Land (18)
Instant (11)
Sorcery (8)
Artifact (4)
Creature (16)
Planeswalker (3)
Sideboard
Sorcery (6)
Creature (3)
After Gitaxian Probe was banned I didn't think this deck would bounce back, and many have chosen to remake the deck into a more midrange build, known as Death's Shadow Jund. After finding the card Loxodon Peacekeeper , I figured that the original version might still have some game, but would need some changes in order to survive.
For those of you who don't know, Death's Shadow Zoo is a deck that focuses on playing and abusing the creature known as Death's Shadow. In order to do this successfully, we play a lot of cards that purposely lower our own life total, from doing things like like fetching for untapped shocks, cycling Street Wraiths and simply allowing our opponent to help us along the way.
The manabase in Shadow Zoo is designed to be as greedy as possible, it's made up of mostly shocklands and fetchlands to get our life total as low and as fast as possible. Since we are playing a 4-color manabase, these lands are pretty necessary anyway.
Arid Mesa & Wooded Foothills: Run as a one-ofs, these two fetchlands allow us to fetch most of our lands, and since they are different from our other fetches, they allow us to dodge some of the impact from cards like Surgical Extraction.
Blood Crypt, Godless Shrine, Overgrown Tomb, Sacred Foundry, Temple Garden: These are our 5 shocklands that we play, they allow us easy color fixing and with all the fetchlands we play, we get to thin our deck looking for them in the process.
Bloodstained Mire, Verdant Catacombs, Windswept Heath: Our main fetchlands, these lands search out all our shocklands, as well as our basic lands, which we may need in certain matchups.
Forest & Swamp : We have one of each basic so we can cast cards like Abrupt Decay to dodge Blood Moon. They also give us targets to search for if one of our creatures fall to Path to Exile.
Thoughtseize: The best discard spell in the format, Thoughtseize is a stellar turn 1 play that lets us get our life down at the same time. This card can be needed on turn 1 in some matchups.
Inquisition of Kozilek: The second best discard spell in the format, Inquisition gets rid of almost every spell in the format, and doesn't make you lose life, which can be very relevant depending on the matchup.
Street Wraith: Street Wraith is a ridiculous magic card, as it basically allows us to play with a 56 card deck, since we are almost always cycling it to get a redraw. However, it is not uncommon to play this card in grindier matchups as a creatures should you get the mana to cast it. Also, if the card gods favor you, you can string a bunch of these together with a fetchland and pull off a turn 1 Death's Shadow.
Mishra's Bauble: Bauble with wraith basically gives us a 52 card deck, as we can crack bauble on an opponent's turn to get an extra draw on our turn, we can also use it on ourselves before we crack a fetchland to see if we want the card on top, or if we want to shuffle it away with a fetch.
Abrupt Decay: A modern staple, Abrupt decay can get rid of cards like Detention Sphere, Blood Moon, Lilianna of the Veil, Ensnaring Bridge, an opposing Death's Shadow and a number of other cards. Decay's multipurpose removal allows us to dodge most things that would block us from winning the game.
Path to Exile: The best removal spell in modern, Path is one big reason to play white in this deck. Path gets rid of early game creatures just like Fatal Push, but can also get rid of a creature like Wurmcoil Engine against tron if needed.
Loxodon Peacekeeper : Peacekeeper is a 4/4 for 2 mana, and the only real contender for this same slot would be something like Hooting Mandrills , Tasigur, the Golden Fang, and Tarmogoyf. However unlike those creatures, we don't need to be casting 2-3 cards before/on turn 2 in order to cast it. Typically, you will always have Peacekeeper on your side of the board, as most decks will not be able to compete with your life loss. Sometimes though, people will try to steal away your peacekeeper in the hopes that you will not lose more life then they do, which is typically a mistake as we do play bigger creatures then it. Peacekeeper also allows us to get another creature, so that surgical extraction does not hurt us as much.
Tarmogoyf: The modern staple that crushes in many decks, it is not uncommon to have this creature as 3/4 to a 4/5 by turn 2, and as a beater, it's power is relatively unmatched at that point of the game. It can also be grown to a 6/7 if the game goes on.
Death's Shadow: The sleeper card that took the format by storm, Death's Shadow is a high power creature that relies on you losing life to come out and play. Shadow is the most important creature in this deck, because combined with Temur Battle Rage, it's usually game over.
Liliana of the Veil: Liliana provides pressure for combo decks, removal for decks like Bogles and decks that use Geist of Saint Traft, and can also be game ending if we get to use her ultimate.
Liliana, the Last Hope: Lili provides removal for cards like Lingering Souls, as well as fending off creatures like Goblin Guide. However, she's mostly here for her -2, as removal and discard are what usually beats Shadow Zoo, but since Lili can easily reccur our dead creatures we are able to grind out in removal heavy matchups. If we ever use her ultimate, the game probable ended already.
Kolaghan's Command: A maindeck answer to cards like Ensnaring Bridge and Chalice of the Void, Command also gives us recursion of our creatures, as well as some damage and discard to get rid of enemy plays as they draw them.
Temur Battle Rage: This is by far the scariest card we play, and is THE REASON these decks should run red. The reason for this is because creatures like Tarmogoyf and Death's Shadow are enormous and scary, they can be chump blocked by Lingering Souls tokens until the end of time. Battle rage makes our deck be able to simply top-deck wins due to us dealing upwards of 20 damage with a single hit with a Death's Shadow in a game.
Ancient Grudge : Decks like Lantern Control are artifact have, and sometimes we need an answer to cards like Ensnaring Bridge, it also allows us to get around a Chalice of the Void on 1.
Collective Brutality: Mostly in here for burn and combo matchups, Brutality can get rid of small stuff, gain us a little extra life, and can effectively Duress an opponent.
Fatal Push: Mostly for the mirror where Peacekeeper isn't that great, Fatal Push gives us an extra removal spell for the sideboard.
Fulminator Mage: Land destruction against decks like Tron, Mage can also be recurred by Lilianna the last hope for recurring land destruction and value.
Lingering Souls: Stellar in grindy games like the mirror, Souls is great at pressuring an opponent while also giving us additional beaters/blockers when we need them.
Natural State: A one-of used when we need to beat Blood Moon.
Nihil Spellbomb: With Amonkhet refueling Living End, and dredge returning after it's banning, Spellbomb supplies us with an answer to graveyard strategies while also being a cantrip.
Pyroclasm: With all our maindeck creatures having more then 2 toughness, Pyroclasm is usually boarded in over decay in go=wide creature matchups as a way to shut them down in a pinch.
Ranger of Eos: Perfect for grindy matchups like the mirror, Ranger is a one-way tocket to getting 2 more Death's Shadows from our deck to our hand, refueling us with additnial beaters to close out the game.
If you enjoyed this deck and want to see more, give it an upvote or leave a comment, as I always appreciate constructive feedback on deckbuilding.
If you want to see more builds and brews you can check out my profile @ Sargeras
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| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 7 years |
| Last updated | 6 years |
| Legality | This deck is Modern legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 7 - 0 Mythic Rares 36 - 5 Rares 12 - 5 Uncommons 3 - 5 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 1.86 |
| Tokens | Emblem Liliana, the Last Hope, Spirit 1/1 W, Zombie 2/2 B |
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