So, if I freed up a slot by cutting 1x Ancient Grudge, and if I freed up another by cutting Damnation (I just really haven’t seemed to need it), I’d end up with this:
Had a tough time against a few different Control decks today, as I feared I would. My 75 (especially my 15) is pretty soft to it. So I’d like to use these two new slots to mitigate that weakness a little.
Are Goblin Rabblemaster and Hazoret the Fervent solid considerations if Big Mana started to really establish itself again? I haven’t seen those cards in a Jund sideboard in awhile.
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If you want to completely smash the slow matchups, Tracker will do that. I think choke is unbelievably narrow and not something that Jund would ever want to use a sideboard slot on and I'm not sure it is even better against control than
a resolved Tracker+fetch.
If you really don't have much big mana then Tracker is probably what I would lean towards. I know that some other people endorse 4 and 5 mana planeswalkers, but I think Tracker will outgrind all of them if you're patient with your lands.
But Fulminator even after all these years is still good. He's just so flexible. He's not as good as Tracker in the slow matchups, but he's decent at killing their manlands and sometimes causing your opponent to stumble on mana (preventing control from playing Teferi can be a big deal) and he's of course a lot more disruptive against the big mana decks and such.
So if you truly have a wide open metagame then just jam more Fulminators. UW can sometimes just fetch all basics (but not always) and if they can't then each Fulminator often gets better than the last (you can sometimes play like a Ponza deck). A Liliana + Fulminator combo can be really hard for a slower deck to get out from.
It's unfortunate to hear but that honesty is valuable. Hype can often be a negative thing.
I thought of Fatal Push as a tool for Jund but I didn't think about that it is also pretty good against Jund. Jund certainly often enables Revolt for the opponent.
Can you also clarify what you mean with how BBE destroyed the standard for a good Jund build? You mean in the sense of upping the mana curve?
Before Probe was unbanned, we had a pretty good set of rules everybody followed and understood. We always ran 24 lands, maximum 3 manlands, and 1-2 four drops to go with it as topenders. And this rules ensured a consistant positive performance for the deck.
With BBE being unbanned, obviously people started to jam the card as a 4 of. And rightfully so, this would mean adding another land is a nobrainer. Coming from 1-2 max four drops, you actually need a 25 land if you now have suddenly 4 four drops in your deck. In order to prevent flooding, that 25th land naturally was a 4th manland. All up to this point makese sense. However, people are naturally very greedy in deckbuilding (according to my epxerience) and people really like to skimp on lands since people always hate flooding more than screwing. So people decided to cut a land again here and there, and the problem was, they did not cut the 4th manland which was added, and just kept the 4 manlands. They just cut something else, because manlands are great right? Now, bad performance should now punish you, but the problem is, many people did this, and due to variance even with a greedy manabase you can of course win tournaments and perform well. This is simple statistics. And when those greedy lists started to pop up, people felt confirmed in their deckbuilding of course. Results say everything as we know (sarcasm). And when many people do similar things, it slowly starts to become the norm. In the past, it was never even possible to post a list with 4 four drops and only 24 lands to this forum and not get criticized about the manabase. Now its just normal. The interesting part about this is, modern as a format was way less punishing in the past. Nowadays though decks are more linear, more consistant and more punishing overall. But people still have more greedy manabases. So I guess you get the point, its completely twisted.
So up to this point, we need more definition about greedyness. Therefore I am spending a lot of time on this topic, and my goal is to bring people back on track. Thats why I write articles, address problems with manabases and the mana curve mainly. Its just the funamental part of each deck and when other decks are so consistant, we need to keep with that in order to perform well. Thats my opinion on that.
Honestly i've been debating on going to 2 BBE mb as im currently on 3 for the past few month's after dropping from 4 after a few personal conflicts. The card's amazing, but it has it's issues one of which is the mana count issue. I'm starting to debate a lot if i would rather have this or huntmaster again. There have been quite a few games that i would of won with either, but some only with huntmaster and some only with BBE.
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Standard: No Time
Modern: Jund Midrange BRG
Legacy: Shardless Bug BUG
I play 1-2 Abrade instead of Ancient Grudge. Slighty worse against Affinity and other artifact decks, but also an additional option against Humans, Spirits, etc.
Round 1
I beat the pants off bushwhacker zoo
Round 2
I flooded against jeskai control and was 1 mana short from casting nissa after I made him burn the cryptic command he was holding
Round 3
Lost to jund even though he was stuck on 2 lands most of the game. I never found an impactful card after turn 3 even though I had 5 lands in play
Round 4
I beat the pants off jund recurring fulminator mage with kolaghan's command and liliana, the last hope
Round 5
I drew with GB Rock. That matchup was insane. It was pretty much just people dropping haymakers all day. It was really interesting how the games were so swingy.
When the deck fired on all cylinders, I felt like I literally could never lose. When it flooded and/or ran out of gas, it felt terrible. That being said, I would sleeve up the exact same 75 again if there was another GP tomorrow, though I never got to try leyline.
Probably a bit greedy to ask for new printings after Assassin's Trophy printing in this last set. Maybe a more efficient Slaughter Games effect? Surgical Extraction is just about as efficient as you can get except that it's reactionary - the card we want to extract has to already be in a graveyard. SG doesn't require that - maybe a cheaper version of that somehow? Would help in some of the big-mana matchups.
But really I think it's a matter of metagame shifts. Of course I wouldn't sneeze at a Punishing Fire unban though...
No way does that get unbanned without a major power creep in the format.
They'll go with something after like SFM, which probably won't do much for midrange on a long term basis.
As fast as the format can be, I'm not so sure Punishing Fire would be that bad. The funny thing is that I actually think it would push Burn up a few points against certain archetypes.
The only card I felt that I really wanted at GP Atlanta was Unmoored Ego but in Jund colors. Everything else about my build and sideboard felt surprisingly good. There were only two matches where I felt completely hopeless from start to finish and they were both against TitanShift. That match up used to seem better to me so I'm not sure what happened. The sequences I ran into were nutty though.
Pretty sad to hear that it seems like even with Assasin's Trophy we're still not up to par.
I feel like what I'd want for Jund is something that allows us to filter our top-decking. Maybe a cantrip of sorts...
Playing a 24/25 lands deck that has to "top-deck" its answers the old school way or by using a card that hurts our lifepoints its just lord clunkyness in a format where agressive decks are so consistently effective, fast, and powerful and even disruptive to some degree.
We dont have good board-wipes and cantrips like UW control to get us out sticky situations.
And we dont have the card filtering/mass blockers and 20 lands mana base of Mardu.
Top decking a land you dont need in Modern nowadays is a death sentence.
Some better catch-all sidedecking against combo decks would be nice too, since we're still doomed in matches against Titan decks.
I really feel like Jund's cards's powerlevel is insanelly good. We're unbeatable when we draw the right half of our deck or keep the right hand against the right deck. We're just hellish inconsistent at doing that.
For me I think our biggest weakness right now is actually that our creature aggro matchups aren't as great as they used to be. Mainly this is because there's less "combo" creature decks (elves, etc.) instead we now play against decks where we can't just brickwall the ground with big creatures. Humans reflector mages our stuff away and flies over us - spirits just fly.
I would love some sort of playable flier(s) - preferably something with an ETB effect and large toughness to brickwall the air as well - at 2-3 mana. Lingering Souls for abzan sort of does this - it does not brickwall the air, but provides chump blockers for several turns. I feel like we simply need something that will allow us to turn our Goyfs sideways to force our opponents to chump blocking our guys - instead of the reverse.
I don't really think there's something viable in our colours sadly. For me I'm mainly hoping that dredge will force the remaining decks in the format to fill up their boards with cards to handle dredge - while we don't really need to go that far (we already play GY hate, and can simply move some sweepers to Anger of the Gods to have an OK matchup). This might be wishful thinking however.
I agree with Galerion. One tournament does not say everything. Just continue to press the advantage we have in making educated metagame corrections, then you'll be performing fine with Jund. I think this Top 8 is not hostile at all for us. I think we can beat Spirits, KCI, Hollow One all pretty well if you make some hedges. I would be more concerned when the Top 8 would been all Valakut or Amulet Titan honestly.
@chaos021 What was your record? Didnt know you were also playing at the GP.
Titanshift is indeed very rough. I believe its the worst matchup we have, even worse than Living End.
Day 1 was 6-2. Ended up 9-6.
Both of my losses on day 1 were TitanShift. Day 2 I surprisingly lost to Humans twice, G Tron (just couldn't get the aggro starts) and Bant spirit (was really tight and just came down to top decks in game 3.
Kitchen Finks sucks. It's relatively slow and mopey in the few matches I would be willing to bring it in. You could be on the brink by turn 3 on the draw against aggressive decks. Against slower and/or controlling decks, it's just a random 3/2 for 3-CMC. It's not exactly threatening. The same feelings extend to Huntmaster of the Fells too. I was glad I cut it completely. I added a third Collective Brutality to my sideboard in its place.
I would also consider at least 1 Grafdigger's Cage in your sideboard. There has been a resurgence of Collected Company decks as well as a high number of decks casting things from the graveyard (Dredge, Bridgevine, UR & mono-red Phoenix, Mardu Pyro and Snapcaster decks).
I'm really not sure why you're so high on Kolaghan's Command. I've rarely made good use of more than 1 per game unless I was playing against Affinity.
A huge two-thumbs-up for two Alpine Moon. I could've used them way more than the Nissa, Vital Force and Surgical Extraction that languished in my sideboard. I'm almost convinced that we shouldn't try to interact with graveyard strategies reactively. I feel a third Anger of the Gods makes more sense than ever sleeving up the first Surgical Extraction even if you're terrified of Dredge or UR (or mono-red) Phoenix.
Finally, I very much prefer the 25-land builds by a wide margin. I tested 24-land builds in the run up to GP Atlanta, and the consistency issues with openers and the initial few draws reared its ugly head again. I think I just prefer conservative consistency than slightly more explosive openers.
2x Anger of the Gods
2x Fulminator Mage
2x Collective Brutality
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Grafdigger’s Cage
1x Damping Sphere
Had a tough time against a few different Control decks today, as I feared I would. My 75 (especially my 15) is pretty soft to it. So I’d like to use these two new slots to mitigate that weakness a little.
I could add:
2x Tireless Tracker
Or:
1x Tireless Tracker
1x Fulminator Mage
Or:
1x Fulminator Mage
1x Choke
I know there’s a bunch of other options also. What do y’all think? I will say that I like that another Fulminator can help with the Big Mana MU’s too.
Ayiluss, how have you liked that Chandra? I’ve never run one, but she seems like she could be a sweet addition.
BRGJUNDGRB---BRHOLLOW ONERB---BGELVESGB---BRGLIVING ENDGRB---GWBOGLESWG
EDH:
BRGKARRTHUS, TYRANT OF JUNDGRB
BRGJUNDGRB---BRHOLLOW ONERB---BGELVESGB---BRGLIVING ENDGRB---GWBOGLESWG
EDH:
BRGKARRTHUS, TYRANT OF JUNDGRB
a resolved Tracker+fetch.
If you really don't have much big mana then Tracker is probably what I would lean towards. I know that some other people endorse 4 and 5 mana planeswalkers, but I think Tracker will outgrind all of them if you're patient with your lands.
But Fulminator even after all these years is still good. He's just so flexible. He's not as good as Tracker in the slow matchups, but he's decent at killing their manlands and sometimes causing your opponent to stumble on mana (preventing control from playing Teferi can be a big deal) and he's of course a lot more disruptive against the big mana decks and such.
So if you truly have a wide open metagame then just jam more Fulminators. UW can sometimes just fetch all basics (but not always) and if they can't then each Fulminator often gets better than the last (you can sometimes play like a Ponza deck). A Liliana + Fulminator combo can be really hard for a slower deck to get out from.
Honestly i've been debating on going to 2 BBE mb as im currently on 3 for the past few month's after dropping from 4 after a few personal conflicts. The card's amazing, but it has it's issues one of which is the mana count issue. I'm starting to debate a lot if i would rather have this or huntmaster again. There have been quite a few games that i would of won with either, but some only with huntmaster and some only with BBE.
Modern: Jund Midrange BRG
Legacy: Shardless Bug BUG
This is a neat idea, I may give this a try
BGGRock
Modern
BRGJund
BBGRock
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
1 Treetop Village
1 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3 Dark Confidant
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
// Spells
3 Assassin's Trophy
2 Fatal Push
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Kolaghan's Command
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Thoughtseize
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Collective Brutality
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Nissa, Vital Force
Finished day 1 at GP Atlanta at X-2-1
Round 1
I beat the pants off bushwhacker zoo
Round 2
I flooded against jeskai control and was 1 mana short from casting nissa after I made him burn the cryptic command he was holding
Round 3
Lost to jund even though he was stuck on 2 lands most of the game. I never found an impactful card after turn 3 even though I had 5 lands in play
Round 4
I beat the pants off jund recurring fulminator mage with kolaghan's command and liliana, the last hope
Round 5
I drew with GB Rock. That matchup was insane. It was pretty much just people dropping haymakers all day. It was really interesting how the games were so swingy.
When the deck fired on all cylinders, I felt like I literally could never lose. When it flooded and/or ran out of gas, it felt terrible. That being said, I would sleeve up the exact same 75 again if there was another GP tomorrow, though I never got to try leyline.
I hope/wish it's an aberration but somehow I know it isn't.
We need more tools to be printed in upcoming sets.
Gruul and Rakdos are in the next Ravnica set?
If you could make a dream card for us, what would it be?
(Is this a relevant enough topic for this thread?)
But really I think it's a matter of metagame shifts. Of course I wouldn't sneeze at a Punishing Fire unban though...
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
No way does that get unbanned without a major power creep in the format.
They'll go with something after like SFM, which probably won't do much for midrange on a long term basis.
As fast as the format can be, I'm not so sure Punishing Fire would be that bad. The funny thing is that I actually think it would push Burn up a few points against certain archetypes.
The only card I felt that I really wanted at GP Atlanta was Unmoored Ego but in Jund colors. Everything else about my build and sideboard felt surprisingly good. There were only two matches where I felt completely hopeless from start to finish and they were both against TitanShift. That match up used to seem better to me so I'm not sure what happened. The sequences I ran into were nutty though.
Titanshift is indeed very rough. I believe its the worst matchup we have, even worse than Living End.
I feel like what I'd want for Jund is something that allows us to filter our top-decking. Maybe a cantrip of sorts...
Playing a 24/25 lands deck that has to "top-deck" its answers the old school way or by using a card that hurts our lifepoints its just lord clunkyness in a format where agressive decks are so consistently effective, fast, and powerful and even disruptive to some degree.
We dont have good board-wipes and cantrips like UW control to get us out sticky situations.
And we dont have the card filtering/mass blockers and 20 lands mana base of Mardu.
Top decking a land you dont need in Modern nowadays is a death sentence.
Some better catch-all sidedecking against combo decks would be nice too, since we're still doomed in matches against Titan decks.
I really feel like Jund's cards's powerlevel is insanelly good. We're unbeatable when we draw the right half of our deck or keep the right hand against the right deck. We're just hellish inconsistent at doing that.
I would love some sort of playable flier(s) - preferably something with an ETB effect and large toughness to brickwall the air as well - at 2-3 mana. Lingering Souls for abzan sort of does this - it does not brickwall the air, but provides chump blockers for several turns. I feel like we simply need something that will allow us to turn our Goyfs sideways to force our opponents to chump blocking our guys - instead of the reverse.
I don't really think there's something viable in our colours sadly. For me I'm mainly hoping that dredge will force the remaining decks in the format to fill up their boards with cards to handle dredge - while we don't really need to go that far (we already play GY hate, and can simply move some sweepers to Anger of the Gods to have an OK matchup). This might be wishful thinking however.
UW Control and Humans were also among the most played decks and didn't make top 32.
That doesn't mean those decks and Jund suck because of it.
Day 1 was 6-2. Ended up 9-6.
Both of my losses on day 1 were TitanShift. Day 2 I surprisingly lost to Humans twice, G Tron (just couldn't get the aggro starts) and Bant spirit (was really tight and just came down to top decks in game 3.
I would also consider at least 1 Grafdigger's Cage in your sideboard. There has been a resurgence of Collected Company decks as well as a high number of decks casting things from the graveyard (Dredge, Bridgevine, UR & mono-red Phoenix, Mardu Pyro and Snapcaster decks).
I'm really not sure why you're so high on Kolaghan's Command. I've rarely made good use of more than 1 per game unless I was playing against Affinity.
A huge two-thumbs-up for two Alpine Moon. I could've used them way more than the Nissa, Vital Force and Surgical Extraction that languished in my sideboard. I'm almost convinced that we shouldn't try to interact with graveyard strategies reactively. I feel a third Anger of the Gods makes more sense than ever sleeving up the first Surgical Extraction even if you're terrified of Dredge or UR (or mono-red) Phoenix.
Finally, I very much prefer the 25-land builds by a wide margin. I tested 24-land builds in the run up to GP Atlanta, and the consistency issues with openers and the initial few draws reared its ugly head again. I think I just prefer conservative consistency than slightly more explosive openers.