One of the most powerful archetypes that looks to emerge in Standard from Guildpact is ‘The Zoo'. The reprinting of Kird Ape and Savannah Lions; the highly efficient Watchwolf and Scab-Clan Mauler; the undercosted yet powerful Burning-Tree Shaman, Loxodon Hierarch and Rumbling Slum; the wealth of efficient burn; and the particularly stable mana base provided by the Core Set and Ravnica block, all present the necessary tools to construct an aggressive deck that can actually compete in the currently control-ridden Standard format. Take, for instance, the following build from a recent Magic-League online event:

‘The Zoo' — Royalty, 4th February

3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Kird Ape
4 Watchwolf
4 Burning Tree Shaman
4 Loxodon Hierarch
3 Rumbling Slum

4 Lightning Helix
3 Char
3 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Might of Oaks

4 Stomping Ground
4 Temple Garden
4 Sacred Foundry
3 Battlefield Forge
3 Karplusan Forest
3 Forest
1 Brushland

Sideboard
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Hokori, Dust Drinker
3 Ghostway
4 Sacred Ground
4 Naturalize

There's just one problem, however: the prevailing wisdom, largely reflected by that opening paragraph and decklist, is a bit of a mess. It is based upon an assumption that there exists one Zoo deck in post-Guildpact Standard (though most would readily accept that that deck is open to several different permutations). In fact there are two distinct RGW aggro decks in the new format, each with its own fundamentally different gameplan, each reliant on entirely different principles of Magic theory. What is more, to combine these two decks, as virtually all of those I have witnessed on Magic forums, in Magic articles, and in Magic events, have done is to seriously weaken the focus of that particular deck. This in turn can only lead to a stifling of the emergence of what should be one, if not two, dominant decks in the new format.

Allow me to explain. The above build of Zoo is fairly representative of those I have seen discussed to date (though the two copies of Might of Oaks are quite unique). Yet the deck is highly confused. On the one hand, it seems to be playing like a Deadguy Red or Sligh deck from the days of yore, dropping highly cost-efficient creatures such as Isamaru, Kird Ape, and Watchwolf in the first few turns of the game and supporting these with direct damage to both clear a path as well as provide an effective finisher. On the other, it is taking the form of a Fires of Yavimaya style aggro build from Invasion-Era Standard, using mana accelerants such as Birds of Paradise to curve out progressively more powerful creatures in the early to mid-game, supplemented by a few key utility spells. For reference:

Deadguy Red — Dave Price, Tempest-Era Standard

3 Mogg Conscripts
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Jackal Pup
4 Ironclaw Orcs
4 Fireslinger
4 Ball Lightning

4 Shock
4 Incinerate
4 Fireblast
4 Cursed Scroll

4 Wasteland
17 Mountain

Sideboard
2 Dwarven Miner
1 Dwarven Thaumaturgist
1 Orgg
4 Pyroblast
4 Ankh of Mishra
2 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Torture Chamber

“Our” Fires — Scott Johns, PT Chicago 2000

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Chimeric Idol
4 Blastoderm
3 Jade Leech
4 Saproling Burst
3 Two-Headed Dragon

4 Fires of Yavimaya
4 Assault/Battery
1 Earthquake

1 Dust Bowl
4 Rishadan Port
4 Karplusan Forest
5 Mountain
11 Forest

Sideboard
4 Kavu Chameleon
3 Earthquake
3 Flashfires
2 Reverent Silence
2 Tangle
1 Obliterate

Why, though, is this such a problem? Surely combining the two archetypes in such a way provides the best of both worlds? The problem is that the two strategies are so completely divergent in terms of their gameplans (and the theoretical principles that govern them) that adding components of the Fires style archetype will only weaken the focus of the Sligh element and vice-versa. Rather than having your cake and eating it, you simply end up with an unfocussed build that won't compete effectively against decks that are finely tuned and which have a clearly structured and defined gameplan.

So how do these above archetypes differ so drastically? Or, in other words, why is the prevailing wisdom on Zoo so confused?

If we look first at why Sligh decks have historically had a significant amount of success, we can discern a number of core principles. It is crucial to understand at the outset that Sligh style builds (of the kind illustrated above) almost deliberately eschew two critical aspects of deck construction inherent in Tier 1 decks: generating card advantage, and having access to the best cards - or at least, the most powerful effects in the format. They do this in order to capitalise on the one advantage that they have in spades: tempo. Tempo allows the Sligh deck to overcome the greater power level of the opposing deck by putting such a commanding grip on the early game that the more powerful, and therefore expensive, opposing effects never make their presence truly felt. Tempo is inherent to Sligh because the mana curve, which typically stops at two (with maybe four three-mana spells), allows the player to make a much more efficient use of his or her mana. Not only is that player likely to use all of their mana every turn, from the beginning of the game, they are likely to be able to play more than one spell a turn very rapidly. It is this rapid and efficient deployment of resources and effects that provides such an inherent advantage.

The best Sligh decks, however, will not simply ride this initial advantage to victory; they do everything they can to develop it over the course of the game, exploiting their greatest strength to further tighten the screws on the opponent. How? The explanation returns to the mana curve and lies with efficiency, though in a much more subtle way than many players appreciate. I'll give you an example in a modern setting...

Rumbling Slum is very efficient: for four mana, you get a five-powered creature that handily pings your opponent every turn. Kird Ape with a forest in play is similarly efficient, because for one mana you get a two-powered creature that doesn't die to Shock or Pyroclasm. However, you also get much more than that. You get a threat that your opponent cannot possibly deal with without spending more mana on his answer than you spent on your threat. He can Lightning Helix it, he can Mana Leak it, he can Putrefy it, he can enchant it with Faith's Fetters, but on every single occasion he is losing progressively more tempo to you. When you apply this principle to a substantial proportion of the threats you deploy each game, the effect becomes very pronounced; hopefully, overwhelming. Your opponent, for example, might have a Mortify and Putrefy in hand to deal with your Kird Ape and Watchwolf, but it will be at least turn 4 before he can cast both of them. In that time you have had two turns in which to attack and cast more threats. It is not, therefore, just that the inherent tempo advantage of the Sligh deck is winning the game; it is that the tempo advantage is accumulating on a turn-by-turn basis.

Indeed, developing tempo advantage isn't just desirable; it is essential, due to the fact that when the Sligh deck isn't doing so, it is probably giving that tempo advantage up. Consider the following scenario: you are on the play against a Blue-based deck. You lead off with a Savannah Lions, then a Watchwolf. You then hit turn 3. In one situation you cast Burning-Tree Shaman. Your opponent is able to Mana Leak the spell. Not only have you failed to advance your tempo advantage, you have actually allowed your opponent to regain some of that lost tempo by playing an answer cheaper than your threat. In another situation, however, you lead off with a topdecked Kird Ape. Even if your opponent were playing Pyroclasm he would only be able to kill your Savannah Lions. He therefore is effectively forced to Mana Leak the Kird Ape. At this point you can drop, for instance, a Scab-Clan Mauler, or another Watchwolf. This scenario not only advances the tempo development of turns 1 and 2, but crucially, it denies an opportunity for the opponent to try and recover what he has already lost. Indeed, given how much burn the Sligh style Zoo deck is likely to be running, this play has probably won the game for you on the spot. It is worth noting that the example is only amplified where a Loxodon Hierarch or Rumbling Slum is countered with that same Mana Leak.

I hope that my explanation thus far has allowed you to pre-empt the following conclusion: that cards like Burning Tree Shaman, Loxodon Hierarch and Rumbling Slum do not fit the Sligh deck's single-minded focus on tempo development. (Of course, conversely, cards like Kird Ape and Savannah Lions do not fit the “Fires” archetype... but more on this later). They are undoubtedly efficient when judged in a vacuum, but are much less so in the wider context of an interactive game where they provide your opponent an open invitation to recoup a lot of your tempo advantage merely by dealing with them. This is not to argue that just because your opponent might have an answer to these cards you shouldn't play them — that would be totally irrational — it is merely to emphasise the importance of devoting yourself to that one crucial advantage. Sligh is not about powerful cards: it is about brute efficiency, about putting the game out of reach of your opponent before they have even had a chance to breathe. How else do you explain the presence of such platinum hits as Ironclaw Orcs and Goblin Digging Team in winning Sligh builds over the years? Rumbling Slum just isn't built for this objective in the same way that Kird Ape or Watchwolf are.

If you are not convinced, though, and would like a different perspective, consider the following point. Most games with Sligh are not won, or at least, finished, with creatures; they are won with burn spells. The role of efficient beaters like Kird Ape, Savannah Lions and Watchwolf is to get your opponent within direct damage range, and they are particularly adept at doing this because their cost is so low relative to your opponent's answers. If they get one attack through their purpose has been fulfilled; you have got your one or two mana's worth of damage out of them. So long as each creature gets through once, you don't lose sleep over it being dealt with. This makes each of the Deadguy or Sligh creatures awfully analogous to the burn spells in the deck (but, of course, they are run in preference to more burn because of their potential to hit once, twice, or three times more).

The same cannot be said of the larger creatures already considered. As will be expanded upon below, these are not played as potentially reusable direct damage sources; they are played because of their intrinsic power. If you run them in the same way as you would a Watchwolf, for instance, you stand to lose quite a lot. Burning-Tree Shaman, the cheapest of the creatures considered, has the same power as Watchwolf and yet costs one mana more. Loxodon Hierarch costs four mana for four damage, when Isamaru costs 75% less for only 50% less power. These larger creatures just don't fit the purpose that Sligh builds ascribe to their attackers — they require too much investment. The larger the casting cost, the slower the creature comes down, and the more likely it is that your opponent will be able to deal with that creature before it has made that first vital connection with their life total.

Indeed, you can even find support for this proposition amongst those Sligh decks that have actually utilised a more extended mana curve:

Deadguy Red — Dave Price, U.S. Nationals 1997

3 Goblin Digging Team
4 Goblin Vandal
2 Dwarven Soldier
4 Ironclaw Orcs
4 Ball Lightning
4 Lava Hounds
2 Viashino Sandstalker

3 Kaervek's Torch
4 Incinerate
4 Hammer of Bogardan
4 Fireblast

4 Dwarven Ruins
18 Mountain

Sideboard
3 Pyrokinesis
4 Detonate
4 Anarchy
4 Straw Golem

On route to a 7-0 victory at Day 1 of U.S. Nationals in 1997, Dave Price actually ran ten creatures of casting cost three or more. How can this be reconciled with the last two paragraphs? All of those creatures had haste. Haste is a wonderful ability for a creature whose sole purpose is to get in, deal its damage, and get out. Haste negates the fact that your creature is slow and cumbersome, not only because it allows for one more attack than a regular guy (posing, in a way, as though it were cast the previous turn), but because your opponent has often left himself with no way of dealing with that initial assault. A turn 4 Wrath of God leaves your opponent tapped out. Crunch! In comes that Lava Hounds which would have just sat around in play for a turn with a huge target on his forehead were he a Loxodon Hierarch. Four mana for Lava Hounds nets you four damage on a much more consistent basis than any of its Standard descendants (and with the possibility of four, eight, twelve, or sixteen more on top of that). Although it costs twice that of the creatures which have traditionally defined the top end of the Sligh creature curve, the Lava Hounds (as well as the Viashino Sandstalkers) are utilised in exactly the same way; as direct damage where “x” equals the creature's power. Note how much this point correlates with the previous one on tempo: haste often allows these creatures to deny the opponent the opportunity to deal with them the turn they are cast. In so doing, they deny him or her the opportunity to recoup any tempo advantage. Thus, although likely more expensive than your opponent's answers, these particular threats are easily justified.

It is for this reason as well, then, that Burning Tree Shaman, Loxodon Hierarch, and Rumbling Slum should be kept out of any Zoo build operating under the Sligh archetype. They can't be expected to connect with the opponent in the same way that the smaller guys (by virtue of their cheap cost) or those with haste (by virtue of exploiting an opponent whose defences are down) can. If your creature can't be expected to make that first connection on a regular basis — bringing your opponent within range of your direct damage — this can only weaken the consistency of the deck.

Of course, this is not to argue that these aforementioned creatures should not be played full stop, a point which leads nicely into a consideration of how ‘Fires' style aggro builds win the game. If you refer back to Scott Johns' Fires list, you will notice certain elements that suggest the significance of tempo. The smooth mana curve designed to make the most efficient use of one's mana every turn, combined with the ability to accelerate into the more expensive spells — in effect, making most of your deck “cheaper” — certainly betrays a concern with tempo. Here, however, that concept takes on a much more secondary role, being used merely as a means to advance the primary focus of the deck: power advantage.

The Fires style deck is all about doing the most powerful aggressive things that it can, a philosophy achieved by asking “at X mana how can I affect the game state the most with one card?” Unlike the Sligh deck, there is no inherent tempo advantage here over the opponent. Not only will the creatures typically cost more than the opposing answers (e.g. Rumbling Slum versus Mana Leak, to return to the modern analogies) they can only generally be deployed one at a time, giving the opponent plenty of opportunity to deal with them as the come. Thus, whilst a Sligh style build could quite easily slip a Kird Ape and Watchwolf into play before any opposing counterspells even come online, the Fires style build is forced to resign itself to the fact the many of its creatures will not even hit the table (against Blue-based control), or live to see their first combat phase (against any other control build). It is this phenomenon that generates the need to maximise the impact of every card played. The Fires build needs to make up for lower expected threat density by increasing the board presence of those threats that do stick.

One way of doing this is to obviously just run the best creatures. There is no point playing Hill Giant when you have access to Rumbling Slum, for instance. A further way of achieving this - one which has been put to great effect time and time again - is to utilise cards which increase the power level of your threats; typically mana accelerants, such as Llanowar Elves and Birds of Paradise. These complement perfectly the intrinsic power of your actual threats, because not only do they bring them online a turn sooner, they also give the deck something to do with its mana on turn 1 (noting that the use of one's mana every turn of the game is itself incredibly powerful) and they allow the deck to forego the dead two-mana slot in its mana curve. Allow me to explain...

We've established that the Fires style aggro deck is not about tempo. It would sure like to win the game as soon as possible (that's a given with any deck), but it is built for the mid-to-late game. Furthermore, it is built with an eye towards getting the most possible out of every single one of its cards. The two-mana slot is incredibly difficult to reconcile with this objective. By necessity, you just can't get the same bang for you buck at two mana than you can at three or four. Watchwolf is efficient, sure, but does it have the same raw power as Rumbling Slum? Not a chance, and Watchwolf is the nut high that you can expect for two mana in an aggro deck. Essentially, for the Fires style deck, the impact provided by Watchwolf (and, indeed, every other guy that made the Sligh build great), relative to that provided by the top-end creatures, simply doesn't warrant the investment of a whole card. The mana accelerants, by contrast, although not themselves powerful as 1/1s for one, benefit all your other threats by bringing them online sooner. They also allow you to “cheat” of sorts, by replacing what would have otherwise been an underpowered second turn with a truly relevant one (by dropping Fires of Yavimaya in 2000, or Burning Tree Shaman in 2006). This effect is most definitely worth the investment of a whole card.

Incidentally, the actual Fires deck went one step further with this idea of externally boosting the power of its threats, by way of its signature enchantment. Fires of Yavimaya itself not only granted all of the deck's creatures haste (a much more relevant ability than usual given the drawbacks imposed by the fading mechanic on Blastoderm and Saproling Burst) with all the benefits of that keyword previously discussed, but at a pinch it could also be sacrificed to keep a creature alive through combat or to deal those final few points of damage. The enchantment provided a crucial tool in the Fires arsenal through which the deck could achieve a power advantage over the opponent.

If we bring this reasoning together, we can discern three reasons as to why cards such as Savannah Lions, Kird Ape, and Watchwolf do not belong in the Fires style deck. The first is that they simply do not do enough, when compared with the higher-end creatures, to warrant the investment of a whole card. The focus in this type of deck is not about keeping the mana curve down in order to reduce the impact of the opponent's answers (noting, though, that the mana curve is still of crucial importance towards ensuring a steady stream of progressively more expensive, and therefore, significant threats), it is about maximising the impact of every threat to achieve that same objective. The power differential between a Kird Ape and a Rumbling Slum is obviously immense. The second reason is that these creatures likewise do nothing to enhance the power of other cards in the deck. One can comfortably justify Llanowar Elves and Birds of Paradise on this basis because, although not of themselves significant to the game state, their impact on other spells most certainly is. Finally, they simply do not fit the practical gameplan of the deck: to drop a mana accelerant on turn 1 followed immediately by a significant three-drop on turn 2, a four-drop on turn 3, and a five-drop on turn 4. This strategy is so effective, because not only do the threats start hitting the board as early as turn 2, they crucially make use of all the available mana in doing so. As was mentioned in passing earlier, this is incredibly powerful, on the basis that there generally exists in Magic a direct correlation between the cost of each spell and its effect. It follows that the player who spends more mana over the course of a game of Magic should be the player impacting the game the most. Such a principle is of huge benefit to a deck reliant on power, and as such needs to be exploited by the Fires style deck as consistently as possible. The Sligh threats, costing one or two to cast, cannot exploit the three mana you intend to have available by the second turn and thus, in theoretical terms as well as in the context of your practical gameplan, simply do not fit the deck, just as the reverse was true in our consideration of the Sligh archetype.

Conclusion

Where does all of this leave us? The fact that post-Guildpact Standard gives us access to a wealth of efficiently costed aggressive creatures seems to be both a blessing and a curse. There is undoubtedly scope to develop at least one RGW aggro archetype in the new format, but that development is currently being restricted by an assumption that cost-to-power efficiency is enough upon which to build an aggressive deck. The fallacy in this assumption is the fact that aggro strategies, as demonstrated, often rely on completely different principles of Magic theory to each other when achieving their ends. What therefore provides a cornerstone for one archetype (Rumbling Slum in a ‘Fires' style build, for instance) can be the complete antithesis of another in relation to how that latter build constructs its gameplan. The conclusion that logically follows from this is that Standard actually presents an opportunity for two RGW aggro decks to emerge, each utilising the extensive range of cost-efficient creatures available but to very different effect.

Of course, this discussion would lose much of its impact were I not even to demonstrate these conclusions in practice so I therefore present two lists for Zoo in the new Standard format.

A disclaimer before I do, however. The first list is the one to which I have been devoting my attentions, and I fully intend to analyse separately its construction and matchups in depth. The second is untested and I only propose it as an illustration of the principles I have been discussing, and as a point of comparison with the first build. Hopefully, though, it will inspire someone to take the concept and run with it, because although my affections currently lie with the former deck, I see no reason why the latter cannot emerge as a serious contender in its own right.

Here are the two RGW aggro decks of post-Guildpact Standard:

Petting Zoo Featured by Iain Bain on 2006-03-05 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11429.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Kird Ape 4 Savannah Lions 4 Scab-Clan Mauler 4 Watchwolf Instants 4 Char 4 Flames of the Blood Hand 4 Lightning Helix 4 Shock Legendary Creatures 3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda	Sorceries 4 Volcanic Hammer Basic Lands 1 Forest Lands 4 Battlefield Forge 1 Brushland 3 Karplusan Forest 4 Sacred Foundry 4 Stomping Ground 4 Temple Garden	Sideboard: 4 Tin Street Hooligan 3 Demystify 4 Umezawa's Jitte 2 Godo, Bandit Warlord 1 Brushland 1 Karplusan Forest
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African Safari Featured by Iain Bain on 2006-03-05 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11429.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Burning-Tree Shaman 4 Elves of Deep Shadow 4 Llanowar Elves 3 Loxodon Hierarch 4 Rumbling Slum 3 Wood Elves Instants 3 Char 2 Congregation at Dawn Legendary Artifacts 1 Tatsumasa, the Dragon's Fang 4 Umezawa's Jitte	Legendary Creatures 1 Arashi, the Sky Asunder 2 Godo, Bandit Warlord 2 Kodama of the North Tree Basic Lands 4 Forest 1 Mountain Lands 4 Battlefield Forge 2 Brushland 4 Karplusan Forest 4 Stomping Ground 4 Temple Garden	Sideboard: 1 Loxodon Hierarch 1 Tin Street Hooligan 4 Leyline of Lifeforce 4 Lightning Helix 3 Naturalize 2 Arashi, the Sky Asunder
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Comments in the forum would be greatly appreciated; hopefully any card-specific queries regarding the Sligh build of Zoo (“Petting Zoo”) will be answered by the article to follow, and thank you for reading!

Iain Bain