The Electrostatic Pommeler version was affected by the rise in the use of Blessed Alliance. Although Blessed Alliance is seeing less play now, I think most have decided that Midrange RGx Energy is a better deck against the field. I'm playing RGu or Temur Energy and have had good results with the deck. Here's my current list, based on Shaun Mclaren's updated list:
I play a maindeck Island for various reasons: I used to play two Whirler Virtuoso because we seriously lack 3 Converted Mana Cost (CMC) creatures, the Virtuoso has a decent body [2/3] but mainly because it's a great energy dump that happens to create flyers, against which we are vulnerable. I prefer to play 21 lands because I play seven 4CMC cards which I really want to be able to cast on turn 3 if I have a Servant of the Conduit in play and on top of that I play 3 important 5 CMC cards. Having Oath of Nissa reduces mana problems to cast Chandra, Torch of Defiance and I've never had any problem casting my other spells (most of the times we just get the Island with Attune with Aether when we need it).
A breakdown of the cards, adding notes on how they fare against the best decks in the current meta:
Servant of the Conduit is extremely important on the early turns. It fixes our mana to cast any spell, gives us energy and lets us play Bristling Hydra or Chandra, Torch of Defiance on turn 3, which is devastating for our opponent if we are on the play, especially against UW Flash which would otherwise had stolen them with their Spell Queller.
Longtusk Cub could probably be our silent MVP. Although most of the times turn 2 Servant is the correct play, playing the Cub turn 2 on an clear board and start profiting the next turn can snowball to something the opponent can never recover from. It's a good late game draw (a 4/4 or 5/5 for 2 if you have unused energy) and can become difficult to remove once it goes bigger than 4/4 (Grasp of Darkness, Chandra, and many Harnessed Lightning can't kill him).
Voltaic Brawler great if we're going aggro, very good mid/late game once we add counters from Verdurous Gearhulk, and useful to crew Skysovereign, Consul Flagship from the sideboard. Having trample comes very handy when we need to get some damage through to kill planeswalkers or just direct damage to the opponent. Depending the matchup I find myself cutting some after sideboard.
Tireless Tracker I was very hesitant at first because it's more of a turn 4 than a turn 3 but the Tracker really gives the deck staying power with its card draw. Together with Chandra and Oath of Nissa (in my list), lets the deck overcome some of the card draw from decks like GB Delirium and gives us some advantage against other decks like RW or Mardu Vehicles which have limited card draw/manipulation. It fixes mana flood which I personally loathe. It may be possible that 3 is a correct number but given the lack of turn 3 plays I don't mind dropping one if I have nothing else to do, even if it gets killed right away. I take 2-3 out if I'm on the draw.
Bristling Hydra an All Star, just ask any opponent with a removal in it's hand staring at your 3 energy reserve. It's a nightmare to kill, once you have 6 energy it basically has protection from removal spells and if your opponent depends on Declaration Stone it will almost never hit him (UW Flash, RW/Mardu Vehicle).
Chandra, Torch of Defiance plays three different roles in the deck: removal, card advantage and ramp, more or less in that order. The ideal play is cast turn 3/4 to +1 and add two mana to cast one of our removals (Harnessed or Incendiary Flow. It's -3 is great to remove Spell Queller to get our card back, Selfless Spirit, Grim Flayer even if it has delirium, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet or in some very lucky and seldom cases an Archangel Avacyn; sadly it doesn't hit Ishkanah, Grafwidow. Chandra's other +1 (Exile to Cast/Damage) gives the deck late game with card advantage which is extremely important. I find 4 copies to be too much.
Verdurous Gearhulk grows our creatures, wins battles and, if it's the only creature in play, wins the game. One copy may be fine but I play the longer game with my list so I'd rather have two.
Nissa, Vital Force card advantage and a threat, but sometimes I feel it can't take me out of bad situations like facing flyers from UW Flash. As for now wouldn't play more than one.
Our removal suit Harnessed Lightning and Incendiary Flow allows us to play the control role and profitably clear most of the early threats from the big 3 decks (UW Flash, GB Delirium and Vehicles). Harnessed is the best of the two but Incendiary is able to clear cards like Selfless Spirit and Spell Queller, even if it's a turn later, with the added bonus of hitting Planeswalker, helping us end games with direct damage or invalidate some of the Dredge creatures.
Attune with Aether land tutor/fix, allows us to play 20/21 lands and gives us energy. Always 4.
Oath of Nissa card selection and mana fixing for our Planeswalker; works as pseudo 5th and 6th Attunes in turns 1 and 2 but are much better late game given that if you have 6+ lands it's never a dead draw. Many list don't run it but I find no reason not to, it shrinks our deck if what we want is to try to hit the same group of cards. Would play 2 or nothing.
Both Attune and Oath enable us to keep 1 land hands if we have Servant of the Conduit.
As for my sideboard: Galvanic Bombardment should always be 4 of, enables the deck to play strong control during the early turns of crucial matchups. Skysovereign, Consul Flagship is very good against flying creatures from UW Flash and dodges Spell Queller (and kills it when it enter the batterfield), and can block Archangel Avacyn. Weaver of Lightning kills a bunch of 1/1 Thopters and blocks Smuggler's Copter
The blue counter suite addresses three key vulnerabilities of the deck by not letting Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Aetherworks Marvel and Emrakul, the Promised End come into play (although Emrakul's ability resolves). It also profitably stops Liliana, The Last Hope but she's not that devastating against us. Some prefer the Fevered Visions suit, which could also be ok but haven't found the need for it. Arlinn Kord the +1/+1 and trample ability is good in the mirror and against busy boards given that half of our deck doesn't have evasion.
Hi all,
After being a passive reader for almost a year I decided to join the conversation to contribute my two cents to the Midrange Zoo archetype (call it Big Zoo or Naya Company).
I've been playing Naya Company for about a year and a half now to above average success and the Modern play level at my LGSs is well above average from what I’ve experienced at many other LGs I’ve visited in the States.
I think the conversations about Gruul Zoo / Bushwalker Zoo and Naya Company / Big Zoo should ideally deserve a different topic for each given how unrelated the archetypes are in their game play and card selection. The bad thing is that I fear if that happens Naya Company would be relegated to Developing Competitive.
In the Zoo-related spectrum, I believe there currently are 4 established competitive decks:
1. Burn, which for me is the fastest and most reliable (and I think the best option right now for any tournament)
2. Zooicide / Suicide Zoo / Death Shadows Aggro, which is more of a combo/aggro deck but I find it to be more inconsistent than burn.
3. Bushwalker Zoo, more of a linear aggro deck, but not as fast or combo-ish as Burn or Zooicide
4. Big Zoo (Naya Company or Domri Base), which is a straight Midrange deck, considerably slower than any of the previous three, not able to combo or have extremely fast draws (expect triple Wild Nacatl for turns 1-2) but has the best removal suite of modern (Lightning Bolt + Path to Exile). For now on I'll refer to this category as Big Zoo or Naya Company. As for Domri Rade-based decks I'm not as experienced on playing it.
That leaves Big Zoo in an awkward spot where:
a) You have to try to control faster decks (Burn, Infect, Merfolk, Elves, Zooicide, Bushwalker, etc) by either using as much removal as you can on your first turns or establishing a big enough board presence by hopefully having your turn one mana dork survive, playing a big 3 drop or Tarmogoyf + Wild Nacatl turn 2, and Collected Company in turn 3. With the amount of removal available this second option almost never happens and even if it does they tend to be so resilient and fast that it may not be enough.
b) You have to out-value other midrange/control decks which are better at controlling than us and technically, if they are playing black, could very efficiently out-value us with their one mana discard spells (even when we play Loxodon Smiter). It’s better when we face the lesser played blue-based control because of our can't-be-countered creatures and End-of-Turns Collected Company. I find that beating other midrange/control decks require very precise piloting of the deck and knowledge of every single card you play.
c) You have to control, out-race and/or hate some combo decks likes Breach, Abzan Company, Tron by removing some key permanents while establishing board presence and going full aggro. Especially for Tron, I feel you have to do everything at the same time. I find Tron to be our worst matchup by far (reason why I play two Ghost Quarter main deck).
Big Zoo's best attribute is its Sideboard. Most matchups can be heavily improved with SB, even Tron with a couple of timely played Blood Moon, but it leaves much to be said when the biggest strength of an archetype may be its Sideboard. I believe that very good decks excel because they have sideboards that help improve their main strategies by adding to it and not taking away much to their game plan. The main strategy of Naya Company tends to vary according to the deck it’s playing against. When we have to sideboard CoCos for Blood Moon/Worship/Spellskite or can't play Tarmogoyf/Kitchen Finks because we really want to have access to those two Rest In Peace we're are not really improving our main strategy and are becoming an even slower and more midrange-y deck which require adjusting to having to out-value or out-control even more than we needed before. I guess versatility is our strength.
Almost every time I sit down to analyze what I think the deck is lacking and could help it become better I end up thinking something in the lines of the deck getting faster wins. Becoming more aggro or giving me more assurance of hitting my CoCo's turn 3. I think this second reason may have been what led most to include a Birds of Paradise main; to me it led to adding the Birds and the fourth CoCo which eventually led to adding two Kitchen Finks because I wanted to hit the most value possible from my CoCos. But when that still doesn't work and I just wish I were playing a faster or less fair deck like Burn against Tron, I start thinking if Goblin Guide and something like Lathnu Hellion aren't at least worth considering.
At the end, I do think that overall Big Zoo (Naya Company) is in a tough position right now due to not being fast enough, controlling enough or unfair at all. To someone who's going to choose a new Modern deck to invest their money or time into and all they care is about winning I believe they would have a somewhat better chance with a faster or unfair deck. That being said, I also believe that a dedicated Naya Company player with a very good understanding of the deck, of how it works, how to play it in every situation, how to create a path for a victory from any situation and how the other modern decks work to be able to interact with them accordingly, could put very strong results more times than not and will surely enjoy playing the deck.
I hope I could share some useful insight on the deck and give back at least a bit given how much this forum has helped me. I'll leave you with the last iteration of the deck which I played in my last WMCq to a sad 9th place (brutally losing to double Searing Blaze to my just active Knight of the Reliquary in the Win and In) and that led me to the Championship Finals at my LGS. Some interesting choices are that I've chosen to go full Loxodon Smiter due to the rise of Abzan/Jund, two Kitchen Finks main due to the rise of Burn, playset of Collected Company for personal preference, only 3 Tarmogoyf because that's what money could buy and I've never felt I needed the fourth, lack of Voice of Resurgence due to not facing blue-based decks and the popularity of Path to Exile in my meta and a single Qasali Pridemage due to lack of Affinity. Only two Arid Mesa due to budget, if I could play the third I'd remove a Plains. Double Blood Moon, Worship, Stony Silence, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Spellskite are consistent in my SB and Thalia, Heretic Cathar as a one of is a concession to the many Lingering Souls I face.
They are.
Today and yesterday haven been a disappointment after another. That tree..
you can add Walking Ballista next to Triskelion
4 Servant of the Conduit
4 Longtusk Cub
4 Voltaic Brawler
4 Tireless Tracker
4 Bristling Hydra
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Verdurous Gearhulk
1 Nissa, Vital Force
4 Attune with Aether
2 Oath of Nissa
4 Harnessed Lightning
3 Incendiary Flow
Lands
4 Aether Hub
2 Cinder Glade
5 Mountain
9 Forest
1 Island
4 Galvanic Bombardment
1 Radiant Flames
2 Ceremonious Rejection
4 Negate
1 Appetite for the Unnatural
1 Weaver of Lightning
1 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
1 Arlinn Kord
I play a maindeck Island for various reasons: I used to play two Whirler Virtuoso because we seriously lack 3 Converted Mana Cost (CMC) creatures, the Virtuoso has a decent body [2/3] but mainly because it's a great energy dump that happens to create flyers, against which we are vulnerable. I prefer to play 21 lands because I play seven 4CMC cards which I really want to be able to cast on turn 3 if I have a Servant of the Conduit in play and on top of that I play 3 important 5 CMC cards. Having Oath of Nissa reduces mana problems to cast Chandra, Torch of Defiance and I've never had any problem casting my other spells (most of the times we just get the Island with Attune with Aether when we need it).
A breakdown of the cards, adding notes on how they fare against the best decks in the current meta:
Servant of the Conduit is extremely important on the early turns. It fixes our mana to cast any spell, gives us energy and lets us play Bristling Hydra or Chandra, Torch of Defiance on turn 3, which is devastating for our opponent if we are on the play, especially against UW Flash which would otherwise had stolen them with their Spell Queller.
Longtusk Cub could probably be our silent MVP. Although most of the times turn 2 Servant is the correct play, playing the Cub turn 2 on an clear board and start profiting the next turn can snowball to something the opponent can never recover from. It's a good late game draw (a 4/4 or 5/5 for 2 if you have unused energy) and can become difficult to remove once it goes bigger than 4/4 (Grasp of Darkness, Chandra, and many Harnessed Lightning can't kill him).
Voltaic Brawler great if we're going aggro, very good mid/late game once we add counters from Verdurous Gearhulk, and useful to crew Skysovereign, Consul Flagship from the sideboard. Having trample comes very handy when we need to get some damage through to kill planeswalkers or just direct damage to the opponent. Depending the matchup I find myself cutting some after sideboard.
Tireless Tracker I was very hesitant at first because it's more of a turn 4 than a turn 3 but the Tracker really gives the deck staying power with its card draw. Together with Chandra and Oath of Nissa (in my list), lets the deck overcome some of the card draw from decks like GB Delirium and gives us some advantage against other decks like RW or Mardu Vehicles which have limited card draw/manipulation. It fixes mana flood which I personally loathe. It may be possible that 3 is a correct number but given the lack of turn 3 plays I don't mind dropping one if I have nothing else to do, even if it gets killed right away. I take 2-3 out if I'm on the draw.
Bristling Hydra an All Star, just ask any opponent with a removal in it's hand staring at your 3 energy reserve. It's a nightmare to kill, once you have 6 energy it basically has protection from removal spells and if your opponent depends on Declaration Stone it will almost never hit him (UW Flash, RW/Mardu Vehicle).
Chandra, Torch of Defiance plays three different roles in the deck: removal, card advantage and ramp, more or less in that order. The ideal play is cast turn 3/4 to +1 and add two mana to cast one of our removals (Harnessed or Incendiary Flow. It's -3 is great to remove Spell Queller to get our card back, Selfless Spirit, Grim Flayer even if it has delirium, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet or in some very lucky and seldom cases an Archangel Avacyn; sadly it doesn't hit Ishkanah, Grafwidow. Chandra's other +1 (Exile to Cast/Damage) gives the deck late game with card advantage which is extremely important. I find 4 copies to be too much.
Verdurous Gearhulk grows our creatures, wins battles and, if it's the only creature in play, wins the game. One copy may be fine but I play the longer game with my list so I'd rather have two.
Nissa, Vital Force card advantage and a threat, but sometimes I feel it can't take me out of bad situations like facing flyers from UW Flash. As for now wouldn't play more than one.
Our removal suit Harnessed Lightning and Incendiary Flow allows us to play the control role and profitably clear most of the early threats from the big 3 decks (UW Flash, GB Delirium and Vehicles). Harnessed is the best of the two but Incendiary is able to clear cards like Selfless Spirit and Spell Queller, even if it's a turn later, with the added bonus of hitting Planeswalker, helping us end games with direct damage or invalidate some of the Dredge creatures.
Attune with Aether land tutor/fix, allows us to play 20/21 lands and gives us energy. Always 4.
Oath of Nissa card selection and mana fixing for our Planeswalker; works as pseudo 5th and 6th Attunes in turns 1 and 2 but are much better late game given that if you have 6+ lands it's never a dead draw. Many list don't run it but I find no reason not to, it shrinks our deck if what we want is to try to hit the same group of cards. Would play 2 or nothing.
Both Attune and Oath enable us to keep 1 land hands if we have Servant of the Conduit.
As for my sideboard:
Galvanic Bombardment should always be 4 of, enables the deck to play strong control during the early turns of crucial matchups.
Skysovereign, Consul Flagship is very good against flying creatures from UW Flash and dodges Spell Queller (and kills it when it enter the batterfield), and can block Archangel Avacyn.
Weaver of Lightning kills a bunch of 1/1 Thopters and blocks Smuggler's Copter
The blue counter suite addresses three key vulnerabilities of the deck by not letting Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Aetherworks Marvel and Emrakul, the Promised End come into play (although Emrakul's ability resolves). It also profitably stops Liliana, The Last Hope but she's not that devastating against us. Some prefer the Fevered Visions suit, which could also be ok but haven't found the need for it.
Arlinn Kord the +1/+1 and trample ability is good in the mirror and against busy boards given that half of our deck doesn't have evasion.
Hope this is useful.
After being a passive reader for almost a year I decided to join the conversation to contribute my two cents to the Midrange Zoo archetype (call it Big Zoo or Naya Company).
I've been playing Naya Company for about a year and a half now to above average success and the Modern play level at my LGSs is well above average from what I’ve experienced at many other LGs I’ve visited in the States.
I think the conversations about Gruul Zoo / Bushwalker Zoo and Naya Company / Big Zoo should ideally deserve a different topic for each given how unrelated the archetypes are in their game play and card selection. The bad thing is that I fear if that happens Naya Company would be relegated to Developing Competitive.
In the Zoo-related spectrum, I believe there currently are 4 established competitive decks:
1. Burn, which for me is the fastest and most reliable (and I think the best option right now for any tournament)
2. Zooicide / Suicide Zoo / Death Shadows Aggro, which is more of a combo/aggro deck but I find it to be more inconsistent than burn.
3. Bushwalker Zoo, more of a linear aggro deck, but not as fast or combo-ish as Burn or Zooicide
4. Big Zoo (Naya Company or Domri Base), which is a straight Midrange deck, considerably slower than any of the previous three, not able to combo or have extremely fast draws (expect triple Wild Nacatl for turns 1-2) but has the best removal suite of modern (Lightning Bolt + Path to Exile). For now on I'll refer to this category as Big Zoo or Naya Company. As for Domri Rade-based decks I'm not as experienced on playing it.
That leaves Big Zoo in an awkward spot where:
a) You have to try to control faster decks (Burn, Infect, Merfolk, Elves, Zooicide, Bushwalker, etc) by either using as much removal as you can on your first turns or establishing a big enough board presence by hopefully having your turn one mana dork survive, playing a big 3 drop or Tarmogoyf + Wild Nacatl turn 2, and Collected Company in turn 3. With the amount of removal available this second option almost never happens and even if it does they tend to be so resilient and fast that it may not be enough.
b) You have to out-value other midrange/control decks which are better at controlling than us and technically, if they are playing black, could very efficiently out-value us with their one mana discard spells (even when we play Loxodon Smiter). It’s better when we face the lesser played blue-based control because of our can't-be-countered creatures and End-of-Turns Collected Company. I find that beating other midrange/control decks require very precise piloting of the deck and knowledge of every single card you play.
c) You have to control, out-race and/or hate some combo decks likes Breach, Abzan Company, Tron by removing some key permanents while establishing board presence and going full aggro. Especially for Tron, I feel you have to do everything at the same time. I find Tron to be our worst matchup by far (reason why I play two Ghost Quarter main deck).
Big Zoo's best attribute is its Sideboard. Most matchups can be heavily improved with SB, even Tron with a couple of timely played Blood Moon, but it leaves much to be said when the biggest strength of an archetype may be its Sideboard. I believe that very good decks excel because they have sideboards that help improve their main strategies by adding to it and not taking away much to their game plan. The main strategy of Naya Company tends to vary according to the deck it’s playing against. When we have to sideboard CoCos for Blood Moon/Worship/Spellskite or can't play Tarmogoyf/Kitchen Finks because we really want to have access to those two Rest In Peace we're are not really improving our main strategy and are becoming an even slower and more midrange-y deck which require adjusting to having to out-value or out-control even more than we needed before. I guess versatility is our strength.
Almost every time I sit down to analyze what I think the deck is lacking and could help it become better I end up thinking something in the lines of the deck getting faster wins. Becoming more aggro or giving me more assurance of hitting my CoCo's turn 3. I think this second reason may have been what led most to include a Birds of Paradise main; to me it led to adding the Birds and the fourth CoCo which eventually led to adding two Kitchen Finks because I wanted to hit the most value possible from my CoCos. But when that still doesn't work and I just wish I were playing a faster or less fair deck like Burn against Tron, I start thinking if Goblin Guide and something like Lathnu Hellion aren't at least worth considering.
At the end, I do think that overall Big Zoo (Naya Company) is in a tough position right now due to not being fast enough, controlling enough or unfair at all. To someone who's going to choose a new Modern deck to invest their money or time into and all they care is about winning I believe they would have a somewhat better chance with a faster or unfair deck. That being said, I also believe that a dedicated Naya Company player with a very good understanding of the deck, of how it works, how to play it in every situation, how to create a path for a victory from any situation and how the other modern decks work to be able to interact with them accordingly, could put very strong results more times than not and will surely enjoy playing the deck.
I hope I could share some useful insight on the deck and give back at least a bit given how much this forum has helped me. I'll leave you with the last iteration of the deck which I played in my last WMCq to a sad 9th place (brutally losing to double Searing Blaze to my just active Knight of the Reliquary in the Win and In) and that led me to the Championship Finals at my LGS. Some interesting choices are that I've chosen to go full Loxodon Smiter due to the rise of Abzan/Jund, two Kitchen Finks main due to the rise of Burn, playset of Collected Company for personal preference, only 3 Tarmogoyf because that's what money could buy and I've never felt I needed the fourth, lack of Voice of Resurgence due to not facing blue-based decks and the popularity of Path to Exile in my meta and a single Qasali Pridemage due to lack of Affinity. Only two Arid Mesa due to budget, if I could play the third I'd remove a Plains. Double Blood Moon, Worship, Stony Silence, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Spellskite are consistent in my SB and Thalia, Heretic Cathar as a one of is a concession to the many Lingering Souls I face.
2 Arid Mesa
2 Forest
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Kessig Wolf Run
2 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stirring Wildwood
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Wild Nacatl
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Scavenging Ooze
1 Qasali Pridemage
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Loxodon Smiter
2 Kitchen Finks
Instant
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Collected Company
2 Blood Moon
2 Stony Silence
2 Worship
2 Spellskite
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Kor Firewalker
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Bonfire of the Damned