A Budget Zoo

Using the cards you have at hand always leads to unusual deckbuilding experiences. At this stage in the game, I refuse to go running to the singles store every time I have an idea, since I already have plenty of deck material that never actually went into the decks I envisioned.

What do you call a mishmash of ingredients from across the space-time of magic? When the deck is mostly creatures, you call it a Zoo. I call my new deck the Zeke Zoo.

None of the cards are particularly good, but I'm planning on seeing just how far I can weave the synergies. The deck started with 4 Wooly Thoctars, which I thought were the cat's pajamas when Shards of Alara came out.

Cats love pajamas.

I also had 4 Balefire Lieges in my shoe box from when I was going to make a red/white deck in Eventide.

Remember when everybody was oohing and aaahing over Balefire Liege? "This thing is just going to break magic wide open," they said. "A reusable Lightning Helix on a stick," they said. "What was R&D thinking?"

Finally, I had a FULL playset of a little junk rare called Ashling's Perogative. I read a strategy article somewhere once upon a time that used this card…the secret being you had to construct your deck's mana curve a little funky to make sure you have either entirely odd or even casting-cost creatures.

Regarding Ashling's Perogative, I have a theory that the most disruptive choice to set the enchantment to is "odd" since today's decks seem to be full of 2 drops.

So I put these cards together, and what I got seems pretty good. To fill out my 1 drops, I packed the deck with Wild Nacatyls, Araksan Squires, Lightning Bolts and Kird Apes. The deck starts out very fast, and if the game draws out, the Balefire Liege comes down and all of a sudden just about every spell has card advantage built into it.

Did I mention with an Ashling's perogative set to "odd" every creature in my deck has haste? This seems pretty powerful as well.

It's no "Naya Lightsaber," but turns can be surprisingly explosive. With the Leige, Lightning Bolts turn into cheap Lightning Bursts. Woolly Thoctars give you the full Lightning Helix. And add a Lightning Helix to get TWO Lightning Helixes. 12 total life point swing. Yep.

I suppose the Balefire Leiges are in reality too slow. In a fight with the "big boys" I would get steam rolled before I could get the whole crazy system on-line.

But its still very fun. And awesome. And awesomely fun.




So, the next time you are itching to make a deck, see just what you have lying around before you start clicking on your favorite online card store.

Later!

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