Five With Tarmogoyfs & Stuff

This one is a short analysis plus five matches with a new Zoo-ish deck inspired by The Lightning Bolt Deck.

Yesterday Luis Scott-Vargas posted an interesting deck on Star City Games yesterday.

It was based on a PE Top 8 deck by Adam Prosak.

Some of the cards I don’t love (in particular Mutavault is not something I would have started with) but I didn’t change the deck over-much until playing it some.

What makes Mutavault send shivers up my spine? I don’t like it in general but this deck is three colors and sometimes it just screws you. I guess it gets in for damage sometimes but that damage doesn’t seem particularly relevant to me. Also I hate random two-ofs as you know.

This is how I played the deck:

4 Lightning Helix

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl

4 Incinerate
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Molten Rain
4 Seal of Fire
2 Sulfuric Vortex

4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
3 Mountain
2 Mutavault
1 Sacred Foundry
3 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
3 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills

sb:
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Cryoclasm
2 Lash Out
2 Sulfuric Vortex

The original deck had a different three mana burn spell; I added Sulfuric Vortex in the slot (LSV made the same suggestion); you can’t avoid random two-ofs in a deck with twenty-two lands. Sulfuric Vortex is the strongest card in this deck. I mean Tarmogoyf is pretty good too but Sulfuric Vortex is the card that closes out games and makes them unwinnable for the opponent.

I left the Mutavaults because I didn’t know how to change things. Interestingly (especially for a twenty-two land deck) this one got flooded a bunch of times in the five matches I played. Small n, I guess.

The sideboard I made is very different from the ones posted.

3 Umezawa’s Jitte
This card is pretty good, you may have heard at some point. You kind of need it to zero out the opponent’s Jitte if nothing else.

4 Ancient Grudge
The original deck leaned more towards the Lightning Bolt deck than Zoo, but I think Ancient Grudge is more appropriate to this strategy than Smash to Smithereens (even though that is the sexier card in terms of you know, pure sex appeal).

4 Cryoclasm
I can’t cotton to playing Choke (even though I think I’ve won 75% of tournaments I’ve played lifetime with Choke in the sideboard). This deals three damage instead of giving them two permanents to blow up with Engineered Explosives after they’ve set you up with Venser. Random question… Do you think going to 8 Stone Rains is a strategy against real Zoo? They have a Plains, a Steam Vents, all kinds of Plains and Islands actually.

2 Lash Out
This card is great. Better than Incinerate against beatdown; comparable to Magma Jet, but does trips.

2 Sulfuric Vortex
Either they all come out or these two come in (more common) or you forgot to side them out.

I decided to play five matches with this deck because this is, you know, Five With Flores. I actually lost my notes from the first 2.5 matches on account of I was falling asleep last night and then my daughter decided to get up at like 5AM and play Lego Batman and I think she crashed the computer (dunno, I wasn’t up… but my document was gone when I got home).

1. Affinity (either that or Lightning Bolt Deck)

I think I got flooded in the first game, then drew Ancient Grudge in the second game, then drew three Ancient Grudge in the third game. So result: winner.

I dunno if the deck is even good or if Affinity is just bad. I mean I have always respected Affinity but I have never remotely come close to losing to it in Extended since the card Ancient Grudge was printed. I also don’t understand Affinity players who think they can beat Ancient Grudge. I mean I’m sure they have convinced themselves that they can (and have in testing) because they choose to play Affinity… But I’m just saying I have played against Affinity and never come close to losing since the card was invented. What does that mean?

I actuallycould have lost two or three (he drew a lot of Master of Etherium) but like I said, in the third I drew three Ancient Grudges and you can really only lose to all-in Atog. When I tested real Zoo (not this burn deck) I play / played Kataki and Ancient Grudge because that is the kind of person I am.

1-0, 2-1

2. Lightning Bolt Deck (or Affinity, one or the other)

I don’t remember too many details, just how one of the games ended. It was pretty cool. He played double Vortex on me with a reasonable expectation of winning before they killed him. Then I played Vortex on him. So he took six on his turn (was only banking on four). Given his hand he had more than enough to kill me with the six (and he had only planned on four) the next turn but I untapped and killed him first.

The match was really close.

I didn’t gain much if any life from Lightning Helixes or Jittes (sided out my Vortexes obviously, even though they won me the first), but I got there by having better cards. Now I guess I am remembering more (that triple Vortex affair must have been game one, logically); second I got my Tarmogoyf killed by an Incinerate due to being rusty at Tarmogoyf. I won anyway in what must have been uninteresting fashion based on the decks.

2-0, 4-1

2.5 Lightning Bolt Deck I think.

I don’t remember. I remember being down a game and falling asleep. Match 2.5: You are erased from the record!

3. Braid of Fire deck

His deck was kind of cool but had some really less-than-Tier-One cards… just had things in common that they were cool with Braid of Fire (mostly jones that pumped for Red). Nevertheless I lost the first due to mana flood.

I came back and won the next two with these Tarmogoyfs. Uninteresting.

What was interesting was Braid of Fire. I am going to try to make a Braid deck that I will update on after I, you know, make it. The card seems quite powerful due to being asymmetrical.

3-0, 6-2

4. Anti-Red White Weenie

Game One he drew two Silver Knights and I wasn’t sure how I was going to win; then I remembered I drew Wild Nacatl and Tarmogoyf (which I had in play and in hand, respectively). Those aren’t Red at all! Thank you LSV’s article!

Game Two he drew first turn Burrenton Forge-Tender, second turn Silver Knight obviously, and followed up later with Serra Avenger and Silver Knight. I was playing kind of loose until I realized I was on the wrong end of 8-20 or thereabouts. I eventually won with Green cards on the ground, and burn cards to face.

4-0, 8-2

5. Death Cloud Rock

In the first I didn’t realize what deck he was; he won the flip and started on Polluted Delta. He later made a Swamp and cycled Barren Moor. Then he made turn two Loam. The game was not interesting; he conceded to Vortex on turn four even though I didn’t have that much going on.

Second game I lost to my own stupid mana base. He played two copies of Thoughtseize (why is that in your deck against a Red Deck sideboarded?)… he literally played Death Cloud for three (could have been six) before I could cast the Molten Rains I had left in. No, I had three. Three on three actually… But one of them was a Temple Garden and the third was one of those pointless Mutavaults. I conceded well before it was technically over because he left two Mutavaults and it was obvious I was not going to win.

Third game I kept two spells and he Thoughtseized my Vortex. Nevertheless I played a turn two Mutavault and a keldon Marauders and started getting in there (Mutavault kind of made up for the fact that it exists, therefore offending me). I drew another Vortex and Tarmogoyf and won thanks to the best cards in my deck.

5-0, 10-3 (if you want to count the aborted 2.5, 5-0, 10-4)

My conclusion is that this deck is very good. I would consider playing it in a PTQ. It really feels like Zoo to me, so if you like Zoo… that is what it feels like; much less so than the Lightning Bolt Deck.

I would add one Tarfire, possibly cutting a Seal of Fire, just for more Tarmogoyf mizing. Most people don’t have Tarmogoyf these days so I want to maximize potential bang bang. I guess you could also cut one random Sulfuric Vortex and move it to the sideboard, maybe over the third Jitte. The deck is actually reasonably prepared for Elves with Mogg Fanatic, Seal of Fire, and potentially Tarfire on one.

And to Mutavault: You are awful. But you aren’t fired yet.

LOVE
MIKE

PS Sorry this might seem a little grumpy. I am watching the Cavs at the Bulls and the worthless Bulls dropped our starting shooting guard (Delonte West) on his head and fractured his right wrist. It was about the worst hit I have ever seen in a basketball game. Very disconcerting, especially how the season has been going, how well Delonte has been playing, and the fact that we have a back-to-back home game (risking our NBA-best 19-0 home record) against the brilliant Chris Paul tomorrow night.