MTG Salvation

I believe this deck is more or less designed to beat the standard Jund list and if you don't run any cards with insane CA potential (like Tracker or some bombs like Kalitas, Olivia) this matchup is pretty unfavourable.

Yeah that's kinda what I'm thinking epica. 12-13 3drops is maybe a bit much lol, but like 10 3cmc spells and 2 BBEs is actually a less painful curve as far as bob's concerned (compared to your average list with 8 3cmc and 4 BBEs) and two trackers + two BBEs should give you approximately the same staying power. Been trying the following top end setup:

• 3 Liliana of the Veil
  
• 3 Kolaghan's Command
  
• 2 Maelstrom Pulse
  
• 1 Tireless Tracker
  
• 3 Bloodbraid Elf

and the BBEs have felt way more valuable on average. Could just be running a bit hot, which is why I'm gonna go a little deeper and try +1 Tracker, -1 BBE which I'm expecting to be quite nice. I'm playing 2 bobs for my curve's sake and because it's always nice to reevaluate cards you've previously written off, but after adding that second tracker it's a bit tempting to keep the 3rd BBE over the second bob. We shall see.

She is great against Mardu and in GBx mirrors. For the rest she has potential, but is a bit clunky/easy to remove. Since Bolt is the number 1 removal spell in the format, I am a bit hesitant to cast a big bomb with a high investment for it to only trade with a bolt. Cards like Huntmaster or PKN at least give immdiate value which is a little bit safer in that regard.

I’ll go even a bit further and just say that Olivia has been largely eclipsed by Liliana the last hope. She’s not a strict 100% upgrade, but she provides a similar ability as Olivia while being far less mana intensive and generally more flexible. Ltlh is a decent board card against control and against tron when paired with fulminator mages, whereas Olivia is pretty lackluster in both matchups.

Olivia can shine in the right set of circumstances, but I don’t think there are enough decks jam-packed with x/1s and x/2s for her to prey on at this point, and even if there were, LtLH has a strong case for just being the better card.

Just curious, do you guys see fatal push as being 100% necessary in the maindeck against the field? Like I'm curious what your thoughts are about the following 1cmc "removal" suites:



vs



The pros of having the lavamancer maindeck as opposed to fatal push is it's comparatively much more useful against non-creature decks since fatal push obviously can't be pointed at the face. It's also repeatable removal vs 1 time use, and it's an infinitely better cascade off of BBE on an empty board.

The cons obviously is that you have 1 fewer maindeck answer to cards like tarmogoyf and death's shadow. Lavaman can team up with a bolt to kill some of those creatures, but push is a much cleaner answer without a doubt. Lavaman is also not an immediate effect like push is, meaning that if you can't afford to let your opponent untap with a creature, push is much more useful.

What do you think? I know prevailing logic is to play a maindeck push before lavamancer, but worth exploring the alternative.

In my mind this is a simple metagame decision. The question remains, what you basically like better in specific matchups like say the Humans matchup. Both cards have applications where they are better compared to the other one. Ultimately I would say Push is a little stronger for the fact that you get immediate value and the fact that usually creatures that don't die to Push easily (like CMC 3 creatures) also don't die to Lavamancer easily (like Mantis Rider, Reflector Mage, Courser etc..)

I am actually questioning the powerlever of Lavamancer as a whole here actually when thinking about it. Lavamancer usually doesn't kill CMC 3 creatures (thats why Bolt is so strong) and Push can kill anything in the range of 0-2 CMC more effectively than Lavamancer.

Maybe its stronger to play no lavamacer at all and therefore play a strong sweeper like EE. Not sure.

One should not overlook the obvious, Grim Lavamancer can do repeated damage to the dome. there are match-ups where this ability is highly desirable.

I get the idea and I made some changes in other way:

2 Dreadbore / 0 Terminate / 2 Fatal Push

I left 2 pushes as my instant removal and put dreadbore over terminate just to have more flex cards.

Quote from pzbw7z »

One should not overlook the obvious, Grim Lavamancer can do repeated damage to the dome. there are match-ups where this ability is highly desirable.

Yeah, that was my thinking. Unfortunately though based on testing, the 5th spot removal spell probably needs to take precedence over lavamancer in the maindeck. In hindsight I think even though lavamancer only costs 1 mana, he’s actually more of a mid game spell rather than early game. He can be cast on turn 1, but he’s hard to enable early and less mana efficient than something like push.

Regarding your thought Delver, I used to run jund a couple of months ago with no lavamancer and like 3 sweepers. Part of the problem is that humans, a matchup where that should be good, ended up feeling kind of medium. The combination of Thalias, meddling mages, and freebooters makes resolving a sweeper challenging whereas they don’t play nearly as many ways to interact with lavamancer. I haven’t tried a second EE though, mostly due to the insane price tag on that card. That could work out though where a second anger might not. Probably not good to lean on EE too much in a deck with BBE, but in a build with no BBEs that might be more powerful.

It's been a while with little discussion, where's everyone at with their decks? Any success with the spicy jund style ala Logan Nettles?

I've been personally testing with this list for the past couple weeks:



It's been pretty sweet. It's not such a far departure from the usual jund list, but the biggest tech is splitting the difference between tracker and BBE, the reasoning being that BBE can't cascade into other BBEs whereas it can cascade into tireless trackers. It helps maximize your cascades, and it marginally lowers the probability of hitting the crappy cascades since you effectively have more cascade targets in the deck. Plus, there are some matchups where the tempo of BBE is more valuable and other matchups where the grindy-ness of tracker really shines so it's nice to have both MD.

I know I've railed on confidant, but unfortunately I just couldn't really see a way around playing confidant anymore. After playtesting a bunch, lavamancer and brutality are a bit too hyper-specific for maindeck inclusions in the end. They're not disastrous, but also not great half the time. Collective brutality for instance I have to move to the board in like 75% of matchups and it ended up feeling so narrow that I just cut it in general. It's really only there anymore to beat burn, which just isn't very relevant in modern anymore. Since I have to put some additional low-end spells in the deck to round out the curve, dark confidant is really the most sensible option; grim flayer just doesn't really do it for me.

2 confidants is I think the maximum I'd ever play though as I stand by the opinion that it's a horrible card in multiples and a big weak link for the BG archetype in general.

Field of ruin is a pretty sweet 1-of for a 25 land build. It really adds a unique element to the deck since our maindeck isn't usually capable of destroying a problematic land. With that field of ruin, it might be correct to fit a basic mountain in there somewhere.

Lastly, haven't really had a chance to play against too much big mana and not sure about the '2 moon, 1 mage, 1 sphere' split. I know I want 4 spots for the big mana decks, and I know I want at least 1 damping sphere and 1 fulminator mage, but that's all I know.

Like the 1-of utility land of FoR, but for Tron's sake, maybe it would be better to run Ghost Quarter here, since FoR does not stop turn 3 Tron if you are on the draw.

Noticing you keep running 2-of Baloths in your SB, whats the reasoning behind that? In my mind we have stronger cards for the Burn matchup, and am not sure if I believe we are facing many opposing LoTV around this time. If it was for Hollow One, I think it might be a little clunky, especially given the fact that Hollow One should board out some number of Inquiries (or even all) against us.

The baloths are a hold over from when I was playing the 4-of tracker build and had a hard time winning the mirror. In general I’ve really enjoyed baloth against lightning bolt decks, especially mardu and jund since the card is obviously great against kcommand and LotV. It’s also pretty good against control I’ve found since they help put pressure on your opponent to have path. It’s pretty good against hollow one I think, I haven’t seen many people board out burning inquiry, though I confess that I don’t get to play this matchup as often as I’d like.

I’m not married to them, but I’ve boarded them in quite frequently and they’ve really overperformed. Did you have something else in mind Delver?

I employed the ghost quarter strategy years ago when I played Abzan, and it felt like if you had to GQ your opponent turn 2 on the draw you were set so far behind that it didn’t make a difference in the end. Consequently I went with field of ruin since it’s the more powerful card in more scenarios, but I could reevaluate.

I haven’t been impressed with finks lately in modern. It feels like the 3/2 and 2/1 bodies aren’t that relevant anymore in modern unless they come stapled to extra cards, like bob or BBE.

I played my very first tournament with Jund, with little to no playtest experience (been quite busy irl). These are the 75 I sleeved in:

I went 3/2, and while I'm pretty sure that I made some mistakes, I don't recall any single one that cost me a game.

First round, GW Tokens:
I never played against this deck before and wasn't quite sure what to expect. First game I discarded and killed most of his creature generators, but two topdecked Advent of the Wurm seal the deal for him. Second game I had removal and creatures on my opening hand. I cast IoK and Thoughtseize to clear the way for my Goyf, but he drew a Pacifism. I clean the board with Damnation, cast a second Goyf, which gets exiled with an Oblivion Ring. Two turns later got beaten by a 4/4 and a 6/6 vigilant tokens. I felt that he had too much value, and it was hard to have an answer to every single token he made.
0-1

Second round, Humans:
The first game was pretty even, I have removal for his creatures, but I couldn't find a finisher on time. After a few turns, he manages to seal the deal with two Thalia's Lieutenant and a Mantis Rider.
The second game was awful: I IoK him on turn one, but a topdecked Thalia plus all my four taplands in my hand slow me too much and I got killed by a swarm of little guys.
0-2

Third round, Mono White Puresteel:
Since I was already out of the top4, I played just for fun. He was a new player, with a somewhat budget deck. He made a few mistakes, I tried to help and advice him as much as I could. Eventually, Jund did Jund things and killed him quite quickly with oversized Goyfs the two games. I didn't allow the Puresteel Paladin to survive a single turn, and that was pretty much about it.
1-2

Fourth round, Infect:
I win the die roll and open with IoK: I saw one forest, one Noble Hierarch, one Blighted Agent, and a bunch of pump spells. I took the infect creature (since my opener removal was a Lili and a K-Command). A Bob on turn two net me all the removal I needed, and I seal the deal quite quickly.
Second game was more or less the game, but I had to fight over two Spellskite and a Shapers' Sanctuary. I had to remind my opponent of his Sanctuary trigger the whole game, as he kept forgeting about it.
2-2

Fifth round, Slivers!
This was a fun match. I was very tired by now (it was late, I had woken up really early), and I don't recall the details. All I recall is that first game he got me down to two, while being at two life with a regenerating wall of blockers, and I topdeck a K-Command. Game two I drew lands for seven turns, literally a land per turn for seven turns. Game three, I lived the dream: BBE into Lili, followed by BBE into Lili the last Hope. That was too much for him.
3/2

Overall the deck felt ok. Not impressive, not bad, just ok. I'm considering cutting one Bob, as I learned that is not a card that I want to see in multiples.

Absolutely play 4 Bolts, I think its a big mistake to not max out on them first before playing the first copy of Push.

Worth noting, 3 Jund decks in the top 32 of SCG Indy including a top 8. Link to decklists here:

http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/StarCityGamescom_Modern_Open/2018-07-28_modern_Indianapolis_IN_US/1/

EDIT: Ayyyyyyy, Jund on top baybeeeee.

I played a fairly generic 25-land list at a PPTQ yesterday and went 5-2 with my losses being GR Dragon Ponza in Swiss and GR Scapeshift top 8. I think the deck is fine as-is. I also really hated playing 24 lands in testing. I don't care what anyone says about this. The number of keep-able openers and just the general play feel significantly better to me with 5 creature lands and a 25-land mana base. I guess I'll be going down with that ship. I also don't think Scapeshift is a terrible match up, but it really depends on my opponent's particular list. Chandra, Torch of Defiance is straight fire in Scapeshift, and I don't understand the pilots who don't run it.

Well, in some random pick up games against Scapeshift at my LGS, I won 5 out 7 games against that version of Scapeshift, and I did beat one Scapeshift deck in swiss rounds at the PPTQ. I don't feel that it's a terrible match up really. The Jund pilot is definitely under the gun, but early discard with pressure seems to be the answer. Bloodbraid Elf doesn't hurt either.

Also, I kinda lied. I did have a bit of flair in my deck: one Grim FlayerFoil. Some may find it boring or just bad, but I've been impressed with it as a 1-of.

Quote from chaos021 »

I played a fairly generic 25-land list at a PPTQ yesterday and went 5-2 with my losses being GR Dragon Ponza in Swiss and GR Scapeshift top 8. I think the deck is fine as-is. I also really hated playing 24 lands in testing. I don't care what anyone says about this. The number of keep-able openers and just the general play feel significantly better to me with 5 creature lands and a 25-land mana base. I guess I'll be going down with that ship. I also don't think Scapeshift is a terrible match up, but it really depends on my opponent's particular list. Chandra, Torch of Defiance is straight fire in Scapeshift, and I don't understand the pilots who don't run it.

I don't think you'll be going down with that ship. If we look at the results, honestly, only 25 land builds are being the ones with success. So admittetively it seems 25 lands with 3-4 BBEs work fine right now, but 3 Bobs seems to be the norm.

I personally am baffled that this build is the best, since in my experience it feels so flood-risky, but I can't argue with the results.

Yeah, I keep getting drawn back to 25 land builds as well.

Is 5 manlands for sure the way to go though? I feel like the first manland is great for dodging flood, but manlands 2-3 lose their utility since you can usually only animate one, which is, in part, why I chose to run field of ruin. Does anyone have an opinion on hissing quagmire? It’s not a good attacker, but it’s a much better blocker than raging ravine in a pinch (if, say, you’re getting beat to death by an angler). It would certainly provide different utility which is kinda what I’m going for, I just don’t know if it’s good enough.