run nihil spellbomb to hose dredge. but it might be appropriate to drop it turn 2 or 3 or even 4 as opposed to turn 1. especially if on the play. this way if they try to smash the bomb with nature's claim you can just crack it in response and they lose their stuff. whereas if it gets popped on turn 1 thats too easy; they dont really lose anything and begin dredging again. i dont know.
So I have been doing a ton of testing for the modern GP in Lille. I am not 100% sure on the specific build of Junk I want to run but it will come down to a traditional version with noble hierarchs and one without, similar to the decks played by Efro and Hefner in pro tour Fate reforged. Anyways, in both versions the SB card I have been having a lot of success with vs Dredge that isn't a narrow card with huge peaks and valleys like leyline has been Ghostly Prison. It has served a great role vs other decks too like affinity infect merfolk elves and deaths shadow aggro and isn't so narrow as leyline that is really only in for one kind of deck and has to be in your opening hand.
So I have a gameplay question. You are against dredge and you are on the draw.
Your opponent goes land, neonate, go.
Your hand is Inquisition, Nihil Spellbomb, lands and irrelevant spells. Do you lead on inquisition or spellbomb first and why?
What if it was inquisition and cage and lands? What if it was inquisition, cage, AND spellbomb and lands?
Spellbomb 100% the dredge deck can get out of hand incredibly fast. Inquisition against them on the draw can be a complete miss the fact that they lead with neonate means they don't have a faithless looting on hand so your likely cards you strip from them are not at all appealing or cards you can't even take. In the second scenario cage is better as it slows them down as you prepare for the spellbomb on the follow up turn.
Spellbomb 100% the dredge deck can get out of hand incredibly fast. Inquisition against them on the draw can be a complete miss the fact that they lead with neonate means they don't have a faithless looting on hand so your likely cards you strip from them are not at all appealing or cards you can't even take. In the second scenario cage is better as it slows them down as you prepare for the spellbomb on the follow up turn.
Thanks for your input buddy.
How about if you were on the play? Do you lead with spellbomb if youre afraid of the nut neonate + dredger in draw? Or do you slowroll your spellbomb until t2 to play around their abrupt decay/ ancient grudge/ natures claim?
What if it was cage/ inquisition? What if it was all 3 again?
If you are on the play it all depends on the texture of your hand. Me saying "always lead off with inquisition" assumes nothing about the rest of your hand. My advise would be that you bring in the 1 cost graveyard hate in for a reason. The graffdiggers cage would almost always be my main priority on the play or draw to get it out there as it slows down most of their flood the board with ghasts amalgams and moebas draws. My philosophy is always if you bring a haymaker SB card in you need a very good reason not to lay it on curve. If you're up against affinity and you draw stony silence on curve do you not play it because you "think" I can take an unknown etched champion with this Thoughtseize? No you play your haymaker SB card. Hand disruption will almost never be the reason you win a game vs dredge but spellbomb and cage will. So play them even if it's mana inefficient and do it on curve
Id like to go over a couple things, to keep the thread moving.
A) Willy Edel via Twitter said that Abzan is better than Jund straight out. Woot?
B) He says Grim Flayer is really good. Like, really good. The card filtering is strong and milling Lingering Souls is effectively drawing a card.
C) He is also giving high praise to Collective Brutality. Even going as far as saying it should replace all of the burn hate in our sideboard.
D) Michael Majors is echoing what Edel saying, top 8ing the SCG invitational with a list that ran 3 Grim Flayers and 1 Collective Brutality main. He also main decked 2 Nihil Spellbomb to probably anticipate dredge and enabling delirium
Where do we go from here?
I am currently testing 2 Grim Flayers and have 1 Tasigur currently along with 1 Collective Brutality. Grims have been awesome and the filtering ability is amazing
Brutality I have not drawn enough yet to say much but we will see. Its pretty versatile so I am open to trying it out. Next, I am not going to main 2 spellbombs until dredge becomes that popular. Instead, I might try 1 Engineered Explosives mainboard since it is at least somewhat useful in most matchups.
Abzan is better vs Jund this has been born out by numerous statistical experience, something like 68% I read is the Junk vs Jund matchup. I think Grim Flayer is a really exciting card that has the potential to redefine this archetype similar to how Siege Rhino created new space for this deck. I can say personally I just don't know quite yet how I want to build it optimally. It took Jund a really long time before Kalitas just became standard and my guess is that Grim Flayer to be a 3-4 of would require a huge shakeup in the deck. You can't just take out 3 cards and put them in you might have to completely change multiple parts of the deck. I like what majors did I've also seen others play and talk about their work and IMO collective brutality is the real deal more so than flayer. The problem I foresee with grim flayer is that in a vacuum do we play it before Tarmogoyf. There is always a lot of context to that question but in theory is abzan a Tarmogoyf deck or a flayer deck and idk what that answer would be yet
Abzan is better vs Jund this has been born out by numerous statistical experience, something like 68% I read is the Junk vs Jund matchup. I think Grim Flayer is a really exciting card that has the potential to redefine this archetype similar to how Siege Rhino created new space for this deck. I can say personally I just don't know quite yet how I want to build it optimally. It took Jund a really long time before Kalitas just became standard and my guess is that Grim Flayer to be a 3-4 of would require a huge shakeup in the deck. You can't just take out 3 cards and put them in you might have to completely change multiple parts of the deck. I like what majors did I've also seen others play and talk about their work and IMO collective brutality is the real deal more so than flayer. The problem I foresee with grim flayer is that in a vacuum do we play it before Tarmogoyf. There is always a lot of context to that question but in theory is abzan a Tarmogoyf deck or a flayer deck and idk what that answer would be yet
Willy wasnt saying the specific Abzan vs Jund matchup. He said Abzan was better vs the meta as a whole than Jund. Sorry for the confusion.
The thing about your Kalitas example is there are a ton more people playing Jund han Abzan. Which means more testing and them finding the optimal build quicker. Itll take some time for us Abzan players since theres less people testing, less sample size, at least as of right now. And you could be right that Flayer should be 3-4 of. Thats why I mentioned that I run 1 Tasigur since Majors ran 3 Grims and no Tasigurs. Maybe I should be cutting him for the 3rd Grim.
You mention that Collective Brutality is the real deal. How has it been for you specifically? What matchups did it shine in practice?
In regards to your last question, I think thats a good "problem" to have. It shows how we can have a versatile game plan. It really just depends on the matchup. For example, against a combo deck like Ad Nauseum, you slam Grim and dig for discard and disruption. If youre playing around Lightning Bolt, I think you hold both until either or can survive 3 damage (so probably goyf first). If you are playing around Spell Snare, those decks usually play Bolt. So, Id probably just run goyf out first, wait for delirium, then slam grim to have card selection.
If youre the control deck in the matchup, like vs burn, depends on the texture hand. If tou have access to fetch+discard, probably goyf since it blocks better. If goyf is a 0/1 or 1/2, probably grim.
Abzan is a good choice when Jund is one of the best decks in the format by a large margin, is the most played deck in the format and when path is more optimal, and he believes rightly all of those conditions are met. As to Collective Brutality it's a great 2/2 vs and decks playing turn one mana dorks and CoCo, Evolutions or Chords as well as any decks hoping to play a creature and pump it to victory. It's also good vs all the burn creatures. On paper it seems like a 2 for 2 but in reality it is a big tempo swing as we get two modes on one card and with the right conditions we trade a card like lingering souls or a useless land or spell for their best spell which might kill us or even generate a 2-1 against us. The second reason I love it is it solves the age old problem of I really don't want to path this birds or paradise we have that Jund doesn't
Abzan is a good choice when Jund is one of the best decks in the format by a large margin, is the most played deck in the format and when path is more optimal, and he believes rightly all of those conditions are met. As to Collective Brutality it's a great 2/2 vs and decks playing turn one mana dorks and CoCo, Evolutions or Chords as well as any decks hoping to play a creature and pump it to victory. It's also good vs all the burn creatures. On paper it seems like a 2 for 2 but in reality it is a big tempo swing as we get two modes on one card and with the right conditions we trade a card like lingering souls or a useless land or spell for their best spell which might kill us or even generate a 2-1 against us. The second reason I love it is it solves the age old problem of I really don't want to path this birds or paradise we have that Jund doesn't
For your specific Coco example, how aggressive do you Escalate if they have a x/2 in play? Do you discard Lilly, souls, or a land and hope to hit a coco/chord? What cards do you not mind throwing away in that matchup?
Ill ask the same for the burn matchup. Every mode seems really good and I am wondering which cards you can just willingly throw away. Is throwing an extra land away that you might meed later worth the drain 2? For example, do you ditch land #3 with rhino in hand to drain?
I think you want specifics that I just can't answer, discarding a siege rhino as part of escalate or a land that could play a rhino to escalate Vs burn is very much dependent on so many factors, did I lead with an discard and see that I need to escalate or can I wait a turn and see. I would almost always escalate vs CoCo decks and burn decks when on the play to get their mana dorks but I would have to consider escalating to get rid of a voice of resurgence, but I would escalate vs any of their combo pieces outside of say a finks unless I knew I needed to. My advise is asking for specifics this detailed will be nearly impossible to answer because so much can happen or be changed based on my opening hand. In general I would do the most aggressive play vs decks trying to race you and I would do the most controlling thing vs the decks that want to grind with you for a little bit. Knowing who is the beat down deck answers 99% of what you have asked
Lots of abzan in the feature matches at GP Indy one with dark confidants and no grim flayer or siege rhino and then one without flayer but more traditional and then one with flayer. Abzan definitely seems like it's a good call to make right now over Jund
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
Lots of abzan in the feature matches at GP Indy one with dark confidants and no grim flayer or siege rhino and then one without flayer but more traditional and then one with flayer. Abzan definitely seems like it's a good call to make right now over Jund
Nice! Hopefully they post the decklists.
@Lil Bolas, Wheel has been too slow for me against dredge. By turn 2, they can already go off if youre on the draw.
Declaration in Stone seems good in combo with graveyard hate. However, it doesnt seem good to give dredge fodder in the clue token. Of course this is on paper.
Declaration in Stone removes all the problems, yeah they can crack clues and dredge. I'm not concerned about that after I removed all the recursion from them.
Private Mod Note
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Level 1 Judge
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
i feel like 4 siege rhino is the way to go with this deck. whenever i played games, i always wanted to draw more of him. i was running 3 at the time. he really helped out against bant eldrazi and jund. nice finisher against zoo if you're still alive. probably worth noting that i had just 3 manlands, and ran dark confidant.
2 damnation/wrath of god or whatever out the side is nice, probably helps against eldrazi, merfolk, affinity (board out discard). i never seem to draw it though.
The lists from the GPs have been posted! Theres a couple things to note.
A) Grim Flayers everywhere. It seems like he is becoming a staple in Junk for sure.
B) No Tasigurs to be found. Tasigurs ability definitely nombos with grim since you want to Delve away your discard spells late game in a top deck war, but that turns off delirium. Your opponent can also just return the one of card type as well.
C) Collective Brutality is everywhere. The versatility is good and it can take the 7th discard spell out of the sideboard to make room for other cards.
D) PVDRR and Ben stark seem to help enable delirium by adding Engineered Explosives and Mishras Bauble to their main respectively. I was thinking about adding an Explosives main as well and its a good sign seeing that idea turn out well for Paulo. Paulo also added Shriekmaw to add a creature to the yard. Not sure how well it works out but its helps.
Where do we go from here?
Well it looks like we will have to find room for Grim Flayer and Collective Brutality and Tasigur seems to be cut to help fuel Flayer. Now its just a matter of how much we want to build around delirium.
I also noticed PVDDR had 3 Damnations in the board. Seems like a lot but I guess he was worried with Bant Eldrazi, which has been sneakily rising in popularity. I am not sure about 3 copies. I like Flaying Tendrils against Abzan Company and Dredge. But, I am kind of leaning towards 2 copies. (Which will total 2 Damnation, 1 Flaying Tendrils) Do people like multiple Damnations in the board?
Edit: maybe its a good time to bring back Worship. It was great against eldrazi back during eldrazi winter and its still just as good against burn (that just won), merfolk, etc.
This is my current list at the moment. I am fairly satisfied with how the main looks but my sideboard is up in the air. Ive been throwing Fulminators in and out and ultinately decided that I dont want them. Tron is such an unwinnable matchup that 2 Fulminators arent cutting it. So, I filled 1 slot with Memoricide since it can still give me game vs Scapeshift without dedicating fulminators while also having game against other combo decks.
The last slot is what I am having trouble with. Anyone have any suggestions? I was thinking of a second Damnation for Bant Eldrazi? But that leads to having 4 wraths in the 75 which seems like a lot. What are some other options I could consider?
Your opponent goes land, neonate, go.
Your hand is Inquisition, Nihil Spellbomb, lands and irrelevant spells. Do you lead on inquisition or spellbomb first and why?
What if it was inquisition and cage and lands? What if it was inquisition, cage, AND spellbomb and lands?
Thanks for your input buddy.
How about if you were on the play? Do you lead with spellbomb if youre afraid of the nut neonate + dredger in draw? Or do you slowroll your spellbomb until t2 to play around their abrupt decay/ ancient grudge/ natures claim?
What if it was cage/ inquisition? What if it was all 3 again?
A) Willy Edel via Twitter said that Abzan is better than Jund straight out. Woot?
B) He says Grim Flayer is really good. Like, really good. The card filtering is strong and milling Lingering Souls is effectively drawing a card.
C) He is also giving high praise to Collective Brutality. Even going as far as saying it should replace all of the burn hate in our sideboard.
D) Michael Majors is echoing what Edel saying, top 8ing the SCG invitational with a list that ran 3 Grim Flayers and 1 Collective Brutality main. He also main decked 2 Nihil Spellbomb to probably anticipate dredge and enabling delirium
Where do we go from here?
I am currently testing 2 Grim Flayers and have 1 Tasigur currently along with 1 Collective Brutality. Grims have been awesome and the filtering ability is amazing
Brutality I have not drawn enough yet to say much but we will see. Its pretty versatile so I am open to trying it out. Next, I am not going to main 2 spellbombs until dredge becomes that popular. Instead, I might try 1 Engineered Explosives mainboard since it is at least somewhat useful in most matchups.
Thoughts and comments?
Willy wasnt saying the specific Abzan vs Jund matchup. He said Abzan was better vs the meta as a whole than Jund. Sorry for the confusion.
The thing about your Kalitas example is there are a ton more people playing Jund han Abzan. Which means more testing and them finding the optimal build quicker. Itll take some time for us Abzan players since theres less people testing, less sample size, at least as of right now. And you could be right that Flayer should be 3-4 of. Thats why I mentioned that I run 1 Tasigur since Majors ran 3 Grims and no Tasigurs. Maybe I should be cutting him for the 3rd Grim.
You mention that Collective Brutality is the real deal. How has it been for you specifically? What matchups did it shine in practice?
In regards to your last question, I think thats a good "problem" to have. It shows how we can have a versatile game plan. It really just depends on the matchup. For example, against a combo deck like Ad Nauseum, you slam Grim and dig for discard and disruption. If youre playing around Lightning Bolt, I think you hold both until either or can survive 3 damage (so probably goyf first). If you are playing around Spell Snare, those decks usually play Bolt. So, Id probably just run goyf out first, wait for delirium, then slam grim to have card selection.
If youre the control deck in the matchup, like vs burn, depends on the texture hand. If tou have access to fetch+discard, probably goyf since it blocks better. If goyf is a 0/1 or 1/2, probably grim.
For your specific Coco example, how aggressive do you Escalate if they have a x/2 in play? Do you discard Lilly, souls, or a land and hope to hit a coco/chord? What cards do you not mind throwing away in that matchup?
Ill ask the same for the burn matchup. Every mode seems really good and I am wondering which cards you can just willingly throw away. Is throwing an extra land away that you might meed later worth the drain 2? For example, do you ditch land #3 with rhino in hand to drain?
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
Nice! Hopefully they post the decklists.
@Lil Bolas, Wheel has been too slow for me against dredge. By turn 2, they can already go off if youre on the draw.
Declaration in Stone seems good in combo with graveyard hate. However, it doesnt seem good to give dredge fodder in the clue token. Of course this is on paper.
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
2 damnation/wrath of god or whatever out the side is nice, probably helps against eldrazi, merfolk, affinity (board out discard). i never seem to draw it though.
idk though, rhino was always good in my games
A) Grim Flayers everywhere. It seems like he is becoming a staple in Junk for sure.
B) No Tasigurs to be found. Tasigurs ability definitely nombos with grim since you want to Delve away your discard spells late game in a top deck war, but that turns off delirium. Your opponent can also just return the one of card type as well.
C) Collective Brutality is everywhere. The versatility is good and it can take the 7th discard spell out of the sideboard to make room for other cards.
D) PVDRR and Ben stark seem to help enable delirium by adding Engineered Explosives and Mishras Bauble to their main respectively. I was thinking about adding an Explosives main as well and its a good sign seeing that idea turn out well for Paulo. Paulo also added Shriekmaw to add a creature to the yard. Not sure how well it works out but its helps.
Where do we go from here?
Well it looks like we will have to find room for Grim Flayer and Collective Brutality and Tasigur seems to be cut to help fuel Flayer. Now its just a matter of how much we want to build around delirium.
Edit: maybe its a good time to bring back Worship. It was great against eldrazi back during eldrazi winter and its still just as good against burn (that just won), merfolk, etc.
1 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Godless Shrine
1 Hissing Quagmire
2 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Shambling Vent
1 Stirring Wildwood
2 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
1 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
3 Grim Flayer
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Siege Rhino
Sorcerys (13)
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
1 Collective Brutality
4 Lingering Souls
2 Maelstrom Pulse
Instant (7)
4 Path to Exile
3 Abrupt Decay
Artifacts (1)
1 Engineered Explosives
Planeswalkers (3)
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Damnation
1 Disfigure
1 Flaying Tendrils
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Memoricide
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
2 Stony Silence
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
This is my current list at the moment. I am fairly satisfied with how the main looks but my sideboard is up in the air. Ive been throwing Fulminators in and out and ultinately decided that I dont want them. Tron is such an unwinnable matchup that 2 Fulminators arent cutting it. So, I filled 1 slot with Memoricide since it can still give me game vs Scapeshift without dedicating fulminators while also having game against other combo decks.
The last slot is what I am having trouble with. Anyone have any suggestions? I was thinking of a second Damnation for Bant Eldrazi? But that leads to having 4 wraths in the 75 which seems like a lot. What are some other options I could consider?
Edit: might just throw in Liliana, the last Hope just because.