Preface
Hello everyone, I have been playing zoo and variants of it in modern for the better part of 5 years. I took a break for about 9 months due to school, but am back for the summer. I have noticed that nobody thinks big zoo is playable in modern anymore, I don't think that is the case, but need help figuring out the best kind of list.
Early modern zoo lists
This is Josh Utter-Laton's Counter-Cat decklist from way back in Pro Tour Philadelphia 2011.
This is not by any means the first zoo list in modern, but it is, in my opinion, the most important zoo list of its era. Wild Nacatl and Green Sun's Zenith were some of the cards banned after this pro tour, and Wild Nacatl was unbanned a few years ago but Green Sun's Zenith still remains banned.
Of course, the modern format looks nothing like it did back then. The point I would like the bring up is that, non-tradiditional lists and outside the box thinking is what made this deck work. Bant Charm is a very unsuspecting card, but allowed the list to flourish among a sea of combo decks.
This is a fairly stock list, and with varying modifications, I played a list very similar to this for a few years with great success. Unfortunately, as aforementioned, this is no longer the case.
The strategy:
The idea with this Naya Big Zoo style deck is to play big creates, each that the opponent has to deal with, and package that with a removal suite to force creatures through or eliminate key creatures from your opponent's board.
The standard deck breakdown is:
Problem Decks:
Zoo is a very fair deck, and cannot compete with even a deck like humans, which when compared to other decks, is quite fair itself. What made Utter-Laton's Counter Cat zoo so good is Green Sun's Zenith. This card allowed zoo to act as a toolbox against the unfair decks and react accordingly.
What made the deck playable a year ago was the lack of super unfair modern decks in favor of a more control based meta, and zoo has plenty of cards to fight those style of decks. Pod and twin were banned, and zoo's efficient creates could keep pace with death's shadow, creature's toolbox, and other similar decks simply by flat out outclassing their creatures. There was even a period where I played a "huge" zoo list with 6 cmc creatures at the top end, such as Dragonlord Dromoka, Inferno Titan, and it worked much better than it should've.
There are a number of stable cards in what has become known as Naya Big Zoo, many of them, as you will see, are geared toward resiliency above all else, with a few, more specific, hate cards thrown in.
Re-evalulating the core cards:
Ah Wild Nacatl. Not much to say here. Still a 3/3 for 1. Note that you really should be in Naya colors to play this cat.
Noble Hierarch is still the best mana dork. Again, not much to say here. Note that Birds of Paradise may be better depending on what colors the list is, mana requirements, etc.
Tarmogoyf is still good, but there may be a better card for zoo. Greenwheel Liberator is effectively a 4/3 for 2. Goyf, in zoo, is a 3/4 for 2. Pick your poison, but know there are options. With Lightning Bolt on the decline, I personally opt for Greenwheel Liberator, but I wouldn't say either one is strictly better right now.
Hear me out, but I believe it is a mistake to include this card mainboard, and it is questionable at best in the sideboard. This card is too slow for what big zoo needs to be doing. This is a creature that requires at least 3-4 mana to be good, and is even worse when played alongside Tarmogoyf. Scavenging Ooze may be good against graveyard-based decks (which there are a lot of right now), but there are better cards to fight them than Scavenging Ooze. Four mana is way too much for a 4/4 and gain 2 life in modern (not to mention it dies to lightning bolt and the others I know of don't). More on those other cards later.
Qsali Pridemage is another card that has fallen behind recently, mainly due to Knight of Autumn. Still decent, especially when paired with Noble Hierarch, this can often get in for 4 damage.
Voice of Resurgence is a meta dependant card I am reluctant to include. This card doesn't beat down enough for 2, but is better against BGx and control decks like other cards on this list. Use accordingly.
Knight of the Reliquary is still one of the best cards in zoo and possibly one of the most underrated cards in modern. Awesome creature, and can easily be abused, more on that later.
Loxodon Smiter is good. This is a meta dependant card, good against BGx, and counterspell decks. Good to include if local meta is highly saturated with these archetypes.
Kitchen Finks is... meh. It's good, but people give it too much credit. Zoo is a beatdown deck, and including this a lot of the time just makes the inevitable loss slower. However, this card is very good with Wilt-Leaf Liege, and not bad against the same decks Loxodon Smiter is good against.
Although Knight of Autumn is a newcomer, but I chose to include it anyway. This card combines Kitchen Finks and Qsali Pridemage, while also being a fine 4/3 beater if its utility isn't needed.
Elspeth, Knight Errant is one of Brian Kibler's favorite magic cards, and for good reason. This card, in my opinion, is underrated and can steal games. A good 2 of include, but not more, you only ever need 1.
Bloodbraid Elf is not bad, its a good card, but as the meta is right now, I have yet to be convinced that this is the best 4cmc creature that you can play. A very safe 4cmc creature, perhaps it is because I don't like leaving things to chance. Could be wrong about this one.
I caught on to this card early and loved it for a few months. I have cast it out since due to the deckbuilding requirements it imposes on deckbuilding. I feel the same about Collected Company as I do with Bloodbraid Elf, not bad, but I think there are better options.
Thinking about re-defining the archtype
In order to redefine the archetype I want to pose a series of questions, and then propose answers to these questions in the form of decks.
Can a big zoo deck be sped up but still maintain its late game staying power?
Can resiliency be increased toward control and midrange decks?
How can the combo matchup be improved?
Is there anything that can be done to add "unfair", or synergistic elements into the big zoo lists?
Having looked through just about every creature available in modern, and looking through newly released sets, there hasn't really been any new, very impactful cards printed for the traditional Naya Big Zoo deck to keep it alive.
As such, I have been exploring synergies, and while these shells may not look exactly like the "old" zoo decks, they have the same playstyle and theory to them. "Kill their stuff and smash them in the face with big creatures."
Redesigns and potential solutions
Option 1: 4 color Artificer Zoo
Core of the deck:
The idea behind this variant is to use cards like Pentad Prism and Darksteel Citadel to power up Ensoul artifact and Shrapnel Blast. Effectively a 5/5 indestructible with what is basically haste should be good enough for modern, right? Right? Turns out, from my experience, yes, it is. Short of Path to Exile, Darksteel Citadel with an Ensoul Artifactensoul artifact on it is hard to get rid of. Grafdigger's Cage is a flex spot, you may have here any 0 or 1 cmc artifact that has a good effect like this.
Yes, I know there are more than 15 sideboard cards, I don't have any clue what the best sideboard is yet. Just some options there.
The deck should speak for itself, but to point out a few things very quickly.
Yes, the mana can be a little wonky sometimes, but works more often than you might think
There are no traditional 2 mana creatures, Ensoul Artifact and Pentad Prism are in the 2CMC slot, which is the hardest slot to fill with good creatures.
I am still playing around with the 4CMC and 5CMC slots. Pentad Prism makes casting 5 mana creatures very easy, so it may be correct to go up to 3 or 4 of them.
Option 2: Dark Zoo
This deck is probably the most experimental of the few that I have put together, but has shown promising results. The idea is to play a 4 color (3 colors could work too) deck, which is Naya big zoo splashing black, and play Phyrexian Obliterator in it.
First, if there is a reason to play black, it is for this card. It is surprisingly easy to cast this in a deck playing 4 copies of Knight of the Reliquary, who can just go fetch out Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to cast the obliterator.
Second, Phyrexian Obliterator is a horror. It DOES NOT GET BOUNCED BY THING IN THE ICE. This card on its own ruins the arclight phoenix deck, and many others as well.
Third, Knight of the Reliquary can get a card most people forgot about. Its called Arena (yes, this card is legal in modern). This allows you to make your Phyrexian Obliterator fight an opponents creature every turn until they either lose all their permanents, kill the Phyrexian Obliterator, or kill Arena. You can add in dromoka's command to have the obliterator fight even more stuff.
Here is one of the decklists (I have many variants)
This deck has a kind of turn 3 combo in it... under the right circumstances. Strangleroot Geist, Pelt Collector, Eldritch Evoltion, and some lands are all that's needed for this.
Here is the "combo"
This will total 16 damage by turn 3, if the opponent damages themselves with lands enough, it is possible to kill on turn 3. At the very least, it will put them in range of a Collective Brutality, or likely a Siege Rhino trigger.
This line will often not be preferable, however. Turns out, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet totally shuts down anything with a graveyard, and can easily win the game on its own.
Similarly, Anafenza, the Foremost is a 2 of, and hates graveyards as well as being a 4/4, and can make other creatures bigger. Much better than Scavenging Ooze
The issue with this deck is that aside from Strangleroot Geist, there is no great target for Eldritch Evolution. Voice of Resurgence is the only other 2 CMC creature with recursion that I know of (that doesn't totally suck). If another 2CMC creature is out there that would be great to bin to Eldritch Evolution, this deck would get much better.
This deck is still not bad, and certainly worth a try. Very fun, and definitely better than stock Naya Big Zoo right now.
Option 3: Treehouse Zoo
This deck is based off of an old extended deck, which is here:
Turn 4: Activate man-land if needed, swing with Doran the Siege Tower and 2 Treefolk Harbingers, dealing 17 by turn 4 (without the other mystery creature or man land).
Of course, now we have upgrades of half the cards in this list. The most important ones being Steppe Lynx to replace Loam Lion, and Slaughter the Strong, which is a 1 sided board wipe in this deck.
Here is my list:
Slaughter the Strong is an absolutely busted card in this deck. This by itself solves many of the issues this deck has, and thus can get away with less remove, and more discard spells. What that exact ratio is, I'm not yet sure. Kin-Tree Invocation could either be an all-star, or a flop. Tarmogoyf might be better, especially because of the discard spells. The dream is a turn 1 Steppe Lynx into a fetch land and making a 5/5 for 2 mana with Kin-Tree Invocation, but how often that will actually happen is a mystery.
I wanted to post the list I have had the most success with. I stopped playing this list about a year ago, but in case the meta ever shifts back to where it was, this list was very good to me. 4-0'd a lot of FNM's with it (and this LGS was no pushover either).
I may post an update after we get Modern Horizons. It will be either very good or very bad for zoo. Maybe we get crop rotation for easy Phyrexian Obliterators? Unfortunately, big zoo doesn't exist in legacy to my knowledge, so we will see.
Established Lists - Spring 2019
Preface
Hello everyone, I have been playing zoo and variants of it in modern for the better part of 5 years. I took a break for about 9 months due to school, but am back for the summer. I have noticed that nobody thinks big zoo is playable in modern anymore, I don't think that is the case, but need help figuring out the best kind of list.
Early modern zoo lists
This is Josh Utter-Laton's Counter-Cat decklist from way back in Pro Tour Philadelphia 2011.
4 Arid Mesa
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Marsh Flats
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
2 Stomping Ground
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple Garden
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl
Spells:
3 Bant Charm
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Qasali Pridemage
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Flashfreeze
2 Gideon Jura
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Rule of Law
3 Unified Will
This is not by any means the first zoo list in modern, but it is, in my opinion, the most important zoo list of its era. Wild Nacatl and Green Sun's Zenith were some of the cards banned after this pro tour, and Wild Nacatl was unbanned a few years ago but Green Sun's Zenith still remains banned.
Of course, the modern format looks nothing like it did back then. The point I would like the bring up is that, non-tradiditional lists and outside the box thinking is what made this deck work. Bant Charm is a very unsuspecting card, but allowed the list to flourish among a sea of combo decks.
"Traditional" Style Big Zoo Decks
1 Birds of Paradise
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Loxodon Smiter
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Voice of Resurgence
4 Wild Nacatl
3 Collected Company
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
Land (22)
2 Arid Mesa
2 Forest
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
This is a fairly stock list, and with varying modifications, I played a list very similar to this for a few years with great success. Unfortunately, as aforementioned, this is no longer the case.
The strategy:
The idea with this Naya Big Zoo style deck is to play big creates, each that the opponent has to deal with, and package that with a removal suite to force creatures through or eliminate key creatures from your opponent's board.
The standard deck breakdown is:
The Issue With Big Zoo
Problem Decks:
Zoo is a very fair deck, and cannot compete with even a deck like humans, which when compared to other decks, is quite fair itself. What made Utter-Laton's Counter Cat zoo so good is Green Sun's Zenith. This card allowed zoo to act as a toolbox against the unfair decks and react accordingly.
What made the deck playable a year ago was the lack of super unfair modern decks in favor of a more control based meta, and zoo has plenty of cards to fight those style of decks. Pod and twin were banned, and zoo's efficient creates could keep pace with death's shadow, creature's toolbox, and other similar decks simply by flat out outclassing their creatures. There was even a period where I played a "huge" zoo list with 6 cmc creatures at the top end, such as Dragonlord Dromoka, Inferno Titan, and it worked much better than it should've.
There are a number of stable cards in what has become known as Naya Big Zoo, many of them, as you will see, are geared toward resiliency above all else, with a few, more specific, hate cards thrown in.
Re-evalulating the core cards:
Ah Wild Nacatl. Not much to say here. Still a 3/3 for 1. Note that you really should be in Naya colors to play this cat.
Noble Hierarch is still the best mana dork. Again, not much to say here. Note that Birds of Paradise may be better depending on what colors the list is, mana requirements, etc.
Tarmogoyf is still good, but there may be a better card for zoo. Greenwheel Liberator is effectively a 4/3 for 2. Goyf, in zoo, is a 3/4 for 2. Pick your poison, but know there are options. With Lightning Bolt on the decline, I personally opt for Greenwheel Liberator, but I wouldn't say either one is strictly better right now.
Hear me out, but I believe it is a mistake to include this card mainboard, and it is questionable at best in the sideboard. This card is too slow for what big zoo needs to be doing. This is a creature that requires at least 3-4 mana to be good, and is even worse when played alongside Tarmogoyf. Scavenging Ooze may be good against graveyard-based decks (which there are a lot of right now), but there are better cards to fight them than Scavenging Ooze. Four mana is way too much for a 4/4 and gain 2 life in modern (not to mention it dies to lightning bolt and the others I know of don't). More on those other cards later.
Qsali Pridemage is another card that has fallen behind recently, mainly due to Knight of Autumn. Still decent, especially when paired with Noble Hierarch, this can often get in for 4 damage.
Voice of Resurgence is a meta dependant card I am reluctant to include. This card doesn't beat down enough for 2, but is better against BGx and control decks like other cards on this list. Use accordingly.
Knight of the Reliquary is still one of the best cards in zoo and possibly one of the most underrated cards in modern. Awesome creature, and can easily be abused, more on that later.
Loxodon Smiter is good. This is a meta dependant card, good against BGx, and counterspell decks. Good to include if local meta is highly saturated with these archetypes.
Kitchen Finks is... meh. It's good, but people give it too much credit. Zoo is a beatdown deck, and including this a lot of the time just makes the inevitable loss slower. However, this card is very good with Wilt-Leaf Liege, and not bad against the same decks Loxodon Smiter is good against.
Although Knight of Autumn is a newcomer, but I chose to include it anyway. This card combines Kitchen Finks and Qsali Pridemage, while also being a fine 4/3 beater if its utility isn't needed.
Wilt-Leaf Liege is still a fine card. Makes Kitchen Finks, Voice of Resurgance, Loxodon Smiter, Qsali Pridemage, and Knight of Autumn absolutly rediculous. Don't forget the little kid abzan deck that was running around a few years ago.
Elspeth, Knight Errant is one of Brian Kibler's favorite magic cards, and for good reason. This card, in my opinion, is underrated and can steal games. A good 2 of include, but not more, you only ever need 1.
Bloodbraid Elf is not bad, its a good card, but as the meta is right now, I have yet to be convinced that this is the best 4cmc creature that you can play. A very safe 4cmc creature, perhaps it is because I don't like leaving things to chance. Could be wrong about this one.
I caught on to this card early and loved it for a few months. I have cast it out since due to the deckbuilding requirements it imposes on deckbuilding. I feel the same about Collected Company as I do with Bloodbraid Elf, not bad, but I think there are better options.
Thinking about re-defining the archtype
In order to redefine the archetype I want to pose a series of questions, and then propose answers to these questions in the form of decks.
Having looked through just about every creature available in modern, and looking through newly released sets, there hasn't really been any new, very impactful cards printed for the traditional Naya Big Zoo deck to keep it alive.
As such, I have been exploring synergies, and while these shells may not look exactly like the "old" zoo decks, they have the same playstyle and theory to them. "Kill their stuff and smash them in the face with big creatures."
Redesigns and potential solutions
Option 1: 4 color Artificer Zoo
Core of the deck:
The idea behind this variant is to use cards like Pentad Prism and Darksteel Citadel to power up Ensoul artifact and Shrapnel Blast. Effectively a 5/5 indestructible with what is basically haste should be good enough for modern, right? Right? Turns out, from my experience, yes, it is. Short of Path to Exile, Darksteel Citadel with an Ensoul Artifactensoul artifact on it is hard to get rid of.
Grafdigger's Cage is a flex spot, you may have here any 0 or 1 cmc artifact that has a good effect like this.
Here is the most recent decklist I have played:
2 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Pentad Prism
Creature (17)
1 Noble Hierarch
4 Toolcraft Exemplar
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Verdurous Gearhulk
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
Enchantment (4)
4 Ensoul Artifact
Instant (10)
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
3 Path to Exile
2 Shrapnel Blast
3 Arid Mesa
4 Darksteel Citadel
1 Forest
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Kessig Wolf Run
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
4 Windswept Heath
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Damping Sphere
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Path to Exile
2 Pithing Needle
4 Spell Queller
2 Spellskite
2 Tormod's Crypt
Yes, I know there are more than 15 sideboard cards, I don't have any clue what the best sideboard is yet. Just some options there.
The deck should speak for itself, but to point out a few things very quickly.
Option 2: Dark Zoo
This deck is probably the most experimental of the few that I have put together, but has shown promising results. The idea is to play a 4 color (3 colors could work too) deck, which is Naya big zoo splashing black, and play Phyrexian Obliterator in it.
Let's talk for a second about Phyrexian Obliterator
First, if there is a reason to play black, it is for this card. It is surprisingly easy to cast this in a deck playing 4 copies of Knight of the Reliquary, who can just go fetch out Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to cast the obliterator.
Second, Phyrexian Obliterator is a horror. It DOES NOT GET BOUNCED BY THING IN THE ICE. This card on its own ruins the arclight phoenix deck, and many others as well.
Third, Knight of the Reliquary can get a card most people forgot about. Its called Arena (yes, this card is legal in modern). This allows you to make your Phyrexian Obliterator fight an opponents creature every turn until they either lose all their permanents, kill the Phyrexian Obliterator, or kill Arena. You can add in dromoka's command to have the obliterator fight even more stuff.
Here is one of the decklists (I have many variants)
2 Anafenza, the Foremost
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Pelt Collector
1 Phyrexian Obliterator
1 Siege Rhino
4 Strangleroot Geist
1 Surrak, the Hunt Caller
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Dromoka's Command
2 Path to Exile
Sorcery (6)
3 Collective Brutality
3 Eldritch Evolution
Land (23)
1 Arena
2 Forest
1 Gavony Township
2 Godless Shrine
2 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
This deck has a kind of turn 3 combo in it... under the right circumstances. Strangleroot Geist, Pelt Collector, Eldritch Evoltion, and some lands are all that's needed for this.
Here is the "combo"
This will total 16 damage by turn 3, if the opponent damages themselves with lands enough, it is possible to kill on turn 3. At the very least, it will put them in range of a Collective Brutality, or likely a Siege Rhino trigger.
This line will often not be preferable, however. Turns out, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet totally shuts down anything with a graveyard, and can easily win the game on its own.
Similarly, Anafenza, the Foremost is a 2 of, and hates graveyards as well as being a 4/4, and can make other creatures bigger. Much better than Scavenging Ooze
Eldritch Evolution's are included to search for Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Phyrexian Obliterator, and occasionally, Surrak, the Hunt Caller, as well as any sideboard bullets like Linvala, Keeper of Silence.
The issue with this deck is that aside from Strangleroot Geist, there is no great target for Eldritch Evolution. Voice of Resurgence is the only other 2 CMC creature with recursion that I know of (that doesn't totally suck). If another 2CMC creature is out there that would be great to bin to Eldritch Evolution, this deck would get much better.
This deck is still not bad, and certainly worth a try. Very fun, and definitely better than stock Naya Big Zoo right now.
Option 3: Treehouse Zoo
This deck is based off of an old extended deck, which is here:
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Nameless Inversion
3 Duress
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Thoughtseize
Creatures:
1 Chameleon Colossus
3 Loam Lion
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Doran, the Siege Tower
4 Putrid Leech
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Treefolk Harbinger
1 Twilight Mire
1 Swamp
3 Reflecting Pool
3 Forest
3 Treetop Village
4 Murmuring Bosk
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Rule of Law
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Slaughter Pact
2 Zealous Persecution
2 Reveillark
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
This, as Brian Kibler described it is a turn 4 combo deck, and you only need 2 cards to go off. Here is the line:
Of course, now we have upgrades of half the cards in this list. The most important ones being Steppe Lynx to replace Loam Lion, and Slaughter the Strong, which is a 1 sided board wipe in this deck.
Here is my list:
1 Spellskite
Creature (20)
2 Anafenza, the Foremost
4 Doran, the Siege Tower
4 Skinshifter
4 Steppe Lynx
2 Tarmogoyf
4 Treefolk Harbinger
Instant (4)
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Fatal Push
Planeswalker (2)
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Sorcery (10)
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Kin-Tree Invocation
2 Slaughter the Strong
3 Thoughtseize
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
2 Marsh Flats
2 Murmuring Bosk
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Swamp
2 Temple Garden
1 Treetop Village
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Chameleon Colossus
2 Damping Sphere
2 Flaying Tendrils
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Reveillark
1 Slaughter the Strong
2 Spellskite
2 Stony Silence
2 Timely Reinforcements
Slaughter the Strong is an absolutely busted card in this deck. This by itself solves many of the issues this deck has, and thus can get away with less remove, and more discard spells. What that exact ratio is, I'm not yet sure.
Kin-Tree Invocation could either be an all-star, or a flop. Tarmogoyf might be better, especially because of the discard spells. The dream is a turn 1 Steppe Lynx into a fetch land and making a 5/5 for 2 mana with Kin-Tree Invocation, but how often that will actually happen is a mystery.
I have chosen not to go all in on Doran the Siege Tower because I think it is unnecessary, and restricts deck building too much. Keep in mind, Slaughter the Strong will let you have one 4 power creature. Perhaps Knight of the Reliquary can be slotted in instead of Courser of Kruphix, or maybe Anafenza, the Foremost.
Ending Notes
I wanted to post the list I have had the most success with. I stopped playing this list about a year ago, but in case the meta ever shifts back to where it was, this list was very good to me. 4-0'd a lot of FNM's with it (and this LGS was no pushover either).
2 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Loxodon Smiter
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl
Instant (12)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
Planeswalker (2)
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Arid Mesa
1 Breeding Pool
2 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Deafening Clarion
2 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Negate
1 Rest in Peace
4 Spell Queller
1 Stony Silence
1 Wilt-Leaf Liege
I may post an update after we get Modern Horizons. It will be either very good or very bad for zoo. Maybe we get crop rotation for easy Phyrexian Obliterators? Unfortunately, big zoo doesn't exist in legacy to my knowledge, so we will see.