[Deck] Zoo

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Originally Posted by Richard Cheese

Change or die, or just wait for the meta to come back around to suit your deck I guess.

Personally I agree that Big Zoo with P. Fires looks a lot more promising in this meta. Having access to much larger threats, GSZ, and a recurring damage engine means your day doesn't just end if Batterskull or Terminus hits the table. More mana also means you have access to things like Elspeth, Thrun, and Scooze. You still play a much higher threat count than Maverick, so Abrupt Decay on a Knight or Goyf isn't the end of the day. It also gives you a much more reasonable mid-game plan than turning into a burn deck with really terrible topdecks.

Really, if you're thinking of it as "(in most cases) a better burn deck than burn", why run Kird Ape over Goblin Guide?

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The reason to avoid Goblin Guide is that you want to play as few creatures as possible that trade with a 2/X like Snapcaster Mage or Bob. If you let Snapcaster Mage be a 2-for-1 out of an U/W deck, you're gonna have a bad time. Snapcaster Mage should always be a 1-for-1 and a chump block.

Knight is so bad because it takes so long to do anything. If you're only playing 19 lands, you certainly won't be consistently casting it on turn 3, especially against Wasteland decks (which is the main place it would be good anyway). It's not usually going to be much bigger than a 5/5, especially with opposing Deathrite Shamans, and a 5/5 that costs all your mana and doesn't have haste or evasion is not what you want to be doing in the later turns of the game. The reason Knight is much worse with Abrupt Decay running around is that Knight is the only card you can play that is giving up tempo to your opponent, and by the time you are giving up tempo in Zoo you're losing the game. Your opponent should always be the one on the back foot. I understand the desire to have another big guy (I would happily play another 4 Tarmogoyfs if I could), but Knight is too big, too slow, and too vulnerable. As I said on the last page, at least Woolly Thoctar doesn't get shrunk by Deathrite and is usually big enough to trade with a Goyf. I would honestly consider him for testing before Knight at this point, though I still think both of them are bad.

To everyone trying to strawman my complaints as "Zoo is perfect and can't be fixed" I hope you're having fun. My point was not that Zoo doesn't need help (it does) or that it can't be fixed (it can), but that suggestions to make it slower and go bigger are mistaken, as if you want to go slower, you should just play Jund, and if you want to go bigger, you should be playing Maverick. Wild Nacatl decks want to go fast, not big. I understand what the Big Zoo advocates are saying here (that slower, grindy, Punishing Fire decks are better-positioned than Zoo right now) and I totally agree. But this isn't the place for that discussion. Take it to the Big Zoo thread, or better yet give Jund (Punishing or otherwise) a try. It's going to do the slow, grindy, fair thing much better than any Wild Nacatl deck is. The "Blue Zoo" deck belongs in here more than the Big Zoo decks do, it's at least in line with the philosophy of Zoo. Big Zoo has its own thread and should be discussed there.

As for Hidden Herd, I think the card is strong, though perhaps not as much so in the matchups where we shine (BUG/RUG). If you think those matchups are strong enough to warrant adding 4 cards that are blanks if drawn after turn 2, then I think it's a good choice. I actually think Herd might be best in a list that features some number of Wastelands, so that you can force them to have to play extra lands and turn your Herds on as the game goes on. I'm sticking with Loam Lion for now, but I can't fault anybody for making the switch. It does seem quite powerful.

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Originally Posted by Capt4in

The "Blue Zoo" deck belongs in here more than the Big Zoo decks do, it's at least in line with the philosophy of Zoo. Big Zoo has its own thread and should be discussed there.

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I do not think it does and at the very least this thread has always served as a base for discussion for both small and big zoo, since people often played lists which where somewhere in the grey area. Also many suggestions for big zoo can be applied for small zoo and vice versa. Even the OP list has cards like Woolly Thoctar.

In a world of Dark Confidants, Delvers, Cliques, Snapcasters, Lavamancers, Mothers of Runes, Noble Hierarchs, Thalias and Dryad Arbors I still can't believe you don't play Granger Guildmage.

I personally like the idea of going under the meta right now like sighted in some articles a few weeks ago by Drew Levin and Karston Coetter. I've been playing what is really close to a 1 drop list and doing ~ok~ with it, though I haven't tried any of the "Hidden" cards. I like the P.Fire builds with Knight but to me your no longer playing Zoo its just Naya Aggro Loam or Punishing Maverick and not a hyper aggressive deck backed with burn.

In terms of Aggression, it's hard to find a 1 drop that's more aggro than Goblin Guide. It also increases your possibility of having super nut hands.

Instead of only being able to go T1 Nacatl, T2 Nacatl x 2, you can now go T1 Nacatl, T2 Nacatl + GG / swing for 5. Dropping a Kird Ape / Loam Lion instead of GG is so underwhelming.

Secondly, the haste of Goblin Guide is a huge difference especially when your opponent is holding back just enough blockers for your guys. It also makes it such a better top deck. How many times do we have our opponent just out of burn range and you draw... Kird Ape.

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Originally Posted by nedleeds

In a world of Dark Confidants, Delvers, Cliques, Snapcasters, Lavamancers, Mothers of Runes, Noble Hierarchs, Thalias and Dryad Arbors I still can't believe you don't play Granger Guildmage.

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Maverick is pretty dead. Not a lot of Thalias or Moms out there anymore. Only slightly more Hierarchs/Arbors.

The question here is, what are your positive matchups and your negative matchups and what can you do to bring your negative matchups to a more favorable position? As Zoo, your negative matchups tend to be Miracles (which is a heavily anti-aggro deck) and non-ANT combo (which you have a hard time racing). Granger Guildmage strikes me as a win more. It's good in the matchups that are already favorable and worse than a more aggressive 1-drop in matchups that are unfavorable.

Goblin Guide provides an initial burst of 2 damage over Wild Nacatl (haste, duh!). That means the turn it drops, you're up 2 points over where you would be with a 3 power creature. The turn after it drops, you're up 1 point (4 for 2 turns of GG swings vs. 1 turn of 3 beats). 2 turns after, you've reached parity and every turn after that, it becomes disadvantageous.

The key here is that what we're looking at (or at least, what I'm talking about) is maximizing the early damage to put people into burn range as quickly as possible. For pretty much any configuration of 3 beaters in the first 2 turns, Guides, Guides and Nacatls or Nacatls, the turn they go into burn range is turn 3. However, there is no configuration that will do 20 to them with pure beats on turn 3. The closest would be turn 1 Nacatl, turn 2 Nacatl, Guide, turn 3 Guide, Guide, Guide. You're looking at 5 on turn 2 and an additional 14 on turn 3, putting the opponent to 1 (lethal, for all intents and purposes in the era of fetchlands). Of course, that requires seeing all 4 Goblin Guides in your first 3 turns, which is fairly unrealistic.

GG/Nac, Nac 2 - 4 - 12 - 20
GG/Nac, GG 2 - 6 - 13 - 20
GG/GG, GG 2 - 8 - 14 - 20

Nac/Nac, Nac0 - 3 - 12 - 21
Nac/Nac, GG 0 - 5 - 13 - 21
Nac/GG, GG 0 - 7 - 14 - 21

Ape/Ape, Ape0 - 2 - 8 - 14 - 20

I threw the Ape/Lion path in there just as an example of how terrible those cards actually are. On turn 4, you're looking at similar damage potential to turn 3 with any of the stronger creatures.

There's no way to put a person into burn range on turn 2. That's fairly obvious; you don't even need a chart to show that. But it doesn't hurt to look at the damage output. no matter what configuration you use, your turn 3 damage is going to be pretty similar. The more Guides you have on turn 2, the more effective your turn 3 is going to be. But the degree of icnreased effectiveness, in comparison to the difference between Guide/Nacatl/Herd and Ape/Lion, is small. Even the lowest damage paths, dropping double Nacatl on turn 2 are still 33% more effective than the triple Ape/Lion path.

In any case, turn 3 is really where we're focused when we're talking goldfishing. We want the turn 3 because that's what allows us to be effective against the rest of the format. Because our creatures are outclassed on or after turn 3 (turn 2 'goyf is probably small enough that it can't profitably block a 3/3 yet) and because turn 2.5 is the FT for combo, turn 3 is our ideal killing turn. In theory, anyway. In practice, we can count on an opponent having a removal spell or some way to interact with us and push our FT back. Guide is effective in improving our turn 3 damage (but never enough to push our opponents from 2 burn spells out on turn 3 to 1 burn spell; we'd need to be able to hit 16 in beats on turn 3 to be able to consider 1 burn spell a turn 3 kill). It does make the turn 3 more likely, as triple Nacatl requires an opponent to use 2 fetches (or 1 Ancient Tomb use) in conjunction with 2 burn spells from us in order to get that turn 3 kill. However, you're also giving your opponent 1/3rd of a card every time it attacks, which I feel is a fairly significant disadvantage. It's also small enough that it can potentially become irrelevant on turn 2, where an opponent can trade a Confidant for it or profitably block with a Tarmogoyf.

I think there may be a slight edge to running Guide, but the creature worries me in general, as I'm never really that scared of it when I'm playing against it. I'll try testing with it, probably in place of either Tarmogoyf or QPM/Ooze/Sylvan in my listing. The first couple of turns are where we're at anyway, pushing that to the edge is worth trying.

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What about something along these lines:

4 Wild Nacatl
4 Hidden Herd
4 Goblin Guide
3 Steppe Lynx

4 Tarmogoyf
3 Qasali Pridemage

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
3 Boros Charm
2 Reckless Charge
2 Flame Rift
2 Fireblast

1 Sylvan Library

12 fetches (Foothills, Mesa, Heath)
3 Taiga
3 Plateau
2 Savannah

You're about as aggressive as you could get. The Nacatl, Charge turn 2 is slightly better even than the double Guide turn 2, putting you to 15 on turn 3. Under some circumstances, that could be a 1 burn spell kill on turn 3. Boros Charm, Flame Rift and Fireblast give you that little bit of extra damage to push towards lethal and Steppe Lynx, while not a consistent beater, can be workable. In fact, if you've got 3 lands and 2 are fetches, you could pretty much hit lethal with 2 Lynxes and a Charge, no burn required (11 on turn 2, 8 more on turn 3 for 19 total). Of course, Reckless Charge is bad in the face of Swords to Plowshares and the flashback is almost never relevant for haste (if you've hit 4 mana, you're in deep shit). I went with a second Flame Rift over the 4th Boros Charm just because of color considerations. It may not be necessary, Charm might just be 100% better because of the additional modes, but I figured a couple of extra sorceries for Tarmogoyf wasn't going to hurt anything. We could also try it as 4 Boros Charm and 3 Fireblast and cut Flame Rift entirely.

It might be worth at least taking a look at this. It may be too glass cannon, but it captures the heart of contemporary Zoo pretty nicely. Fast beats, lots of lightning to the face.

Things have been pretty hectic here. I promised a list but some of my cards are being loaned out to friends at the moment, so that will have to wait.

For now let me talk about Boros Charm since I realy should explain myself on why I'm not really amused by it.

First things first. The versatility on this card is a trap. I feel like the 4 damage mode is going to be the most useful out of the 3. It feels like a flame rift with no drawback, to give it credit. As for the double strike mode, those of you thinking it will help us be "aggressive" is wrong. Remember that none of our guys have trample. For it to out-damage the 4 damage-option when swinging through unblocked, you need to slap it on something that does 5 damage or more (goofy?) since we have nothing that has trample. Usually when we're swinging through unblocked with a 5/6 goyf we're already winning, so this point is moot.

Lets look at the last mode, indestructibility for permanents. What's the number one creature removal? Swords to Plowshares. Whats the number one mass removal in the metagame right now that blows us upside down? Terminus. We're still cold to these. Sure, occassionally Rootborn defenses is a good card when tangling in creature combat, but even when your opponents creatures are tangling with yours in the red zone, its likely they have some sort of trick too (usually removal). You don't tangle with a goyf for fun without removal. Unless you were hoping to chump, during which case, indestructibility doesn't help. Another relevant (but admittedly narrow) application is to blank your opponent's wasteland. But you have to have 2 mana up and wait for the right time to pounce. When you're playing zoo and you have 2 mana up and nothing happens and the turn is passed, you have lost a chance to do something relevant: apply more pressure on your opponent. We don't have the luxury of time to wait around for things to happen...and that's why I think Boros Charm is not great.

Yeah sure its great in a vacuum, but after thinking through the interactions with our other cards + cards from other decks...it just doesn't blow my mind away anymore. If you think RW for a flamerift that doesn't damage you is good, go ahead and play it. If you think you wanna hold up mana to try and get mileage from its other modes...then I think you should think twice.

This is my take.

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Originally Posted by movingtonewao

Things have been pretty hectic here. I promised a list but some of my cards are being loaned out to friends at the moment, so that will have to wait.

For now let me talk about Boros Charm since I realy should explain myself on why I'm not really amused by it.

First things first. The versatility on this card is a trap. I feel like the 4 damage mode is going to be the most useful out of the 3. It feels like a flame rift with no drawback, to give it credit. As for the double strike mode, those of you thinking it will help us be "aggressive" is wrong. Remember that none of our guys have trample. For it to out-damage the 4 damage-option when swinging through unblocked, you need to slap it on something that does 5 damage or more (goofy?) since we have nothing that has trample. Usually when we're swinging through unblocked with a 5/6 goyf we're already winning, so this point is moot.

Lets look at the last mode, indestructibility for permanents. What's the number one creature removal? Swords to Plowshares. Whats the number one mass removal in the metagame right now that blows us upside down? Terminus. We're still cold to these. Sure, occassionally Rootborn defenses is a good card when tangling in creature combat, but even when your opponents creatures are tangling with yours in the red zone, its likely they have some sort of trick too (usually removal). You don't tangle with a goyf for fun without removal. Unless you were hoping to chump, during which case, indestructibility doesn't help. Another relevant (but admittedly narrow) application is to blank your opponent's wasteland. But you have to have 2 mana up and wait for the right time to pounce. When you're playing zoo and you have 2 mana up and nothing happens and the turn is passed, you have lost a chance to do something relevant: apply more pressure on your opponent. We don't have the luxury of time to wait around for things to happen...and that's why I think Boros Charm is not great.

Yeah sure its great in a vacuum, but after thinking through the interactions with our other cards + cards from other decks...it just doesn't blow my mind away anymore. If you think RW for a flamerift that doesn't damage you is good, go ahead and play it. If you think you wanna hold up mana to try and get mileage from its other modes...then I think you should think twice.

This is my take.

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Miracles is being rocked by BGx decks, and Swords to Plowshares is closely followed by Abrupt Decay (Boros Charm can be helpful here). Don't forget you can use it to save your duals from Wasteland and some crap like Pernicious Deed. Of course the 4 damage to the dome is the most useful ability, but Boros Charm offers some interactions.

At least it's better than Price of Progress, which usually hits for 4~6, and it's symmetric (we also run a lot of non-basics). Double Strike could save some guy in combat, but it's by far the worse ability in Boros Charm.

The more I play Boros Charm the more I'm starting to feel like it's a trap (sadly). Needs more testing, but I've never gotten the "gotcha!" indestructible ability to work when I want to since I'm constantly tapping out to play more dudes or want a more damaging burn spell like PoP.

I've done just a little testing with the Zoo deck I posted above, but I'm liking it. I'm ok with Boros Charm being a one-sided Flame Rift. When I open a hand with 2 lands, 2 creatures, 2 4 damage burn spells and a bolt, I feel pretty amazing. Having over half someone's life in burn means my creatures work that much less. I've never used the Charm for anything other than a Flame Rift, but that's ok. I also changed out Lynxes for Vexing Devil. It's feeling very burn like right now, but I'll need more testing to see if I feel that this is straight up better than burn.

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Originally Posted by SpikeyMikey

I've done just a little testing with the Zoo deck I posted above, but I'm liking it. I'm ok with Boros Charm being a one-sided Flame Rift. When I open a hand with 2 lands, 2 creatures, 2 4 damage burn spells and a bolt, I feel pretty amazing. Having over half someone's life in burn means my creatures work that much less. I've never used the Charm for anything other than a Flame Rift, but that's ok. I also changed out Lynxes for Vexing Devil. It's feeling very burn like right now, but I'll need more testing to see if I feel that this is straight up better than burn.

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Hi, nice looking list you have there. I have been thinking Vexing Devil a lot but I like Lynx more. In my testing Devil has been only 4 dmg to opp. when those 1cc creatures should beat atleast 6-8 dmg. Have you tested is PoP better than Flame Rift? I played zoo couple of weeks ago and PoP was almost always 6 dmg on both.

Would it be very wrong in this meta for Big Zoo to go back to Cursed Scroll over P. Fires? It makes for a better manabase, and essentially costs the same. In my meta at least, grave hate is just everywhere with Miracles running RiP main, Deathrite, etc.

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Originally Posted by Richard Cheese

Would it be very wrong in this meta for Big Zoo to go back to Cursed Scroll over P. Fires? It makes for a better manabase, and essentially costs the same. In my meta at least, grave hate is just everywhere with Miracles running RiP main, Deathrite, etc.

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It sounds like in your meta cursed scroll would be the better alternative. Of course, DRS should never stop you from running punishing fire, but rest in peace is bonkers vs it.

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Originally Posted by angel882

Hi, nice looking list you have there. I have been thinking Vexing Devil a lot but I like Lynx more. In my testing Devil has been only 4 dmg to opp. when those 1cc creatures should beat atleast 6-8 dmg. Have you tested is PoP better than Flame Rift? I played zoo couple of weeks ago and PoP was almost always 6 dmg on both.

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I'm ok with my opponent paying the 4 life for Vexing Devil. A supercharged Lava Spike is fine. It's never a card I'm going to drop on turn 1, but with Hidden Herd, Wild Nacatl and Goblin Guide, I should never have to. I look at it this way. Devil is damn near a guaranteed 4. With Steppe Lynx, I get 4 if I have a fetch. More if I have multiple lands and they don't come up with a blocker by turn 3. But Lynx is very hand dependent. On a 2 land hand, I may only be getting 2 points of out Lynx on turn 2 and then have it sit for 3 turns until I find another land. Devil is basically never going to be more than 4, but it's basically never going to be less either.

PoP is probably generally around the same amount of damage. It's around 4-6 at the time where it's relevant. But Rift is a sorcery, which isn't great as far as timing goes, but is nice as far as Tarmogoyf goes. I actually moved 1 Boros Charm to a Rift for that reason. I like that Charm doesn't hit me (keeps people from trying to race), but I'm currently at 8 instants and 9 sorceries. It's much easier to count on my opponent for the instant than the sorcery.

Keep in mind that I'm not saying that this is all correct. I have very limited testing into this as I've been busy with work. This is primarily changes based on theory craft and the feel I got from the deck in a few random games on MWS. I did really enjoy Reckless Charging a Wild Nacatl vs. OmniShow yesterday, however. Turn 1 Hidden Herd into turn 2 take 9 made for an easy turn 3 kill. He had the Misdirection for the Lightning Bolt, but Flame Rift and Fireblast got there.

I've been trying out Steppe Lynx and I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's not as reliable as say Loam Lion or Gobliin Guide I was wondering how many of you would swear by it.

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Originally Posted by ceustice

I've been trying out Steppe Lynx and I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's not as reliable as say Loam Lion or Gobliin Guide I was wondering how many of you would swear by it.

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It's a personal decision. If you want to play Zoo for it's 4th turn kill, you should play it, or if you want the consistency until T5-7 and still be drawing good creatures, I would suggest cards like Ape n Lion. They aren't really a good topdeck on t5 but better than a lynx.

This is what I am playing at the moment:

4 wild nacatl
4 hidden herd
2 hidden gibbons
3 qasali pridemage
4 steppe lynx
4 goblin guide
3 grim lavamancer

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to exile
2 lightning helix
2 chain lightning
2 sulfulic vortex
2 sylvan library

4 arid mesa
3 wooded foothills
2 windswept heath
2 evolving wilds
1 mountain
1 forest
1 plains
2 stomping ground
2 sacred foundry
1 temple garden

Got any suggestions? Well, I play shock lands and 2 evolving wilds because i am short on cash. I wanna substitute them with Duals and foothills/heaths. In my meta, a T1 Hidden Herd is basically a Nacatl( lots of delver)
Libraries: They are for keeping up on T5+
Vortexes: They stop a Batterskulls ability to reproduce life and is the overkill against Blade Control
Hidden Gibbons: Good against control if you play it T1 or 2

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Originally Posted by ceustice

I've been trying out Steppe Lynx and I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's not as reliable as say Loam Lion or Gobliin Guide I was wondering how many of you would swear by it.

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I really don't like Steppe Lynx. I have tested it not only in zoo, but I have tried playing it a lot in modern, and back in standard and extended too. IMO the problem with it is that it is only good if played on turn one, or maybe turn two. But quite often I found that they might wipe your board or something, and then you just need to topdeck anything to push through the last few points of damage and instead you draw a steppe lynx, which then does nothing.

Goblin Guide, Kird Ape, Loam Lion, etc don't get worse the longer the game goes on. So I personally would advise against ever playing Steppe Lynx, but I cannot recommend Goblin Guide enough, I can't imagine the deck without him.

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Originally Posted by Dungaurd

I cannot recommend Goblin Guide enough, I can't imagine the deck without him.

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Goblin Guide is horrible in the metagame right now! Giving card advantage, not a good thing! There are more viable and better options, whether that is Lynx or not.

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Originally Posted by Demonic_Attorney

Goblin Guide is horrible in the metagame right now! Giving card advantage, not a good thing! There are more viable and better options, whether that is Lynx or not.

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Well giving card advantage is never a good thing, but you say he is horrible right now? Is there a time you believe that he was good during? What has changed since then that has made him bad? What would you recommend instead of goblin guide and steppe lynx?

I guess I sould be clear that I am talking about little zoo, not big zoo here.

Why do dealers still sell Hidden Herd for 49 cents each? That Saga card is bound to jump... Starcity, CFB, and CoolStuffInc are sold out, and Troll and Toad has 3 copies. I just bought some copies for 49 cents each while they are still at that price.