Been busy brewing/playing Jund Dragons in EDH. It’s hard for me to get out of those colors. I think I’ve gotten spoiled from how powerful BRG’s individual spells can be!
Delver, I love the quick SB guide. I should know my MU’s by now but I’m kind of an on-and-off player so I forget and find myself digging through your Primer after game-one’s. That new guide will help a lot. And I wanted to echo what the other guys said. I kind of take this primer for granted until I go to most any of the other ones for other decks I play, and realize that the quality and thoroughness of yours is not the norm. I appreciate it.
Spsiegel, nice to see you being a glutton for punishment again and playing BGx. It may not be where the W’s are at, but it’s always where it’s at. I was looking at your list and was curious about something. Why Seal of Fire instead of Tarfire? I’m assuming it’s because you can ‘set it and forget it’, where it doesn’t require any mana if you use it in during some subsequent turn? Like hitting a 5-toughness creature with it and Bolt without requiring RR? I guess it’s kind of uncounterable too in some sense. But how often (besides maybe turn-1) are you going to be able to play it without using it immediately? The obvious pro I see for Tarfire is getting two card types in the yard at once with it.
Tempo reasons. I can set it, forget it. Grows Goyf. It can be a mini bolt off of a BBE cascade down the road.
Out of curiosity, has anyone playtested the new vraksa in either jund or the rock? It does basically everything we’d want out of a planeswalker. I could see it being really powerful, but I could also see it being just generally less powerful than either tracker or BBE. Seems like it would be fun to you with at the very least, just not sure how good it is.
Are you talking about Vraska, Golgari Queen? I messed around with her for a bit in The Rock, but she seemed pretty lackluster in my testing. One interaction that is more interesting than exciting/useful is that you can sac a clue from your Tireless Tracker with Vraska’s first ability and your Tracker will still get the +1/+1 counter because of how her (Tracker’s) ability is worded. But Vraska really didn’t seem very good. I was unimpressed.
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I must say, I've been finding it really hard to have success playing jund latelly at my local shop.
Most of my FNM's are turning to be 2-2's, and even the matches that I win I seem to need my opponent's deck to come off sub-optimal or get very lucky with my opening hands for things to go my way.
I'm not the greatest of players, but when I was bringing my UW control list or Hollow one to the very same shop I was getting 3-1's and 4-0's back to back all the time.
Some of the issues I've been having with the deck that I have diagnosed vs. the current meta are:
Humans feels a lot worse than I expected. They're very merciless in the sense of how they sometimes are very explosive and if you miss a beat by not having turn 1 interaction or playing a tapped land you get punished heavilly. Even when you do stabilize (usually at low health) by killing off the bigger humans and playing a Goyf or Scooze, you're still likelly to die, as they can top-deck Mantis Riders or Reflector mages to let their creatures through again. I feel like Jund was a much better deck when playing a 5/6 goyf meant to aggro decks that to keep attacking, they'd be saccing creatures. Nowadays aggro decks just have ways to go over the Goyf's head flying or bounce him back. Match been feeling bad, and I expected it to be much more of a 50-50.
Spirits are tough for similar reasons to humans, but even worse, as absolutelly everything flies and a lot of it has hexproof. Really hard to deal with.
Dredge/Bridgesvine/Hollow One been feeling tough, with Hollow one surelly being the closest to a 50-50 match IMO. But the fact that these graveyard decks's threats keep returning, and Dredge nowadays can pretty much burn you down without a single creature hit (Conflagrate and Creeping chill are ridiculous), our removal has never felt so weak. "Destroy target creature" has never felt so bad in Modern as it does now. Not having access to exile or bounce cards like UW control has, is bad.
Tron/Valakut are still bad matches, even with AssTrophy, we still struggle where we're expected to struggle. Even if a little less.
Affinity, which was one of our more favorable matches in my opinion has turned into Hardened Scales, which, I'll agree, its still a somewhat decent match or at least it was the 3 times I faced it so far. But they still can be very punishing and cards like Hangarback Walker make it a lot tougher for us.
I just feel like almost everything at the deck is working sub-optimally. Destroying creatures is very weak right now, and agressive decks out-grind us. We used to be on a great spot when we stabilize and go top-deck mode. Nowadays I feel like I top-deck too many lands vs. Decks that easilly will bring back all that I killed from the graveyard again or have plenty of cards that are lethal if topdecked. And since we cant filter our topdeck, our deck still struggles by losing to itself for being a 24/25 lands deck with a very low curve and no cantrips. Its crazy how UW control plays the exact same landbase as us and is a deck that runs 7 or 8 4cc drops, 2 5cc drops.
Also, our manlands have never felt so weak, Raging Ravine being a land that demands 5 land drops to be active is way too slow in almost every matchup I face.
Assassin's Trophy is not as good as I expected. Giving your opponent one untapped land is serious business, and a little too often you have to use it like a very bad fatal push. Its necessary evil, since we need it for some matchups and it clears room on sideboard, but it still is making many matchups that used to be better, worse, in my opinion.
Now, with the rise of Dredge, things seem even worse for us. So far I faced the deck 3 times and all three of them I was completelly hopeless. Even when I found my sideboard, scoozes and whatnots. He'd just always have answers for it simply because Dredge pretty much sees 80% of its deck by turn 4, so they'll just find answers fast anyway. Not to mention, we're playing a game that we start at 8 health points and them at 32, pretty much. And even when I'd Anger of the Gods the hell out of them, I'd just burn to a couple of 4~5 damage Conflagrates to the face.
Guess it is true those data about Jund having one of the worst win-rates as of now in Modern... Quite sad :/. The deck is still playable, but it defnetly in a bad spot. And the only reason UW control still stands as a viable, reactive fair deck that its still shining its because it has a 1 mana board wipe that doesnt destroy creatures but rather shove them back to the library. Modern has became so merciless and degenerate that if you wanna play a fair control deck, it needs to be by playing miracle mechanics because even wrath of god is too slow and weak now.
I wonder, is there any type of card that they could print that would improve at least some of our issues ? I cant even think of one anymore.
Some great and very under-utilized advice in here. Over the course of 5 years playing the deck, I have a winning record playing Jund against Tron. Up until the last year or so I hadn't dropped a single match to it. I believe it's largely because of the kinds of things in this article. I always played those games tight and my opponents likely played more loosely thinking they "couldn't lose." If you give yourself every edge, you'll even win your bad matchups more often than you might think. It's why I've never taken the "matchup lottery" or "don't even SB for that" complaints seriously.
I completely agree with that article and also with @rcwraspy on that topic. While there are sometimes smart concessions in deckbuilding to make, it should not be against the more popular strategies in the modern format.
I don’t see the downside to playing 3x Anger of the Gods in the SB. There’s the obvious opportunity cost of not being able to run some other card, but I think that kind of reiteration with the right manabase to regularly slam it on turn-3 is completely worth it. It’s a very relevant card right now, and although decks like Humans and Spirits have ways around it, having 3x copies really forces them to find those outs, and possibly more than once.
On a separate but similar note:
@yriel, out of curiosity, did you ever get around to playtesting that Courser/Anger list circa 2014? I used to play a similar list back then. It was a good meta call for only a short while (Nacatl unbanning, Pod at its height), but it was fun while it lasted.
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I don’t see the downside to playing 3x Anger of the Gods in the SB. There’s the obvious opportunity cost of not being able to run some other card, but I think that kind of reiteration with the right manabase to regularly slam it on turn-3 is completely worth it. It’s a very relevant card right now, and although decks like Humans and Spirits have ways around it, having 3x copies really forces them to find those outs, and possibly more than once.
I've always played my first 3 turn land drops in a way to maximize the ability to have RR, GG, or BB on T3 - 1 B/R land, one B/G land, and one R/G land. Hitting Anger mana on T3 has never seemed like an issue to me.
That said, I'm considering an odd deck building choice where I take a normal Jund list and shove 3x Faithless Looting in it to help hedge against "drawing the wrong half of the deck" in some matchups. I'll probably lean a little more R in the land-base because of that anyway.
So the one aspect I love about jund is that it has the ability to play the control game. Angrath and Chandra make this even better with game ending ultimates. Control the board with removal, protect your walkers, and just sit back and win. No need to be aggressive with attacks.
1. I don't think we need Maelstrom Pulse and if I'm very honest I don't like it very much. I played it quite a bit and it feels clunky and slow, something you don't want now. We have Trophy to deal with whatever we need and the rest should be cheaper removal since format is faster and Trophy isn't early game removal. I'm not against Pulse but I think we're better without it. If control becomes more popular against then it might be worth to play it since it's always good to have additional removal for their planeswalkers but for now we can survive without it.
2. I'm on 3 Fulminator Mage. Tron is still an uphill battle and Fulminator Mage is good against other big mana and some other decks too. I think that 3 is the right number.
3. Playing less than 4 LoTV seemed like a mistake in the past but she isn't very good in the current metagame so playing less than 4 isn't mistake anymore but it's actually correct most of the time unless you expect lots of big mana and combo decks. 3/1 split with LtLH seems to be the best configuration.
4. I was thinking about cutting Ancient Grudge not long time ago (as weird as it sounds to play zero copies of it in the Jund's sb) but considering Hardened Scales and KCI perforamce I think we need it. I'm fine with playing one copy but wouldn't cut it entirely.
5. Ipersonally like Surgical because it's quite versatile. It can act as a gy hate (although it isn't otherwise) against Dredge, is good against combo and can be useful against big mana decks along with Trophy.
I opted for fire-lit thicket over graven cairns because double black by turn 3 is easy to do already and it's more versatile. Double red for anger, double green for finks, double green for scooze activations etc. I would also run it over a basic mountain but I also dont play damping sphere. I've also been along the control side of things lately. Anger away their board and let Chandra and Angrath just win the game for me. Goyf, Ravine, and Scooze just play defense in the mean time while I do jund things.
Yeah, I feel like I would probably run Graven Cairns over Mire or Thicket if I ended up running 3x Angers, but then again I don’t play any Kitchen Finks. Between Lilis and Kalitas and considering my landbase as it is right now, Cairns seems the most appropriate and a worthwhile addition.
Is Goblin Rabblemaster still a viable option? Specifically against Big Mana and maybe to a lesser extent Control/Midrange?
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I'd say no. Aggro creature is up and bolt is better positioned.
Rabblemaster was decent for a time because push was everywhere and creature aggro was suffering.
Ah yeah, very true. 1/1 Gobbos that have to attack every turn aren’t great when running into a wall of fatties. I meant it more as a SB card for the mentioned MU’s, but I guess adding creatures to race Big Mana isn’t as effective as running cards to hate on their lands.
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Tempo reasons. I can set it, forget it. Grows Goyf. It can be a mini bolt off of a BBE cascade down the road.
Are you talking about Vraska, Golgari Queen? I messed around with her for a bit in The Rock, but she seemed pretty lackluster in my testing. One interaction that is more interesting than exciting/useful is that you can sac a clue from your Tireless Tracker with Vraska’s first ability and your Tracker will still get the +1/+1 counter because of how her (Tracker’s) ability is worded. But Vraska really didn’t seem very good. I was unimpressed.
BRGJUNDGRB---BRHOLLOW ONERB---BGELVESGB---BRGLIVING ENDGRB---GWBOGLESWG
EDH:
BRGKARRTHUS, TYRANT OF JUNDGRB
http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/37997_How-To-Win-More-Against-Bad-Matchups.html
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
1 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
// Spells
3 Assassin's Trophy
2 Fatal Push
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Thoughtseize
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Choke
2 Collective Brutality
3 Fulminator Mage
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Surgical Extraction
https://mtgrock.com/2018/11/23/play-patterns-the-tireless-tracker-misconception/
I hope you guys like it!
Most of my FNM's are turning to be 2-2's, and even the matches that I win I seem to need my opponent's deck to come off sub-optimal or get very lucky with my opening hands for things to go my way.
I'm not the greatest of players, but when I was bringing my UW control list or Hollow one to the very same shop I was getting 3-1's and 4-0's back to back all the time.
Some of the issues I've been having with the deck that I have diagnosed vs. the current meta are:
Humans feels a lot worse than I expected. They're very merciless in the sense of how they sometimes are very explosive and if you miss a beat by not having turn 1 interaction or playing a tapped land you get punished heavilly. Even when you do stabilize (usually at low health) by killing off the bigger humans and playing a Goyf or Scooze, you're still likelly to die, as they can top-deck Mantis Riders or Reflector mages to let their creatures through again. I feel like Jund was a much better deck when playing a 5/6 goyf meant to aggro decks that to keep attacking, they'd be saccing creatures. Nowadays aggro decks just have ways to go over the Goyf's head flying or bounce him back. Match been feeling bad, and I expected it to be much more of a 50-50.
Spirits are tough for similar reasons to humans, but even worse, as absolutelly everything flies and a lot of it has hexproof. Really hard to deal with.
Dredge/Bridgesvine/Hollow One been feeling tough, with Hollow one surelly being the closest to a 50-50 match IMO. But the fact that these graveyard decks's threats keep returning, and Dredge nowadays can pretty much burn you down without a single creature hit (Conflagrate and Creeping chill are ridiculous), our removal has never felt so weak. "Destroy target creature" has never felt so bad in Modern as it does now. Not having access to exile or bounce cards like UW control has, is bad.
Tron/Valakut are still bad matches, even with AssTrophy, we still struggle where we're expected to struggle. Even if a little less.
Affinity, which was one of our more favorable matches in my opinion has turned into Hardened Scales, which, I'll agree, its still a somewhat decent match or at least it was the 3 times I faced it so far. But they still can be very punishing and cards like Hangarback Walker make it a lot tougher for us.
I just feel like almost everything at the deck is working sub-optimally. Destroying creatures is very weak right now, and agressive decks out-grind us. We used to be on a great spot when we stabilize and go top-deck mode. Nowadays I feel like I top-deck too many lands vs. Decks that easilly will bring back all that I killed from the graveyard again or have plenty of cards that are lethal if topdecked. And since we cant filter our topdeck, our deck still struggles by losing to itself for being a 24/25 lands deck with a very low curve and no cantrips. Its crazy how UW control plays the exact same landbase as us and is a deck that runs 7 or 8 4cc drops, 2 5cc drops.
Also, our manlands have never felt so weak, Raging Ravine being a land that demands 5 land drops to be active is way too slow in almost every matchup I face.
Assassin's Trophy is not as good as I expected. Giving your opponent one untapped land is serious business, and a little too often you have to use it like a very bad fatal push. Its necessary evil, since we need it for some matchups and it clears room on sideboard, but it still is making many matchups that used to be better, worse, in my opinion.
Now, with the rise of Dredge, things seem even worse for us. So far I faced the deck 3 times and all three of them I was completelly hopeless. Even when I found my sideboard, scoozes and whatnots. He'd just always have answers for it simply because Dredge pretty much sees 80% of its deck by turn 4, so they'll just find answers fast anyway. Not to mention, we're playing a game that we start at 8 health points and them at 32, pretty much. And even when I'd Anger of the Gods the hell out of them, I'd just burn to a couple of 4~5 damage Conflagrates to the face.
Guess it is true those data about Jund having one of the worst win-rates as of now in Modern... Quite sad :/. The deck is still playable, but it defnetly in a bad spot. And the only reason UW control still stands as a viable, reactive fair deck that its still shining its because it has a 1 mana board wipe that doesnt destroy creatures but rather shove them back to the library. Modern has became so merciless and degenerate that if you wanna play a fair control deck, it needs to be by playing miracle mechanics because even wrath of god is too slow and weak now.
I wonder, is there any type of card that they could print that would improve at least some of our issues ? I cant even think of one anymore.
I just don't like the idea of four Tracker's, Bob's or no. If I didn't run Bob, I would run Grim Flayer and hope for the best.
Frenzy-Affinity-Ghost Quarter-Rock-Tokens- RGWPhyrexian Zoo- WVial KnightsStandard:
BW Knights(Rotated)Pioneer: RW Knights - BW Rally Zombies - UW Heroes
Commander:WUG
Jenara, Asura of War- WGSigarda, Host of HeronsCasualties of economicsLegacy: Good-night, sweet prince. Mono-R Burn
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
On a separate but similar note:
@yriel, out of curiosity, did you ever get around to playtesting that Courser/Anger list circa 2014? I used to play a similar list back then. It was a good meta call for only a short while (Nacatl unbanning, Pod at its height), but it was fun while it lasted.
BRGJUNDGRB---BRHOLLOW ONERB---BGELVESGB---BRGLIVING ENDGRB---GWBOGLESWG
EDH:
BRGKARRTHUS, TYRANT OF JUNDGRB
That said, I'm considering an odd deck building choice where I take a normal Jund list and shove 3x Faithless Looting in it to help hedge against "drawing the wrong half of the deck" in some matchups. I'll probably lean a little more R in the land-base because of that anyway.
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
What does your current list look like?
Back when I ran the Courser/Anger list, I ran one Cairns. People griped. What else is new?
Frenzy-Affinity-Ghost Quarter-Rock-Tokens- RGWPhyrexian Zoo- WVial KnightsStandard:
BW Knights(Rotated)Pioneer: RW Knights - BW Rally Zombies - UW Heroes
Commander:WUG
Jenara, Asura of War- WGSigarda, Host of HeronsCasualties of economicsLegacy: Good-night, sweet prince. Mono-R Burn
Is Goblin Rabblemaster still a viable option? Specifically against Big Mana and maybe to a lesser extent Control/Midrange?
BRGJUNDGRB---BRHOLLOW ONERB---BGELVESGB---BRGLIVING ENDGRB---GWBOGLESWG
EDH:
BRGKARRTHUS, TYRANT OF JUNDGRB
Rabblemaster was decent for a time because push was everywhere and creature aggro was suffering.
Ah yeah, very true. 1/1 Gobbos that have to attack every turn aren’t great when running into a wall of fatties. I meant it more as a SB card for the mentioned MU’s, but I guess adding creatures to race Big Mana isn’t as effective as running cards to hate on their lands.
BRGJUNDGRB---BRHOLLOW ONERB---BGELVESGB---BRGLIVING ENDGRB---GWBOGLESWG
EDH:
BRGKARRTHUS, TYRANT OF JUNDGRB