With that, so far I’ve beaten Tron, Grixis Shadow, and Jund. My list plays surprisingly well against the other grindy decks right now. I think that one of those 3 cards should end up being an Ancient Grudge at some point, I’m currently leaning towards Push.
Man, you're obviously doing something right, as you're topping tournaments.
I played against one of the guys who recently got first place in the SCG tournament at my store. Game 3 I made a mistake scrying to the bottom a steam vents I needed for my Shadow against him as Hollow One in game 3. I instantly regretted it the second I bottomed it. The tiny decisions you make in Grixis multiple turns ago can be disastrous. I feel like Jund Shadow has less of that.
There isn't that much info on an expansive sideboard with Jund Shadow and 4C shadow. I would love to see one and write it down.
Ben Jones twitter account really helped me board correctly with Grixis. Just need enough references.
The deck just does exactly what I want to do in Modern, it's playing a Jund game that doesn't flood out and just aims to disrupt and kill your opponent as fast as possible. I honestly haven't felt this in-sync with my deck since I was playing Jund before the Twin ban.
It's funny, because when I first switched to Grixis from 5-Color (before Grixis adopted Baubles) I felt exactly the opposite, that Grixis was so much easier to play because there were less micro-decisions that could come back to haunt me. That scale has definitely shifted now, and I find the Jund version much easier to pilot.
I have pretty differing sideboard philosophies for Jund vs 4C. With 4C, when going to sideboard I primarily think about how I want to interact with my opponent, since I can interact with them/their stuff in every way possible. I think that finding the right balance of discard, countermagic, removal, land hate, and graveyard hate post-board across all of your matchups is the biggest learning curve that 4C has. In general, I felt like when I had a well-built sideboard and knew how much of each kind of interaction I wanted (and didn't lose to my mana base) my winrate against more linear decks was very high.
I'm still learning how to sideboard with Jund Shadow, but in general I think of the deck as having two complimentary halves. There's the "Jund" half, with Inquisition, Tarmogoyf, Liliana of the Veil, and all of the removal. Then there's the "Shadow" half, with Thoughtseize, Death's Shadow, and Street Wraith. In general, I find that I like to lean on the Jund half for fair matchups (Izzet Phoenix, U/W/x, B/G/x, Shadow mirrors, Burn, and most creature decks), and the Shadow half for unfair matchups (KCI, Tron, Dredge, Hollow One). Independent of either strategy are cards like Traverse the Ulvenwald and Mishra's Bauble, which are just cogs in the machine that make it easier to execute either strategy and find the correct threat for the matchup.
The flexibility to transition up and down the agro/control -> midrange scale is a commonly praised hallmark of Grixis Shadow, and while I think it's not possible for 4 color to effectively do the same thing, Jund Shadow is very much able to move up and down that scale, as well. That flexibility is the core of why I think both 3 color versions are superior to the 4 color one. I think that the decks do it differently, though, with Grixis more dependent on using its sideboard to move up and down the scale, while Jund Shadow is less dependent on its sideboard (and less helped by it) and more dependent on adjusting the way you're actually playing in-game. I typically play to the Jund half by being more conservative with my life total and boarding out a couple of Street Wraiths. I will often fetch basics early on against U/R decks like Blue Moon and Izzet Phoenix, because if you don't give them the chance to burn you out its actually pretty hard for them to win because they do such a poor job of killing your creatures. In these matchups, I treat Death's Shadow as more of an insurance policy to guarantee that my opponent won't be able to out-race me, and don't worry too much about powering them out early.
I've actually been thinking about recording a deck tech and a couple leagues and putting them up on Youtube, because I don't see anyone else talking about this deck the way I think of it.
That would be awesome DeFish. Not sure why people don’t play this archetype. It has it’s place just like every other deck. I myself am going to finish acquiring the cards and give jund style a whirl. I’ve never owned Tarmo or catacombs so this was a good incentive while they are on the down low. Never hurts to have more staples.
Commander GUR Maelstrom Wanderer BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith RRR Feldon of the Third Path WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
Nice work DeFish! You've convinced me to pick this deck up again, never really tried playing it Jund colors only but looking forward to trying it!
Regarding the midrange/control matchups - do you think Bloodbraid Elf as a sideboard card could be a viable here? I've always found the control matchups to be the hardest with the 4 color versions, and I think BBE could do a lot of work here. My only concern is if a mountain is needed to make sure we don't get field of ruined out of being able to cast BBE. What do you think? I'm planning on trying quite a few copies out in my local meta where there's usually quite a few control players.
The deck just does exactly what I want to do in Modern, it's playing a Jund game that doesn't flood out and just aims to disrupt and kill your opponent as fast as possible. I honestly haven't felt this in-sync with my deck since I was playing Jund before the Twin ban.
It's funny, because when I first switched to Grixis from 5-Color (before Grixis adopted Baubles) I felt exactly the opposite, that Grixis was so much easier to play because there were less micro-decisions that could come back to haunt me. That scale has definitely shifted now, and I find the Jund version much easier to pilot.
I have pretty differing sideboard philosophies for Jund vs 4C. With 4C, when going to sideboard I primarily think about how I want to interact with my opponent, since I can interact with them/their stuff in every way possible. I think that finding the right balance of discard, countermagic, removal, land hate, and graveyard hate post-board across all of your matchups is the biggest learning curve that 4C has. In general, I felt like when I had a well-built sideboard and knew how much of each kind of interaction I wanted (and didn't lose to my mana base) my winrate against more linear decks was very high.
I'm still learning how to sideboard with Jund Shadow, but in general I think of the deck as having two complimentary halves. There's the "Jund" half, with Inquisition, Tarmogoyf, Liliana of the Veil, and all of the removal. Then there's the "Shadow" half, with Thoughtseize, Death's Shadow, and Street Wraith. In general, I find that I like to lean on the Jund half for fair matchups (Izzet Phoenix, U/W/x, B/G/x, Shadow mirrors, Burn, and most creature decks), and the Shadow half for unfair matchups (KCI, Tron, Dredge, Hollow One). Independent of either strategy are cards like Traverse the Ulvenwald and Mishra's Bauble, which are just cogs in the machine that make it easier to execute either strategy and find the correct threat for the matchup.
The flexibility to transition up and down the agro/control -> midrange scale is a commonly praised hallmark of Grixis Shadow, and while I think it's not possible for 4 color to effectively do the same thing, Jund Shadow is very much able to move up and down that scale, as well. That flexibility is the core of why I think both 3 color versions are superior to the 4 color one. I think that the decks do it differently, though, with Grixis more dependent on using its sideboard to move up and down the scale, while Jund Shadow is less dependent on its sideboard (and less helped by it) and more dependent on adjusting the way you're actually playing in-game. I typically play to the Jund half by being more conservative with my life total and boarding out a couple of Street Wraiths. I will often fetch basics early on against U/R decks like Blue Moon and Izzet Phoenix, because if you don't give them the chance to burn you out its actually pretty hard for them to win because they do such a poor job of killing your creatures. In these matchups, I treat Death's Shadow as more of an insurance policy to guarantee that my opponent won't be able to out-race me, and don't worry too much about powering them out early.
I've actually been thinking about recording a deck tech and a couple leagues and putting them up on Youtube, because I don't see anyone else talking about this deck the way I think of it.
Wow !! Same here; I'm on jund 3 color shadow since BBE unban. I play it exactly the way you do and my win% is so high.
I like the way you explain it tho.. "jund half" and "shadow half" so true.
Not having to be aggresive and fetching basic early the game happens so often.
I think you could run BBE, but I don't think it's necessary to beat traditional Jund, U/W/x, or Grixis Shadow. It helps the most against Grixis, but even there I think that there are better cards that we have access to for less than 4 mana, like Liliana of the Veil.
In general, I've found that my best plan against Jund is to leverage the fact that they will (on average) have more dead draws than I will over the course of a long game, because of the additional lands they run. With that in mind, I usually trim on Street Wraiths, cut my Inquisitions, and cut my Battle Rages. With the list I'm currently playing, I would go:
-2 Temur Battle Rage
-4 Inquisition of Kozilek
-2 Street Wraith
-1 Thoughtseize
+1 Abrupt Decay
+2 Assassin's Trophy
+1 Fatal Push
+3 Fulminator Mage
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope
+1 Phyrexian Arena
There are two things about Jund that make it difficult to navigate: Liliana of the Veil and BBE. A resolved Liliana can win a game entirely on her own, depending on your ability to remove her. You really have to constantly ask yourself what your next turn will look like if your opponent plays a Liliana, I found that the more I hedged against her the better I did. BBE is an issue because of how swingy it is, and because it's such a clean answer to our Lilianas.
I do something similar against U/W and Jeskai, cutting removal instead of discard:
-2 Street Wraith
-2 Temur Battle Rage
-3 Fatal Push
+2 Assassin's Trophy
+3 Fulminator Mage
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope
+1 Phyrexian Arena
I leave in Tarfire as a tool for dealing with Planeswalkers, and Terminate to deal with the angel package these decks commonly run, in addition to Colonnade. U/W has a hard time sticking threats because we're able to cleanly answer a lot of them post-board, so you can take your time to try to sequence your cards to get the maximum value out of them. That's not as true against Jeskai, but their removal doesn't line up as cleanly against you, so in general I find these games to go a bit quicker than U/W.
Against Grixis Shadow, I like overloading on removal. Having played Grixis against a variety of B/G/x and other grindy strategies, the hardest thing to deal with was always the glut of removal that a deck like B/G Rock has access to. While we still don't have quite as much, I've found that this deck does generally have enough removal to keep the battlefield clear. With that in mind, I really don't change a ton:
-2 Temur Battle Rage
-2/1 Inquisition of Kozilek
-1/2 Street Wraith
+1 Abrupt Decay
+2 Assassin's Trophy
+1 Fatal Push
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope
+1 Phyrexian Arena
On the play, I like to trim an extra Inquisition and keep in an extra Street Wraith, to try allow for a more aggressive start. On the draw, it's important that you can be sure your removal spells won't get hit with Stubborn Denial, so I like the extra discard spell.
Interesting! My main concern was the UWx matchups. I’ve never felt like they were close at all. I agree that upping the count of Liliana of the veil is an easy way to hedge against GDS, and it also helps quite a bit vs jund. If you didn’t have phyrexian arena for the uwx matchups what would you play in its place?
I consider U/W/x control to be my deck’s worst marchups, but it’s still a winnable one. I really like Fulminator Mage in this matchup, as a way to maintain a board presence while checking one of their win conditions. It’s versatility as an offensive or defensive card is really valuable.
If I wasn’t running Phyrexian Arena I would run a Hazoret. I’m not super wild about Hazoret here because I want this sideboard slot to be a card thay I bring in against BG/G/x, U/W/x, and Grixis Shadow. Both U/W/x and Grixis Shadow have ways to kill Hazoret, and sometimes at 4 mana she gets stuck in your hand. I’m liking Arena right now because I feel like I already have the tools I need to win these matchups, I just need to make sure my threats/answers line up corresctly. This is the perfect opportunity for a raw card advantage engine, and I think Arena is the best option at 3 cmc.
GDS and UWx both have little to no way of interacting with Phyrexian Arena, which seems relevant. Jeskai specifically has burn+snap+burn so running too long off Arena could be risky against them.
It's a card i honestly would've never considered. Thanks for the tip.
Its worth mentioning that your approach seems to better navigate the pitfalls of midrange match-ups but how do you fair against linear decks? Storm should be cake for any Thoughtseize deck but what about phyrexian unlife decks or pyro prison? Or how about decks with mana efficient creatures or lots of fliers? Im specifically interested in your Humans and Spirits match-ups. What are some lines of play you recall working well for you against them? What struggles have you had?
While i wouldn't consider either Humans or Spirits more difficult opponents than UWx or BGx, i would say that the former are far more prevalent in the meta than the latter. I think it's important to hedge for SB bets where you can realistically make up the most ground.
I’ve found my matchups against linear decks to be pretty god, especially post-board. Fulminator is a great tool for denying resources, and a well timed stone rain can sometimes decide a game on its own.
Against Spirits and Humans I lean on the Jund half of the deck to just play a classic midrange game. I usually side out all of my Street Wraiths and as many Thoughtseize as I can. I bring in everything that can kill creatures and then look to play a slower game. This means I’m usually fetching a basic early on and generally being more conservative with my life total.
Ad Nauseam is probably a great matchup, you can side out your removal and side in Fulminators and just deny them resources. I’m pretty sure this was always a good matchup for classic Jund, and Shadow has a Lowe fail rate for being aggressive.
Pyro Prison is tricky. A friend of mine is a big proponent of the deck, and he regarded Traverse Shadow as a bad matchup. Basically, Shadow can’t beat their absolute best hands, but it can consistently beat all of the rest. As long as you play around blood moon, you should generally have the tools to break through whatever lock pieces they have assembled.
This deck has dozens of pilots! Stephen was actually on-camera against Ross Miriam when he was having his break-out performance with Izzet Phoenix a few Opens ago. I don't think he had the Berserkers at the time, but they make a ton of sense on paper. This deck doesn't run many hasty creatures and it's another tool for dealing with resolved Planeswalkers. I'm not sure that you need it, but it's definitely an option worth considering.
I don't personally think it would be useful against anything but storm or KCI. Burn and Izzet will just bolt it. Tron and UW aren't particularly concerned because it's a slow source of dmg against them. This creature costs 3 mana which is considerable amount. Also requires RR which isn't always easy.
I think most configurations of Traverse Shadow should have a fairly positive win percentage against both Storm and KCI so i wouldn't consider Scab Clan. Against Tron, UWx, and Phoenix there are far better options with more reasonable casting costs. To credit Defish, packing a few Fulminator Mages in SB will help much more against UW and Tron.
Anyone taken a look at any of the new RNA cards as consideration for our Archetype?
Cindervines is probably at the top of my list of cards to test. It might end up that pinging for 1 damage just isn't enough and that you're better off just running something like an Ancient Grudge, but this card does check a few boxes for me:
- The obvious hate against Storm/KCI
- Can come in against Izzet Phoenix, and sit in play to eventually blow up a Blood Moon or Pyromancer's Ascension.
- Can come in against a deck like Lantern or the new 4c Artifact Prison deck
- Can come in against U/W/x
- Can come in against Burn and offer the potential to answer an Eidolon without losing any life. Alternatively, it can hit both Rest in Peace and Ensnaring Bridge, which can be problematic cards post-board.
- Can come in against Tron to punish them for spinning their wheels and answer any of the many artifacts they have.
Most of the above matchups are ones where some number of these conditions are true:
- you need to race
- your oppponent's removal lines up well against your creatures, and it can be hard to push the last bit of damage through
- the opposing deck plays a lot of non-creature spells
I'll probably start by trying 2 in the sideboard, just to have a better chance to see them when I board them in. I may even run a league with one in the main instead of my Abrupt Decay, again just to see the card more often. Cindervines jumped out to me as the most playable option, but Electrodominance also jumped out based on power level alone. I don't think this deck runs enough lands to really take advantage of it, but I would be interested in seeing Jund adopt a few copies to regain some of the dominance it used to have over creature-based decks.
In general, this set seems to have more cog pieces than build-around cards (like Phoenix or Hollow One) to me.
I thought of Cindervines against burn as well. They have no outs for it (as they wont be boarding Revelry in against you) and it helps you race them really well. It can take out some scary threats in Bridge or Eidolon.
KCI has a solid answer in EE but it does shut down their churning to find such answers. It seems good against Phoenix too as long as you get it online early enough.
It's interesting to considerit against UWx because normally i wouldn't think this slow source of damage but the opportunity to takeout an Azcanta pre-flip or Detention Sphere is nice. They might not even cast DS if you've already landed a Cindervines
I think it operates pretty similarly to Fulminator Mage in that matchup, which is what has me excited about it. It's an answer that can be played proactively, and can chip away at your opponent and gradually put pressure on them as the game drags on. I really value cards like that because you do want most of your cards to be proactive, and having to keep in something like Fatal Push to deal with Colonnade (which Grixis has to do) lowers the overall quality of your draws. I do like keeping my 2 Terminates in against U/W/x, though, because the angel package is a pretty widely used option at this point and it still answers random stuff like Colonnade and Vendilion Clique, which can sometimes be randomly problematic. I've been shuffling my list around a bit over the last few days and I'm actually really excited to play against U/W/x again, because it's one of the matchups that I think has been improved by the changes I made.
-1 Scavenging Ooze
-2 Tireless Tracker
+1 Abrupt Decay
+1 Fatal Push
+1 Phyrexian Arena
With that, so far I’ve beaten Tron, Grixis Shadow, and Jund. My list plays surprisingly well against the other grindy decks right now. I think that one of those 3 cards should end up being an Ancient Grudge at some point, I’m currently leaning towards Push.
I played against one of the guys who recently got first place in the SCG tournament at my store. Game 3 I made a mistake scrying to the bottom a steam vents I needed for my Shadow against him as Hollow One in game 3. I instantly regretted it the second I bottomed it. The tiny decisions you make in Grixis multiple turns ago can be disastrous. I feel like Jund Shadow has less of that.
There isn't that much info on an expansive sideboard with Jund Shadow and 4C shadow. I would love to see one and write it down.
Ben Jones twitter account really helped me board correctly with Grixis. Just need enough references.
It's funny, because when I first switched to Grixis from 5-Color (before Grixis adopted Baubles) I felt exactly the opposite, that Grixis was so much easier to play because there were less micro-decisions that could come back to haunt me. That scale has definitely shifted now, and I find the Jund version much easier to pilot.
I have pretty differing sideboard philosophies for Jund vs 4C. With 4C, when going to sideboard I primarily think about how I want to interact with my opponent, since I can interact with them/their stuff in every way possible. I think that finding the right balance of discard, countermagic, removal, land hate, and graveyard hate post-board across all of your matchups is the biggest learning curve that 4C has. In general, I felt like when I had a well-built sideboard and knew how much of each kind of interaction I wanted (and didn't lose to my mana base) my winrate against more linear decks was very high.
I'm still learning how to sideboard with Jund Shadow, but in general I think of the deck as having two complimentary halves. There's the "Jund" half, with Inquisition, Tarmogoyf, Liliana of the Veil, and all of the removal. Then there's the "Shadow" half, with Thoughtseize, Death's Shadow, and Street Wraith. In general, I find that I like to lean on the Jund half for fair matchups (Izzet Phoenix, U/W/x, B/G/x, Shadow mirrors, Burn, and most creature decks), and the Shadow half for unfair matchups (KCI, Tron, Dredge, Hollow One). Independent of either strategy are cards like Traverse the Ulvenwald and Mishra's Bauble, which are just cogs in the machine that make it easier to execute either strategy and find the correct threat for the matchup.
The flexibility to transition up and down the agro/control -> midrange scale is a commonly praised hallmark of Grixis Shadow, and while I think it's not possible for 4 color to effectively do the same thing, Jund Shadow is very much able to move up and down that scale, as well. That flexibility is the core of why I think both 3 color versions are superior to the 4 color one. I think that the decks do it differently, though, with Grixis more dependent on using its sideboard to move up and down the scale, while Jund Shadow is less dependent on its sideboard (and less helped by it) and more dependent on adjusting the way you're actually playing in-game. I typically play to the Jund half by being more conservative with my life total and boarding out a couple of Street Wraiths. I will often fetch basics early on against U/R decks like Blue Moon and Izzet Phoenix, because if you don't give them the chance to burn you out its actually pretty hard for them to win because they do such a poor job of killing your creatures. In these matchups, I treat Death's Shadow as more of an insurance policy to guarantee that my opponent won't be able to out-race me, and don't worry too much about powering them out early.
I've actually been thinking about recording a deck tech and a couple leagues and putting them up on Youtube, because I don't see anyone else talking about this deck the way I think of it.
GURB Grixis/Jund Shadow
RBG Dredge
xUx U Ballista Tron
Commander
GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius
BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth
WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith
RRR Feldon of the Third Path
WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
Draft My Cube!
Regarding the midrange/control matchups - do you think Bloodbraid Elf as a sideboard card could be a viable here? I've always found the control matchups to be the hardest with the 4 color versions, and I think BBE could do a lot of work here. My only concern is if a mountain is needed to make sure we don't get field of ruined out of being able to cast BBE. What do you think? I'm planning on trying quite a few copies out in my local meta where there's usually quite a few control players.
Wow !! Same here; I'm on jund 3 color shadow since BBE unban. I play it exactly the way you do and my win% is so high.
I like the way you explain it tho.. "jund half" and "shadow half" so true.
Not having to be aggresive and fetching basic early the game happens so often.
Goodjob, great text.
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
In general, I've found that my best plan against Jund is to leverage the fact that they will (on average) have more dead draws than I will over the course of a long game, because of the additional lands they run. With that in mind, I usually trim on Street Wraiths, cut my Inquisitions, and cut my Battle Rages. With the list I'm currently playing, I would go:
-2 Temur Battle Rage
-4 Inquisition of Kozilek
-2 Street Wraith
-1 Thoughtseize
+1 Abrupt Decay
+2 Assassin's Trophy
+1 Fatal Push
+3 Fulminator Mage
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope
+1 Phyrexian Arena
There are two things about Jund that make it difficult to navigate: Liliana of the Veil and BBE. A resolved Liliana can win a game entirely on her own, depending on your ability to remove her. You really have to constantly ask yourself what your next turn will look like if your opponent plays a Liliana, I found that the more I hedged against her the better I did. BBE is an issue because of how swingy it is, and because it's such a clean answer to our Lilianas.
I do something similar against U/W and Jeskai, cutting removal instead of discard:
-2 Street Wraith
-2 Temur Battle Rage
-3 Fatal Push
+2 Assassin's Trophy
+3 Fulminator Mage
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope
+1 Phyrexian Arena
I leave in Tarfire as a tool for dealing with Planeswalkers, and Terminate to deal with the angel package these decks commonly run, in addition to Colonnade. U/W has a hard time sticking threats because we're able to cleanly answer a lot of them post-board, so you can take your time to try to sequence your cards to get the maximum value out of them. That's not as true against Jeskai, but their removal doesn't line up as cleanly against you, so in general I find these games to go a bit quicker than U/W.
Against Grixis Shadow, I like overloading on removal. Having played Grixis against a variety of B/G/x and other grindy strategies, the hardest thing to deal with was always the glut of removal that a deck like B/G Rock has access to. While we still don't have quite as much, I've found that this deck does generally have enough removal to keep the battlefield clear. With that in mind, I really don't change a ton:
-2 Temur Battle Rage
-2/1 Inquisition of Kozilek
-1/2 Street Wraith
+1 Abrupt Decay
+2 Assassin's Trophy
+1 Fatal Push
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope
+1 Phyrexian Arena
On the play, I like to trim an extra Inquisition and keep in an extra Street Wraith, to try allow for a more aggressive start. On the draw, it's important that you can be sure your removal spells won't get hit with Stubborn Denial, so I like the extra discard spell.
If I wasn’t running Phyrexian Arena I would run a Hazoret. I’m not super wild about Hazoret here because I want this sideboard slot to be a card thay I bring in against BG/G/x, U/W/x, and Grixis Shadow. Both U/W/x and Grixis Shadow have ways to kill Hazoret, and sometimes at 4 mana she gets stuck in your hand. I’m liking Arena right now because I feel like I already have the tools I need to win these matchups, I just need to make sure my threats/answers line up corresctly. This is the perfect opportunity for a raw card advantage engine, and I think Arena is the best option at 3 cmc.
It's a card i honestly would've never considered. Thanks for the tip.
Its worth mentioning that your approach seems to better navigate the pitfalls of midrange match-ups but how do you fair against linear decks? Storm should be cake for any Thoughtseize deck but what about phyrexian unlife decks or pyro prison? Or how about decks with mana efficient creatures or lots of fliers? Im specifically interested in your Humans and Spirits match-ups. What are some lines of play you recall working well for you against them? What struggles have you had?
While i wouldn't consider either Humans or Spirits more difficult opponents than UWx or BGx, i would say that the former are far more prevalent in the meta than the latter. I think it's important to hedge for SB bets where you can realistically make up the most ground.
Draft My Cube!
Against Spirits and Humans I lean on the Jund half of the deck to just play a classic midrange game. I usually side out all of my Street Wraiths and as many Thoughtseize as I can. I bring in everything that can kill creatures and then look to play a slower game. This means I’m usually fetching a basic early on and generally being more conservative with my life total.
Ad Nauseam is probably a great matchup, you can side out your removal and side in Fulminators and just deny them resources. I’m pretty sure this was always a good matchup for classic Jund, and Shadow has a Lowe fail rate for being aggressive.
Pyro Prison is tricky. A friend of mine is a big proponent of the deck, and he regarded Traverse Shadow as a bad matchup. Basically, Shadow can’t beat their absolute best hands, but it can consistently beat all of the rest. As long as you play around blood moon, you should generally have the tools to break through whatever lock pieces they have assembled.
recently, we've seen in a jund shadow list 2x Scab-Clan Berserker in the sideboard.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1575220#paper
It looks good against alot of matchup;
-KCI
-Burn
-Izzet Phoenix
-Tron
-Storm
-Uw control (pressure + can finish a planewalker)
Anyone tested it?
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
I think most configurations of Traverse Shadow should have a fairly positive win percentage against both Storm and KCI so i wouldn't consider Scab Clan. Against Tron, UWx, and Phoenix there are far better options with more reasonable casting costs. To credit Defish, packing a few Fulminator Mages in SB will help much more against UW and Tron.
Anyone taken a look at any of the new RNA cards as consideration for our Archetype?
Draft My Cube!
- The obvious hate against Storm/KCI
- Can come in against Izzet Phoenix, and sit in play to eventually blow up a Blood Moon or Pyromancer's Ascension.
- Can come in against a deck like Lantern or the new 4c Artifact Prison deck
- Can come in against U/W/x
- Can come in against Burn and offer the potential to answer an Eidolon without losing any life. Alternatively, it can hit both Rest in Peace and Ensnaring Bridge, which can be problematic cards post-board.
- Can come in against Tron to punish them for spinning their wheels and answer any of the many artifacts they have.
Most of the above matchups are ones where some number of these conditions are true:
- you need to race
- your oppponent's removal lines up well against your creatures, and it can be hard to push the last bit of damage through
- the opposing deck plays a lot of non-creature spells
I'll probably start by trying 2 in the sideboard, just to have a better chance to see them when I board them in. I may even run a league with one in the main instead of my Abrupt Decay, again just to see the card more often. Cindervines jumped out to me as the most playable option, but Electrodominance also jumped out based on power level alone. I don't think this deck runs enough lands to really take advantage of it, but I would be interested in seeing Jund adopt a few copies to regain some of the dominance it used to have over creature-based decks.
In general, this set seems to have more cog pieces than build-around cards (like Phoenix or Hollow One) to me.
KCI has a solid answer in EE but it does shut down their churning to find such answers. It seems good against Phoenix too as long as you get it online early enough.
It's interesting to considerit against UWx because normally i wouldn't think this slow source of damage but the opportunity to takeout an Azcanta pre-flip or Detention Sphere is nice. They might not even cast DS if you've already landed a Cindervines
Draft My Cube!
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki