Dont ever run Torpor Orb against Humans, removal is king! Lavamancer, LtLH, Anger, EE, Damnation, anything you have. For the general meta, I would suggest 1-2 Anger right now since its also good vs Hollow One. As for playing against Humans, always be cautious about your lifetotal always. Always be on defense and be aware of potential topdecked Mantis Riders or Thalias Lieutenants. Get in for chip dmg if you can, but don't race them, always defend with your big goyfs. Be very aware of the strengths and weaknesses of your removal. Push might be the stronger card compared to Lightning Bolt, but Bolt can easily deal with a Mantis Rider wheras you need Push with revolt for that. Bolt is on the other hand not reliably killing fast growing Thalia's Lieutenants or Champion of the Parishes. So use your removal to the best advantage.
As for the Hollow One matchup, G1 Tarmogoyf is your MVP. It likely will be at least 5/6, which can hold the ground for any of their big threats. The smaller threats can be handled a bit better. Jam the board with creatures. They don't have efficient removal for Goyf game 1. Targeted discard is very good to snag Lootings, Goblin Lores or Burning Inquiries.
After SB, Hollow One will side out Burning Inquiries and bring in BGH to kill goyfs. YOu need to take out LoTV and bring in every GY hate you have and evry Anger you have. Grim Lavamancer is also quite good as recurrable removal. I think targeted discard, a huge goyf and a good GY hate is a good mix to have a decent change to win the game. Grudge is a necessary evil to be able to still win games where you have to face 1-2 Hollow One turn 1.
In my experience LoTV only edict a Bloodghast or Phoenix away and also only discard opposing bloodghasts or Phoenixes. I think edicting a delve threat or Hollow One is a little of a wish scenario but is unlikely to actually happen on a consistant basis.
I would definitely board out the fourth and third LoTV for that reason. The second and first LoTV is what I can personally see leaving in. But I really don't want the full 4. I think IOK is really good, if you snatch their engine cards you are granted at least 1-2 extra turns, which is incredible value for a 1 mana card.
BBE can be cut down to 3, its a bit clunky. Bob is a card I hesitate to cut since it could help find hard removal or GY hate against the matchup but I can see cutting one on the draw. Decay is an easy cut.
So this weekend we will see how the trend develops at GP Hartfort. Right now I actually have a bad feeling regarding to Jund.
I think Jund was probably only good since everyone wanted to play it since the unbannings. A lot of people playing a deck = more chance for a good finish. But now the "real" new meta kinda begins to shine through.
BBE is good, and better than Jace imo, but I am not sure its enough to be a toptier deck for Jund. Hollow One and the old Big Mana decks are just tough to beat.
Jund is a good deck and I think its is what we call tier one but it will not be the best deck in the format
I am honestly beginning to doubt that. Jund has made less and less good results lately. But it might just be the meta adjusting to the huge resurgance of Jund again, which makes playing Jund harder now. Might very well be. But I am not sure how it develops going forward. It is just that right now, I have not the best feeling about playing Jund.
Why do you think IOK misses too many key cards and then decide to play arguable more narrow cards like Despise and Duress?
I personally think, if you feel IOK misses too much I would just up the TS count and maybe play a 3/3 split.
I am not a fan of maindeck CB, being a CMC2 cost card really downgrades the card as a discard spell which is the slot's purpose imo.
Well, I don't think Duress is as narrow as IoK for one. IoK can usually hit enablers, but it's very bad at hitting the business spells in a deck. IoK cannot stop a Jace, Scapeshift, Gift's Ungiven, Past in Flames, Empty the Warrens, Chandra, Cryptic Command, Through the Breach, or several others. While on the other hand, the class of card which Duress misses, creatures, are what a deck of removal spells is already strong against.
I think that if you want to play it safe a 3/3 split is a reasonable midway point in the argument. I just think that this setup is even better than that.
The 1 of Despise has even been good, which really surprised me. There's very few decks where it has no targets, almost everything runs either creatures or planeswalkers, but when it is bad it's an easy pitch to our hand filtering in Liliana/CB. Examples of where Despise is good where IoK is bad are: Chandra, Jace, Gideon, Bloodbraid Elf, Tasigur, Angler, Wurmcoil Engine, Karn, Reality Smasher, TKS, Endbringer, Primeval Titan, and others.
The alternative argument you bring up is that we can run more Thoughtseize instead. While it's true that Thoughtseize will hit everything I just mentioned, and always has targets, it also costs you two life and is going to cost you serious points in aggressive matchups. Being able to hedge so that you don't lose life is valuable.
When it comes to CB, sure it's a bad discard spell, but it's other things too. It can filter your hand, provide tempo, grow Goyf, and even dome the opponent. Discard is my most used mode, but it only gets used 50% of the time. Versatility is very valuable.
I think the tl;dr of my argument is that the general consensus is that the best way to treat removal spells is to play a lot of similar cards so that they can cover each others weakness. A Terminate, Dreadbore, Fatal Push, and Lightning Bolt is better than 4x Dreadbore. I'm extending that same logic to discard spells and it's working very well.
Lets take Hollow One as an example. The 4/2 consensus has 6 ways to stop Burning Inquiry but only 2 ways to stop Hollow One. My approach (ignoring the CB, since it's 2 mana, and could stack with the 4/2 anyways) has 5 ways to stop Burning Inquiry and 3 ways to stop Hollow One. I would rather be on 5/3 than 6/2 since it has game against more openings.
I'm personally 50-50
I think Jund is better than its been for a while, but I dont think its quite tier 1 again yet.
BBE is great, but the matches where it is AMAZING are rare, and the matches where it is a card that can greatly vary from very bad to very good are far too many.
Sometimes I feel like bringing in the "old Jund" with just 2 Huntmasters, a lower mana curve, 23/24 lands, more terminates/interaction and seeing how it fares. Sometimes I feel like by the time I start casting my BBE's the game is already looking ugly and I have to pray for a 30% chance of BBE drawing something crazy that saves my ass... I think when the meta-game shifts to more interactive, midrange/control decks its when Jund will be at its best again, now with BBE, we have a very strong "2 for 1" build and can even go toe-to-toe with KolaghanSnap decks late game while still being more agressive early.
I really like it that BBE can draw our sidedeck tho. But then again, if we're already 0-1 then things are already looking bad anyway.
At my local shop there is a lot of Burn and Humans, and I've personally been enjoying my Huntmasters more than my BBE's in those matchups. Dont know about Hollow one, we have none in our local.
We also do have plenty of Trons, but BBE rarelly saves me from them either, what DOES save me is my Sideboard being stacked with Crumble to dusts and Fulminators lol.
I think Jund is the best fair deck in Modern. If you look at the history of the format, the best performing decks had an unfair/broken component that allowed them to go over the the top in some way (Twin, combo Pod, DRS into T2 Liliana, pre-ban Eldrazi, Shadow with TBR, Cruise/DTT decks). For the most part, the linear decks of the format have the advantage of redundancy, whereas Jund-type decks can always draw the wrong half, or not have the right 75 for the meta.
I think Jund is an excellent deck, and there's no real way to hate it out. The format is hostile towards it, but I don't think any one particular matchup is that bad; it's just difficult to be favoured against decks that have unbeatable nut draws while the Jund player is obligated to be able to fight on every conceivable axis. The deck is fine-- great even-- but what you are observing isn't an issue with Jund, but rather a symptom of the inherent nature of Modern.
It's fascinating how certain players stated its the best deck in the format so early after the unbannings. Now that we know it is not, and the posts prior to this have theorized why that is, what can be done to make it better?
I do not believe that the current default list is the optimal configuration. What the optimal list is, I wont pretend to know as I just built the deck recently but am hoping the more seasoned pilots might have a good idea where to start. I don't see any of the pros actively trying to make dramatic changes as of yet.
We've had a couple weird lists here and there.
Just last week smeone won with a "old jund" list without BBE's and 2 Huntmasters.
And a couple more weeks ago we had that weird weird decklist with NO dark confidants, 2 Glorybringers main deck. Making it far in Madrid.
At least in my local meta, I've been a bit underwhelmed with BloodBraid elf. Personally.
She sometimes is stunningly good, but when I think about how often I'd feel more safe casting a huntmaster or having more reliable interactions/less floody mana-base and heavy opening hands, it does seem like its a card I feel very insecure about. More and more when I see her in my hand I think "Please dont fail me again" rather than "hell yeah, that OP card."
I get it that Jund is a deck that, thanks to our excellent manlands, gets to run a lot of lands and not regret it as much. But that is only really true on grindy matchups. How often do you see your Raging Ravine saving the day vs. Hollow one or Burn ? But all the while, how often a 3/4 lands opening hand with a BBE in it makes you lose those matches ?
Maybe we should re-think the "4 BBE in every list" idea and try to slowly trim it down ? I dont know.
Or maybe just use the fact we are such a versatile deck that pretty much can take any shape and shape ourselves accordingly to the meta, instead of accordingly to having BBE's avaiable. Maybe we Jund players have spent so much time thinking "How we best use BBE here !?" that we forgot about a more important question: "How should Jund look like in the current meta?"
BBE is great, but is this the time for BBE to shine ?
We're seeing the meta adjust. At the end of the day we're a fair midrange deck and can very easily draw the "wrong part of the deck" any given match.
The linear strategies and Tron/Scapeshift don't really have that problem and then stuff like Hollow One can just have the nuts.
BBE is an amazing magic card, she's a hasty attacker and an extra "free" card but Jund/BGx's strength is it's flexibility.
Maybe it's worth deviating from the typical 4 BBE lists and seeing if we can find other lists that can put up results.
The meta will ebb and flow, one week a 25 land BBE man land heavy list is the right call, while the next a 24 land removal heavy list with a different 4 drop is right.
I don't want to say that the sky is falling but rather don't be afraid to experiment within reason.
I see in a lot of lists w/ 2x Overgrown Tomb. Why not 1x Overgrown Tomb and 1x Blooming Marsh instead???
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard // nRG Aggro
Modern // Burn (main) and Living End (secondary) now Jund.
For fun check out my janky combo primer: Turn 3 Grixis Combo
"Can't beat em' Jund em'!"
Because I personally don't want more fast lands. Also, you can't fetch a Blooming Marsh. If you think it would work for you, try it. What's the worst that happens because of one minor change?
That's the thing, I don't really know. I'm trying to think of a reasons as to why most people run 2x Tombs. I was going through my Living End deck today and noticed I had an empty sleeve realizing my Tomb for that deck was being used in Jund which got me thinking why does Jund need two Tombs? I'm trying to think of a scenario that we would fetch for a second one other than maybe one of them getting blown up by a Molten Rain or something.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard // nRG Aggro
Modern // Burn (main) and Living End (secondary) now Jund.
For fun check out my janky combo primer: Turn 3 Grixis Combo
"Can't beat em' Jund em'!"
Well the thing is for me, I actually think we are in the stage now where linear aggro wants to prey on Tron decks etc. And I am not sure Jund can consistantly beat Hollow One as a big oppressor of this regime. But we should be good to beat linear aggro.
Well see how it develops, thats why I am curious about the GP on the weekend. Is anyone here actually going to Jund some people there? Am curious to know.
Why do you think IOK misses too many key cards and then decide to play arguable more narrow cards like Despise and Duress?
I personally think, if you feel IOK misses too much I would just up the TS count and maybe play a 3/3 split.
I am not a fan of maindeck CB, being a CMC2 cost card really downgrades the card as a discard spell which is the slot's purpose imo.
Well, I don't think Duress is as narrow as IoK for one. IoK can usually hit enablers, but it's very bad at hitting the business spells in a deck. IoK cannot stop a Jace, Scapeshift, Gift's Ungiven, Past in Flames, Empty the Warrens, Chandra, Cryptic Command, Through the Breach, or several others. While on the other hand, the class of card which Duress misses, creatures, are what a deck of removal spells is already strong against.
I also feel IoK can be very narrow at the moment. While there are some strong creatures with(pseudo)ETB abilities(Snapcaster mage and Eidolon of the great revel come to mind), I think that the ability to hit other targets is more valuable. Personally I have tried 2/2/2, 2/3/1, 3/3/0, 3/1/2 CB/IoK/TS split and 2/2/2 has worked the best for me, but FlyingDelver is right: CB does make the deck even more clunky, and maindecking it negates additional discard in the sideboard wich is something I don't really like as I feel we should be somewhat favoured to Combo decks. I'll give maindeck Duress a chance, I did not hate it at all when it was in the sideboard.
Regarding the community's feelings about Jund: I run a list with almost zero one-ofs (only Maelstrom pulse in the maindeck) and I run a 24 card list with 3 swamps and 2 forests allowing sideboard Blood moon, with the mnana curve FlyingDelver suggests. Only from time to time I feel the deck is excesively clunky, and I for one feel favored against both humans and Hollow one (although admitedly Hollow One doesn't have great pilots in my meta). I do run 2 Anger of the gods tough, as creature-based aggro is thriving in my meta. If anything, I feel it is way less likely to draw the "wrong part of the deck" than before the unbans; in matchups where I feel that card "sorting" is critical, I have a tendency to overuse my two sideboadrd Tireless tracker, so maybe that helps.
All in all, I think we haven't reached the optimal list and as we get close to it the meta changes in response. Maybe we could poll wich pilots feel the deck is too clunky in relation to the amount of manlands they run, as ATM I'm running only 3 Raging ravine and 3 Blackcleave Cliffs with 2 more basics than usual, thus feeling a little faster.
Old lists ran Kitchen Finks in the main. I am wondering if this might actually help stabilize and lengthen the game turns 3-4 vs the faster more explosive decks?
I feel that the card is brought in a lot, it's great vs aggro, control and midrange. As amazing as KCommand is in certain matchups and a blowout at times, perhaps it can be trimmed or cut, as well as some other cards to make room for some copies of Finks?
I think the low to the ground approach is definitely the best approach atm, don't think you will get anywhere with a clunky list. This list also has only 6 three drops, which makes it easier to justify 24 lands only. I tried playing Treetop Village alongside Ravine, but I think due to having 24 lands only and the meta being more aggressive oriented and faster in general, you cant do that consistantly. I personally would like to play another piece against Tron (even thinking about narrow stuff like Crumble to Dust) and have another Anger to help with the Hollow One matchup and Human matchup. But I am not sure what to cut. I have to say, lately I am really unimpressed with CB. I think, other than Burn, its not really pulling its weight in other matchups. But it might just be me.
@Hellkite, maybe you need to calm down. No one is saying the sky is falling. I'm actually having fairly decent success, and I'm not sure anyone isnfreaking out. We're all just tweaking.
As for the Bloodbraid Elf thing, I think it's fairly accurate. It's something I also complained about when we were jumping on the bandwagon. I summed it up by saying that I don't like the variance it brings if it's supposed to be the best card in my deck. I do feel, however, that we will need to look at Elf not being a sacred cow for different metagames.
I have been playing this exact list (apart from a single Treetop Village) for the last month or so, and it felt underwhelming to be honest. I don't know which direction the deck needs to take in order to function properly. I disagree with Hellkite and EctoMark when they say that the deck is well positioned in the current meta. It is a solid tier 2 deck, nothing more, nothing less.
Yes, the unban of Bloodbraid Elf helped the deck. Why? There was a hype around the card, many players were playing the Elf, some had moderate success with the deck (as it will always be when a lot of players are on the same deck).
Another aspect was the unban of Jace. People were hyping control and man, BBE is an incredible powerhouse against control. I would go as far as claiming that control has become Jund's best matchup since the unbans thanks to the raw power of BBE. But people stopped playing control once they realized Jace is not a superhero, but just a 4cmc PW which who is often not more than a Brainstorm at sorcery speed. That's the nature of modern. Both Jace and BBE are powerful, but they get outclassed.
Now, what am I seeing at local game stores, at GP's and on the SCG Tour? Aggro, Combo and Big Mana.
Yes, BBE made the Tron matchup better, but let's not fool ourselves, this is still a very bad matchup.
How do the new Jund lists fight against aggressive decks like Humans, Affinity or Burn? They feel clunky (even the list with 12 one drops, I can't imagine how the pushless versions feel like), and the main problem is you don't know what you get when casting a 4 mana spell.
Casting a BBE against control is always fine because it doesn't matter what extra card you get, it is always at least a slight advantage (especially postbaord, when dead cards get boarded out) against a slow and reactive opponent, but against aggro you need specific answers and a 3/2 body for 4 mana with an additional effect against a deck like Humans is not strong enough.
I don't want BBE against Storm either, nor do I like her against Burn.
There are still other midrange decks played, but I don't think Jund is outclassing Ponza or Mardu. Yes, Jund is very good against Shadow decks, but they are currently not at the top of the meta.
What I wanted to say with this post is that I don't like BBE against a lot of the current top decks. Playing four is probably still the way to go in Jund because there are matchups where she is very good, but I don't think she excels in the current meta. Aggressive decks are taking over the Modern format, and Jund always used to be the control deck against these decks. BBE doesn't allow us to take this strategy, and that's why I believe the deck is currently in a bizarre situation: The one card everyone wanted back got unbanned, but it doesn't help beating the best decks in the format.
I dont think we can count on the "BBE casts your sideboard cards" argument when talking about how BBE has affected Jund. Its nowhere guaranteed and if this is the only argument for playing Jund or playing BBE then I think BBE is viewed in the wrong way here. BBE is not in the deck to cascade into SB cards. Its here to create CA and Tempo. However the tempo is not enough against those linear aggressive strategies and CA is also not the best thing against aggro. At the beginning the format was quite slow which made my BBEs really amazing, but lately I am very unimpressed. But this also holds true for the whole deck itself. I cant stress enough how big of a problem the mana is while playing this deck. At least in my experience. More often than not I have at least some small issues with mana, either too few lands or too many, or enough lands but too many tapped ones. Other decks like humans are just more consistant and just execute their own gameplan while I fight against my own deck as it seems. This alone means loosing some win% against any deck. Its really exhausting and frustrating. And no, this is not due to poor shuffling, I tested this online also. Its the same thing.I think in the past this issue was diminished by the dlower speed of the format but now its quite punishing for me.
As for the Hollow One matchup, G1 Tarmogoyf is your MVP. It likely will be at least 5/6, which can hold the ground for any of their big threats. The smaller threats can be handled a bit better. Jam the board with creatures. They don't have efficient removal for Goyf game 1. Targeted discard is very good to snag Lootings, Goblin Lores or Burning Inquiries.
After SB, Hollow One will side out Burning Inquiries and bring in BGH to kill goyfs. YOu need to take out LoTV and bring in every GY hate you have and evry Anger you have. Grim Lavamancer is also quite good as recurrable removal. I think targeted discard, a huge goyf and a good GY hate is a good mix to have a decent change to win the game. Grudge is a necessary evil to be able to still win games where you have to face 1-2 Hollow One turn 1.
I would definitely board out the fourth and third LoTV for that reason. The second and first LoTV is what I can personally see leaving in. But I really don't want the full 4. I think IOK is really good, if you snatch their engine cards you are granted at least 1-2 extra turns, which is incredible value for a 1 mana card.
BBE can be cut down to 3, its a bit clunky. Bob is a card I hesitate to cut since it could help find hard removal or GY hate against the matchup but I can see cutting one on the draw. Decay is an easy cut.
I think Jund was probably only good since everyone wanted to play it since the unbannings. A lot of people playing a deck = more chance for a good finish. But now the "real" new meta kinda begins to shine through.
BBE is good, and better than Jace imo, but I am not sure its enough to be a toptier deck for Jund. Hollow One and the old Big Mana decks are just tough to beat.
Anyone also having the same feelings about this?
I am honestly beginning to doubt that. Jund has made less and less good results lately. But it might just be the meta adjusting to the huge resurgance of Jund again, which makes playing Jund harder now. Might very well be. But I am not sure how it develops going forward. It is just that right now, I have not the best feeling about playing Jund.
Well, I don't think Duress is as narrow as IoK for one. IoK can usually hit enablers, but it's very bad at hitting the business spells in a deck. IoK cannot stop a Jace, Scapeshift, Gift's Ungiven, Past in Flames, Empty the Warrens, Chandra, Cryptic Command, Through the Breach, or several others. While on the other hand, the class of card which Duress misses, creatures, are what a deck of removal spells is already strong against.
I think that if you want to play it safe a 3/3 split is a reasonable midway point in the argument. I just think that this setup is even better than that.
The 1 of Despise has even been good, which really surprised me. There's very few decks where it has no targets, almost everything runs either creatures or planeswalkers, but when it is bad it's an easy pitch to our hand filtering in Liliana/CB. Examples of where Despise is good where IoK is bad are: Chandra, Jace, Gideon, Bloodbraid Elf, Tasigur, Angler, Wurmcoil Engine, Karn, Reality Smasher, TKS, Endbringer, Primeval Titan, and others.
The alternative argument you bring up is that we can run more Thoughtseize instead. While it's true that Thoughtseize will hit everything I just mentioned, and always has targets, it also costs you two life and is going to cost you serious points in aggressive matchups. Being able to hedge so that you don't lose life is valuable.
When it comes to CB, sure it's a bad discard spell, but it's other things too. It can filter your hand, provide tempo, grow Goyf, and even dome the opponent. Discard is my most used mode, but it only gets used 50% of the time. Versatility is very valuable.
I think the tl;dr of my argument is that the general consensus is that the best way to treat removal spells is to play a lot of similar cards so that they can cover each others weakness. A Terminate, Dreadbore, Fatal Push, and Lightning Bolt is better than 4x Dreadbore. I'm extending that same logic to discard spells and it's working very well.
Lets take Hollow One as an example. The 4/2 consensus has 6 ways to stop Burning Inquiry but only 2 ways to stop Hollow One. My approach (ignoring the CB, since it's 2 mana, and could stack with the 4/2 anyways) has 5 ways to stop Burning Inquiry and 3 ways to stop Hollow One. I would rather be on 5/3 than 6/2 since it has game against more openings.
I think Jund is better than its been for a while, but I dont think its quite tier 1 again yet.
BBE is great, but the matches where it is AMAZING are rare, and the matches where it is a card that can greatly vary from very bad to very good are far too many.
Sometimes I feel like bringing in the "old Jund" with just 2 Huntmasters, a lower mana curve, 23/24 lands, more terminates/interaction and seeing how it fares. Sometimes I feel like by the time I start casting my BBE's the game is already looking ugly and I have to pray for a 30% chance of BBE drawing something crazy that saves my ass... I think when the meta-game shifts to more interactive, midrange/control decks its when Jund will be at its best again, now with BBE, we have a very strong "2 for 1" build and can even go toe-to-toe with KolaghanSnap decks late game while still being more agressive early.
I really like it that BBE can draw our sidedeck tho. But then again, if we're already 0-1 then things are already looking bad anyway.
At my local shop there is a lot of Burn and Humans, and I've personally been enjoying my Huntmasters more than my BBE's in those matchups. Dont know about Hollow one, we have none in our local.
We also do have plenty of Trons, but BBE rarelly saves me from them either, what DOES save me is my Sideboard being stacked with Crumble to dusts and Fulminators lol.
I think Jund is an excellent deck, and there's no real way to hate it out. The format is hostile towards it, but I don't think any one particular matchup is that bad; it's just difficult to be favoured against decks that have unbeatable nut draws while the Jund player is obligated to be able to fight on every conceivable axis. The deck is fine-- great even-- but what you are observing isn't an issue with Jund, but rather a symptom of the inherent nature of Modern.
I do not believe that the current default list is the optimal configuration. What the optimal list is, I wont pretend to know as I just built the deck recently but am hoping the more seasoned pilots might have a good idea where to start. I don't see any of the pros actively trying to make dramatic changes as of yet.
Just last week smeone won with a "old jund" list without BBE's and 2 Huntmasters.
And a couple more weeks ago we had that weird weird decklist with NO dark confidants, 2 Glorybringers main deck. Making it far in Madrid.
At least in my local meta, I've been a bit underwhelmed with BloodBraid elf. Personally.
She sometimes is stunningly good, but when I think about how often I'd feel more safe casting a huntmaster or having more reliable interactions/less floody mana-base and heavy opening hands, it does seem like its a card I feel very insecure about. More and more when I see her in my hand I think "Please dont fail me again" rather than "hell yeah, that OP card."
I get it that Jund is a deck that, thanks to our excellent manlands, gets to run a lot of lands and not regret it as much. But that is only really true on grindy matchups. How often do you see your Raging Ravine saving the day vs. Hollow one or Burn ? But all the while, how often a 3/4 lands opening hand with a BBE in it makes you lose those matches ?
Maybe we should re-think the "4 BBE in every list" idea and try to slowly trim it down ? I dont know.
Or maybe just use the fact we are such a versatile deck that pretty much can take any shape and shape ourselves accordingly to the meta, instead of accordingly to having BBE's avaiable. Maybe we Jund players have spent so much time thinking "How we best use BBE here !?" that we forgot about a more important question: "How should Jund look like in the current meta?"
BBE is great, but is this the time for BBE to shine ?
The linear strategies and Tron/Scapeshift don't really have that problem and then stuff like Hollow One can just have the nuts.
BBE is an amazing magic card, she's a hasty attacker and an extra "free" card but Jund/BGx's strength is it's flexibility.
Maybe it's worth deviating from the typical 4 BBE lists and seeing if we can find other lists that can put up results.
The meta will ebb and flow, one week a 25 land BBE man land heavy list is the right call, while the next a 24 land removal heavy list with a different 4 drop is right.
I don't want to say that the sky is falling but rather don't be afraid to experiment within reason.
BG/x BG
Modern // Burn (main) and Living End (secondary) now Jund.
For fun check out my janky combo primer: Turn 3 Grixis Combo
"Can't beat em' Jund em'!"
Modern // Burn (main) and Living End (secondary) now Jund.
For fun check out my janky combo primer: Turn 3 Grixis Combo
"Can't beat em' Jund em'!"
Well see how it develops, thats why I am curious about the GP on the weekend. Is anyone here actually going to Jund some people there? Am curious to know.
I also feel IoK can be very narrow at the moment. While there are some strong creatures with(pseudo)ETB abilities(Snapcaster mage and Eidolon of the great revel come to mind), I think that the ability to hit other targets is more valuable. Personally I have tried 2/2/2, 2/3/1, 3/3/0, 3/1/2 CB/IoK/TS split and 2/2/2 has worked the best for me, but FlyingDelver is right: CB does make the deck even more clunky, and maindecking it negates additional discard in the sideboard wich is something I don't really like as I feel we should be somewhat favoured to Combo decks. I'll give maindeck Duress a chance, I did not hate it at all when it was in the sideboard.
Regarding the community's feelings about Jund: I run a list with almost zero one-ofs (only Maelstrom pulse in the maindeck) and I run a 24 card list with 3 swamps and 2 forests allowing sideboard Blood moon, with the mnana curve FlyingDelver suggests. Only from time to time I feel the deck is excesively clunky, and I for one feel favored against both humans and Hollow one (although admitedly Hollow One doesn't have great pilots in my meta). I do run 2 Anger of the gods tough, as creature-based aggro is thriving in my meta. If anything, I feel it is way less likely to draw the "wrong part of the deck" than before the unbans; in matchups where I feel that card "sorting" is critical, I have a tendency to overuse my two sideboadrd Tireless tracker, so maybe that helps.
All in all, I think we haven't reached the optimal list and as we get close to it the meta changes in response. Maybe we could poll wich pilots feel the deck is too clunky in relation to the amount of manlands they run, as ATM I'm running only 3 Raging ravine and 3 Blackcleave Cliffs with 2 more basics than usual, thus feeling a little faster.
I feel that the card is brought in a lot, it's great vs aggro, control and midrange. As amazing as KCommand is in certain matchups and a blowout at times, perhaps it can be trimmed or cut, as well as some other cards to make room for some copies of Finks?
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Raging Ravine
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Twilight Mire
Creatures [15]
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Fatal Push
2 Terminate
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Liliana of the Veil
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Collective Brutality
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Grim Lavamancer
I think the low to the ground approach is definitely the best approach atm, don't think you will get anywhere with a clunky list. This list also has only 6 three drops, which makes it easier to justify 24 lands only. I tried playing Treetop Village alongside Ravine, but I think due to having 24 lands only and the meta being more aggressive oriented and faster in general, you cant do that consistantly. I personally would like to play another piece against Tron (even thinking about narrow stuff like Crumble to Dust) and have another Anger to help with the Hollow One matchup and Human matchup. But I am not sure what to cut. I have to say, lately I am really unimpressed with CB. I think, other than Burn, its not really pulling its weight in other matchups. But it might just be me.
As for the Bloodbraid Elf thing, I think it's fairly accurate. It's something I also complained about when we were jumping on the bandwagon. I summed it up by saying that I don't like the variance it brings if it's supposed to be the best card in my deck. I do feel, however, that we will need to look at Elf not being a sacred cow for different metagames.
Yes, the unban of Bloodbraid Elf helped the deck. Why? There was a hype around the card, many players were playing the Elf, some had moderate success with the deck (as it will always be when a lot of players are on the same deck).
Another aspect was the unban of Jace. People were hyping control and man, BBE is an incredible powerhouse against control. I would go as far as claiming that control has become Jund's best matchup since the unbans thanks to the raw power of BBE. But people stopped playing control once they realized Jace is not a superhero, but just a 4cmc PW which who is often not more than a Brainstorm at sorcery speed. That's the nature of modern. Both Jace and BBE are powerful, but they get outclassed.
Now, what am I seeing at local game stores, at GP's and on the SCG Tour? Aggro, Combo and Big Mana.
Yes, BBE made the Tron matchup better, but let's not fool ourselves, this is still a very bad matchup.
How do the new Jund lists fight against aggressive decks like Humans, Affinity or Burn? They feel clunky (even the list with 12 one drops, I can't imagine how the pushless versions feel like), and the main problem is you don't know what you get when casting a 4 mana spell.
Casting a BBE against control is always fine because it doesn't matter what extra card you get, it is always at least a slight advantage (especially postbaord, when dead cards get boarded out) against a slow and reactive opponent, but against aggro you need specific answers and a 3/2 body for 4 mana with an additional effect against a deck like Humans is not strong enough.
I don't want BBE against Storm either, nor do I like her against Burn.
There are still other midrange decks played, but I don't think Jund is outclassing Ponza or Mardu. Yes, Jund is very good against Shadow decks, but they are currently not at the top of the meta.
What I wanted to say with this post is that I don't like BBE against a lot of the current top decks. Playing four is probably still the way to go in Jund because there are matchups where she is very good, but I don't think she excels in the current meta. Aggressive decks are taking over the Modern format, and Jund always used to be the control deck against these decks. BBE doesn't allow us to take this strategy, and that's why I believe the deck is currently in a bizarre situation: The one card everyone wanted back got unbanned, but it doesn't help beating the best decks in the format.