By request, I present an article on classic Zoo. I make no pretense with either the deck or the article. I am certainly not claiming it is good or that I’ve arrived at a correct build even (though I don’t think the builds or the archetype are bad, per se); I am only showing my thought process in arriving at a deck that has won me a lot of packs so far on MTGO. If I thought I had something definite to share, I would have written earlier, but I don’t, so I will simply try to answer Under_the_Hammer’s summons. I will try to walk the thorough but terse tightrope.
Don’t be fooled by this deck’s traditional Zoo colors; this is a fish-style deck with good creatures. It seeks to prey on the metagame. It is a very fair deck which in Classic usually means ‘bad’. However, it seems that if you can make everyone else’s deck bad at the same time, you have a decent gameplan. Conversely, note that Zoo can never be the dominant deck because, as a “fair” deck, it is beaten quite easily if someone really wants to dedicate some hate to it.
I have played Classic Zoo with a lot of different variations. Before the duals came out, I won a PE with a heavy RGB burn and discard configuration (with Blood Moon!). I made top 8 with a Trinket Mage package complete with Stifle/Nought. I made another top 8 with a domain version with a Daze/FoW/Evasive Action package backing up some 1-drops. My clanmates and I have had the most success with a G/W/R version sporting Scepter / Chant combo and matchup hate. With such great color fixing, probably any color combination can be tried.
Three frolicsome friends!
The only thing I consider sacred about the deck is the predator mentality, and perhaps the curve. Everyone says Nacatl and Ape and Goyf are the staples of the deck, but I disagree. Cards are only good in context. It just so happens that combo is the king of the hill at the moment. The control decks accordingly play blue with slow counterspells rather than W/B and creature control. This allows Nacatl and friends to get in for a good chunk of damage vs. the control decks. Enough damage? It’s close. They’re also given a free shot at the quarterback against the combo decks. Yes, sometimes combo can throw the long bomb for the touchdown, but this deck’s secondary is littered with several excellent defensive backs. Anyways, no card – not Nacatl, not Goyf – is automatic.
With that in mind, you can’t start building the deck until you know the metagame. My take on best deck in the format is NecroStorm (see any number of excellent articles on PureMTGO, but especially
http://puremtgo.com/node/1430). What cards on a low-curve beat up on this deck?
Pithing Needle, Orim's Chant,
Ethersworn Canonist,
Meddling Mage (if they don’t have too many tutor effects), and especially
Gaddock Teeg. These cards act as counterspells against large chunks of the deck and some of them put on a clock. If I played these cards against a tournament with only NecroStorm decks, I would really like my chances. Another great upside is that many of these cards perform very admirably against other combo decks with completely different gameplans.
Other good decks in the metagame include Landstill and Thresh. As mentioned previously, Nacatl, Ape, and Goyf are very dangerous against these decks, if unchecked. Ideally, you want to protect your fast threats with your own counterspells and some removal, most notably
Swords to Plowshares (or its future replacement in Conflux). Mishra's Factory and any creature via
Aether Vial also slips under a counterspell wall.
Other defining strategies in Classic, I noted, were surprisingly linear. Affinity scoops to any number of artifact hate spells, tops being
Null Rod. Dredge is confounded by Tormod’s Crypt or
Relic of Progenitus, or even
Ghostly Prison/Propaganda. Red doesn’t like continual life gain or prevention effects. Pox doesn’t want to see
Engineered Explosives or
Bitterblossom or a “you have shroud” card like
True Believer.
Worship plus a creature is pretty tough on each of them and Thresh, too, if it sticks.
Since you can’t include all the hate for all the matchups, the next obvious idea was the toolbox approach. The best tutoring is in black, but the hate cards weren’t in black too much, especially low in the curve. Black is excellent at 1:1 trades with hand or creature disruption, but it wasn’t going to offer me the “oops, your deck loses to this singleton” kind of card. That led me to
Enlightened Tutor which did access most of the aforementioned hate cards, and a G/W/R shell was starting to form.
Note that cheap critters + true counterspells is the best aggro predator idea to beat a field dominated by Thresh and Landstill, but I had to shelve that idea as
Necropotence got stronger and stronger. If your plan against the latter was Goyf +
Counterspell, even assuming your mana could produce it, my impression is that you can’t deploy your threats while leaving Counterspell mana up, and if you did deploy, you would get comboed out. And if you just sat there, then they could sculpt their victory and your Goyf was doing nothing anyways.
Ok, this shell was coming together for me:
4 Nacatl
3-4 Ape
4 Goyf
4 Canonist (the most likely to be an auto-include for the archetype)
2-3 Teeg (legendary with heavy color costs, thus not 4)
4 Chant
3-4 Enlightened Tutor
1-2 Scepter
1-3 Jitte
X removal spells
X hate cards as tutor targets
4 Mishra’s Factory
The first question once you include Chant revolves around
Isochron Scepter. Even a singleton Scepter can be worthwhile since Enlightened can find it. My theoretical conclusion, since backed up from experience, is that 1-2 Scepters is a great include as you can steal a lot of game 1 wins with that combo, especially against aggro and aggro-control.
Removal
Ideally Zoo wants to devote slots to flexible burn spells which can double as creature removal. Therefore, you start off with probably anywhere from 4-10 slots looking at
Lightning Bolt,
Lightning Helix,
Fireblast,
Grim Lavamancer, and
Tribal Flames. They all have a similar power level but what a given build uses will be predicated on the manabase and some insular interactions like Lavamancer and Goyf stepping on each other’s toes or Helix being better than Bolt imprinted on a Scepter. Unfortunately, the realist has to recognize that none of these have much to say vs. an opposing Goyf,
Tombstalker, or
Phyrexian Dreadnought. I will dwell on this point more in the chat after the article if anyone wants to argue this point. My only conclusion is that, sadly, 4
Swords to Plowshares must be included somewhere in the list (perhaps split between main and board) over good burn spells.
Does your deck roll over game one?
Orim’s Chant
This card is close to obscene in this build against this metagame. Combined with Scepter it can auto-win. You can use it to protect a key spell since they cannot counter spells for the rest of the turn. It can stall an attack for a turn which minimally means you see another card. It can Time Walk the control or combo player, which is especially useful when you have a couple of creatures in play. It even acts like a Counterspell vs. a delay spell like Rift Bolt or in response to Dreadnought going on the stack or even against
Glimpse of Nature. Don’t forget its principal reason for inclusion is for when the opponent goes Ritual (resolves), Ritual (now, in response...), you play Chant and they deplete their hand, waste their Storm combo, and manaburn for a ton.
Enlightened Tutor
Your targets are going to vary again based on build and the current metagame, but here I will merely mention some good candidates. If you have Chant in hand, top consideration is Scepter. If your curve extends heavily into 3 and 4 cc spells, I would also auto include a non-white artifact mana source, like
Chrome Mox or
Great Furnace. Canonist is also a legal target. Of the singletons, the ones I’ve included maindeck from day one are
Pithing Needle out of deference to Necropotence (and it’s very good against other matchups) and (Umezawa’s Jitte) and
Oblivion Ring. I’ve also tried out maindeck proactive threats like
Bitterblossom and
Cursed Scroll, though I’m not necessarily recommending them here. Maindeck reactive cards have included
Worship or
Runed Halo, either of which can substantially alter the course of a game one, which isn’t bad for a singleton. Another maindeck possibility is a singleton (Sensei’s Divining Top). The sideboard reactive tutor’s that have stood out to me are
Ghostly Prison,
Circle of Protection: Red,
Warmth,
Chill,
Compost,
Engineered Explosives,
Null Rod, (Tormod’s Crypt) and/or
Relic of Progenitus,
Counterbalance & Top,
Thorn of Amethyst,
Rule of Law,
Choke, and
Chalice of the Void. There are two additional things to remember about Enlightened Tutor: it can be the basis of a transformative sideboard – think 4x (Painter’s Servant) + 1x
Grindstone – and the tutor can be played during your upkeep. This latter point is elegantly shown through this example. Turn 1, you lead off with a Savannah + Nacatl (with Enlightened in hand) vs. an unknown deck. He responds with turn 1 Underground Sea + Ponder which means you should set a stop in your upkeep to use Tutor for Pithing Needle at that point, playing it to stop Necropotence.
Manabase
Besides the G/W/R version I will also talk about a domain Zoo base. In the G/W/R version I flooded a lot with 22 lands. I’ve since gone down to 21, and I still have some flooding, so 20 lands is not impossible. The MTGO client tells me my current curve is 1.51, but some cards are mana intensive like Scepter, Factory, and Jitte. Mishra’s Factory makes good use of flooding, and alleviates the worse crime – manascrew. Heaths and Foothills find both original duals so you should probably start there. Especially if you are including Fireblasts, you will want 4 Taigas. 8 fetchlands, 6 duals, 4 Factories is 18 lands. That leaves 3 slots. I’ve tried
Wasteland, but I’ve never, ever gotten any disruptive value out of it other than eating specialty lands – the field plays too honest for it right now seemingly. I like a Sacred Foundry and some basics, but I’m not sure what is best. If you splash Black or Blue, you’re probably cutting
Fireblast at this point and can afford to cut a Taiga for Overgrown Tomb or Breeding Pool.
The domain Zoo build has more dual targets representing all colors and can accordingly afford more fetchlands. Here I will assume 4-colors in the deck with a 5th basic land type merely to get the max out of the domain ability. I prefer 10-12 fetchlands, 1 dual matching your non-color with the most common fetchland match, one each of the other 6 in-color duals, a basic, and at least a couple of Factories.
That’s really all I want to say about the deck which, for shame, doesn’t even include a decklist. I will post two, but I want to say up front that I don’t feel I’ve solved all the deckbuilding dilemmas at this point in time. Either I’m just not smart enough or this field is impossibly tough to predict. I can say that I’ve pored many, many hours staring at the Classic card pool asking myself how each card could fit into the puzzle.
Build #1: Naya Zoo or Chant Zoo
Mana Sources (17)
Mana Sources/Threats (4)
Threats (15)
Threats/Disruption (7)
Disruption (9)
Disruption/Combo (8)
Sideboard
This features more burn than I have been running recently, so if you find this suspect, you should try +4 StP maindeck over Lavamancers. If you want to try another hate spell target maindeck you could move a Canonist to the side. I had a black splash for Bitterblossom for awhile to help the Pox and Control matchups. Compost solved half the problem and pushed me back to the comfortable world of 3 colors. Another good sideboard card is Ancient Grudge.
I am not going to give specific sideboarding strategies since this archetype is so wide open that any tweak on your final list would invalidate it. I change my sideboard weekly or more often anyways.
Against the Field
Combo – This build is favorable against every combo deck in the format. I would estimate 55-60% vs. NecroStorm and pushing 70% against other combo decks. It just has a lot of hate and a fast clock. If
Ad Nauseam picks up, put
Chalice of the Void in the board, set to 0. You should study the decklists of all the combo decks to appreciate what you need to name with cards like Pithing Needle and Runed Halo, when to play your spells, and what to board in and out. When in doubt, bring in or keep in StP since they will likely try to transform into big guys. You can usually rest the Kird Apes here.
Dredge – This deck is probably worse against Dredge, but very winnable if you draw hate or Enlightened (a strong reason to include a 4th copy of Enlightened Tutor, by the way). Worship is usually a lock, if you run it, for at least one game until they bring in an answer for the next. Prison holds down the fort reasonably well at all times.
Burn – The close games favor them, but only slightly, and you have several chances to blow them out with an unchecked Jitte, CoP: Red, or Halo/Worship. Scepter/Helix is still very good. So, all things considered, the matchup probably slightly favors this deck.
Pox / Discard / 1:1 creature removal – If you can’t keep a threat going, this can be rough. However, usually you just can get enough in to win. If they get a couple copies of
The Rack in play, the matchup favors them; if your tutor can find Halo to nullify them or Explosives to blow them up, you will win. A turn 2 Bitterblossom is a house here.
Synergy Critters (Elves, Goblins, Affinity, Fishy) – You can win attrition wars but are not favored to do so. I ran
Earthquake in the board for several weeks as a one-sided Wrath for all my Zoo builds before these decks fell off the map. Still, hate is the most appropriate remedy. Worship and Scepter/Chant is very good against each, and Ghostly Prison is passable. Affinity scoops to Null Rod. CoP: Red helps out against Goblins. Canonist buys a heck of a lot of time vs. Elves. And your dudes are bigger than Fish dudes. All are favorable but not necessarily by much.
Control – (Given ‘
Who’s the Beatdown’, I will include Thresh here.) I saved the worst for last. Furthermore, Control decks make up a good slice of the current metagame.
Thresh, I feel is only slightly unfavorable. If they don’t resolve a Goyf to stick in the first 3-4 turns, they are probably losing. If they get a second Goyf to stick they have basically won. This is a reason to maindeck StP. They only run a few threats so it is possible to overrun them. Relic of Progenitus is amazing here. Worship, surprisingly enough, is usually an auto-win for one game until they bring in answers.
The next bad Control matchup is Landstill. They run Counterbalance + Top which can wreck a deck like this with, say, only four spells above 2 mana. The last time I played this in a PE I ran into back to back to back Landstill decks and went down each time. I would estimate the matchup at 30-70 or maybe slightly better. Just hope the initial rush does more damage than usual. The major problem is that no legal target for Enlightened Tutor in the Classic format has “can’t be countered” on it. So, you can try to get Choke or Bitterblossom or Cursed Scroll, but they can just counter the new spell and you lose card advantage. I’ve learned to just side out the Tutors and save the trouble. You could try Red Elemental Blast, but that doesn’t add many percentage points even if it resolves, so I think the last chance is probably the all-in Boil, but I’m not exactly excited about the idea. This is the single number one reason to look at Black splashes.
The worst matchup is the final control deck – Rock. Fortunately, it does not show up very much since it has bad combo matchups. This deck has midrange creatures which put yours to shame. They have life gain, good spot removal, good mass removal, and some recursive elements which put you further behind. It is not a linear deck and therefore not prone to your hate. Short of you getting your fastest draw and them a slow one, you are strategically bankrupt.
Build #2: Next Level Zoo or Blue Zoo
This build attempts to employ a very fast clock and protect it with counterspells, taking advantage of a domain shell. The counterspells can also double to take out key combo spells, of course, but they certainly don’t do it as well as the tutor package does. You are probably slightly worse here vs. the format’s #1 deck: Necro. On the upside, all the control matchups have become significantly better. The sideboard tries to compensate for its maindeck deficiencies vs. Combo.
Originally from my top 8 list, I had 4
Daze maindeck which isn’t bad, but they were dead sometimes, and it encouraged me to wrongly play
Lightning Angel over the superior
Sea Drake. I’ve since put in 2 Factory and 2 Lavamancer instead. Another card to try to fit in should be
Standstill. I like this list in principal since it has the best 1-cc and 2-cc creatures, the best burn spell, the best removal, and the best counterspells in the format, however, there is much room for exploration.
Zoo's Backup Got a Makeover
Mana Sources (20)
Mana Sources / Threats (2)
Threats (18)
Threats/Disruption (8)
Disruption (12)
Sideboard
1 (Umezawa’s Jitte)
Well, that’s a wrap. This deck should appeal to anybody who likes to go metagame hunting. Sometimes the bear will get you, but if you have the right weapons, you can take down the bear. Trust me, there a lot of possible builds and I’m not trying to say this is “the” best way to build it. Hopefully, you have some ideas which will fit into these lists; if you do, please share. I will try to respond to any respectful inquiries.
Hopefully that should satisfy you, Under_the_Hammer. Thanks for reading, everyone!
Bazaar of Baghdad
11 Comments
fantastic and even though i got my list from you i still leartned a lot about the deck from this readthru.
Great article Ben. Very informative and really well written. This was a very enjoyable read. Good luck in the Player of the Year Race!
Thanks, guys. Hammer, I hope you enjoy my latest predator deck which made two top 8s in two tries this past weekend. I think the Sunday version is much stronger than my zoo lists above. Saturday was my first time testing it, so forgive the bad build. In my opinion it should either replace or go along side the zoo deck in the decks to beat section.
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