Zoodiac is a deck with a history of metagame success, but it has had trouble performing recently after multiple of its key cards landed on the Forbidden & Limited list. Now, the Armored Xyz cards from Age of Overlord and Maze of Millennia may breathe some new life into this old competitive mainstay.
Zoodiac Barrages the Competition
Zoodiac was first released in 2017 in Raging Tempest. The archetype had a gimmick of one-card xyz summons, and it made excellent use of this gameplan. A mixture of low-investment plays, obscene consistency, and guaranteed followup made the deck dominate the meta. If players were not playing Zoodiac itself, they were likely playing a deck that included a Zoodiac engine (such as Zoodiac Infernoid) or a deck that had a positive Zoodiac match-up (such as Paleozoic). The second wave of support in the following set, Maximum Crisis, created an even more oppressive format. The deck not only received new cards such as the excellent , but it also saw many of its previously difficult match-ups pushed out of the format by another new archetype, True Draco.
As a result of its dominance, Zoodiac saw some of its most powerful cards end up on the forbidden and limited list. , Zoodiac's main combo enabler and follow-up tool, and , its main form of disruption, were banned. Additionally, , the deck's best main deck monster, was limited, which effectively rendered one of its effects unusable. The deck failed to put up results for some time after this, until two things happened: Zoodiac Drident's unbanning and the release of Phantom Rage. Phantom Rage in particular was a set seemingly tailor-made to push Zoodiac back into relevance. It contained both the Tri-Brigade archetype, a deck that greatly appreciated the excess of beast-warriors Zoodiac could put into the graveyard, and , a card that could represent up to three quick effect field wipes off a single Zoodiac normal summon. With these, Zoodiac returned to prominence and saw a plethora of tops in online tournaments at the time.
Once again, however, Konami took action against the deck, and Drident was banned for a second time alongside , the deck's main extender. While Tri-Brigade players continued to tinker with the Zoodiac engine despite these hits, the release of the much stronger Lyrilusc engine was the final nail in the coffin for Zoodiac's relevance, and this is where the deck has stood since.
A New Guest of the Zodiac
Despite the heavy hits Zoodiac has sustained on the forbidden and limited list, Age of Overlord and the newly released Maze of Millennia may have what Zoodiac needs to be considered playable again. These sets contain support for Armored Xyz, a series of cards Zoodiac can make excellent use of.
In the context of Zoodiac, there are four relevant Armored Xyz cards: , , , and the newly released . By normal summoning a Zoodiac monster and overlaying a Zoodiac xyz monster onto it, players can xyz summon Xyz Armor Fortress using the Zoodiac xyz monster. Because the Zoodiac xyz monster was made with only one material, Armor Fortress will only have two materials, meaning it can detach both to search Full-Armored Xyz and Armored Xyz. Now that it has no materials, Full-Armored Xyz can be used on the opponent's turn to xyz summon Dark Knight Lancer using the Armor Fortress. Then, Full-Armored Xyz's graveyard effect can be used to equip the Zoodiac xyz monster in the graveyard to Dark Knight Lancer, triggering its effect to attach an opponent's monster to it.
This means every Zoodiac monster represents a single point of interaction. The deck can once again play similarly to how it did with Zoodiac Drident legal, investing minimal cards into a low-power but consistent board, with plenty of room for generic cards in the main deck. There are, however, pros and cons to this engine compared to Drident. On one hand, Dark Knight Lancer can represent a massive amount of damage on its own, and its removal effect is far more effective than destroying a card in most scenarios. On the other hand, it requires main deck bricks, is not a Zoodiac by name, and cannot remove face-up spells and traps or enable combos including cards such as Zoodiac Ramram like Drident can. Regardless, this engine gives Zoodiac the ability to go first and set up in-engine forms of interaction, which makes a massive difference in its playability.
Helpful Astrologists
While the Armored Xyz cards give Zoodiac the ability to set up interaction on its own, they also provide one other important thing: cards in hand. By using Xyz Armor Fortress's effect to search and Full Armored Dark Knight Lancer's effect to add a card back from the graveyard, a single Zoodiac monster can represent up to three free discards. This makes a variety of engines much stronger.
The Adventurer engine is a great choice in the deck. Because most of the Zoodiac monsters don't have relevant effects when normal summoned, the Adventurer engine rarely conflicts, and the Armored Xyz cards can provide the discards necessary for . In addition, this engine gives the deck incredible insulation. While many players are aware of 's negate, Fateful Adventure itself acts as insulation in Zoodiac. By electing not to search on the first turn, if Xyz Armor Fortress's effect is negated by a card such as , the Zoodiac player can xyz summon Dark Knight Lancer before ending their turn. Once the opponent summons a monster the Zoodiac player wants to remove, they can use the effect of Fateful Adventure to equip Dracoback from the deck directly to the Adventurer Token, which will trigger Dark Knight Lancer's effect. This also has applications going second, as Dracoback can act both as a way to remove threats on its own and trigger Dark Knight Lancer.
The Horus engine makes excellent use of the cards in hand that Zoodiac provides. is an incredibly strong card, but it is limited by necessitating a discard for every activation of its effect. Zoodiac helps to solve this issue by providing enough cards in hand to send up to three Horus monsters from the deck to the graveyard for free. The Horus cards also help Zoodiac. They can provide additional disruption and insulation by converting to monsters such as and , or they can help push for damage. Notably, the Horus engine also doesn't conflict with the Adventurer engine, meaning both can be played in the same deck without issue.
While and the Sinful Spoils cards have primarily made themselves known due to their ability to access powerful level one fire monsters, such as and various Infernoble Knight monsters, Diabellstar is also a strong recursive engine that represents either a negate in or removal in . Once again, the Armored Xyz cards provide the discard necessary to summon Diabellstar, and she can uniquely utilize face-up cards on the field as well, such as or the xyz monsters equipped via the effect of the Armored Xyz cards. Notably, Diabellstar also has no conflicts with the Adventurer engine, meaning she can also be played freely with either of the aforementioned engines.
So, with all the benefits the Armored Xyz cards provide, the question remains: Is Zoodiac viable again? Unfortunately, it seems unlikely the deck will break into tiered contention. It is still heavily punished by its normal summon being removed, and it relies on secondary engines and generic cards to provide the ceiling and damage needed to compete. is also a brick and can turn off the engine if drawn without a way to make live. Still, the deck does what Zoodiac has always done best: provide low-investment plays with plenty of room left to play cards other than the Zoodiac monsters. For old fans of the deck, this is a great time to find your Zoodiac cards and give the deck one more spin.
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