I think Burn in general could be an issue for this deck due to the speed if the Combo doesn't line up immediately. A smart Burn player has ways of navigating it as well. There are going to need to be sideboard cards for that match up if you're going to play this I feel.
I feel like the bad matchups for most versions of this deck are going to be GBx if you don't pack enough value, and Tron and Combo if you don't pack enough hate.
Tron is overall the worst in my preliminary opinion.
How often are you facing aggro and/or red decks? (For the purposes of this discussion, Jund, Grixis, Twin, and UWR count as red decks, but RG Tron doesn't because its only burn is Ugin.) I'm not 100% sure you can combo off from 0 to 20 against stuff like Burn/Affinity on Turns 3-4 and stay above 3 life at all times. Being unable to do that consistently with Wolf Run is why I switched to Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion in all of my more dedicated combo builds.
(As I heavily suspect that Pokken is a significantly grindier player, this is more aimed at Maty78.)
My meta is pretty evenly distributed with all the tier 1 and 2 decks with a slightly higher population of Tron (both U and GR) on any given night you can be pretty much guaranteed that there is a twin player and at least 2-3 zoo players though. If i understand the question right, its pretty much how often does comboing turn 3 put me into Bolt range?
Simply very rarely if ever. But thats more because you don't pick that line against agro/red reach decks. and heres why you don't need to.
If they're aggressive: zoo and any 3 colour deck (URW, URB, GBR, WBG) they are also aggressive with their life totals so you don't need to fill the GY with all your lands. so you can either make the knight around a 14/14 and get there not finding and cracking fetches, in which case comboing cost you minimal-to-no life. or you can even just settle for making knight a 8/8 and get there over 2 turns. I see the combo as more of a way to handle the uninteractive decks. elves, tron, infect, affinity and the like. Its so rare to have to kill somebody from 20 life. Being a creature deck theres lots of other dudes to help along the way.
And on a final note I'm actually more of a grinder as well when it comes to this deck. Ill mirror what Pokken just said in that for me, between 3 finks, 3 restos, 2 dromokas command and E witness to rebuy things, the deck gains a ton of life that if you need to switch gears, play the long game, and protect the life total it does great. I feel the deck should be favoured against any dedicated burn especially if your more not the midrange list like mine or Pokkens
Not to be self-deprecating but I think it's highly probable Maty's midrange list is stronger than mine - I will be able to give some better feedback next week when the rest of my stuff arrives in paper (another EE, the last two dromoka's, voices, etc.). Xmage testing just broke my will and so I'm gonna suck it up and sleeve her up for some FNMs and in-person testing.
@pokken i cant remember for the life of me but do ya run coco?
I do not. I believe very strongly that Elves and Abzan are both superior coco lists because they can afford the space to run Chords, and therefore jam creatures to deal with their combo matchup problems (in addition to having 8+ ways to search for combo pieces).
You will not see me running coco without chord in modern most likely.
There will be a lot of sideboard changes I'm sure and some number of Glen elendras and restos may flitter into the maindeck here and there. Ojutai and Hero are both flex slots that could be any number of things (maybe double smiter, maybe wilt-leaf liege, dunno). Feel pretty strongly we need 1-3 4+ drops to help close out grindier matchups.
--------------------------------------
Adding just a little more here on Chord/Coco:
These two cards are incredibly synergistic, and I'm thinking that there may be a version of this list that doesn't play paths - 4 chords, 4 cocos, 3 retreats, 3-4 silver bullets, and the standard value creature army.
Because this deck generates so much mana, I could even see trying a Mirror Entity or two in the 75--retreat+2 dorks+mirror entity can be a game ending activation for 5-6. I've played Entity in Elves and it's just amazingly strong when you can generate a bunch of mana.
Still musing on this idea some, since I enjoy playing the slower midrangey deck more.
I've experimented with 4-drop Elspeth quite a bit and found her to be very good but not quite what I'm looking for. The biggest issue she had was making the deck even weaker to lingering souls (since the souls could just kill her, chump block her Jump ability, etc.). She tended to be pretty good against Jund but not as good as I wanted against many other decks.
It's entirely possible I will try her again, especially since I am back on the Geist gameplan.
I feel like a 4 drop planeswalker is what you are looking for. Otherwise resto might be your best bet? Have you tested out the new kiora? Might be good.
I find myself wishing for a Huntsmaster or Olivia type card--just a brutal midrange creature that can run away with the game on its own. Resto is not that creature, Hero might be.
I think if it's any planeswalker it's probably Elspeth.
I find myself wishing for a Huntsmaster or Olivia type card--just a brutal midrange creature that can run away with the game on its own. Resto is not that creature, Hero might be.
I think if it's any planeswalker it's probably Elspeth.
I kind of feel that way too. Elspeth has never won me a game and always felt kind of dead in my hand or on the field.
Just lost my first matches (sadly both on 8-mans first rounds). Played Dredge Zombie infestation and lost a close game 3 due to misplaying MTGO mechanics. What ended up killing me was a lot of discard and abrupts. Makes me want Leyline of Sanctity in the board.
Then I played Jund and and just got 2-1'd over and over again, anger of the gods and maelstrom pulse. Lili also did a lot of work on me. Makes me think about changing Elspeth to Sigarda.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Decks
Modern
No idea because my favorite decks keep getting banned or having the rules changed against them
I'm very interested in this deck as I'd like to find a new shell for Geist and having a combo plan B is potentially amazing as it will give you wins in matchups where the beatdown wont work. MY MAIN CONCERN is that the Zoo version with Goyf's is the best version of this deck and anything else is just a worse version thereof. Is this the consensus amongst those that have been testing since the spoiling of Coralhelm? (I refuse to buy goyfs and likely will abandon this deck if it in all honesty needs them).
My understanding is that Zoo can benefit from the combo as it's already a good deck and can now attack from a different angle with the coralhelm combo - if the combo breaks down, you've distracted your opponent, weakened there defences somewhat to your Zoo plan and can continue on and win with the beatdown. Does a non-goyf bant version offer something equally as strong or is it really just a budget option once you boil it down?
If there is SPIKE legitimacy in a non-goyf bant version - can someone on here tell me what it is and why Bant is just as good as Zoo?
I find myself wishing for a Huntsmaster or Olivia type card--just a brutal midrange creature that can run away with the game on its own. Resto is not that creature, Hero might be.
I think if it's any planeswalker it's probably Elspeth.
I kind of feel that way too. Elspeth has never won me a game and always felt kind of dead in my hand or on the field.
Just lost my first matches (sadly both on 8-mans first rounds). Played Dredge Zombie infestation and lost a close game 3 due to misplaying MTGO mechanics. What ended up killing me was a lot of discard and abrupts. Makes me want Leyline of Sanctity in the board.
Then I played Jund and and just got 2-1'd over and over again, anger of the gods and maelstrom pulse. Lili also did a lot of work on me. Makes me think about changing Elspeth to Sigarda.
My experience has been that if you are playing any baneslayers [beater type creatures as opposed to value-type creatures] at all you need to have dedicated jund hate in your sb, or stuff that doubles as jund hate in your main deck.
I'm very interested in this deck as I'd like to find a new shell for Geist and having a combo plan B is potentially amazing as it will give you wins in matchups where the beatdown wont work. MY MAIN CONCERN is that the Zoo version with Goyf's is the best version of this deck and anything else is just a worse version thereof. Is this the consensus amongst those that have been testing since the spoiling of Coralhelm? (I refuse to buy goyfs and likely will abandon this deck if it in all honesty needs them).
My understanding is that Zoo can benefit from the combo as it's already a good deck and can now attack from a different angle with the coralhelm combo - if the combo breaks down, you've distracted your opponent, weakened there defences somewhat to your Zoo plan and can continue on and win with the beatdown. Does a non-goyf bant version offer something equally as strong or is it really just a budget option once you boil it down?
If there is SPIKE legitimacy in a non-goyf bant version - can someone on here tell me what it is and why Bant is just as good as Zoo?
Things are still shaking out. I will definitely say Goyf has won me games in my any version, but there are other versions, like pokken's, that don't use the Goyf and have had good success online and at FNM level events.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Decks
Modern
No idea because my favorite decks keep getting banned or having the rules changed against them
I'm very interested in this deck as I'd like to find a new shell for Geist and having a combo plan B is potentially amazing as it will give you wins in matchups where the beatdown wont work. MY MAIN CONCERN is that the Zoo version with Goyf's is the best version of this deck and anything else is just a worse version thereof. Is this the consensus amongst those that have been testing since the spoiling of Coralhelm? (I refuse to buy goyfs and likely will abandon this deck if it in all honesty needs them).
My understanding is that Zoo can benefit from the combo as it's already a good deck and can now attack from a different angle with the coralhelm combo - if the combo breaks down, you've distracted your opponent, weakened there defences somewhat to your Zoo plan and can continue on and win with the beatdown. Does a non-goyf bant version offer something equally as strong or is it really just a budget option once you boil it down?
If there is SPIKE legitimacy in a non-goyf bant version - can someone on here tell me what it is and why Bant is just as good as Zoo?
1) The deck does not have any proactive sorceries or planeswalkers, so the deck is much weaker with goyf than Jund or Junk. Goyf can easily sit as a 1/2 or 2/3 in your hand and never warrant being played.
2) Goyf does not generate any sort of card advantage (unlike his primary competition in this slot, Voice of Resurgence) or additional value from being on the board (like courser of Kruphix or Hangarback walker or whatever else).
I have goyfs to play with and found they were lackluster in my iteration of the deck. I generally wanted dudes who are going to win the value race, not the aggro race.
My opinion is that the most successful version of this deck is going to wind up being one that can use retreat as an engine or a combo piece, not just a combo piece.
YMMV, and plenty of people disagree, so consider my opinion disclaimered
Note: I have playtested the exact same deck with goyfs or voices quite a bit and voice improved twin and jund matchups. I've tested with and without Coco, and found Coco seriously improved Jund but cut into the Twin matchup (due to necessitating less interactive spells and a more restrictive sideboard). Again, ymmv.
My current thinking is that we need to get serious about trialing the deck against a gauntlet of the big four:
GBx
Twin
Tron
Burn
And see what the real matchups look like. That's my plan--once my crap gets in I'm going to put it through our paper gauntlet and see how we shake out
I'm very interested in this deck as I'd like to find a new shell for Geist and having a combo plan B is potentially amazing as it will give you wins in matchups where the beatdown wont work. MY MAIN CONCERN is that the Zoo version with Goyf's is the best version of this deck and anything else is just a worse version thereof. Is this the consensus amongst those that have been testing since the spoiling of Coralhelm? (I refuse to buy goyfs and likely will abandon this deck if it in all honesty needs them).
My understanding is that Zoo can benefit from the combo as it's already a good deck and can now attack from a different angle with the coralhelm combo - if the combo breaks down, you've distracted your opponent, weakened there defences somewhat to your Zoo plan and can continue on and win with the beatdown. Does a non-goyf bant version offer something equally as strong or is it really just a budget option once you boil it down?
If there is SPIKE legitimacy in a non-goyf bant version - can someone on here tell me what it is and why Bant is just as good as Zoo?
Goyf isn't nearly as powerful in this deck as it is in GBx, And I've had no problems running Voice in it's place with a slightly more value oriented Zoo build. Tarmogoyf only seems to be great in the deck when you're facing other decks that are better prepared to set up their own goyfs because with exalted we win the goyf wars. With that said, making those decks 2 for 1 a bear like voice is also incredibly effective at eating through their removal. I'm the scourge of my fnm crowd right now with this build. The bant version of this deck is distinctly worse than the zoo build as it goes down to dangerously low amounts of removal as well as adopting a curve that basically screams skip to the three drops, and can operate far too slowly without a mana dork on turn one in my testing. I played a bant company build for months before the combo existed and the games that I couldn't skip right to my three drops on turn 2 were very easily lost.
That aside they absolutely wreck control decks and let you grind well with GBx. Tarmogoyf is trying to beat down as fast as possible and that's fine but against those decks it's just getting 1 for 1ed every time.
Things are still shaking out. I will definitely say Goyf has won me games in my any version, but there are other versions, like pokken's, that don't use the Goyf and have had good success online and at FNM level events.
Not saying that I agree/disagree, but I don't think Pokken has the deck in paper yet and online success is very iffy especially in the free non-mtgo mediums where a large representation of decks are just rogue/trial decks. I've been reading some of the FNM success as well on here and reddit and there are many low tier decks being represented. It's good that there is online testing but the people who are gunning for this deck to be tier 1 should know that popularity will only catch on if there are big results, so please sleeve this up at your next GPT/PPTQ.
My current thinking is that we need to get serious about trialing the deck against a gauntlet of the big four:
GBx
Twin
Tron
Burn
Would definitely include Affinity in that list.
Side note: For the beatdown players, Vendilion Clique has been the greatest performer for me, especially as an EOT Company even with one already on the field. Great disruption, great beats.
It's weird but white-based midrange decks all seem to be the same-ish against Affinity. You gots to have them sideboard cards and they get the job done pretty well. But if I get past the others I'll think 'bout sleeving up some robots.
MY MAIN CONCERN is that the Zoo version with Goyf's is the best version of this deck and anything else is just a worse version thereof. Is this the consensus amongst those that have been testing since the spoiling of Coralhelm? (I refuse to buy goyfs and likely will abandon this deck if it in all honesty needs them).
There are some great looking Zoo lists, and not all run Goyf as stated by Pokken and Mantis. Others run goyf and they look good too. I mean, Goyf is Goyf, it can be a great card but its not a 4-of corner piece here like it is in Jund. I think its very replaceable but also nothing wrong with running it. I play a strictly non-Zoo Bant midrange build. I haven't done enough testing to know if its better or worse than the zoo decks, definitely less popular though. Ive only managed to take it to one FMN as my shop runs modern on mondays and this week was canadian thanksgiving. But in the one week i did run it i went 4-0 so it at least isn't terrible.
To simplify your last question, the ONLY reason people have red and the zoo version is because bolt is a great magic card and Wild Nacatyl is aggressive. And then the jury is still out on kessig and stronghold but they're there too. So why straight Bant? slightly easier mana base, and access to a little more of what blue has to offer, re: counterspells, and also these zoo lists seem to also all be CoCo lists. some people don't believe in/like its consistency and deck building restrictions so Bant offers a bit more flexibility there with anything from Ojutai to resto to hangarback.
Hope that helps! so at this point Zoo and Goyf are not known to be better than Bant, but its still very early to be saying for sure either way.
The deck absolutely does not need goyfs in any incarnation; there will never be consensus that they're better than voice (or even Thalia, or some other strong 2-drop) because he's not strictly better than other cards in this archetype (either zoo or bant).
It's not a budget question, it's a preference and meta question. In no way is he core to to any version of the deck except one that tries to run stubborn denial (which I found to be kinda meh overall personally).
I beg to differ. Understanding how your G1 fares vs robots is important and people often forget that while SB cards are good, they should not be a reliance for a matchup (remember you still actually have to draw and play the card before their T4 clock).
It is one of the main reasons why Tron plays 4 x pyro. I mean sure you can just disregard G1 and say "Stony Silence/Kataki lol" but with such a high meta prevalence atm, I think it would be unwise. All the affinity hate in the world hasn't stopped the archetype from achieving great tournament results and maintaining a huge metashare.
There are definitely changes to be made to this archetype that would swing around %'s vs affinity and other tier 1 decks, just to list a few:
Splash red = bolt
Splash black = abrupt decay/discard
More Qasali, less Voice
Not saying that any of the above ideas are correct but they are not the same-ish against Affinity. For example, I know you may have convinced yourself that your hangarback, non-coco, academy ruins jank is ingenious but I think for the better of the archetype, you should also explore the upsides of lightning bolt (as an example) against affinity, etc.
I personally changed my Abzan company deck to incorporate Lily's and Fulm's even though everyone is like "Tron is such a bad matchup, just give up". Now I wreck Tron and it hasn't noticeably affected any of my other match ups outside of Merfolk and I'm happy to trade win percentages for that.
Tron is overall the worst in my preliminary opinion.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
My meta is pretty evenly distributed with all the tier 1 and 2 decks with a slightly higher population of Tron (both U and GR) on any given night you can be pretty much guaranteed that there is a twin player and at least 2-3 zoo players though. If i understand the question right, its pretty much how often does comboing turn 3 put me into Bolt range?
Simply very rarely if ever. But thats more because you don't pick that line against agro/red reach decks. and heres why you don't need to.
If they're aggressive: zoo and any 3 colour deck (URW, URB, GBR, WBG) they are also aggressive with their life totals so you don't need to fill the GY with all your lands. so you can either make the knight around a 14/14 and get there not finding and cracking fetches, in which case comboing cost you minimal-to-no life. or you can even just settle for making knight a 8/8 and get there over 2 turns. I see the combo as more of a way to handle the uninteractive decks. elves, tron, infect, affinity and the like. Its so rare to have to kill somebody from 20 life. Being a creature deck theres lots of other dudes to help along the way.
And on a final note I'm actually more of a grinder as well when it comes to this deck. Ill mirror what Pokken just said in that for me, between 3 finks, 3 restos, 2 dromokas command and E witness to rebuy things, the deck gains a ton of life that if you need to switch gears, play the long game, and protect the life total it does great. I feel the deck should be favoured against any dedicated burn especially if your more not the midrange list like mine or Pokkens
I do not. I believe very strongly that Elves and Abzan are both superior coco lists because they can afford the space to run Chords, and therefore jam creatures to deal with their combo matchup problems (in addition to having 8+ ways to search for combo pieces).
You will not see me running coco without chord in modern most likely.
Here is the current list I am roughly settled on:
http://deckbox.org/sets/1224329
There will be a lot of sideboard changes I'm sure and some number of Glen elendras and restos may flitter into the maindeck here and there. Ojutai and Hero are both flex slots that could be any number of things (maybe double smiter, maybe wilt-leaf liege, dunno). Feel pretty strongly we need 1-3 4+ drops to help close out grindier matchups.
--------------------------------------
Adding just a little more here on Chord/Coco:
These two cards are incredibly synergistic, and I'm thinking that there may be a version of this list that doesn't play paths - 4 chords, 4 cocos, 3 retreats, 3-4 silver bullets, and the standard value creature army.
Because this deck generates so much mana, I could even see trying a Mirror Entity or two in the 75--retreat+2 dorks+mirror entity can be a game ending activation for 5-6. I've played Entity in Elves and it's just amazingly strong when you can generate a bunch of mana.
Still musing on this idea some, since I enjoy playing the slower midrangey deck more.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
It's entirely possible I will try her again, especially since I am back on the Geist gameplan.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I think if it's any planeswalker it's probably Elspeth.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I kind of feel that way too. Elspeth has never won me a game and always felt kind of dead in my hand or on the field.
Just lost my first matches (sadly both on 8-mans first rounds). Played Dredge Zombie infestation and lost a close game 3 due to misplaying MTGO mechanics. What ended up killing me was a lot of discard and abrupts. Makes me want Leyline of Sanctity in the board.
Then I played Jund and and just got 2-1'd over and over again, anger of the gods and maelstrom pulse. Lili also did a lot of work on me. Makes me think about changing Elspeth to Sigarda.
My understanding is that Zoo can benefit from the combo as it's already a good deck and can now attack from a different angle with the coralhelm combo - if the combo breaks down, you've distracted your opponent, weakened there defences somewhat to your Zoo plan and can continue on and win with the beatdown. Does a non-goyf bant version offer something equally as strong or is it really just a budget option once you boil it down?
If there is SPIKE legitimacy in a non-goyf bant version - can someone on here tell me what it is and why Bant is just as good as Zoo?
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
My experience has been that if you are playing any baneslayers [beater type creatures as opposed to value-type creatures] at all you need to have dedicated jund hate in your sb, or stuff that doubles as jund hate in your main deck.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Things are still shaking out. I will definitely say Goyf has won me games in my any version, but there are other versions, like pokken's, that don't use the Goyf and have had good success online and at FNM level events.
1) The deck does not have any proactive sorceries or planeswalkers, so the deck is much weaker with goyf than Jund or Junk. Goyf can easily sit as a 1/2 or 2/3 in your hand and never warrant being played.
2) Goyf does not generate any sort of card advantage (unlike his primary competition in this slot, Voice of Resurgence) or additional value from being on the board (like courser of Kruphix or Hangarback walker or whatever else).
I have goyfs to play with and found they were lackluster in my iteration of the deck. I generally wanted dudes who are going to win the value race, not the aggro race.
My opinion is that the most successful version of this deck is going to wind up being one that can use retreat as an engine or a combo piece, not just a combo piece.
YMMV, and plenty of people disagree, so consider my opinion disclaimered
Note: I have playtested the exact same deck with goyfs or voices quite a bit and voice improved twin and jund matchups. I've tested with and without Coco, and found Coco seriously improved Jund but cut into the Twin matchup (due to necessitating less interactive spells and a more restrictive sideboard). Again, ymmv.
My current thinking is that we need to get serious about trialing the deck against a gauntlet of the big four:
GBx
Twin
Tron
Burn
And see what the real matchups look like. That's my plan--once my crap gets in I'm going to put it through our paper gauntlet and see how we shake out
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Goyf isn't nearly as powerful in this deck as it is in GBx, And I've had no problems running Voice in it's place with a slightly more value oriented Zoo build. Tarmogoyf only seems to be great in the deck when you're facing other decks that are better prepared to set up their own goyfs because with exalted we win the goyf wars. With that said, making those decks 2 for 1 a bear like voice is also incredibly effective at eating through their removal. I'm the scourge of my fnm crowd right now with this build. The bant version of this deck is distinctly worse than the zoo build as it goes down to dangerously low amounts of removal as well as adopting a curve that basically screams skip to the three drops, and can operate far too slowly without a mana dork on turn one in my testing. I played a bant company build for months before the combo existed and the games that I couldn't skip right to my three drops on turn 2 were very easily lost.
That aside they absolutely wreck control decks and let you grind well with GBx. Tarmogoyf is trying to beat down as fast as possible and that's fine but against those decks it's just getting 1 for 1ed every time.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
Not saying that I agree/disagree, but I don't think Pokken has the deck in paper yet and online success is very iffy especially in the free non-mtgo mediums where a large representation of decks are just rogue/trial decks. I've been reading some of the FNM success as well on here and reddit and there are many low tier decks being represented. It's good that there is online testing but the people who are gunning for this deck to be tier 1 should know that popularity will only catch on if there are big results, so please sleeve this up at your next GPT/PPTQ.
Would definitely include Affinity in that list.
Side note: For the beatdown players, Vendilion Clique has been the greatest performer for me, especially as an EOT Company even with one already on the field. Great disruption, great beats.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
There are some great looking Zoo lists, and not all run Goyf as stated by Pokken and Mantis. Others run goyf and they look good too. I mean, Goyf is Goyf, it can be a great card but its not a 4-of corner piece here like it is in Jund. I think its very replaceable but also nothing wrong with running it. I play a strictly non-Zoo Bant midrange build. I haven't done enough testing to know if its better or worse than the zoo decks, definitely less popular though. Ive only managed to take it to one FMN as my shop runs modern on mondays and this week was canadian thanksgiving. But in the one week i did run it i went 4-0 so it at least isn't terrible.
To simplify your last question, the ONLY reason people have red and the zoo version is because bolt is a great magic card and Wild Nacatyl is aggressive. And then the jury is still out on kessig and stronghold but they're there too. So why straight Bant? slightly easier mana base, and access to a little more of what blue has to offer, re: counterspells, and also these zoo lists seem to also all be CoCo lists. some people don't believe in/like its consistency and deck building restrictions so Bant offers a bit more flexibility there with anything from Ojutai to resto to hangarback.
Hope that helps! so at this point Zoo and Goyf are not known to be better than Bant, but its still very early to be saying for sure either way.
It's not a budget question, it's a preference and meta question. In no way is he core to to any version of the deck except one that tries to run stubborn denial (which I found to be kinda meh overall personally).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
It is one of the main reasons why Tron plays 4 x pyro. I mean sure you can just disregard G1 and say "Stony Silence/Kataki lol" but with such a high meta prevalence atm, I think it would be unwise. All the affinity hate in the world hasn't stopped the archetype from achieving great tournament results and maintaining a huge metashare.
There are definitely changes to be made to this archetype that would swing around %'s vs affinity and other tier 1 decks, just to list a few:
Splash red = bolt
Splash black = abrupt decay/discard
More Qasali, less Voice
Not saying that any of the above ideas are correct but they are not the same-ish against Affinity. For example, I know you may have convinced yourself that your hangarback, non-coco, academy ruins jank is ingenious but I think for the better of the archetype, you should also explore the upsides of lightning bolt (as an example) against affinity, etc.
I personally changed my Abzan company deck to incorporate Lily's and Fulm's even though everyone is like "Tron is such a bad matchup, just give up". Now I wreck Tron and it hasn't noticeably affected any of my other match ups outside of Merfolk and I'm happy to trade win percentages for that.