This is delightful, I love it in concept and I think you've executed it really well. Have you considered some amount of Collision / Colossus somewhere in the 75? Colossus feels maindeckable here, and having added surprise hate against flying threats is just gravy. Whatever you decide to do, good luck and have fun!

Silverdrake Thank you for the suggestion and glad you liked my deck!

Now, I've considered a lot pump spells, and Collision / Colossus was actually a frontrunner during early testing, as it's a fine pump spell that incidentally acts as situational removal. However, sequencing threats and pump spells often proves to be tricky in this very mana-intensive deck, so I'll want my pump spells to be as cheap as possible. In other words, two-mana pump spells, even with upsides, are simply too clunky in this deck to play.

Awesome deck list! I loved playing Zada in Standard. I've written some feedback below to try and improve the deck's competitive performance for anyone interested.

In advance:

I have have assumed that the deck is an aggro deck and that Zada is the build-around card.

Cards to cut:

Mirrorwing Dragon x ALL

Dragon is too expensive.

Reckless Rage x ALL

Rage should never ever target our nontoken creatures and it will have to sometimes.

Season of Growth x 2+

Season is a bit overkill in multiples and doesn't provide critical mass of creature, instant or sorcery.

Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin x 2+

Krenko's presence in this deck is very meta dependant as mentioned in the primer, but beyond that it is a vulnerable Legendary creature which is a slot that Zada does not want to share.

Giant Growth x 2+

Giant Growth is very bad in the face of 90% of the premier single-target removal in the Pioneer format and thus doesn't provide utility in a fair amount of matchups which doesn't bode well.

I'll get back to this comment in the next 24 hours to add replacements to the cut cards as well as better comment formatting.

stonerain25 Do you have any suggestions for the cut cards? Would love to see your take on it. So far I believe having extra seasons of growth is never a bad option, since all of your cards turn into either scry effects or cantrips. Extra scrys and card draw doesn't seem terrible to me.

stonerain25

It's very interesting to suggest what cards to cut before telling me or even knowing what to replace them with. Deckbuilding in Magic is about finding the best cards possible for each purpose in any given strategy, so even if a card is mediocre on the surface, the fact that it shows up in a list means it's the best option available unless something is overlooked.

Also, read the primer carefully and you'll understand that this is not strictly an aggro deck. That's why you don't assume.

With that outta the way:

Mirrorwing Dragon is cuttable. Replacing it with one Silverfur Partisan is probably the correct move; as you've said, five mana spells feel very clunky in this deck.

Reckless Rage can target our nontoken creatures. It's better than targeting the tokens, which are 1/1s and 2/2s. If you've read my primer, again, you'd know. A lot of them have 3 toughness and there isn't much instant speed ping being played in pioneer to punish us.

Season of Growth is our backup Zada and often even better as it comes down earlier. It is one of our best cards and multiples are not overkill. One copy is of great value. Two copies spell "win the game". I'm just restating what I already said in the primer. I actually started with 3 copies during early brewing and quickly bumped it up to the full four. It's too good.

What do you replace Krenko with? The 4th Silverfur Partisan over the 3rd Krenko seems fine (Silverfur has been very impressive). Otherwise, suggestions please.

Pump spells are generally very bad in face of spot removal. Giant Growth just happens to be one of the better few. The closest competition is Confront the Unknown , which fell just short, mainly because clue-cracking costs us so much tempo.