Sure, I totally agree, but thats what I would call a forced play. I am more talking about difficult decisions where you have more potential right options. Those are the ones where skill strikes in. Bolting the Overseer is a no brainer
Basically, cast BBE when you can get value from her. Don't just cast her because you have mana open to do so. I will say that I have beaten plenty of mirrors so far without casting a single BBE and with them casting multiple BBEs. BBE is amazing but only if you actually play her when you're guaranteed value. Too many times people seem to run her out on an empty board and Cascade into removal or something I can respond to that they can't gain any value from.
I honestly think, that its never a big mistake to cast BBE onto an emtpy BF. At least in matchups where you don't rely too much on CA. Regarding midrange mirrors you are probably right though.
Well, I would say it like this: If I have a Goyf and BBE in hand, in midrange mirros and the BF is empty, I would more likely just cast the Goyf. However, if my only card is BBE I can develop, I slam her, even in midrange mirrors on an emtpy board.
Didn't do too well tonight, 2-1 at a small LGS event.
I still can't decide between Anger, Damnation or Lavamancer.
Match 1 v Mono Green Stompy (1:2 loss)
G1: He is on the play and explodes out of the gates with Strangleroot geists, leatherback baloth, rancor etc while I throw removal and try to stabilize the board. I have a Last Hope shrinking his Leatherback Baloth so he does not attack into my 3/3 Scooze. He gets me down to 3 life before my Scooze starts gaining me life. I chain 3 BBEs in a row to sink him after he starts to flood out. The game takes longer than it should be because he kept 3 cards or so in hand and I was afraid he would cast 2 strangleroot geists and hit for 4, so I keep some creatures back on defense.
G2: Same story as Game 1, I answer his threats but take damage regardless from Strangleroot (the haste AND undying, ugh). I thought I stabilised the board when I kill every creature and attack with my 5/6 Goyf, having a LOTV with 2 loyalty. He topdecks like a champ – a third Strangleroot which kills LOTV, and a Scooze after that which grows to a 7/7. I lose, topdecking 3 lands.
G3: I keep a respectable hand but mana screws. I lose on turn 6 with 3 lands out – 2 Ravines and 1 Blackcleave cliffs. I die with 2 LOTV and 2 BBE in hand. As it turns out, this is also the only game tonight (I play 9 games in total) where my mana does not cooperate. I contemplate going to 25 lands.
G1: I manage to stick a t3 LOTV, he bolts it then Kommands it, and sticks a Tasigur on turn 4. I hold on to a terminate from my starting hand, knowing that he has a spell snare to protect the Tasigur. I lose the LOTV, then a Last Hope, to the Tasigur. I BBE into my second LOTV, which resolves and he finally discards the spell snare. I terminate the Tasigur. Suddenly, I had LOTV on an empty board on 4 loyalty. I ult him 2 turns later, splitting 7 lands as follows: (2 Islands, 1 Mountain, 1 Swamp) and (2 Watery Grave, 1 Blood Crypt). He keeps the pile with 4 basics. The board clear and both players hellbent, I thought I had it locked down when I start activating ravine. He topdecks well, with a Snap into push for my ravine. The next turn He Kommands and gets back Tasigur. The next turn he plays Azcanta. I scoop to save time for games 2 and 3. Feels bad to lose after LOTV ultimate.
G2: My starting hand has 3 lands, 2 BBEs, 1 spellbomb, 1 LOTV. I play a t1 spellbomb. I draw a IOK T2 and take a Liliana’s Defeat, and I see Tasigur. I crack spellbomb on t3 to remove his graveyard and prevent an early Tasigur. I draw a third BBE, and I start burying him in value.
G3: I didn’t take much notes for this, as we start going to time towards the end. My notes tell me Treetop Village gets in for 9 damage. I win the game at 18 life.
Sideboarding:
- 4 Bolts, 2 Push, 1 Decay
+ 3 Fulminator, 2 CB, 2 Finks
I board in Finks against Grixis but not against UW as they do not have Path. I don’t bother with the second Pulse as I only need to answer Tasigur / Angler. If he had Jace, pulse would come in as well
Match 2 v Ponza (2:1 win)
G1: On the play, I had a decent start. T1 IOK takes utopia sprawl. T2 I push his Arbor Elf. T3 I play a Gofy which is already 5/6 and thought I could coast to an easy win. He plays a tracker. T4 I get in with Goyf, and could only play a Dark Confidant. T4 onwards it goes all downhill, as he had drawn 3 BBE in a row (I did not see any BBE in his starting hand with my IOK). His first BBE flips Ahn Crop Crasher, his second flips Blood Moon (which was backbreaking as I only have 1 basic swamp in play), I scoop when he plays his third BBE.
G2: I keep a hand of Decay, Pulse, Scooze, BBE, Ravine, Wooded Foothills, Swamp. He mulls to 5, which is not uncommon for Ponza. Nevertheless I play cautiously and leave up mana to float GB in the case of blood moon. I cascade BBE into Collective Brutality, killing his Arbor elf and taking his primal command when he had 4 lands. The next turn I thoughtseize his stormbreath before he could draw his 5th land. I take over.
G3: He mulls to 6 on the play, plays a land and passes. Good news. I also have 2 fetches in my opening hand to draw the necessary basics. I IOK him and see Ahn-Crop Crasher, Chandra, Wurmcoil, Trinisphere, lands. I take trinisphere. I terminate his Crasher. I pulse his Chandra. Mid game, he plays Wurmcoil which forces my second Pulse. I had Bob drawing me cards since turn 4 or so, I had gas. I answer the wurm tokens with a bolt and push. Nevertheless, he has a second Ahn-Crop which applies steady pressure. I eventually kill that as well, down to 6 life with a Bob in play. The next 4 turns were nailbiting as he topdecks like a Ponza deck (i.e. dorks, lands, his third blood moon) and Bob leads me to greatness by flipping 2 bolts and 3 lands while chipping in for 2 every turn. With him at 7 life, I declare attack with Bob and show him the 2 bolts.
Got really lucky here as behind 2 of the bob flips were 1 Damnation and 1 BBE. Could have easily died there.
Well, I would say it like this: If I have a Goyf and BBE in hand, in midrange mirros and the BF is empty, I would more likely just cast the Goyf. However, if my only card is BBE I can develop, I slam her, even in midrange mirrors on an emtpy board.
That is the most logical line of play. Playing BBE too conservatively may lose you the game so, I agree with this sentiment. If you can play her, then play her, if not grow your Ravine.
G1: I manage to stick a t3 LOTV, he bolts it then Kommands it, and sticks a Tasigur on turn 4. I hold on to a terminate from my starting hand, knowing that he has a spell snare to protect the Tasigur. I lose the LOTV, then a Last Hope, to the Tasigur. I BBE into my second LOTV, which resolves and he finally discards the spell snare. I terminate the Tasigur. Suddenly, I had LOTV on an empty board on 4 loyalty. I ult him 2 turns later, splitting 7 lands as follows: (2 Islands, 1 Mountain, 1 Swamp) and (2 Watery Grave, 1 Blood Crypt). He keeps the pile with 4 basics. The board clear and both players hellbent, I thought I had it locked down when I start activating ravine. He topdecks well, with a Snap into push for my ravine. The next turn He Kommands and gets back Tasigur. The next turn he plays Azcanta. I scoop to save time for games 2 and 3. Feels bad to lose after LOTV ultimate.
I think better LoTV piles would have been: 2 Islands + 2 Watery Grave vs. 1 Mountain, 1 Swamp and 1 Blood Crypt. That way you either cut him off blue or red. That would be devastating for him, since he would certainly take blue/black and would not get back tasigur.
Your piles basically had the intention of keeping him off Cryptic mana, which is a reasobale argument, but thats only 1 card. I personally like shutting him off a colour guaranteed more here.
G3: I didn’t take much notes for this, as we start going to time towards the end. My notes tell me Treetop Village gets in for 9 damage. I win the game at 18 life.
May I ask you how you take notes during a match? I personally have always found it too be too stressful. Any tips on this?
I kept in Kolaghan's Commands as I saw tracker and crashers.
I mentioned it already in other posts. I think it is a mistake to take out LoTV against Ponza. She is too powerful. I know it might seem scary with the double black. I agree about cutting LtLH, but LoTV can win the game on her own. If you want to leverage susceptibility to BM, then maybe cut 1 copy or max 2 copies. But I would not cut all 4 copies of her.
I lost the jund mirror to my opponent slamming bbe. The pressure was too much to answer, and she makes lotv awkward when you're racing bbe, another creature and a ravine they can activate. The pressure jund can hand out is brutal now.
I've lost two jund mirrors now, feels bad. Fulminator mages in the mirror have been such blowouts too.
The mirror feels swingy and I don't see complicated lines of play. The plays seem really obvious
Hollow one induces salt in me. Someone showed up with hollow one and played four jund decks. He beat 3 and tied with another. Turn 1 double hollow ones on game 3 feels unbeatable. I despise the variance of that deck
I ran Reid's main 60, and even though I went 2 and 2, it ran beautifully. I lost the jund mirror when my opening had 1 land and my next opener was 5 lands and 1 bbe. Was forced into a mull to 5 that was acceptable. It didn't flood and it curved out great. Was surprised how fine I felt with 4 iok and no thoughtseize.
I lost the jund mirror to my opponent slamming bbe. The pressure was too much to answer, and she makes lotv awkward when you're racing bbe, another creature and a ravine they can activate. The pressure jund can hand out is brutal now.
I've lost two jund mirrors now, feels bad. Fulminator mages in the mirror have been such blowouts too.
The mirror feels swingy and I don't see complicated lines of play. The plays seem really obvious
Hollow one induces salt in me. Someone showed up with hollow one and played four jund decks. He beat 3 and tied with another. Turn 1 double hollow ones on game 3 feels unbeatable. I despise the variance of that deck
I ran Reid's main 60, and even though I went 2 and 2, it ran beautifully. I lost the jund mirror when my opening had 1 land and my next opener was 5 lands and 1 bbe. Was forced into a mull to 5 that was acceptable. It didn't flood and it curved out great. Was surprised how fine I felt with 4 iok and no thoughtseize.
One advantage of running 25 land is also, that you are more inclined to keep land light hands, since we will more likely draw into them. If I have a hand with only 2 lands, sometimes you can get screwed and be stuck on 2 or 3 lands. With 25 lands, this will not be the case that often.
Its just another aspect of consistancy the 25th land provides for our deck.
Hollow One is just awful, don't pay too much attention to that deck, if they have turn 1 two Hollow Ones, so be it. Let them be salty about their own deck as soon as they realize, that they will loose a good portion of games just to the variance of their own deck.
You're right about the LOTV piles. I wanted to take him off red, but was respecting cryptic a bit too much. With LOTV ulting and off the board I have less reason to fear cryptic bouncing LOTV anyway. K Command totally slipped my mind, I was mulling his red spells and only came up with terminate and bolt, which I didn't really care about.
Notes wise I scribble a lot in short hand. I basically write things like "T1 - iok // T1 - (whatever opponent plays)". The // delineates the players with my action on left and his on right. Sometimes when people fetch or tank, you do get a bit of time to scribble. I write down my opening hand then. After the round, I take a moment to gather my thoughts after de-sideboarding as well.
I'll try cutting the Kommands more. It's become a bit of a bad habit to side out LOTV in that matchup, should keep her in and let her win games for me.
DAE have an irrational fear of blood moon. Even worse when they follow it up with Stone Rain, I feel completely wretched.
You're right about the LOTV piles. I wanted to take him off red, but was respecting cryptic a bit too much. With LOTV ulting and off the board I have less reason to fear cryptic bouncing LOTV anyway. K Command totally slipped my mind, I was mulling his red spells and only came up with terminate and bolt, which I didn't really care about.
Notes wise I scribble a lot in short hand. I basically write things like "T1 - iok // T1 - (whatever opponent plays)". The // delineates the players with my action on left and his on right. Sometimes when people fetch or tank, you do get a bit of time to scribble. I write down my opening hand then. After the round, I take a moment to gather my thoughts after de-sideboarding as well.
I'll try cutting the Kommands more. It's become a bit of a bad habit to side out LOTV in that matchup, should keep her in and let her win games for me.
DAE have an irrational fear of blood moon. Even worse when they follow it up with Stone Rain, I feel completely wretched.
Awesome! So do you have an extra book for notes in that case? Don't you fear that your opponent could read your opening hand from your notes?
OH those thoughts of opponents sleuthing come across my mind too. I carry a notebook just for notes, and I use my dice tray to cover whatever I write or block it from the opponent's perspective. At a FNM people usually don't try too hard to see, but at a GP where people can actually ask to see your notes, I guess I'll have to make my handwriting even worse to make it illegible to anyone but myself.
I write gibberish like WF, BC, IK, B (wooded foothills, blackcleave, inquisition, bob) etc when I jot down my opening hands. A non-jund player probably can't decipher them, you stress them out in the game anyway by killing their stuff, plucking threats from their hand, casting BBE. They'll be too distracted
I forgot how much I enjoy the Jund mirror. The whole thing is just an exercise in maximizing card advantage, and there are a lot of sub-games that come up that play into that. Do you play your 2 drop on the draw, and risk getting it eaten by a Liliana? How many excess lands do you hold on to, in the event of a top-decked Liliana or K-Command? How do you sequence your creatures to best tax their removal? It's a matchup almost entirely dedicated to micro-advantages, and while BBE can lead to some really flashy plays, the small details are generally what win games.
The lack of Fatal Push in the mirror has made it particularly interesting. Tarmogoyf and big Scoozes are very hard to remove, and Raging Ravine is especially difficult once it gets out of Bolt range.
Despite how high I was on Kitchen Finks at first, I think that Fulminator may actually be one of the most important sideboard cards in the mirror. Because of BBE we're building our decks with higher curves, which makes playing a land every turn for the first 4-5 turns super crucial. Fulminator on turn 3 or 4 on the play is absolutely backbreaking, and then there are the generally good uses like taking your opponent off a color or killing manlands. There are also games where players have removal-heavy hands, and Fulminator helps start to establish board presence while also not being too bothered by removal.
Working on that simulator I mentioned before. To make it work for Jund I need to make a couple small modifications and add new cards. Jund is a deck that's well suited to an AI playing it (this doesn't mean it's simple or anything, only that the cards for the most part aren't computationally complex) so I'm going to see what I can do about getting a fully functional AI up in the next couple weeks. It's not capable of giving 100% exact results because that depends so heavily on the opposing deck but it can give good outlines like 4 vs 6 discard, 24 vs 25 land, mana curves and so on.
On that note, I played the deck I listed a page or two ago in a 4 round event at our universities weekly Magic club last night, except I played 61 to try out Nissa. I played against GDS (2-1), GDS (2-0), Vengevine (2-0), and Abzan (2-1) for a 4-0. Stuff I noticed:
I was short black mana all night long, I think this was just due to variance though as my list has 17 black in it. Kessig sadly did not come up all night long, but Treetop was always good. It's very nice to be able to activate Treetop, attack, and still have the mana to play another card.
Nissa actually came up for the exact purpose she was in the deck which was to get me over the hump from 3 to 4 mana and in another game where I was at 5 mana I cast Bloodbraid Elf, cascaded into Nissa, got a Forest, played the Forest, and was able to get a 2 drop on the field, which was a Bob that then drew me into land #7 on the following turn to flip.
The Harsh Mentor hasn't been good enough, I think I'm going to cut it for another Ooze. Maybe it's worth keeping in the side though.
In the SB:
Glissa was fantastic against everything. I originally put her in the SB to deal with Eldrazi but she's fantastic at beating delve monsters, and Siege Rhinos too. Also has a great interaction with Kessig (but that didn't come up).
Nihil Spellbomb was good, but then again Faerie Macabre was good too. Given Glissa's optional text I might prefer all Spellbombs instead. I did get one game where I drew Spellbomb+Glissa against GDS and that was good for a free card every time they played a creature.
Dark Betrayal was good. Liliana's Betrayal is likely the stronger card but I didn't have one. Instant timing helped though.
Having Chandra+Liliana as two good ways to beat Lingering Souls was really nice.
May I ask you how you take notes during a match? I personally have always found it too be too stressful. Any tips on this?
When I take notes I use a two step procecss. The first step is during the game alongside life totals I write a brief annotation as to what caused the damage such as f (fetch), s (shock), h (hit), p (spell), and that's usually enough to jog my memory. After the round I write down my opening hands and any plays I want to remember to talk about later, or if I'm getting really detailed a short outline of the games.
Awesome! So do you have an extra book for notes in that case? Don't you fear that your opponent could read your opening hand from your notes?
I use a .3 mm pen and write in cursive, it's pretty hard to read upside down. If that concerns me though, I can mirror write, so I can write everything backwards, which between that and cursive is definitely unreadable. But for the most part I've gotten out of the habit of writing down cards during games.
I genuinely have no idea how Reid arrived at that sideboard, outside of being heavily metagamed for the super league.
This is channel fireball's list. I think it's Mike Sigrist's list. There a lot of assumption that the MSL meta isn't heavily relying on graveyard. So everyone is cutting graveyard hate. It won't work in a bigger stage though.
Ah, saw Channel Fireball and just assumed. I'm still not sure how you end up playing 4 Collective Brutality.
Let me present you the newest Update for the Modern Jund Primer!
This has been a big one. Bloodbraid Elf made a big comeback to modern, which gave us exactly what we needed to hopefully thrive big again like we used to. No longer will we have to struggle for good finishes at FNM or bigger tournaments, no longer will our deck just fall apart upon the more powerful things other decks did in the format. BBE helps us to keep up on powerlevel and contribute our own part to the diversity of the modern format! Let our opponents yet again respect us and fear us for our powerful spells which will stop their own gameplan. We have the tools to do that now! I for one am pretty excited to hop into the new meta of modern, which will definitely include our deck upon those fighting for the "best deck in modern" trophy. So lets not waste any time and start Junding 'em out!
And I am not any less excited to introduce you to the newly updated Primer for our Jund forum!
New features include:
Bloodbraid Elf included in the creature suite for the deck.
Reconstructed Manabase and Noncreature Spell base.
Reconstructed Decklist Template with an early proposal list. This might change in the future, so take that with a grain of salt.
Newly introduced SB Guide! I worked on a different approach to sideboarding, since particularly for this deck, Sideboarding can be very different from deck to deck. We have a high variaty of spells to choose from, which results in different SB plans for each individual deck. My approach decided on a gauntlet of most popular cards to run in Jund decks (SB as well as MB). With that gauntlet, each matchup has been assigned a Priority List which shows each maindeck card to cut and in which order. The same goes for cards to bring in. The most important ones will be topright. You as a player, can simply take those lists and work yourself through it topdown. If for some reason, a card is important to be cut, but not all copies of it (for example Liliana of the Veil against Abzan) then this is stated in brackets. Note though that I am still refining this gauntlet and SB guide, positions will likely change, and here and there some cards will be added and removed. If you notice something odd, dont hesitate to contact me and discuss it with me! I appreciate any feedback and help.
The primer should be visually as well as informally the best experience one could get and my goal is to create the best Jund primer in the whole magic world. Therefore I want to keep improving on the primer and add more features along the way.
Now is a good time to have a look again at the primer. If you like it, dont hesitate to share it to your friends or people at your LGS! This information should not be only for you, the reader, but for everyone interested in piloting Jund.
And as always, feedback greatly appreciated, since the most important recipient of this primer is you, the mtgsalvation community.
Thank you guys for your support and contribution to the Jund threat!
I honestly think, that its never a big mistake to cast BBE onto an emtpy BF. At least in matchups where you don't rely too much on CA. Regarding midrange mirrors you are probably right though.
I still can't decide between Anger, Damnation or Lavamancer.
Match 1 v Mono Green Stompy (1:2 loss)
G1: He is on the play and explodes out of the gates with Strangleroot geists, leatherback baloth, rancor etc while I throw removal and try to stabilize the board. I have a Last Hope shrinking his Leatherback Baloth so he does not attack into my 3/3 Scooze. He gets me down to 3 life before my Scooze starts gaining me life. I chain 3 BBEs in a row to sink him after he starts to flood out. The game takes longer than it should be because he kept 3 cards or so in hand and I was afraid he would cast 2 strangleroot geists and hit for 4, so I keep some creatures back on defense.
G2: Same story as Game 1, I answer his threats but take damage regardless from Strangleroot (the haste AND undying, ugh). I thought I stabilised the board when I kill every creature and attack with my 5/6 Goyf, having a LOTV with 2 loyalty. He topdecks like a champ – a third Strangleroot which kills LOTV, and a Scooze after that which grows to a 7/7. I lose, topdecking 3 lands.
G3: I keep a respectable hand but mana screws. I lose on turn 6 with 3 lands out – 2 Ravines and 1 Blackcleave cliffs. I die with 2 LOTV and 2 BBE in hand. As it turns out, this is also the only game tonight (I play 9 games in total) where my mana does not cooperate. I contemplate going to 25 lands.
Sideboarding:
- 2 Thoughtseize, 4 Dark Confidant
+ 2 Collective Brutality, + 2 Kitchen Finks, + 1 Damnation, + 1 Maelstrom Pulse
Match 2 v Grixis Control (2:1 win)
G1: I manage to stick a t3 LOTV, he bolts it then Kommands it, and sticks a Tasigur on turn 4. I hold on to a terminate from my starting hand, knowing that he has a spell snare to protect the Tasigur. I lose the LOTV, then a Last Hope, to the Tasigur. I BBE into my second LOTV, which resolves and he finally discards the spell snare. I terminate the Tasigur. Suddenly, I had LOTV on an empty board on 4 loyalty. I ult him 2 turns later, splitting 7 lands as follows: (2 Islands, 1 Mountain, 1 Swamp) and (2 Watery Grave, 1 Blood Crypt). He keeps the pile with 4 basics. The board clear and both players hellbent, I thought I had it locked down when I start activating ravine. He topdecks well, with a Snap into push for my ravine. The next turn He Kommands and gets back Tasigur. The next turn he plays Azcanta. I scoop to save time for games 2 and 3. Feels bad to lose after LOTV ultimate.
G2: My starting hand has 3 lands, 2 BBEs, 1 spellbomb, 1 LOTV. I play a t1 spellbomb. I draw a IOK T2 and take a Liliana’s Defeat, and I see Tasigur. I crack spellbomb on t3 to remove his graveyard and prevent an early Tasigur. I draw a third BBE, and I start burying him in value.
G3: I didn’t take much notes for this, as we start going to time towards the end. My notes tell me Treetop Village gets in for 9 damage. I win the game at 18 life.
Sideboarding:
- 4 Bolts, 2 Push, 1 Decay
+ 3 Fulminator, 2 CB, 2 Finks
I board in Finks against Grixis but not against UW as they do not have Path. I don’t bother with the second Pulse as I only need to answer Tasigur / Angler. If he had Jace, pulse would come in as well
Match 2 v Ponza (2:1 win)
G1: On the play, I had a decent start. T1 IOK takes utopia sprawl. T2 I push his Arbor Elf. T3 I play a Gofy which is already 5/6 and thought I could coast to an easy win. He plays a tracker. T4 I get in with Goyf, and could only play a Dark Confidant. T4 onwards it goes all downhill, as he had drawn 3 BBE in a row (I did not see any BBE in his starting hand with my IOK). His first BBE flips Ahn Crop Crasher, his second flips Blood Moon (which was backbreaking as I only have 1 basic swamp in play), I scoop when he plays his third BBE.
G2: I keep a hand of Decay, Pulse, Scooze, BBE, Ravine, Wooded Foothills, Swamp. He mulls to 5, which is not uncommon for Ponza. Nevertheless I play cautiously and leave up mana to float GB in the case of blood moon. I cascade BBE into Collective Brutality, killing his Arbor elf and taking his primal command when he had 4 lands. The next turn I thoughtseize his stormbreath before he could draw his 5th land. I take over.
G3: He mulls to 6 on the play, plays a land and passes. Good news. I also have 2 fetches in my opening hand to draw the necessary basics. I IOK him and see Ahn-Crop Crasher, Chandra, Wurmcoil, Trinisphere, lands. I take trinisphere. I terminate his Crasher. I pulse his Chandra. Mid game, he plays Wurmcoil which forces my second Pulse. I had Bob drawing me cards since turn 4 or so, I had gas. I answer the wurm tokens with a bolt and push. Nevertheless, he has a second Ahn-Crop which applies steady pressure. I eventually kill that as well, down to 6 life with a Bob in play. The next 4 turns were nailbiting as he topdecks like a Ponza deck (i.e. dorks, lands, his third blood moon) and Bob leads me to greatness by flipping 2 bolts and 3 lands while chipping in for 2 every turn. With him at 7 life, I declare attack with Bob and show him the 2 bolts.
Got really lucky here as behind 2 of the bob flips were 1 Damnation and 1 BBE. Could have easily died there.
Sideboarding:
- 4 LOTV, 1 Last Hope
+ 1 Damnation, 2 Collective Brutality, 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Maelstrom Pulse
I kept in Kolaghan's Commands as I saw tracker and crashers.
That is the most logical line of play. Playing BBE too conservatively may lose you the game so, I agree with this sentiment. If you can play her, then play her, if not grow your Ravine.
I think better LoTV piles would have been: 2 Islands + 2 Watery Grave vs. 1 Mountain, 1 Swamp and 1 Blood Crypt. That way you either cut him off blue or red. That would be devastating for him, since he would certainly take blue/black and would not get back tasigur.
Your piles basically had the intention of keeping him off Cryptic mana, which is a reasobale argument, but thats only 1 card. I personally like shutting him off a colour guaranteed more here.
May I ask you how you take notes during a match? I personally have always found it too be too stressful. Any tips on this?
I mentioned it already in other posts. I think it is a mistake to take out LoTV against Ponza. She is too powerful. I know it might seem scary with the double black. I agree about cutting LtLH, but LoTV can win the game on her own. If you want to leverage susceptibility to BM, then maybe cut 1 copy or max 2 copies. But I would not cut all 4 copies of her.
I lost the jund mirror to my opponent slamming bbe. The pressure was too much to answer, and she makes lotv awkward when you're racing bbe, another creature and a ravine they can activate. The pressure jund can hand out is brutal now.
I've lost two jund mirrors now, feels bad. Fulminator mages in the mirror have been such blowouts too.
The mirror feels swingy and I don't see complicated lines of play. The plays seem really obvious
Hollow one induces salt in me. Someone showed up with hollow one and played four jund decks. He beat 3 and tied with another. Turn 1 double hollow ones on game 3 feels unbeatable. I despise the variance of that deck
I ran Reid's main 60, and even though I went 2 and 2, it ran beautifully. I lost the jund mirror when my opening had 1 land and my next opener was 5 lands and 1 bbe. Was forced into a mull to 5 that was acceptable. It didn't flood and it curved out great. Was surprised how fine I felt with 4 iok and no thoughtseize.
One advantage of running 25 land is also, that you are more inclined to keep land light hands, since we will more likely draw into them. If I have a hand with only 2 lands, sometimes you can get screwed and be stuck on 2 or 3 lands. With 25 lands, this will not be the case that often.
Its just another aspect of consistancy the 25th land provides for our deck.
Hollow One is just awful, don't pay too much attention to that deck, if they have turn 1 two Hollow Ones, so be it. Let them be salty about their own deck as soon as they realize, that they will loose a good portion of games just to the variance of their own deck.
Notes wise I scribble a lot in short hand. I basically write things like "T1 - iok // T1 - (whatever opponent plays)". The // delineates the players with my action on left and his on right. Sometimes when people fetch or tank, you do get a bit of time to scribble. I write down my opening hand then. After the round, I take a moment to gather my thoughts after de-sideboarding as well.
I'll try cutting the Kommands more. It's become a bit of a bad habit to side out LOTV in that matchup, should keep her in and let her win games for me.
DAE have an irrational fear of blood moon. Even worse when they follow it up with Stone Rain, I feel completely wretched.
Awesome! So do you have an extra book for notes in that case? Don't you fear that your opponent could read your opening hand from your notes?
I write gibberish like WF, BC, IK, B (wooded foothills, blackcleave, inquisition, bob) etc when I jot down my opening hands. A non-jund player probably can't decipher them, you stress them out in the game anyway by killing their stuff, plucking threats from their hand, casting BBE. They'll be too distracted
The lack of Fatal Push in the mirror has made it particularly interesting. Tarmogoyf and big Scoozes are very hard to remove, and Raging Ravine is especially difficult once it gets out of Bolt range.
Despite how high I was on Kitchen Finks at first, I think that Fulminator may actually be one of the most important sideboard cards in the mirror. Because of BBE we're building our decks with higher curves, which makes playing a land every turn for the first 4-5 turns super crucial. Fulminator on turn 3 or 4 on the play is absolutely backbreaking, and then there are the generally good uses like taking your opponent off a color or killing manlands. There are also games where players have removal-heavy hands, and Fulminator helps start to establish board presence while also not being too bothered by removal.
Well, I say it again, this list is insanly greedy for me. I hate that manabase. 6 discard spells are interesting. Very odd SB.
On another note, here is a 5-0 decklist from MTGO leagues:
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
Noncreature Spells [20]
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Thoughtseize
2 Fatal Push
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Terminate
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
2 Treetop Village
1 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Collective Brutality
4 Fulminator Mage
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Surgical Extraction
Its not from Reid. Its from Team CFB, which consists of Mike Sigrist, Ben Stark and Eric Froehlich.
On that note, I played the deck I listed a page or two ago in a 4 round event at our universities weekly Magic club last night, except I played 61 to try out Nissa. I played against GDS (2-1), GDS (2-0), Vengevine (2-0), and Abzan (2-1) for a 4-0. Stuff I noticed:
I was short black mana all night long, I think this was just due to variance though as my list has 17 black in it. Kessig sadly did not come up all night long, but Treetop was always good. It's very nice to be able to activate Treetop, attack, and still have the mana to play another card.
Nissa actually came up for the exact purpose she was in the deck which was to get me over the hump from 3 to 4 mana and in another game where I was at 5 mana I cast Bloodbraid Elf, cascaded into Nissa, got a Forest, played the Forest, and was able to get a 2 drop on the field, which was a Bob that then drew me into land #7 on the following turn to flip.
The Harsh Mentor hasn't been good enough, I think I'm going to cut it for another Ooze. Maybe it's worth keeping in the side though.
In the SB:
Glissa was fantastic against everything. I originally put her in the SB to deal with Eldrazi but she's fantastic at beating delve monsters, and Siege Rhinos too. Also has a great interaction with Kessig (but that didn't come up).
Nihil Spellbomb was good, but then again Faerie Macabre was good too. Given Glissa's optional text I might prefer all Spellbombs instead. I did get one game where I drew Spellbomb+Glissa against GDS and that was good for a free card every time they played a creature.
Dark Betrayal was good. Liliana's Betrayal is likely the stronger card but I didn't have one. Instant timing helped though.
Having Chandra+Liliana as two good ways to beat Lingering Souls was really nice.
When I take notes I use a two step procecss. The first step is during the game alongside life totals I write a brief annotation as to what caused the damage such as f (fetch), s (shock), h (hit), p (spell), and that's usually enough to jog my memory. After the round I write down my opening hands and any plays I want to remember to talk about later, or if I'm getting really detailed a short outline of the games.
I use a .3 mm pen and write in cursive, it's pretty hard to read upside down. If that concerns me though, I can mirror write, so I can write everything backwards, which between that and cursive is definitely unreadable. But for the most part I've gotten out of the habit of writing down cards during games.
Interesting tips on writing down notes, thx for sharing them. Like the annotation on the lifetrack a lot!
Ah, saw Channel Fireball and just assumed. I'm still not sure how you end up playing 4 Collective Brutality.
This has been a big one. Bloodbraid Elf made a big comeback to modern, which gave us exactly what we needed to hopefully thrive big again like we used to. No longer will we have to struggle for good finishes at FNM or bigger tournaments, no longer will our deck just fall apart upon the more powerful things other decks did in the format. BBE helps us to keep up on powerlevel and contribute our own part to the diversity of the modern format! Let our opponents yet again respect us and fear us for our powerful spells which will stop their own gameplan. We have the tools to do that now! I for one am pretty excited to hop into the new meta of modern, which will definitely include our deck upon those fighting for the "best deck in modern" trophy. So lets not waste any time and start Junding 'em out!
And I am not any less excited to introduce you to the newly updated Primer for our Jund forum!
New features include:
The primer should be visually as well as informally the best experience one could get and my goal is to create the best Jund primer in the whole magic world. Therefore I want to keep improving on the primer and add more features along the way.
Now is a good time to have a look again at the primer. If you like it, dont hesitate to share it to your friends or people at your LGS! This information should not be only for you, the reader, but for everyone interested in piloting Jund.
And as always, feedback greatly appreciated, since the most important recipient of this primer is you, the mtgsalvation community.
Thank you guys for your support and contribution to the Jund threat!
Your Jund Wizard
FlyingDelver