invoked zoo notes

Expected field:

SS
Zoodiac (Lunalight/Artifact/Kaiju)
That Grass is Greener (Infernoid, Paleozoic, Minerva)

S
Invoked (Zoo/Artifact Windwitch)
Paleozoic (Pure/Frog/Volcanic) [no Grass]

A
Metalfoes (Zoo) [50+ cards]
Fluffals
Burning Abyss


From here on out until the banlist, nothing outside of S or SS tier should win a top-level premier event. Decks in the A tier might be good for one-time wins, but they aren't worth metagaming for until that happens, and they can't win in a field of decks that are preparing for them (think about how awful life would be for Burning Abyss if everyone realized they could main Flying C again).

The best strategies going first, most generally speaking, are Invoked cards, Zoodiac cards, and trap cards:

Invoked: Mechaba and Raidjin can win the game by themselves going first. Pure Zoodiac decks had the luxury of maining as many copies of My Body as possible before the release of Fusion Enforcers, but these two cards punish My Body and are the reason they typically have to play some number of Chalices in the main. The math on this combo resembles the math for the ABC combo from last format: you can go deeper with Empowerment/Dragodies or Brilliant Fusion/Trick Clown if you'd like, but the next combo listed is probably just way better than both of them.

Zoodiac: 85% of the time you go first, barring hand traps, they have to either have more boardwipes than you have My Bodies/Starlights, or a Chalice along with more enabler cards than you have trap cards. After Seattle, Zoodiacs focused hard on the Lullaby of Obedience/Rhapsody in Berserk combo, because it had an Emptiness-like effect in a mirror where you couldn't actually play Emptiness (you banish their rat and you're allowed to do things for the rest of the game and they're not). The better way to do this post-FUEN is simply by playing Invoked, and therefore Invocation.

Dimensional Barrier: I said trap cards above, but this is by far the best one. Invoked gets to play six of this card instead of three because of Grisaille Prison, which is actually ridiculous. These are also incidentally the best trap cards going second in my opinion, barring fringe stuff like Needle Ceiling, because you can use them on your turn as better Chalices if you can afford to spend a turn setting up the play.

So, the plan in the pure mirror is to have more Dimensional Barriers than them. Invoked cards carry the obvious cost of giving us way more combo pieces on average than pure Zoodiac; we can draw more gas than them, either all at once or across the course of a long game, but we can also draw too much gas when we need interaction, which they draw more of because they aren't stuffing a second combo into their deck.

Fortunately, there are upsides. Invoked supports three Ghost Ogre along with the aforementioned six Barriers which can double as slower Chalices, which means we lose as little as possible going second to a pure Zoo deck. If people are playing Artifacts, Invoked, or both, you might want to consider maining Chalices in addition to all of this, but understand that when you move a side deck card into the main that's good going first or second, but not both, the overall impact on your winrate is going to be pretty small, since you're basically only making yourself better off in half of your game 1s.

In sequencing, pay attention to whether or not you think you can win your game 1 without using Invoked cards. Getting to the sideboarded games before they've seen these cards is a huge advantage that you want to take if it's presented to you. At the same time, sometimes it's correct to just gun Mechaba+Zoodiac dudes and say "better have it" (think any hand with a Grisaille that is live and you're going first).

The best strategies going second are That Grass is Greener and Kaiju Zoo:

Vs Infernoid/Grass: Grisaille and Dimensional Barrier are at their worst against this deck, and you're probably going to side them all out regardless of who's going first. Anti-Spell Fragrance and Imperial Iron Wall are the best cards going first. Going second, you bring in board wipes and Iron Walls, and your plan is basically to do that, as we've discussed before in discord. Invocation on Snow to make Mechaba is obviously a dream scenario, but it's usually better to Invocation a Rat, an Onuncu, or a Devyaty (since they can just chain Snow). Consider siding Kycoo, Crow, or even Soul Release. Make Rhapsody more often than usual. Try to have as many Whiptails in possible in deck, even though it's tempting to side them out.

Vs Kaiju Zoo: If you're going to side My Body or Starlight, this is the matchup you're siding it for. Mechaba negating and banishing Slumber is huge. People rag on the fact that Mechaba dies to the Kaijus themselves, but when you add Mechaba to a Zoodiac deck, what you're doing in the vast majority of games is actually just adding a Mechaba to a field of Zoodiac threats: by playing Mechaba, you're actually making yourself better against the Kaijus, not worse, since you're only increasing the number of monsters you'll be able to end on turn 1 with.

Outside of those, we have the following threats to address before looking into any other possible opponents:

Vs Paleozoic: Playing against 60-card Paleozoic is interesting because it feels like playing against Infernoids that were made to go first instead of second. All of the stuff I said about banishing against Infernoid pretty much stays the same here. No one plays 3 Leanchoilia, even though they should. Invocation on Ronintoadin makes you more resilient than a pure Zoo deck would be, especially in game 1s. Realize that they've probably built their deck to be as hateful as possible towards Zoodiac and significantly less towards Invoked. On a playing level, what this means is that they're not as likely to do things like hold Olenoides for a Meltdown on turn 2 or later or summon Ronintoadin and pass to play around 	Invocation before they've seen it.

Vs Artifact Windwitch Invoked: Their turn 1 combo is 33% and yours is >85%. What this means is that they should be playing Kaijus and building to go second, and this is what you see from the best-performing AWI decks in the late ARGs and YCS Prague, but the majority of the field is still thinking on level 1 and you're probably more likely to play a normal AWI deck without Kaijus in any given Swiss round. It might be worth noting that you can Raidjin target indestructible Crystal Wing, chain Mechaba to Crystal Wing's effect and banish it.

For any given matchup, we want to set a baseline of at least six cards to side in going second, since we're probably going side out Dimensional Barriers and Grisaille Prisons. For Infernoid, these are Imperial Iron Walls, Artifact Lanceas, Raigeki, and Dark Hole. For Paleozoic, they could be Chalices, Crows, Wiretaps, Cosmic Cyclones, or Denko Sekkas. For Zoo, they could be Kaiju cards, Raigeki, Dark Holes, Chalices, Needle Ceilings, My Bodies, Lullabies of Obedience. If you choose to side in Flying C, side 3 so that you have a second hand trap or a second Flying C in half of the games you open with any Flying C at all.

If you ever have a Ratpier or Tenki and a Barrage together, remember that you can play around Maxx C by going Bull->Tiger->Drident detach to SS a Rat, then making a Boar with that Rat, detaching it to SS the third Rat, and targeting the Boar with Barrage to get a Thoroughblade. This way, if they Maxx C the first Rat summon, you pass with a Barrage in hand and a Drident on field. A similar play should work with Aleister+Thrasher+Barrage. If you ever SS a lone Ratpier to start a Zoodiac combo, like when you get it off Invoker, play around Ghost Ogre by going Boar->Tiger->Bull detach to search->Bull detach to SS->Drident (you want to do this because you don't have the safety of knowing they don't have Ghost Ogre because your Rat's normal summon effect resolved).