The Metagame Check- GW "Zoo"

The Metagame Check


with Samuel Wells



Hello all! I am Samuel Wells bringing you another metagame check.


The first weekend of M15 in standard has come and gone. SCG Baltimore did not see much of
new decks. Mono-Black and Mono-Blue decks ruled the day taking 6 of 8 top slots. More has been said about these decks since the Theros release than any other deck in the format. Beyond this, no major innovations were made to existing decks. Mainly for comfort with the existing archetypes in a new M15 changing meta.


One deck did catch my eye in the top 8 though. That was Andrew Boswell’s GW aggro list.


http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=70271


For anyone who knows me, this should come as no surprise to why I am excited to see a GW
aggro list making waves. What struck me about this list was the lower curve of the deck.

Andrew was much more concerned about coming in under his opponent than previous GW lists.He wants a 1, 2, and 3 drop on the first three turns of the game. Usually GW lists are trying to use one curve topping threat at a time to win the game. The latter mentality has not found much success in this tempo heavy standard environment. Boswell’s list fits much better into this type of build when you want to be deploying threats every turn and putting the maximum amount of pressure on the opponent.


I took his concept one step further. I have dropped the curve down to the bare minimum. I am
running 12 one drops and 12 two drops. This ensures that the deck will be putting pressure on
the opponent immediately. Without further ado here is the decklist.

GW “Zoo” 4 Experiment One 4 Dryad Militant 2 Sunblade Elf 2 Soldier of the Pantheon 4 Fleecemane Lion 4 Voice of Resurgence 4 Scavenging Ooze 3 Ajani, Caller of the Pride 1 Spear of Heliod 2 Hall of Triumph 4 Selesnya Charm 2 Banishing Light 3 God’s Willing

4 Temple Garden 4 Temple of Plenty 4 Mana Confluence 5 Forest 4 Plains Sideboard: 2 Banisher Priest 1 Banishing Light 3 Mistcutter Hydra 3 Skylasher 3 Unflinching Courage 2 Mutavault 1 Deicide

As you can see, the deck has a very low curve and is able to go under most decks in the format, and even potentially run with decks like mono-black aggro and boss sligh. What this deck has that those do not, is that GW has a higher quality of the creature and does not have to run 2/1s with downsides. The idea of running higher quality creatures and still being able to set the pace of the game really appeals to me.

For some of the specific card choices for the deck. My current list does have many new
additions from M15, but there is one notable addition. Sunblade Elf. This was the card that really motivated me to take the deck in this direction. Sunblade Elf is yet another two power one-drop for the deck. He embodies the zoo mentality, having the kird ape clause, but he also gives a mana sink for the deck which is a huge plus for a one-drop in an aggro deck. This was the perfect card to be printed to bring the deck together. There is one notable drawback to the card, it will not be an automatic 2 power creature in the deck because of the low plains count, this mitigated by the existence of Temple Garden, but even with shocks the deck is only running 8 plains. That and the inherent power of the other one drops available are the reason for the limited number.


The other key cards to the deck are the turn three plays. Ajani, Caller of the Pride; Hall of
Triumph; and Spear of Heliod are all key to the deck applying pressure and putting the enemy
into death range as early as turn 3. Beyond the explosiveness that these cards represent, they
also let the deck develop without extending into supreme verdict. This is huge for a three drop in this format to not play into Supreme Verdict until its rotation.


Finally, I want to talk about some significant card that I did not include. There are the 4 power
three drops in Loxodon Smiter and Boon Satyr. My choice to not include these cards was easy.
With that decision I could include Ajani, Hall, and Spear. One set of these cards progress my board without being susceptible to Supreme Verdict, while something like Smiter plays right into me getting x-for-1ed. So having a 4 power creature for just three mana is very good, but it does not achieve what I want to be doing.


The other major omission is Advent of the Wurm. This is a card that many people would point to as a prime reason to play GW aggro. For a long time I was of that mindset. Recently though I have been looking how to streamline the deck and maximize damage output in the early turns.


My biggest criticism to Advent of the Wurm is the type of deck you need to fit the card into.Decks that are running Advent of the Wurm are generally running at least 22 lands and a high number of 3-4 drops rather than 1-2 drops. These decks have proven to be soft to more efficient tempo decks such as mono-blue which is very popular right now and they are also able to have hands where there are no plays for the first two or three turns of the game. In this format you can not have a deck that does not interact for the first three turns of the game and expect to win regularly. As much as I like the card and the individual power of the cards in that deck, there is that fundamental flaw in how the deck is required to be built with the inclusion of cards such as Advent.


I made the decision to stray away from that mentality and looked to make a highly consistent
deck that looks to synergy rather than the power of individual cards.


This has been another Metagame Check.


Thank you all for reading!