G/R/U Zooish Deck for Critique

Beyond Dominia: The Type One Magic Mill: G/R/U Zooish Deck for Critique

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By Ex-Spectator (Perio) on Sunday, April 28, 2002 - 08:24 am:

I’ve been playing around with this off and on for a little while and wanted to see if I can tune it up bit. The idea is basic aggro that tries to get some card advantage with things like call of the herd, untargettables, stanstill, etc. while being able to apply enough pressure to win fairly quickly. It’s geared mainly toward what I see online, since that’s the only place I can play anymore; but I still would like the deck to have a pretty decent chance against most deck types. I’m sure there’s a lot to be improved upon so any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks for reading.

sonofnoname.dec

4 Call of the Herd
4 Nimble Mongoose (experimenting with this ATM - used to be kird ape)
4 Blurred Mongoose
3 Gorilla Shaman
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Incinerate
1 Fire / Ice
2 Emerald Charm
1 Mystical Tutor
3 Standstill
1 Time Walk
1 Sylvan Library
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Regrowth
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
3 Forest
2 City of Brass
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
4 Taiga
2 Karplusan Forest
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

SB: 4 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Tranquility
SB: 1 Emerald Charm
SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Masticore (don’t know about this one yet, might be ok with CoTH)
SB: 5 Slots still open


By Rakso, Patriarch & Rules Ayatollah (Rakso) on Sunday, April 28, 2002 - 09:50 am:

I have mixed feelings about Nimble Mongoose, but he's strong once he gets going in this sort of deck. Matt just tested his version against me.

Would Emerald Charms work better as Hull Breaches?


By Redman, Relentless Leader of Scrubs (Redman) on Sunday, April 28, 2002 - 02:26 pm:

One thing to be catious about on Charms/Breaches: post SB, Breaches are Hydroblastable.

How useful is the Mystical Tutor in this deck?


By Redman, Relentless Leader of Scrubs (Redman) on Sunday, April 28, 2002 - 02:31 pm:

Also, Tranquility can almost certainly be replaced with Tranquil Domain.


By Erik (Erik) on Sunday, April 28, 2002 - 07:26 pm:

Here's the version i'm currently running:

Blue: (7)

4 Standstill
1 Ancestral recall
1 Time walk
1 Timetwister

Green: (9)

4 Call of the herd
4 Blurred mongoose
1 Regrowth

Red: (11)

4 Jackal pup
4 Lightning bolt
2 Gorilla shaman
1 Wheel of fortune

Black: (2)

1 Demonic tutor
1 Yawgmoth's will

Multi: (2)

2 Hull breach

Artifacts: (2)

2 Cursed scroll

Mana: (27)

7 Solomoxen
5 Strips
4 City of brass
4 Volcanic island
2 Tropical island
4 Taiga
1 Undiscovered paradise

It used to have Serendib efreets and Kird apes, but 8 3-mana drops was just too slow. Besides...flying is pretty much pointless nowadays. The kird apes are strong, but I wanted to make the deck as reliable as possible and took them out in favor of pups. Cutting them enabled me to go down to 2 Tropicals as well.

A part of me really wants to take out black altogether, but the impact of those two cards is just too big to ignore. With 6 black mana sources I generally don't have a problem casting them.

What does Matt's version look like?


By Redman, Relentless Leader of Scrubs (Redman) on Sunday, April 28, 2002 - 10:32 pm:

Erik: Do you really need to run so much land?

Also, is 4 Standstill too many? I usually find them to be a problem if I draw them instead of a threat after my opponent Balances.


By Matt D'Avanzo, Paragon of Vintage (Matt) on Monday, April 29, 2002 - 04:22 am:

Someone asked so my version looks like, so:

4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Gorilla Shaman
4 Kird Ape
4 Blurred Mongoose

4 Chain Lighthing
4 Bolt
4 Incinerate

1 Ancestral
1 Walk
1 Wheel
1 Twister (so much for threshold)
1 Windfall (a card I generally do NOT like in Zoo, but it helps with the threshold for mongoose)
1 Sylvan
2 Cursed Scroll

3 Moxen
1 Lotus
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
3 Land Grant
4 Tropical
4 Taiga
4 Volcanic

This is still in the early stages at the present, but there are a few things worth mentioning:

1. 8 untargetables means abyss isn't game, which means I can not run conditional cards (i.e. enchantment kill) like a good aggro deck should. It think the necessity of running reactive cards is one of the reasons zoo fell from being king of the aggro realm in favor of more straight foward stuff like Stompy/Sligh.

2. Loads of burn: makes draw 7s nastier, but also important to help with threshold for nimbles.

3. No calls of the herd: I love the card and think it's great for Zoo decks in general (over Dibs), but it's more mana intensive than I'd like for this deck and doesn't combo with threshold to boot.


By MattB (Mattb) on Monday, April 29, 2002 - 10:32 am:

Matt, maybe consider Fact or Fiction instead of Twister? Still can't be misdirected, helps, not hinders threshold, only costs one mana more...Or, for more card draw, Fact instead of 1 Mox Monkey?


By DefiantVanguardVs.PhyrexianInvasion (Puschkin) on Monday, April 29, 2002 - 10:34 am:

The following is meant to comment on Perio´s list:
Looks like you haven´t enough permanent sources of damage to keep up the pressure and/or the ones you have aren´t beefy enough.
The one Fire/Ice looks kinda random and unsuited for an aggressive deck like this.
The Mystical IS questionable.
I would like to shove in some Mishra´s for more punch and some damage sources that dodge some of the used removal spells. Also good under Standstill.
Maybe Pendelhaven instead of one of the Forests?
Isn´t at least Wheel of Fortune a must for decks like this?


By Ex-Spectator (Perio) on Monday, April 29, 2002 - 10:40 pm:

i tried to take everyone's advice into account when going back over the decklist and revising it. also, ive decided against running standstill. it's a decent card but it's almost completely dead against other aggro and only good against things like keeper in the first few turns of the game. i swapped them for the draw 7's and added a few more threats to make the deck more aggressive. the version below is a lot faster but i would like to cut something for a 3rd shaman.


4 Call of the Herd
4 Blurred Mongoose
3 Jackal Pup
3 Goblin Cadets
2 Gorilla Shaman
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Incinerate
2 Chain Lightning
2 Emerald Charm
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Sylvan Library
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
2 City of Brass
4 Taiga
4 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 4 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Tranquil Domain
SB: 2 Masticore

BTW, thanks to everyone for the advice.


By Taco deShell says Lich stays crunchy even in milk (Taco) on Monday, April 29, 2002 - 11:51 pm:

i'm not sure about this but has anyone considered stand still in zoo? the idea of some sort of beat stick on the board then standstill sounds good to me? anyone else or am i just crazy or something?


By Taco deShell says Lich stays crunchy even in milk (Taco) on Monday, April 29, 2002 - 11:52 pm:

pleas disreguard last post i missed it in the list


By Erik (Erik) on Tuesday, April 30, 2002 - 01:24 pm:

The standstills are a constant headache, yes. At times you can ride them to victory like nothing else, while you completely loathe drawing them at others. In fact I think they are worse against control than aggro, because aggro's gameplan is so dependant on killing quickly before the opponent gets a chance to build up. Zoo has a stronger midgame than most other aggro like stompy/sligh/sui, so if you can reach that your odds are getting better.

That build I posted above beat Stompy 4-1 in testing but got it's ass kicked against Keeper, only winning one duel out of five. I felt that most of the losses came from having too many conditional cards (like Matt said) and thus not being able to put enough early pressure on the keeper deck. I went fairly even with Enchantress, winning 3-2 (mostly thanks to mana disruption), but lost 2-3 against Stacker (blood moon totally wrecks this deck).

Conclusions:
* Remove standstills in favor of more aggressive cards.
* More bolts are needed since the loss of standstills hurt the aggro matchup, Incinerates > Chains since I run all 5 moxen.
* Lower mana ratio, since no standstills means greater risk of mana flood.
* Cut black to decrease the number of dead cards under blood moon/b2b

I'll post a new list soon...

Lastly, some questions for Matt: What do you think about cutting Sylvan and Windfall in favor of two PoP's? And Isn't 4 shamans one too many? :)


By Erik (Erik) on Wednesday, May 01, 2002 - 11:56 am:

Lol, nevermind...i remebered PoP as saying "opponent" not "all players". Would be a tad too good then I guess ;)


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