huge damage. I think this replaces Experiment One easily enough.

https://www.mtgpics.com/pics/big/znr/133.jpg

Rough list:

4x Wild Nacatl
4x Steppe Lynx
4x Akoum Hellhound
4x Kird Ape
4x Loam Lion
4x Burning-Tree Emissary
4x Reckless Bushwhacker
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lightning Helix
2x Rancor
12x fetchlands
6x shocklands (maybe 1-2 basics)

Sideboard options (I have no clue what the format looks like right now...)
Path to Exile
Destructive Revelry
Tormod's Crypt
Deflecting Palm
Ghost Quarter
Cleansing Wildfire
Stony Silence
Ancient Grudge
Blessed Alliance
Surgical Extraction

This guy *might* be good enough, haste is better than first strike like Plated Geopede. I don't think I want 2 mana dudes though unless it's BTE or Bushwhacker.
https://www.mtgpics.com/pics/big/znr/221.jpg

[jethstriker]

Rough list:

4x Wild Nacatl
4x Steppe Lynx
4x Akoum Hellhound
4x Kird Ape
4x Loam Lion
4x Burning-Tree Emissary
4x Reckless Bushwhacker
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lightning Helix
2x Rancor
12x fetchlands
6x shocklands (maybe 1-2 basics)

Sideboard options (I have no clue what the format looks like right now...)
Path to Exile
Destructive Revelry
Tormod's Crypt
Deflecting Palm
Ghost Quarter
Cleansing Wildfire
Stony Silence
Ancient Grudge
Blessed Alliance
Surgical Extraction

Narnam Renegade is a much better version of ape and lion when you are already playing fetches. This card is often overlooked whenever I see bushwhacker zoo variants list like these. Another thing to consider when playing zoo variant like this is Atarka's Command. Command can deal loads of unexpected damage in a single turn when combined with bushwahckers.

[Mr. Safety]

I will get the ACommands in there, I can easily cut some number of Rancor/Helix.

Narnam Renegade is ok, I might replace Loam Lion with that. The deathtouch is fine, but it will enter as a 1/2 a non-zero amount of times, and I don't know how I feel about that. Its greatest value is in being green so I can cast it off BTE. It's likely that Goblin Guide is actually a strict upgrade, but I am also eyeballing Pyroclasm as a potential sweeper.

The real question: is an 8-steppe lynx deck viable in modern? I haven't played the format in over a year, so I don't know the answer to that.

[kombatkiwi]

The real question: is an 8-steppe lynx deck viable in modern? I haven't played the format in over a year, so I don't know the answer to that.

Various prowess decks are tier 1 so lava dart is one of the most played cards atm, you might be able to play around it or have a plan to board out your 0/1 and rely on bigger cards like tarmo etc but I think it's something that needs to be considered

[Mr. Safety]

Thanks for the tidbit, being weak to Lava Dart would be very bad. Losing 2 creatures at instant speed for only R would be devastating. Mutagenic Growth could be an option alongside sandbagging fetchlands.

I haven't tried Elvish Reclaimer yet, it could be pretty good alongside so many fetchlands. I don't think I would activate it unless it enabled 2+ Lynxes and wasn't already a 3/4, but the option is really sweet against stuff like Tron (grabbing sideboard Ghost Quarters.)

[Mr. Safety]

This guy looks interesting by enabling repeatable landfall triggers for Steppe Lynx/Akoum Hellhound. With shocklands it might be too much unless it's our third land and we just bounce/replay it tapped. I like that it has haste and trample, but I hate that it's terrible t1. In that sense Goblin Guide is far superior.


http://mythicspoiler.com/zrs/cards/waywardguidebeast.jpg

[Sella]

Like you mentioned it isn't great t1 but it could be fine as a 2-of. That'd also break your string of 4-ofs so you'd have space for whatever other cute tech option

[Mr. Safety]

Like you mentioned it isn't great t1 but it could be fine as a 2-of. That'd also break your string of 4-ofs so you'd have space for whatever other cute tech option

RANCOR!!! I think you're right, it feels like a 2-of.

[Mr. Safety]

Saw a mtggoldfish video where SaffronOlive put together a landfall deck but used a bunch of (what I consider) sub-par card choices (Plated Geopede, Brushfire Elemental) but one thing I think he got dead-on was including Wrenn & Six. I think I'll include 2x Wrenn & Six in my list to make sure Steppe Lynx/Akoum Hellhound are reliable beefy threats in the mid-game. I can't remember if he used Elvish Reclaimer, but that seems like an ok addition as well considering it will often be a 3/4 for G.

New list:

4x Wild Nacatl
4x Steppe Lynx
4x Akoum Hellhound
4x Kird Ape
4x Loam Lion
4x Burning Tree Emissary
4x Reckless Bushwhacker
3x Goblin Bushwhacker
1x Elvish Reclaimer
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lightning Helix
2x Wrenn and Six
12x Fetch
6x Shock, maybe 1-2 basic lands

[Sella]

W&6 definitely looks like it could put in work in this deck. Maybe I'll try throwing Zoo together when I eventually buy back into Modern.

If you threw in some basics, would you prioritize forest, plains or mountain? I feel like you need the R a lot more but at the same time running 1x forest 1x plains would keep you safe from Blood Moon (assuming it matters, not sure how big it is rn in Modern)

[Mr. Safety]

I wouldn't play Mountain, I would play Forest first (enables all 3 'land matters' 1-drops Nacatl/Ape/Lion) and then a Plains if I could fit it in. However, drawing a basic land in the opener is horrendous; if I can avoid playing basic lands I will, simply because perfect mana (based on fetchlands) is what makes the deck tick.

[Reeplcheep]

I think not playing Atarka's Command is very suspect in Zoo. Imo its the whole reason to play zoo over Burn. MD lifegain prevention, surprise blockers, and lots of landfall synergies. With 2 steppe lynxes & a fetch it does 11 damage.

Additionally the kird apes/loam lions seem rather low power; are they really better than one of:
Narnam Renegade
Pelt collector
Kytheon, Hero of Akros
Soldier of the Pantheon
Hidden Herbalist
?

[Hanni]

You could also consider going even higher on fetchlands. You likely never need more than 4 actual lands in play, and Wayward Guide-Beast can return lands back to give you retriggers later if you need them.

I guess with W&6, you have more incentive to have more actual lands, but maybe you should consider Horizon Canopy or other utility lands to get more out of it?

Especially with Elvish Reclaimer, which I would run more of, you can easily fit in a tiny land toolbox. Ghost Quarter or Field of Ruin seem like either one would be a decent 1-of? I'm not super familiar with Modern, and maybe the Tron matchup is already good?

Bojuka Bog could also be a decent sideboard slot if you ran more Reclaimer's?

I agree with the above poster that Kird Ape and Loam Lion are garbage. You should at the very least be running Goblin Guide over one of them.

I'm not a big fan of the Bushwhackers either, but I don't know enough about Modern to really analyze them properly.

Modern Zoo/Sligh should be just as capable of killing on turn 3 as Legacy Zoo/Sligh. Personally, I'd be looking at trimming some of the Bushwhackers for more burn spells, but that's just me.

[Mr. Safety]

Yeah, no Atarka's Command was definitely a mistake. I also think Narnam Renegade is definitely an upgrade to Loam Lion (thank you jethstriker!) Not having been involved in Modern in quite some time leaves me in the dark about the best 1-drops. I wonder about Pelt Collector, simply because the only creature that makes it a 3/3 is Wild Nacatl. At that point I'd rather just play Experiment One and Loam Lion (which still trigger evolve to make it a 3/3 easily enough, because it also counts toughness.) So Pelt Collector/Experiment One are basically no-go because of the 8x 0/1's.

4x Wild Nacatl
4x Narnam Renegade
4x Goblin Guide
4x Akoum Hellhound
4x Steppe Lynx
4x Burning-Tree Emissary
4x Reckless Bushwhacker
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Atarka's Command
3x Lightning Helix
2x Wrenn and Six
12x fetch
8x Shocks/Basics/Canopy lands


I don't need more than 2 lands in play, but lands trigger my dudes so I got the count up to 20. The plan will always involve wanting several 1-drops by turn 3 to enable a Bushwhacker/Command blitz. Grind power comes from W&6 and reach from 10 burn spells. I don't know if Lightning Helix is correct or not; again, I'm not familiar with Modern right now. I think Prowess decks are fairly good, so having the lifegain in races seems good. Maybe it should be Boros Charm, but I'm not sure. Sideboard will be some mix of Path to Exile, Stony Silence, Wear/Tear, Veil of Summer, Destructive Revelry, Deflecting Palm, Ghost Quarter, etc.

[Sella]

You could also consider going even higher on fetchlands. You likely never need more than 4 actual lands in play, and Wayward Guide-Beast can return lands back to give you retriggers later if you need them.

I guess with W&6, you have more incentive to have more actual lands, but maybe you should consider Horizon Canopy or other utility lands to get more out of it?

Especially with Elvish Reclaimer, which I would run more of, you can easily fit in a tiny land toolbox. Ghost Quarter or Field of Ruin seem like either one would be a decent 1-of? I'm not super familiar with Modern, and maybe the Tron matchup is already good?

Bojuka Bog could also be a decent sideboard slot if you ran more Reclaimer's?

I agree with the above poster that Kird Ape and Loam Lion are garbage. You should at the very least be running Goblin Guide over one of them.

I'm not a big fan of the Bushwhackers either, but I don't know enough about Modern to really analyze them properly.

Modern Zoo/Sligh should be just as capable of killing on turn 3 as Legacy Zoo/Sligh. Personally, I'd be looking at trimming some of the Bushwhackers for more burn spells, but that's just me.

Reclaimer wasn't great in the main to begin with (I notice Safety cut it for the Atarka's in his latest list, which is probably correct). I think we're better off just going full aggro. I do agree that we should try and fit in some canopies though.

Tron is probably an okay matchup as long as we have some burn spells to close it out. The deck doesn't really do much to interact with us early so if we can beat them down turns 2-3 a Bolt or two should seal the deal. Plus Tron has been pretty absent recently, deck's still around and viable but it's not every other game like it used to be lol.

I don't know if I'd cut any Bushwhackers, and if I did, I'd probably only cut 1. The card is just so instrumental in a lot of our strongest turns.

@Safety updated list looks good. I'm sort of split between Helix and Charm myself. Prowess is still pretty decent right now, and it's also pretty cheap, so you might see it a lot at locals. We probably beat mono-R prowess type decks in creature quality and can try and grind them out or something assuming we don't get blitzed to death.

My big question is how we stack up against Humans.

[Reeplcheep]

Why are we not playing wayward guidebeast? Wasn't that the whole point of revisiting the thread? The lower cmc and more face damage seems important in a bushwacker deck.

[Sella]

Why are we not playing wayward guidebeast? Wasn't that the whole point of revisiting the thread? The lower cmc and more face damage seems important in a bushwacker deck.

Guidebeast feels weird, we don't want to play it turn 1 but I do see what you mean about it being good on a Bushwacker turn. I guess the question is whether or not its better than a burn spell, unless there's still some creatures we can cut.

[Mr. Safety]

Why are we not playing wayward guidebeast? Wasn't that the whole point of revisiting the thread? The lower cmc and more face damage seems important in a bushwacker deck.

The whole point of revisiting the thread was to include 8x Steppe Lynx (Akoum Hellhound.) Guide Beast isn't good on turn 1 because it sets us back a land drop (twice if we attack turns 1-2) and we still want to 'curve out' turn 2 and 3 with Emissary/Atarka's command. It is good at retriggering landfall in the mid-game, but so is W&6. Between the 2 cards I think w&6 is definitely the more powerful card, hands down.

Here's a list that I will likely copy to start testing/tweaking:

https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=27733&d=420181&f=MO


Here's another recent 2nd place finish with a similar idea, just a few more lands and also uses Renegade Rallier (pretty cool tech!)

https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=27765&d=420383&f=MO

[Sella]

Looking at those lists, how do we feel about the paths maindeck opposed to the 8-10th burn spells?
Rallier is interesting.

[Mr. Safety]

I think it's a symptom of the metagame. I've been checking mtgtop8 to see what the popular decks are currently making waves. Shadow and Jund are both fairly popular, so having ways of dealing with Death's Shadow and Tarmogoyf are both pretty important. Amulet Titan is also still a deck, with Path being one of the few ways to actually deal with PrimeTime. Path also has some small synergy by targeting your own (blocked?) creatures and pumping Hellhound/Lynx mid-combat. The real problem is that there aren't any good burn spells at 1 mana besides Bolt, so if the main goal is to remove blockers for big swings then Path is obviously superior because it's unconditional. Atarka's Command is the real gravy in this deck, doing way over it's rate in damage when pumping the team and dealing 3 to the face. I'm guessing it's good for 5 damage on average. Not even Boros Charm can compete with that. Unlike Legacy, we can't just jam Chain Lightning. There could be an argument for Lava Dart, but I go back to the initial evaluation of Shadow/Goyf being more common, so it's likely not correct.

Renegade Rallier is definitely cool tech, but at 3 mana is a stretch without acceleration. I'd rather play a lower land count (20) and curve out, relying on redundancy (12 fetches) to make Lynx/Hellhound viable. Once it starts creeping into 3-mana territory as a main strategy I think it's just better to play Jund, which is better suited to generating absurd value.

[CaptainTwiddle]

Admittedly, I haven't played Modern in a while (I really only played table top, so COVID kind of put a stop to that), but given that Lava Dart is pretty prevalent, making X/1 creatures a bit of a liability, it makes me wonder if white is really even necessary. I do like having access to Path to Exile and Wild Nacatl is probably still worth it, but basically being R/G and just running a single copy each of Sacred Foundry and Temple Garden seems like it might help with consistency; particularly in being able to maximize the mana from Burning-Tree Emissary.

Another possible take would be leaning a bit more in the direction of the "Big Zoo" decks of the past, playing Noble Hierarch and Knight of the Reliquary. I do like the line of turn 1 Hierarch, turn 2 Brushfire Elemental + fetch land.

Yet another option would be going in the Death's Shadow direction (we've seen Shadow + Steppe Lynx decks before). If you're doing that, you could touch all 5 colors and play Tribal Flames (pet card of mine), but Atarka's Command probably fills a similar role in other versions, though Flames can clear out a blocker. Might of Alara would be fun too, but maybe Temur Battle Rage would be more consistent for pushing damage.

[Mr. Safety]

Good thoughts, thanks for the response. I do agree that Lava Dart can be problematic; I'm not sure if something like Mutagenic Growth would be beneficial to combat that or not. In a Shadow version Mutagenic Growth would be really solid, supporting both efficient damage and losing life for Shadow. I would indeed play Tribal Flames if I were to play a shadow version. I think, generally, traditional Shadow decks are better placed in the metagame. I could always play that deck if I wanted to, I have all the cards. Another way to work around Lava Dart is to leave fetches uncracked until the last possible chance. There are windows of opportunity where I can play a fetchland to get the bonus, they play Lava Dart to kill it before it's trigger resolves, but I crack the fetchland to trigger it out of Dart range. The original Lava Dart is still on the stack so they can't sacrifice a mountain to play it again yet. If they have 2 Lava Darts and the mana/lands to use them then I'm boned, but if that happens, good game bro, you got me.

The whole impetus is to have 8 Steppe Lynx and to swing in for massive damage with Reckless Bushwhacker/Atarka's Command. I was a big fan of playing Experiment One into BTE/Bushwhacker, you could swing for 10+ damage easily by turn 2. I figured with a fetch-heavy mana-base and 1-2 Steppe Lynx it would be even bigger swings. I can definitely see the advantage of pushing a stronger R/G presence to utilize BTE mana, but I think playing Atarka's Command, W6, and Bushwhacker is enough to utilize the mana. I do like the Mutagenic Growth idea, it is another 'free' spell for Bushwacker triggers.

[Sella]

Mutagenic Growth looks like a solid option. The perennial question is going to be what we cut for it. From how I understand it our flex slots are something like
2x Wrenn
3x path

Wrenn is super synergistic but not technically necessary. path you can maybe cut depending on your local meta

everything else in the deck seems core since we've already narrowed ourselves down to the best creatures and bolt/atarka's are auto-includes.

For reference, the list I'm going off of right now is Safety's previous list (swapping helixes with paths)
4x Wild Nacatl
4x Narnam Renegade
4x Goblin Guide
4x Akoum Hellhound
4x Steppe Lynx
4x Burning-Tree Emissary
4x Reckless Bushwhacker
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Atarka's Command
3x Lightning Helix
2x Wrenn and Six
12x fetch
8x Shocks/Basics/Canopy lands

I sort of want to find a way to fit in the 4th Atarka's. I wonder if shaving another land would make our manabase too unstable. At the same time 2 seems like the right number for Wrenn (can't fit more and random 1-ofs feel bad) so I don't want to shave one of those either. Maybe this is where we revisit 3 vs 4 Bushwhacker again, but I'm still pretty sure that the answer on that is 4.

[CaptainTwiddle]

Fortuitously, Xmage just released an update and added ZNR to the mix, so I've done a bit of testing with Zoo. I tried building a Shadow/Tribal Flames version, but it just seemed so clunky. I get the feeling that just playing a more traditional Shadow deck is a better utilization of that card and, as much as I love Tribal Flames, Path is better removal for big threats and Atarka's Command pushes more damage. I think what Zoo has going for it right now is a redundancy of quality threats. So, while somewhat one-dimensional, the deck is very consistent. Here's the list I've been running:

CREATURES
4 Akoum Hellhound
2 Elvish Reclaimer
4 Goblin Guide
4 Narnam Renegade
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Brushfire Elemental
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Reckless Bushwhacker
SPELLS
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Path to Exile
4 Atarka's Command
2 Wrenn and Six
LAND
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Arid Mesa

As suggested in my prior post, I kept the deck essentially RG. Eschewing the white creatures allows Burning-Tree Emissary to almost always be maximized. There was some prior discussion about Elvish Reclaimer and I was unsure of it. I've played a handful of games with it now, and it's never become a 3/4 and actually attacked. I do like the ability to search up a fetch and get 3+ landfall triggers on a turn though. As such, I think it's worth a few slots, though not a full 4. Brushfire Elemental is surprisingly evasive and can deal huge amounts of damage.