Scavenging Ooze Has Been Feeling Bad...

Art Credit: Austin Hsu & WOTC

Several months ago, when Grixis Death's Shadow was first taking the Modern meta by storm, I played a game against it where my Scavenging Ooze held the board for probably a dozen turns, single-handedly. It was keeping my opponent's graveyard low enough on cards that their delve threats were out of range, and it was large enough to block the medium-sized Death's Shadows that my opponent had on board.

Eventually, my opponents flooded and decided to scoop.

A few months later, another single Scooze held my game together against U/R Gifts Storm, eating all the things that could have been flashed back had my opponent drawn Past in Flames soon enough.

And those were the last times Scooze felt good...at all, really.

Anyone else feeling that way?

The more I've thought about it, the less I like Scooze on paper, and the more I've played it, the less I like Scooze in Jund for the way the Modern meta is shaping up in recent months.

The 2-drop Deathrite Shaman-replacement has several things going for it: it's cheap and a 2/2 body, it is instant speed, re-usable graveyard hate, it is incidental life-gain, and it can grow to be a threat.

What's not to like?

Well, it's slow to make an impact, it forces you to play more green sources than Jund really needs for any of its other staples, and it's lost a lot of sticking-power since Fatal Push.

Let's take a look at some of the matchups where Scooze is supposed to be a game-changer:

Burn
This is one of the matchups where Scooze is most frequently cited as Jund's savior. But it only really works out when Burn is having a rough time of it. If they miss a land drop and you manage to remove a couple of their creatures early, Scooze can close the door on them. But if there are no creatures to eat in the yard, or Burn is curving out nicely, Scooze does nothing for you.

Dredge
Same as burn, if Dredge is slow to start, landing a Scooze with green mana to spare can close the door on them over a few turns. But as soon as Dredge reaches a critical mass of creatures on the board, it's over. Problem is, you need two or three green sources untapped and more mana to cast removal for creatures on the board in order to get the Scooze engine going. As far as Jund staples go, Kalitas feels much better against Dredge, because it blocks, exiles, and adds more blockers all without any greater mana investment. Still, this is, by far, the best match-up for Scooze to be in.

Storm
Storm doesn't always need the yard to go off, so sometimes Scooze isn't useful at all. Also, the odds that you get any creatures to eat is slim, so while it does prevent the storm count from getting too high (if you have the mana to do so), it doesn't grant you much life-gain in this match-up. The longer the game goes, the fewer storm counts they'll need, and the more the life-gain would have helped.

Grixis shells
Slowing down delve threats is nice, but the odds that you'll be able to are slim. After that, a Gurmag Angler eating the graveyard to come down as a 5/5 is too big for your Scooze to handle. Grixis grinds the game well, one giant Scooze that takes a bunch of mana to become a threat is too slow to win through Terminates and Search for Azcanta.

Living End
Another situation in which an early Scooze with green mana to spare is quite good, but a late one is no help at all.

Snapcaster decks
This is perhaps the matchup that is most misunderstood with regard to Scooze. Snap is just such a value play in the late game that hoping to steal it's ammo out from under it by grinding with a 2-drop mana sink is almost always a terrible idea. Snap decks play enough instants and sorceries that expecting to steal them all with Scooze before the little blue wizard lands is simply not possible. I never want to find myself grinding the game out against a Snapcaster deck, but grinding is all Scooze can really do...

Lingering Souls & Tarmogoyf
Scooze matches up well against these guys, which helps the Abzan pseudo-mirror, but only a little. Not totally sure which one wins the grind between a couple copies of souls and a single Scooze, but at least it can stop a couple flashbacks.


The main theme here is that Scooze is best in the grind, but it matches up very poorly against other decks that want to grind anyway. If you manage to force a grind against decks that don't want to, such as Burn or Dredge or Living End, then Scooze can lock them out.

But for my money, that's kind of the definition of win more. Grinding the decks I listed above already means that Jund is on top, and that usually happens due to Jund's high concentration of discard and spot removal. Throwing Scooze on top is icing.

And that's a good way to describe how I've felt about Scooze lately: icing...but with no cake.