MTG Salvation

Quote from steven11788 »

I'd like to try tribal. But blood moon is real in my meta. I play Ponza and Skred. Won a bunch now 3 others are playing decks like mine lol

I'd be interested to see how bad the skred matchup is. I assume it's hosetown since they have maindeck angers for the dorks and giest and blood moon for the lands. Goyf and qasali seem pretty good here though so idk.

I got stuff, I might through together. Are you not missing knight or smiter any..

Quote from steven11788 »

I got stuff, I might through together. Are you not missing knight or smiter any..

I haven't tried knight or smiter in my tribal zoo list yet so I can't really say I have been missing them. I did use knight as a curve topper in my traditional zoo list to moderate success. He's usually a 4/4 or 5/5 for three mana which is decent. Probably a good one in the bant eldrazi matchup. Smiter is kind of meh considering how easy the jund/abzan matchup already is without him.

Doran, the Siege Tower is powerful enough to try out. If you are expecting a million anger of the gods it might be good to hedge the three drop slot between geists and dorans.

The thing about 5 color goodstuff deck is you can pretty much just play whatever your favorite creatures are. As long as it's a busted creature that's undercosted by a few mana then you can't really go wrong.

ATM my snaps are in jeskai, so I am running 3x knight and dropped a bolt. I really wanna shove tamiyo in this deck. Since I love Walker but I'm am using your list as a go to.

Fnm report with my rhino list:



Tonight I went 3-2 at fnm with one of my wins being a bye round and one of my losses being a concession to a lantern player I would have drawn with otherwise.

Match 1: lantern (1-2)
He didn't get a bridge game one so he died. Game 2 he stuck bridge and I was on the noble beatdown plan for a while. He eventually drew a tutor and grabbed spellskite. Once he had the spellskite + academy ruins lock online I conceded so we would have time for game three. If I was trying hard I would have played this one out since his lock was pretty soft here. Game three he had bridge and lock but I got him to 3 life then bolted him. He natures claimed his own codex shreddér to stay alive then topped a tutor, played a bunch of spellskites and we hit time for round. Bottom of the 5th extra turn I stll had 13 cards in library but I conceded because I have a deep love for the lantern deck plus I think he was gaving a rough day or something.

Match 2: UW control (1-2)
Game one He had the right answers and was on the play. My goyf got rune snag'd my geist blessed alliance'd, my rhino path'd and he resolved a sphinxs rev + av to draw 100 cards and gain all the life so I scooped. Game 2 he let a nacatle slip through the cracks and by the time he supreme verdict'd he was dead to tribal flames. Game three I played way too agressively and he got a hierarch, pridemage, nacatle, aaaaand a geist with supreme verdict. He gad blessed alliance for ther rhino then played an AV while I topped lands for three turns then scooped.

Match 3: bye

Match 4: Grixis control (2-0)
Game one I got a turn 2 geist an swung twice + burn. Game two I tribal flames the angler and resolved turn three geist, swung three times with a helix on his snapcaster to clear the way.

Match 5: R/W nahiri bloodmoon (2-1)
Game one I got blindsided by turn 3 bloodmoon and scooped. Game two I fetched my forest and won through blood moon with a huge goyf + qasali beatdown. He had two moons out and I got to go sac qasali, blow one up, destructive revelry blow the other one up, deal 2 dmg to nahiri, tribal flames nahiri to zero, swing with 6/7 goyf. Game 3 I had great insurance with a turn 1 noble, turn 2 qasali. He played a turn three moon as is tradition but I just ignored it and kept slinging goyfs. I won on the goyf beatdown train.

The lantern match is harder than expected and the nahiri moon match is easier than expected. I need more practice vs lantern because I had more misplays than I care to count. I was trying to play super fast so he would have a chance to win but in the process I made lots of bad plays. The U/W control match is roughhhh if they draw the right answers and are on the play. Blessed alliance and supreme verdict are great answers to rhino and geist. I was able to play around blood moon with a single basic forest and a squad of goyfs and nacatles. Grixis is a very good matchup as always.

Quote from w7west »

The lantern match is harder than expected and the nahiri moon match is easier than expected. I need more practice vs lantern because I had more misplays than I care to count. I was trying to play super fast so he would have a chance to win but in the process I made lots of bad plays. The U/W control match is roughhhh if they draw the right answers and are on the play. Blessed alliance and supreme verdict are great answers to rhino and geist. I was able to play around blood moon with a single basic forest and a squad of goyfs and nacatles. Grixis is a very good matchup as always.

I don't understand it, but as long as you have 2 basics, Blood Moon decks are fairly easy to beat. I just side out hard to cast stuff like Geist (which dies to Anger anyway). I haven't lost to a blood moon deck for the month or two I've been on zoo so that's a small sample size but also > 6. *shrugs*

Sweeper decks can be a bit bad, since we pack some much creature interaction but those are the beats -- Thalia and an aggressive playstyle can do alot. Choke and Thrun are great roleplayers if your shop is blue heavy.

Lantern is fun. Fetches are the best card in your deck game one as well as Pridemage. They'll aggressively try to mill them and you can sometimes sneak them out from under the lock if they aren't careful. It looks like you have a good sideboard (3 Stonies, Negates, Thalia, and Revelry) so I'd get more work in before I conclude it's a bad MU.

I'll be putting in some work with Naya splash Anafenza this week. I sort of want to give Chandra, Torch of Defiance a go. CoCo has been super underwhelming, always seems to flip mana dorks, and makes SBing awkward since you want to leave so many hits in your deck.

Yea ATM in my meta, is big zoo with a few walkers. After 2x 0-4, maybe I neeed more practice wit tribal or less bloodmoon,lol so back to big zoo with Chandra pyeomaster, Gideon ally, and domri rade

I was going to play Chandra, Torch of Defiance but then I regained my senses and put a Gideon in. He's easier to cast and hard for big mana decks to deal with. Chandra is better against a deck like Infect or Affinity but I figured that neither was that great.

That new black removal seems really bad news for Zoo.

What's everyone's thought about Greenbelt Rampager?

Too slow.
We don't have energy generators, so it is only a "3 mana" 3/4 (since you need to play him 2 times before he sticks on the battlefield), being a worse Loxodon Smiter. And we probably don't want to play cards dedicated to generate energy for it to be useful.

Quote from FierceMonkeh »

What's everyone's thought about Greenbelt Rampager?

Too slow.

Quote from r497 »

That new black removal seems really bad news for Zoo.

Yeah. Good news is that it doesn't create a new archetype, just replaces the terminates in people's decks. Does seem annoying though.

So far I'm interested in the 1G 2/1 that comes in as a 4/3 if you use a fetch that turn. The 2G 2/2 may actually be good if you're allowed to put the 2 +1/+1 counters on him instead of other creatures. A 4/4 for 3 that taps for G seems good.

@w7west, I'm building into this list as I have most the cards. I'm going to fix the shock lands accordingly but I don't have e goyfs, do you think putting knights or voices would be better in the slot? Voice shares a curve and has added value vs blue decks and decks with a lot of removal while the knight is often just bigger.

Depending on how Fatal Push Affects the format, my 2 cmc goyf replacement will either be Voice or Greenwheel Liberator. Seems like surviving the bolt test might be moot now.

The 'Bolt Test' is not just about dying to the 3 dmg spell. It has to do with mana/tempo parity. You'll just the same be wasting 2 mana on your threat to have it killed by a 1 mana removal from your opponent.

Goyf will be worse but I seriously doubt that we have to complete restructure our two-drops.

Voice cannot make up for it's lack of body in a beatdown gameplan.

I'd rather play Strangleroot Geist but I just don't see that card being relevant.

It could mean fewer Abrupt Decays, in which case cards like Domri Rade will get better.

Fatal Push will be annoying but we will have to see what it does to effect decks like Infect before major restructuring occurs.

Quote from r497 »

You'll just the same be wasting 2 mana on your threat to have it killed by a 1 mana removal from your opponent.

I don't really get where you're coming from. In more cases than not the 4th toughness will not matter for the threat since more decks (at least in my meta) are black than red. Hence, instead of looking for a 2 drop that can survive bolt, I will choose to either go for the value plan (Voice) or the better beatdown plan (Greenwheel) rather than looking for a 4 toughness goyf replacement. While yes, 4 toughness can save me from loosing a 2 drop to a one drop, it doesn't guarantee it in the slightest, hence not going to worry about it.
For reference I have been using Voice, but his lack of a front end is rather annoying for a zoo deck. Greenwheel seems like a good beatstick regardless of his 3 toughness, since I only have 1 goyf currently.
That's what I was saying at least. If I'm wrong, let me know.

What I was thinking is going bigger than we already are. Forget CoCo. Get some planeswalkers (Chandra, Elspeth), get some sweet 5 drops like Sigarda, Baneslayer Angel and Thundermaw and fuel them with 4 Noble and 2-4 Birds. Nacatl, Goyf and Ooze to put early pressure and some removal to round it up.
It could work.
Thrun is another card to consider, be it maindeck or sideboard.

Or we can go 4 colors, as there's some ppl here already doing, and run that removal ourselves. It's good in BGx decks, but it's also good against them.

Quote from r497 »

What I was thinking is going bigger than we already are. Forget CoCo. Get some planeswalkers (Chandra, Elspeth), get some sweet 5 drops like Sigarda, Baneslayer Angel and Thundermaw and fuel them with 4 Noble and 2-4 Birds. Nacatl, Goyf and Ooze to put early pressure and some removal to round it up.
It could work.

Maybe. My inclination last night (while laying in bed, thinking about big aggro decks, listening the cold January rain.........

.....) was that Lotus Cobra would be a key bridge there. I'd also be 100% on board with Stormbreath Dragon, since it dodges path and push.

Since Knight is so slow, I'd be inclined to lay off her for a bit while hyper efficient removal is flying around.

Maybe push will be punishing enough on the aggro decks like Infect and Affinity that they'll pump their brakes to include slower but more resilient threats, in turn letting us slow ourselves down and play 5 drops. It all depends on a lot of moving parts, I suppose.

This is kind of a rough sketch, not much thought put into it:



4 mana Walkers and Thrun to cover the gap on the creatures and give the deck a grinding potential. 8 dorks might be too much, can't know without testing it out.
I think those are the best walkers in our colors (Chandra Pyromaster vs Torch of Defiance is a close call, but I like Pyromaster more).
Maybe the number on 5 mana creatures is too high, but again, just testing to get the feel of it.