To go with my last article, I thought it would be important to put my money where my mouth is, and actually see what kind of deck I can build with the metagame in mind. So here is a retooled Zoo list from the ground up.
Local metagame is full of aggressive strategies, so I wanted to build my Zoo deck to beat everything that plays creatures and attacks. Creatures are what you want in the mirror, so it's a creature brawling deck.
This first 19 should be no surprise. I don't want to see a Lavamancer until later in this deck, he doesn't attack and block real well.
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Wild Nacatl
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Loam Lion - This deck is much more focused on white mana than red mana, so Loam Lion gets the nod over Kird Ape
2 Stoneforge Mystic - No real explanation needed for wanting to get a Jitte.
2 Gaddock Teeg - This guy I'm the most iffy about. He makes some matchups winnable, but as a random 2-of he might have problems being terribly useful.
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Adventuring Gear - I chose this instead of Sword of Fire and Ice because it can act as a virtual burn spell against non-creature decks. Against other creature decks, Jitte comes first, but the ability to pump one creature, re-equip and pump another creature with fetchlands should be noted.
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Sylvan Library
22 land, 1 of them is also a dude. 10 fetchlands is in part due to the Adventuring Gear.
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Arid Mesa
2 Savannah
2 Taiga
1 Plateau
People don't take full advantage of their Knights, where these lands are all things you want. Problem lands, then Iona (and sometimes saving your Teeg), Treetop is a guy, Canopy for another card, pretty basic, but still helpful.
1 Wasteland
1 Karakas
1 Treetop Village
1 Horizon Canopy
Sideboard:
2 Ranger of Eos - the Ranger/Martyr package is the trump card in attrition wars and crowded board states.
1 Martyr of Ashes
2 Burning-Tree Shaman - This guy is pretty good against planeswalkers, okay against Aether Vial decks, and has a reasonable body. Also, Lands can't beat him, but I don't expect any Lands.
2 Swords to Plowshares - You don't want Lightning Bolts sometimes, you just want that creature gone. This isn't a "What's your life total" deck.
3 Duergar Hedge-Mage - This guy is severely underplayed. While it can't take care of a Humility, it handles Counterbalance and it forces them to draw from their Top, it handles Ghostly Prison and Chalice, and it holds a Jitte.
3 Sulfuric Vortex - Any deck that wants to play the long game has trouble with the Vortex. It's like Grim Lavamancer, but doesn't have the problem with being a creature.
1 Bojuka Bog - Not good against Reanimator, unless you get to the midgame where they already have a guy.
1 Maze of Ith - this is for Sphinx of the Steel Wind. Buy some time to find a Path or Swords in the Reanimator matchup.
Wrote this prior to the tournament. Onto the tournament!
Round 1: 2-1 vs Full English Breakfast variant
Game 1: I play two random beatdown guys, and he goes for a Stifle-Dreadnought. I opt to play a Gaddock Teeg before I Path the Dreadnought, and take 12 to the face, and he plays a Tarmogoyf. I get to Lightning Bolt the Goyf, and Path the Dreadnought. He plays a Volrath's Shapeshifter (is a Tarmogoyf), and when he attacks, I opt to only put 2 guys in front of it, but he discards a Dreadnought and I die. Floops.
I board out my Loam Lions, a Bolt, a Stoneforge Mystic, and the Adventuring Gear for 3 Duergar Hedge-Mage, 2 Swords to Plowshares, 1 Maze of Ith
Game 2: He stumbles on his mana and I attack him to death. He Firespouts 2 Lavamancers, but I have far more guys where that came from.
Game 3: He tries to beat me with a turn 2 Trygon Predator, Force of Willing one of my creatures. I accept the 1 for 2, and continue playing creatures. He Firespouts some creatures I don't care about, and plays an Eternal Witness getting back his Firespout, which doesn't do much in the face of Tarmogoyf and Knight of the Reliquary. He plays his Volrath's Shapeshifter, expecting to get something back, but I activate my Knight and Wasteland him in response, making the Shapeshifter into his 0/1 self. He gets run over from there.
Round 2: 2-0 vs Bant Survival
Game 1: I run him over with fast guys followed by Paths.
I think I boarded the same way as Round 1.
Game 2: This game creates a very interesting game state, because I play Wild Nacatl into Qasali Pridemage, and he plays a Tarmogoyf that chumps the Nacatl. It is followed by a Kira, Great Glass Spinner and another 2 Tarmogoyfs. I have the required Path and Grim Lavmancer to deal with the Kira, but opt to not put any cards in the graveyard, so we have 1/2 Tarmogoyfs. He has to start chump blocking with Tarmogoyfs, and I circumvent that with attacking with a Treetop Village, good old Trample.
Round 3: 2-0 vs UBR Tempo Wizards (mostly Faeries)
Game 1: I run out a turn 1 Adventuring Gear, followed by turn 2 Pridemage. He gets flooded, so this game doesn't even count. I make some friendly banter about him not wanting to get beaten by the only Adventuring Gear in the tournament.
I board out a Mystic, the Adventuring Gear, and a Bolt for the 2 Ranger, 1 Martyr package.
Game 2: He double mulligans, and I think I play Pridemage, Pridemage, Ranger for Loam Lion (doesn't die to Perish) Martyr of Ashes (kills his Lavamancer and Dark Confidant). He Vendilion Cliques me afterward, and my hand is 5 creatures, only a few of which are actually green. I'm pretty sure he'd have a problem handling that hand, even without mulliganing.
Round 4: ID, because I don't want to play against a lucky guy who stocks his deck with random 2 card combos. The last time I played against him, I lost to Painter/Grindstone in game 1, and Hexmage Depths in game 2, and I had reports that someone else lost to the Enduring Renewal/Goblin Bombardment/Shield Sphere combo from the same deck (Fruity Pebbles combo)
Top 8, 0-2 vs Reanimator:
Game 1: I play Loam Lion, he plays Mystical for Force of Will, then Careful Study/Reanimates a Sphinx of the Steel Wind. I play a Knight into Daze to see how much he values Knight versus a potential Path in my hand, and he has Daze/Force/blue card. Can't really argue.
Game 2: I keep a hand that beats Sphinx, and beats Show and Tell. He goes for Reanimate Iona, and I stall the game by playing Goyf + Goyf. I play Sylvan Library and dig for one of my 3 outs (Maze of Ith to Maze my blocked Goyf, Karakas to immediately beat the Iona, or Adventuring Gear to make a Goyf bigger than the Iona) I find none of them, so I die to an Exhumed Sphinx.
I would have liked to play against some of the Goblin decks that I was seeing around, or against more creature decks, but I can wholly recommend starting with this version of Zoo if your metagame is filled with other creature attack decks.
-G
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