Rallier is alot better than I gave it credit for... but still isnt a golden goose. I kept wishing it was 1 mana cheaper for 1 or less as its effect and a 2/2 or something. 3 mana, it just does not do bulk well, or even attack well, and if it doesnt have good hits its REALLY bad. A fetch isnt a good hit unless you have a landfall dude out, and that deck is still worse than the other zoos by my testing... And yes, I spent all day today doing it. I think its like... loxodon smiter good, but it totally isnt geist good... and thats what zoo would need to bump it up tiers.
The land fall deck races, and this gives that a bit more removal resistance... but in my testing, it was still very (ok, lets be honest) extremely vulnerable to removal because it goes tall, unlike gruul zoo which goes wider. Gruul zoo also goldfished the same turn kills. I'm sure that landfall deck is a bit of a crazy right not, but simple put theres more powerful things coming from the midrange zoos and the gruul zoos. Problem was, simple put, that the land fall zoo folded easily to 2 removal spells OR 1 wipes, and Gruul takes 3 minimum to falter because of wideness, and can still maybe rebuild after a wipe.
Basically, gruul is more removal resistant, and the same speed. Rallier is better with ***** you can gain value for, and should be used as such. Midrange and what not. But it falls in the same boat. We use it (like collected company) fairly, while meleria company abuses it and is much stronger with it.
As others said with the banning of GitProbe and the addition of the deathtouch elf I think small zoo is poised for some play again. One of my biggest struggles with the deck, as I'm sure it was with others, was Eldrazi- but I'm hoping the new elf can help that.
Here's what I've been testing with- obviously sideboard will be adjusted as the meta shifts.
As others said with the banning of GitProbe and the addition of the deathtouch elf I think small zoo is poised for some play again. One of my biggest struggles with the deck, as I'm sure it was with others, was Eldrazi- but I'm hoping the new elf can help that.
Here's what I've been testing with- obviously sideboard will be adjusted as the meta shifts.
I'm going to start playing around with pulling the Paths to the side and adding Mutagenic growths to the main for that last pump needed
2 Mutagenic is pretty necessary when you run 4 Bushwhackers, I've found.
In early testing, Hidden Herbalist builds seems pretty good against Eldrazi. We put too many creatures into play too fast, forcing them to have EE or die quickly.
Just be careful when siding in Grafdigger's Cage, as it stops Rallier from bringing back dudes from the yard.
You can still bring back lands/enchantments/artifacts, anyway.
Its not. Least in landfall decks. Its always been a weird thing for it. Low curve, high land count. One of the reasons I always stress for wolfrun or scapeshift.
Went 0-2 drop with Gideon Zoo (list a few pages back) at a local. Room was full of big mana decks -- presumably in anticipation for Fatal Push -- and I got paired against Through the Breach Valakut rd1* and Primal Command Devotion rd2**. Sometimes you gotta' know when to shelve it. Probably playing Grixis Control w/ tempo elements for a few weeks since the salt was real.
*Game 1 I stuck a turn 3 Gideon on the draw and the next turn he had his Valakuts active and could start blowing up my stuff. I got one swing out of Gideon before he wiped my board with Primetime/Valakut the next turn.
Game 2 I play a mana dork and Goyfs and he has t1 Search, t2 Steve, t3 Farseek with some intermitted tapped Valakuts to use up his excess mana. I die, like, turn 5 or 6 after he wipes my board.
**Game 1 he builds up a board I can't deal with and Primal Commands for Craterhoof.
Game 2 he builds up a board -- 3 drops aren't fast enough, if you've noted -- and finds a Garruk, activates it a bit, and then overruns his Primetime plus 8 extra beaters because his tiny Genesis Waves only put Elvish Visionaries and mana dorks into play.
Had a "if I had been playing Terminate, Negate, and Cryptic Command, my opponent would've been getting mauled -- rather than the reverse" moment, dropped, and went home to grind some Eternal (go Rakano Plate!).
We can beat removal spell decks. Big mana decks where we just aren't fast enough makes me wonder why even bother though.
Big mana decks prey on slower, midrange-y decks. When I play Titan Shift, my losses usually are from faster decks like Infect, Burn, Affinity.
Small Zoo is better suited to get those decks, you just have to watch out for Angers.
Spooly posted a list a couple pages back. Don't know if he tried it already.
Nothing super meaningful yet, though I have all of the non-AER pieces in paper and on mtgo, so I will soon.
Same here, I'm waiting on the Renegades and Herbalists. I may try to do a lot of Cockatrice testing with it. I should be able to play it in paper next week. I think we're on basically the same list now (it's updated in my signature).
That's exactly the mainboard I'd be testing.
Next week I'll be playing CalebD/Hoogland's Landfall Rallier, but Gruul with Hidden Herbalists and Narnam Renegade seems promising to me.
I did some goldfishing tests here at home with Gruul Zoo and with Landfall Zoo.
Played something like 20ish hands with each deck and Landfall felt a lot more reliable and seemed to be 1 turn faster than Gruul. Even got 1 or 2 hands with T3 kill, while Gruul had none of those. There's a lot of cool sequencing stuff that you can do with Knight + Rallier and cards like Canopy, and knowing when to hold your fetches on the table can be a nice 'mindgame'.
I don't know how they'll play against Jund-like decks (I know that Gruul has a bad match on those kind of decks, but maybe HH and Narnam can get us more percentage points), but the fact that Landfall can use Rallier to get dudes back from the yard and having access to Thrun and Pulse of Murasa from the sideboard seems like a nice advantage to me.
My worry with the rallier landfall list is consistency. You have to play a ton of fetches, and lynx and geopede are incredibly inconsistent. Little zoo variants are incredibly consistent at putting 3+ creatures into play by turn 2, and that's good enough against a lot of hands and a lot of decks, even through a removal spell. Bushwhacker costs you a small amount consistency, but gives you some really nutty nut draws. Going full landfall seems like huge cost to me though. But this is mostly theory.
The land fall deck races, and this gives that a bit more removal resistance... but in my testing, it was still very (ok, lets be honest) extremely vulnerable to removal because it goes tall, unlike gruul zoo which goes wider. Gruul zoo also goldfished the same turn kills. I'm sure that landfall deck is a bit of a crazy right not, but simple put theres more powerful things coming from the midrange zoos and the gruul zoos. Problem was, simple put, that the land fall zoo folded easily to 2 removal spells OR 1 wipes, and Gruul takes 3 minimum to falter because of wideness, and can still maybe rebuild after a wipe.
Basically, gruul is more removal resistant, and the same speed. Rallier is better with ***** you can gain value for, and should be used as such. Midrange and what not. But it falls in the same boat. We use it (like collected company) fairly, while meleria company abuses it and is much stronger with it.
Here's what I've been testing with- obviously sideboard will be adjusted as the meta shifts.
3 Arid Mesa
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Sacred Foundry
3 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
Spells
3 Atarka's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
Creatures
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Experiment One
2 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Goblin Guide
4 Narnam Renegade
4 Reckless Bushwhacker
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl
1 Dromoka's Command
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Lightning Helix
2 Pyroclasm
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Stony Silence
I'm going to start playing around with pulling the Paths to the side and adding Mutagenic growths to the main for that last pump needed
2 Mutagenic is pretty necessary when you run 4 Bushwhackers, I've found.
In early testing, Hidden Herbalist builds seems pretty good against Eldrazi. We put too many creatures into play too fast, forcing them to have EE or die quickly.
4x Arid Mesa
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Forest
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Flooded Strand
1x Mountain
1x Plains
1x Sacred Foundry
2x Stomping Ground
1x Temple Garden
1x Treetop Village
1x Kessig Wolf Run
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
2x Ghor-Clan Rampager
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Plated Geopede
4x Renegade Rallier
4x Steppe Lynx
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Wild Nacatl
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Path to Exile
Enchantment (2)
2x Seal of Fire
2x Kitchen Finks
2x Ghost Quarter
2x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Qasali Pridemage
2x Stony Silence
2x Declaration in Stone
2x Chandra, Pyromaster
1x Stormbreath Dragon
I'm going to play this Saturday at a 2k w/ 0 testing. What can go wrong?
I think Knight of the Reliquary and Renegade Rallier should workout well together.
Let us know how it turns out.
You can still bring back lands/enchantments/artifacts, anyway.
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
Seems like a lot of lands, no?
Need a collection tracker? Use EchoMTG here: https://www.echomtg.com/r/7bb6961d/
Join the Zoo Discord: https://discord.gg/Yu6eTSTrzA
Spooly posted a list a couple pages back. Don't know if he tried it already.
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
*Game 1 I stuck a turn 3 Gideon on the draw and the next turn he had his Valakuts active and could start blowing up my stuff. I got one swing out of Gideon before he wiped my board with Primetime/Valakut the next turn.
Game 2 I play a mana dork and Goyfs and he has t1 Search, t2 Steve, t3 Farseek with some intermitted tapped Valakuts to use up his excess mana. I die, like, turn 5 or 6 after he wipes my board.
**Game 1 he builds up a board I can't deal with and Primal Commands for Craterhoof.
Game 2 he builds up a board -- 3 drops aren't fast enough, if you've noted -- and finds a Garruk, activates it a bit, and then overruns his Primetime plus 8 extra beaters because his tiny Genesis Waves only put Elvish Visionaries and mana dorks into play.
Had a "if I had been playing Terminate, Negate, and Cryptic Command, my opponent would've been getting mauled -- rather than the reverse" moment, dropped, and went home to grind some Eternal (go Rakano Plate!).
We can beat removal spell decks. Big mana decks where we just aren't fast enough makes me wonder why even bother though.
Small Zoo is better suited to get those decks, you just have to watch out for Angers.
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
Nothing super meaningful yet, though I have all of the non-AER pieces in paper and on mtgo, so I will soon.
Same here, I'm waiting on the Renegades and Herbalists. I may try to do a lot of Cockatrice testing with it. I should be able to play it in paper next week. I think we're on basically the same list now (it's updated in my signature).
Next week I'll be playing CalebD/Hoogland's Landfall Rallier, but Gruul with Hidden Herbalists and Narnam Renegade seems promising to me.
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
4 Arid Mesa
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Stomping Ground
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Forest
1 Mountain
Ones
4 Goblin Guide
4 Kird Ape
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Experiment One
4 Narnam Renegade
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Hidden Herbalist
Spells
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Atarka's Command
4 Reckless Bushwhacker
2 Mutagenic Growth
4 Path to Exile
2 Gut Shot
2 Lightning Helix
1 Phyrexian Unlife
2 Domri Rade
3 Tin-Street Hooligan
1 Grafdigger's Cage
Flinthoof Boar and Goyf are both significantly better in the two drop slot.
Played something like 20ish hands with each deck and Landfall felt a lot more reliable and seemed to be 1 turn faster than Gruul. Even got 1 or 2 hands with T3 kill, while Gruul had none of those. There's a lot of cool sequencing stuff that you can do with Knight + Rallier and cards like Canopy, and knowing when to hold your fetches on the table can be a nice 'mindgame'.
I don't know how they'll play against Jund-like decks (I know that Gruul has a bad match on those kind of decks, but maybe HH and Narnam can get us more percentage points), but the fact that Landfall can use Rallier to get dudes back from the yard and having access to Thrun and Pulse of Murasa from the sideboard seems like a nice advantage to me.
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins