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.
Yes, molten rain in the list was a typo. It was supposed to be tribal flames. Also, Trygon Predator and Behemoth Sledge were just cards I was experimenting with. I'm going to take them out. Here's my new list after more playtesting last night.
I swapped a mountain for a blood crypt to make tribal flames do 1 extra damage. Lavamancer came out for Geist of Saint Traft. Ranger of Eos came out of the side for Snapcaster.
I'm also thinking about taking Gideon out of the sideboard for something like spell pierce or surgical extraction. I almost never side him in so I think it's time for him to go.
If you got any other possible reason to go against it (aka budget/availability) don't blame the only form of zoo that is actually getting results as unplayable.. or you'll be soon labelled as a troll..
Budget is not a consideration, I just want the best zoo deck possible. I've already spent over $1,000 on cards for this deck so another $50 for snapcasters isn't a big deal. I just like Geist of Saint Traft better in that slot. I especially like the idea of attacking with geist and using Elspeth's +3/+3 flying buff on geist. Then you have a 4/4 flyer and a 5/5 flyer attacking at once plus whatever else you're throwing at them. That should be enough to deliver lethal by turn 5/6. I will test it with geist and with snapcaster and let you guys know what happens. I already have 4 colors in my mana base so I might also take out a mountain for a blood crypt as I rarely get pathed more than twice in a game.
No, because I feel there are better cards for this deck. He's a great card in almost any deck, but I just don't think he quite fits into what zoo wants to do in this format.
In addition to its ability to hit the opponent directly for one quarter of their starting life total, Tribal Flames also kills a lot of creatures that you'd otherwise need Path to Exile to get rid of. Specifically, it kills Tarmogoyf and usually hits Knight of the Reliquary as well.
Only if you want to run a 5 color mana base. Adding different shocklands that hurt me in other ways but make tribal flames do 1 extra damage the one or two times a game I cast it doesn't make much sense to me. If you want to a run a 5 color modern zoo, sure tribal flames is insanely powerful. However, good luck getting the rest of your deck consistent enough to top 8 at major events.
There are several reasons fetches/shocks are run over M10 duals.
1. Interaction with Goyf, KotR, Loam Lion, Kird Ape, and Steppe Lynx
As soon as you crack a fetch, you can play Goyf as a 1/2. Every time you crack a fetch, KotR gets pumped up. The shocklands have the basic land types, which give the +1/+2 to your Lion/Ape or +2/+2 to the Lynx. Without Goyf, KotR, and Lion/Ape/Lynx, you really don't have a zoo any more.
2. Interaction with tribal flames
It's easy to hit for 3/4 damage early in the game with tribal flames running shocklands and fetches. It will take longer without them. If you don't run tribal flames it isn't a big deal but more and more zoo decks are running it.
3. Mana Fixing
If you run fetches and shocks, you can choose which dual land to grab when you need it. This will set up your plays 2-3 turns ahead of time so you never have to worry about having the right mana for your hand.
4. Speed
The deck can hit hard and fast because of turn 1-3 mana fixing. By turn 3, you should have your Lions/Apes pumped up and be able to play a KotR as a 4/4 or 5/5.
Out of the 13 zoo decks that finished with 15 points or better at Worlds Modern, there wasn't a single M10 or Innistrad dual. Each deck contained at least 8 fetches and at least 6-8 shocks. I wonder why? The bottom line is, there are way too many key cards in this format that rely on lands having the basic land subtypes which M10/Innistrad lands don't have.
I'm not a huge fan of tribal flames as it seems like a more expensive lightning bolt to me. I had the deck setup without hierarch but after extensive playtesting and advice from several of my friends, I put them back in. Also, you'll notice almost every zoo deck that did well at Worlds Modern was running 4 hierarch. The only ones that did well and didn't have hierarch had snapcaster in that slot. I'll try running tribal flames in place of molten rain and see if that speeds the deck up.
What do you think about another Trygon predator in the sideboard or a sword of war and peace or feast and famine?
You need at least 20 lands, maybe 21. Try this:
1x Plains
1x Mountain
1x Forest
4x Arid Mesa
4x Misty Rainforest
3x Stomping Ground
3x Sacred Foundry
3x Temple Garden
For creatures, replace woolly thoctar with KotR. Wild Nacatl is banned, replace that with Tarmogoyf (since Tarmogoyf is an AUTOMATIC 4 of in any modern zoo build).
In the spell department, swap journey to nowhere for path to exile. Take out Incinerate for Lightning Helix. You will need the lifegain with the shocklands and fetches.
The planeswalker slot in this deck is used to break board stalemates against another zoo or affinity deck. I don't see how Ajani does that. Anything that he can kill can be removed with bolt/path/helix/incinerate/journey etc. Gideon and Elspeth are the best planeswalkers for this spot IMO. If you want to reliably hit them, you need 2 in your main deck.
To make the extra slots for another land and another planeswalker, try removing 1 pridemage and 1 bloodbraid (or 2 of either depending on which you think will help the most in your metagame).
With Wild Nacatl banned, it's time to update our decklists. With all the undercosted vanilla beatsticks we have, I don't think this will hurt us much. Loam Lion/Kird Ape lost a point of damage and that's it. Here's my new list.
If they didn't print staples as mythics, what would be the point of mythics? The rarest cards are the most powerful cards, that makes sense. Please show me a type 2 decklist that would cost $800 to make. The most expensive deck I know of right now is solar flare which is a little less than $400 if you're using ebay prices. As far as your Jace comment, does that mean you wish Wizards wouldn't print cards that good because they'll become too expensive? Or should a card like Jace have been a regular rare? Although many things are about skill, you have to have the money to compete in the first place. It doesn't matter if you're a better driver than Sebastian Vettel, if you don't have the money for a car, your skill behind the wheel is irrelevant. Other formats aren't much more expensive? The most recent Standard decks I've built have been $200-300. The most recent Modern deck I built cost $1,200. The most recent Legacy deck I built cost a little over $2,000. Please tell me how Modern and Legacy aren't "much more expensive" than standard. I spent more on a playset of Goyfs or Forces than I spent on my entire type 2 deck. As far as complaining about $40 mythics, how many mythics out of a given set EVER make it to that price? Let's take a look at Innistrad for example. The set just came out, prices will be the highest right now. There is ONE mythic rare in the set over $25. Every other card in the set is $25 or less with the exception of snapcaster, which is a rare, so by your logic a $30 snapcaster should be no big deal because it's the mythics that are ruining everything, right?
Wotc controls the power level of the cards, people don't just aribtrairly chose cards to buy, they buy the powerful ones.
Oh ok, so I guess Wizards should stop making such good cards like Goyf and JTMS, then nobody will want to pay a bunch of money for a single card. That's much better for the game of Magic, right?
No you make mythics big splashy causal cards, with lots of flavor and little tournament impact, and give rares the highest percentage of tournament cards.
I think that's a horrible idea and defeats the purpose of mythic rares in the first place. BTW, did you know Magic does NOT base the way they design cards on how much they think a card might fetch in the future secondary market? If they did, it would be horrible for the game as a whole. They need to design their sets based on the mechanics. They will never purposely design mythics as casual cards to make them cheaper because that's just plain stupid. They will also never ban a card because of cost, which would also be stupid.
1. Gasoline price is not due to inflation
2. Inflation does not double prices after 3 years.
Maybe using gasoline was a bad example, but yes inflation has something to do with secondhand market prices. The prices haven't doubled in 3 years. Goyf, when he was still standard legal, fetched as high of a price as any standard legal card right now. A tier 1 standard deck 3 years ago cost about the same as it does now, maybe a few bucks more for the planeswalkers.
This is the complain about standard prices thread, if all you want to do is come here say stop whining about prices and offer no valid points why don't you just start a "complain about, the complain about standard prices" thread.
I think I offered some extremely valid points.
a) WoTC isn't responsible for JTMS and Goyf costing nearly $100 on ebay
b) there is nothing wrong with mythic rarity or the way mythics are designed
c) anything competitive takes money to win, Magic is no exception
d) a tier 1 standard deck can be built for cheap, especially compared to EVERY OTHER FORMAT, so why all the complaining about prices?
I stopped by this thread to see what the hell everybody was complaining about. I recently built a Legacy NO BANT and a Modern Zoo, so I was kind of surprised to see this many people complaining about $25 mythics.
I decided to put together a deck similiar to the mono red deck that won indy. 24 hours after deciding to build this deck, I had 61 out of 75 cards without spending a dime. This is just from going through my binders and trading with a couple friends. The remaining 14 cards I need can be purchased for less than $100. Once again, this is the deck that won a major tournament recently. If you can't afford to spend $80 on a deck, you should probably not be spending any money on Magic in the first place.
The price is set by the secondary market after WotC determines its supply.
This is why you don't see 20 dollar commons, 15 dollar uncommons, 50 dollar rares in standard.
WotC sets a card at a certain rarity and the price for it will go up or down accordingly.
Or do you think Jace would've ever hit $100 if it was printed at the common level?
I fail to see what this has to do with my point. I understand how rarity affects the value of a card, but thanks for that helpful information. None of your post has anything to do with the point I was trying to make. WoTC determines the rarity and supply of the cards, the public determines the demand and what prices they sell at in the secondhand market. My point, in short, is that WoTC has NOTHING TO DO WITH JTMS costing $100 other than the fact that he is a mythic rare. The fact that he's a mythic rare alone doesn't make him $100, as there are plenty of mythic rares that are under $5. WoTC doesn't determine the selling price of JTMS any more, the public does. To blame Wizards for making Jace a mythic rare is kind of ridiculous. What should they do, make the commons the most powerful cards and make mythics 1/1 do nothings? I'm not sure I understand what point you're trying to make here.
Wasn't it just a few years ago that the most valuable card might be 10 bucks?
Or was I that out of touch with the value of cards back then? I rarely buy singles because I enjoy opening boosters too much. (I know it's more expensive) It wasn't till I started selling all my extra cards on Ebay that I noticed how expensive some cards can be.
Wasn't it just a few years ago that gas was $1.75 a gallon and McDonalds $1 menu had things that were $1 instead of $1.29? It's called inflation, and I don't know when people started thinking that Magic cards were immune to it. We're just lucky that booster packs have only gone up $1 in the past 15 years.
Haha exactly. If you don't like the prices of Magic cards, guess what? YOU DON'T HAVE TO PLAY MAGIC! Nobody is forcing you to buy these expensive cards. You can either have a Tier 1 deck or you can have a cheap deck. If you want both, you're playing the wrong game. Magic is like anything else that's competitive, it takes money to win. I don't like spending $1,500 on a set of tires that need replaced 2-3 times a season. I can either decide to stop racing, or cough up the money for the tires. Calling Yokohama and whining isn't going to accomplish anything.
Any other updates about MTGF? I always use ebay. I don't really see a reason to use online vendors over ebay. You can get the best deal, you can find cards that vendors never have in stock, and you can use feedback to see what kind of person you're buying from. I'm just curious to see if MTGF has changed any of their practices after having people all over the Magic community bashing them for a over a year.
When are they reprinting Snapcaster Mage? He's too expensive.
LMAO. This guy makes a good point. Who decides what makes a Magic card "expensive"? If the $70-100 cards get reprinted, everybody will ***** about $50-70 cards. If they reprint those staples, people will be complaining about $40-50 cards. An "expensive" card is all relative. To somebody who plays Magic 7 days a week and plays in major tournaments, 4 goyfs isn't a big investment. To somebody who just got into Magic and buys a few booster packs on Friday night, goyf is very expensive. I just don't understand why people think it's WotC's responsibility to control a secondhand market on cards they don't even produce any more. If I were WotC, I would rather keep the people happy that have spent thousands of dollars on out of print cards both new and secondhand instead of reprinting any card that gets "expensive". People who paid a lot of money for a card don't want to see the value cut in half because of a reprint. I'm just trying to make people see the other side of the coin here. Not everybody is in the boat of "I can't afford Goyf/shocklands so reprint them." Many people are in the boat of "I spent a TON of money on Goyfs and shocklands so hopefully they don't reprint them and kill the price."
I was trying out Scute Mob but after playtesting more with it last night I'm not a big fan. I might take him out for lavamancer and try that with the bushwhacker. I like bushwhacker because you can play a nacatl and bushwhacker kicked to finish somebody off. Often times that +1 is the difference between finishing somebody off that turn or drawing the game out, especially in the mirror and against affinity.
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.
4x Arid Mesa
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Marsh Flats
1x Scalding Tarn
2x Sacred Foundry
2x Stomping Ground
2x Temple Garden
1x Godless Shrine
1x Breeding Pool
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Plains
1x Forest
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Knight of the Reliquary
2x Snapcaster Mage
4x Loam Lion
2x Qasali Pridemage
Spells - 16
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Path to Exile
4x Lightning Helix
4x Tribal Flames
Planeswalkers - 2
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3x Ancient Grudge
2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Gaddock Teeg
2x Mindbreak Trap
2x Geist of Saint Traft
2x Deathmark
1x Rule of Law
1x Sword of War and Peace
4x Arid Mesa
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Marsh Flats
2x Sacred Foundry
2x Stomping Ground
2x Temple Garden
1x Forest
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Blood Crypt
1x Plains
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Steam Vents
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Knight of the Reliquary
2x Geist of Saint Traft
2x Kird Ape
2x Loam Lion
2x Qasali Pridemage
Spells - 16
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Path to Exile
4x Lightning Helix
4x Molten Rain
Planeswalkers - 2
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3x Ancient Grudge
2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Gaddock Teeg
2x Rule of Law
2x Snapcaster Mage
2x Gideon Jura
1x Behemoth Sledge
1x Trygon Predator
I swapped a mountain for a blood crypt to make tribal flames do 1 extra damage. Lavamancer came out for Geist of Saint Traft. Ranger of Eos came out of the side for Snapcaster.
I'm also thinking about taking Gideon out of the sideboard for something like spell pierce or surgical extraction. I almost never side him in so I think it's time for him to go.
Budget is not a consideration, I just want the best zoo deck possible. I've already spent over $1,000 on cards for this deck so another $50 for snapcasters isn't a big deal. I just like Geist of Saint Traft better in that slot. I especially like the idea of attacking with geist and using Elspeth's +3/+3 flying buff on geist. Then you have a 4/4 flyer and a 5/5 flyer attacking at once plus whatever else you're throwing at them. That should be enough to deliver lethal by turn 5/6. I will test it with geist and with snapcaster and let you guys know what happens. I already have 4 colors in my mana base so I might also take out a mountain for a blood crypt as I rarely get pathed more than twice in a game.
No, because I feel there are better cards for this deck. He's a great card in almost any deck, but I just don't think he quite fits into what zoo wants to do in this format.
Only if you want to run a 5 color mana base. Adding different shocklands that hurt me in other ways but make tribal flames do 1 extra damage the one or two times a game I cast it doesn't make much sense to me. If you want to a run a 5 color modern zoo, sure tribal flames is insanely powerful. However, good luck getting the rest of your deck consistent enough to top 8 at major events.
1. Interaction with Goyf, KotR, Loam Lion, Kird Ape, and Steppe Lynx
As soon as you crack a fetch, you can play Goyf as a 1/2. Every time you crack a fetch, KotR gets pumped up. The shocklands have the basic land types, which give the +1/+2 to your Lion/Ape or +2/+2 to the Lynx. Without Goyf, KotR, and Lion/Ape/Lynx, you really don't have a zoo any more.
2. Interaction with tribal flames
It's easy to hit for 3/4 damage early in the game with tribal flames running shocklands and fetches. It will take longer without them. If you don't run tribal flames it isn't a big deal but more and more zoo decks are running it.
3. Mana Fixing
If you run fetches and shocks, you can choose which dual land to grab when you need it. This will set up your plays 2-3 turns ahead of time so you never have to worry about having the right mana for your hand.
4. Speed
The deck can hit hard and fast because of turn 1-3 mana fixing. By turn 3, you should have your Lions/Apes pumped up and be able to play a KotR as a 4/4 or 5/5.
Out of the 13 zoo decks that finished with 15 points or better at Worlds Modern, there wasn't a single M10 or Innistrad dual. Each deck contained at least 8 fetches and at least 6-8 shocks. I wonder why? The bottom line is, there are way too many key cards in this format that rely on lands having the basic land subtypes which M10/Innistrad lands don't have.
What do you think about another Trygon predator in the sideboard or a sword of war and peace or feast and famine?
1x Plains
1x Mountain
1x Forest
4x Arid Mesa
4x Misty Rainforest
3x Stomping Ground
3x Sacred Foundry
3x Temple Garden
For creatures, replace woolly thoctar with KotR. Wild Nacatl is banned, replace that with Tarmogoyf (since Tarmogoyf is an AUTOMATIC 4 of in any modern zoo build).
In the spell department, swap journey to nowhere for path to exile. Take out Incinerate for Lightning Helix. You will need the lifegain with the shocklands and fetches.
The planeswalker slot in this deck is used to break board stalemates against another zoo or affinity deck. I don't see how Ajani does that. Anything that he can kill can be removed with bolt/path/helix/incinerate/journey etc. Gideon and Elspeth are the best planeswalkers for this spot IMO. If you want to reliably hit them, you need 2 in your main deck.
To make the extra slots for another land and another planeswalker, try removing 1 pridemage and 1 bloodbraid (or 2 of either depending on which you think will help the most in your metagame).
What is the sideboard?
4x Arid Mesa
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Marsh Flats
2x Sacred Foundry
2x Stomping Ground
2x Temple Garden
1x Forest
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Mountain
1x Plains
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Steam Vents
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Knight of the Reliquary
2x Grim Lavamancer
2x Kird Ape
2x Loam Lion
2x Qasali Pridemage
Spells - 16
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Path to Exile
4x Lightning Helix
4x Molten Rain
Planeswalkers - 2
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3x Ancient Grudge
2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Gaddock Teeg
2x Rule of Law
2x Ranger of Eos
2x Gideon Jura
1x Behemoth Sledge
1x Trygon Predator
I'm thinking of taking out the Rangers and Sledge in the side for another Trygon Predator and a couple swords. What do you guys think?
Oh ok, so I guess Wizards should stop making such good cards like Goyf and JTMS, then nobody will want to pay a bunch of money for a single card. That's much better for the game of Magic, right?
I think that's a horrible idea and defeats the purpose of mythic rares in the first place. BTW, did you know Magic does NOT base the way they design cards on how much they think a card might fetch in the future secondary market? If they did, it would be horrible for the game as a whole. They need to design their sets based on the mechanics. They will never purposely design mythics as casual cards to make them cheaper because that's just plain stupid. They will also never ban a card because of cost, which would also be stupid.
Maybe using gasoline was a bad example, but yes inflation has something to do with secondhand market prices. The prices haven't doubled in 3 years. Goyf, when he was still standard legal, fetched as high of a price as any standard legal card right now. A tier 1 standard deck 3 years ago cost about the same as it does now, maybe a few bucks more for the planeswalkers.
I think I offered some extremely valid points.
a) WoTC isn't responsible for JTMS and Goyf costing nearly $100 on ebay
b) there is nothing wrong with mythic rarity or the way mythics are designed
c) anything competitive takes money to win, Magic is no exception
d) a tier 1 standard deck can be built for cheap, especially compared to EVERY OTHER FORMAT, so why all the complaining about prices?
I stopped by this thread to see what the hell everybody was complaining about. I recently built a Legacy NO BANT and a Modern Zoo, so I was kind of surprised to see this many people complaining about $25 mythics.
I decided to put together a deck similiar to the mono red deck that won indy. 24 hours after deciding to build this deck, I had 61 out of 75 cards without spending a dime. This is just from going through my binders and trading with a couple friends. The remaining 14 cards I need can be purchased for less than $100. Once again, this is the deck that won a major tournament recently. If you can't afford to spend $80 on a deck, you should probably not be spending any money on Magic in the first place.
I fail to see what this has to do with my point. I understand how rarity affects the value of a card, but thanks for that helpful information. None of your post has anything to do with the point I was trying to make. WoTC determines the rarity and supply of the cards, the public determines the demand and what prices they sell at in the secondhand market. My point, in short, is that WoTC has NOTHING TO DO WITH JTMS costing $100 other than the fact that he is a mythic rare. The fact that he's a mythic rare alone doesn't make him $100, as there are plenty of mythic rares that are under $5. WoTC doesn't determine the selling price of JTMS any more, the public does. To blame Wizards for making Jace a mythic rare is kind of ridiculous. What should they do, make the commons the most powerful cards and make mythics 1/1 do nothings? I'm not sure I understand what point you're trying to make here.
Wasn't it just a few years ago that gas was $1.75 a gallon and McDonalds $1 menu had things that were $1 instead of $1.29? It's called inflation, and I don't know when people started thinking that Magic cards were immune to it. We're just lucky that booster packs have only gone up $1 in the past 15 years.
Haha exactly. If you don't like the prices of Magic cards, guess what? YOU DON'T HAVE TO PLAY MAGIC! Nobody is forcing you to buy these expensive cards. You can either have a Tier 1 deck or you can have a cheap deck. If you want both, you're playing the wrong game. Magic is like anything else that's competitive, it takes money to win. I don't like spending $1,500 on a set of tires that need replaced 2-3 times a season. I can either decide to stop racing, or cough up the money for the tires. Calling Yokohama and whining isn't going to accomplish anything.
LMAO. This guy makes a good point. Who decides what makes a Magic card "expensive"? If the $70-100 cards get reprinted, everybody will ***** about $50-70 cards. If they reprint those staples, people will be complaining about $40-50 cards. An "expensive" card is all relative. To somebody who plays Magic 7 days a week and plays in major tournaments, 4 goyfs isn't a big investment. To somebody who just got into Magic and buys a few booster packs on Friday night, goyf is very expensive. I just don't understand why people think it's WotC's responsibility to control a secondhand market on cards they don't even produce any more. If I were WotC, I would rather keep the people happy that have spent thousands of dollars on out of print cards both new and secondhand instead of reprinting any card that gets "expensive". People who paid a lot of money for a card don't want to see the value cut in half because of a reprint. I'm just trying to make people see the other side of the coin here. Not everybody is in the boat of "I can't afford Goyf/shocklands so reprint them." Many people are in the boat of "I spent a TON of money on Goyfs and shocklands so hopefully they don't reprint them and kill the price."