All B/R update speculation.

lots of things pushed zoo out of the format. Perhaps most notably batterskull

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Originally Posted by Whitefaces

That's not why I think Entreat should be banned. I think Miracles, or at least a control deck akin to it is healthy for the format. Terminus is a safety valve for swarm strategies, and CB is similar for combo.

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I think its totally absurd trying to justify that dominating the stack AND the board for 1 mana (Terminus or SDT stacking) while creating massive cardadvantage and stomping combo AND aggro at the same time, is reasonable.

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Originally Posted by Mr Miagi

lots of things pushed zoo out of the format. Perhaps most notably batterskull

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Well, I wasn't trying to get into the full-on details, I was just pointing out that Delver had nothing to do with the decline of Zoo.

There's about 120379 reasons zoo got pushed out, but the deck was certainly dead before miracles.

I personally pushed Zoo out of the metagame, just up and shoved it into the pit where it was to be eaten by the zombified remnants of Landstill and Solidarity.

That aside, even if Miracles were gone, Zoo wouldn't come back, Delver being the most efficient and aggressive creature in the format makes that strategy laughable and flawed.

I think Zoo is a solid strategy against alot of the format right now. Zoo would beat up on Death & Taxes, Delver, and BUG midrange. Zoo is fine against Elves and Infect.Miracles is not a great matchup, but it's not what's holding it back. Zoo's biggest weakness is combo... especially fast combo. The problem is that if it tries to go a hatebear route to help against combo, it not longer has good matchups everywhere else.

The better option is to go more aggressive, with a Sligh approach. Sligh, despite being unknown/unpopular, is amazingly positioned in the current meta.

D&T should be fine against them, a 3 color deck that struggles against a batterskull sounds perfect for them.

Zoo has plenty of answers to artifacts between main and side, and plenty of cheap and efficient removal to kill Stoneforge before Batterskull sticks. Regardless, I'm not sure why Zoo would even care about it with Goyf and KotR. Zoo should crush D&T.

I don't know why you guys have such a boner for zoo. Zoo is pretty much gone and the current iteration of the deck plays delver of secrets and whatever color combination you want to go along with that card. There is absolutely no reason to play a :g: 3/3 and fill your deck up with crap when you can play a :u: 3/2 and fill your deck up with countermagic, cantrips and crap. If you don't want to play blue cards you have to be playing an aggro deck with chalice since that the only way you can keep up with how good some of the other cards in the format are.

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Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds

I personally pushed Zoo out of the metagame, just up and shoved it into the pit where it was to be eaten by the zombified remnants of Landstill and Solidarity.

That aside, even if Miracles were gone, Zoo wouldn't come back, Delver being the most efficient and aggressive creature in the format makes that strategy laughable and flawed.

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Well, it's hard for Zoo to be aggressive and fast if McDonald's has personally feed them for a while. Obese Nacatl doesn't seem like a very efficient Aggro creature.

Zoo is trash and unplayable let it go.

The best aggro creature is blue anyway. I don't see any reason why you would go for underpar shitty creatures that cost 1. Even burn play better beaters seriously.

I personally feel the best aggressive creature right now is White.

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Originally Posted by CptHaddock

I don't know why you guys have such a boner for zoo. Zoo is pretty much gone and the current iteration of the deck plays delver of secrets and whatever color combination you want to go along with that card. There is absolutely no reason to play a :g: 3/3 and fill your deck up with crap when you can play a :u: 3/2 and fill your deck up with countermagic, cantrips and crap. If you don't want to play blue cards you have to be playing an aggro deck with chalice since that the only way you can keep up with how good some of the other cards in the format are.

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I wasn't implying that Zoo is viable these days. It's unfair matchups are awful, and Burn is a better deck against the fair matchups (ignoring the fact that current Burn lists are actually Sligh). However, there is a significant difference in playstyle and strategy between Delver and Zoo.

I played vs Naya Company Hatebear Zoo the other day with Elves. I first thought this would be a super easy win, but it was actually a super close game in the end. It's probably horrible vs Miracles and a couple other decks, but it gave me serious flashbacks of the cool times we had with it in the meta in 2009-2010 (before it died to never ever beating Maverick).

As someone who has played Zoo recently, DnT is not horrible, but a turn 1 vial on the play is real tough to beat. Even a normal game is pretty rough

I think it's interesting that everyone has a different explanation for the disappearance of Zoo. Might just be the different metagames in North America and Europe at that time.

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Originally Posted by thefringthing

I think it's interesting that everyone has a different explanation for the disappearance of Zoo. Might just be the different metagames in North America and Europe at that time.

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Hu? In my books Zoo got pushed out of the metagame by Survival and never get to recover due to Maverick as Survivals direct successor powered by Kight of the Reliquary & GSZ. SFM + Batterskull were just the deathknell for Goblins. Zoo was dead long before Goblins

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Originally Posted by hovercraft

I feel like you'd have to ban 1 of SDT, CB or Terminus to really have an impact. Entreat is powerful, but Miracles would find another win con without it. (Mentor, Snap, Clique, Planeswalkers, etc)

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Decree of Justice used to be the win condition for UW control decks. Entreat is just another iteration.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

Exactly. Pyroclasm, EE, Deluge, Supreme Verdict, Ratchet Bomb. All sorts of sweepers exist at all sorts of mana costs. But they are dwarfed by comparison to W Instant get rid of all creatures. Cant get around it with protection. Cant get around it with indestructible, hexproof, or just having a recurring threat because it is a tuck effect.

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Legion's Initiative is the only thing I can think of that beats a Terminus in a creature deck

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

In my books Zoo got pushed out of the metagame by Survival

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I think most North Americans would tell you that Zoo was killed by Show and Tell and the decline of Merfolk.

Maverick wasn't really a thing in North American when it started dominating Europe in early 2011. That's probably why Americans wouldn't say Maverick killed Zoo.