Breaking Dawn - Not Another Zoo Report
08 Jun 2010 | Jack Ding
Some people like to undertake torturous physical activities such as scaling up artificial vertical surfaces.
However, in the words of PV; ‘that just seems crazy to me’. I would much prefer to be playing with warm and furry animals.
This Saturday I played in the GGs 5k Qualifier. The format was Legacy and any excuse to play Legacy is good enough for me. Originally I was intending to pilot Faerie Stompy but the last few Sea Drakes did not arrive in the mail in time for the event so I had to pick an alternative. They say real men play combo. Until the Sydney metagame develops some manlines (or any combo presence at all for that matter) I am happy to be casting Wild Nacatl’s.
Land: (21)
4 [ZEN] Arid Mesa
4 [B] Taiga
1 [ON] Windswept Heath
2 [A] Plateau
1 [R ] Savannah
1 [ZEN] Forest (1)
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
2 [FUT] Horizon Canopy
1 [ZEN] Plains (4)
1 [ZEN] Mountain (4)
Creatures: (23)
4 [ALA] Wild Nacatl
4 [TO] Grim Lavamancer
4 [FNM] Kird Ape
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
3 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
Spells: (16)
4 [R ] Lightning Bolt
2 [LG] Sylvan Library
4 [LG] Chain Lightning
1 [BOK] Umezawa’s Jitte
1 [FNM] Fireblast
4 [CFX] Path to Exile
Sideboard: (15)
2 [EX] Price of Progress
3 [TSB] Tormod’s Crypt
3 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
2 [ZEN] Mindbreak Trap
1 [ZEN] Ravenous Trap
1 [ALA] Ranger of Eos
Firstly previous readers will note that my manabase has not changed, ever, with good reason. Horizon Canopies are very good and allow you to run more than 20 lands without flooding too often. I sometimes contemplate running a single Treetop Village in the maindeck but have not yet found the room.
The creature base is also usually identical although I have added a third Knight of the Reliquary. This shows how confident I am in the lack of combo in the metagame. Occasionally I flirt with the idea of cutting the 4th Grim Lavamancer although I usually come to my senses quickly after. Bye matchups are good after all, especially when it is against the most (or one of the most) popular decks in the metagame; Merfolk.
I do not normally like Fireblast in the deck at all as you rarely have to goldfish your opponent as fast as possible. If you find that you need to do so then you should be running a build with Steppe Lynx (together with the 3rd Sylvan Library) and possibly Goblin Guide. Then again, if you need that strict of a clock it means you are playing against combo and you should probably just change decks. That being said I recently acquired a foiled Fireblast and wanted to cast it a few times. I failed to do so throughout the whole day. A good example of do as I say and not as I do.
I have written about how important Price of Progress is in your 75 and nothing has changed since then. The 1 Ranger of Eos was a substitute for the 2nd Umezawa’s Jitte and I’m not sure if it is better as I did not draw or cast it the whole day. The rest of the sideboard is standard combo hate for ‘just in case’ circumstances. I do not like the 3rd Gaddock Teeg, maybe it should be a Tariff for mise value.
Round 1 v BGW Pimp
Playing round 1 against Adam Douglas (hereafter Buster) is interesting. I have never played him in a Legacy match before even though both of us attend most of the Legacy events in Sydney. This matchup is slightly favourable. I keep a rather sketchy hand without red mana and double Lightning Bolt and can only muster Qasali Pridemage and Tarmogoyf while Hymn to Tourach and Thoughseize destroy my hand. Fortunately I draw Umezawa’s Jitte while his hand is filled with useless Mesmeric Fiends. Despite digging desperately with Sensei’s Divining Top and active Dark Confidant for a number of turns he is unable to find a removal spell and is defeated by the pointy fork of doom.
Sideboard: -1 Fireblast +1 Ranger of Eos
Game 2 I lose the Jitte in my opening hand to Thoughtseize while he casts a Dark Confidant across from my Kird Ape. My hand is not packed with a lot of action so I tank for a bit deciding whether I should aim all my burn at his face or the Dark Confidant. I finally settle on killing the Confidant and my opponent grimaces and drops a Jitte and passes the turn. Disaster averted. My little critters keep coming off the top and he draws blank. Not a very exciting game.
Round 2 v Aggro Loam
This match is an example of reading your opponent incorrectly. Game 1 was not exciting as I mulliganed to a hand of 2 land double Chain Lightning Lightning Bolt Wild Nacatl. I did not know what my opponent was playing. Two Countryside Crushers and 1 spell from me later we went to sideboard.
Sideboard: +3 Tormod’s Crypt +1 Ranger of Eos +2 Price of Progress -4 Chain Lightning -1 Fireblast -1 Kird Ape
Game 2 was about as one sided as the first game only with positions reversed. I did get to see that he was running Engineered Explosives and Maelstrom Pulse. A well timed Path to Exile on his Countryside Crusher and a Lightning Bolt on his Tarmogoyf let my furry animals run him over.
At this point I know that he has a lot of removal in his deck. I have not seen Chalice of the Void, Burning Wish or Devastating Dreams but still assume that he is playing the stock list. As it turns out he is running Chalice but not the other two and I spent the whole match playing around Devastating Dreams for no reason. In game 3 we got to a board position where I had a 1, 2, and 3 drop to dodge Engineered Explosives and Maelstrom Pulse. I had even cast Knight of the Reliquary (as a 3/3) to play around Devastating Dreams. So he cast Firespout. Facepalm. Before he stomped me into the ground I got to see from his Crusher reveal that he was also running Perish. Cavius save me.
Round 3 v Ankh of Mishra
I have played this matchup before and there is no polite way to say this but…the deck sucks. Especially against Zoo. I cast some dudes and attacked him and he died. Both games. I think I sideboarded some Krosan Grips but it was not very relevant.
Round 4 v Merfolk
Here is another deck that sucks against Zoo but is good because it is well positioned against the other blue decks (such as NOthresh). Game 1 I resolved a turn 2 Lavamancer after my first one met Daze. The beginning of the end. My opponent tried to resolve a Silvergill Adept and then a Standstill on his turn but the Adept ate a Lightning Bolt. The board became my Lavamancer against his Mutavault. Discarding at the end of my turn gave me enough cards in the graveyard to start putting him on a clock with Lavamancer. Eventually my opponent was forced to break his own Standstill (damn that feels good) and it was all downhill for him from there. My opponent was probably on tilt from that and forgot to put counters on a late game Aether Vial, not that it mattered. A resolved Jitte prompted the concession.
Sideboard: -1 Fireblast +1 Ranger of Eos
My opponent mulliganed his first 7 and kept a Mutavault only land hand. He did not draw a land for two turns. A late Mind Harness delayed the inevitable but the writing was on the wall. This is why you play Zoo.
After 4 rounds of Swiss there was a cut to Top 4 with the winner getting the bye for the GGs 5k.
Semifinals v Aggro Loam
This matchup again. Will our intrepid hero get his revenge? At least by now I had worked out what was in his deck and would not need to be playing around the wrong cards. Game 1 went to perfection. Turn 1 Wild Nacatl, turn 2 Qasali Pridemage, turn 3 Knight of the Reliquary as a 5/5. My opponent was forced to blow an Engineered Explosives for 1 and tapped out for a Countryside Crusher. Path to Exile ended the game right there.
Sideboard: +3 Tormod’s Crypt +1 Ranger of Eos +2 Price of Progress -4 Chain Lightning -1 Fireblast -1 Kird Ape
My opponent mulliganed and just as well as I tanked for quite a while over my starting seven: Windswept Heath Path to Exile Grim Lavamancer Lightning Bolt Sylvan Library Tarmogoyf. I kept this hand and I believe it was correct to do so. I drew Arid Mesa on my first draw step and played turn 2 Sylvan Library followed up a Tarmogoyf. Both of these were hit by a Engineered Explosives the next turn but thanks to the Library I was still ahead. A Path to Exile for his Countryside Crusher allowed my Lavamancer to chip away at his life total until a savage Price of Progress for 10 finished the match.
Sweet revenge.
Finals v Reanimator
I meet Des in the finals (Malicious on the forums) piloting the enemy. I have never played this matchup in an actual match before and was looking forward to experiencing the subtleties of the interaction. This matchup is not as straightforward as it would seem on paper. There are a LOT of options for both decks although moreso for Reanimator.
Game 1 my opponent went for turn 1 Entomb turn 2 Reanimate on Sphinx of the Steel Wind. As he had 4 cards and had Brainstormed as well on that turn I assumed he had protection. However, I did not really have any options so I cast the Path to Exile, expecting it to get countered and getting ready to scoop. Somehow, it resolved which makes me think that his choice of targets was a little incorrect. All I had on the board was a Wild Nacatl and Iona naming white would have been able to race it as long as he had some follow up for my next creature. Unfortunately for him that is not what happened and the game was pretty much over right there. I think his plan was to fetch the Sphinx and use the Brainstorm and his draw step to find a piece of protection which would definitely have sealed that game which is also defensible.
Sideboarding: +3 Tormod’s Crypt +1 Ravenous Trap -2 Sylvan Library -1 Knight of the Reliqary -1 Umezawa’s Jitte
This game was almost identical to the first one except he did have protection for his Sphinx. Unfortunately for him I had two Path to Exile and his game plan fell apart once more. A Mystical Tutor for Perish stopped the bleeding but I was playing around it the whole time and just unloaded my hand the turn after and the two turn clock was too much for him to handle.
A final word of caution. If you are going to run Zoo in Legacy, please learn how to play the deck. It is not very impressive if you lose to Merfolk. Zoo is not a brainless beatdown deck (most beatdown decks are not brainless contrary to popular opinion) and not really a beatdown deck at all. Stop worrying about your opponents life total and start worrying more about the board position.
For discussion.