#10 · 348 points · Aggro

Zoo

Cheap red creatures and burn, with Quirion Dryad growing a counter off every red spell you cast. Grim Lavamancer turns the spent graveyard into reach.

Game plan

Red-green beatdown that plays like a burn deck with a growth engine bolted on. Every list is built around Quirion Dryad, a {1}{G} 1/1 that gets a +1/+1 counter whenever you cast a white, blue, black, or red spell. Note the colors on that list: green spells don’t grow it. In this deck that means the burn does all the work — Lightning Bolt, Incinerate, Lava Dart and Seal of Fire each add a counter while also killing something.

Lava Dart is the standout. It’s {R} for 1 damage, and its flashback cost is sacrificing a Mountain rather than mana — so a single copy is two red spells, two Dryad counters, and two pings at no mana cost. That turns a turn-two Dryad into a 3/3 by turn three without spending a card.

Grim Lavamancer is what makes the deck hold up in long games. For {R}, {T} and exiling two cards from your graveyard it deals 2 damage to any target, over and over. Wooded Foothills and Bloodstained Mire fetch, filling the graveyard while fixing the mana; spent burn spells and flashed-back Lava Darts feed the rest.

Call of the Herd is the green card that isn’t a Dryad enabler: {2}{G} for a 3/3 Elephant token, with flashback {3}{G} for a second one. Two bodies out of one card is how the deck beats removal-heavy midrange. Treetop Village does similar work — it enters tapped, but {1}{G} turns it into a 3/3 trampler that survives Wrath of God.

Sylvan Library provides the card selection. At your draw step you may draw two extra cards, then put back all but one unless you pay 4 life each. Against control that’s a real engine; against Sligh those life payments are how you lose, so it comes out.

Rancor deserves a mention for the trample and for coming back to your hand whenever it hits the graveyard from the battlefield — it never really trades.

Zoo’s problem is the sweeper. Wrath of God, Pernicious Deed and Powder Keg all blow it out, which is why manlands and flashback threats matter so much, and why sideboards run Ravenous Baloth and Caller of the Claw. Against Enchantress and Replenish the deck brings a full package of Naturalize, Hull Breach and Tranquil Domain.