Crazy, right? You have fetches and shocks and great fixing, no wasteland to worry about, why not get greedy? But with Wild Nacatl gone, it is no longer completely inconceivable to imagine a zoo list without white. This has inspired me to take seriously the prospect of a RG zoo list, more akin to old school Goyf sligh. I have many zoo variants built on mtgo and consider myself primarily a zoo player, and I love to experiment with very different configurations. I'm going to spell out alot of factors in this post to consider: what you gain from cutting white and going two-color, and what you lose.
It may turn out that at this VERY MOMENT the factors favor continuing to run white, but I think there is a very good chance that at some point this year, as the modern metagame continues to evolve, the balance of factors will tilt in favor of the two-color model, and there will be things to watch for that trigger that shift.
Cutting White - Pros
Mana Base. The two-color mana base is obviously more stable, but that's just a talking point. What does that mean, concretely, in a game of Modern magic?
First off, it means little to no vulnerability to Blood Moon. This card is not oppressing the modern environment right now, but it is on the rise. I am seeing it in Red Affinity out of the board, and have seen it in UR storm out of the board. Affinity may not really want it against zoo, since it's faster and zoo plays the control pretty well against affinity even with only red mana. UR Storm, on the other hand, needs only to stall zoo for a few turns more to sculpt their hand, and it seems great there.
Second in importance is reduced damage from shocklands. 3+ color zoo decks will need to fetch or play out untapped shocks at least their first two turns, which is a minimum 4-6 damage, up to 9 if you have to fetch an untapped third land which you often do. Even with Nacatl gone, Kird Ape and Loam Lion continue to care about land type, and Steppe Lynx wants fetches, so an evolution to Scars duals is still unlikely. This damage is highly relevant against aggro mirrors, and sometimes relevant against Storm. RG can function on one Stomping Ground in play as you will have preboard only 4 (maybe 8) spells that actually cost green, plus Kird Ape that cares about forests. So you are saving 3+ self-damage from your lands.
Third, going two-color also allows you to more easily cut lands to 19-20, giving you greater virtual card advantage over the control decks.
Fourth, having spells of as many as 4 colors leaves you extremely vulnerable to even a single Trickbind, which could strand half your spells in your hand. An opening of Temple Garden - Loam Lion followed by a stifled fetch for Steam Vents or Sacred Foundry could easily ruin your day. This is not presently something in the environment in great numbers, but some Delver tempo deck could easily emerge that decides to run it maindeck for both fetches and a maindeck out to storm. I would also not be shocked to see Spreading Seas at some point gain popularity, as it did in standard to fight greedy manabases, and as a maindeck way to fight the Tron decks if they are popular.
Finally, the two-color variant makes the use of manlands or spell-lands at least a plausible consideration.
Cutting White - Cons
There are several specific white spells popular in zoo which are obviously lost, and would weaken the deck to some extent. The question is to what degree.
Steppe Lynx and Loam Lion - Probably the toughest loss to justify, as RG is seriously lacking in one-drops beyond Kird Ape and Lavamancer. Goblin Guide is a poor choice because it can't fight Apes/Lions. Figure is marginally ok as a mana-sink that can become relevant later, but is often just plain bad. If any one factor leans me toward Naya zoo at the moment, it's the explosive power of Lynx.
Path to Exile - Honestly, this card really isn't that great right now. It's totally dead against Storm, and pretty much dead against control. The only thing it does right now that red burn spells won't is kill an opposing Goyf. How important that is will depend on the environment you're playing in as the year goes on.
Qasali Pridemage - The original reason Naya Zoo overtook Goyf Sligh in legacy is that Pridemage gave you a maindeck out to CounterTop, which was running wild at the time and absolutely murdered a deck full of 1 and 2 cmc cards. It also gives you an out to Chalice on 1. Chalice isn't really seeing play right now (though expect a resurgence of that if either Living End or Restore Balance takes a share of the metagame.) Top is banned. Without those menaces, I think K-Grip out of the board may solve most problems... and there are really very few artifacts or enchantments that zoo MUST destroy to win in the first place.
KotR/Elspeth/Baneslayer - These midrange cards allow you to go over the top of an opposing aggro deck. At the moment, I think all of them are awful maindeck options in zoo, as they are far too slow in the combo matchups. Their home will ultimately be in Bant, where with the lighter removal package you can play Hierarchs and Lotus Cobras and still have enough slots devoted to countermagic (and the double-blue for clique) to stay in the game against combo.
********
In summary, it's the battle between increased consistency (plus a few perks, like the lower shockland damage) versus increased options. If increased options is winning the war, it's only because right now no deck seems to be there that really punishes the greedy manabases. Affinity and Storm both can, if they please, and will be popular because of price considerations. Other decks could develop that attack mana in other ways. When this happens, I think cutting back to a RG core could be one way zoo will adapt.
If you can get a good replacement for Qasali (the best utility in the deck), KotR (the most powerful card in the deck), and PtE (your #1 method of shifting into Aggro-Control), then you're good to go.
Path to Exile - Honestly, this card really isn't that great right now. It's totally dead against Storm, and pretty much dead against control. The only thing it does right now that red burn spells won't is kill an opposing Goyf. How important that is will depend on the environment you're playing in as the year goes on.
Let's just say it's pretty tough to kill an opposing KotR with burn. Most control decks still run creature cards (like Teferi, Grave Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Eldrazi not named Emrakul) as finishers, so Path isn't as dead against them as you may think.
On another note, Lightning Helix is probably the best two-mana burn spell ever, and losing it is another con to dropping white.
What do you need white for, you only need it for MD answers to almost anything in the current meta, your only source of life gain and 2 very important finishers (kotr and elspeth). IMO without helix, pte, kotr, and qasali you'll have a very tough time winning games in this meta. Also, tribal flames has become the most popular/best other burn spell in zoo, and it's useless with a 2 color mana base. Gaddock Teeg is very good at what he does and you lose him too. Rule of Law/ethersworn canonist are out, which are popular answers in zoo as well. Ranger of eos or geist of saint traft are no longer SB options.
The damage you do to yourself from fetching shocklands is offset by lightning helix. You might lose less life to shocks/fetches in a RG zoo, but how do you plan on gaining any of that life back without helix?
I think a 5 color zoo would be more playable than a 2 color zoo and that's saying something. You lose wayyy too much when you cut white just to keep from losing a few life to shocklands to make it worth it.
Also, White gives you a pile of very strong sideboard options, things like Kataki, War's Wage, Gaddock Teeg, and Ethersworn Canonist. That's an advantage you don't see as much, but it's definitely there, and not to be underestimated.
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Taking white out of Zoo is just crippling the deck. There is no card in the majority of zoo decks that cant be played due to mana issues. Almost all the cards are not mana intensive so I find no reason to not keep white in the deck. Baffles me why you want to drop the color, its easily the most utilitarian of all the colors in the deck and offers way more than you think it does.
On the other hand, I have seen some very Zoo-like UWR Delver lists. They bring up a pretty good argument that you can actually put green on the chopping block instead.
The stable manabase is a big plus and you get to play the blue nacatl. Not doing 6 damage a game to fix your mana helps as well. I have been testing UWR delver with scepter and its a brutal deck that can beat anything with a good draw, is very consistent, has a great power card in scepter and has a ton of good sideboard options. You don't need goyf at all. Without white its not zoo and you should be playing jund then.
Crazy, right? You have fetches and shocks and great fixing, no wasteland to worry about, why not get greedy? But with Wild Nacatl gone, it is no longer completely inconceivable to imagine a zoo list without white. This has inspired me to take seriously the prospect of a RG zoo list, more akin to old school Goyf sligh. I have many zoo variants built on mtgo and consider myself primarily a zoo player, and I love to experiment with very different configurations. I'm going to spell out alot of factors in this post to consider: what you gain from cutting white and going two-color, and what you lose.
It may turn out that at this VERY MOMENT the factors favor continuing to run white, but I think there is a very good chance that at some point this year, as the modern metagame continues to evolve, the balance of factors will tilt in favor of the two-color model, and there will be things to watch for that trigger that shift.
Cutting White - Pros
Mana Base. The two-color mana base is obviously more stable, but that's just a talking point. What does that mean, concretely, in a game of Modern magic?
First off, it means little to no vulnerability to Blood Moon. This card is not oppressing the modern environment right now, but it is on the rise. I am seeing it in Red Affinity out of the board, and have seen it in UR storm out of the board. Affinity may not really want it against zoo, since it's faster and zoo plays the control pretty well against affinity even with only red mana. UR Storm, on the other hand, needs only to stall zoo for a few turns more to sculpt their hand, and it seems great there.
Second in importance is reduced damage from shocklands. 3+ color zoo decks will need to fetch or play out untapped shocks at least their first two turns, which is a minimum 4-6 damage, up to 9 if you have to fetch an untapped third land which you often do. Even with Nacatl gone, Kird Ape and Loam Lion continue to care about land type, and Steppe Lynx wants fetches, so an evolution to Scars duals is still unlikely. This damage is highly relevant against aggro mirrors, and sometimes relevant against Storm. RG can function on one Stomping Ground in play as you will have preboard only 4 (maybe 8) spells that actually cost green, plus Kird Ape that cares about forests. So you are saving 3+ self-damage from your lands.
Third, going two-color also allows you to more easily cut lands to 19-20, giving you greater virtual card advantage over the control decks.
Fourth, having spells of as many as 4 colors leaves you extremely vulnerable to even a single Trickbind, which could strand half your spells in your hand. An opening of Temple Garden - Loam Lion followed by a stifled fetch for Steam Vents or Sacred Foundry could easily ruin your day. This is not presently something in the environment in great numbers, but some Delver tempo deck could easily emerge that decides to run it maindeck for both fetches and a maindeck out to storm. I would also not be shocked to see Spreading Seas at some point gain popularity, as it did in standard to fight greedy manabases, and as a maindeck way to fight the Tron decks if they are popular.
Finally, the two-color variant makes the use of manlands or spell-lands at least a plausible consideration.
Cutting White - Cons
There are several specific white spells popular in zoo which are obviously lost, and would weaken the deck to some extent. The question is to what degree.
Steppe Lynx and Loam Lion - Probably the toughest loss to justify, as RG is seriously lacking in one-drops beyond Kird Ape and Lavamancer. Goblin Guide is a poor choice because it can't fight Apes/Lions. Figure is marginally ok as a mana-sink that can become relevant later, but is often just plain bad. If any one factor leans me toward Naya zoo at the moment, it's the explosive power of Lynx.
Path to Exile - Honestly, this card really isn't that great right now. It's totally dead against Storm, and pretty much dead against control. The only thing it does right now that red burn spells won't is kill an opposing Goyf. How important that is will depend on the environment you're playing in as the year goes on.
Qasali Pridemage - The original reason Naya Zoo overtook Goyf Sligh in legacy is that Pridemage gave you a maindeck out to CounterTop, which was running wild at the time and absolutely murdered a deck full of 1 and 2 cmc cards. It also gives you an out to Chalice on 1. Chalice isn't really seeing play right now (though expect a resurgence of that if either Living End or Restore Balance takes a share of the metagame.) Top is banned. Without those menaces, I think K-Grip out of the board may solve most problems... and there are really very few artifacts or enchantments that zoo MUST destroy to win in the first place.
KotR/Elspeth/Baneslayer - These midrange cards allow you to go over the top of an opposing aggro deck. At the moment, I think all of them are awful maindeck options in zoo, as they are far too slow in the combo matchups. Their home will ultimately be in Bant, where with the lighter removal package you can play Hierarchs and Lotus Cobras and still have enough slots devoted to countermagic (and the double-blue for clique) to stay in the game against combo.
********
In summary, it's the battle between increased consistency (plus a few perks, like the lower shockland damage) versus increased options. If increased options is winning the war, it's only because right now no deck seems to be there that really punishes the greedy manabases. Affinity and Storm both can, if they please, and will be popular because of price considerations. Other decks could develop that attack mana in other ways. When this happens, I think cutting back to a RG core could be one way zoo will adapt.
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Let's just say it's pretty tough to kill an opposing KotR with burn. Most control decks still run creature cards (like Teferi, Grave Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Eldrazi not named Emrakul) as finishers, so Path isn't as dead against them as you may think.
On another note, Lightning Helix is probably the best two-mana burn spell ever, and losing it is another con to dropping white.
The damage you do to yourself from fetching shocklands is offset by lightning helix. You might lose less life to shocks/fetches in a RG zoo, but how do you plan on gaining any of that life back without helix?
I think a 5 color zoo would be more playable than a 2 color zoo and that's saying something. You lose wayyy too much when you cut white just to keep from losing a few life to shocklands to make it worth it.
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On the other hand, I have seen some very Zoo-like UWR Delver lists. They bring up a pretty good argument that you can actually put green on the chopping block instead.
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