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Good Game: Magic FruitcakeBy Andrew Hanson on December 25th, 2009 · Filed in Standard (Type 2), Good Game · 15 Commentshttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=85708&d=1234475835Good Game: Magic Fruitcake Christmas? Did someone call for me? Of course, there hasn't been that much going on in the Magic world in the last few weeks, so like Santa at Bill Gates' house, I'm digging deep into my sack of presents and just pulling out whatever comes. Unlike Santa, whose bag is infinitely deep and full of stuff, my bag only has my last few weeks of experience in it. So what does that mean you're getting? The same thing that everyone gets at Christmas time: fruitcake. Well, it's the Magic equivalent of fruitcake: Jund and Boros Bushwhacker. More of this Stupid Deck? You better believe it. I mean, it's Christmas, and tonight is Friday Night Magic. And everyone knows that the best of the best come out to play Magic on Christmas... don't they? Maybe not. But if you've been playing any of the weekly FNMs, it seems there's a one in three chance you're running the Jund deck. And if you're not, then one in three matches is probably against the Jund deck. But, like I said in my last article, not all Jund decks look the same. They have a core of cards they all run, but there's actually quite a bit of room for tweaking, especially where creatures are concerned and in the sideboard. So what should you put in those places? May not be the best card in the deck, but it'd be the best card in their deck. I wanted to include Borderland Ranger mostly because I saw how it smoothed out lands for the eventual Arizona States Champ. Yeah, it's not a very impressive creature, especially on turn three when you could be playing Sprouting Thrinax, but do you know what happens when a Jund deck gets stuck on four lands and its opponent gets to five or six? It was even more important for my version of Jund to make its midgame land drops because of another creature inclusion (more on that in a second), but the Ranger has really been an all-star. He makes sure you aren't getting colored-screwed, he makes sure you can play Bloodbraid Elf, and he makes it so much more likely you'll be able to play the Bituminous Blast on turn five. Then look at what he does in the mirror. He makes you resilient to the only constant in Jund's sideboard: the Goblin Ruinblaster. Obviously, he replaces a land that they destroy, but more importantly, he does it with a land that they won't be able to destroy. In one mirror match that I played in, thanks to a basic-heavy hand and two Rangers, my opponent was stuck with two Goblin Ruinblasters in his hand that he couldn't get value out of. He ended up just pitching them to a Blightning. But without those Rangers? My opponent would probably have been able to keep me stuck on three lands. And at the worst, if he fetches up some unnecessary land, you can always pitch it to a Blightning. The last creature I included outside of the norm was Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund. That guy is really good. I mean, look at him in a vacuum next to Broodmate Dragon. He can connect the same turn the Broodmate Dragon does, and only at 1 damage less. Sure, he's not two creatures, which is a drawback in terms of board positioning, but he is a 7/7, which means he can deal with Jund-nemesis Sphinx of Jwar Isle. And he has haste (that whole connecting the same turn as Broodmate), which makes him a better late game rip in a damage race. And let's not forget that we don't play Magic in a vacuum (it'd be hard to breath). When allegedly one-third of the metagame is Jund, Karrthus has extra value. Let me tell you, there is nothing more obvious yet still amazing when someone answers their opponent's Broodmate Dragon play with a Karrthus play. That's 15 damage coming through in the air. Right away. It's game. Pro white? On a flier? Yah. The first two items were easy to address. I pulled a Maelstrom Pulse out of the board, and added in a second Bloodwitch. The third item took a little more thought. I mentioned last time how there was one Jund deck in the Top 8 that ran Grim Discovery, and how I had a friend who really wanted to run it in Jund. Well, he did, and it did him well in the mirror, getting back both a land (which was okay, but not huge at the time) and a creature (which was huge, as it was a Master of the Wild Hunt, and his opponent was out of removal). After the night, I asked him about it, and he really liked it, though he admitted that four was too many. So I decided that I'd give it a try. Out came the Rangers, in came the Discoveries. After an FNM, I feel like the Grim Discoveries are okay, though I'm not convinced they should be in the deck. For my friend, who didn't run Borderland Rangers, it was probably more necessary, as it let him get back a Verdant Catacombs or undo a Goblin Ruinblaster. But for me? More often than not, it was purely a more expensive Raise Dead, as getting back the land was a moot point. Even in the mirror. Grim Discovery is a decent card for Jund, but it doesn't need to get played alongside the Ranger. Now, for Malakir Bloodwitch, that card is boss. Really. It's just good. If your opponent is playing Path to Exile and Baneslayer Angel, then the Bloodwitch is a must. It buys you all the time you would ever want against an Angel, and can even swing willy-nilly if your opponent's bank account is the only flying creature on their board (not uncommon). She definitely gets two slots in the sideboard, and I've even toyed with the idea of a third. So if you decide to take the Ranger route (in which case, I don't recommend Grim Discovery; otherwise, give it a whirl), what do you put there? Well, the mirror—and its propensity for whacking your lands—is still a concern. I would run a third Ranger in the board still. But that would leave on spot open, so what goes there? Not sure, but I'll tell you what I have there right now. You see, the last time I ran Jund, I had to go up against Sphinx of Jwar Isle. That card is a nightmare, especially when your opponent seems to get at least three of them a game. What can Jund run to deal with the Sphinx? Well, Karrthus can beat a Sphinx, but he's not a good answer, as you can only have one out at a time (and I don't advise running a bunch of him in your deck; he still has a converted mana cost of 7). So what? I say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Get rid of the Sphinx before it ever comes into play. So mediocre, yet so vital. So, since Thought Hemorrhage shores up some of Jund's weaknesses—and since Jacerator has been growing in popularity at my card shop—I went for the third black/red sorcery. I've only had once chance to run the deck with that change so far, and sadly, I never really got to use my Thought Hemorrhage. Three out of my four matches were the Jund mirror, and I decided that I didn't want to run the Hemorrhage in that matchup. Instead, where the Hemorrhages would normally go, I left in my Lightning Bolts. Which was kind of awkward. I've been talking about Jund quite a bit with some of the others at the shop, and when they ask me what I board out for the mirror, I always said Bolts, Pulses, then Leeches. But I believe that was wrong. Sure, there is very little that a Bolt can kill (in the maindeck, many times just Bloodbraid Elf—you don't kill Thrinax with your Bolt), but it is nice if your opponent boards in Great Sable Stags, and reach can, or at least should, never be underestimated. There was one matchup, though, where I put them in. A friend was running a Summoning Trap deck, and let me tell you, a turn five Iona, Shield of Emeria calling black really screws Jund's day up. In my match with him, I never actually drew the card, despite the extra one, but we played some test matches before the event, too. The one time I actually saw the card, it worked really well for slowing his game to a crawl—I took away his Traps, and then used Goblin Ruinblasters to keep him off his nine lands. But if you want to see, here's my current list:
Do Not Seek the Treasure... They're Fixing a Bushwhack My wife really hates playing Boros Bushwhacker, so at the last event she played at with me, she got to play Jund while I had to run the red/white aggro deck. Listen to me. I make it sound like a chore to play that deck. That couldn't be further from the truth. I love playing Boros Bushwhacker. It reminds me of playing Zoo in Extended, which might just be my favorite deck. That, or Merfolk. Take me back, baby. You know I didn't mean it. I made another change to the deck before I ran it. Well, more than one change. The sideboard got some scalpel work done on it. First off, I decided that I wanted to run the full four Harm's Ways. The card is just so good against Jund, and it's a pretty big breaker for the mirror. I mean, how bad is it for them when their own Jund Charm either kills one of their fatties and not your Ranger of Eos and Goblin Guide, or it hits them for 2 to the face, still not killing those creatures? It can protect your guys, which is huge when your on the wrong end of a deck defined by two-for-ones, and it still provides a modicum of reach. Then, I decided to run the Bane$layer. Four of them, in fact. I had recently come into possession of a second Angel, and a friend also had two that he wasn't using, so he lent me his. The Angel is the real breaker in the mirror, and is good in the monowhite, monored, and maybe even Jund matchup. My biggest problem with the Angel is figuring when to board her in. The conclusion I came to was that you board her in against any deck that plans to grind out the game with you and win by card advantage. Let them spend their Terminates on my Cats and Insects. They'll wish they still had them when the 5/5 comes down. But to run four of her, I would have to cut three cards from my board. Any guesses? If you said Kor Sanctifiers, you were right. Now, I'm not going to hate on the Sanctifiers—they were decent—but to beat the top decks, decent is usually not good enough. The Sanctifiers were only good against two decks, and those were decks on declining popularity: Monowhite Tokens and Monowhite Weenies. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying those decks aren't legit. But their numbers, especially at my store, have drastically declined. Plus, the Angel is just as legit against those decks, but it's also good against a few others. Still, the thought of going up against an opponent's 6/6 Baneslayer Angel gives me indigestion. There was one other change I've been thinking of making, but first, here's my current Boros list:
I pump for landfall. What do you do? Now, the Peaks haven't really thrilled me all that much. There's really only one creature they are all that good with and that's my flier, Kor Skyfisher. On any other creature, with the possible exception of Plated Geopede, it's pretty underwhelming. About 90% of the time I use the Peaks, I do it to get my opponent to block a creature I care little about so that my better creature lives. That's not that great. But is the Expanse all that great? I mean, the land still comes into play tapped. And at least the Peaks could pump a non-landfall creature. But I do think the Expanse is that great. It's a fetch land. I mean, fetches are the lifeblood of this deck. When you get enough fetches and get the landfall creatures, your opponent needs a pretty amazing hand to keep up with you. So the extra fetch, even if it's bad, means you have access to better plays later on. Like when your prepping your alpha-strike. A lot of the time, you have multiple landfall creatures, and you don't even need the extra mana, you just want two lands to enter the battlefield under your control that turn. Teetering Peaks can't do that for you. Terramorphic Expanse can. What is he grinning about? But that's not necessarily the case. Hellsparky is good. He's legit, and he can give Bushwhacker extra game against Jund (tramples over those Saprolings). Is it worth it, though, to cut some Geopedes or Skyfishers for it? I pose this as a question to you readers. Post your thoughts on Boros Bushwhacker's two-drops in the forums. Now, if you got all the way down here, I must applaud you for sticking through more of the same old. I had originally intended to write about a new Extended deck that I've been dreaming up, but when I put it together and gold-fished with it, I realized that it isn't at the stage where I feel comfortable calling it good, or even decent. But next time, I will have something new for you... even if it's just my preparations for the coming Extended season. By Andrew Hanson on December 25th, 2009 · Filed in Standard (Type 2), Good Game · 15 Comments |
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