As strange as this sounds, I actually enjoy playing against Zoo, but it seems that literally every Warlock I've played against in the last week have all been Handlock.
Depends, what rank have you been seeing this transition to Handlock? With the advent of Control Warrior retaking its throne after a short hiatus as one of the tier 1 control decks, the rising popularity of MCT, and naturally strong match-ups like Hunter roaming around, it becomes tougher for Zoo to thrive compared to a deck pool full of Midrange or slower paced aggro decks.
If I were to guess I would say Xixo's (Implosion/Sea Giant) deck has fallen out of favor, a combination of all the issues above alongside BGH being frequented.
That's not to say you can't climb with it, but I personally think Hunter does a much better job at ending games before they get too long. Zoo never really "dies" so much as drops down a tier because whatever it does is outclassed by another class for the moment.
Zoo has definitely not disappeared, but the meta doesn't really help. Two of our best matchups, Shaman and Rogue, have pretty much disappeared. Paladin can be pretty crushing if they get a strong early game since Shielded Minibot is guaranteed to get a 2-for-1 trade. In addition, the rise of Taunt Druid and Handlock makes the meta very unfavourable for a deck that wants to trade and kill you quickly. I think its still playable at the low ranks, but once you get to rank 10+ it gets really tough.
Zoo's best matchups are combo druid and midrange hunter, while it performs poorly on average vs. paladin, handlock, warrior, and the slow ramp druid that's popular right now (among other things), so yeah, it's not too popular on the ladder.
Having recently built Zoo again, I can say it is not a great choice at the moment. To do a 5 win warlock quest, I went 5-15. All I faced was Paladin, Mech Mage, and Face Hunter, all decks that make Zoo cry. My 5 wins all came against Shamans.
The Enhance-o Mechano can really win the game for zoo, but also mechs seems to be the better choice in zoo atm, although its harder too keep a board to buff.
Tried Hobgoblin in zoo but rarely worked out really well, too slow to have great value out of it and too risky played very early.
Zoo is a lot less prevalent with the rise of hunters. However, now that hunter's undertaker has been nerfed, mechmage seems to be coming out on top. Agree, disagree?
Zoo is a lot less prevalent with the rise of hunters. However, now that hunter's undertaker has been nerfed, mechmage seems to be coming out on top. Agree, disagree?
Simply because mech mage is Zoo. This is a trend we've seen in other TCGs and pretty much seen coming pre GvG already.
Mechs are a really powerful tribe with synergy while still providing decent stats for their cost (unlike Murlocs with great synergy but horrible stats). Tribal Zoo will always outshine the kind of Zoo deck we've seen before simply because the cards are designed to be more powerful together and Zoo is a type of deck that is build to put a lot of minions on the board.
So basically Zoo does still exist it just now happens to be a tribal deck and it just so happens to shift classes because Mage provides more powerful synergy with it's class specific cards than a warlock does.
Zoo lives.
Nice explanation, I agree, i might make a video about this.
Honestly imo Zoo is a lot weaker with the rise of 2/3 2 drops.
Zoo used to be able to effectively trade up with most 3/2 2 drops with 2/1 1 drops, but with 2/3s being the standard now Zoo is sorely lacking in 1 drops that are actually relevant now with the nerf of Undertaker.
Zoo used to run like 8-10 one drops which gave it an edge in speed and tempo since that one drop would generally trade with most 2 drop the opponent played. Now the only reason my Zoo deck has 6 one drops at all is because Abusive Sergeant is amazing outside of the first turn.
The odd part is that Mech Mage actually is better at opening now. They have a Flame Imp that doesn't deal you 3 damage, their 2/1 still effectively trades up against Zoo since a good number of Zoo 2 drops still only have 2 HP, and Annoy-o-tron functions well enough as their Voidwalker.
Honestly imo Zoo is a lot weaker with the rise of 2/3 2 drops.
Zoo used to be able to effectively trade up with most 3/2 2 drops with 2/1 1 drops, but with 2/3s being the standard now Zoo is sorely lacking in 1 drops that are actually relevant now with the nerf of Undertaker.
Zoo used to run like 8-10 one drops which gave it an edge in speed and tempo since that one drop would generally trade with most 2 drop the opponent played. Now the only reason my Zoo deck has 6 one drops at all is because Abusive Sergeant is amazing outside of the first turn.
The odd part is that Mech Mage actually is better at opening now. They have a Flame Imp that doesn't deal you 3 damage, their 2/1 still effectively trades up against Zoo since a good number of Zoo 2 drops still only have 2 HP, and Annoy-o-tron functions well enough as their Voidwalker.
As was mentioned above, yes, Mech Mage is considered the new Zoo now. However; what you said about the rise of 2/3s (and to a certain extent a certain 3 mana 3/4) really does ring true. The inability to trade up in the early game just ruins the decks entire winning mechanisms. The only way to really win now is to try and race, and there is much better decks for that game plan.
Honestly imo Zoo is a lot weaker with the rise of 2/3 2 drops.
Zoo used to be able to effectively trade up with most 3/2 2 drops with 2/1 1 drops, but with 2/3s being the standard now Zoo is sorely lacking in 1 drops that are actually relevant now with the nerf of Undertaker.
Zoo used to run like 8-10 one drops which gave it an edge in speed and tempo since that one drop would generally trade with most 2 drop the opponent played. Now the only reason my Zoo deck has 6 one drops at all is because Abusive Sergeant is amazing outside of the first turn.
The odd part is that Mech Mage actually is better at opening now. They have a Flame Imp that doesn't deal you 3 damage, their 2/1 still effectively trades up against Zoo since a good number of Zoo 2 drops still only have 2 HP, and Annoy-o-tron functions well enough as their Voidwalker.
As was mentioned above, yes, Mech Mage is considered the new Zoo now. However; what you said about the rise of 2/3s (and to a certain extent a certain 3 mana 3/4) really does ring true. The inability to trade up in the early game just ruins the decks entire winning mechanisms. The only way to really win now is to try and race, and there is much better decks for that game plan.
It's the reason Feral Spirits for Shaman is such a bad card now. It used to be able to stop 1-2 drops in their place and significantly hurt 3 drops, but now you are essentially spending 5 mana on something to trade down against a Spider Tank, and something that 2 drops don't even die to by attacking into.
Cards were balanced around the fact that 2 drops and 3 drops generally effectively fought each other, and the 4 drop was the first power spike. 2/3s were REALLY bad because most 3 drops were 3/3 and would let a 3 drop trade down against your 2 drop, but 3/2s let you trade up against their 3 drop, and because of 3/2s being better then 2/3s, 2/1 one drops were viable to kill opposing 2 drops.
Blizzard got rid of that paradigm by releasing the 3/4 (and 4/4) 3 drop though, and now a 3 drop can trade down against a 3/2 and a 1 drop can trade up against it as well as opposed to a 2/3 which the 3 drop still trades down against, but is no longer vulnerable to a 2/1 trading up.
Zoo was made to abuse the previous principle since having more minions on the field gave you an advantage until that 4 drop power spike and that spike was easy to overcome with a 2-3 drop receiving a +2 attack buff, but now there's no lull where cards are relatively the same powerlevel and they can fight superior numbers by simply having a bigger guy. Hero Power or not, not even Zoo can keep the gas going when it has to 2-1 everything.
That's not to say that Zoo is completely doomed. Remember, Blizzard balanced the game before around the 3/2 2 drop principle and are finding out really quickly with Mech Mage that there aren't nearly enough answers in the game at the moment to deal with 2/3 2 drops. It's one of the reasons the deck is so powerful atm, All of Blizzards answers to stop the hoard of 2/1 one drops and 2/3 2 drops are pretty much worthless to stop a swarm of 2/3 2 drops and even stronger 3 drops, (2 damage AoEs, Deathlord, Feral Spirit, ect...)
Blizzard is probably already thinking of new cards that can better counter a swarm of 2/3s (Here's a big hint, a 1 mana vanilla 3/1 would be REALLY good against Mech Mage as Zoo with only Annoy-o-Tron effectively stopping it and it trading up against Mechwarpers, and Chuggas. There's a reason Cogmaster is run in every list. Dropping it T1 in the mirror match is BIG).
Blizzard is probably already thinking of new cards that can better counter a swarm of 2/3s (Here's a big hint, a 1 mana vanilla 3/1 would be REALLY good against Mech Mage as Zoo with only Annoy-o-Tron effectively stopping it and it trading up against Mechwarpers, and Chuggas. There's a reason Cogmaster is run in every list. Dropping it T1 in the mirror match is BIG).
While I agree with everything else you posted, a vanilla 3/1 won't do enough. Mages hero power alone negates it, plus 3 other hero powers make it negligible. While I don' want to say it, we may already be starting to see a definitive power creep, it will be really interesting to see what they do that doesn't just make everything from base/classic almost obsolete already if they keep trending the early game.
Blizzard is probably already thinking of new cards that can better counter a swarm of 2/3s (Here's a big hint, a 1 mana vanilla 3/1 would be REALLY good against Mech Mage as Zoo with only Annoy-o-Tron effectively stopping it and it trading up against Mechwarpers, and Chuggas. There's a reason Cogmaster is run in every list. Dropping it T1 in the mirror match is BIG).
While I agree with everything else you posted, a vanilla 3/1 won't do enough. Mages hero power alone negates it, plus 3 other hero powers make it negligible. While I don' want to say it, we may already be starting to see a definitive power creep, it will be really interesting to see what they do that doesn't just make everything from base/classic almost obsolete already if they keep trending the early game.
Most one drops die to a ping, and I'm ok with that most of the time because they have to spend 2 mana now to deal with my 1 mana.
Either you drop it T1 and they have to use their second turn to ping it letting you get the first 2 (or 3 drop if you coin) on board, or they have to use their coin and ping it which also lets you drop the first 2 drop on the field also robbing them of their coin. (Or option 3, they play Annoy-o-Tron and you cry) It's a tempo play, while in the long run it will probably amount to a favorable trade for your opponent since you will have to Life Tap to get that card back in the short run playing a 1 drop to rob them of their second turn is pretty big against mech mage and as a tempo deck in general.
It won't single handedly fix everything, but it will definitely help since Zoo is sorely lacking in relevant 1 drops atm and that's definitely relevant as currently right now a Mech Mage probably won't even BOTHER to ping a 2/1 1 drop since it threatens him very little.
Also there's not THAT much power creep as much as that strategies are shifting. If Mechwarper and Chuggs were 3/2s Zoo would still be VERY viable. The only major power creep are 3 drops, but they were underpowered intentionally to begin with.
Well I played zoo up to rank 8, it was super boring.
Hunter and rogue are great matchups about 75% win rate. THen it's all way downhill from there.
Paladin is really what crushes zoo the most. I have less than 50% against them even with blood knights in the deck. Muster for battle is just too strong, unfairly strong, against zoo.
MCTech being played in random deck also completely cripples zoo. Druid now has that stupid card, which makes it randomly a much tougher matchup than it used to.
The rise of freeze mage is also a very bad thing, as that matchup is near unwinnable. The mech mage matchup is favorable in my experience. As long as you get 1 drops, you usually can stay ahead of their mechs and not allow them to trigger the why-did-they-design-this-Blastmage.
But that's mech mage against all decks really. "OH DERR DID I GETZ MECHWARPERS AND MAH FIREBULLZ? ME WIN YAY". I've played with and against that deck enough to know that's basically every game lol.
Anyway I would say if you want to play zoo right now, you can definitely reach legend, but it's going to be way more of a struggle than in the past.
I had a similar mindset and tried to create a zoo deck that can trade very favorably versus mechmages. I brought back the old ideas such as, Shieldbearer, Shattered Sun Cleric to make favorable trades or to stop the effectiveness of Annoy-o-Trons in the early game. I even added a single copy of a Succubus to empty my hand while keeping the aggression, as I run 2 Soulfires and 2 Doomguards in the deck.
It worked like magic against mechmage. It was the reason why I made the deck in the first place. I crushed the so-called early tempo deck called mechmage to show how gimmicky it was in essence. Warrior was a hard matchup, but still winnable if one could push up enough pressure and finish the warrior before the game goes too long. The deck was less stronger in rushing someone down, so it was a harder matchup.
The real problem were taunt-city druids and the most terrible matchup of all, paladins! Zombie Chow, Shielded Minibot, Muster for Battle and Truesilver Champion just made it impossible to win the game. Druid matchup can be handled with some tech cards or some little tweak in strategy. Paladin? It's nigh impossible.
Zoo is definately not dead, just the meta has shifted that it makes Zoo a little harder to work its way round. Though I'm not a zoo player myself yet I have enjoyed playing a deathlok deck or a basic demon deck that has Lord Jaraxxusin it for lols, I'd dout Zoo will go away
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As strange as this sounds, I actually enjoy playing against Zoo, but it seems that literally every Warlock I've played against in the last week have all been Handlock.
Did Zoo die and I just didn't realize it?
Depends, what rank have you been seeing this transition to Handlock? With the advent of Control Warrior retaking its throne after a short hiatus as one of the tier 1 control decks, the rising popularity of MCT, and naturally strong match-ups like Hunter roaming around, it becomes tougher for Zoo to thrive compared to a deck pool full of Midrange or slower paced aggro decks.
If I were to guess I would say Xixo's (Implosion/Sea Giant) deck has fallen out of favor, a combination of all the issues above alongside BGH being frequented.
That's not to say you can't climb with it, but I personally think Hunter does a much better job at ending games before they get too long. Zoo never really "dies" so much as drops down a tier because whatever it does is outclassed by another class for the moment.
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Zoo has definitely not disappeared, but the meta doesn't really help. Two of our best matchups, Shaman and Rogue, have pretty much disappeared. Paladin can be pretty crushing if they get a strong early game since Shielded Minibot is guaranteed to get a 2-for-1 trade. In addition, the rise of Taunt Druid and Handlock makes the meta very unfavourable for a deck that wants to trade and kill you quickly. I think its still playable at the low ranks, but once you get to rank 10+ it gets really tough.
Zoo's best matchups are combo druid and midrange hunter, while it performs poorly on average vs. paladin, handlock, warrior, and the slow ramp druid that's popular right now (among other things), so yeah, it's not too popular on the ladder.
The new zoo is mech mage.
Having recently built Zoo again, I can say it is not a great choice at the moment. To do a 5 win warlock quest, I went 5-15. All I faced was Paladin, Mech Mage, and Face Hunter, all decks that make Zoo cry. My 5 wins all came against Shamans.
The Enhance-o Mechano can really win the game for zoo, but also mechs seems to be the better choice in zoo atm, although its harder too keep a board to buff.
Tried Hobgoblin in zoo but rarely worked out really well, too slow to have great value out of it and too risky played very early.
Zoo is a lot less prevalent with the rise of hunters. However, now that hunter's undertaker has been nerfed, mechmage seems to be coming out on top. Agree, disagree?
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Nice explanation, I agree, i might make a video about this.
Check me out on youtube!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXmgcIJFF5wervUH-of_KkQ
Honestly imo Zoo is a lot weaker with the rise of 2/3 2 drops.
Zoo used to be able to effectively trade up with most 3/2 2 drops with 2/1 1 drops, but with 2/3s being the standard now Zoo is sorely lacking in 1 drops that are actually relevant now with the nerf of Undertaker.
Zoo used to run like 8-10 one drops which gave it an edge in speed and tempo since that one drop would generally trade with most 2 drop the opponent played. Now the only reason my Zoo deck has 6 one drops at all is because Abusive Sergeant is amazing outside of the first turn.
The odd part is that Mech Mage actually is better at opening now. They have a Flame Imp that doesn't deal you 3 damage, their 2/1 still effectively trades up against Zoo since a good number of Zoo 2 drops still only have 2 HP, and Annoy-o-tron functions well enough as their Voidwalker.
As was mentioned above, yes, Mech Mage is considered the new Zoo now. However; what you said about the rise of 2/3s (and to a certain extent a certain 3 mana 3/4) really does ring true. The inability to trade up in the early game just ruins the decks entire winning mechanisms. The only way to really win now is to try and race, and there is much better decks for that game plan.
It's the reason Feral Spirits for Shaman is such a bad card now. It used to be able to stop 1-2 drops in their place and significantly hurt 3 drops, but now you are essentially spending 5 mana on something to trade down against a Spider Tank, and something that 2 drops don't even die to by attacking into.
Cards were balanced around the fact that 2 drops and 3 drops generally effectively fought each other, and the 4 drop was the first power spike. 2/3s were REALLY bad because most 3 drops were 3/3 and would let a 3 drop trade down against your 2 drop, but 3/2s let you trade up against their 3 drop, and because of 3/2s being better then 2/3s, 2/1 one drops were viable to kill opposing 2 drops.
Blizzard got rid of that paradigm by releasing the 3/4 (and 4/4) 3 drop though, and now a 3 drop can trade down against a 3/2 and a 1 drop can trade up against it as well as opposed to a 2/3 which the 3 drop still trades down against, but is no longer vulnerable to a 2/1 trading up.
Also Annoy-o-Tron noms 2/1 one drops.
Zoo was made to abuse the previous principle since having more minions on the field gave you an advantage until that 4 drop power spike and that spike was easy to overcome with a 2-3 drop receiving a +2 attack buff, but now there's no lull where cards are relatively the same powerlevel and they can fight superior numbers by simply having a bigger guy. Hero Power or not, not even Zoo can keep the gas going when it has to 2-1 everything.
That's not to say that Zoo is completely doomed. Remember, Blizzard balanced the game before around the 3/2 2 drop principle and are finding out really quickly with Mech Mage that there aren't nearly enough answers in the game at the moment to deal with 2/3 2 drops. It's one of the reasons the deck is so powerful atm, All of Blizzards answers to stop the hoard of 2/1 one drops and 2/3 2 drops are pretty much worthless to stop a swarm of 2/3 2 drops and even stronger 3 drops, (2 damage AoEs, Deathlord, Feral Spirit, ect...)
Blizzard is probably already thinking of new cards that can better counter a swarm of 2/3s (Here's a big hint, a 1 mana vanilla 3/1 would be REALLY good against Mech Mage as Zoo with only Annoy-o-Tron effectively stopping it and it trading up against Mechwarpers, and Chuggas. There's a reason Cogmaster is run in every list. Dropping it T1 in the mirror match is BIG).
While I agree with everything else you posted, a vanilla 3/1 won't do enough. Mages hero power alone negates it, plus 3 other hero powers make it negligible. While I don' want to say it, we may already be starting to see a definitive power creep, it will be really interesting to see what they do that doesn't just make everything from base/classic almost obsolete already if they keep trending the early game.
Most one drops die to a ping, and I'm ok with that most of the time because they have to spend 2 mana now to deal with my 1 mana.
Either you drop it T1 and they have to use their second turn to ping it letting you get the first 2 (or 3 drop if you coin) on board, or they have to use their coin and ping it which also lets you drop the first 2 drop on the field also robbing them of their coin. (Or option 3, they play Annoy-o-Tron and you cry) It's a tempo play, while in the long run it will probably amount to a favorable trade for your opponent since you will have to Life Tap to get that card back in the short run playing a 1 drop to rob them of their second turn is pretty big against mech mage and as a tempo deck in general.
It won't single handedly fix everything, but it will definitely help since Zoo is sorely lacking in relevant 1 drops atm and that's definitely relevant as currently right now a Mech Mage probably won't even BOTHER to ping a 2/1 1 drop since it threatens him very little.
Also there's not THAT much power creep as much as that strategies are shifting. If Mechwarper and Chuggs were 3/2s Zoo would still be VERY viable. The only major power creep are 3 drops, but they were underpowered intentionally to begin with.
Well I played zoo up to rank 8, it was super boring.
Hunter and rogue are great matchups about 75% win rate.
THen it's all way downhill from there.
Paladin is really what crushes zoo the most. I have less than 50% against them even with blood knights in the deck. Muster for battle is just too strong, unfairly strong, against zoo.
MCTech being played in random deck also completely cripples zoo. Druid now has that stupid card, which makes it randomly a much tougher matchup than it used to.
The rise of freeze mage is also a very bad thing, as that matchup is near unwinnable. The mech mage matchup is favorable in my experience. As long as you get 1 drops, you usually can stay ahead of their mechs and not allow them to trigger the why-did-they-design-this-Blastmage.
But that's mech mage against all decks really. "OH DERR DID I GETZ MECHWARPERS AND MAH FIREBULLZ? ME WIN YAY". I've played with and against that deck enough to know that's basically every game lol.
Anyway I would say if you want to play zoo right now, you can definitely reach legend, but it's going to be way more of a struggle than in the past.
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This fella exactly knows what he's talking about.
I had a similar mindset and tried to create a zoo deck that can trade very favorably versus mechmages. I brought back the old ideas such as, Shieldbearer, Shattered Sun Cleric to make favorable trades or to stop the effectiveness of Annoy-o-Trons in the early game. I even added a single copy of a Succubus to empty my hand while keeping the aggression, as I run 2 Soulfires and 2 Doomguards in the deck.
It worked like magic against mechmage. It was the reason why I made the deck in the first place. I crushed the so-called early tempo deck called mechmage to show how gimmicky it was in essence. Warrior was a hard matchup, but still winnable if one could push up enough pressure and finish the warrior before the game goes too long. The deck was less stronger in rushing someone down, so it was a harder matchup.
The real problem were taunt-city druids and the most terrible matchup of all, paladins! Zombie Chow, Shielded Minibot, Muster for Battle and Truesilver Champion just made it impossible to win the game. Druid matchup can be handled with some tech cards or some little tweak in strategy. Paladin? It's nigh impossible.
Zoo is definately not dead, just the meta has shifted that it makes Zoo a little harder to work its way round. Though I'm not a zoo player myself yet I have enjoyed playing a deathlok deck or a basic demon deck that has Lord Jaraxxusin it for lols, I'd dout Zoo will go away