I'm going to try a Big Zoo with Huntmaster and no Companys. I'm not 100% sure on the list yet, but maybe I'll have 1 Chandra maindeck.
I'll also have some Oaths to go deeper in the deck and feed the Goyfs.
Probably gonna run it tomorrow.
I still think Gruul Bushwhacker Zoo is the best-positioned variant at the moment. The CoCo Zoo deck that took 2nd at GP Charlotte preyed on a metagame full of durdly decks that were too slow to stop the Collected Company value train, but I don't expect that trend to continue.
Personally right now I think CoCo is too good not to run. I'm doing pretty decent with 2 CoCo 1 Arlinn 1 Elspeth.
What I'm really having trouble with is Abzan Company. I did 7 games preboard on the play with my friend and lost them all. How do you guys play this match up ?
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
After trying the Oath of Nissa big zoo build I still lean towards CoCo Zoo. It's more resilient and has a lot more answers to changing boardstates. Domri Rade is the bomb and I prefer him to Elspeth and other planeswalkers.
Now regarding the discussion if Big Zoo or Lil Zoo is the best deck in this realm, I think it's a matter of flavors but the right choice will depend on the Meta. If its a fast, non interactive meta, I would linger towards Lil Zoo. If its more reactive with tons of Jund, Big Zoo is the answer.
Round 1 UB Mill 2-0 won with 1 card left in my library lol
Round 2 Boggles 2-1
Round 3 Burn 2-1
Round 4 Boggles 1-2
Quarterfinals Ad Nauseam 2-1 very close games, I was very surprised by that
Don't know if I will still keep Pyroclasm in the sideboard or switch it for 1 Bonfire. There are some matchs that I would gladly keep a hand with Pyroclasm where Bonfire would be too slow (Elves, Affinity, maybe Infect), but if you can keep the game for a little bit, Bonfire is huge.
My goal for the next few weeks is to disrupt Abzan Company's combo with Pulse of Murasa (on his Finks, in response to Persist's trigger). That would be awesome and even more insane if I could win on the backswing.
Round 1 UB Mill 2-0 won with 1 card left in my library lol
Round 2 Boggles 2-1
Round 3 Burn 2-1
Round 4 Boggles 1-2
Quarterfinals Ad Nauseam 2-1 very close games, I was very surprised by that
What a mean metagame to have two Boggles players! Good job getting around one of them, I can assume that once they give their "build a monster" lifelink, things can get hairy. I'm assuming you'd just be looking for Atarka's Command?
I also have a couple non-report specific questions for you:
- How have you found playing Tarmogoyf instead of Flinthoof Boar
- What are your thoughts on two Gaddok Teeg in the sideboard? It can help against a lot of different things like the card Ad Nauseum from that deck or differnt cards in UWR and Tron, as well as the "get ahead" cards from Elves (CoCo and Chord).
- What would you be cutting in your Grixis Control and UWR Control matchups?
against boggles you really hope they mulligan a lot, like he did game 1, and that they never draw cornet. Command is sometimes not even good enough since cornet also gives it vigilance.
I prefer tarmogoyf since it can be bigger, it's hard to come up with an excuse to not play it. But there have certainly been times where your curve is awkward with a 1/2 goyf.
I dislike teeg, I find him overrated and that he dies to everything, which I know isn't a good excuse. But playing your 'silver bullet' that dies to bolt and doesn't tax it like thalia does, is really unappealing. On friday against ad nauseam, I played thalia and won, since I had a decent clock but he couldn't cast ad nauseam and grace in the same turn.
On the draw I tend to side out goblin guide, but against uwr/grixis or heavy removal decks I don't like rampager as it can be a 2-1. Summons is also very bad against remand decks, and although those should not have remand post board, if summons get remanded; you die. You can also shave some number of bolts.
So against uwr: on the play
Out: 2 rampager, 1 summons, 2 bolt
In: 2 Thalia, 1 Domri, 2 molten rain
on the draw:
Out: 2 Rampager, 1 summons, 2 guide
in: 2 thalia, 1 domri, 2 rain
Dromoka's command is also considerable if your afraid of anger
Going back to our previous discussion about whether to play Reckless Bushwhacker or white one drops in little zoo, I played 5 or 6 leagues with Bushwhacker zoo variants. I had one 4-1 and the rest were 3-2s. Which is about as good as I've been doing with every little zoo and burn variant I've been trying on MTGO, honestly. The last league I tried Osackpo's list, except I cut the 2 Destructive Revelry in the SB for a Phyrexian Unlife and a Rest in Peace (Dredge is everywhere on MTGO right now). That list 3-2ed. Every other Bushwhacker list had 4 Path to Exile MD.
Before I was framing the discussion about how Burning-Tree Emissary was inconsistent and how it forced you to play worse one drops instead of stuff like Loam Lion. This isn't quite correct. In reality, Loam Lion would replace BTE and they should be directly compared to each other, but the mix of the other creatures doesn't have to change (unless you really like Kytheon, Hero of Akros, which to be fair has been better than expected). While BTE doesn't really force you to play worse one drops, it can be awkward when you want to put a BTE into play and cast Path to Exile on the same turn. It's also awkward to cast Loam Lion and Path in the same turn with Naya though, but it's doable and you at least have the option of playing Lion on turn 1 so that this doesn't come up. But the real issue is that BTE is the worse one drop. 2 toughness is a huge liability - it trades with Snapcaster Mage, wolf tokens (Huntmaster of the Fells), zombie tokens (Khalitas, Traitor of Ghet), Silvergill Adept, Goblin Guide, two spirit tokens (Lingering Souls), etc, and Atarka's Command can't save it from Lightning Bolt, Anger of the Gods, and similar effects. It also dies to a bunch of 2 damage burn spells that see fringe play and Disfigure. I disagree with past-me in saying that BTE is inconsistent. The main issue is that it lacks resiliency. Many of these are small things, but they add up. There are benefits of course - putting 4+ creatures into play by turn 2, putting 3 into play and one of them is a Tarmogoyf, or 3 + bolt something, or backdoor cast green spells through Blood Moon, less susceptibility to Blood Moon shrinking your creatures, and less susceptibility to Engineered Explosives. I didn't think these made up for BTE's downsides before Reckless Bushwhacker was printed and I still don't, though I admit it's fairly close. But all this means is that BTE and Bushwhacker are a package.
So it really comes down to whether the explosiveness of Reckless Bushwhacker is worth it. The power level is there, but the inconsistency and lack of resiliency is a real pain. If you don't hit BTE or Mutagenic Growth, you have to hit a 3rd land + a one mana spell for Bushwhacker to be good. This can be pretty awkward in a 19 land deck. It also means that Bushwhacker is often bad in multiples. Not always or even half the time, but often enough that it's a problem. And Bushwhacker can be an awful topdeck. A 2/1 haste for 3 is not going to do it in most situations. It also dies to everything. It trades with spirit tokens, Arbor Elf, Eldrazi drone tokens, and Cursecatcher on top of all of the things BTE trades with and dies to.
With all that said, I think it's much closer than I originally thought. The Bushwhacker builds have the raw speed you need to race anything that needs racing, so in some metagames it will definitely be right to 'whack it up. Right now I think I'd rather have the resiliency of Naya & Loam Lion, but I think it's close enough for disagreement. And of course your local metagame may differ from MTGO's or the recent GP metagames. That said, I do think there are some important considerations to take into account when building Bushwhacker zoo:
Some number of Path should probably be in the MD, and 4 in the 75. Timely Paths (and Declaration in Stones) are about the only way to beat decks like Abzan CoCo when they have a reasonable draw and you don't nut draw them, and a few Ghor-Clans probably isn't enough to fight through Goyf and Eldrazi decks. With Osackpo's build I kept getting stonewalled and often ended up having to make poor attacks that put them low but decimated my board in the hopes of drawing a burn spell off the top to finish them off in the next few turns. A timely Path often wins those games on the spot. Or in a turn or two.
4 Reckless Bushwhacker is probably wrong in some metagames (like the current MTGO meta). Since it has a tendency to clog your hand, you often only want to draw one. 3 + 1 in the SB seems like a safer configuration.
On the other hand you can minimize this issue by minimizing the number of 2 drops that you play. BTE doesn't count obviously, and Atarka's Command is too good not to play, but Goyf pairs really poorly with Bushwhacker. More one-drop creatures, however, is fantastic with Bushwhacker. Zurgo Bellstriker is the next best R or G one drop that most Bushwhacker lists aren't playing, and you can play 2 before the legend rule really becomes a problem. I don't know if there's anything worth playing after that though. (Don't play Vexing Devil). My favorite Bushwhacker list I tried was Osackpo's MD, except cut 2 Goyfs for 2 Zurgos, then cut the Devastating Summons, a Mutagenic Growth, and two more Goyfs for Paths. Another list I liked a lot was the same except it kept 2 of the Goyfs in the MD and cut the Ghor-Clans. A list that I didn't try but in theory I like a lot (and will try) is Osackpo's except: - 2 Goyf, - 1 Devastating Summons, - 1 Mutagenic Growth, - 1 Reckless Bushwhacker, + 2 Zurgo, + 3 Path. Plus some SB changes.
Not that I'm certain about any of this. Small sample size caveats apply, and I'm obviously making some judgement about how important and how likely some things are. And I'll continue jamming Bushwhacker lists online and probably in paper in the near future in order to learn more.
I 4-0 my Monday modern With bushwhacker. But I noticed a large up tick in midrange decks at this specific meta so big zoo will be played there from there on
The metagame update is up, and as I suspected, Gruul Zoo has cemented its place as a Tier 2 mainstay (with some potential to break into Tier 1 at some point), whereas CoCo Zoo has slipped to Tier 3. I think speed is the optimal currency Zoo can be dealing in right now, and fortunately it is very well positioned to do so (especially with Jeskai Control and its Supreme Verdicts in Tier 1, which you're much better served outracing as opposed to outvaluing). Thoughts?
Osackpo, don't you think you need anything for Abzan Company/Kiki Chord? Grafdigger's Cage or something like that
Admittedly, I copied my board from some online lists, and a lot of them have no hate against them other than path. No one at my lgs plays those those decks so I don't see the need for me to have anything. Cage is probably the best card against them, and i've thought of playing declaration in stone in the board, if I move some number of paths to the main.
Osackpo, don't you think you need anything for Abzan Company/Kiki Chord? Grafdigger's Cage or something like that
Admittedly, I copied my board from some online lists, and a lot of them have no hate against them other than path. No one at my lgs plays those those decks so I don't see the need for me to have anything. Cage is probably the best card against them, and i've thought of playing declaration in stone in the board, if I move some number of paths to the main.
In some little zoo builds I've played a singleton Gaddock Teeg in the SB partially for CoCo & Chord decks, though obviously it has a lot more applications. It doesn't replace the work Path/Dec Stone effects do in these matchups, but it's a nice supplement. I think Cage is better against them, but depending on how your metagame and SB slots shake out it might be more convenient to have Teeg because it does splash damage against a different subset of decks than Cage.
Has anyone thought on playing 2011 Counter-Cat now with Traverse the Ulvenwald in place of GSZ? Changing some stuff to enable delirium and such seems like a fine deck.
A big problem I see with that is that the burn decks were much worse and much less played, so adding a 4th color is more dangerous now.
I'll also have some Oaths to go deeper in the deck and feed the Goyfs.
Probably gonna run it tomorrow.
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
What I'm really having trouble with is Abzan Company. I did 7 games preboard on the play with my friend and lost them all. How do you guys play this match up ?
Now regarding the discussion if Big Zoo or Lil Zoo is the best deck in this realm, I think it's a matter of flavors but the right choice will depend on the Meta. If its a fast, non interactive meta, I would linger towards Lil Zoo. If its more reactive with tons of Jund, Big Zoo is the answer.
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Arid Mesa
4 Windswept Heath
2 Stomping Ground
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Mountain
1 Forest
30 Creatures
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Experiment One
4 Goblin Guide
4 Kird Ape
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Reckless Bushwacker
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Ghor-clan Rampager
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Mutagenic Growth
1 Devastating Summons
4 Atarka's Command
15 Sideboard
2 Path to Exile
2 Destructive Revelry
1 Dromoka's Command
2 Lightning Helix
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Tin Street Hooligan
1 Dromri Rade
2 Molten Rain
Round 1 UB Mill 2-0 won with 1 card left in my library lol
Round 2 Boggles 2-1
Round 3 Burn 2-1
Round 4 Boggles 1-2
Quarterfinals Ad Nauseam 2-1 very close games, I was very surprised by that
4 Arid Mesa
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Kessig Wolf Run
Creatures (26)
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Qasali Pridemage
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Loxodon Smiter
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
3 Collected Company
1 Seal of Fire
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Stony Silence
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Pyroclasm
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Pulse of Murasa
1 Choke
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Dromoka's Command
1 Deflecting Palm
2 Grafdigger's Cage
Round 1: Infect 1-2
Round 2: BW Eldrazi & Taxes 2-0
Round 3: Ad Nauseam 2-1
Round 4: RG Land Destruction 2-0
Don't know if I will still keep Pyroclasm in the sideboard or switch it for 1 Bonfire. There are some matchs that I would gladly keep a hand with Pyroclasm where Bonfire would be too slow (Elves, Affinity, maybe Infect), but if you can keep the game for a little bit, Bonfire is huge.
My goal for the next few weeks is to disrupt Abzan Company's combo with Pulse of Murasa (on his Finks, in response to Persist's trigger). That would be awesome and even more insane if I could win on the backswing.
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
What a mean metagame to have two Boggles players! Good job getting around one of them, I can assume that once they give their "build a monster" lifelink, things can get hairy. I'm assuming you'd just be looking for Atarka's Command?
I also have a couple non-report specific questions for you:
- How have you found playing Tarmogoyf instead of Flinthoof Boar
- What are your thoughts on two Gaddok Teeg in the sideboard? It can help against a lot of different things like the card Ad Nauseum from that deck or differnt cards in UWR and Tron, as well as the "get ahead" cards from Elves (CoCo and Chord).
- What would you be cutting in your Grixis Control and UWR Control matchups?
I prefer tarmogoyf since it can be bigger, it's hard to come up with an excuse to not play it. But there have certainly been times where your curve is awkward with a 1/2 goyf.
I dislike teeg, I find him overrated and that he dies to everything, which I know isn't a good excuse. But playing your 'silver bullet' that dies to bolt and doesn't tax it like thalia does, is really unappealing. On friday against ad nauseam, I played thalia and won, since I had a decent clock but he couldn't cast ad nauseam and grace in the same turn.
On the draw I tend to side out goblin guide, but against uwr/grixis or heavy removal decks I don't like rampager as it can be a 2-1. Summons is also very bad against remand decks, and although those should not have remand post board, if summons get remanded; you die. You can also shave some number of bolts.
So against uwr: on the play
Out: 2 rampager, 1 summons, 2 bolt
In: 2 Thalia, 1 Domri, 2 molten rain
on the draw:
Out: 2 Rampager, 1 summons, 2 guide
in: 2 thalia, 1 domri, 2 rain
Dromoka's command is also considerable if your afraid of anger
Before I was framing the discussion about how Burning-Tree Emissary was inconsistent and how it forced you to play worse one drops instead of stuff like Loam Lion. This isn't quite correct. In reality, Loam Lion would replace BTE and they should be directly compared to each other, but the mix of the other creatures doesn't have to change (unless you really like Kytheon, Hero of Akros, which to be fair has been better than expected). While BTE doesn't really force you to play worse one drops, it can be awkward when you want to put a BTE into play and cast Path to Exile on the same turn. It's also awkward to cast Loam Lion and Path in the same turn with Naya though, but it's doable and you at least have the option of playing Lion on turn 1 so that this doesn't come up. But the real issue is that BTE is the worse one drop. 2 toughness is a huge liability - it trades with Snapcaster Mage, wolf tokens (Huntmaster of the Fells), zombie tokens (Khalitas, Traitor of Ghet), Silvergill Adept, Goblin Guide, two spirit tokens (Lingering Souls), etc, and Atarka's Command can't save it from Lightning Bolt, Anger of the Gods, and similar effects. It also dies to a bunch of 2 damage burn spells that see fringe play and Disfigure. I disagree with past-me in saying that BTE is inconsistent. The main issue is that it lacks resiliency. Many of these are small things, but they add up. There are benefits of course - putting 4+ creatures into play by turn 2, putting 3 into play and one of them is a Tarmogoyf, or 3 + bolt something, or backdoor cast green spells through Blood Moon, less susceptibility to Blood Moon shrinking your creatures, and less susceptibility to Engineered Explosives. I didn't think these made up for BTE's downsides before Reckless Bushwhacker was printed and I still don't, though I admit it's fairly close. But all this means is that BTE and Bushwhacker are a package.
So it really comes down to whether the explosiveness of Reckless Bushwhacker is worth it. The power level is there, but the inconsistency and lack of resiliency is a real pain. If you don't hit BTE or Mutagenic Growth, you have to hit a 3rd land + a one mana spell for Bushwhacker to be good. This can be pretty awkward in a 19 land deck. It also means that Bushwhacker is often bad in multiples. Not always or even half the time, but often enough that it's a problem. And Bushwhacker can be an awful topdeck. A 2/1 haste for 3 is not going to do it in most situations. It also dies to everything. It trades with spirit tokens, Arbor Elf, Eldrazi drone tokens, and Cursecatcher on top of all of the things BTE trades with and dies to.
With all that said, I think it's much closer than I originally thought. The Bushwhacker builds have the raw speed you need to race anything that needs racing, so in some metagames it will definitely be right to 'whack it up. Right now I think I'd rather have the resiliency of Naya & Loam Lion, but I think it's close enough for disagreement. And of course your local metagame may differ from MTGO's or the recent GP metagames. That said, I do think there are some important considerations to take into account when building Bushwhacker zoo:
Not that I'm certain about any of this. Small sample size caveats apply, and I'm obviously making some judgement about how important and how likely some things are. And I'll continue jamming Bushwhacker lists online and probably in paper in the near future in order to learn more.
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Admittedly, I copied my board from some online lists, and a lot of them have no hate against them other than path. No one at my lgs plays those those decks so I don't see the need for me to have anything. Cage is probably the best card against them, and i've thought of playing declaration in stone in the board, if I move some number of paths to the main.
Jund - it depends. If they get a couple of Goyfs and Lilli out you'll have a hard time.
In some little zoo builds I've played a singleton Gaddock Teeg in the SB partially for CoCo & Chord decks, though obviously it has a lot more applications. It doesn't replace the work Path/Dec Stone effects do in these matchups, but it's a nice supplement. I think Cage is better against them, but depending on how your metagame and SB slots shake out it might be more convenient to have Teeg because it does splash damage against a different subset of decks than Cage.
A big problem I see with that is that the burn decks were much worse and much less played, so adding a 4th color is more dangerous now.