MTG Salvation

I think you have a few options. You can try to play around their sweepers and go toe to toe with their planeswalkers with your own. Chandra, Nissa, and some are playing Angrath.

I think those are reasonable options for fighting them. My worry is that this makes your curve pretty high.

I prefer to keep my curve as low as possible to make sure that Bob isn't a liability and I don't like walking my expensive spells into their counters. I'm instead fighting them with a couple durresses in the side for more 1 mana disruption (being able to snag Jace, Terminus, Teferi and more without the life loss is relevant) and then I'm playing Tireless Tracker as my way to fight them in the card advantage war.

I think Tracker has been underutilized by Jund so far. She has been used to good success in the other builds of BGx and I think she is the perfect way to keep your curve low and still be able to keep up. You can also hit her off of BBE which is another big plus (although if they have instant speed removal then she can die before you get the land in play, but I think this is worth the tradeoff of being able to draw into her more often). Playing BBE and then seeing your other haymakers go to the bottom with BBE doesn't feel great.

I agree with everything said about Tireless Tracker. I currently play two of them in my current build, and it has helped me against UW a lot. That said, you will always be the underdog to UW control no matter what you do to your deck short of change it completely. That's just the nature of the beast. The only decent way to get them is to apply as much pressure as possible, which is why I have gone to cutting Liliana of the Veil against them and some number of discard spells to bring in Fulminator Mage, second Tireless Tracker, Kitchen Finks and almost anything else with leg in my sideboard. This is one of the few decks where I wish I had Nissa, Vital Force in my sideboard. I wouldn't care if it flipped over on a Bob trigger. Short of Teferi coming down, she's going to stick, and the value is incredible. Even with all these things that I do have, I still have to hope they stumble on spells or fall behind on lands. Also (and this is important), don't crack every single fetch land you get once you can comfortably cast your spells. I see people doing this way too often. The deck thinning is so marginal percentage-wise that I think it's better to save fetch lands as a good way to shuffle your deck after a Terminus or +2 from Jace on a crucial turn. Finally, while you don't need to run everything out there on curve into a sweeper, you can still fall behind by just not applying enough pressure.

On a side note, decks with utility lands, such as UW control, are a reason I keep coming back to Alpine Moon for a sideboard consideration.

I find the Jeskai match up far easier. I don't know why everyone feels that Jeskai has an advantage. It's really more about having the right cards to bring in. Play or draw matters way too much in this match though.

That's currently what is sleeved up. I've been rotating a few cards in the configuration though. Recently I had one Collective Brutality in the main deck in place of Tireless Tracker with the idea being to keep my 25-land configuration and somehow get to 10 legit removal spells (I'm not counting Kolaghan's Command). It worked out kinda nicely, but control seems to be rampant. With that card being the weakest link, I took it out for Tireless Tracker. I still want to add another Lightning Bolt and Collective Brutality. I may dump a Scavenging Ooze and the sideboard Huntmaster for them. I'm also thinking about cutting a fetch land for another Raging Ravine.

It seems like Tracker > Choke in this case then?

I would wanna try Nissa in this situation (do you just plus 1 once, then ultimate immediately?), it may be worth a shot as well. Maybe jam an additional copy of Duress into the side.

Yeah the problem against UW is you want to pressure and end before terminus comes down, but there's a risk of overextending into one at the same time. Some have taken to playing Spell Snare again which makes the matchup even worse.

Thanks y'all, seems like Control is a slog by nature.

Choke is just so incredibly narrow. Ir also doesnt actually kill them, just slows them down. Tracker is also a bomb in the midrange mirrors. When it comes to over extending, you can just play tracker on her own and she applies enough pressure she must be removed and you can keep cracking clues and making her huge until she dies.

Tracker just does everything we want in the grindy matchups. If you play tracker+fetch it's an immediate 3 for 1 that gets even better if it stays in play.

I have always hated Choke. I think it's not that good against UW Miracles. It's somewhat decent against Jeskai Miracles though. Even so, it doesn't kill your opponent as tjd2191 said.

For the UW Matchup, I can only say I have been loving Nissa there. I would always play her over something like Choke to beat it. Nissa is incredible actually.

I have been really unimpressed with Huntmaster lately I have to say. In theory he should be good against burn/aggro and control midrange. However, I often find him too clunky against burn and aggro (or not impactful enough as people just kill it immediatly or put you on the pressure so hard you have to chump with it) and against control he rarely does anything relevant other than eating a removal spell. I am thinking about changing that to a second strong PW, which is equally good vs midrange, better vs control but not applicable vs aggro and burn. And for that reason I am thinking about changing duress in my SB to a third CB, which should help against burn and aggro. Overall this would mean I am improving my control matchup where each other matchup stays on a similar level.

Have also thinking about going back to a maindeck mountain due to aggro matchups. THe manabase is quite painful and a tad too painful for me against aggro. Mountain could help with that.

I think Bob is pretty unlikely to stick against control, I think I typically never flip once, but I still like it since its a must deal answer and when it gets pathed, I am more than fine with it. And I am also not really bothering about taking 5 with one trigger, I am personally willing to take that risk.

Even though it might worse our aggro matchup and improve our outs against Field of Ruin, I strongly believe that Mountain is not what this deck needs. I am currently on 4 basics and in order to improve my aggro matchup I decided to include 1 Collective Brutelity in the mainboard (alongside 2 in the side). The card is amazing against Spirits, Burn and other aggro matchups, and does a decent job against combo, control and midrange. I see many people play with 1 Push or 1 Decay as their Flex slot, but with a playset of Trophy (I might be the only person on earth to play 4 in Jund), i diminsih not only my chances of a bad cascade target, but also have a very versatile 2 drop in my maindeck.

Edit: I also play Nissa in the sideboard and can confirm that she is excellent against control/other grindy matchups.

Including maindeck cb is also a decent option to help with the aggro matchup, so yeah, seems alright to me.

I think if you play enough other early removal options to minimize the chances that you have to play trophy on turn2, then 4 trophies is justifiable (I play 2 mainboard brutalities and 2 pushes) but I'm pretty adamant about keeping my curve mainboard as low as possible. I'm more worried about my opponent going under me than over me in game 1 and then I'll board into slower value cards in games 2 and 3.

I guess my only question concerning Nissa, Vital Force is this: Does she do anything in other matches? Seems like she would be decent in midrange mirrors as well, but I don't know how much help I need with that and if I'm as willing to risk 5 life there.

I also keep hearing whispers in the wind that Dredge is on a murderous come back, but I've yet to see anyone online playing it. Is this the same for everyone else?

I am fine having 1 slot in my sideboard dedicated to grindy matchups only.
Dredge is definitely the flavour of the month and is likely to stay given the power of Creeping Chill. People will probably include even more gravehate and combo will most likely also rise in order to fight Dredge so be prepared for that scenario.

Quote from tjd2191 »

I think if you play enough other early removal options to minimize the chances that you have to play trophy on turn2, then 4 trophies is justifiable (I play 2 mainboard brutalities and 2 pushes) but I'm pretty adamant about keeping my curve mainboard as low as possible. I'm more worried about my opponent going under me than over me in game 1 and then I'll board into slower value cards in games 2 and 3.

FlyingDelver's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
4 Dark Confidant 4 Bloodbraid Elf 4 Tarmogoyf 2 Scavenging Ooze 3 Liliana of the Veil 1 Liliana, the Last Hope 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Assassin's Trophy 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 2 Thoughtseize 2 Fatal Push 2 Collective Brutality	2 Forest 2 Swamp 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 1 Blood Crypt 3 Bloodstained Mire 2 Overgrown Tomb 3 Raging Ravine 1 Stomping Ground 4 Verdant Catacombs 2 Wooded Foothills	Sideboard 3 Anger of the Gods 1 Maelstrom Pulse 3 Tireless Tracker 1 Collective Brutality 1 Kolaghan's Command 1 Ancient Grudge 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Nihil Spellbomb 2 Duress

The question to ask is what benefit do you gain by that? You don't want to play trophy on turn 2 but you still want to play 4 and therefore run extra cards that you can otherwise cast on turn 2 etc? I think this overall is very awkward, you risk having multiple trophies in your opening hand as you want 4. Like, you can't just guaranteee not having multiple trophies early by just playing more other cards to play when you still play the 4 copies of trophies. This would only work if he had a proper card filtering in our deck. This is something what a legacy can do with Brainstorm, but I think not a midrange deck in modern which has to work with what its been dealt.

Quote from chaos021 »

I guess my only question concerning Nissa, Vital Force is this: Does she do anything in other matches? Seems like she would be decent in midrange mirrors as well, but I don't know how much help I need with that and if I'm as willing to risk 5 life there.

I also keep hearing whispers in the wind that Dredge is on a murderous come back, but I've yet to see anyone online playing it. Is this the same for everyone else?

I think in midrange mirrors the same realibility is true when it comes down to bob: it likely just immeditaly trades with a removal spell. Therefore I am also not too frightened about possible 5 dmg, as the attrition based matchups overall don't primarily shape around the life totals.

Dredge is the real deal again. Its the reason I play 2 Angers in the side now. This is also pretty handy since there is still enough other decks to hit with it. Not sure how the situation online is, but caleb schere, which plays it itself now, said something like that the situation is worse online for dredge as people are preparing for it, but not yet on paper magic. It might that due to that you haven't seen it online.

It's funny because usually it's the other way around, first online, then paper.
But yeah, 3 Ooze main , 2 Spellbomb, 1 Surgical and 2 Anger in the side and we should be fine. Remember Chill can be removed by Scooze on the stack.

What I gain is that if I HAVE to play a removal spell on turn 2, I can. I think this is better than playing more 3 mana spells like everyone else is. 4 lilia, 4 bbe, 2 kcommands and 1 pulse seems to be the most common setup for spells 3 mana and above. I just don't want to play that many. Is trophy awkward sometimes? Yeah. I think it's better than more 3 drops though.

You cant cant ever cast maelstrom pulse or kcommand on turn 2 and it's way harder to double spell with them on turn 4. Yes you will probably get a 2 for 1 with you kcommand and possibly your pulse. But you could also be dead before the value matters.

I played against dredge on MTGO competitive league five (!!) times in a row, that was about a week ago. I think people picked up their grave hate so dredge dropped out a bit but it was definitely played online.

Had a rough go of it Friday night. Lost to Storm round 1. My 75 should not have had trouble with it, but I could not find any hate, and then couldn’t find a clock after playing a Leyline of the Void after their GY was already full of everything they needed. They found Past in Flames before I could kill them with my Ravine that I finally found. I am really not a fan of Leyline.

After that, I played two red Aggro decks in a row that made my Assassin’s Trophy look terrible. I managed to beat one of them.

I beat Elves round 4. Trophy was pretty bad there too.

2-2, not my best.

I need more reps with Trophy. I’d like to see it in action against decks where it shines. How has Trophy/Surgical Extraction been against big mana and combo for y’all?

This is my SB currently:



Between Kalitas, Anger, SE, and Spellbomb (not to mention Scooze), I think I’m covered pretty well for GY strategies. A lot better than I was when running Leyline. I am not a fan of that card in our deck.

Man, looks like we didn’t do so hot in Dallas. I was really hoping to see Jund make a showing there.

Didn't really do well in SCG.

With the Dredge menace rising, I'm moving to 4 leylines and 2 angers in the board. Probably gonna try swapping the 3 Confidants for Flayers as well, given that I'm trying out Vital Force. Bob seems too painful with that sideboard, and Flayer can dump unwanted leyline copies into the yard as well.

Not to mention a 4 Flayer jund list made top 8 in a Japanese GP one or two months ago. Gotta be some merit in that.