Choosing your creatures & Karl's Zoo

Sup guys! :)

I’m sunk into the recliner, got my pentium 4 shitbox plugged into the big screen TV, southern comfort & coke with ice in hand, life’s pretty sweet. Just mowed the lawn and repaired the basketball ring, worked out how to turn on the house’s AC, that’s enough productivity for one day :P Time to think about magical cardboard and the many ways I can rearrange it...

              

A challenge which arises in highlander more often than in any other format is: choosing between cards of almost equal power level. What are the best 6 burn spells? What are the best 6 counterspells? This really depends on your deck's style and finding the answer takes a lot of testing. The same goes for creatures. There are so many creatures out there, it's hard to make the correct choice. So, I thought I could help out :)

The situation is: You've got a long list of creatures that you want to play and you're deciding which ones to play and which ones to omit. Here are some criteria in order of importance, that can help you decide.

1st Selection criteria: Does this creature suit my deck’s strategy?

The America Football coach walks across his new freshmen recruits like a sergeant. What’s this? There’s a kid in a wheel chair here. Go home son, you can’t walk! Get out of my aggro deck Wall of Omens, you can’t attack!

  

Think of how your deck is trying to win and decide if the creature fits your strategy. A few examples to give you a better idea:

Control example - You're playing counterspells because you want to have an answer to everything, therefore you don't want to tap out for a creature until your opponent has cast all their threats. Often a threat will sneak through your counterspells so any creature you play needs to clean up that threat. By this stage your opponent will probably have removal in hand also. So, your creature needs resilience against removal (hex proof, protection or produce some tokes when it enters/leaves the battlefield. You also need to get your opponent to 0 life. Your creature has a job to do! On the plus side you probably have about 5 or 6 mana to play with by this stage. Grave Titan is a good example of a control creature. To a lesser degree there's Wurmcoil Engine, Hornet Queen,  Consecrated Sphinx, Broodmate Dragon etc...

Aggro Example - Your deck's plan is to kill your opponent as fast as possible before they either:

·        Get to enough mana to cast their big powerful spells.

·        Overwhelm you with card advantage.

·        Combo off

So your creatures need to be attacking your opponent for as much damage as possible.  You don't want to be playing high cost, slow cards like Baneslayer and you don't want to be casting slow acting creatures like Orhan Viper.

2nd Selection Criteria: Does this creature fit my curve?

To check this, sort your deck into 3 piles:

·        Spells that you would always cast immediately if you and your opponent were top decking onto an open board.

·        Other spells

·        Lands

Ensure you have enough 'pile one' cards of each mana cost. If the creature you're considering has a mana cost that you already have heaps of, then you should change it to a creature with a mana cost you're short on. You need the minimum number of cheap threats to reliably draw them. Otherwise you'll fall behind in the early game. You also want to maximise the power of your deck which involves playing just enough big spells that you don't get stuck with them in hand. Finding the right balance takes a lot of testing.

3rd Selection criteria: Reducing weaknesses

Examples of what I'm talking about:

·        You're playing a deck with lots of creatures. You're going to be weak to Wrath of God. If you're deciding between Loxodon Smiter and Kitchen Finks, you can choose Kitchen Finks to reduce your weakness.

·        You might be wanting to add another 2 drop but not increase your weakness to Engineered Explosives; Porcelain Legionnaire is your man.

·        You haven't got much instant creature removal or instant artifact removal so you're weak to Umezawa's Jitte. Therefore, creatures with First Strike should increase in value for you.

Think about the Metagame. If you predict there will be a lot of Zoo decks then you'll want creatures that kill 2/3's. If you predict lots of mana elves then you'll want to avoid 1 toughness creatures.

4th Selection Criteria: Feel

This criteria isn't as 'real' as the others but I think it's important. 'Feel' is all about whether you like the card.

·        You might have a fond memory of it.

·        You might think it's underrated and want to prove its worth.

·        You may prefer outrageous high risk/high reward cards. 

I wouldn't recommend 'liking the art' as a reason to play a card. If you don't want to play a card cause it looks shit, go get a different print of it or alter it with a sharpie.

These little things all contribute to the pride you have in your deck and your motivation to do well with it.

Ok, hopefully that helps you out if you're having trouble deciding on your creatures. The criterion are pretty translatable for non-creatures as well. I've already typed enough though, so you'll have to translate yourself :P

Onto section two! When people ask me stuff about highlander, the most common question I get is: “Would you be able to help me with my deck?”. Mmmyes, mmyes I can help you with your deck and the way I’m going to do it is:

·        I’ll analyse one deck per blog post (which will still include the usual random highlander topic).

·        First  decklist posted in the comments of each blog post will be the deck that I’ll analyse in my next blog post.

·        Please post a deck that you’ve already built and had some games with. Include your side board as that is obviously very important. Last blogging, Karl posted his list so here I go :)

Karl didn't include his sideboard but that's ok. He said he changes it heaps depending on who's in the room. A great policy if you're confident you know what everyone else is playing.

No one has played highlander Zoo more than Karl, here's his list:

1 DROPS	2 DROPS	3 DROPS	24 LAND
Noble Hierarch	Thalia	Loxodon Smiter	Wasteland	Stomping Ground
Skyshroud Elite	Tarmogoyf	Knight of the Reliquary	Strip Mine **	Temple Garden
Figure of Destiny	Scavenging Ooze	Burning-Tree Shaman	Kessig Wolf Run	Plateau
Steppe Lynx	Strangleroot Geist	Rith’s Charm	Karakas *	Taiga
Grim Lavamancer	Stoneforge Mystic *	Oblivion Ring	Barbarian Ring	Savannah
Dryad Militant	Tin Street Hooligan		Treetop Village	Scalding Tran
Wild Nacatl	Qasali Pridemage	4 DROPS	Plains	Arid Mesa
Loam Loin	Green Sun’s Zenith	Ranger of Eos	Forest	Flooded Strand
Kird Ape	Boros Charm	Elspeth, Knight-Errant	Mountain	Bloodstained Mire
Steelshaper’s Gift	Umezawa’s Jitte *	Ghor-Clan Rampager	Sacred Foundry	Wooded Foothills
Mental Misstep	Porcelain Legionnaire		Marsh Flats	Windswept Heath
Lightning Bolt		5 DROPS	Misty Rainforest	Verdant Catacombs
Swords to Plowshares		Sword of Fire and Ice
Path to Exile
Rancor
Skullclamp *

I like how Karl always tries out new cards in his deck. Always trying to improve and mix it up. The way everyone should approach life in my opinion. You can see he's trying out Boros Charm and Ghorclan Rampager. Both look pretty good on paper. I mentioned them in my last blog entry (Gatecrash highlander playables). It's funny that just last night I lost a game in draft to my opponent Boros Charming his Ghorclan Rampager for the win.

Karl's list is well refined so there's not an overwhelming number of things to mention (which is good)

Boros Charm

Flexible , I can't imagine too many scenario's where it won't be useful. This is purely a support card however, so Karl needs to be sure to keep his creature count high. I've owned Karl so many times with Pernicious Deed. Boros Charm now gives him an out.

Ghorclan Rampager

Another flexible card. There is almost no pump in highlander so this guy will really catch people off guard. It's funny how this guy wears a Sword of Fire and Ice really well yet you can't Bloodrush your other dudes wearing a Sword. This guy helps Karl answer Goyf which can be a real problem for his deck.

Tinstreet Hooligan

This guy's a great card, but if Karl wanted to cut a card in the future, it could be this guy. All the big artifacts you want to kill typically come out turns 4 and 5 e.g. Jitte, Sword of Fire and Ice, Vedalken Shackles, Skullclamp. So you really want your artifact kill spells to sit on the same spots in your curve that your opponents' artifacts sit.

Ranger of Eos

Another great card but cuttable. He can be a little slow vs combo and he's 'more of the same' if you know what I mean. Like, Karl is weak to a 4/5 or bigger and Ranger of Eos isn't going to beat a 4/5. Perhaps it's worth trying a planeswalker instead: Ajani Vengeant or Garruk Relentless. Maybe even Jeska, warrior adept, I've tried her out in mono-red and she was great.

No Flinthoof Boar? (Freddy Flinthoff)

This guy's gotta be the next card in if Karl cuts a card.

No Aven Mindcensor?

Mindcensor is just such a wrecker against control and combo. Karl doesn't like it because of its small body vs aggro. I still like it against aggro, it flies over and shuts down their fetch lands, green sun's zenith, knight of the reliquary, stoneforge mystic, steelshaper's gifts blah blah. Mindcensor gets a lot better the earlier you play it, which leads me to my next comment.

Stripmine Vs Mox

Karl's currently play 6 points so mox and stripmine are interchangable. I don't think there are any other good ways to spend his points. Maybe playing Stripmine lets him play Enlightened Tutor. Enlightened Tutor would only be a sideboard card against decks with almost zero artifact/enchantment kill.

The most obvious difference between Stripmine and Mox is $$$$, but let's disregard that assuming that Karl will be able to borrow any Mox he wants. If he asks to borrow cards the night before rather than his usual 4 hours before, then he won't have any trouble :P

Stripmine and Moxen are such different cards it's hard to compare them. I'm just gonna list a bunch of things to consider and Karl can make his own mind:

Stripmine:

·        Stripmine doesn't cast your spells well so most of the time you're going to be saccing it.

·        Vs aggro; you'll be one mana down on them (the tapping of the stripmine) but there's a chance they kept a land/colour light hand.

·        Vs control; they'll often hold up 2 mana for a counterspell and not be able to cast it when you stripmine them. You lose 1 mana from tapping the stripmine but they lose 2 mana from not bring able to cast the counterspell. = +1 mana = sweet. 

Some control decks will spend turns 1-3 digging for answers and drawing cards whilst you're casting creatures. Keeping them off that 4th mana (wrath, venser, planeswalkers, etc) for a turn gives you another swing with the creatures you've got.

·        Vs combo; they're often playing 5 colours so you have a good chance of colourscrewing them.

·        You can find Stripmine with Knight of the Reliquary which is nice.

·        Stripmine can still hit key cards later in the game where Mox won't do anything.

Mox:

·       Typically lets you cast an extra threat each turn until you run out of gas. This is a mox's main function and it is huge. Say you get to play an extra 2power one-drop turn one and an extra 2power one drop turn 2. By turn four (the turn that combo decks typically kill you or control decks starts casting 2 for 1 spells) you've racked up an extra 10 damage.

·        Moxes do nothing late game.

·        Moxes let you get your hosing cards down faster (aven mindcensor, thalia, burningtree shaman etc)

Alternatively Karl could play Blue for Timewalk :P I suppose then he'd add Geist of Saint Traft and Snapcaster Mage and the deck would completely transform from there....

Figure of Destiny

Figure is an awesome card. I haven't seen Karl ultimate it yet though. Karl has a few lands which hold back Figure. They are: Forest, Treetop Village & Kessig Wolfrun. Karl really wants to play a forest incase he's playing against non-basic hate and because of path to exile. I don't know how Kessig Wolfrun plays but it's sweet with Sword of Fire & Ice and trampling over with a huge Knight of the Reliquary. Can't say I like Treetop Village that much. It can lose you a mana early by entering the battlefield tapped, the reverse of my mox example. So you'll lose ~6 damage compared to playing an untapped land.

Karl's playing 24 lands. Entering the numbers into a hypergeometric calculator, that's ~86% to draw 2 or more lands in your opening hand, which isn't that high. That calculation also counts hands with 5+ lands and hands missing critical colours. Also, 2 of his Karl's lands are Stripmine and Wasteland, so I think Karl should add 1 or 2 lands to his deck. Maybe Horizon Canopy? Razorverge Thicket?

Ok, that's about all I have to say. Hope this helps you Karl. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on my suggestions.

See you Thursday or at some big interstate tournament :)