At the beginning of Modern’s lifetime, we saw a number of unique takes on Wild Nacatl decks. There were decks featuring cheap creatures backed up by counter magic like Mana Leak and Unified Will, more typical decks featuring Knight of the Reliquary, and then there were the ambitious decks playing all the colors to utilize all of the best creatures and Tribal Flames. Over the years, we’ve had more and more powerful gold creatures printed, which has given the Tribal Flames Zoo deck a terrifying amount of raw power. Let’s take a look at a recent update to the archetype assembled by Hitogoroshi80.

Tribal Zoo ? Modern | Hitogoroshi80, 5-0 Modern League

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 2 Qasali Pridemage
• 4 Geist of Saint Traft
• 4 Noble Hierarch
• 4 Siege Rhino
• 4 Tarmogoyf
• 4 Wild Nacatl

• Spells (14)
• 1 Lightning Helix
• 2 Bant Charm
• 3 Path to Exile
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Tribal Flames

• Lands (22)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Plains
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Temple Garden
• 2 Arid Mesa
• 2 Flooded Strand
• 4 Windswept Heath
• 4 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Path to Exile
• 2 Countersquall
• 1 Dromoka's Command
• 1 Engineered Explosives
• 1 Grim Lavamancer
• 1 Izzet Staticaster
• 1 Painful Truths
• 2 Rhox War Monk
• 2 Stony Silence
• 2 Unified Will

Buy This Deck

If you’re looking to play a pile of powerful, aggressive creatures backed by the most efficient interactive spells in the format, this seems like a great place to start. You have the ability to curve out Wild Nacatl into Tarmogoyf or mana creatures into Geist of Saint Traft and Siege Rhino. All you need to do is get in a couple of hits before you start getting your opponent into Tribal Flames range.

This deck is powerful because so many of your creatures function as excellent burn spells. Wild Nacatl, Geist of Saint Traft, and Siege Rhino all function as pseudo-burn spells for at least three or four damage, but also threaten even more damage if your opponent doesn't have removal spells or blockers. This makes you less vulnerable to hate cards like Kor Firewalker or Leyline of Sanctity, but turns on removal spells which makes this deck somewhat of a metagame call.

Another reason this deck is awesome is the raw power and flexibility of interactive options you have access to when you’re playing five colors. Tribal Flames is obviously great, but you also get both Path to Exile and Lightning Bolt, the option for Murderous Cut and Abrupt Decay. Bant Charm, in particular, is an awesome spell in this format, since it is both a removal spell for creatures and Cranial Plating as well as a counter spell for Collected Company, Chord of Calling, Cryptic Command, and Gifts Ungiven. You even have the option to play a couple copies of Snapcaster Mage to buyback Tribal Flames and other powerful interaction.

This deck is more than capable of keeping up with the other aggressive decks of the format. All of your threats are powerful enough to kill your opponent on their own, and you have enough burn to steal games even after your opponent has stabilized the board. You do have to worry about dealing too much damage to yourself in more aggressive matchups, but your cards will generally be powerful enough to overwhelm your opponent, even if you have to play a little off curve.