Maybe twincast could be good if your mana base supports it, with impact it can be quite good, and even without it just turns into a burn spell.
Also I think remand could be decent in this deck, it slows them down while drawing you into burn.
Zoo can consistantly win on turn four, which is the turn that Wrath of God, Faiths Fetters, and Loxodon Hierarch come online. Flames of the Blood Hand is a great answer to gaining life, and Char and Lightning Helix help finish off the opponent after Wrath of God.
I think zoo usualy doesnt kill until turn 5-6, the only way it can kill on turn 4 is if they do nothing, which isn't likely. I guess you can add boros swiftblade/ moldervine cloak to kill more often on turn 4, but again a turn 4 kill requires a near god hand and them not playing anything.
But you are right, agaisnt wrath based deck the idea is to do fast damage before wrath then finsih with burn. On a side note you still don't want to overextend vs wrath even if you have burn because you want to follow the wrath up with 1-2 creatures and burn.
If I'm not mistaken, if you can deal with their creatures nearly every zoo deck in the field dies to a third turn or even fourth turn blood moon
I disagree, alot of the zoo decks are now packing as many 16 burn spells main deck, even after blood moon they can win when you make them draw a burn spell every turn.
Hey all I am going to a PTQ in the future and the format is team standard, my team is having trouble coming up with decks that dont overlap cards. What do you guys think is a good combonation of decks to run?
O, for those who dont know team standard is a team of 3 players who come up with 3 diff decks that dont run more then 4 copies of any nonbasic land between all 3 decks (MB + SB).
Erm what anti creature cards does a zoo player have that are not burn ??
You don't side the burn out you fling it at the opponrnts head.
If anything I'd bring MORE burn in , as it can be used at instant speed to stop owl.
Owl has one worse matchup then zoo and that is straight burn. Agasint owl always side in as much burn as you can to win. When you run burn agaisnt owl they almost have to side out the howling mine because it will just make you draw into lethal burn.
If your deck is mostly burn there is no way owl can can viably win because you can stay out of owl range always. Burn decks problems are they run out of steam, when kami/owl refill your hand everyturn its almost impossible to lose.
Another good reason to side in burn vs owl is they will probably side in blood moon, and hey what do you know you can cast every burn spell in the deck except helix with your manabase.
I was just wondering when the Team Standard Constructed PTQ's start? I know Prauge qualifiers are almost over, so I was wondering when the next season starts and ends?
If you are going to splash white, which I haven't tested at all I think the cards to splash are cards that gain life and only have 1 white in the cost.
I think the list of cards to posibly splash for include:
Faiths Fetters (life gain and pseudo-removal)
CoP: Red
Pacifism (maybe)
Lightning Helix (life gain and removal)
I don't think we have the manabase to splash for anything that cost 2 white like wrath of god because if we do that we will take as much damage from the manabase as we are trying to prevent with wrath.
Of course there are probably other white cards that could be included if you splash white this list was just off the top of my head.
Seriously. "Tempo" can go run off and make 1/1-for-twelve babies with Chimney Imp. This card wins games. Suck it up and find room, you pansy.
Also, Selesnya Guildmage. IN that slot I at first had Zo-Zu the Punisher to beat up those silly control decks. Too slow and inefficient. However, the GUildmage fills the same purpose (by making tokens late-game, most likely post-***) AND can act as a crusade on wheels to facilitate plausible turn-four wins and beat up those silly inferior aggro decks.
I can see running jitte for the late game as we do run out of steam, although I'm still undecided on it in my build. It has bad synergy with shaman but it can win games on its own, and it is also a way to kill opposing jittes without adding a card like naturalize to the deck.
I do however disagree about running guildmage. When I 1st built my deck I ran it, it is an efficent 2 drop that is good in pretty much all stages of the game but if you are running burning tree shaman you cant run it. You take to much damage from lands you dont need to take damage from your creatures too.
Edit:I dont see how rathi Dragon is better then slum or hierarch. If they have any kind of spot removal for it it will cost you the game, if it trades with yosei or kokosho or anything for that matter it puts you at a huge disadvatage. Once you drop it, don't plan on having any red mana for like 4+ turns.
Has anyone tried Kami of Ancient Law main ? I run 3 of them to combat bad matchups like heartbeat and enduring ideal. He also helps in the mirror and againt WWr. Your oppinion ? It works wonders for me
I thought about it before, but the core of the deck doesnt have to many slots that can be changed around.
Personaly, I run tempest of light in the board for ideal so even though I will lose game 1 I am a huge favorite in game 2 and 3. If you draw Tempest of Light you almost cant lose.
Against WWr there are alot better cards you could be drawing like glare or jitte or hierarch or arashi etc.
It is decent agaisnt heartbeat but only if you have another enchantment removal in hand. Heartbeat can usualy play around 1 enchantment removal spell if they know its coming (early harvest in response to the sac and have enough mana to recolect the heartbeat).
So its not to bad of a card to run, but it will probably weaken your other matches which is why I dont run it.
Hey I've been playing this deck alot with moderate success, but the other day I faced Emminent Domain and wasn't sure what the best sideboard stratagey is.
Do you think its best to leave Glare in, or is it better to cut glare and go for enchantment removal?
I can't decide it seems like a waste to leave glare in for only kiega/kokosho but if either resolves you are realy fighting an uphill battle.
Ok I see a couple of things wrong with this deck 1st Trained Armodon or Gnarled Mass should be watchwolf. Wolf has the same p/t and is a gauranteed 2 drop.
2nd to many activated abilities 1 of the equipments should be moldvervine cloak.
3rd North Tree is bad in this deck, you arent worried about target removal, you are worried about mass removal, North Tree should be a Rumbling Slum its a turn faster and can do 6dmg a turn b4 north tree comes down and it can be equiped/enchanted
4th you should realy try to fit helix in this deck, so you have removal or a way to win after they wrath your board.
Your decklist is another reason I'm not a fan of the birds/elves combo. You are running subpar cards like Gnarled Mass just because birds makes it fit into your curve. I'm not going to go into why this deck doesn't need birds/elves again but I will point out that it is going to make targeted removal alot better agaisnt you.
Wait, so the 1st part you tell me the deck does not want to get dragged into control, and then right after you advocate the running of a 4cc encanment that does exactly the same as Pac and promotes longer games...I think you need to get your priorities in line.
The reason Pacifism is better is because it nuetralizes smaller things in the early game in the case of like, there Wolf your Ape, and nuetralizes later things without having to stop dropping beats.
I'm saying the deck shouldn't need either pacifism of fetters, but if you insist on running one then I would choose fetters.
You are also contradicting yourself too, you say our removal can't hit things like hierarch and burning-tree shaman but then you say you are using pacifism in the early game, and if you are saving your pacifism for the late game you probably don't have to many beats left in your hand, that why I'm saying I like fetters better b/c you use it in the late game when the extra mana isn't important.
Finally, you don't use 4 jitte counters to kill a 3/4 or 4/4 or you swing they block your 3/3 watchwolf and you give there creature -1/-1 before damage or -2/-2 if you want to save your own creature.
I guess what I'm saying is you have removal for the early to mid game and if you insist on running a pasifism effect I would choose something versatile like fetters because this deck shouldnt need more removal then it has until the late game.
Im probably going have to heir on the side of quality over quantity. Imagine you get the god hand of curving out into shaman. Against blue control you get one swing in with isamaru and play the wolf. You attempt to cast shaman it gets countered with a 2 mana counter. They untap threads the wolf. You untap and unless you can back it up with some sauce like slum or loxodon then you are seriously behind. Your fourth turn would have to be gold. This is where second turn shaman is a champ, and the quality of your threats is important. Morst U/b decks cant handle third tunr slums and hiearch craziness.
2nd turn shaman is bad for blue decks, but you can sb into turn 1 Leyline of lifeforceor turn 2 defense grid, both those options are as good if not better then turn 2 shaman vs a blue deck
Quote from frucile »
On another topic, is there anyway to maintain any kind of card advantage? No big if you the deck cant. Also can this deck beat Ideal game 1 or even game 2 for that matter? Does this deck fold to greater good gifts and glare? If not what is the strat against those decks? Does this deck fold to wildfires considering its rough manabase and alot of the guys dying to fires? Just some questions that I feel need to be answered before anyone plays this deck. I apologize if you guys already talked about this.
We don't have card advantage, we have tempo advantage if we cant overwhelm them quickly we will lose.
The key ot the Ideal matchup is to sideboard Tempest of Light for an autowin, but you can win game 1 by getting a fast draw, or by holding 5 pts of burn for when they ideal for form.
Vs Glare we have Burning-Tree Shaman this gives glare fits, as long as shaman stays in play we have a decent matchup. Also we have sb enchantment/artifact hate for there glare/jitte which is realy the key for them to win.
Vs Wildfire we should be fine, we are faster then them and have slum before the can fire, the problem we have vs wildfire is if they run wrath and wildfire if they do the only thing we can do is side in ghostway but even then we will have to struggle.
Vs Greater Gifts we will also have problems but we attack fast and finish with burn before they can setup. If this fails we can still win by needling greater good or putting moldervine cloak on our creatures to make them bigger then there dragons.
Can someone give me a good early game plan against another deck with counters such as mass?
I would try to lead with mine/kami so his hand will be full in the next couple of turns. Save your bonce for keiga or a big kudzu. The biggest problem in this match is the jitte. If it resolves your going to have to bounce it and counter it.
Next, when you play impact/your win condition try to play it when he taps out or when you can counter his counter.
The must counters in this matchup are (North Tree, Keiga, and Jitte).
Your sb stratagey should be to side in more hard counters, and possibly evacuation or pithing needle to name jitte.
Also I think remand could be decent in this deck, it slows them down while drawing you into burn.
I think zoo usualy doesnt kill until turn 5-6, the only way it can kill on turn 4 is if they do nothing, which isn't likely. I guess you can add boros swiftblade/ moldervine cloak to kill more often on turn 4, but again a turn 4 kill requires a near god hand and them not playing anything.
But you are right, agaisnt wrath based deck the idea is to do fast damage before wrath then finsih with burn. On a side note you still don't want to overextend vs wrath even if you have burn because you want to follow the wrath up with 1-2 creatures and burn.
I disagree, alot of the zoo decks are now packing as many 16 burn spells main deck, even after blood moon they can win when you make them draw a burn spell every turn.
O, for those who dont know team standard is a team of 3 players who come up with 3 diff decks that dont run more then 4 copies of any nonbasic land between all 3 decks (MB + SB).
Owl has one worse matchup then zoo and that is straight burn. Agasint owl always side in as much burn as you can to win. When you run burn agaisnt owl they almost have to side out the howling mine because it will just make you draw into lethal burn.
If your deck is mostly burn there is no way owl can can viably win because you can stay out of owl range always. Burn decks problems are they run out of steam, when kami/owl refill your hand everyturn its almost impossible to lose.
Another good reason to side in burn vs owl is they will probably side in blood moon, and hey what do you know you can cast every burn spell in the deck except helix with your manabase.
I think the list of cards to posibly splash for include:
- Faiths Fetters (life gain and pseudo-removal)
- CoP: Red
- Pacifism (maybe)
- Lightning Helix (life gain and removal)
I don't think we have the manabase to splash for anything that cost 2 white like wrath of god because if we do that we will take as much damage from the manabase as we are trying to prevent with wrath.Of course there are probably other white cards that could be included if you splash white this list was just off the top of my head.
I can see running jitte for the late game as we do run out of steam, although I'm still undecided on it in my build. It has bad synergy with shaman but it can win games on its own, and it is also a way to kill opposing jittes without adding a card like naturalize to the deck.
I do however disagree about running guildmage. When I 1st built my deck I ran it, it is an efficent 2 drop that is good in pretty much all stages of the game but if you are running burning tree shaman you cant run it. You take to much damage from lands you dont need to take damage from your creatures too.
Edit:I dont see how rathi Dragon is better then slum or hierarch. If they have any kind of spot removal for it it will cost you the game, if it trades with yosei or kokosho or anything for that matter it puts you at a huge disadvatage. Once you drop it, don't plan on having any red mana for like 4+ turns.
I thought about it before, but the core of the deck doesnt have to many slots that can be changed around.
Personaly, I run tempest of light in the board for ideal so even though I will lose game 1 I am a huge favorite in game 2 and 3. If you draw Tempest of Light you almost cant lose.
Against WWr there are alot better cards you could be drawing like glare or jitte or hierarch or arashi etc.
It is decent agaisnt heartbeat but only if you have another enchantment removal in hand. Heartbeat can usualy play around 1 enchantment removal spell if they know its coming (early harvest in response to the sac and have enough mana to recolect the heartbeat).
So its not to bad of a card to run, but it will probably weaken your other matches which is why I dont run it.
Do you think its best to leave Glare in, or is it better to cut glare and go for enchantment removal?
I can't decide it seems like a waste to leave glare in for only kiega/kokosho but if either resolves you are realy fighting an uphill battle.
It stops Jitte which absolutely wrecks us if it remains active.
It also stops drift of phantasms against heartbeat.
Ok I see a couple of things wrong with this deck 1st Trained Armodon or Gnarled Mass should be watchwolf. Wolf has the same p/t and is a gauranteed 2 drop.
2nd to many activated abilities 1 of the equipments should be moldvervine cloak.
3rd North Tree is bad in this deck, you arent worried about target removal, you are worried about mass removal, North Tree should be a Rumbling Slum its a turn faster and can do 6dmg a turn b4 north tree comes down and it can be equiped/enchanted
4th you should realy try to fit helix in this deck, so you have removal or a way to win after they wrath your board.
Your decklist is another reason I'm not a fan of the birds/elves combo. You are running subpar cards like Gnarled Mass just because birds makes it fit into your curve. I'm not going to go into why this deck doesn't need birds/elves again but I will point out that it is going to make targeted removal alot better agaisnt you.
I'm saying the deck shouldn't need either pacifism of fetters, but if you insist on running one then I would choose fetters.
You are also contradicting yourself too, you say our removal can't hit things like hierarch and burning-tree shaman but then you say you are using pacifism in the early game, and if you are saving your pacifism for the late game you probably don't have to many beats left in your hand, that why I'm saying I like fetters better b/c you use it in the late game when the extra mana isn't important.
Finally, you don't use 4 jitte counters to kill a 3/4 or 4/4 or you swing they block your 3/3 watchwolf and you give there creature -1/-1 before damage or -2/-2 if you want to save your own creature.
I guess what I'm saying is you have removal for the early to mid game and if you insist on running a pasifism effect I would choose something versatile like fetters because this deck shouldnt need more removal then it has until the late game.
2nd turn shaman is bad for blue decks, but you can sb into turn 1 Leyline of lifeforceor turn 2 defense grid, both those options are as good if not better then turn 2 shaman vs a blue deck
We don't have card advantage, we have tempo advantage if we cant overwhelm them quickly we will lose.
The key ot the Ideal matchup is to sideboard Tempest of Light for an autowin, but you can win game 1 by getting a fast draw, or by holding 5 pts of burn for when they ideal for form.
Vs Glare we have Burning-Tree Shaman this gives glare fits, as long as shaman stays in play we have a decent matchup. Also we have sb enchantment/artifact hate for there glare/jitte which is realy the key for them to win.
Vs Wildfire we should be fine, we are faster then them and have slum before the can fire, the problem we have vs wildfire is if they run wrath and wildfire if they do the only thing we can do is side in ghostway but even then we will have to struggle.
Vs Greater Gifts we will also have problems but we attack fast and finish with burn before they can setup. If this fails we can still win by needling greater good or putting moldervine cloak on our creatures to make them bigger then there dragons.
I would try to lead with mine/kami so his hand will be full in the next couple of turns. Save your bonce for keiga or a big kudzu. The biggest problem in this match is the jitte. If it resolves your going to have to bounce it and counter it.
Next, when you play impact/your win condition try to play it when he taps out or when you can counter his counter.
The must counters in this matchup are (North Tree, Keiga, and Jitte).
Your sb stratagey should be to side in more hard counters, and possibly evacuation or pithing needle to name jitte.