So you wanna be like the cool guys and play the historically monumental archetype that is The Zoo? Well, look no further. You’ve come to the right place. So get your The Scorpions acoustic album playing at full volume on repeat and strap in because we are going for a ride with a deck that has been present in every card game since its inception in the grandfather of modern CCGs (Collectible Card Games), Magic: The Gathering.
Oh, I wasn’t joking about The Scorpions. It’s mandatory for the experience.
“Zoo?”
What is the Zoo archetype? Well, I’m glad you asked, voice inside my head. Playing a Zoo deck is not like the name suggests – you won’t need to play with an animal-themed deck with cards like Lockjaw, Cosmo, or Zabu. As I mentioned, the term “Zoo” comes from Magic: The Gathering. The first iteration of Zoo, by coincidence, used many creatures commonly found in zoos, like lions, apes, and elephants. The deck's main strategy was to use creatures with a high power-to-cost ratio and flood the board with them. Due to this playstyle, most Zoo games feature many animal creatures on the board, unlike your local Zoo. The name stuck, and to this day, every time a deck in any card game devotes itself to this mission of flooding the board with cheap cards, players refer to it as a Zoo Deck.
Although I wish we could have a cute deck of the Pet Avengers.
Assembling The Zoo
Let’s take a second to think things through with our Zoo Checklist. For a deck to be a Zoo deck, it must only meet two requirements: cheap cards with high power and flooding the board.
Surely, that means using cards like Maximus and Gladiator because they have a ton of power for their cost, right? Well, that’s where you're wrong: the ghost of an obscure celebrity is haunting me. We usually use 1-cost cards as our power generators because they are cheaper, and a guy is running around in a loincloth who helps them for some reason, Ka-Zar. Also, another guy dressed in blue has an effect quite similar to Tarzan’s lookalike, Blue Marvel.
In Marvel Snap, these two have been the soul of Zoo since the very first patch. Their ongoing effect improves with the number of cards you have on board, so we don’t usually run a card like Gladiator. For his cost, we could play 3 cards that would get buffed by our ongoing effects. Since Ka-zar and Blue Marvel are quite expensive, usually costing our entire energy reserves for our turns 4 and 5, we need to use them with our 1-drops to get our wins. With that in mind, we must consider which 1-cost cards we should put in our deck. We have quite a list of possible zoo staff members on the cheap cheap. Let’s take a look:
These are the biggest power per energy cost 1-drops in the game. We could take another route and use annoying 1-drops to mess with your opponent,s like Korg, Ice-Man, Echo, Spider-Ham, and Elektra, but remember that you won’t make as much power.
Now, let's look at the cards that best support our deck. We have Armor to keep our vulnerable 1-drops safe and Dazzler, which gets bigger the more our board fills up. Black Swan allows us to play our 1-drops for free, Shanna plays random 1-drops for us (although she can be a bit unreliable), and possibly Mockingbird just for the power (if we play Squirrel Girl or Shanna, she gets quite cheap).
Before we move on, I must warn you that there is a card that completely obliterates our game plan: Killmonger. If you think even for a second that your opponent has Killmonger, you can still win, but you must change your playstyle a bit. If you don’t have Armor on board, you might need to keep your 1-cost cards in hand and wait for the last turn to drop them. Most of the time, this will give priority to your opponent, meaning that even a turn 6 killmonger won’t be able to destroy your cards.
With all that information, you might consider yourself an expert on the archetype by now. The main gist of it is trying to incorporate as many Marvel Characters as they did in Avengers: Endgame.
With all we learned, how about some decks to put our skills to the test?
Zoo Decks - Zillion Wins
Good Ol' Kazoo
I need to start with this one. This is for people who are starting at the game. It doesn’t use a single pool 3, 4 or 5 card so it is extremely accessible and powerful for players with lower card pool access. This deck is the face of the Zoo archetype, but without the extra stuff, we will get when we move further into the collection track. It is quite a simple deck to play—get your Bishop and Angela on the board for them to scale, try to find your ongoings with Ka-Zar and Blue Marvel, and finish with all your 1 drops that will be safe against Killmonger.
Zemo Zoo
Now, this is Advanced Zoo! We have powerful Martyr and Titania to give us a lot of power and Zero to try to avoid their detrimental effects. Black Swan Discounts our cards for a possible crazy last turn. Mockingbird gets cheaper with Zemo and Squirrel Girl. Zemo can be a wild card, but he often steals a 1-cost card from your opponent.
Valkyrie The Zookeeper
Valkyrie is such an underrated card. She can win those games that seem all but lost. This deck is a bit more tricky to play, but it can take your opponent by surprise. With the resurgence of the Angela Package, Shadow King is better than ever, and the best part is you can play him or Valkyrie behind Invisible Woman to surprise your opponent on the last turn. Remember: Alioth doesn’t exist.
All The Colors of the Zoo
With this deck, we are doing things similar to our previous decks. However, we have some extra win conditions. With our powerful 6-drop options, we can steal some games by doubling all our ongoing effects with Onslaught or buffing half of our cards with Spectrum for a brilliant finish.
Dracula Dump
This is the last type of zoo, and it plays slightly differently from the usual. We are trying to play Dracula to discard our big boys with 14 or more power. If we don’t get our Dracula, we can play one of the big boys by fulfilling their requirements. For Infinaut, we need to skip the last turn. Sunspot could be a solid way to finish the game if we have Sunspot on the board. If we have Cosmo on the board, we can use Destroyer without worrying about destroying our cards. And lastly, we can play Redskull with Zero on the last turn to negate Redskull’s turncoat effect.
Sightings of Sasquatch
This deck is my attempt at using the new cards in a Zoo archetype. The best playline could be using Black Swan’s effect to set up a powerful Blink turn, replacing a free one drop for a Sasquatch, Mockingbird, or possibly a Blue Marvel. I cut Ka-Zar from this list to make Blink’s effect more impactful. In addition, playing a ton of one drops or Mysterio to discount a Sasquatch is nothing to scoff at, often making him cost 3 or even less. Remember that playing Mysterio counts as 3 cards for Sasquatch and Mockingbird discount. This deck might need some refining, but it could be awesome. The only problem is that Sasquatch will be the last card of the season, so we will have to wait until then to try this deck.
Closing Thoughts
What is my opinion about The Zoo archetype? I’m glad to answer the person who just broke into my home. Zoo is a fun, accessible, and easy-to-play archetype that is the first love of most Snappers since Pools 1 and 2. It’s tricky to navigate in some metas because Killmonger is always a possible threat. However, I still believe the archetype is competitive and meta-relevant to this day. I’m always trying different things with it, and whenever a new 1 drop comes out, you can bet that I will fit it in to try it out. I can’t recommend it enough!