JULY: ZOO

From January to June of 2017, I played a total of 74 modern games, all with UR Storm. And breaking down those games into win-loss-draw, 50 wins 21 losses and 3 draws. But I am here not to discuss that 70% win-loss statistic; instead, I'll share my experiences with, no Boros not you, my newly found love - One Drop Zoo; or some call it revolt zoo or whack zoo. My first list:

ONE DROP ZOO
29 June 2017

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Arid Mesa
2 Windswept Heath
3 Stomping Ground
3 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Forest
1 Mountain    

4 Loam Lion
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Goblin Guide
4 Narnam Renegade
4 Dryad Militant
4 Kird Ape
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Thalia Guardian of Thraben        

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
3 Rancor

My first practice with the team was against one of today's formidable modern deck, Death and Taxes. We had it 6 games, all with main deck. DnT won all but one. Here are some of the notes that I can recall.
- With Blade Splicer, paired with a Flicker Wisp, Restoration Angel or any of the like blinking cards, leading the pack for DnT, it will be an uphill battle against team one drop zoo.
- For fetch loving modern decks like zoo, the duo of Leonin Arbiter and Aven Mindcensor is another bugbear to care about.
-Since zoo's power depends from the early shocklands that you'll fetch, be mindful of their (second turn) Leonin Arbiter into Ghost Quarter (or Path to Exile) control lock combo.
-By the way burn and zoo players out there, please do not forget that Atarka's Command can give non-flying creatures that reach ability. This is very important because there are some decks (Flicker Wisp and Serra Avenger for this matter) that will rely on flying as one of their window in winning against us.   
- Those six games we had made me realize that my 2005-2007 main deck 60 is too slow against today's meta.

For the next days, I spent my free time watching zoo videos, reading internet zoo materials and even asked valuable insights from more experienced zoo players. I came up with my updated list, here it is.

ONE DROP ZOO
6 July 2017

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Arid Mesa
4 Windswept Heath
2 Stomping Ground
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Forest
1 Mountain 

4 Wild Nacatl   
4 Goblin Guide
4 Narnam Renegade
4 Kird Ape
4 Reckless Bushwhacker
4 Hidden Herbalist
4 Burning Tree-Emissary
3 Dryad Militant
3 Vexing Devil       

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Atarka's Command

On 8 July 2017, I went to Friday Quest's regular Saturday modern  session. Though we only had it three rounds, I still got that satisfactory feeling because I faced three of the top five decks to beat in today's modern meta. My side board by the way: 4 Boros Charm, 4 Chained to the Rocks, 4 Molten Rain and 3 Destructive Revelry.

Jund 2-0
For game ones, just try to outrace your opponent. For games two/ threes, some of them have Anger of the Gods, Engineered Explosives and other creature mass removal spell. With those mentioned mass removal spells, trying to duplicate your game one strategy (I think) is not a very good idea to do. Just drop two or three dudes at a time and let him choose between forcing him to use those Angers to stop the bleeding or just simply take those five to eight points of beating. In our game two, he used two Anger of the Gods. The first was when I had the following on the table: Wild Nacatl, Kird Ape and Goblin Guide. The second Anger of the Gods was for this group: Hidden Herbalist, Dryad Militant and Reckless Bushwhacker. He doesn't had an answer for my third group: two Burning Tree-Emissary and  a Wild Nacatl.

Eldrazi 2-0
Both wins, zoo simply out swarm him. Well during game two, he had a lot of black spot removal cards in his hand but unable to fire them because he had no black source for them.

GW Counters 2-1
Game one, despite having a Lightning Bolt at hand, I still opted to tapped all my lands and swing for 15 non-lethal damage in a turn instead of bolting his 1/2 druid. When he get back his turn, he simply showed me his Vizier of Remedies and Chord of Calling and I started picking up my cards.

Games two and three, this is where Chained to the Rocks and Lightning Bolt shined most by removing one of his combo pieces without giving a basic land and/or not giving the library shuffle is a big (I think) factor to his demise.

PPTQ at OHS
15 July 2017
I made a lone change minutes before round one: less one Vexing Devil for one Misty Rainforest. The rest of the 74, the same.  I think it was a good last minute decision because I had these games in which if it was not a Misty Rainforest, I would only have one mana. Anyway, OHS PPTQ enlisted 30+ players, 5 rounds and here are my match-ups.

Abzan 1-2
Scapeshift 2-1
Boros Burn 2-1
Grixis Death Shadow 0-2
Tribal Zoo 2-1

Abzan (loss)
Game two, Spirit tokens off his Lingering Souls really game him all the time in the world he needed to assemble his Tarmogoyf and friends army. Game three, a timely Damnation turned the tides into his favor. I never recovered after that.

Scapeshift (win)
Game three, a second turn 15 damages from this team: herbalist, two Burning Tree Emissary, a Wild Nacatl and a Reckless Bushwhacker really set the game's tone for team zoo.

Boros Burn (win)
Game three. He was at 5 life points when he fetched a basic land into an Ensnaring Bridge (with one card at hand left). I drew Boros Charm for my turn. Sweet win!

Grixis Death Shadow (loss)
Both games, he had a ton of spot removals (not to mention discard spells) for my creatures.

Tribal Zoo (win)
Game three, Burning Tree Emissary led the offensive onslaught inflicting another 15-point damages by second turn.

All throughout the tournament, I never get to use those Molten Rains from my side board. I might replace them with something useful for my next modern outing.

Manila's PPTQ schedule for the coming weeks:

August
5 - Xtreme Hobby Cafe (UST, Manila)
12 - Upkeep (Pampanga)
19 - Gatecrashers (Anonas, QC)
19 - NG ATC (Alabang Town Center, Alabang)

Thanks for reading.

-Paeng 4983