[Deck] Zoo

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Originally Posted by Demonic_Attorney

Are you saying the MBT is more futile because of Orim's Chant and/ or Silence?

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It is more futile because good (rare) Storm players will still Duress or Chant/Silence on their going-off turn against Zoo. The sloppy players will get wrecked by MTB. I personally have MTB in my board and love it. The storm players around here, it seems, aren't very good, and I've won more matches than I've lost against Storm with Zoo.

Otherwise, the Pillar is another fine choice. If you can get a couple creatures down before you land it, simply play tight and ride it to victory. They may bounce/destroy it, but at the cost of time and cards to them which is a huge hole in their gas tank.

I don't really like Burning Tree Shaman very much, I think knight of the reliquary is a much bigger threat late game and plus you can't activate his ability with a shaman on board with out hurting yourself. You might get a little bit of damage done to your opponent on their fetches, but most decks either have enough mana or the 3 extra points of damage won't be that relavant. as for BTS against vial decks? zoo should already be beating those most of the time, and survival is at worst a toss up and this guy only trades with vengevines if they didn't give it evasion. I guess this guy might help you win the race against the mirror, except that he hurts you just as much as he hurts them and when he's facing down your opponents KotR you're gonna wish thats what he was.

Well you know, it is interesting because all three Zoo decks that topped 8 at GP Madrid choose Mindbreak Trap over Pillar as did the Zoo deck that finished 9th at GP Columbus just missing out on the top 8. I was of the view that the theme of Zoo is fast beats and burn to finish, thus Pillar offers burn and fits in better with the overall theme of the deck; however, so many other Zoo players are playing MBT over Pillar so I wanted to see what the general consensus was on here. Obviously, the prudent Zoo player cannot devote that much sideboard space to play both; especially with Teeg and Canonist as viable options to shutting down/ mitigating against combo.

Jandax, it is kind of funny how you state that the ANT or TES player will just duress or chant the MBT (which is very true) which they cannot do with a resolved Pillar. Yet you still opt to play MBT over Pillar nevertheless. Let me put it to you this way, if you were going into a legacy Grand Prix tomorrow playing Zoo (where there will no doubt be very good TES and ANT players), what would you play, MBT or Pillar?

I was under the impression that an on color low CC hate piece that coupled well with the burn package most lists already run would be better than a 4 CC off color piece that gets hit by Duress and Orim's Chant/Silence.

Dub Post.

actually the closest zoo deck to top 8 in GP Columbus was 12th and that was Alix Hatfield. His sideboard did not include MBT or Pillar. and only 2 of the three top 8 zoo decks at GP Madrid played MBT.

I play Silence + MBT. I fear storm, very seriously. I play 1 Ethersworn Cannonist, 3! Silence, and 2 MBT. 6 slots for storm, cuz it's just that good.

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Originally Posted by Demonic_Attorney

Well you know, it is interesting because all three Zoo decks that topped 8 at GP Madrid choose Mindbreak Trap over Pillar as did the Zoo deck that finished 9th at GP Columbus just missing out on the top 8. I was of the view that the theme of Zoo is fast beats and burn to finish, thus Pillar offers burn and fits in better with the overall theme of the deck; however, so many other Zoo players are playing MBT over Pillar so I wanted to see what the general consensus was on here. Obviously, the prudent Zoo player cannot devote that much sideboard space to play both; especially with Teeg and Canonist as viable options to shutting down/ mitigating against combo.

Jandax, it is kind of funny how you state that the ANT or TES player will just duress or chant the MBT (which is very true) which they cannot do with a resolved Pillar. Yet you still opt to play MBT over Pillar nevertheless. Let me put it to you this way, if you were going into a legacy Grand Prix tomorrow playing Zoo (where there will no doubt be very good TES and ANT players), what would you play, MBT or Pillar?

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I stated that a [good] ANT/TES player will still Duress/Chant a Zoo player before they do their thing. Most ANT/TES players aren't good at the decks they play. I would still choose MTB over Pillar, I think, due to success in the past. 90% of the time it's in my opening hand, a strange claim but true it seems. If I were playing Big Zoo I'd go with Pillar because it can come down a turn faster thanks to Hierarch. But now thinking about it I'm kind of on the fence. MBT is a proven winner to me, yet I haven't played with Pillar in my SB in over a year, but I know the value of the card in the Storm matchup. I'm going to have to run some games to figure out some strategery. If you run the card, do you only bring it in against storm/elves? And is it as good of a 2 drop as a Pridemage or Goyf, or is it best to hold off a turn so you can play a turn 1/2 guy then sit on the Pillar?

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Originally Posted by jandax

If I were playing Big Zoo I'd go with Pillar because it can come down a turn faster thanks to Hierarch.

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This is impossible, idk what you're thinking here. If anything, it's more important for Big Zoo to have faster answers, since it's a slower deck.

Well, I'd play a creature or two before dropping the Pillar, not as an auto 2-drop, if that's where you're hung up. That'd also depend on if I had more burn than creatures, etc.

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Originally Posted by Ertai's Familiar

I was under the impression that an on color low CC hate piece that coupled well with the burn package most lists already run would be better than a 4 CC off color piece that gets hit by Duress and Orim's Chant/Silence.

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Pillar is not particularly good against Belcher and doesn't assure a kill against TES. They see it and they can play around it/bounce it, etc...

MBT is not off color, nor 4cmc (it's effectively colorless at 0 cmc) and requires them to have an extra card and mana the turn they go off if they want to use Silence, or Duress the turn before, but then they cannot IGG.

Additionally, it requires them to keep Duress/Chant in their deck as they are forced to play around it instead of being able to side it out for something that could be worse.

I'm sticking with MBT over Pillar.

While we can discuss Sb options against combo all day long, the fact is that zoo will always be fighting a losing battle against a competent combo player (of which there aren't many btw, but sadly here in holland we have some extremely competent storm players). Therefore, I think it's better to just ignore the matchup and focus on the matchups that are actually winnable. I only play 4 teeg in my board, because they're actually usefull against a host of other stuff as well, but if you want a serious chance against storm combo you'd have to devote your entire SB to it.

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Originally Posted by Torgeist

While we can discuss Sb options against combo all day long, the fact is that zoo will always be fighting a losing battle against a competent combo player (of which there aren't many btw, but sadly here in holland we have some extremely competent storm players).

Therefore, I think it's better to just ignore the matchup and focus on the matchups that are actually winnable. I only play 4 teeg in my board, because they're actually usefull against a host of other stuff as well, but if you want a serious chance against storm combo you'd have to devote your entire SB to it.

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The fact that some combo decks are a bad match up for Zoo is all the more reason to discuss the matter and find viable and fruitful options to persevere against this archetype.

While it is true that Zoo will, for the most part, always be fighting an uphill battle against Combo (namely ANT & TES), In my view, simply ignoring a large portion of any given metagame and just accepting auto loses is not very prudent thinking. I am completely perplexed and bewildered on this train of thought. I don’t wish to start flaming on here but please, give your head a shake.

You want other dedicated Zoo players to just consider combo to be a write off and accept loses without at least putting up a fight with MBT or Pillars? I know you can’t be serious! If other matchups are so winnable and favorable as you suggested, then why would we need to discuss those matchups? Does it not make more sense to discuss bad match ups and improve on them? Just a wild and really crazy thought I would just throw out there.

Furthermore, I steadfastly disagree with you that a Zoo player would have to devote his or her entire sideboard in order to merely “stand a chance” to beat storm. Although 4x MBT, 4x Pyrostatic Pillar and some number of main deck Gaddock Teegs would probably be manifestly excessive, even that would still not require your whole sideboard and would only comprise of half of it (rounding down). Not to mention to lightning fast clock they are already on with this deck and all creature damage and burn spells resolve unmolested.

Why ignore a very relevant and pivotal issue? One of the key points of threads and forums on any particular deck is to strengthen and mitigate weakness. I fail to discern the basis for your circular logic on just giving up against combo when there are viable options to help Zoo win against Combo.

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Originally Posted by CorpT

MBT is not off color, nor 4cmc (it's effectively colorless at 0 cmc) and requires them to have an extra card and mana the turn they go off if they want to use Silence, or Duress the turn before, but then they cannot IGG.

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This was going to be my reply but it would seem you beat me to the punch.

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Originally Posted by Demonic_Attorney

The fact that some combo decks are a bad match up for Zoo is all the more reason to discuss the matter and find viable and fruitful options to persevere against this archetype.

While it is true that Zoo will, for the most part, always be fighting an uphill battle against Combo (namely ANT & TES), In my view, simply ignoring a large portion of any given metagame and just accepting auto loses is not very prudent thinking. I am completely perplexed and bewildered on this train of thought. I don’t wish to start flaming on here but please, give your head a shake.

You want other dedicated Zoo players to just consider combo to be a write off and accept loses without at least putting up a fight with MBT or Pillars? I know you can’t be serious! If other matchups are so winnable and favorable as you suggested, then why would we need to discuss those matchups? Does it not make more sense to discuss bad match ups and improve on them? Just a wild and really crazy thought I would just throw out there.

Furthermore, I steadfastly disagree with you that a Zoo player would have to devote his or her entire sideboard in order to merely “stand a chance” to beat storm. Although 4x MBT, 4x Pyrostatic Pillar and some number of main deck Gaddock Teegs would probably be manifestly excessive, even that would still not require your whole sideboard and would only comprise of half of it (rounding down). Not to mention to lightning fast clock they are already on with this deck and all creature damage and burn spells resolve unmolested.

Why ignore a very relevant and pivotal issue? One of the key points of threads and forums on any particular deck is to strengthen and mitigate weakness. I fail to discern the basis for your circular logic on just giving up against combo when there are viable options to help Zoo win against Combo.



This was going to be my reply but it would seem you beat me to the punch.

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I am simply saying that it is probably more beneficial to devote your sideboard to matchups where you actually stand a reasonable chance (other then teegs, which can get you random wins against bad combo players and is usefull against other stuff) and hope not to get paired against too much combo then to devote a large part of your sideboard to it and thus diminishing your other matchups. This is a a viable strategy in my view and there is no need to get all offensive about it. It is a strategy I generally follow with all my aggro decks, since the combo players in the dutch meta are extremely competent and it is generally not worthwhile to devote a large part of your sideboard to a mathcup where you will still be at a disadvantage. If you wish to discuss Sb options against combo, by all means do, i am simply suggesting a strategy that I feel is probably more beneficial for this deck in the end.

Now, because the Storm (combo) players in the dutch metagame are smarter and better players, according to you, and that may or may not be true but I will assume that it is for the purposes of this argument, is that not more of a reason to have viable and tangible sideboard options against this archetype? If they were bad players you might get away with not having these options because you can just clock them or us cards like Teeg. However, if they are sound Storm players, then I think if you stand a reasonable shot you are going to have to sport either MBT or Pillar if not both. Seeing as you play neither, this may be why you can't beat them?

In my view, what you are saying in your past two posts goes as far to suggest that a play set of Mindbreak Trap and/ or Pyrostatic Pillar will not significantly improve the ANT & TES match; if this is so, I would, with respect, dismiss this notion without hesitation.

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Originally Posted by Demonic_Attorney

Now, because the Storm (combo) players in the dutch metagame are smarter and better players, according to you, and that may or may not be true but I will assume that it is for the purposes of this argument, is that not more of a reason to have viable and tangible sideboard options against this archetype? If they were bad players you might get away with not having these options because you can just clock them or us cards like Teeg. However, if they are sound Storm players, then I think if you stand a reasonable shot you are going to have to sport either MBT or Pillar if not both. Seeing as you play neither, this may be why you can't beat them?

In my view, what you are saying in your past two posts goes as far to suggest that a play set of Mindbreak Trap and/ or Pyrostatic Pillar will not significantly improve the ANT & TES match; if this is so, I would, with respect, dismiss this notion without hesitation.

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It won't, because they will simply play around it with the shelldock isle/emrakul combo. I'm not saying you will never win from combo decks, i'm saying there is not much to gain overall in devoting more SB space then teegs to it because it will diminish other matchups where you stand a much better chance with a good SB then against combo.

Shelldock Isle/ Emrakul combo?

Are we talking about ANT & TES or Doomsday?

Combo decks here are mostly doomsday and hybrids between TES/ANT with some also sporting doomsday.

In my experiences, I've given up on the storm combo matchup. Mostly in part because almost every time I play it's against Pulp Fiction, and that motherfucker knows what's up. Any competent player will either play with protection before they go off, or just see your hate and board according and play around it.

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Originally Posted by Torgeist

While we can discuss Sb options against combo all day long, the fact is that zoo will always be fighting a losing battle against a competent combo player (of which there aren't many btw, but sadly here in holland we have some extremely competent storm players). Therefore, I think it's better to just ignore the matchup and focus on the matchups that are actually winnable. I only play 4 teeg in my board, because they're actually usefull against a host of other stuff as well, but if you want a serious chance against storm combo you'd have to devote your entire SB to it.

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Good Storm players like who? XD I thought they all played Vintage down in Breda, the good Storm players that is

Otherwise, I sort of agree with ditching bad matchups with Zoo. After all consistency is king, so having a few free sideboard slots is still a step forward. Especially if it aids in winnable matchups.