How do I play my Zoo Warlock against a Shaman with Lightning Storm?

Question

I'm currently playing Reynad's modern Zoo deck (decklist), and one matchup where I'm not sure how to play is against a Shaman that likely has Lightning Storm.

The Warlock Zoo deck tends to flood the board with cheap minions, and many of the minions are in the range where Lightning Storm can kill them. Having a nearly full deck killed usually makes me lose the game, but keeping minions in hand tends to neutralize the Zoo deck's strength.

How do I play the deck effectively against Shamans? When should I try to play around Lightning Storm, and when should I flood the board? Anything else I should do to minimize the impact of that particular AoE spell?

Answer 1

As a counterpoint to my other answer, here are the main ways that a zoolock deck can use against board clears:

• Control/Apply pressure early. If you can make them feel pressured with 2-3 early creatures it may draw out their board clear earlier than they'd like. You might want to consider dropping your shield bearers for a little more early game pressure such as elven archer for the 1 damage(take out a potential totem they might have) or stonetusk for the charge. Leper gnomes are also great for dealing a bit of damage.

• Throw in more divine shields. Divine shielded minions force the other side to use multiple board clears. Argent protector and Scarlet Crusaders will force them to come up with a way to remove the shield first.

• Filling the board via 2 for 1 cards, such as Murloc Tidehunter or Razorfen Hunter may bait the card out earlier as well as save you a card if they do clear the board.

• Use bigger creatures. Succubus is a cheap 4/3, which gives them a chance to survive lightning 50% of the time (its a great lightning bolt bait though). If you boost them with a +1/+1 from a cleric next turn then it becomes much harder to remove.