For the record, I think if you’re gonna play faithless looting you should slash the creature count and run it with a playset of bedlam revelers. Mardu plays pyromancer and souls to synergize with looting, but reveler is really where the money’s at. I’d personally play 4 goyf, 4 reveler, a BBE or two, and maybe 1 scooze.
Or in fact, maybe the real way to do it is basically just port the pyromancer deck and swap the souls for goyfs. The reason mardu wouldn’t be just better is because, in short, tarmogoyf is one hell of a magic card, and clocking your opponent is where you want to be in modern.
A Looting based Jund deck would give us access to Traverse the Ulvenwald to fetch BBE and Reveler. I don’t know that that’s where we want to be, but it’s something to think about whilst brewing. Goyf, Flayer, Traverse, Looting, Reveler, and a couple of BBE’s? I dunno. I tried it awhile back but then made a Temur list that was very similar and the Temur list solitaired way better than the Jund, and I haven’t thought of it since.
Brennan Decandio tried exactly this with a 4 colour pyromancer deck. Ultimately, straight Mardu is just better in all points atm. Not even goyf can turn that around in this meta.
But 4 color pyromancer implies that you’re still playing white spells like lingering souls. You’re gonna take way more damage off your lands that way and also you probably can’t play blood moon.
I’m personally thinking a deck just like mardu, but just swap the souls out for goyfs. Souls is obviously a better grindy card and has better synergy, but I think goyf is a much more powerful spell across the board. I feel like lingering souls is a very powerful but slightly durdly spell, and the thing I hate more than anything about mardu is its inability to clock the opponent. It’s worth a shot anyways. There’s a modern fnm this week so I’ll give it a go if I can get my hands on some young pyromancers.
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But 4 color pyromancer implies that you’re still playing white spells like lingering souls. You’re gonna take way more damage off your lands that way and also you probably can’t play blood moon.
I’m personally thinking a deck just like mardu, but just swap the souls out for goyfs. Souls is obviously a better grindy card and has better synergy, but I think goyf is a much more powerful spell across the board. I feel like lingering souls is a very powerful but slightly durdly spell, and the thing I hate more than anything about mardu is its inability to clock the opponent. It’s worth a shot anyways. There’s a modern fnm this week so I’ll give it a go if I can get my hands on some young pyromancers.
Do it, sounds like fun at the very least, even if I will guess that it won't work out that easy. If it would be the case, everyone would play the deck with goyfs instead of Souls.
So after trying various decks since late last year I have returned full circle to Jund. I've played everything from Grixis Shadow during it's best days, Blue Moon, Storm in both Modern and Legacy, BR Reanimator in Legacy, Humans, Hollow One, Dredge, all the Tron variants, Titanshift, Burn, Lands in Legacy, Vintage Dredge and DPS, Affinity and Lantern. Through my travels I never found a deck that gave me the same enjoyment as Jund. I haven't tried Mardu out yet but since I'm back on Jund but I am working on getting a list together and trying it out. I'm not always crazy about grinding games out into oblivion so I didn't feel like I wanted to go all in on Mardu Partymancer. There's just something about Jund that kept calling me back. I know we aren't exactly looking great in the meta but that didn't necessarily bother me before. I noticed Jund lists look a lot different nowadays since BBE was unbanned. I'm not used to maindeck Maelstrom Pulses and Abrupt Decays.
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But 4 color pyromancer implies that you’re still playing white spells like lingering souls. You’re gonna take way more damage off your lands that way and also you probably can’t play blood moon.
I’m personally thinking a deck just like mardu, but just swap the souls out for goyfs. Souls is obviously a better grindy card and has better synergy, but I think goyf is a much more powerful spell across the board. I feel like lingering souls is a very powerful but slightly durdly spell, and the thing I hate more than anything about mardu is its inability to clock the opponent. It’s worth a shot anyways. There’s a modern fnm this week so I’ll give it a go if I can get my hands on some young pyromancers.
This is pretty much the essence of Jaberwocki's Spicy Jund. After looking hard at the list, he basically just dumped Lingering Souls for Tarmogoyf. He also added Scavenging Ooze, which has saved his butt a few times. His only current problem is figuring out his 4-CMC slot.
I would also like to note that Jaberwocki only plays 2 Liliana of the Veil in his entire 75. I do believe we can make a similar cut in the more traditional lists and be fine.
So I stitched together this monstrosity that I'm calling "Jund Reveler". I'd like some feedback on individual card choices rather than the deck concept itself.
Ran it through a bunch of cockatrice testing and while the results themselves weren't fantastic, the deck itself felt great. It was basically just like you'd expect; mardu pyromancer but with tarmogoyfs. The Tarmogoyfs performed great and I don't think the outcomes of a lot of my losses would have been swayed had I been playing lingering souls. Some notes on card choices:
-I'm not a huge fan of scavenging ooze because of how light on green mana I am, but I really need something for the burn matchup that isn't too narrow. I'd appreciate some good suggestions for a solid anti-burn card that I can play in other matchups as well.
-Blood moon is a messed up magic card and while I think 3 could be correct/ok, I'm not really sure what to cut for it, or if I even should. Blood moon is somewhat more likely to mess you up in this deck than it is in mardu.
-Bedlam Reveler is also a messed up magic card. If you're going to try playing faithless looting in jund, play 4 of these. No buts allowed.
-I'm not a fan of the fact that most mardu pyro decks play only 20 lands. Traverse the Ulvenwald was my compromise as a modal spell that can act as land 21, or be a tutor for reveler/goyf in the late game, and it's also another instant/sorcery for reveler. This would be land 21 otherwise, so I'm not worried about digging myself in even deeper against grave hate or anything.
-Pyromancer doesn't feel phenomenal in this deck. I think he's still good enough for at least 3 maindeck spots, but I feel like tarmogoyf is better on offense and defense. I kinda feel like trimming another pyromancer for a second LotV, but that may be wrong.
I'd appreciate any feedback on the matters above, or other individual card choices you think I should consider. I think I'll play this on friday.
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Its baffling to me that Faithless Looting after all that talk about "Jund needs card selection vs. Jund is fine" (where I had the impression the prevalent opinion was that I was wrong about even mentioning a card like Looting) now seems to have caught some attention. I guess after all it takes some pros (Reid Duke switching to Mardu or Jaberwocki now) to convince people.
As someone who plays both Mardu and Jund quite excessively I can comment on each deck and how they play out.
If we take your approach @tempest which suggests to take a typical Mardu list and switch Souls with Goyf, there are some things to pay attention to:
The manabase is somewhat whacky in Mardu. Running Souls as the only mainboard white card means you don't rely on having white mana all the time. Sometimes you still do get stuck with Souls in hand where you don't get to cast it due to lacking white. However, typically Mardu can ditch Souls into the bin and be fine about it (through Looting, CB, LoTV or Reveler). Now you can't do that with Goyf. That means you want to cast goyf pretty much anytime, which means this version would be much more dependant on green. With Souls, you are fine only having about 10 white sources in the deck since you only need white on turn 3 onwards. Goyf wants to be cast on turn 2, which requires a green source count of about 13. This version now runs 11, which can be a bit sketchy at times. Frankly, the inclusion of Traverse doesn't really help for that purpose, which makes the card a little bit awkward.
In general, due to the manabase being more tight in Jund colours, I am questioning the powerlevel of BM in this build. It can hurt you quite a bit yourself. I like the inclusion of Traverse, but the fact that it requires green makes it a little awkward. Especially since you really don't want to fetch for Stomping Ground in the first turn.
Since you cut Souls and included Goyfs, you need to be careful with the noncreature spells. Reveler typically wants about 28-30 noncreature spells to be supported enough. I think, since I mentioned it above, BM and LoTV may be needed to be cut here for that purpose.
I really think we need some endgame vs. Control, since the loss of Souls is a really big hit. Tracker would work quite nicely for that purpose. I am considering cutting the traverse to add another fetchland, which would support tracker a little more. But as of now, I think it is a good starting point.
I would really advice not going below 27 instants and sorceries combined, otherwise Reveler will often cost 4+ mana to cast. This is not what the deck wants to do.
Ancient grudge should be an auto include in the SB since its great synergy with Looting.
What I also would consider, is instead of running traverse, adding a copy of Manamorphose. It sees play in Mardu and has the big benefit in getting to cast goyf nicely without the need of a green land while cantripping and helping Bedlam Reveler out.
Thats why I put Tracker in the SB. I think it would be overkill to play Tracker in the main as well. It would be too many creatures. But having him in the SB is a neat way to improve the Control matchup, which is in my mind really weakened with the loss of Souls.
I'm not 100% sold on playing Faithless looting w/o Lingering Souls or some other card that has graveyard vallue to back it up.
I feel like while the card selection is great, we'd be relying too much on Revelers to make up for the card disadvantage that Looting represents.
ALso might consider Collective Brutalities main deck to dump out excess revelers, one of the recurrent gimmicks on Mardu Pyro is that they never want Bedlams on their hand too early or in mutiple copies, so they dish them out tto the graveyard and draw them back with Kcommand when the time is right.
I personally am also not too sold in Traverse either, seems like yet another card that may go wrong if we dont have Looting to back it up. We cant forget that even when running 4x Lootings that isnt a guarantee we will always have access to it early.
I think that for the deck to really be worthwhile over Mardu it needs to either have Lingering Souls or have access to some other card that makes faithless Looting worthwhile other than just revelers.
I've played a 4-Color list that was pretty much the suggested mix-breed between Mardu and Jund, but running Lingering Souls at my shop last night and went 4-1, it felt extremly powerful but I might add that I was playing in a known meta where I knew I'd not be facing many bloodmoons.
Lingering Souls is just too great. It wrecks control / midrange decks, affinity and its defnetly not a dead card vs. Aggro. And with faithless looting, it pretty much makes your Looting a cantrip that draws you actual stuff.
I feel like if we cant play 4-colors reliably, the only way this idea would work consistently would be if we had more ways to take advantage of our graveyard/cards we're dumping there within our 3 colors. We need a spell that fills the LIngering Souls role but in Jund colors for this to be worthwhile.
Even with 27 instants/sorceries, Reveler might just end up uncastable if you're flooded with non-instants/sorceries early on even at 20 lands.
Can't really fill lingering souls' role in Jund colors tbh. Just need to cut some Revelers/Lootings/instants-sorceries and all pyromancers and need to add some lands/creatures/planeswalkers
Yes, there's simply no other card with Flashback that does anything like Lingering Souls, though it must be said that Mardu does not really want to play if from their hand if they can avoid it.
Even with 27 instants/sorceries, Reveler might just end up uncastable if you're flooded with non-instants/sorceries early on even at 20 lands.
Can't really fill lingering souls' role in Jund colors tbh. Just need to cut some Revelers/Lootings/instants-sorceries and all pyromancers and need to add some lands/creatures/planeswalkers
Dont know what you mean by that, mardu pyromancer runs 20 lands and 28 instants and sorceries. So reveler will not be stuck much more than in mardu pyro itself.
That are all reasons why simply exchanging Souls with Goyf won't work. However, I would not compare this version to mardu pyro automatically, what really is interesting if it performs better than traditional jund. Because thats whats all about, improving Jund as a deck and solving problems it has.
Maybe I’m wrong, but pyromancer just didn’t feel right. It might be powerful, but with him in the deck it didn’t really feel like jund. This deck is much more jund-y and clearly at least somewhat powerful as I went undefeated with it last night on trice. My list was a little different then, had two ravines in place of never//return and a stomping ground. I felt like I perhaps had one land too many at the time, and then with only 21 lands I think I’d rather have more fetch-able green than a ravine.
Never to return is an experiment to see if the card is modern playable. If it is, it’s a nice way to get some incidental value from looting, like mardu does with souls. It’s definitely slow, but I think it’s just powerful and flexible enough to be a good one-of.
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I don't like cutting YP at all. At this point your approach pretty much folds to cards like RIP. YP is an important threat that is independant from the GY. Even with YP, GY hate is a serious contender to possible ways how this looses, and I would try to diversify the threats therefore.
Also, the loss of Souls makes this deck less susceptible to token hate, which people will recognize since they see goyf. However, single target removal is again great against this version now. I really like YP for making opponents removal awkward. Its the exact same approach like Hollow One does. It has smaller go-wide kind of threats in the form of Bloodghast and Phoenix, as well as this big, Push-proof threats which need strong single target removal. Especially cards like Push and Bolt are very awkward here. And I think Mardu pyro does exactly that as well. I would absolutely try to mimic that type of plan. Therefore YP is very important.
This approach is also something that doesn't need to feel like Jund. This approach should feel like Mardu Pyromancer, since its essentially 90 % of the same deck. If you think its not your playstyle, then nevermind, but overall this is not about how the deck feels. Its about dealing with the weaknesses as traditional Jund list has. And evaluating if this version is better than traditional Jund lists is what matters here. Not how it feels.
Well, this version we are talking about runs the full set of goyfs, and arguably goyf is the one reason why Jund has normally a considerable closing speed. So compared to traditional lists there is no difference. In fact, I think this version is even better at perfoming closing speed, because with Looting you find your goyfs faster.
This version is also not to help against other midrange decks. Thats not the problem Jund has in the overall meta. You are talking about different, and in my mind, less important issues here.
Looting should theretically exactly do this: When you trade resources with your opponent and both of you get into topdeck mode and an empty board: Often times in Jund you would topdeck a useless land at that point. Having Looting in the GY to flashback here is extremely huge.
Also, we all know Jund's answers aren't interchangeable and uniform. If you start your game with turn 1 discard and see you are up against Big Mana or control, your Looting can ditch Fatal Push, Bolts or Terminates for example. I think that is also some form of virtual CA, as you get to ditch cards into your yard which are dead anyway. Against Control a hand like: 3 Lands, 1 Goyf, 1 Looting and 2 Push is effectively a mull to 5. If you Loot here and discard 2 Pushes you increase your cards in hand basically to 6. Virtually that is still CA. However, its not about CA here, its about finding the cards that matter in a matchup.
Jund as a natural 50/50 deck has dead cards pretty much against any opponent. And since the modern meta is so diverse and widespread concerning the demand for answers this is a huge problem for Jund. Looting therfore should help to fix this problem. I didn't claim it works and it is better than traditional lists, but in theory it should be helpful and therefore I think its interesting to test at the very least.
Or in fact, maybe the real way to do it is basically just port the pyromancer deck and swap the souls for goyfs. The reason mardu wouldn’t be just better is because, in short, tarmogoyf is one hell of a magic card, and clocking your opponent is where you want to be in modern.
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
BRGJUNDGRB---BRHOLLOW ONERB---BGELVESGB---BRGLIVING ENDGRB---GWBOGLESWG
EDH:
BRGKARRTHUS, TYRANT OF JUNDGRB
I’m personally thinking a deck just like mardu, but just swap the souls out for goyfs. Souls is obviously a better grindy card and has better synergy, but I think goyf is a much more powerful spell across the board. I feel like lingering souls is a very powerful but slightly durdly spell, and the thing I hate more than anything about mardu is its inability to clock the opponent. It’s worth a shot anyways. There’s a modern fnm this week so I’ll give it a go if I can get my hands on some young pyromancers.
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
Do it, sounds like fun at the very least, even if I will guess that it won't work out that easy. If it would be the case, everyone would play the deck with goyfs instead of Souls.
Modern
GBRJundGBR
GBWAbzan TraverseGBW
GBRockGB
GBRUJund ShadowGBRU
This is pretty much the essence of Jaberwocki's Spicy Jund. After looking hard at the list, he basically just dumped Lingering Souls for Tarmogoyf. He also added Scavenging Ooze, which has saved his butt a few times. His only current problem is figuring out his 4-CMC slot.
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
2 Stomping Ground
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
CREATURES
4 Bedlam Reveler
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Young Pyromancer
1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Faithless Looting
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Fatal Push
2 Collective Brutality
3 Kolaghan's Command
1 Terminate
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Blood Moon
3 Molten Rain
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Collective Brutality
1 Fatal Push
3 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Unravel the Aether
2 Scavenging Ooze
Ran it through a bunch of cockatrice testing and while the results themselves weren't fantastic, the deck itself felt great. It was basically just like you'd expect; mardu pyromancer but with tarmogoyfs. The Tarmogoyfs performed great and I don't think the outcomes of a lot of my losses would have been swayed had I been playing lingering souls. Some notes on card choices:
-I'm not a huge fan of scavenging ooze because of how light on green mana I am, but I really need something for the burn matchup that isn't too narrow. I'd appreciate some good suggestions for a solid anti-burn card that I can play in other matchups as well.
-Blood moon is a messed up magic card and while I think 3 could be correct/ok, I'm not really sure what to cut for it, or if I even should. Blood moon is somewhat more likely to mess you up in this deck than it is in mardu.
-Bedlam Reveler is also a messed up magic card. If you're going to try playing faithless looting in jund, play 4 of these. No buts allowed.
-I'm not a fan of the fact that most mardu pyro decks play only 20 lands. Traverse the Ulvenwald was my compromise as a modal spell that can act as land 21, or be a tutor for reveler/goyf in the late game, and it's also another instant/sorcery for reveler. This would be land 21 otherwise, so I'm not worried about digging myself in even deeper against grave hate or anything.
-Pyromancer doesn't feel phenomenal in this deck. I think he's still good enough for at least 3 maindeck spots, but I feel like tarmogoyf is better on offense and defense. I kinda feel like trimming another pyromancer for a second LotV, but that may be wrong.
I'd appreciate any feedback on the matters above, or other individual card choices you think I should consider. I think I'll play this on friday.
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
As someone who plays both Mardu and Jund quite excessively I can comment on each deck and how they play out.
If we take your approach @tempest which suggests to take a typical Mardu list and switch Souls with Goyf, there are some things to pay attention to:
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
2 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Forest
Creatures [11]
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Young Pyromancer
4 Bedlam Reveler
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Fatal Push
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
3 Collective Brutality
1 Dreadbore
1 Terminate
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Kolaghan's Command
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
3 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Molten Rain
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Damping Sphere
2 Liliana of the Veil
I really think we need some endgame vs. Control, since the loss of Souls is a really big hit. Tracker would work quite nicely for that purpose. I am considering cutting the traverse to add another fetchland, which would support tracker a little more. But as of now, I think it is a good starting point.
I would really advice not going below 27 instants and sorceries combined, otherwise Reveler will often cost 4+ mana to cast. This is not what the deck wants to do.
Ancient grudge should be an auto include in the SB since its great synergy with Looting.
What I also would consider, is instead of running traverse, adding a copy of Manamorphose. It sees play in Mardu and has the big benefit in getting to cast goyf nicely without the need of a green land while cantripping and helping Bedlam Reveler out.
I feel like while the card selection is great, we'd be relying too much on Revelers to make up for the card disadvantage that Looting represents.
ALso might consider Collective Brutalities main deck to dump out excess revelers, one of the recurrent gimmicks on Mardu Pyro is that they never want Bedlams on their hand too early or in mutiple copies, so they dish them out tto the graveyard and draw them back with Kcommand when the time is right.
I personally am also not too sold in Traverse either, seems like yet another card that may go wrong if we dont have Looting to back it up. We cant forget that even when running 4x Lootings that isnt a guarantee we will always have access to it early.
I think that for the deck to really be worthwhile over Mardu it needs to either have Lingering Souls or have access to some other card that makes faithless Looting worthwhile other than just revelers.
I've played a 4-Color list that was pretty much the suggested mix-breed between Mardu and Jund, but running Lingering Souls at my shop last night and went 4-1, it felt extremly powerful but I might add that I was playing in a known meta where I knew I'd not be facing many bloodmoons.
Lingering Souls is just too great. It wrecks control / midrange decks, affinity and its defnetly not a dead card vs. Aggro. And with faithless looting, it pretty much makes your Looting a cantrip that draws you actual stuff.
Yes, there's simply no other card with Flashback that does anything like Lingering Souls, though it must be said that Mardu does not really want to play if from their hand if they can avoid it.
Technically, another way to use Faithless Looting would be to use it with Madness cards, but even there there is no a lot going on that is modern playable: Asylum Visitor and Fiery Temper are the two that come to my mind that could be playable in the right deck. Big Game Hunter is a sideboard card only, while Stromkirk Occultist, Grave Scrabbler, and Bloodhall Priest are not good enough IMHO.
WBC Eldrazi & Taxes CBW
UR Keep on Cantripin' (UR Phoenix) RU
WU Surprise! It's not UW Control! (UW Midrange) UW
BG The Rock, Straight BG
U Mono-Blue Fish U
RBW Mardu Pyromancer BWR
RG Rabble! Rabble! (GR Blood Moon Aggro) GR
Legacy
W Death & Taxes W
Dont know what you mean by that, mardu pyromancer runs 20 lands and 28 instants and sorceries. So reveler will not be stuck much more than in mardu pyro itself.
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
2 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Forest
Creatures [11]
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Bedlam Reveler
3 Young Pyromancer
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
2 Fatal Push
1 Terminate
2 Manamorphose
1 Dreadbore
2 Collective Brutality
3 Kolaghan's Command
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
3 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Collective Brutality
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
3 Molten Rain
1 Damping Sphere
I think I give it a spin just out of fun. Should be that at least.
4 blackcleave cliffs
4 verdant catacombs
3 bloodstained mire
1 wooded foothills
2 blood crypt
2 stomping ground
1 overgrown tomb
2 swamp
1 forest
1 mountain
CREATURES (10)
4 bedlam reveler
4 tarmogoyf
2 scavenging ooze
4 faithless looting
4 inquisition of kozilek
3 thoughtseize
4 lightning bolt
2 fatal push
1 terminate
3 kolaghan’s command
2 maelstrom pulse
2 collective brutality
1 never//return
2 Liliana of the veil
3 nihil spellbomb
2 tireless tracker
1 ancient grudge
1 unravel the aether
1 Liliana, the last hope
1 collective brutality
3 molten rain
1 damping sphere
1 anger of the gods
1 engineered explosives
Maybe I’m wrong, but pyromancer just didn’t feel right. It might be powerful, but with him in the deck it didn’t really feel like jund. This deck is much more jund-y and clearly at least somewhat powerful as I went undefeated with it last night on trice. My list was a little different then, had two ravines in place of never//return and a stomping ground. I felt like I perhaps had one land too many at the time, and then with only 21 lands I think I’d rather have more fetch-able green than a ravine.
Never to return is an experiment to see if the card is modern playable. If it is, it’s a nice way to get some incidental value from looting, like mardu does with souls. It’s definitely slow, but I think it’s just powerful and flexible enough to be a good one-of.
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
Also, the loss of Souls makes this deck less susceptible to token hate, which people will recognize since they see goyf. However, single target removal is again great against this version now. I really like YP for making opponents removal awkward. Its the exact same approach like Hollow One does. It has smaller go-wide kind of threats in the form of Bloodghast and Phoenix, as well as this big, Push-proof threats which need strong single target removal. Especially cards like Push and Bolt are very awkward here. And I think Mardu pyro does exactly that as well. I would absolutely try to mimic that type of plan. Therefore YP is very important.
This approach is also something that doesn't need to feel like Jund. This approach should feel like Mardu Pyromancer, since its essentially 90 % of the same deck. If you think its not your playstyle, then nevermind, but overall this is not about how the deck feels. Its about dealing with the weaknesses as traditional Jund list has. And evaluating if this version is better than traditional Jund lists is what matters here. Not how it feels.
This version is also not to help against other midrange decks. Thats not the problem Jund has in the overall meta. You are talking about different, and in my mind, less important issues here.
Looting should theretically exactly do this: When you trade resources with your opponent and both of you get into topdeck mode and an empty board: Often times in Jund you would topdeck a useless land at that point. Having Looting in the GY to flashback here is extremely huge.
Also, we all know Jund's answers aren't interchangeable and uniform. If you start your game with turn 1 discard and see you are up against Big Mana or control, your Looting can ditch Fatal Push, Bolts or Terminates for example. I think that is also some form of virtual CA, as you get to ditch cards into your yard which are dead anyway. Against Control a hand like: 3 Lands, 1 Goyf, 1 Looting and 2 Push is effectively a mull to 5. If you Loot here and discard 2 Pushes you increase your cards in hand basically to 6. Virtually that is still CA. However, its not about CA here, its about finding the cards that matter in a matchup.
Jund as a natural 50/50 deck has dead cards pretty much against any opponent. And since the modern meta is so diverse and widespread concerning the demand for answers this is a huge problem for Jund. Looting therfore should help to fix this problem. I didn't claim it works and it is better than traditional lists, but in theory it should be helpful and therefore I think its interesting to test at the very least.