Had 2 more games in the practice rooms, absolutely dominated UW Sun Titan, and a somewhat experimental company deck, so that has to be sorta taken lightly
However, Flayer is gross, dude, forget giving me 2 cards, he's giving me exactly what I want, the deck can still curve normally and then those traverse cards just sorta alleviates land flooding.
I tweaked your deck, but only a little. I'm very split on the sideboard so don't judge too harshly
Hands haven't had too much trouble opening to 2 lands or more, if I'm siding in Olivia, chances are I expect to be hitting 6 lands.
Thrun is just because of controls uptick, I'm not even sure how viable he is now with all of white's sac effects.
I do think the 3x artifact hate cards are a must since K-Command is gone.
Notes I've made, I've barely needed or wanted to cast Dark Confidant, it's been Grim carrying every win, digging for answers or Goyf, which surprises me.
I've yet to see Claim or a good time to cast it, path is so widely used now
Huntmaster hasn't done much but I'll keep playing around with him.
Traverse has been so good, everytime I draw it I'm like, "man, that would have just been a land I didn't need".
The deck seems to get to 2 land easily, 3 is where it putters out a little
I think running a minimum of 8 fetches is mandatory, otherwise 4x pushes become bad.
I think it's dangerous to start jamming K-Commands with Claims, and it's probably prudent to run 2x Decays as safety blankets.
I also think 4x LOTV's are a must, unlike Junk. She's so good right I don't know why you wouldn't anyway
Had 2 more games in the practice rooms, absolutely dominated UW Sun Titan, and a somewhat experimental company deck, so that has to be sorta taken lightly
However, Flayer is gross, dude, forget giving me 2 cards, he's giving me exactly what I want, the deck can still curve normally and then those traverse cards just sorta alleviates land flooding.
I tweaked your deck, but only a little. I'm very split on the sideboard so don't judge too harshly
Hands haven't had too much trouble opening to 2 lands or more, if I'm siding in Olivia, chances are I expect to be hitting 6 lands.
Thrun is just because of controls uptick, I'm not even sure how viable he is now with all of white's sac effects.
I do think the 3x artifact hate cards are a must since K-Command is gone.
Notes I've made, I've barely needed or wanted to cast Dark Confidant, it's been Grim carrying every win, digging for answers or Goyf, which surprises me.
I've yet to see Claim or a good time to cast it, path is so widely used now
Huntmaster hasn't done much but I'll keep playing around with him.
Traverse has been so good, everytime I draw it I'm like, "man, that would have just been a land I didn't need".
The deck seems to get to 2 land easily, 3 is where it putters out a little
I think running a minimum of 8 fetches is mandatory, otherwise 4x pushes become bad.
I think it's dangerous to start jamming K-Commands with Claims, and it's probably prudent to run 2x Decays as safety blankets.
I also think 4x LOTV's are a must, unlike Junk. She's so good right I don't know why you wouldn't anyway
Great feedback on all accounts. 1 of the artifact hate cards I'd definitely put in the SB is Reclamation Sage. It's tutorability makes it pretty invaluable.
Bob is your actual card advantage engine. Unfortunately there isn't anything that does his job better and I agree Grim Flayer is amazing. Before we couldn't utilize him to the fullest because we couldn't properly get value out of our GY like Abzan can with Lingering Souls. That changes with Claim // Fame. Put a creature in the yard and claim it back, put claims in the yard so you can drop a creature the following turn and get haste. Grim Flayer is a monster when he gets going.
Path is everywhere but so is Fatal Push. The goal against Path decks is just to overload their Paths. They only have 4 and 4 snapcasters. Between Ooze, Spellbomb and 13 "must answer" threats in the main, I can see them running into issues leaning on Path alone. Also be aware that we still have normal pitfalls of Jund. Just because we are lower to the ground, can be more aggressive and draw less lands, that doesn't mean we can beat 2 for 1's like Sun Titan and Collected Company. Those kinds of things will still wreck us as always. Totally agree on 4x Lilianas and the Sideboard will always be a continual rework. There aren't a ton of BR, BG or RG utility creatures but there are some. If you want to fight control decks, try 1x Choke in the side. Card is pretty gas right now.
However, Flayer is gross, dude, forget giving me 2 cards, he's giving me exactly what I want, the deck can still curve normally and then those traverse cards just sorta alleviates land flooding.
This is why I've been trying to find optimal lists for him since he came out, even if he can be maddening at times. Once he hits once you basically get on a gravy train of only drawing what you want / need.
I've barely needed or wanted to cast Dark Confidant, it's been Grim carrying every win, digging for answers or Goyf, which surprises me.
Having played Abzan traverse (0 bob) and "classic flayer jund" (4 bob 4 flayer 4 goyf), the only thing I missed in abzan was the awesome interaction they have together. If drawing 1 card I cherry pick from my top three is great then two cards is even better. Also nice to have another must-answer creature for the opponent to deal with, too.
I could see testing out what happens if we drop confidant from this type of list, go up to 20 lands (or just a more fetch-heavy manabase), and adding tireless tracker. This would give an aggressive creature that didn't depend on the graveyard and can give cards over the long game to the deck.
The sideboard Grim Lavamancer obviously has some less than stellar interactions at times but still a great card when needed. Another thought would be Shadow Guildmage, which I always forget is modern legal. I'm not sure if the "I dont want to eat my graveyard" aspect is worth the tradeoff in cmc, life total, and less damage. Probably not, but its an option.
I don't know if I want to toss Confidant, but the Tracker is an idea to keep tucked away for not folding as hard to GY hate.
Worst case maybe Tracker becomes the "sideboard plan" against decks with GY hate. Bring them in and take out some number of cards that are more graveyard reliant like Claim // Fame.
I tried pitching the deck to Facebook, they didn't seem keen on it, saying they've tested Traverse Jund. I'm wondering if its better just being a jund death shadow deck
Finally got to run my version of the Traverse build through a league. I'm still a little constrained by budget, so from the last I posted on the last page I was -2 Liliana of the Veil, with an Abrupt Decay and a Maelstrom Pulse to make up for them. I ran 2 Anathemancer in place of Fulminator mage, but other than that my sideboard was what I'd planned to run. Overall I went 2-3, beating Bant Humans and Dredge (of all things), losing to G/R Tron, Eldrazi Tron, and the mirror. G/R Tron went exactly how it usually does, although I did get to kill a Karn with an Anathemancer, which was pretty funny. The mirror was close, and my opponent appeared to be running 24 lands, which was noticable when we got to top decking. Unfortunately, my lack of Liliana's was even more noticeable, and I couldn't keep up with the card advantage and repeatable removal that his 4 copies provided. I actually got turn 3 Karned by Eldrazi Tron game 1 and thought it was normal Tron, but the followup Reality Smasher and Matter Reshaper suggested otherwise. Game 2 was close, but a timely All is Dust set me back, and the followup Karn closed the game out.
Overall, I liked the way the list performed, it really just felt like normal Jund except that you can top deck Traverse instead of lands. Thanks to Confidant, I really didn't run into many mana issues, and actually had no problem firing up Raging Ravine. Delirium was a bit of a challenge to hit, so I'm considering dropping the 4th Traverse for a second Ravine. Tarfire wasn't amazing but wasn't terrible, I'd be running Bolts in those slots otherwise and I don't think that Bolt would have been significantly better in any of the places I played Tarfire.
I think your mistake was running tarfire, I haven't been treating the deck like a delirium build, been treating it more like a jund deck that topdecks traverse and plays flayers.
It's all about timing. DS Jund wanted delirium by turn 2-3 and were often playing tons of "bad cards" to do so (Tarfire, Bauble, Street Wraith etc.). This also left them vulnerable to GY hate since they'd still have these dead cards. This deck doesn't typically want delerium til turn 4+. It's also important to note that Flayer is often our best Claim//Fame target because a hasty 6 power trampler out of nowhere is pretty difficult to block efficiently.
Even without tarfires delirium should be easier to enable in ds jund builds than our version. Its true we need delirium later in the game but i think on turn 4+ delirium is still not that guaranteed to have. I think sometimes this screws to much.
Just compare it with Jund DS: They need delirium on turn 2/3 and therefore are running more cards to enable it easier. Nevertheless its not easy to achieve and no guarantee whatsoever. Now, we need delirium later in the game, yeah, but we also do run far less cards to support delirium. That just screams to me we will have the same issue Jund DS has, its just later in the game happening.
My predict is that often we will have 3 card types in the yard and no board, as we exchanged resources with our opponent. If you topdeck a traverse here, its the same as topdecking a land, except you can't even play it. If you missing a creature to have delirium, you even need to draw into a creature, cast it and then getting it into the yard in order to enable delirium.
Thats just some fears I have with this version. I will put this version to the test today and see how it goes. But my experience with Jund DS tells me this will end similarily.
Had 2 more games in the practice rooms, absolutely dominated UW Sun Titan, and a somewhat experimental company deck, so that has to be sorta taken lightly
However, Flayer is gross, dude, forget giving me 2 cards, he's giving me exactly what I want, the deck can still curve normally and then those traverse cards just sorta alleviates land flooding.
I tweaked your deck, but only a little. I'm very split on the sideboard so don't judge too harshly
Hands haven't had too much trouble opening to 2 lands or more, if I'm siding in Olivia, chances are I expect to be hitting 6 lands.
Thrun is just because of controls uptick, I'm not even sure how viable he is now with all of white's sac effects.
I do think the 3x artifact hate cards are a must since K-Command is gone.
Notes I've made, I've barely needed or wanted to cast Dark Confidant, it's been Grim carrying every win, digging for answers or Goyf, which surprises me.
I've yet to see Claim or a good time to cast it, path is so widely used now
Huntmaster hasn't done much but I'll keep playing around with him.
Traverse has been so good, everytime I draw it I'm like, "man, that would have just been a land I didn't need".
The deck seems to get to 2 land easily, 3 is where it putters out a little
I think running a minimum of 8 fetches is mandatory, otherwise 4x pushes become bad.
I think it's dangerous to start jamming K-Commands with Claims, and it's probably prudent to run 2x Decays as safety blankets.
I also think 4x LOTV's are a must, unlike Junk. She's so good right I don't know why you wouldn't anyway
I would abdolutely play blooming marshes over some blackcleave cliffs. You dont need red on turn 1 with this build. Green is needed sometimes thought. I would prob play 2 blooming and 1 cliff.
My predict is that often we will have 3 card types in the yard and no board, as we exchanged resources with our opponent. If you topdeck a traverse here, its the same as topdecking a land, except you can't even play it. If you missing a creature to have delirium, you even need to draw into a creature, cast it and then getting it into the yard in order to enable delirium.
This is my concern as well, and why I opted to run Tarfire over Lightning Bolt in my list. I'm leaning towards swapping back to Bolt, which is why I'm interested in going down to 3 Traverse and adding in the second Ravine.
I'm still not sold on the need for Claim // Fame in these lists, it seems fine for grinding but I'm not sure what role it's serving in the main deck. I think that one of the big perks to Jund over Abzan in the current meta is that you're running less cards that can only grind (i.e. Lingering Souls), and more versatile interaction (2 Bolt/2 K-Command), which are worse against grindy decks but objectively better against everything else.
It really depends how your meta is. Mine is full of DS decks and grindy decks looking to beat those decks. What Claim // Fame does is it makes your TS mirrors much better for you. It also gives us more utility out of Flayer since milling over a Claim // Fame doesn't actually lose you an entire card. Most of us are running 0 bolts as well. Bolt is just really bad right now.
I tried pitching the deck to Facebook, they didn't seem keen on it, saying they've tested Traverse Jund. I'm wondering if its better just being a jund death shadow deck
People who say they "tested Traverse Jund" haven't done so with Claim // Fame which I think is one of the main reasons the deck has life. Jund didn't have a good card to make opponents thoughtseize decisions awkward or really pressure an onboard LotV. Now they do. I think it's a lot better than Jund DS because Death Shadow decks are forced to run a TON of bad cards that just don't do enough, 4x Bauble, 4x Street Wraith, only 8-10 threats, no manlands etc. From what I've experienced about this deck so far, the majority of the time you may be a traditional Jund deck, albeit with a slightly lower to the ground manabase and more creatures. However unlike Jund, this can turn into an Aggro deck VERY easily. I've found that I'm still getting under decks like Tron or Lantern because I have a 8 "goyfs" that all must be answered and Claim // Fame can punch extra damage through over the top. This has also helped me against control because instead of being forced to grind, we can apply the beats to the face and still do traditional Jund things. This means I'm losing less often to Ancestral Visions or Sphinx Rev. Now ofcourse the deck isn't perfect. Jund still has it's issues in the current meta (especially since local metagames can vary drastically) but I think "folks on facebook" dismissing it out of hand is shortsighted. In fact, many folks had this same mindset before Jund Death Shadow dominated GP Vancouver.
That makes a lot of sense, I hadn't considered the effect it can have in Thoughtseize matchups. I'll hop on the bandwagon and try out a couple copies.
Yeah it feels pretty good when your opponent Thoughtseizes/IoK's you and you can see on their face that they hate their life. Unlike Kommand or Snapcaster where you sometimes live with the fact the creature will come down and maybe get a lick in as you dig for removal, you know that if you take the creature instead it will take them quite some time and mana investment to rebuy it. With Claim//Fame, it actually reduces the cost of the creature and even worse for them, can give haste if you have enough mana. Even if they take the Claim//Fame, they could be setting up the turn 4, play a threat, give it haste play which can be equally frustrating. It's like a Lingering Souls with a much lower floor but a much higher ceiling. I've been a big fan of the uptick LotV, discard threat, Claim//Fame threat back and attack with it.
I did up ending up 3/2 with the list. I played Tron, Affinity, Titanshift, BR Midrange and Living End. I am going to say right away: I have mixed feelings about Traverse in general, but Claim // Fame impressed me surprisingly. Reasoning as follows:
Playing against Tron was miserable as always, turn 3 Karn sealed game 1. Game 2 I had a bunch of creatures like Grim Flayer which pressured my opponent. In the end he did manage to remove my Flayer but I could Claim him back and sealed game 2. At this moment Claim felt pretty cool. Game 3 was hard though since my opponent had Ulamog and I didn't draw LoTV as only out. So I lost that one, but this was just usual Tron madness.
Against Affinity I did come across my first problems I have with Traverse. They don't play much removal and this basically means you won't likely have creatures in your GY in this matchup. Since Lilis are boarded out here you significantly reduce chances of getting delirium online here. At that was exactly what happened. I had land, sorcery and instant in the yard but no creature to cast Traverse. And I was stranded with some Traverses in hand. I did take that match 2-0 still, but it was something I noticed. I guess if that traverses would have been lands its basically similar, but you can at least play excess lands enabling multiple ooze activations or Ravine getting online. if you already have all basics out there is nothing to search without deliirum.
For Valakut nothing special happend concerning Traverse, they were ok here. I lost that match as well due to scapeshift 2 times.
BR Midrange was a this version running Demigod and BM, Traverse were actually rpetty useful getting those basics. Claim did its job here, it felt pretty amazing returing back my Ooze (my opponent had multiple Demigods and Lootings in the yard). I think Claim did its job here pretty much. Traverse was also ok here, since I managed to get delirium online.
The last match is were my mainboard Spellbombs shined. They both won me the games basically and I won 2-0 against Living End. Traverse was only used to search for basics during those games. I did not see Claim here. Oh and I did test out bringin in CB against Living ENd, but didn't draw them during the game. But I heavily think, CB would have been a dead card most of the times. I kept thinking if I had CB now, it would be quite bad (i knew the hand of my opponent).
So overall 3/2 with that list, which is ok. So what do I think about it? I think I have the same conlusion I have for Grim Flayer as card: Its either really good or incredibly bad. I personally am not quite into this inconsistancy and huge difference in performance. I realized that Traverse gets better or worse heavily dependant what you board. For example I need to board out Push against Living End and Tron, which greatly reduces the chance to have instant as card type in the yard. Travers gets way worse here. It is ok preboard, since you have a good distribution of card types, but it just doesn't help if you can't cast your Pushes and therefore not getting an instant into the yard for example. If delirium is onlince, traverse is amazing, but without it felt really bad. I guess its not much worse than flooding out in a general build of Jund, but one problem is still getting me: Traverse is in its worst case not just a simple land. Its a land you have to pay mana for. And sometimes you really would want to discard on turn 1, then play a 2 drop on turn 2, but can't since you have only 1 land and need to play traverse in between. Sometimes thats screwing you quite a bit I think. And I am not sure this outweighs the pro of reducing land topdecks.
Here is what I think the pros and cons of Traverse is:
Pro:
It reduces land topdecks later in the game and can turn into a threat. It helps against BM and can search for basics. It adds more sorceries to the yard for Goyf/delirium. You can potentially get silver bullets like Fulminator/Finks more consistantly.
Con:
You need to pay mana in order to use it as land. Delirium is not guaranteed at all and is very depending on the matchup. Without delirium Traverse can sometimes be worse than a land (a fetchland can enable Push at least, thin the deck out or actually get a land in order to have more ooze mana or ravine mana). If you need to use traverse to search for a basic, you can be colour screwed at times, since colour requirements are quite high in this deck.
Traverse is definitely not running smoothly at all in this deck. I knew it since I played Jund DS quite a bit and even there delirium is no guarantee. And it doesn't matter that we do not need deliirum as early as turn 2. After all we do also run way less enablers than Jund DS does, which outweighs the turn factor.
I am after all not sure I would want to play this version from now on more often. I guess if you are fine with it having those huge differences in performance and consistancy, then this is alright for you. But I personally want consistancy. Yeah traverse biggest pro is that you get to play fewer lands. But somtimes they also hurt you like I explained. I guess today my wins and losses were not due to traverse being present or not, so I guess it can perform at least similarily. Maybe in the end it perfoms the same like normal jund. The pros and cons could outweigh each other after all. I think, with normal Jund you won't have that ups that you can have with traverse Jund, but you also won't have that lows which I can think can be appearing. Its just more consistant I think.
Totally agree with you that the list is higher variance than the OG Jund versions. The only reason we are going this low on lands and dealing with the variance is because it gives us the best chance to beat GDS and go under Tron to the best of our abilities. I do honestly relate the Traverse package in the deck to the Eldrazi package in Tron. It costs consistency and would not normally be played but the metagame makes it into a necessity.
Now you could remove the traverse package and go up a couple lands but the main core I designed the deck in mind with was Claim//Fame. The card is kinda bonkers.
what about just playing "normal" jund with 22 lands and a lower curve?
no 4 drops
4 lili and some other 3 mana cards like pulse or kolaghan
rest as usual
with claim//fame of course
what about just playing "normal" jund with 22 lands and a lower curve?
no 4 drops
4 lili and some other 3 mana cards like pulse or kolaghan
rest as usual
with claim//fame of course
That's the general option though if you are running Claim//Fame I think you still run Grim Flayer. He still has tremendous upside but you aren't as reliant on delirium as you are with Traverse.
I played DSJ tonight and went 2 and 2, and god, did I just activating delirium. spending a turn just to achieve delirium and casting a slow shadow felt bad.
Maybe delirium is just a dangerous mechanic to rely on, when there's certain matchups that you're sideboarding instants/lotv/discard, the delirium gets worse.
Maybe OG Jund is the way to go, but I'm glad to hear about your results with that card.
Flyer, sounds like derlium didn't do poorly for you, Scapeshift and Tron are total ***** matches.
Sheridan said that the data results show Jund v Tron is actually a 40/60 matchup but there's no way in hell I believe this, even if there's old data to back that up.
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However, Flayer is gross, dude, forget giving me 2 cards, he's giving me exactly what I want, the deck can still curve normally and then those traverse cards just sorta alleviates land flooding.
I tweaked your deck, but only a little. I'm very split on the sideboard so don't judge too harshly
3x Blackcleave Cliffs
3x Bloodstained Mire
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wooded Foothills
2x Overgrown Tomb
1x Blood Crypt
1x Stomping Ground
1x Forest
2x Swamp
1x Treetop Village
Creature (13)
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Grim Flayer
3x Dark Confidant
2x Scavenging Ooze
1x Huntmaster of the Fells
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Thoughtseize
4x Traverse the Ulvenwald
2x Nihil Spellbomb
4x Fatal Push
2x Abrupt Decay
3x Terminate
2x Claim//Fame
1x Maelstrom Pulse
4x Liliana of the Veil
2x Collective Brutality
2x Kitchen Finks
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Olivia Voldaren
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Shatterstorm
1x Damnation
1x Anger of the Gods
1x Grim Lavamancer
1x Grafdigger's Cage
Hands haven't had too much trouble opening to 2 lands or more, if I'm siding in Olivia, chances are I expect to be hitting 6 lands.
Thrun is just because of controls uptick, I'm not even sure how viable he is now with all of white's sac effects.
I do think the 3x artifact hate cards are a must since K-Command is gone.
Notes I've made, I've barely needed or wanted to cast Dark Confidant, it's been Grim carrying every win, digging for answers or Goyf, which surprises me.
I've yet to see Claim or a good time to cast it, path is so widely used now
Huntmaster hasn't done much but I'll keep playing around with him.
Traverse has been so good, everytime I draw it I'm like, "man, that would have just been a land I didn't need".
The deck seems to get to 2 land easily, 3 is where it putters out a little
I think running a minimum of 8 fetches is mandatory, otherwise 4x pushes become bad.
I think it's dangerous to start jamming K-Commands with Claims, and it's probably prudent to run 2x Decays as safety blankets.
I also think 4x LOTV's are a must, unlike Junk. She's so good right I don't know why you wouldn't anyway
Great feedback on all accounts. 1 of the artifact hate cards I'd definitely put in the SB is Reclamation Sage. It's tutorability makes it pretty invaluable.
Bob is your actual card advantage engine. Unfortunately there isn't anything that does his job better and I agree Grim Flayer is amazing. Before we couldn't utilize him to the fullest because we couldn't properly get value out of our GY like Abzan can with Lingering Souls. That changes with Claim // Fame. Put a creature in the yard and claim it back, put claims in the yard so you can drop a creature the following turn and get haste. Grim Flayer is a monster when he gets going.
Path is everywhere but so is Fatal Push. The goal against Path decks is just to overload their Paths. They only have 4 and 4 snapcasters. Between Ooze, Spellbomb and 13 "must answer" threats in the main, I can see them running into issues leaning on Path alone. Also be aware that we still have normal pitfalls of Jund. Just because we are lower to the ground, can be more aggressive and draw less lands, that doesn't mean we can beat 2 for 1's like Sun Titan and Collected Company. Those kinds of things will still wreck us as always. Totally agree on 4x Lilianas and the Sideboard will always be a continual rework. There aren't a ton of BR, BG or RG utility creatures but there are some. If you want to fight control decks, try 1x Choke in the side. Card is pretty gas right now.
This is why I've been trying to find optimal lists for him since he came out, even if he can be maddening at times. Once he hits once you basically get on a gravy train of only drawing what you want / need.
Yup.
Having played Abzan traverse (0 bob) and "classic flayer jund" (4 bob 4 flayer 4 goyf), the only thing I missed in abzan was the awesome interaction they have together. If drawing 1 card I cherry pick from my top three is great then two cards is even better. Also nice to have another must-answer creature for the opponent to deal with, too.
I could see testing out what happens if we drop confidant from this type of list, go up to 20 lands (or just a more fetch-heavy manabase), and adding tireless tracker. This would give an aggressive creature that didn't depend on the graveyard and can give cards over the long game to the deck.
The sideboard Grim Lavamancer obviously has some less than stellar interactions at times but still a great card when needed. Another thought would be Shadow Guildmage, which I always forget is modern legal. I'm not sure if the "I dont want to eat my graveyard" aspect is worth the tradeoff in cmc, life total, and less damage. Probably not, but its an option.
I don't know if I want to toss Confidant, but the Tracker is an idea to keep tucked away for not folding as hard to GY hate.
Worst case maybe Tracker becomes the "sideboard plan" against decks with GY hate. Bring them in and take out some number of cards that are more graveyard reliant like Claim // Fame.
Overall, I liked the way the list performed, it really just felt like normal Jund except that you can top deck Traverse instead of lands. Thanks to Confidant, I really didn't run into many mana issues, and actually had no problem firing up Raging Ravine. Delirium was a bit of a challenge to hit, so I'm considering dropping the 4th Traverse for a second Ravine. Tarfire wasn't amazing but wasn't terrible, I'd be running Bolts in those slots otherwise and I don't think that Bolt would have been significantly better in any of the places I played Tarfire.
Even without tarfires delirium should be easier to enable in ds jund builds than our version. Its true we need delirium later in the game but i think on turn 4+ delirium is still not that guaranteed to have. I think sometimes this screws to much.
Just compare it with Jund DS: They need delirium on turn 2/3 and therefore are running more cards to enable it easier. Nevertheless its not easy to achieve and no guarantee whatsoever. Now, we need delirium later in the game, yeah, but we also do run far less cards to support delirium. That just screams to me we will have the same issue Jund DS has, its just later in the game happening.
My predict is that often we will have 3 card types in the yard and no board, as we exchanged resources with our opponent. If you topdeck a traverse here, its the same as topdecking a land, except you can't even play it. If you missing a creature to have delirium, you even need to draw into a creature, cast it and then getting it into the yard in order to enable delirium.
Thats just some fears I have with this version. I will put this version to the test today and see how it goes. But my experience with Jund DS tells me this will end similarily.
Delirium is a double-edged sword.
I would abdolutely play blooming marshes over some blackcleave cliffs. You dont need red on turn 1 with this build. Green is needed sometimes thought. I would prob play 2 blooming and 1 cliff.
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Blooming Marsh
1 Forest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
//Spells
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Claim // Fame
4 Fatal Push
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Kolaghan's Command
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Terminate
3 Thoughtseize
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
3 Dark Confidant
3 Grim Flayer
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
This is my concern as well, and why I opted to run Tarfire over Lightning Bolt in my list. I'm leaning towards swapping back to Bolt, which is why I'm interested in going down to 3 Traverse and adding in the second Ravine.
I'm still not sold on the need for Claim // Fame in these lists, it seems fine for grinding but I'm not sure what role it's serving in the main deck. I think that one of the big perks to Jund over Abzan in the current meta is that you're running less cards that can only grind (i.e. Lingering Souls), and more versatile interaction (2 Bolt/2 K-Command), which are worse against grindy decks but objectively better against everything else.
People who say they "tested Traverse Jund" haven't done so with Claim // Fame which I think is one of the main reasons the deck has life. Jund didn't have a good card to make opponents thoughtseize decisions awkward or really pressure an onboard LotV. Now they do. I think it's a lot better than Jund DS because Death Shadow decks are forced to run a TON of bad cards that just don't do enough, 4x Bauble, 4x Street Wraith, only 8-10 threats, no manlands etc. From what I've experienced about this deck so far, the majority of the time you may be a traditional Jund deck, albeit with a slightly lower to the ground manabase and more creatures. However unlike Jund, this can turn into an Aggro deck VERY easily. I've found that I'm still getting under decks like Tron or Lantern because I have a 8 "goyfs" that all must be answered and Claim // Fame can punch extra damage through over the top. This has also helped me against control because instead of being forced to grind, we can apply the beats to the face and still do traditional Jund things. This means I'm losing less often to Ancestral Visions or Sphinx Rev. Now ofcourse the deck isn't perfect. Jund still has it's issues in the current meta (especially since local metagames can vary drastically) but I think "folks on facebook" dismissing it out of hand is shortsighted. In fact, many folks had this same mindset before Jund Death Shadow dominated GP Vancouver.
Yeah it feels pretty good when your opponent Thoughtseizes/IoK's you and you can see on their face that they hate their life. Unlike Kommand or Snapcaster where you sometimes live with the fact the creature will come down and maybe get a lick in as you dig for removal, you know that if you take the creature instead it will take them quite some time and mana investment to rebuy it. With Claim//Fame, it actually reduces the cost of the creature and even worse for them, can give haste if you have enough mana. Even if they take the Claim//Fame, they could be setting up the turn 4, play a threat, give it haste play which can be equally frustrating. It's like a Lingering Souls with a much lower floor but a much higher ceiling. I've been a big fan of the uptick LotV, discard threat, Claim//Fame threat back and attack with it.
Basically, I did play it at my LGS at tonights FNM, running this distinct list:
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Blooming Marsh
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
1 Raging Ravine
Creatures [13]
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Grim Flayer
3 Dark Confidant
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Fatal Push
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Claim // Fame
2 Terminate
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Collective Brutality
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Damnation
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Night of Soul's Betrayal
1 Terminate
I did up ending up 3/2 with the list. I played Tron, Affinity, Titanshift, BR Midrange and Living End. I am going to say right away: I have mixed feelings about Traverse in general, but Claim // Fame impressed me surprisingly. Reasoning as follows:
Playing against Tron was miserable as always, turn 3 Karn sealed game 1. Game 2 I had a bunch of creatures like Grim Flayer which pressured my opponent. In the end he did manage to remove my Flayer but I could Claim him back and sealed game 2. At this moment Claim felt pretty cool. Game 3 was hard though since my opponent had Ulamog and I didn't draw LoTV as only out. So I lost that one, but this was just usual Tron madness.
Against Affinity I did come across my first problems I have with Traverse. They don't play much removal and this basically means you won't likely have creatures in your GY in this matchup. Since Lilis are boarded out here you significantly reduce chances of getting delirium online here. At that was exactly what happened. I had land, sorcery and instant in the yard but no creature to cast Traverse. And I was stranded with some Traverses in hand. I did take that match 2-0 still, but it was something I noticed. I guess if that traverses would have been lands its basically similar, but you can at least play excess lands enabling multiple ooze activations or Ravine getting online. if you already have all basics out there is nothing to search without deliirum.
For Valakut nothing special happend concerning Traverse, they were ok here. I lost that match as well due to scapeshift 2 times.
BR Midrange was a this version running Demigod and BM, Traverse were actually rpetty useful getting those basics. Claim did its job here, it felt pretty amazing returing back my Ooze (my opponent had multiple Demigods and Lootings in the yard). I think Claim did its job here pretty much. Traverse was also ok here, since I managed to get delirium online.
The last match is were my mainboard Spellbombs shined. They both won me the games basically and I won 2-0 against Living End. Traverse was only used to search for basics during those games. I did not see Claim here. Oh and I did test out bringin in CB against Living ENd, but didn't draw them during the game. But I heavily think, CB would have been a dead card most of the times. I kept thinking if I had CB now, it would be quite bad (i knew the hand of my opponent).
So overall 3/2 with that list, which is ok. So what do I think about it? I think I have the same conlusion I have for Grim Flayer as card: Its either really good or incredibly bad. I personally am not quite into this inconsistancy and huge difference in performance. I realized that Traverse gets better or worse heavily dependant what you board. For example I need to board out Push against Living End and Tron, which greatly reduces the chance to have instant as card type in the yard. Travers gets way worse here. It is ok preboard, since you have a good distribution of card types, but it just doesn't help if you can't cast your Pushes and therefore not getting an instant into the yard for example. If delirium is onlince, traverse is amazing, but without it felt really bad. I guess its not much worse than flooding out in a general build of Jund, but one problem is still getting me: Traverse is in its worst case not just a simple land. Its a land you have to pay mana for. And sometimes you really would want to discard on turn 1, then play a 2 drop on turn 2, but can't since you have only 1 land and need to play traverse in between. Sometimes thats screwing you quite a bit I think. And I am not sure this outweighs the pro of reducing land topdecks.
Here is what I think the pros and cons of Traverse is:
Pro:
It reduces land topdecks later in the game and can turn into a threat. It helps against BM and can search for basics. It adds more sorceries to the yard for Goyf/delirium. You can potentially get silver bullets like Fulminator/Finks more consistantly.
Con:
You need to pay mana in order to use it as land. Delirium is not guaranteed at all and is very depending on the matchup. Without delirium Traverse can sometimes be worse than a land (a fetchland can enable Push at least, thin the deck out or actually get a land in order to have more ooze mana or ravine mana). If you need to use traverse to search for a basic, you can be colour screwed at times, since colour requirements are quite high in this deck.
Traverse is definitely not running smoothly at all in this deck. I knew it since I played Jund DS quite a bit and even there delirium is no guarantee. And it doesn't matter that we do not need deliirum as early as turn 2. After all we do also run way less enablers than Jund DS does, which outweighs the turn factor.
I am after all not sure I would want to play this version from now on more often. I guess if you are fine with it having those huge differences in performance and consistancy, then this is alright for you. But I personally want consistancy. Yeah traverse biggest pro is that you get to play fewer lands. But somtimes they also hurt you like I explained. I guess today my wins and losses were not due to traverse being present or not, so I guess it can perform at least similarily. Maybe in the end it perfoms the same like normal jund. The pros and cons could outweigh each other after all. I think, with normal Jund you won't have that ups that you can have with traverse Jund, but you also won't have that lows which I can think can be appearing. Its just more consistant I think.
And PS: I really hate delirium as a mechanic.
Now you could remove the traverse package and go up a couple lands but the main core I designed the deck in mind with was Claim//Fame. The card is kinda bonkers.
no 4 drops
4 lili and some other 3 mana cards like pulse or kolaghan
rest as usual
with claim//fame of course
That's the general option though if you are running Claim//Fame I think you still run Grim Flayer. He still has tremendous upside but you aren't as reliant on delirium as you are with Traverse.
Maybe delirium is just a dangerous mechanic to rely on, when there's certain matchups that you're sideboarding instants/lotv/discard, the delirium gets worse.
Maybe OG Jund is the way to go, but I'm glad to hear about your results with that card.
Sheridan said that the data results show Jund v Tron is actually a 40/60 matchup but there's no way in hell I believe this, even if there's old data to back that up.