I have been running a big zoo list without goyfs due to cost. Basically threw in an extra ooze, extra pridemage and 2 thalia mainboard just so i could play the deck. Now i see everyone is using oath of nissa and arlin. Since my list has no goyfs i am really not sure what is the best route to go. I have always loved coco, such a wonderful card. If i don't have the powerhouse that is the goyf, what do you guys think the best route would be?
Azemotay,
Depends where you play, but against the current U/W meta I have been playing against on cockatrice (literally, 5/5 matches) CoCo with Thalia maindeck is the most potent form compared to oath/arlinn/elspeth builds. Could totally be different later, but for now, you might as well keep using CoCo, and have Voice and Thalia main. It's not a bad setup against Jund/Infect/Burn either, so it's a safe call in any meta. Does that help?
Round 1: Jund (0-2)
Game 1 got LONG and grindy. Got him to 1 life, needed to kill his Ooze but couldn't draw my Path or a Bolt/Chandra to kill him.
Game 2 I got stuck on 2 lands and he had time to answer my early aggression. When I got my 3rd land drop and my Finks and Smiter came in, he was low on life but found an Ooze with his Bob and that got him the game, since my grave had close to 10 creatures.
Round 2: Kiki Chord (2-1)
Game 1 I bolted the bird and he got mana screwed.
Game 2 went long and grindy, and he found the Chord he needed eventually.
Game 3 we were short on time, I started with Grafdigger's Cage and we both went to the race to finish the game. I won and he showed me 3 Chords that my Cage was stopping.
Round 3: Gruul Zoo (2-0)
Game 1 had removal and made the right blocks to stay ahead, Ooze came in with 3 life and got me back to 6. Drew Elspeth and won the game.
Game 2 Finks saved me a lot and Dromoka's Command paired with Finks to act as removal + lifegain + blocker. Had Chandra out, and won the game with 6 life while he had Atarka's Command in hand. Close game
Round 4: Monogreen counters (2-0)
Was a guy starting on modern with a brew of his own. Both games had Chandra out and on the first one I also had Arlinn. Finished the game goin 0 on Chandra revealing KotR, casting him, +1 Arlinn to give Haste and Vigilance, attacking and, after blockers, fetching Kessig for the win.
Only had Arlinn out 1 time, but so far the deck is pleasing me a lot. I will probably cut Wildwood to up my Oath count to 3 going with 21 lands and, as my meta is short on blue players, I'll cut 2 Smiters to put back in 2 Brimaz.
I will also test swapping 1 Finks for 1 Pulse of Murasa.
Seems bad. Why play a free 2/3 with no abilities instead of removal spells? Gut shot seems better against those decks than Ambusher does.
You'd really rather pay 2 life to deal 1 to a creature or player over being able to put a 2/3 with reach into play at instant speed? The only scenarios where that seems better are Blighted Agent and the 1 to the face, where there's a whole pile of scenarios the guy is better.
I played him twice the other night and got killed.
I was playing Affinity.
I just got back into magic and I picked this exact deck up tonight. I did a few 2 mans, then entered an 8 man and won it. I have always loved zoo, all varieties. I have not tested the bigger more creature versions in this meta, but so far, I really like the amount of removal and speed this brings. I have yet to really understand Atarka's command value to this. It has been very underwhelming. Granted, I have only played about 10 matches. I will test this more and definitely tweaking the sb. I literally sideboarded Atarka out every game. I need to explore the other options, and get a firmer grasp of the meta, but, I look forward to reading through some of the previous pages in this thread!
I like the idea of reckless bushwacker, debating where I'd fit him in?
Tested my same list today. Kinda sad to see Brimaz go but loxodon has been a welcome. I am seeing lots of grixis control with thing, the cord decks and us control with thropter.
Alright. I tested out alot of oaths and Arlinns and big zoos and small zoos. Heres just a couple thoughts
We still beat AV decks. AV is pretty bad against us. With gruul Zoo I won against him, when he drew off my guide everytime, and I was stuck on 1 land, and he ended the game with 12 cards in hand. Going under AV is still very doable for aggro, and if anything, its more doable. AV is a very, very good card, but its perfect for the modern meta. It makes late game very good for the AV player, but early game still a huge weakness. Don't not respect the card, but know its your strong suit.
Overall, Ive grown to be disappointed in Oath in Bigger zoo lists. Its perfectly fine main deck, by issue is about sideboarding. Even when I made sure my creatures were most of the sideboard it just wasnt really that good and I sided them out. I DONT like cards that are only good game 1 and worse later on. It could be that my sideboard just wasnt correct, and oaths will become copies X-X of my silver bullets later own down the road (which I wont know for a few months...) but for now, they were usually the first thing I sideboarded out. Again this could be because either A. Card Selection really isnt important because there isnt enough good silver bullet cards for the correct decks, B. The silver bullets Ive been rocking is wrong, or C. The decks that exist, you just don't need silver bullets for.
I want to go a bit more indepth with this. A means that the bullets arent exactly what I want for the decks. Like, Kataki, War's Wage would be great to pair with Oath, but with all these artifact decks popping up Stony Silence is the better card, thus a no bo. Against jund Magus of the Moon is the effect you want, but bolting makes it much better to just have Blood Moon. Thalia and Eidolon of the Great Revel are the best cards I can think of for right now.
C. Means literally there isnt enough "good" or "good for the decks we see" creatures I want to oath for, that one is simple. B. is the more complected one, because you need to have a defined meta to say "yes, I need voices for this deck, and thalias for this" which makes oath better since it basically turns your 1-2 copies into 4-5.
This isnt to say its oath is bad. I just cant get it to work in normal naya bigger zoo. The ability to nab arlin, elspeth, or domri has been amazing. And fishing for goyf or knight has been great too, as well as mana fixing on the rare case it needs to fetch that have all be good. I just dont think I have quite enough utility in the deck to really make it shine.
On the flip side, its been PERFECT for me in Blue zoo and Gruul. in both those cases, it helps smooth lands, gruul because you run 18 lands, and blue zoo because you are 4 colors. Further more, digging for a bushwacker, vexing devil, or Eidolon has been awesome and in blue I can actually get that utility I was talking about, because fishing for the knight for the combo is good, sometimes you have to fish for geist against removal, fishing for rhox war monk against aggro, meddling mage or thalia against combo. Theres a lot of utility I just seem to be lacking in the naya version...
Btw, yes, from now on, my advice is use oath over coco in the blue zoo versions (with elspeth) and in gruul, so you can skimp on land count.
Yeah, that's pretty much the experience I've had with Oath in my blue zoo build. Especially good there as it frees you from the deck building restraints that coco comes saddled with. I love coco, but the deck has just been a more consistent machine with Oath in it. I can go down to 24 creatures which lets me make more room for the Retreat + Knight combo, running an effective amount of removal, and a one of Arlinn and Elspeth for grinding or sick flying/trample beats.
Noooottttt til I quit. I know I sound like a broken record, but just a little longer. I've only got 2 weeks left.
(after that... I'm a gunna need to be patreoned on my youtube channel if yall want me still putting out my content. Otherwise its back to lame real life jobs)
Pretty much set as this as my main deck. finally getting the results I want from it. The only SLIGHT tweeks I do to it if I felt like it needed it would be:
-1 voice, +1 Bird: if I feel I need to get the turn 2 big dudes out more often, or if Im bringing in thrun and Sigarda really often.
-1 voice, +1 pridemage: Probably wouldnt do the above if I did this. This is if I see more thopters/storm/ad neuseam,affinity than I am currently seeing.
-Sigarda +1 Cannonist/Tegg/Thalia/Eldolon: If I thought my control and jund match was decent enough I wanted anti combo
Edit: derp and -1 elspeth, +1 arlinn if theres a lot of flying blockers.
I still could decide that I wanted to go gruul or blue zoo. dunno, Id have to either A: see that aggro is pretty rare, and combo is pretty dominate to go into blue, and for gruul Id have to see that midrange isnt good in this meta and that slower control decks rule the new meta. If the meta is a fair mix of aggro, tempo, control, midrange, and combo, this is the better option.
Pretty much set as this as my main deck. finally getting the results I want from it. The only SLIGHT tweeks I do to it if I felt like it needed it would be:
-1 voice, +1 Bird: if I feel I need to get the turn 2 big dudes out more often, or if Im bringing in thrun and Sigarda really often.
-1 voice, +1 pridemage: Probably wouldnt do the above if I did this. This is if I see more thopters/storm/ad neuseam,affinity than I am currently seeing.
-Sigarda +1 Cannonist/Tegg/Thalia/Eldolon: If I thought my control and jund match was decent enough I wanted anti combo
I still could decide that I wanted to go gruul or blue zoo. dunno, Id have to either A: see that aggro is pretty rare, and combo is pretty dominate to go into blue, and for gruul Id have to see that midrange isnt good in this meta and that slower control decks rule the new meta. If the meta is a fair mix of aggro, tempo, control, midrange, and combo, this is the better option.
My exact list except now.. Lol I find that funny. I didn't have any voices till a few days and decided she is still needed. Dropped the 4th smiter and Brimaz for them
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Here is what I plan on running for some FNMs and a local tournament. Would love to hear what you guys think, especially about the land base. I do not own Arid Mesa, and won't till they are reprinted. Therefore, I am "making due" with Bloodstained mire. Would really appreciate some help with knowing what composition of shocks/ basics I should run. Only two goyf's cause that is all I own. Same thing for the lack of Voice of Resurgence
Also I'm trying a Summoner's pact in the side. My sideboard consists of silver bullets, being able to search specifically for them sounds great in theory, haven't tried it yet though.
Just played a game against thopter where the guy gained 7 life and made 7 tokens, and I still won. Arlinn smashes those matchups, and with pridemage, ooze and side hate, its really hard to lose.
I'm a little confused because you said earlier that you didn't like Oath in Big Zoo but your latest list is running 3 of them. Also no Collected Company, what are your thoughts behind that?
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Depends where you play, but against the current U/W meta I have been playing against on cockatrice (literally, 5/5 matches) CoCo with Thalia maindeck is the most potent form compared to oath/arlinn/elspeth builds. Could totally be different later, but for now, you might as well keep using CoCo, and have Voice and Thalia main. It's not a bad setup against Jund/Infect/Burn either, so it's a safe call in any meta. Does that help?
RGW Naya Company
RWB Mardu Control
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Arid Mesa
3 Stomping Ground
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Kessig Wolf Run
2 Forest
1 Plains
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Voice of Resurgence
3 Qasali Pridemage
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Loxodon Smiter
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Path to Exile
2 Arlinn Kord
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Oath of Nissa
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Hushwing Gryff
2 Stony Silence
1 Pyroclasm
1 Choke
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Natural State
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Dromoka's Command
1 Grafdigger's Cage
Round 1: Jund (0-2)
Game 1 got LONG and grindy. Got him to 1 life, needed to kill his Ooze but couldn't draw my Path or a Bolt/Chandra to kill him.
Game 2 I got stuck on 2 lands and he had time to answer my early aggression. When I got my 3rd land drop and my Finks and Smiter came in, he was low on life but found an Ooze with his Bob and that got him the game, since my grave had close to 10 creatures.
Round 2: Kiki Chord (2-1)
Game 1 I bolted the bird and he got mana screwed.
Game 2 went long and grindy, and he found the Chord he needed eventually.
Game 3 we were short on time, I started with Grafdigger's Cage and we both went to the race to finish the game. I won and he showed me 3 Chords that my Cage was stopping.
Round 3: Gruul Zoo (2-0)
Game 1 had removal and made the right blocks to stay ahead, Ooze came in with 3 life and got me back to 6. Drew Elspeth and won the game.
Game 2 Finks saved me a lot and Dromoka's Command paired with Finks to act as removal + lifegain + blocker. Had Chandra out, and won the game with 6 life while he had Atarka's Command in hand. Close game
Round 4: Monogreen counters (2-0)
Was a guy starting on modern with a brew of his own. Both games had Chandra out and on the first one I also had Arlinn. Finished the game goin 0 on Chandra revealing KotR, casting him, +1 Arlinn to give Haste and Vigilance, attacking and, after blockers, fetching Kessig for the win.
Only had Arlinn out 1 time, but so far the deck is pleasing me a lot. I will probably cut Wildwood to up my Oath count to 3 going with 21 lands and, as my meta is short on blue players, I'll cut 2 Smiters to put back in 2 Brimaz.
I will also test swapping 1 Finks for 1 Pulse of Murasa.
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
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You'd really rather pay 2 life to deal 1 to a creature or player over being able to put a 2/3 with reach into play at instant speed? The only scenarios where that seems better are Blighted Agent and the 1 to the face, where there's a whole pile of scenarios the guy is better.
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We still beat AV decks. AV is pretty bad against us. With gruul Zoo I won against him, when he drew off my guide everytime, and I was stuck on 1 land, and he ended the game with 12 cards in hand. Going under AV is still very doable for aggro, and if anything, its more doable. AV is a very, very good card, but its perfect for the modern meta. It makes late game very good for the AV player, but early game still a huge weakness. Don't not respect the card, but know its your strong suit.
Overall, Ive grown to be disappointed in Oath in Bigger zoo lists. Its perfectly fine main deck, by issue is about sideboarding. Even when I made sure my creatures were most of the sideboard it just wasnt really that good and I sided them out. I DONT like cards that are only good game 1 and worse later on. It could be that my sideboard just wasnt correct, and oaths will become copies X-X of my silver bullets later own down the road (which I wont know for a few months...) but for now, they were usually the first thing I sideboarded out. Again this could be because either A. Card Selection really isnt important because there isnt enough good silver bullet cards for the correct decks, B. The silver bullets Ive been rocking is wrong, or C. The decks that exist, you just don't need silver bullets for.
I want to go a bit more indepth with this. A means that the bullets arent exactly what I want for the decks. Like, Kataki, War's Wage would be great to pair with Oath, but with all these artifact decks popping up Stony Silence is the better card, thus a no bo. Against jund Magus of the Moon is the effect you want, but bolting makes it much better to just have Blood Moon. Thalia and Eidolon of the Great Revel are the best cards I can think of for right now.
C. Means literally there isnt enough "good" or "good for the decks we see" creatures I want to oath for, that one is simple. B. is the more complected one, because you need to have a defined meta to say "yes, I need voices for this deck, and thalias for this" which makes oath better since it basically turns your 1-2 copies into 4-5.
This isnt to say its oath is bad. I just cant get it to work in normal naya bigger zoo. The ability to nab arlin, elspeth, or domri has been amazing. And fishing for goyf or knight has been great too, as well as mana fixing on the rare case it needs to fetch that have all be good. I just dont think I have quite enough utility in the deck to really make it shine.
On the flip side, its been PERFECT for me in Blue zoo and Gruul. in both those cases, it helps smooth lands, gruul because you run 18 lands, and blue zoo because you are 4 colors. Further more, digging for a bushwacker, vexing devil, or Eidolon has been awesome and in blue I can actually get that utility I was talking about, because fishing for the knight for the combo is good, sometimes you have to fish for geist against removal, fishing for rhox war monk against aggro, meddling mage or thalia against combo. Theres a lot of utility I just seem to be lacking in the naya version...
Btw, yes, from now on, my advice is use oath over coco in the blue zoo versions (with elspeth) and in gruul, so you can skimp on land count.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
Finks
Thalia
Thrun
Hushwing Gryff
Sigarda
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
Forgot sigarda and thrun for a minute (which is funny since I was the first to suggest it like... a few pages back lol)
I'll try a new formation in that side. I still like eidolon too. It rips tempo and combo decks apart.
(after that... I'm a gunna need to be patreoned on my youtube channel if yall want me still putting out my content. Otherwise its back to lame real life jobs)
4 Wild Nacatl
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Voice of Resurgence
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Loxodon Smiter
3 Oath of Nissa
3 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Arlinn Kord
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Forest
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stirring Wildwood
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Stony Silence
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Hushwing Gryff
2 Blood Moon
1 Aven Mindcensor
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Path to Exile
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
Pretty much set as this as my main deck. finally getting the results I want from it. The only SLIGHT tweeks I do to it if I felt like it needed it would be:
-1 voice, +1 Bird: if I feel I need to get the turn 2 big dudes out more often, or if Im bringing in thrun and Sigarda really often.
-1 voice, +1 pridemage: Probably wouldnt do the above if I did this. This is if I see more thopters/storm/ad neuseam,affinity than I am currently seeing.
-Sigarda +1 Cannonist/Tegg/Thalia/Eldolon: If I thought my control and jund match was decent enough I wanted anti combo
Edit: derp and -1 elspeth, +1 arlinn if theres a lot of flying blockers.
I still could decide that I wanted to go gruul or blue zoo. dunno, Id have to either A: see that aggro is pretty rare, and combo is pretty dominate to go into blue, and for gruul Id have to see that midrange isnt good in this meta and that slower control decks rule the new meta. If the meta is a fair mix of aggro, tempo, control, midrange, and combo, this is the better option.
My exact list except now.. Lol I find that funny. I didn't have any voices till a few days and decided she is still needed. Dropped the 4th smiter and Brimaz for them
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For reference, here is the banlist talk rule, although all other Modern and MTGS Forum rules will, of course, also apply:
Only discuss bans in the banlist thread
Users may not post with the primary purpose of discussing, debating, or speculating about the banlist or unbanning/banning cards outside of the Official Current Modern Banlist Discussion thread, which can be found stickied in Modern general. Follow all thread rules when posting there.
Users who post about these topics outside of the thread will be warned/infracted accordingly.
Users may mention bans outside of the banlist thread if the primary purpose is not to discuss, debate, or speculate on the banlist or the banning/unbanning of cards. The primary purpose of the reference must be related to the thread in which the user is posting. For example, saying "Card X is probably getting banned on Monday. Should we swap Card A for Card B in our sideboard?" is okay in a deck thread. Responding to that with "Card X is definitely not getting banned on Monday; it will be Card Y" is a violation of this rule. PM the staff if you have any questions; posts that cross the line will be warned/infracted at the moderators' discretion.
Here is what I plan on running for some FNMs and a local tournament. Would love to hear what you guys think, especially about the land base. I do not own Arid Mesa, and won't till they are reprinted. Therefore, I am "making due" with Bloodstained mire. Would really appreciate some help with knowing what composition of shocks/ basics I should run. Only two goyf's cause that is all I own. Same thing for the lack of Voice of Resurgence
Also I'm trying a Summoner's pact in the side. My sideboard consists of silver bullets, being able to search specifically for them sounds great in theory, haven't tried it yet though.
1 birds of paradise
4 noble hierarch
4 wild nacatl
2 tarmogoyf
3 qasali pridemage
3 scavenging ooze
4 knight of the reliquary
2 brimaz, king of oreskos
3 loxodon smiter
Spells
4 lightning bolt
4 path to exile
1 dromoka's command
3 collected company
2 bloodstained mire
2 Forest
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Plains
2 Sacred Foundry
1 mountain
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Horizon Canopy
2 hushwing gryff
3 kor firewalker
2 stony silence
2 bonfire of the damned
1 summoner's pact
2 magus of the moon
2 thalia, guardian of thraben
1 bojuka bog
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator