The Various Zoos - Minion Roles in a Pinch

 

 

Author: Andrew ‘The Water Boiler’ Klawitter

“But I dont have the cards”; A saying uttered by many players who start out the game. Missing some of the Neutral Legendaries? We’ve got you covered. But what if you are missing the Epics? or a bunch of the Rares? Is there an Epic Replacement Guide? or a Rares Replacement Guide? Alas, no. And with new expansions rolling out, the card pool will be growing substantially over time, and the replacement guides would eventually become outdated.

Instead, let us discuss how to identify the role of a minion in a decklist, and find a suitable replacement from the cards you currently own.

As a case study, we’re going to look at a Warlock Zoo deck: Take 28 cheap minions, add in 2 Soulfire, and you’ve got a rudimentary zoo deck.

“But what minions do I want?”; To answer this question, first we must discuss the goal of our minions and how it will impact our overall deck design.

Minion Role Play

Your typical warlock zoo deck consists of minions assigned to one of three different roles:

• Base Minions - These minions have high stats for their cost. In general, we’re looking for minions that will provide a substantial board presence in the early game. Such as Amani Berserker, Flame Imp, or Argent Squire.
• Buff Minions - This type of minion works well with others. With a base minion already in play, we’re going to push it over the edge with a little help, generally from a battlecry text or end of turn stat bonus. Examples here are Dire Wolf Alpha, Shattered Sun Cleric, or Dark Iron Dwarf.
• Rush Minions - These are going to be anything with charge, and the higher the attack value, the better. Generally the best ones are going to be rare or legendary. Most notably Doomguard, Leeroy Jenkins, or Argent Commander.

With this in mind, the overall strategy of the zoo deck is to play a few base minions on turns 1 and 2, and then buff those minions to get maximum damage potential in the early game, while maintaining board control, and finish off your opponent with rush minions and Soulfire. Capitalizing on the warlock Life Tap ability to keep your various minions flowing, and generally winning before the game hits 10 crystals.

So, what are the best Soulbound cards for a zoo deck?
Voidwalker - Base
Acidic Swamp Ooze - Base
BlueGill Warrior - Rush
Shattered Sun Cleric - Buff
Wolfrider - Rush
Nightblade - Rush
Reckless Rocketeer - Rush

What about the common zoo?
Blood Imp - Buff
Flame Imp - Base
Abusive Sergeant - Buff
Argent Squire - Base
Leper Gnome - Base
Shieldbearer - Base
Amani Berserker - Base
Dire Wolf Alpha - Buff
Faerie Dragon - Base
Ironbeak Owl - Err… Anti-Taunt
Mad Bomber - Base
Youthful Brewmaster - Buff/Rush
Harvest Golem - Base
Scarlet Crusader - Base
Dark Iron Dwarf - Buff

That’s 22 different minions to choose from, without even considering rares, and as a general rule of thumb, the cheaper the crystal cost, the better.

Now that you understand the basics of the minion roles, we can make our own copy of a zoo deck, no matter the collection size. If you are missing a specific minion from a net-decklist, and don’t have the dust to craft it, simply replacing that minion with a similar minion from your collection will allow you to try out the deck design.

Pinch Hitting

Sometimes, you reach a point when you see a minion and youthink to yourself “what is this minion’s role?” and feel that you are incapable of answering this question yourself. There are a few minions that are somewhat confusing for beginning players, or even expert players, to think of suitable replacements for.

Knife Juggler is a prime example. This is a 2 crystal cost minion with 3 attack and 2 health with damage upside. In my “free to play” account, I simply replaced this rare with the soulbound Acidic Swamp Ooze. When in doubt, simply replace the card with another of exactly the same cost/attack/health stats. Because many of these netdecks have their costs mathematically planned out, with X amount of 1 cost, Y amount of 2 cost, in order to allow for a solid play on every turn.

You can even swap them around as you open new cards. If you should find yourself having trouble against Mages or Druids, replacing with a Faerie Dragon will help protect against their damage spells and hero ability. On the flipside, using the Acidic Swamp Oozes positions your deck better against weapon classes, such as Paladins, Rogues, and Warriors. Additionally, employing a Youthful Brewmaster would allow replaying of either the buff minions, such as Abusive Sergeant, or provide a double-Charge combo for additional damage, akin to Knife Jugglers damage bonuses, while retaining the same cost/stats for curve purposes in the decklist. Adjusting your zoo deck based on the current meta report can also give you a slight edge in your match ups.

Gnimsh’s Zoo

Lets look at an IEM deck from March this year, Gnimsh’s Warlock zoo deck is as follows:

2x Soulfire
2x Abusive Sergeant (Buff)
2x Argent Squire (Base)
2x Flame Imp (Base)
2x Shieldbearer (Base)
2x Voidwalker (Base)
2x Young Priestess (Buff)
2x Amani Berserker (Base)
2x Dire Wolf Alpha (Buff)
2x Ironbeak Owl (Anti-Taunt)
2x Knife Juggler (Base)
2x Shattered Sun Cleric (Buff)
2x Defender of Argus (Buff)
1x Leeroy Jenkins (Rush) + 1x Sacrificial Pact
2x Doomguard (Rush)

Type breakdown: 10 Buff minions, 12 Base Minions, 3 Rush Minions, 2 Anti-taunt, 2 Soulfire, and 1 Sacrificial Pact

Cost breakdown: 12 - 1 crystal cost minions, 8 - 2 crystal cost minions, 2 - 3 crystal cost minions, 3 - 4 crystal cost minions, and 2 - 5 crystal cost minions. 3 - 0 cost spells.

Quick-look Rare replacements:
Young Priestess → Blood Imp
Knife Juggler → Youthful Brewmaster
Defender of Argus → Dark Iron Dwarf
Doomguard → Nightblade
Leeroy Jenkins → Wolfrider

Yes, these replacements will cause a difference in power level, but if you are just learning the deck, they will work in a pinch. The goal is to keep the curve similar, and give you a feel for the deck, without having to invest the dust in the rares until you decide if you like the style of play.

Additional Variants

If you have all the possible cards in the game at your disposal, another way to go about the exploration of the Warlock zoo deck-type, is to try different highly focused versions of the deck.

Example 1: attempting a MegaCharge-Zoo variant
2x Soulfire
1x Power Overwhelming
2x Argent Squire
2x Stonetusk Boar
2x Abusive Sergeant
2x Flame Imp
2x Leper Gnome
2x Bluegill Warrior
2x Dire Wolf Alpha
2x Ironbeak Owl
2x Youthful Brewmaster
2x Arcane Golem
2x Wolfrider
1x Leeroy Jenkins
2x Doomguard
2x Argent Commander

This deck drops all the Taunts and focuses completely on Charge minions, which leaves you especially vulnerable to early removal spells, since all of your minions have incredibly low health, and no protection from dagger/shapeshift/fireblast, but will also deal damage as quickly as possible to your targets.

Example 2: attempting a MegaHealth-Murloc-Zoo variant.
2x Soulfire
2x Power Overwhelming
2x Blood Imp
2x Flame Imp
2x Grimscale Oracle
2x Murloc Tidecaller
2x Voidwalker
2x Young Priestess
2x Demonfire
2x Bluegill Warrior
2x Murloc Tidehunter
2x Coldlight Oracle
2x Coldlight Seer
2x Murloc Warleader
1x Leeroy Jenkins
1x Old Murk-Eye

Running all four of the 1 crystal health buffing minions, along with various Murlocs and the Warleader/Coldlight Seer buffs, the Murloc healthbars can get out of hand very quickly. [Side note: replace Coldlight Oracle with Ironbeak Owl for more serious decks. (I tend to play the Coldlight Oracle in a large amount of my deck-theory test-decks because it speeds up both players. In effect, giving both myself, and my opponent, increased card play options at the mid-game crystal costs. Thus allowing for a stronger testing environment in fewer games, by eliminating some variance in draws.)]

Heroic Zoo Building

During my play testing while writing this article, I ran into an interesting Paladin zoo deck. Paladin’s certainly have plenty of minion buffing, but lack the inherent card drawing mechanism. This class can sometimes manage to push through against the large hand-size control decks using both Divine Favor and Blessing of Wisdom, but this becomes significantly less useful against opponents using similar rush strategies.

Which is why Warlock maintains its status as the premier zoo deck, due to being able to quickly replenish their hand using the Life Tap ability. But this doesnt mean that other classes cant build a similar styled rush deck. They just need to work a little harder, and include a few cards specifically focused on drawing.

Do you have an innovative or interesting zoo variant to share? Let me know in the comments section.