[Deck] Zoo

[ivanpei]

True, I wouldn't call choke narrow though. It hits landstill especially and countertop/bant decks very hard. That's a fairly large % of the meta. Merfolk mu should be pretty good already, even then choke is pretty brutal if you have the pridemage/grip for their vial. Landing choke against a vial-less folk deck is GG. Same for show and tell. If you land choke before the SnT its also GG. Show and tell decks rarely get the T3 show and tell, so you have a good chance of landing it before they go off. They spend the early turns cantripping/tutoring, so landing a choke is pretty devastating. I wouldn't call choke narrow by a long mile. Those who have played against or with choke know how good that card is. Hatfield runs choke in his zoo SB. I would run it too.

[Fuzzy]

I like REB for three reasons:

1 - I hate losing to a 15/15 Alien for 2U.
2 - I can kill War Monks for R.
3 - I can board it in vs. Dredge and hit their speed.

I'm runninng 2-1 REB/Blast split and aways like it (Split because Dredge runs Cabal Therapy).

[ivanpei]

Both are good, but I believe that 2-3 chokes should be there in addition to REBs. If I were limited to just 3 anti blue slots, I would still play choke because its a GG spell vs blue, whereas REBs, though slightly more versatile, helps but does not win games on its own vs blue. In situation:

1. Vs show and tell, you will almost always land choke before they land the alien. If they have force, tough luck, they would've forced your REB too in that situation. Choke is almost as good in this situation. I don't want to keep my mana open for REB and hurt my own tempo when I suspect they have the combo but they don't.

2. I'd rather have 2G, opponents can no longer play 80% of his spells rather than R destroy target annoying creature. You can easily outgrind any deck that can't cast 80% of their spells.

3. Its better against dredge this I admit. But if you're keeping your mana open for REB and they drop LED/putrid imp/cephalid Colosseum, you are screwed regardless.

[Fuzzy]

@ivanpei:

1 - Choke can be easily Dazed. Also, they can draw go and do nothing with their Islands until turn 3 (BS/Ponder on 1st turn, whatever), cast the Alien and WHO CARES about Islands after that?

2 - It's my turn to admit Choke is better against Counterbalance. I think it's a fine matchup anyway, being the biggest problems Rhox and CB, where REBs solve both.

3 - If it happen, you will need the hate grave or a miracle anyway.

[ivanpei]

Thats a fair argument. I agree with your deductions. I prefer having my counterbalance MU nailed down rock solid especially postboard against a bazillion firespouts/spot removal. IMO show and tell is such a hard MU even with REBs/choke, just like storm combo. IMO I'm assuming you are talking about the burning wish version right? You overestimate their ability to find both Snt and Emrakul by turn 3/4.

I've played against it and I assure you barring a god hand, it is not that easy to assemble that combo. Thats why they play countertop, daze etc to slow you down while they find the combo. They do not have a tutor that finds both components. Burning wish -> firespout is a very common play in that deck. Its a control deck with a combo finish not a crazy fast combo deck. Against this slower version, you can slowroll your choke too and not walk into daze.

Anyway, I agree to disagree. At worse, the 3 Mind break traps in the board can be REBs if I don't see much storm but more blue.

[Fuzzy]

I think the problem here is conclude what "Counterbalance MU" is. I mean, if they have RWM and Spout, I think it's THE REAL nightmare, maybe even worse than any kind of Storm Combo. The Martell CB is fine, and Pro Bant is all about racing. I don't know if it's just me, but for now I'm planning abandon this matchup, because this meta looks really bad for Counterbalance because their matchup versus GX Vengevines and Merfolks.

Here in Brazil the most common versions of SnT are that with Sneak Attack (and Basic Mountains) and UBx (Both with and without Doomsday). I never see the thread about Emrakul decks and never see Burning Wishs in those, so IMHO its a fast combo with control protection, much like Flash with sumoning sickness.

My sideboard looks like:

3 Ranger of Eos (For mirror, grabbing Wild Nacatl/Figure of Destiny, and for Vial Aggro, where Lavamancers are hot)
2 KGrip (versus CB, Survival, Stax, Enchantress... Pretty obvious here)
2 Gaddock Teeg (Control sutff and Combo)
2-1 Pyro/REB split (As I said before + Merfolk)
1 Karakas (Not sure if needed, I think I'm beeing a pussy here)
1 Umezawa's Jitte (Aggro mirrors)
3 Flex Slots (Pithing Needle, White Leyline, Mindbreak Trap, Canonist, Shusher, meta options)

[ivanpei]

I see, your SB is geared towards emrakul decks. No worries, that looks like a very solid anti Snt/sneak attack/doomsday SB. Mine is tailored for a more all rounded meta. My definition of all rounded is something like: 30% tribal (folk/gobbos), 20% Countertop/Jacestill, 20% Bant Aggro/New horizons, 20% Zoo, 10 % Combo (storm, dredge, reanimator, Snt, enchantress/survival).

Big Zoo beats tribal, big zoo beats the zoo mirror, so nothing for those. 6 Storm hate cards with Teeqs and traps, 3 (Relic/crypt) For grave combo, 3 anti blue (choke). 3 Grip for countertop, equipment, survival, enchantress.

I think giving up against supreme blue is unwise. Especially if you can rape them with a resolved choke. Just bait forces with sylvan libraries/kotrs etc. :) Then it becomes a cake walk.

[BantFTW]

Read: http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...rnal-festival/

245 players and zoo is deck 1 :O


decklist:

•4 Wild Nacatl
•3 Noble Hierarch
•2 Figure of Destiny (is this so good than, I would go like saito says one more lavamancer atleast?)
•2 Grim Lavamancer
•4 Tarmogoyf
•4 Qasali Pridemage
•4 Knight of the Reliquary
•2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
•4 Lightning Bolt
•4 Swords to Plowshares
•2 Path to Exile
•1 Umezawas Jitte
•2 Sylvan Library

23 land:
•1 Forest
•1 Plains
•1 Mountain
•2 Plateau
•2 Savannah
•2 Taiga
•4 Arid Mesa
•4 Wooded Foothills
•2 Windswept Heath
•2 Wasteland
•1 Karakas
•Sideboard
•3 Pyroblast
•3 Pyrostatic Pillar --> quite cool, but don't you get a lot of damage yourself :O?
•2 Price of Progress --> When I played big zoo I missed those
•2 Krosan Grip
•2 Tormods Crypt
•1 Bojuka Bog
•1 Red Elemental Blast
•1 Gaddock Teeg

Quite a cool deck, also karakas is very interesting I think with kotr^^
But I'm still not sold on big zoo, I'm going to test it more once i've got time lol..

[affinitypimp]

wow, i better suit up my Zoo deck again cause this version looks funner than the fast Zoo version. Elspeths and such in this deck... i wonder if we can take out 1 Elspeth and put in 1 Koth to make the deck funner. Koth would be awesome since it allows you to tap out then untap a mountain to either swing for 4 or to lightning bolt something.

[maxflow2]

•3 Pyrostatic Pillar --> quite cool, but don't you get a lot of damage yourself :O?

Pyrostatic Pillar is mainly there for the storm matchup, I believe, where the damage you do to yourself is probably insignificant as long as you stay at a higher life total than them. I'm not sure if it makes sense to bring in for any other matchups (it might) and think it's pretty narrow, but as a storm player, I can tell you that I hate playing against it.

[Nelis]

Wheel of Sun and Moon allows the Madness player to get infinite Rootwallas.

I never ever thought of that. Good one.

[troopatroop]

Note the 3x Noble Hierarch in that 1st place list! Wasteland too, clearly they're decent in Zoo.

[jandax]

So have you made that new thread about Big Zoo? I'm kinda looking forward to it

It seems to be the consensis that anything other than traditional Naya zoo in this thread is an insult to all humanity.

[Pingu]

I'm trying out a faster version of zoo because my meta is full of Storms and Vengevine decks and the more standard version loose a lot to this kind of decks, goblins and merfolks remain good matches but bant and the other two versions of zoo (standard and big) are bad because they have many big guys and sword to plowshares is out of question in this version. Is there any other creature removal efective (i tought on submerge but the blue splash seems awkward)

Any comments on this list are welcome.

4 Wooded Foothils
4 Arid Mesa
2 Windswept Heath
3 Plateau
3 Taiga
1 Savannah
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Mountain

4 Goblin Guide
3 Grim Lavamancer
2 Kird Ape
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Quasali Pridemage

4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
2 Fireblast

4 Chain Lightning

2 Sylvan Librarie

sb:
3 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Price of Progress
1 Krosan Grip
2 Tormods Crypt
1 Grim Lavamancer

[jandax]

4 Goblin Guides doesn't make the deck faster. You'll need to max out on 11/12 fetchlands and squeeze in 4 Steppe Lynxs to turn it into more of a speedy Zoo varient. Suggestions to do so:

-1 Mountain/Savannah +2 Windswept Heath

-2 Kird Ape/2 Fireblast +4 Steppe Lynx

Kird Ape is vanilla, and while consistently a 2/3 for R, you are trying to be faster and even more aggressive. Fireblast, while a good finisher, and great with KotR (which isn't present), is simply the next card to cut I think.

The sideboard is your own, I don't know the meta in which you play. Yet this should speed the deck up a little bit. Helix might be an all-star for you against other agro matchups where you might likely run out of gas before they're dead. I was considering cutting that but that life gain is huge, especially in the mirror where you are already slightly faster.

[Pingu]

4 Goblin Guides doesn't make the deck faster. You'll need to max out on 11/12 fetchlands and squeeze in 4 Steppe Lynxs to turn it into more of a speedy Zoo varient. Suggestions to do so:

-1 Mountain/Savannah +2 Windswept Heath

-2 Kird Ape/2 Fireblast +4 Steppe Lynx

Kird Ape is vanilla, and while consistently a 2/3 for R, you are trying to be faster and even more aggressive. Fireblast, while a good finisher, and great with KotR (which isn't present), is simply the next card to cut I think.

The sideboard is your own, I don't know the meta in which you play. Yet this should speed the deck up a little bit. Helix might be an all-star for you against other agro matchups where you might likely run out of gas before they're dead. I was considering cutting that but that life gain is huge, especially in the mirror where you are already slightly faster.

I already test the Steppe Lynx and on paper he seems great but in games in a list with only 20 lands he doesnt work, the KOTR is needed for him to be efective and KOTR is to slow for my metagame. What i really need is something that can deal with big guys if there is such a thing for this deck.

Thank you for your sugestions

[BantFTW]

@Pingu, I've got this list:

20 lands:
2x horizon canopy (not sure of them)
1x savannah
2x taiga
2x plateau
3x basics
3x wooded foothills
4x windswept heath
3x arid mesa

4x wild nacatl
3x kotr
4x qasali pridemage
4x goyf
3x grim lavamancer
2x kird ape and 2x loam lion
--> I've played Steppe Lynx first, it comes in for damage that's true, but if you get it lategame is kinda sucky.
I've prefer kird ape/loam lion also because it can defend, quite important against quite alot of decks these days :)
That's my opinnion.

3x chain lightning
3x price of progress
2x fireblast
4x lightning bolt
4x PTE
2x sylvan library

Sb//
2x gaddock teeg
2x revenous trap
2x REB/pyroblast
2x krosan grip
3x mindbreak trap, they were good for me but maybe Pyrostatic Pillar is better now I think of that :O?
2x tormod's crypt
2x feary macabre

I would really want 3x volcanic fallout in it, gobblins, merfolk, storm with tokens^
So thinking of dropping 3x mindbreak trap and 3x ravenous trap for 2x pyrostatic pillar and 3x volcanic fallout.
The annoying thing is that when playing against RB Gobblins, that they can control your lands, and I always play against
a good goblin player here and lose because of that so idk^^
First I played 1 stp and 3 lightning helix, that was quite good, the life ain't that bad if you only do it one time so maybe that helps :O?

[Machahiko]

Hi,

First time posting here thought I've been watching the thread for quite a while. Anyways after a long time I decided to bring out a question that has kept me wondering. What to do in the matchup against countertop decks, what cards are good in general and what cards are good sideboard options? Here the metagame has a lot of merfolk which is nice, but in the last tournament 66% of the matches I had to play were against some decks with countertop engine in them. I wouldn't mind at all if someone could give me a general headline about how to play against these decks as well, because my game plan against these decks has been.. hard to follow.

At the moment I don't have a decklist but I have a decent library of cards which allow me to play fast Zoo (with Lynx), traditional Zoo and big Zoo. So far I've been playing fast Zoo, Alix Hatfield's list with minor changes. Anyways, what to do against countertop?

[affinitypimp]

I like that list VERY much. Real Zoo is suppose to be REAL fast and have tons of burn.... in fact so much Burn that we can many times cut half of those going to the dome to their critters to let goyfs and nacatls thru. I'd probably take that 3rd price of progress out though and throw in another chain lightning. my burn list was pretty similar to yours but i didnt run Helix's. If i wanted to run fast Zoo then i usually do it like this:

x4 Wild Nacatl
x4 Tarmogoyf
x4 Qasali Pride Mage (exalted helps alot and makes your goyf bigger than theirs, also good to destroy stuff like counterbalance and such)
x3 Lavamancer
x2 KotR
x2 Jotun Grunt (hes so good VS GY decks and he beats for 4)
x2 Loam Lion (i like him better cause its rare but i seen him still put up aggression in the face of anti-red enchantments and stuff)
x2 Sylvan Library

burn list:
x4 Lightning bolt
x4 chain lightning
x2 PoP
x2 Fireblast
x3 PtE
x2 Volcanic Fallout

This was the list i ran back in Richmond, VA for SCG. my record sucked however as i kept on getting faced with combo and more combo (freaking ANT decks and Reanimator, back when Mystical was still legal) And i ran the fallouts to hit Goblins and Fish FTW of course since my dudes were bigger... all matchs where i went up against Fish or some other aggro deck i won due to me just consistently killing atleast by turn 4

a good hand is this:
Turn 1: fetch, Taiga, play Nacatl
Turn 2: fetch Plateau, play qasali PM, swing for 4 with Nacatl
turn 3 fetch, a basic mountain just in case of wasteland, PtE something if u have to and swing for 5 total, then mainphase2 Goyf or Lavamancer or kotR or something life threatening
Turn 4: Swing with the team, then play a bolt effect or PoP and sac 2 mountains ftw with Fireblast hopefully for lethal.

and this isnt even a Godhand... this is just the regular hand that you can pull off sometimes.

i just like fast Zoo too much to be putting in Elspeths and Noble Hierarchs... maybe i should test the Zoo list that was ran in Japan though.

[CorpT]

I have been unimpressed with Price of Progress. It is easy for most people to play around and I always want to get duals. I haven't missed it at all.