[Deck] Domain Zoo

[94teen]

Domain Zoo is a 5 Color aggro deck that originated in the past extended season. It's primarily RGW, but splashes blue and black in order to take advantage of Gaea's Might and Tribal Flames. This deck recieved a huge boost in popularity when Raphael Levy won two conseuctive Grand Prix titles piloting his variant of the deck. Recently, I've seen one or two builds get Top 8 of legacy tournaments (I have yet to see lists for these builds)

Because the 5c manabase provides a ton of raw power, I'm wondering if you guys think that this deck might be able to port over to legacy? The extended build is definitely a decent place to start, and so here is Raphael Levy's build from Grand Prix Singapore:

Lansds (20)
1 Steam Vents
2 Stomping Ground
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Mountain
2 Flooded Strand
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills

Creautres (24)
2 Jotun Grunt
2 Wild Mongrel
3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
1 Savannah Lions
4 Kird Ape
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Boros Swiftblade
4 Watchwolf

Spells (16)
4 Tribal Flames
4 Gaea's Might
1 Brute Force
1 Lightning Helix
3 Sudden Shock
1 Firebolt
1 Armadillo Cloak
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard (15)
1 Armadillo Cloak
1 Jotun Grunt
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Loxodon Hierarch
2 Krosan Grip
3 Engineered Plague
3 Meddling Mage
3 Kataki, War's Wage

Clearly, the first change is dropping the Ravnica Shocklands for Duals, but there are still quite a few questions that are left to be answered. Legacy has some of the best burn and most efficient creatures available: how can we take advantage of this to produce the most efficient aggro deck possible?

I think that the most immediate thing we can do is drop some of the more innefficient spells and creatures. These cards work fine for extended, but legacy requires a little more bang for your buck. If you aren't getting 2 or more power from a one drop, it's not good enough. With that said, I think we can safely drop these cards:

Firebolt
Armadillo Cloak
Brute Force
Sudden Shock
Savannah Lions
Isamaru
Wild Mongrel
Watchwolf

And some of these can definitely be replaced by more efficient cards. Some potential replacements I can think of off the top of my head would be something like this:

Creatures:
Tarmogoyf
Dark Confidant
Skyshroud Elite
Mogg Fanatic

Burn
Lightning Helix
Lightning Bolt
Fireblast

Equips and Enchantments
Rancor
SoFI

You could always take the deck in a completely different direction by adding Force of Will and Brainstorm, but I think that slows the deck down significantly, and the disruption isn't worth it when you can just race. Taking all of this into account, I think this is a strong build to start with:

Lands
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta

1 Savannah
2 Taiga
1 Plateau
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland

Creatures (24)
4 Kird Ape
4 Skyshroud Elite
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Boros Swiftblade
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Meddling Mage
2 Dark Confidant

Spells (16)
4 Tribal Flames
4 Gaea's Might
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
1 Fireblast

Sideboard (15)
2 Vindicate
2 Dark Confidant
2 Meddling Mage
3 Krosan Grip
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Fireblast

The sideboard's pretty shakey, but I think the maindeck is relatively solid. I'd like to hear what some of you guys have to say about this. If you have suggestions for other cards to consider or anything else, just let me know. This is one of my favorite decks, and I'd love to see it become legacy competitive, even if it's Tier 2.

[boris23]

i think you should play 4 conifidants because most of the costs of ur deck is 1 or 2 and then the random 6 but you also have some lifegain to gain it back and since dark confidant is amazing

[DragoFireheart]

How does this deck handle Wasteland recursion from Loam decks?

[ForceofWill]

It races it or mages loam but thats about all it can do. However loam decks are on the decrease because of the rise of leylines in most metas.

[94teen]

I think the maindeck is either going to have 4 mage or 4 confidant or a 3/1 split. I haven't decided on either because this is a completely untested list. One will definitely be superior to the other in general, confidant against aggro and aggro control, and MM against control and combo, but until I've done some testing and/or have a metagame to plan for, I can't really decide on either one. The point is that there's 4 confidants and 4 mages between the main deck and sideboard.


Loam decks kill this deck dead. That's why you wouldn't play this in a LftL heavy metagame. Recurring 3/3 and 4/4 first striking blockers are terrible, Maze of Ith stops you dead, and Wasteland destroys your mana base. Those decks were designed to kill Aggro, and your only shot is to race and hope they stumble on relevant cards. Like I said, this isn't going to be Tier 1, and it's going to need the proper metagame to be any good.

[furt]

I actually played a Domain Zoo deck at a tournament in Hadley MA yesterday and ended up 4-1-1 after swiss, and ended up losing in a close three in the top 4. I started the construction of the deck by trying to port it from extended. I quickly realized the correct creature base was:


4 kird ape
3 isamaru
4 mogg fanatic
4 dark confidant
4 tarmogoyf
3 watchwolf


isamaru is a creature you never want in multiples. and I wanted another solid 2 drop with good power and watchwolf is the best in this category.

as for the spells I played:

4 gaea's might
4 tribal flames
4 lightning bolt
3 chain lighting
3 rancor

overall I tried to stick to a 20 land/ 20 creature/ 20 spell set up but because of the need for creatures to pump, I ran 22 creatures and 18 spells and that explains a couple 3 of's in the list. The mana base was good all day. I always was able to achieve domain early.

4 bloodstained mire
4 wooded foothils
2 flooded strand
2 windswept heath
2 taiga
1 savanna
1 bayou
1 scrubland
1 plateau
1 volcanic island
1 badlands

I was in fear of wastelands and stifles all day. Running 12 fetch is necessary though if you want to consistently hit domain. Out of the board I had 4 Pithing Needles to hit wasteland and 4 Meddling Mage to take out Life from the Loam, among other things.

I would def play the deck again. It has AMAZING speed and can race virtually every deck in the format.

[94teen]

So, now that you played through the tournament, what changes would you make? Looking at the potential decklist I post, can you suggest any changes?

[boris23]

just keep in the dark confidants and for matches that you need the meddling mages but them in instead of the dark confidants.

[94teen]

just keep in the dark confidants and for matches that you need the meddling mages but them in instead of the dark confidants.

The problem is that Meddling Mage is your only chance against some decks. Dark Confidant just makes even matchups a little easier.

[boris23]

well maybe take something eles out and play 4s of the both of them or maybe have a few of the both of them in and have a few in the board

[94teen]

I'll stick to the 2/2 split during testing. Whenever I draw one I'll play it as whichever is better and keep track of how many times I use either one.

Does Berserk potentially deserve a slot in the deck? Maybe one or two copies? With Goyf berserk is absolutely ridiculous.

[boris23]

that wouldnt be a bad idea since goyf gets big pretty quick and berserk makes it twice as good

[boris23]

put berserk in instead of the brute force since brutey force doesnt give trample

[Obfuscate Freely]

You know, Dark Confidant and Meddling Mage were perfectly legal in Extended when Levy won two GPs with the deck. Neither card was good enough to make his maindeck, so why do you suppose either card is good enough for us, in Legacy?

[ForceofWill]

We quite a bit of removal in our format but I think extended has even more removal. Besides this deck can race combo in extended but can't in our format.

[94teen]

meddling mage was sideboard material because of a lack of combo in the metagame. There was a lot of aggro and aggro control, and you'd see some TEPS every now and then, which is why MM were in the board.

Confidants weren't played because the deck had to deal with Shockland damage. You'd drop yourself to around 11 by your 4th turn just from lands. You couldn't afford to deal yourself any more damage.

We don't have that problem in legacy, and so confidant gets played. Right now, we're in a combo heavy metagame, which promotes LftL lock decks, both of which meddling mage is good against, which means Pikula is also maindeckable

[Phantom]

I actually think Zoo decks have a future in Legacy thanks to some recent additions. Here are my thoughts:

1) Drop the five color gimmick. You make yourself insanely vulnerable to wasteland for two questionable cards. One is a 2cc sorcery burn spell that will average 4 points of damage, and the other is a pump instant in a meta filled with removal that will turn it into card advantage for the opponent. We have two different 1cc burn spells that do three damage here, and the only pump worth running is Jitte (and occasionally Rancor) since it avoids turning Swords to Plows into an even better card.

Now, as to what color to drop? Normally I would say drop white and rely on black (and some red and blue) for your combo hate in the form of discard. But then WotC decided to print Gaddock Teeg. Assuming it is as advertised, this gives you two 2/2s for two that hurt combo vastly. I would run both (probably 3 Teeg and 2 Mage with more of each coming out of the board).

So I would actually think about dropping black. It might not be worth it since Dark Confidant is pretty darn great here, and Extirpate can help with those Loam problems.

The other option is to drop blue and lose Meddling Mage and let Teeg and your board handle combo. This would certainly give you a more aggro approach.

2) Get Mogg Fanatic back in the main. The guy is just insane in the current meta: shutting down combo (think Breakfast), winning Goyf stalemates for you, smacking Confidants and Lackeys, slowing down Survival, and just being awesome.

3) Take out the creatures that need pump to be good. I'm looking at you Boros. The meta is full of Aggro Control and dedicated Control decks that are going love watching him be a 1/1.

4) Seems like Isamaru could be solid as a three of.

5) The Vindicates look out of place in the board. You don't do land destruction, and Vindicate hits almost nothing that Grip and Burn don't. And it's slow and Dazeable which this deck hates. Get some yard hate in there.

Here's what I would try I think:

Lands...

Creatures (26)
4 Kird Ape
4 Skyshroud Elite
3 Isamaru
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Gaddock Teeg
4 Dark Confidant

Spells (14)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning (or Seal or whatever your preference is for burn spell #2)
3 Lightning Helix
3 Jitte

Sideboard (15)
4 REB
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Krosan Grip
4 Extirpate/Leyline/Crypt
3 Tin Street Hooligan

Maybe drop four slots for 4 Duress? I'm not sure here. The blue build would trade in Confidant for Meddling Mage.

[94teen]

I tend to disagree slightly. It's really, really easy to get domain with this deck. Frequently, you'll have five colors on turn 3 or 4, which means that Tribal Flames is 5 damage for two mana, and gaea's might is potentiall 5 for 1 or 10 for 1. I realize that you shouldn't base a deck around this, but this is what makes the deck explosive, which is why I think it's competitive right now. Your build runs 4 colors, at which point, why not splash the fifth and get two ridiculous cards?

You have to deal with wasteland? So what? You shouldnt' play this deck in a metagame where you have to deal with recurring wasteland. Otherwise, the other deck is taking (arguably) as big a hit in tempo as your are by wasting a land drop to stunt your development. If it's that much of a problem, play Stifle and/or Pithing Needle in the board (not too bad of an idea regardless actually).

I really do like Mogg Fanatic, and think it could easily replace Skyshroud Elite in the deck. Because of wasteland and stifle, there's a resurgance of people playing more basics, and so I think Skyshroud is a little too dependent on your opponent. It's easy enough for people to play around wasteland, and it's at least as easy for them to play around skyshroud elite.

Meddling Mage solves LftL problems long enough for you to beat in for the last couple points of damage, and is a beater itself, so I think it wins out over Extirpate, which, oddly enough, isn't that good against the format anyway as far as I'm concerned. Sure, it's not bad, but it doesn't affect the board, and so you can't waste your time on it.

Boros is good with both Jitte and Pump. You'd be amazed how many times Jitte + swiftblade ends the game against goblins and such. You get 4 counters, and your swiftblade becomes retarded good, especially when you take advantage of first strike Jitte counter shenanigans.

I took out Isamaru because it was just a 2/2 for 1. You have 12 1 drops which is plenty good enough. Any more and you're going to be playing creatures that just don't match up with threshold. You'll draw an Isamaru when you want to draw one of your 2 drops.

The vindicates are very out of place in the board, which is why it's a sample board. I threw those in because I didn't know what else to put in, and because it's a pretty good general answer to the field since it deals with just about anything.

I do like the build you put together, and I would like to find space for Gaddock, but I disagree with dropping the domain part of the deck. Sure the deck becomes more stable, but right now you need a little more explosiveness to keep up with the metagame and a little less stability. This deck doesn't have the counterspells that Threshold has, or the inevitability of landstill or LftL decks, or the raw speed of combo. You have to take advantage of whatever explosiveness you can add to the deck.

That's my opinion at least. Your build is really solid for what you designed it to be, and the only thing I really disagree with is the board. You have lots of reactive answers to things you might see from the opponent: REB, Extirpate, etc. These are dead cards in just as many matchups as they help, and they aren't proactive, and so they just take away from the tempo of the deck. Why should I care about your FoW if I can just throw another 5 points of burn at your dome? Everything needs to be proactive. MM and Gaddock are both amazing because they're proactive answers. Even if they aren't relevant in a given matchup, they still swing for two, they still trade with x/2's, can still become huge with Gaea's Might, and still carry a jitte.


EDIT:
After a little (very little) bit of research, I think these changes might work a little better:

-4 Skyshroud Elite
+4 Mogg Fanatic

SB
-4 Mogg Fanatic
-2 Vindicate
+2 Disruption on a stick*
+4 Graveyard Hate*


I think there should be 10 slots distributed to Gaddock, MM, and Dark Confidant between the board and the Maindeck. Not sure how to split these up, depends how the metagame develops, but I know they're going to be there.

Graveyard hate: either Leyline or Tormod's Crypt, though I'd prefer to find a creature that takes care of it...HOwever, there are only three that really would fit the bill, and none are all that appealing:

Crypt Keeper
Zombie Cannial
Withered Wretch

I think Crypt Keeper or Wretch are the best choices. Wretch because it's repeatable, Crypt keeper because it sacs itself, which answers Bridge from Below. Let me know what you think.

[Nihil Credo]

@Phantom: When you run 20 lands, is a 4C manabase significantly less disruptable than a 5C one?

@94teen: For graveyard hate, I'd say Leyline is probably the best option, because it's the only one that doesn't kill your tempo. Wretch has a prohibitive mana cost (both in colour and expense), and every good graveyard-based player knows how to play around Tormod's Crypt, so Crypt Keeper isn't very threatening to them. Extirpate is bad in this deck because it is too fast to exploit the long-game advantage you get from this uber Cranial Extraction.

[from Cairo]

Yixlid Jailor would be a better choice the Wretch imo. It's easier to cast, and doesn't need mana sunk into it to wreck important decks (Survival, Breakfast, Ichorid, Life of the Loam.decs... really it is probably arguable MD material if you don't rely on the Gy and are in a meta that does).

Honestly I could see it being a better easier to cast answer than Meddling Mage, really the only combo it doesn't answer well is Storm, but at 2cc Mage isn't a phenomenal answer either alot of the time.

Just an idea

[94teen]

Yixlid Jailor would be a better choice the Wretch imo. It's easier to cast, and doesn't need mana sunk into it to wreck important decks (Survival, Breakfast, Ichorid, Life of the Loam.decs... really it is probably arguable MD material if you don't rely on the Gy and are in a meta that does).

Honestly I could see it being a better easier to cast answer than Meddling Mage, really the only combo it doesn't answer well is Storm, but at 2cc Mage isn't a phenomenal answer either alot of the time.

Just an idea

I completely missed the Jailer because I searched for cards that removed things from the graveyard instead of just shutting it down. I think that this is my favorite answer, in theory. Only testing will show if it's fast enough though. We may, albeit grudgingly, have to play Leyline, but I much prefer Jailor because it's Leyline on a stick (essentially).

[Phantom]

@Phantom: When you run 20 lands, is a 4C manabase significantly less disruptable than a 5C one?

It has certainly been my finding in my many years of playing magic that the less colors you run, the less disruptable your manabase is. You might think that the drop from 5 to 4 is insignificant, but I have found differently (unless you're running all rainbow lands I suppose).

Running 20 lands, 10 of which are fetches will often leave you in the position of having 2 lands for your first few turns. When you are running 4 colors, this is no problem. When you are running 5, it is (or can be). Also, if you ramp up to four lands in the midgame, four colors can leave you immune to the single wasteland (by fetching say, 2 Taigas and 2 Tundras). Five color decks have to reach five exact duals to double up on every color and leave them immune to a Waste. With the amount of decks packing Waste and Stifle packages these days, I don't find these numbers to be insignificant.

Now I'm not arguing against THIS deck cutting to four colors solely on that hypothesis. Most of my reasoning came from the fact that I don't think five colors gives him that much more than four. I don't think highly of the domain cards, and five color zoo decks have never faired well in Legacy (to my knowledge).

[Kronicler]

While I don't have that much experience with this type of deck, there are a few things that seem apparent to me that I would like to throw into this discussion.

1) Duress seems realllly good in the format right now as gobos is on the decline. The (arguably) 3 best decks, Breakfast, Thresh, and Landstill all hate it. I would definately run 4.

2) Teeg is flippin rediculous and you should run 3 of him MD no matter what. He takes away your opponents FOWs, kills combo dead, stops humility, EE, Chalice, all things you hate to see.

3) Yixlid Jailer rapes a lot of the format right now too. Breakfast, Ichorid, any decks with loam (think some Landstill builds or 43land.dec), etc.

With these things in mind my list would look something like this:

20 Lands

4 Confidant
4 Kird Ape
3 Teeg
4 Fanatic
4 Goyf
3 Jailer

4 Bolt
4 Chain
4 Duress
6 Open Slots

While this version lacks some of the blistering speed of previous versions, it makes up for that with incredible utility and disruptive power. In the last few slots you can put 2 Seal of Fire and 2 Tarfire (the new Goblin Shock) if you want to pump Goyf a bit more, or you can add Jitte, Lightning Helix, perhaps more Discard in Cabal Therapy, etc. Lots of posibilities. Regardless though, you should rape Ichorid and probably have pretty positive matchups against Breakfast and Landstill. I'm not exactly sure bout the Thresh matchup but it looks pretty solid. Those facts alone really encourage development of this deck.

Kronicler

[Ewokslayer]

1) Duress seems realllly good in the format right now as gobos is on the decline. The (arguably) 3 best decks, Breakfast, Thresh, and Landstill all hate it. I would definately run 4.


Breakfast revolves around an entirely creature based combo. Why does it hate Duress?

[Kronicler]

Meh, that is true. I guess you can nab their tutors or draw but then can always just use that stuff in response.

That doesn't necessarily matter anymore though, because of a new card that is (supposedly) coming out of lorwyn:

"Neo Duress"
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals his or her hand. Choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card. You lose 2 life.

Now you can take Breakfast's combo pieces or Thresh's Goyfs or Gobos' gobos, etc! What an incredible card.

Kronicler

[94teen]

It has certainly been my finding in my many years of playing magic that the less colors you run, the less disruptable your manabase is. You might think that the drop from 5 to 4 is insignificant, but I have found differently (unless you're running all rainbow lands I suppose).

Running 20 lands, 10 of which are fetches will often leave you in the position of having 2 lands for your first few turns. When you are running 4 colors, this is no problem. When you are running 5, it is (or can be). Also, if you ramp up to four lands in the midgame, four colors can leave you immune to the single wasteland (by fetching say, 2 Taigas and 2 Tundras). Five color decks have to reach five exact duals to double up on every color and leave them immune to a Waste. With the amount of decks packing Waste and Stifle packages these days, I don't find these numbers to be insignificant.

Now I'm not arguing against THIS deck cutting to four colors solely on that hypothesis. Most of my reasoning came from the fact that I don't think five colors gives him that much more than four. I don't think highly of the domain cards, and five color zoo decks have never faired well in Legacy (to my knowledge).

I agree with you completely on this. However, because the metagame is so full of wasteland and stifle, the reaction is going to be to play more basics to prevent mana-screw. Because of this, fewer wastelands will get played, and this deck will be slightly more viable.

I can't say the same about stifle until storm combo dies down some. Because of that, I think the deck may want to tweak the number of fetches and duals to be less vulnerable to stifle.

Regardless, I recognize this as a purely metagame deck. Your build is definitely more stable in a general metagame, and I don't deny that domain cards make this deck much more prone to mana screw via wasteland and stifle. However, it'll take a little more than the mana base being vulnerable to wasteland in order to convince me this is inferior to the build you suggested.


Back on topic:

There's a lot of cards that I'd like to fit into the main/side, but don't really have the space to. Does anyone think that they can help balance the number of these cards in the main and sideboard?

Gaddock Teeg
Meddling Mage
Dark Confidant
Yixlid Jailer

All of these provide the deck with a little more to push it over the top, whether that be through disruption or pure card advantage. I think that Meddling Mage is definitely sideboard material because Gaddock Teeg is more potent, but that could just be because Gaddock requires less skill (Meddling Mage requires that you know the metagame, and that you can make an informed decision about what cards you don't want to see).

However, I think that a mixture of Gaddock Teeg and Yixlid Jailer should kill most combo decks, while Gaddock also provides more general hate against most combo and control (Fact or Fiction, Wrath, Moat, EtW, Tendrils, Belcher, etc). I like Confidant, but I'm not sure if it's powerful enough to merit space in the maindeck next to these cards. It's entirely possible that Confidant just isn't good enough, though I've been loving the card advantage it provides, it's not entirely necessary.

I'd like to hear some other opinions about these cards.

[from Cairo]

3 [Yixlid] Jailer + perhaps more Discard in Cabal Therapy

= weak combo.

You could board one of the two though and just SB accordingly. I really think that if there is the "neo-Duress" being printed, I would rather run that and Yixlid main and run regular Duress in the SB for added discard versus combo and control.

[94teen]

Alright, so...I did some testing with this list against threshold:

Lands
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta

1 Savannah
2 Taiga
1 Plateau
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland

Creatures (24)
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Boros Swiftblade
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Meddling Mage
2 Dark Confidant

Spells (16)
4 Tribal Flames
4 Gaea's Might
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
1 Fireblast

Sideboard (15)
Undecided

Alright, this match seemed really split down the middle. If you get a fast enough start, you're golden. But if they get an early mongoose, you have a lot of trouble dealing with it. Goyf is difficult to deal with, because by the time you have enough burn to get rid of it, they've found more relevant threats, and so your only hope is to bolt it and then shoot it with a fanatic or some such before it gets to be too big.

Their counters don't really matter very much, but they can be frustrating. YOu have a lot of cards that they need to deal with, and sometimes you can just force them to give up so much card advantage and tempo from using their free counters that the last threat you manage to sneak through (usually a swiftblade for me) manages to finish them off.

A few things I noticed in this matchup: I might like a couple more one drops, just because I tended to get a lot of hands that would've been really, really good...if I'd had a one drop. You'll get lots of hands that have Meddling Mage, Tarmogoyf, Jitte, Lightning Bolt, 3 lands. In my mind, that'd be an amazing hand if you had a Fanatic or KApe to start things off. There's more than enough pressure to put the opponent on a short clock.

Another comment: I think we can lose one or two duals to add a basic land or two. This'll help stabilize the deck a little bit in case of wasteland. The extended version of this deck is usually primarily W/R or G/R, but this is mainly R with splashes for all your efficient beaters. You like to have lots of colors, but don't need them as much as other decks, as most of your 1 drops and business spells are primarily red. You do need other colors, but I'd be happy to fit a basic mountain in the deck.

Gaea's Might is really strong when you're fighting Tarmogoyfs, it's great as a burn spell, it's one of the strongest cards in your deck...sometimes... Other times it just sits in your hand, and you can't really find anything to do with it. It's really strong, but I'm not sure if it's a 4 of.

Similarly, Swiftblade is amazing..when he stays on the board. If he gets in one swing while wearing a Jitte, you've given yourself a really good chance of winning the game. However, it comes into play with a big target on its head. Maybe it's useful for drawing away burn and such, but when you play it you're just asking for a 2-for-1 when you try to give it a Jitte or a Gaea's Might.

I like Dark Confidant, but I'm not sure how well it fits into this shell. I'm thinking that the best thing to do might be to drop red and focus on G/B/U/W Fish of some sort like Phantom was saying.

This deck does have lots of explosive power, but if you don't manage to do something with it quickly, you fizzle out and get destroyed. Combo decks do what this tries to do, but do it better, methinks.

Any comments on this? I think that a 4 Color fish deck could easy be built, and be stronger than this because it can support FoW and discard as well as Aether Vial.

[Phantom]

Well, I'm glad you're coming around. The deck is good, it will just never be great in its current form.

I'm wondering now if 5 color zoo is possible with Vial, some rainbow lands, and maybe some Mox Diamonds. I'm not sure. I'll think about it though.

If you're going 4 colors, I can't imagine red being the right cut. Red gives Zoo some precious reach. You will lose every control matchup because they will stabilize at low life and you're toast. Also, Kird Ape and Mogg Fanatic are two of the best creatures at your disposal. I honestly think green and red are the two colors you shouldn't even think about cutting.

I'm surprised you found Confidant so sub par. You should win any game where he lives more than two turns. If you did though, it seems clear that you should drop black as that's all the black you were running. I wonder if Shadowmage Infiltrator would be too slow? He's nuts with a Jitte or just as a burn drawing machine.

I would really advise against FoW. There aren't enough quality blue cards for zoo to support it, so you would have to run cantrips and you would just end up with Thresh or Fish, god forbid.

I'm not sure how to feel about Vial. I hate eating up spots in an active deck with passive cards, and we don't really have much to do with the mana that we save (like counter things or a waste/port suite).

I'm thinking 3 Rancor and 3 Jitte is a nice pump package for one and two casting cost weenies. The Rancors allow your Goyfs, Watchwolfs, and others to deal with opposing Goyfs.

I'll take a shot at a no black, no red and 5 color build if they'll help you test (i'll leave the 20 lands and sideboard up to others):

WUGB Zoo

Creatures
4 Kird Ape
2 Skyshroud Elite
3 Isamaru
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Gaddock Teeg
3 Meddling Mage
3 Watchwolf

Spells
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix (could be swords if fatties are a problem)
3 Rancor
3 Jitte


WGUB Zoo
Creatures
4 Carnophage
4 Skyshroud Elite
3 Isamaru
4 Watchwolf
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Gaddock Teeg
4 Meddling Mage

Spells
4 Duress or Cabal Therapy
4 StP
3 Rancor
3 Jitte


5 Color Zoo

Creatures
4 Kird Ape
4 Skyshroud Elite
3 Isamaru
4 Watchwolf
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Gaddock Teeg
4 Dark Confidant

Spells
4 Bolt
4 Vial
3 Rancor
3 Jitte

[94teen]

See, we're still taking the deck different directions, even when we agree. I think that the deck needs to be a little slower, focusing more on disruption. More like Fish than zoo. The colors I feel most like could be dropped are white and green, but those give us Gaddock Teeg after rotation. Granted, we could just splash for him, but that brings up mana base issues again.

I think that black is strong because you get Therapy, Duress, the supposed neo-duress, and Hymn if you so choose. In addition, it gives you various beaters and great removal. For example, one of the keys to winning the thresh matchup as far as I could tell was 'Goyf advantage. If you could keep opposing 'Goyfs off the table, you could win before they stabilized. Smother is a great card in that respect, and while the 'Goyf craze is going on, I think it deserves sideboard space. Granted, black could easily be splashed in the sideboard where it's necessary because of the fetchland heavy manabase.

I do like both of your builds. They look pretty solid, and the only choices I'd really question are Skyshroud Elite and Jitte as a three of. two jittes has seemed like more than enough in my testing, and you'd be better served with a rancor or an armadillo cloak (probably rancor, but cloak does deserve a mention).

The five color build especially appeals to me the way you've built it. Getting rid of the reliance on domain lets you splash into the third and fourth colors (probably white and blue) less, because you can rely on vial a little more.

One card that I'm debating pretty heavily right now is Dimir Cutpurse. It seems like it'd be absolutely incredible if you could make it hit once or twice, but I'm not sure if it's worth the space. I do like creatures like Cutpurse and Shadowmage Infiltrator, but I think they would be better if you played the domain gimmick so you had ridiculous pump to help force them through.

So, with that said, I like the five color build quite a bit, and I think some variant of it could do really well. So...here's a quick attempt to doctor it up to suit my playstyle. This is a really rushed attempt so I can get back to work (stupid school work) but it could have a bit of potential. It's still a zoo deck, as I dont' want to get off topic by starting to talk about fish.

18/19 lands


4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Isamaru
1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Gaddock Teeg
3 Watchwolf
1 Serra Avenger

4 Bolt
4 Vial
2 Jittes
2 Rancor
2 Smother
1 Lightning Helix

Sideboard:
3 Meddling Mage
3 Yixlid Jailor
1 Jitte
1 Smother
2 Lightning Helix
3 Cabal Therapy/Neo-Duress
2 Grim Lavamancer

So...some choices.

I feel a little more comfortable dropping to less than 20 lands because of Aether vial, and because this has a lower curve than previous incarnations I've attempted.

Skyshroud Elite relies too much on your opponent, and more often than not ends up being a vanilla 1/1 for too long before doing something relevant.

Smother gives you game against a lot of decks that you just wouldn't have otherwise. It kills 'Goyf, tog, Cephalid Illusionist, Piledriver, and all other manner of creatures that give you trouble. It's a good blanket answer to some of the best creatures in the format, and I think it deserves some maindeck space. If not, you board it out for Lightning Helix, and that's that.

IF you're playing Aether vial, there's almost no reason not to play the singleton Serra Avenger. It's terrible without vial, but I think it's good enough with vial to test running a singleton. If it's bad, it's bad, but it's worth a shot.

There's lots of good two drops in the board. I think those would typically come in for some combination of Avenger, Watchwolf, and Confidant. They aren't as quick of a clock, but they provide some much needed disruption against combo and control.


Lavamancer gives you much needed repeatable burn against decks that go to the long game, as well as repeatable removal against other aggro decks. It's not as fast a clock as Isamaru, but it's worth trying it out. It'll show up often enough to be useful, but typically won't show up when you don't need it. For matches where it's really good, there are additional copies in the board.

I like the creature base in this build. I feel like the only choice I would really question is the Avenger, but that's just for some testing.

The spells on the other hand...I really don't like Rancor all that much. I know that it's good, and I know that it doesn't cause card disadvantage, but...I just don't really like it. Testing may show that it's great, but I'm a little skeptical. I cut Jitte to 2 because it shows up often enough for me, but I still tend to draw multiple copies if I run three.