This is my pauper domain zoo deck which I have tuned to my personal preferences. If you are not familiar with domain zoo as an archetype, it is a base-green five color deck that offers good payoff for controlling all five basic land types.
One main consideration for deckbuilding is making this deck both pauper legal AND modern legal. So technically, it is a pauper modern deck. This may be a bit silly, but I have built it this way because I like the pauper format, but I wanted to own the deck as a paper deck. Not many people play pauper as a paper format, but plenty of people play modern. Making this deck modern legal allows me to play it with friends that have modern decks. Is it great? No. Can it win games against modern decks? Yes.
Our biggest loss in this modern-ized build is some legacy cards like Brainstorm, which combos in a lovely way with Squadron Hawk and Evolving Wilds. Another popular card for the deck is Unearth, but I don't miss it.
The main payoffs for this deck are Wild Nacatl, Tribal Flames, and Matca Rioters. I find the latter to be less exciting for some reason so I am only running two. The main support cards for domain are Abundant Growth and Nylea's Presence. These auras both cantrip and fix our mana, and Nylea's Presence automatically enables domain by converting a land into all land types. In addition to our land base, I see these five cards (Wild Nacatl/Tribal Flames/Matca Rioters/Abundant Growth/Nylea's Presence) as the main shell of the deck. The way I have it built, these spells occupy 18 cards in the deck. With 20 lands in place, that leaves me with 22 flex slots for deck building.
A common way to build it is to include some amount of Aura Gnarlid, which can provide huge evasive value if we have enough auras on the battlefield. This can be backed up by Rancor and Armadillo Cloak, and if you choose to play Squadron Hawk, those make great Rancor targets as well. I have moved away from this style of build and include none of these cards.
Popular inclusions are Qasali Pridemage for maindeck artifact and enchantment hate, and Kor Skyfisher as an efficient flier that can pick up our cantrip auras for extra value. I am happy to play both of these.
For purposes of fulfilling OCD, I feel it necessary to have some blue and black spells (some builds don't bother with it). I include Mulldrifter as a personal favorite, and Undying Evil as a modern pauper equivalent to Unearth that also combos well with the happy fish.
In addition to Tribal Flames as an efficient burn spell, Lightning Bolt is a staple auto-include. In my take on the deck I decided to make my removal package be strictly burn spells, so I chose to use Burst Lightning for some additional reach. This is probably the key part for making this deck 'modern-ized' while still being pauper. Burn spells can deal with planeswalkers in modern, and also they give me the extra reach previously mentioned. Battling this build against a modern deck can often be a real attrition match. If things go according to plan, you can usually beat in a 3-6 points of early damage, and then you just need to hang on for dear life. Assuming your opponent has cracked some fetches or played some untapped shocks here and there, if you can stay alive long enough you can usually sandbag 3 burn spells (say two Bolts and a Tribal Flames) and burn them out all in a single turn.
*The fun part about domain zoo is that it is five color, so you can play just about any good pauper card you like! I've included a lot of options in the maybeboard. Some are intended as sideboard fodder, while others are fun cards that could make the main deck.
