Last updated 2-14-17. Old discussion and primer found here.
Introduction
Throughout Magic's history, several decks stand out for having clever or humorous names. "Raisin Bran", for example, was given the name because it caused most opponents to immediately concede both games resulting in "two scoops"; which was part of the slogan in the popular breakfast cereal, Raisin Bran. While "Junk" isn't nearly as clever as Raisin Bran (or any of the other 'breakfast' decks), the name Junk has become fairly popular in recent years in reference to this particular style of deck. In recent magic history, the name 'Junk' was then replaced with 'Abzan' after Wizards revealed a more defining name to the wedge color in Khans of Tarkir, similar to shard colors from the Alara block. Since then, the deck has taken the name Abzan, but is still often referred to as Junk.
Decks with the name "Junk" didn't follow a very close trend as some other decks may have over the years, but it was the most popular name of the Green/Black/White GWB wedge up until its recent renaming. A deck like Junk doesn't really have a solid strategy or plan, it's just a pile of good cards usually. Thus the name Junk was really the best way to describe it. It is arguable that Junk does seem to kind of fit the color description as well, but its perfectly okay to call it by its other names.
Junk/Abzan has had many different iterations in the past and continues to be a fairly popular color combination even in recent standard seasons. Past iterations have included Abzan control from KTK/THS standard, Junk reanimator from RTR/INN standard season, Treefolk builds, to Tooth and Nail builds, all the way back to stax builds. The modern variant is mainly independent of other past abzan decks (excluding its legacy variants which can be very similar), but glimpses of it's standard iterations do appear in it. Modern Junk's greatest element is control, while also having a fair amount of aggro element to it and little to no combo elements. Most builds of the deck have little synergy and do not have a linear game plan. What makes our deck strong is the raw power of each individual card and how those cards affect games against any deck. That said, it is important to understand which cards are good in which situations and how, while also understanding which role you are in a match: are you trying to control the game and lock down the board? Or are you playing the beatdown and trying to end the game? As a player, your job is to know when to switch between the two roles, or in more difficult situations, how to sit on the fence and do both.
Here are some points to help you decide if this deck is for you or not:
Pros - what you will like about this deck if you decide to play it
The control strategy: lots of good removal and good disruption
Raw power among individual cards
Lots of choices and creativity in the deckbuilding process (contrary to popular belief)
The ability to handle and interact with any other deck in the format, with few exceptions
Usually tier 1. Always viable in any meta.
Cons - what you won't like about this deck if you decide to play it
This deck doesn't try to make problems (like affinity or storm), it tries to solve them, and sometimes you don't draw the right answer to the problem.
"Crack a fetch, take a shock, cast thoughtseize. Oops, flipped batterskull off my bob. Lightning Bolt? Yeah, GG."
Not having a real game plan sometimes.
The amount of money that will be left in your bank account. I highly advise you avoid this deck if budget is a concern for you!
In order to organize the primer in a way that best covers the many different possibilities of modern abzan/junk in a constantly changing meta, yet keep everything cohesive and consistent, I have divided this primer into the following sections. 'Competitively Speaking' is a section that discusses what is most commonly found to do well in the current meta game and geared more towards those building the deck for its competitive viability and may not be familiar with a deck in this archetype. 'Building a deck' is a section that goes over different approaches to the deck, including those outside the midrange game plan. While some of the strategies from this section are not typically represented in the current meta game, they do have the potential to win actual matches in modern, and in some rare cases have had exceptional results in notable events. 'Card Choices' is a reference to ALL feasible cards that decks in these colors can utilize excluding the majority of what would be considered sideboard cards. This section is mainly for seasoned players of the deck who may be looking for something specific in a particular meta or for a particular build. The remaining sections are self-explanatory. Although this primer does briefly go over abzan aggro, and collected company abzan, this is not the main primer for those respective decks. Please see the respective primers for those decks if you are looking for more information on those specific variants. Lastly:
Do not discuss budget alternatives to cards in the non-Budget deck threads. We are going to be cracking down on this...
The BG/x shell
Just like Jund and other BG/x midrange decks in the format, Junk includes the usual cards included in any BG/x deck. All of the cards discussed below are must-haves for this deck, with little exception.
Dark Confidant - This card is kind of a strategy in and of itself. Dark Confidant, or 'Bob' for short, draws us extra cards to help us gain card advantage. If left unchecked, Bob can often make a very clear difference in the outcome of a match by simply drawing us 2 cards per a turn and overwhelming our opponent with our extra cards. His ability is certainly better than his body, but that doesn't mean a 2/1 for 2 mana is bad either; he can be a beater if he needs to be...or a blocker if worse comes to worse. If his life loss becomes too much of a problem, you can offset the life loss with some of our deck's life gain abilities (vault of the archangel, scavenging ooze) or just remove him with our own abundant removal. The higher your life total, the more likely you should cast this card, even against most aggro strategies. Our deck has no way of filtering or card selection and therefore only raw card advantage from Dark Confidant can help us power through opposing strategies.
Tarmogoyf - The epitome of efficiency in a creature in this format. Tarmogoyf is not as good as his price tag may make him out to be, but he certainly is the best at what he does: be a big dude for cheap. He dies to removal, and contrary to popular belief, gets outsized every so often by bigger dudes, but his big butt is really important to our deck. He will usually be 3/4 for 2 mana at the minimum which makes him good as a blocker and as an attacker. Tarmogoyf being able to play both defense and offense is why he is an important part of this deck. No other creature in the format can play this role as well as Tarmogoyf. Unlike Bob, tarmogoyfs are not as expendable to us. You really want to avoid running your tarmogoyf into situations where he can get killed, as games without a tarmogoyf will go a lot longer and possibly give our opponent more chances to kill us instead. And you certainly don't want to waste a tarmogoyf to one of your opponent's lightning bolts, so often times in modern you will want to hold off on casting tarmogoyf until you know he'll at least be a 3/4.
Liliana of the Veil - Many of the format's decks would just overrun us with their strategies if we did not have a way of disrupting them and putting pressure on them in some way. Liliana of the Veil (LotV, or Lili) fits this strategy very well along with our other disruption. There are some decks that really don't care about a 4/5 Tarmogoyf hitting the table on turn 2, or having us draw extra cards off of Bob. Those decks do care about LotV hitting the table and making them continuously discard cards all while threatening their entire board state with her ultimate. If you still don't follow, all you need to know is that she is really good against control and combo strategies that like to have lots of cards in hand or resources on the board. Without her, storm would be a big problem against us, even with the discard we already employ. To top it all off, she has an edict ability that can be critical in some cases. Etched Champion, for example, can usually only be dealt with by using LotV's -2 ability while Etched Champion is their only creature in play (which is rare, but does happen). For these reasons, LotV is another must-have card for this deck, and is considered by some to be the best card in the deck over the other fantastic cards we already have.
Thoughtseize/Inquisition of Kozilek - Lastly, our deck must include some number of hand disruption spells to really solidify the disruptive part of our strategy. Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek (IoK) make up the last few cards that this deck must include. Unlike the previously mentioned cards, these don't necessarily have to be 4-of's. Instead, most BG/x lists run some combination of both. The recommended minimum is 4-6 mainboard in some combination of both. Many people lean more towards thoughtseize as the primary one, but this is the one part of the BG/x shell that is flexible. Currently, I use a 3/3 split of IoK and Thoughtseize, however, many more successful lists have done otherwise. Understanding how to use hand disruption is a big part of playing this kind of deck and cannot be thoroughly explained in this primer. You, as the player, must ultimately decide how you would like to employ these two spells. It is understood, however, that thoughtseize is generally better against the overall meta and IoK is better in metas where aggro is very prevalent. Even if aggro isn't very prevalent, a single matchup against a deck like burn or gruul aggro with 3 or 4 thoughtseizes main board will basically be an automatic loss in game 1. IoK may whiff a bit more often than thoughtseize in this format, but at least a whiff with IoK won't put you out 2 life and, potentially, a game. Use this knowledge, as well as your experience, to decide how best to use these spells in your list. Keep in mind that it may not always be the best play to cast a hand disruption spell as soon as possible, but rather hold onto it for the right moment to catch your opponent off guard.
Other important cards
The BG/x shell is like the foundation for our deck, but that leaves us with about 16 more cards to add to the deck besides the lands. This is where BG/x midrange and it's many variants in modern branch out. Jund, for example, adds red to the mix for a whole branch of options, lightning bolt being the big one. Below are the most popular cards you will see filling the remaining spots in our deck.
Abrupt Decay - Abrupt Decay isn't necessarily an integral part of the BG/x shell, but 9 times out of 10, you will see 2 or 3 of these in any BG/x deck. As much as I love abrupt decay, it does not answer everything. Manlands like raging ravine or celestial colonnade blank abrupt decay pretty hard, as well as anything that costs over 3 mana that is difficult to interact with such as ajani vengeant or other 4 cmc planeswalkers. Even still, abrupt decay answers plenty of the format's problems, enough to still leave some main board spots for it.
Maelstrom Pulse/Anguished Unmaking - As a fan of good removal, these are both cards I like a lot. Honestly, in this format, you really don't need more than 1 or 2 main board, if any. But, in this format, there's always things that need to be removed and both of these will make that task simple...unless its a man-land giving you a problem. Obviously, these two are interchangeable and have pretty clear pros and cons. Maelstrom pulse, while sorcery speed, has the inherent ability to 2-for-1 your opponent. This doesn't happen too often, but usually when it does it will save you the game. Anguished Unmaking obviously will (usually) only deal with 1 problem, but its instant speed which makes it a little more versatile for us. The 3 life is still something to consider too, as our deck is usually already pretty suicidal. I find Anguished Unmaking a little better in a heavy tron and control meta as it deals with wurmcoil engine and planeswalkers a lot better, where as maelstrom pulse is generally a little better against aggro metas with things like merfolk, tokens/soulsisters/martyrproc, or elves.
Grim Flayer - Since the deck lacks selection (and frankly, the majority of the format lacks good selection), this card actually works out nicely in the deck, especially with Dark Confidant. Plus, of course, it serves as a decent aggro threat in the mid or late game if the 2/2 body wasn't doing enough work. Not necessarily of 4-of, usually more in 2 or 3 if any.
Scavenging Ooze - A big contender against the almighty tarmogoyf. It costs the same as tarmogoyf, but it can grow bigger than tarmogoyf while also gaining you life and fighting graveyard-based strategies. The downside? The mana investment. Although his casting cost is just as friendly as goyf's, his ability can only be activated with green mana, which is not in abundance in our 3-color deck. He can still be used, but it will take effect on what kind of lands you play or fetch for in your games. Some people will swear that scavenging ooze is better than tarmogoyf. Scooze is best not played as a 4-of because while two or more are in play, one flourishes while the other remain as grizzly bears. Therefore, most lists play 3.
Fatal Push - Excellent removal spell to compliment path to exile. Much better at getting rid of things like birds of paradise or noble hierarch that we want to kill but don't want to have them get an extra land from it. Of course, doesn't kill everything relevant though, and sometimes requires some setup, but its essentially the closest thing to lightning bolt for our color combination.
Adding white to the shell
Lingering Souls - The first and most popular addition to the BG/x shell with white is lingering souls. Lingering Souls gives our deck both better offense and defense, but unlike tarmogoyf, lingering souls tokens have flying and, in multiples, can cause bigger problems for our opponent than tarmogoyf can at the cost of being a lot smaller. The flashback ability gives our deck some much needed ability to play around decks with lots of removal and sweepers as well. Against aggro lingering souls puts out blockers to help buy us time, and against control, it helps continuously put pressure on the board. But against combo, it may not put enough pressure on the board and we don't need any blockers against most forms of combo. Lingering souls can also get blown out by some cards, too, like electrolyze or maelstrom pulse. That said, lingering souls is really great in combination of lord effects such as the effect from Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Wilt-leaf liege, or Gavony Township. 4 of these may put us up a bit too high on the curve, so 3 is usually a better number, but 4 won't necessarily be a bad thing. The most common play with lingering souls is to discard it with our liliana +1 which essentially is a +1 in card advantage for us most of the time.
Path to Exile - The second most popular addition with white: path to exile. Path is the most efficient and versatile creature removal spell in the format, and second in the whole entire game, swords to plowshares being the best. Sometimes, your opponent gets a Mirran Crusader, or a Phyrexian Obliterator, or even a Blightsteel Colossus...path to exile will be there to save the day. Basically, path to exile is our last resort to creatures that aren't answered by our other spells. Giving your opponent a land is still not necessarily a good thing, though, so you will want to avoid using path to exile in cases where your opponent could make some back-breaking plays with an extra land. That said, the extra land is rarely relevant, especially late game. It's also this deck's best answer to manlands such as Celestial Colonnade and Raging Ravine since those lands are not hit by Abrupt Decay or our other removal. Even more so, it's the only way for us to efficiently deal with Wurmcoil Engine, which sees a ton of play and is very problematic for BG/x midrange decks. For this reason alone, you really want to have at least 3, if not 4, in your 75.
Competitive Applications
All of these cards combined can almost make up a complete list on it's own, with a couple of flex spots open:
The above is what you will normally find in most builds of abzan, but things change vastly from list to list as the meta is constantly changing. Variations on these colors are fleshed out below. This primer will cover the most viable options for the deck, but the deck is pretty open to do whatever you'd like with it since the rest of it's cards are so powerful by themselves.
This section will discuss how to put the deck together. Below, I will discuss the different approaches on which to take on Junk, as unlike other modern decks, there are several different directions you can go.
Traditional Abzan (Midrange)
Traditional Abzan/Junk is very much a midrange deck similar to its cousins Jund and BG. It focuses mainly on control and aggro elements, and has almost no combo element outside a few synergies with cards such as lingering souls and liliana of the veil. Traditional Junk builds focus on the cards listed above.
The meta changes all the time, however, so we cannot guarantee what the rest of the deck may look like. Currently, abzan players are split on playing dark confidant with high cmc spells such as murderous cut and/or tasigur, the golden fang. The format changes often and sometimes even drastically, though, so I will try to keep up with current trends as best as I can.
List updated 2/14/17, from SCG MODERN IQ, 1st place
In Magic's more recent history, Junk decks tended to be a lot more aggressive with only a little bit of disruption and removal to fight through decks like Faeries back in Lorwyn/Alara standard. It is definitely still possible to take this approach in modern. Unlike traditional Junk, this has only a few disruption and removal spells and ultimately focuses on being the beatdown. Although the deck is technically a variation of this deck in these colors, we do have a dedicated thread for it here. My former discussion on the deck is below.
In order to achieve greater beatdown potential, the deck employs mana dorks to start the game with some acceleration into some larger larger threats. These mana dorks are usually Noble Hierarch or Birds of Paradise. From here, the deck wants to utilize somewhat larger threats than normal builds such as Wilt-leaf leige, Loxodon Smiter, or Knight of the Reliquary. On top of these, you can include other common junk creatures such as tarmogoyf, bob, and scooze. Keep in mind that having a way to make your mana dorks turn into relevant threats is extremely important; the deck should likely include Gavony Township, lord effects (such as the one from Wilt-leaf Leige), and/or swords/equipment to make everything very threatening.
As an aggro build, you will have a lot more creatures than you will spells. But like I said, you need to have some spells to keep opposing combo, control, and aggro decks at bay. Hand disruption is absolutely essential to keep combo from getting guaranteed kills on you before you can kill them and for taking away key spells from control decks. Therefore, Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize are usually auto-includes, whilst leaving out Liliana of the Veil. Removal is important to take away key permanents as well to ensure the beatdown can commence. In this aggro style of junk, you will want to resort to only the most efficient removal spells: Path to Exile, and Abrupt Decay.
Additional cards to consider for aggro builds of junk are listed in the 'Card Choices' section below.
Putting it together
Since this deck isn't largely popular, there is no 'core' or common list of cards that people typically play in this kind of deck. You just gotta get your hands dirty and figure out what you like. Below is a sample list, but keep in mind that you will enjoy the deck more if you make your own decisions on building this kind of deck. Note that black is mainly just used for removal and hand disruption here, as opposed to using liliana and bob.
Green and black's true strength is its ability to play best in attrition, and adding white gives you some additional hate cards as well as some awesome bodies. This kind of build of Junk will focus mainly on the combination of Smallpox and other spells; the idea here is to focus on making smallpox as asymmetrical as possible (despite its symmetry). Everything we include in our deck will tie back to smallpox. Although this is technically a variation of the deck, it is not a part of what we would consider top tier in the meta and therefore discussion of this deck should take place elsewhere.
As part of both sacrificing lands and discarding cards, Life from the Loam already makes up for 2 of the downsides to smallpox. You can recur LtfL to get your lands back, as well as put more stuff in our graveyard. To best play with the stuff in our graveyard, we can still employ scooze, lingering souls, KotR, plus a few others that are a little atypical like Darkblast or Bloodghast. In order to have something to keep us from sacrificing creatures, we can play bitterblossom in addition to lingering souls so that we don't have to worry about sacrificing creatures or lands as much. Lastly, we definitely want to have hand disruption: LotV, thoughtseize, IoK, and Raven's Crime. Raven's Crime also plays well from the graveyard or with smallpox.
Putting it together
Alright, so there's a ton of different ways you could build this. If you're running life from the loam and smallpox, you really don't want path to exile because it kind of defeats the purpose of pox/lftl. So really, the only thing you want in white for this deck is lingering souls, and maybe Tidehollow Sculler. Below is a sample list. It's in no way refined, but it's a good place to start.
As we've seen so far, junk has tons of different options, yet little to none of them show up very often in the meta. Here is Treefolk Tribal, another aggressive build of junk that used to show up in the very early days of modern, mainly as a reincarnation of it's standard heyday. Despite being a little sub-par in today's current modern meta, it's still a viable deck given it's strong synergy. Similar to other tribal decks, such as merfolk, this deck focuses on playing creatures all of the same type. In this case, treefolk shamans, most of which are from the lorwyn block. I highly recommend this deck for those looking to build on a budget. It's surprisingly fun, and super stylish in a retro, hipster, kind of way. Again, this is not the thread for discussing this deck, I've merely included it here as it is in these colors and those looking for the deck may be able to find it here. Please take discussion on this particular variant to its appropriate thread.
Doran, the Siege Tower - Obviously, this is the most important card in this deck, which is named after this guy. Sadly, as a legendary creature, you may not necessarily want to run the full 4, but you'll see shortly that it's not as bad as seems with only 3. All the creatures you play in this deck should benefit from Doran's effect. Treefolk Harbinger - So, in case you were wondering, the obvious target for this guy in your deck will be Doran. Sadly, it isn't actual card advantage since it puts it on top of your library, but obviously, this guy is just a 1 drop tutor for doran...or a forest. The cool part is, these guys are sweet at blocking in the early game, then they become wild nacatl's once doran is in play. Bosk Banneret - Just overall good synergy for the deck. Unfortunately, the two cards above don't benefit from his ability, but other creatures in this deck will. Again, good on defense, and can be offensive once Doran is in play. Dauntless Dourbark - The ultimate beater in this deck. He's usually at least a 5/5, assuming you still have a couple of treefolk in play. Great synergy with Bosk Banneret, here. Also, he's good without Doran in play since he will still have a good amount of power. Dungrove Elder - The only treefolk outside lorwyn that fits in this deck. Hexproof is extremely relevant with all the spot removal going around, so he's a pretty awesome dude in our deck. He's also pretty easy on our mana since he's only 1 green. Leaf-crowned Elder - Great card advantage for this deck, especially with treefolk harbinger. He's kinda costly, but bosk banneret can help out with that. 5 toughness and CMC of 4 makes this guy pretty tough to destroy. Wickerbough Elder - You'll probably want a single-ton one of these as a way of tutoring up an answer for an artifact or an enchantment. Murmuring Bosk - The ultimate land for this deck. Fixes our mana, plus it counts as a forest...and surprisingly, it's not even legendary.
Putting it together
Similarly to the aggressive build of junk mentioned earlier in this primer, you're going to be using less spells and more creatures than your typical build of junk. That said, we'll be cutting liliana's, lingering souls, and some of the creatures for our necessary treefolk. Our typical Junk creatures such as bob, goyf, scooze, KotR, may still be played in this deck, however, the goal here is to play treefolk, so they may not necessarily make the cut. Goyf, however, is actually really good in this deck still, despite not being a treefolk. Again, as with almost all the junk builds, you will need your typical hand disruption and removal package alongside the creatures. The non-creature spells are absolutely essential to making sure you don't just auto-lose combo match ups, and have some way of making sure the beat down actually gets through. Here is a rough list of what a treefolk deck would look like.
This section will list all possible cards for this deck that are useable in the main board. For those of you who are looking to do something a little off the beaten path; this section is for you. I have listed all the cards I could think of that could viably go in a junk deck. Some of the cards listed are more applicable in certain builds over others; those builds are listed in the following section. Many of the cards below are also good choices for the sideboard, and will therefore be left out of the list of viable sideboard cards. They are listed by CMC in order of most viable to least viable, generally speaking. Not all of these cards are always viable in competitive builds, they are just listed as options for those seeking specific card choices for whatever reason.
MTGS user zebotc has created this "library" of cards here: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/modern-abzan-junk-card-library-primer-below/. DISCLAIMER: LARGE WEB PAGE, MAY CAUSE SLOW LOADING TIMES AND OTHER ISSUES FOR MOBILE USERS. It's basically a large list of cards that you could potentially play in junk. The majority of them are discussed below or in the sideboard section, but there are some that I haven't included (or have yet to include). Its also a little easier if you're just trying to find something without having to look through all the text I have below.
Creatures
by CMC
CMC 1
Most of the 1 drops are either going to be mana dorks, or dudes meant to be aggressive. Junk usually doesn't employ any of these very often, but here they are in case you are looking for 1 drops that we can actually use.
Noble Hierarch - Probably the only mana dark that isn't just actively bad if we ever top deck it. The big problem is that she doesn't tap for black, which is often one of our primary colors. Otherwise, the exalted ability is really fantastic. Ideally, you would want noble hierarch in decks that are lighter on black and have a more aggressive game plan.
Birds of Paradise - Unlike noble hierarch, it taps for all of our colors reliably, but is actively the worst thing you could ask for in a late game situation unless you have some sort of effect to buff it. So similarly to hierarch, you'd also want BoP in a more aggressive deck, but they can be played in more traditional junk builds to help power out turn 2 plays like liliana or KotR.
Loam Lion - Definitely a consideration for the aggro junk decks. He's a great turn 1 play that can only be killed efficiently with a lightning bolt.
Warden of the First Tree - Pretty much the figure of destiny in our colors. Of course figure of destiny is an aggro threat, and warden of the first tree is no different. Aggro versions of Abzan may want this guy, but definitely not traditional or pox variants.
Ulvenwald Tracker - Fight bear! In grindy games, he's great alongside goyf or KotR to kill off just about anything you want. He's great utility, but if you want to play him, you don't really want more than one, and you certainly want to make sure you're running plenty of creatures to fight with.
Doomed Traveler - A former staple in token decks. He fits the 2-for-1 nature of the deck pretty well, but he's only really ideal if you're heavily into the token game plan.
Dryad Militant - 2/1 for 1, the ideal aggressive 1 drop for us. The body is the main reason you'd want him, however, the ability to keep instants and sorceries out of the graveyard is extremely helpful against decks like storm, UWR, twin, plus a few others. Its a nonbo with lingering souls, though, so you won't want to play the two together. Its probably just sideboard material, though.
Elves of deep shadow - While we're on mana dorks, here's another option. Taps for black to help power out turn 2 lilianas, but otherwise, its just a 1/1 for 1...which is better than noble hierarch or bop, but still not really ideal in the meta.
Avacyn's Pilgrim - This guy used to be a staple in junk while it was in standard...now he's pretty unplayable unless you're really heavy on white. Again, he can beat for 1 in a pinch, but that's not likely to ever happen.
CMC 2
Voice of Resurgence - Voice is an all-around good card in its colors, which makes it a perfect candidate for our deck. He has yet to make a huge appearance in modern, outside coco decks (pod decks, formerly), but he is surprisingly good in a format where lightning bolt and other popular instant speed removal is hugely prevalent. The biggest problem I've seen with this guy is that the elemental he leaves behind is only a 1/1 or 2/2. Although that is still a body that you get for free, you really need to make sure you're playing a high number of creatures to make this guy optimal. That said, builds with lingering souls and other token generators will benefit the most from voice of resurgence.
Tidehollow Sculler - This dude fits our game plan pretty well. He disrupts our opponent and can swing for some beats. Even better, he helps buff goyf if he hits the yard as an artifact spell. He does have some downsides though. In my testing, he is the best example of a speed bump, meaning he'll take a card from your opponent's hand, but eventually, they'll just kill it and get it back and continue to beat on you (or whatever it is that they're doing), but he is definitely still a strong play on turn 2.
Qasali Pridemage - Qasali pridemage is one of the most outstanding commons of its class. It's a relevant aggro threat while also serving as preemptive removal for big time problem cards in this format. Almost everything we'd want to hit with an abrupt decay is also hit with this card. Although artifacts and enchantments are not always necessarily in every deck, there are a lot of decks in this format that have a relevant target for him, which means he is actually playable in your main 60. At the worst, he's a grisly bear with exalted. I recommend him for more aggressive builds, but he's a solid choice for just about any version of junk.
Pack Rat - Pack rat also fits the nature of our deck pretty well, allowing us to single-handedly win wars of attrition by turning any top deck we have into another body that continues to grow the other rats and fairly quickly close out a game, or help grind it out. Unlike in standard, however, the mana investment is much more demanding, as is the card investment. Due to the presence of combo, he's not always ideal either. Overall, he can definitely be a finisher, but it will be slow; too slow for combo or most aggro decks. That said, I don't necessarily recommend this guy except as a one or two of in a traditional or grindy build of junk.
Bloodghast - Bloodghast fits a very specific role that benefits decks focusing primarily on smallpox/discard/liliana/life from the loam. If your build is up that alley, bloodghast is a solid candidate. Obviously, a path to exile will make this card less good, but still a worthwhile option. Did I mention it gets haste if your opponent has less than 10 life? The biggest down side to this guy is he doesn't block, which doesn't help us against one of our soft spots: aggro.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - Thalia can actually be applicable in more traditional builds of junk, too, but since there aren't lots of decks that play a lot of non-creature spells, traditional builds don't really employ her since their own spells are often important to cast. But in more aggressive builds of junk which usually employ less non-creature spells, there's no reason not to run her. She fits the disruption part of the deck very well, causing a lot of decks to have to wait an additional turn to cast important spells or focus on removing thalia before something else. This gives us more time to get on with the beat down plan. Thalia is a great card against storm, too, for obvious reasons.
Gaddock Teeg - Honestly, he's not usually that relevant in modern right now besides against a few decks like tron, but I'm still putting him here just to remind everyone that he does still exist and that it is possible he could become relevant again. Currently, he's probably best left as a sideboard card against tron, if anything.
CMC 3
Knight of the Reliquary - (abbreviated as KotR) is a pretty atypical card in modern these days and continues to dwindle in popularity for the time being. Formerly, DRS played a big role in the lack of popularity of KotR, but since DRS is no longer legal KotR has gained some of its power back. Despite this, KotR is a very powerful creature for it's cost, much more so than our main beater: tarmogoyf. The downside is that KotR is much more of an investment into a gameplan or strategy, where as tarmogoyf is a quick and easy massive dude.
The most common mistake I see people make with KotR is not using her ability and attacking with her too soon. KotR is not an offensive card...at first. I believe this is another big reason people don't like to play KotR, but you should at least give it a try and make your own conclusions. Playing KotR gives you the much-needed ability to play the stack. The best example that you see often is: your opponent swings in with his tarmogoyf which is a 4/5 because he sees that your KotR is currently only a 3/3. You block, and in response, you activate KotR saccing a land, getting a fetchland, and cracking the fetch. Your KotR is now a 5/5 and tarmogoyf dies after damage is dealt. Of course, seasoned players know this simple trick, but it only makes your opponent think harder and increases their chances of making mistakes with math. Outside making math more difficult for your opponent, KotR has the ability to out-grow larger creatures that tarmogoyf can't always stop (as you can see from the previous example). Furthermore, KotR gives us access to toolbox lands (see the corresponding section below for details) such as Tectonic Edge. This ability makes certain match ups a lot stronger, Tron especially, but many others as well. In the end, I can sing KotR's praise all day, but the fact is most people still don't prefer her for a number of reasons. All I can say is that a lot of people really underestimate her, but until she shows us some good results, I'm obligated to say that she probably isn't optimal (until proven otherwise).
Brimaz, King of Oreskos - A really great finisher for this deck; it puts extra bodies on the field and doesn't die to lightning bolt ever, or get hosed by graveyard hate which is extremely relevant since most decks will often board in some kind of hate to stop tarmogoyf/scooze/kotr/lingering souls. Downsides: it still dies to abrupt decay or most other spot removal, but the bodies it leaves behind can help against things such as liliana's edict. Other downsides include being double white which is often difficult to achieve in some situations. It also gets walled by opposing tarmogoyfs, but against most aggro decks, it will be the larger creature. I would recommend this for decks that are heavier on white and are more aggressive than most builds.
Loxodon Smiter - Smiter is another card you see every so often. He's kind of like a back up tarmogoyf, with some additional features: he's uncounterable and you can cheaty-face him into play off of discard. FYI: if your opponent casts IoK targeting you, and the only card they can choose is Loxodon smiter, they have to choose it, and it will be put into play. Of course, you can always choose to put it into play if your opponent uses liliana's +1, too (NOTE: you can't do this using your own liliana). The problem with loxodon smiter is that he's just a vanilla creature after he comes into play. He's not as efficient as tarmogoyf, yet still dies to the same removal (outside a well-timed lightning bolt). That said, he's only really a good option if BG/x decks are popular in your meta, as this is one card that punishes those decks. The uncounterable clause is actually extremely relevant in a meta filled with Remand. I highly recommend this card if you need to put a clock into play on turn 3 against any blue deck. Unfortunately, smiter can still be dealt with in a number of ways, but a lot of decks don't really have a good way of dealing with a creature that has more than 3 toughness.
Doran, the Siege Tower - Another card that is fading out of people's memory. Doran synergizes with a few cards in our deck such as tarmogoyf, but more often his ability helps us out with opposing strategies, namely by blanking Cranial Plating which is surprisingly relevant. His biggest downside, besides being a bit mana intensive, is his legendary status, otherwise he'd often be a 4-of in most builds employing Doran. Since he is legendary, you will not want to run more than 3 in aggressive junk builds.
Kitchen Finks - For some reason, Kitchen Finks has also dwindled in popularity lately despite it's former use in modern jund. Lingering Souls seems to have somewhat replaced finks, although they both serve the same role, and both have their strengths and weaknesses. Regardless of how good Lingering Souls might seem, kitchen finks and lingering souls are very close in power and capability. Kitchen Finks is a great blocker: he's got plenty of power to trade with some creatures, and if he does, you typically benefit from the trade since he comes back and gains you more life. On top of that, he's a really great beater, too. 3 toughness, while not necessarily urgent, is definitely still a threat. To add to that, the only way to efficiently deal with kitchen finks is with Path to Exile or graveyard hate in response to the persist trigger. The trade off between finks and lingering souls is that lingering souls puts multiple bodies on the field for blocking and they have flying, while kitchen finks is only on the ground, but is much harder to swing into since kitchen finks can trade with creatures that have 3 toughness. The current demand for lingering souls over kitchen finks always changes, so make your choice accordingly. More importantly, finks makes for a fantastic sideboard card against just about any aggro deck, and I will say Finks is actually a little better than lingering souls against UWR because it keeps your life total up when they opt to point burn spells at your head.
Eternal Witness - This card does not get the respect it deserves. Regrowth is absolutely broken in legacy and vintage, and to put it on a creature for an extra mana seems more than worthy of modern play. In this deck, it's just another way of recurring things we may need that we can't get back with Life from the Loam. Choosing E wit with grisly salvage feels great. The worst part of this card is the casting cost; double green is not always ideal for us--but is definitely doable.
Courser of Kruphix - At first, I was a little unsure if I wanted to something like this in our deck. He's double green, and doesn't beat for a whole lot. However, his life gaining ability is really nice in our deck, and sometimes serves as psuedo card advantage by getting more lands out of our deck and into play. Additionally, the 4 toughness is a pretty big deal considering the popularity of lightning bolt and creatures with 3 power. To put things into perspective, he's really good in the long, grindy match ups, and helpful against aggro, but lousy against combo since he's much more defensive than he is offensive...unless you are playing Doran, the Seige Tower.
Anafenza, the Foremost - Similar to loxodon smiter in a lot of ways. She's not particularly amazing in modern, but has some niche applications. Of course, a 4/4 for 3 is still solid, too. I have yet to see a list that could really abuse anafenza's ability, but I'm convinced that it could be done. Her graveyard hate ability is surprisingly relevant in some metas. Its not what you want against something like living end, but against decks that slowly feed the graveyard for things like snapcaster mage, tasigur, lingering souls, etc.
Renegade Rallier - Honestly, I don't think its that great, but it does kinda fit into our gameplan, and our colors of course. Personally, I think eternal witness is usually more applicable which usually doesn't make the mainboard in this deck any way, but it has shown up in successful lists from time to time.
CMC 4
Siege Rhino - The latest white addition to the BG(x) shell, it has been dubbed by some as the next Bloodbraid Elf. One of the co-hosts on my podcast described this as the most comfy of all midrange cards; it ideally does everything a midrange creature needs to do. It helps stop the bleeding from aggro decks by being a big blocker and regaining us some life, while also being a relevant threat to control decks with its trample ability, relevant power/toughness, and drain effect which gives our deck about the only form of reach we can get. This card is exclusive to our colors and this kind of strategy. Being 4 cmc is a concern with dark confidant, but as Badd B once said in regards to Bloodbraid elf in Jund, this card should really be a curve topper in this deck. Other 4-drops have been played in the past, but this one really suits our deck nicely. Unlike bloodbraid elf, it isn't quite good enough to just jam 4 in your deck...but it could be, and have in the past definitely played up to 4.
Thrun, the Last Troll - You usually don't see this guy main board, but he's good enough to be in almost every BG/x sideboard and therefore I'm putting him first on the list of 4-drops. Some BG/x decks even play one main board--he's a really good 4-drop. He's your go to card against control and other decks that will give you long, grindy games such as other BG/x decks. Pretty straight-forward: any deck that wants to make sure you don't have creatures in play, this comes in. Watch out for Wrath of God and edict effects though (such as Liliana of the Veil). Thrun resolving usually means you've won the game in the right match up.
Hero of Bladehold - Probably the best 4-drop finisher this deck could ask for outside of siege rhino. Dodges the majority of common removal, puts tons of dudes onto the board, and will ultimately overrun your opponent unless they are already crushing you somehow. If things are locked up, this will almost assuredly break up an even board state. Double white is a little rough, but at 4 CMC, its usually doable. Best for more aggressive builds, but will work in most builds as long as you can realistically do double white...she is not splash-able.
Restoration Angel - For a four drop, this chick is awesome. Being a four drop is about the only downside. Well, it's not great against combo, but it's good against pretty much everything else. Even if you don't have any creatures in play, it's a 3/4 flyer with flash which goes a long ways in grindy games where 3 damage a turn can be a big problem. And when you do have creatures in play, she's the best way to counter a removal spell on one of our dudes. Furthermore, she doesn't die to lightning bolt, and flies over a lot of the format's most obnoxious creatures. If you're looking for a 4-drop in your deck and you need another creature, I'd highly recommend this card.
Wilt-leaf Liege - Wilt-Leaf Liege is a card that should not have been forgotten, but in modern, has definitely been forgotten. As long as hand disruption and liliana are popular, Wilt-Leaf Liege has the potential to make some huge blow outs. Keep in mind that her lord effects are two separate abilities, meaning Loxodon Smiter, Knight of the Reliquary, kitchen finks, etc. will all actually get +2/+2 from her effects if both are in play. Wilt-Leaf Liege should top off the curve for more aggressive builds, and should be accompanied by mana dorks to both make her easier to cost, and to turn into relevant aggro threats after she hits the board.
Phyrexian Obliterator - Not ideal in a 3 dolor deck, but I have seen some people trying it decks closer to mono black splashing Green and white. Seriously, don't play this guy unless you're very heavy black. If you are, play this guy. Nothing funnier than beating your opponent to a pulp with an eldrazi-esque 4-drop that has very few answers to it.
There's not a lot of 5 cmc guys that are realistically viable for most builds of Junk, but some builds do top off their curve with one or two 5 drops. Ideally, a 5-drop should just flat out win you the game. Keep that in mind when choosing to play a 5-drop main board.
Batterskull - Okay, not technically a creature...but lets face it, its a creature. In any grindy match up that goes long, batterskull will probably win you said match up. Its nearly impossible to kill whatever its attached to, let alone destroying batterskull itself. Even if they do manage to have a spell to destroy batterskull, you can pay 3 to return it to your hand in response and continue to ride the batterskull gravy train. Its pretty straight forward.
Thragtusk - Due to standard seasons past, I hate to have to put this card on this list, but it really is a solid card. Its great in the grindy match ups making it an inevitable 2-for-1 almost always netting us value. Due to its CMC, it is pretty terrible outside the fair match ups, though, and therefore I would avoid having it main board unless the meta really calls for it.
Sigarda, Host of Herons - The best 5 drop in the mirror by far. It will almost assuredly win you the game when it comes out...but again, it doesn't really help against aggro or combo decks. Just one more 5-drop to consider if you really need one. Its pretty great in the board, too.
Blood Baron of Vizkopa - This is a batterskull-esque creature with a little more hate towards its anti colors making it difficult to remove for most decks. Tarmogoyf will wall him pretty hard unfortunately, but he gets past most everything else in the format. Realistically, you will never get up to 30 life to benefit from its second ability without it already taking over the game anyway, but it should take over the game when you get to that point. He's best in the mirror or other grindy match ups and is therefore usually sideboard fodder, but I've seen players use him in the main board in the past to some success.
You really shouldn't be playing six drops in this deck unless they're tasigur, the golden fang (because its not really a 6 drop in consideration), but just in case the format ever becomes slow enough to the point where you would want an actual six drop (or somehow veteran explorer and cabal therapy enter the format), I will go ahead and list the ones you would want to play.
Tasigur, the Golden Fang - Again, not really a 6 drop for us, but he does actually cost 6 and therefore you must consider this when choosing to play him with or without dark confidant. Sometimes lists play a singleton tasigur with 3 or 4 bobs, some lists play multiple tasigurs and 0 bobs, some lists play no tasigurs and a full grip of bobs, some play neither...come to your own conclusions on this one. Currently, he's mostly a matter of preference, but the meta may say otherwise.
Grave Titan/Sun Titan/Primeval Titan/wurmcoil engine - These are the titans. If they hit the table and they don't win you the game, you were probably going to lose anyway. If you ever have to consider playing a 6 drop, it will likely be one of these.
Additional Spells and Removal
Slaughter Pact - There's only one removal spell that we can utilize that costs 0: slaughter pact. Sometimes people main board this, but it's often in sideboards, too. Really, this is the "gotcha" card against twin, pod, and infect, as you can surprisingly interrupt them even though you've given them the green light by being tapped out when they try to fire off a combo. Ultimately, the mana you have to spend on your upkeep is usually well worth 2-for-1'ing them. Only downside, of course, is having to pay the 3 later which slows us down. The only reason you would not be able to pay the 3 when you needed to is if you missed a land drop.
Disfigure - Its kind of narrow, but your meta could easily make this a main board card. It would be preferred to use over path to exile where applicable. That is, its really great at killing mana dorks.
Darkblast - Similar to Disfigure, but can be used repeatedly. It does kill X/2's: use it at the end of your opponents turn or on your upkeep, then dredge it back and use it again on the same creature to kill X/2's. Of course, this is card disadvantage, but against decks that employ lots of X/1's and X/2's, its a house. Plus, it helps put some of our cards into the graveyard such as lingering souls, lands for KotR, creatures for scooze, or just anything for tarmogoyf.
Vendetta - Similar to the above cards, its really awesome against X/1's and X/2's. Even better, it can kill practically anything non-black in a pinch. The downside is the life loss, obviously. Our deck is already very suicidal, so using this in most builds is somewhat dangerous. However, in a combo-driven meta where creatures are part of the combo, this card is very good, and I have found is somewhat underrated and not expected.
Raven's Crime - This is the only other discard spell at 1 cmc that's still viable in our deck. Its mainly used in grindy builds often alongside smallpox and other cards, but is fairly flexible in terms of being built with. The only thing it requires is a fair amount of lands. Really good against any blue deck, but only moderately good against most other decks.
Collected Brutality - Just another versatile spell that contributes to our game plan. Works well against a lot of decks, and has quite a bit of synergy with lingering souls.
Dromoka's Command - This card, at a glance, doesn't really do anything too special. However, it has shown up in successful lists as a 1-of or 2-of. Again, nothing on it is inherently powerful for us, but its versatility is huge, and gives us a lot more options to play the stack which is generally one the deck's weak points. It's surprisingly efficient, too. I recommend trying it out and coming to your own conclusions.
Go for the throat - The best removal spell at 2 outside abrupt decay, IMO. Unfortunately, the list of artifact creatures that sees play in this format is fairly long. However, its shortcomings actually become a plus in the pod and twin match ups when spellskite comes in. You cannot redirect go for the throat to a spellskite. Its definitely a card that is viable for the main board if you need an additional kill spell.
[Victim of Night - Some successful lists have played one or two of these. With affinity being a force in the meta, it can be better than go for the throat, but many times it will essentially be the same, except its double black, which can be hard on our mana sometimes. I'm not going to list the number of relevant vampire/werewolf/zombie creatures in the meta...just know that they exist and you could run into them and make this card dead in your hand.
Bitterblossom - This card fits the nature of our deck fairly well: it continuously puts dudes into play making the game more and more difficult as the game goes on until you ultimately have the ability to win. The downside is that the dudes don't always do enough, or you end up killing yourself on its own ability. Ideally, you want this more for builds that really want the game to go long.
Life from the Loam - I don't need to sing this cards praises, many people enjoy playing with this card. This card is unique in that the card itself is really what your whole entire deck would want to focus on if you choose to use it. If you're playing life from the loam (LftL, for short), you need to have a good idea of what lands you intend to use, and have a good amount of recursion through the graveyard. Understand that this is a control card that usually warrants a control strategy through its lands and spells, and is therefore glacially slow compared to other kinds of control strategies. Keep in mind that this card is hosed hard by grave hate such as Rest in Peace.
Smallpox - Similar to LftL, this card is also an entire strategy in itself. In fact, LftL and smallpox often go hand in hand. This card is practically only good in grindy builds, but is a possibility for traditional builds, too in some very narrow cases. When building with this card, focus on how to benefit as much as possible by casting smallpox. If smallpox resolves and you sacrifice the same resources as your opponent, you're just durdling around waiting for your opponent to eventually get the resources they need to kill you. But if smallpox resolves, you sacrifice one of your bitterblossom tokens, sacrifice a ghost quarter, and discard life from the loam, you look a lot more like you're going to win that game. Again, focus on using incremental advantage cards: lingering souls, bitterblossom, LftL, liliana, bob, etc.
Grisly Salvage - I think its dumb in modern that the best card selection comes from colors outside blue. That said, grisly salvage can give us decent card selection while dumping things in the graveyard. Its ideal for grindy builds that are also utilizing eternal witness and life from the Loam.
Zealous Persecution - This is hands down the best combat trick in our colors, and is definitely one of the better tricks in the whole entire game. Not only will this give you even or favorable trades, but it may even sweep up a few of your opponents' smaller creatures in the process. Unfortunately, a combat trick is not always important in a format where you could just be dead to 6 valakut triggers or 30 copies of grapeshot, but it does a lot of things against a lot of different decks. It even nullifies the splinter twin combo for at least a turn. I recommend this for aggressive builds or token builds, but it is applicable in any junk deck, really.
Glittering Wish - Glittering wish is a very unique card that few players are familiar with. Even those who played magic during judgment vaguely remember the wishcycle introduced during that set. Leave it to the time spiral block to bring back an extremely oddball mechanic that few people understand. Anyways, this card is surprisingly good as a tutor spell in this format...the only downside is that it takes up your sideboard slots instead of being in your main deck, and you will have to use multi colored cards to utilize them with glittering wish. To play this card in your deck is to have a sideboard full of silver bullets. I'm not going to go too in depth on the cards you should choose to play with glittering wish; the majority of them are listed elsewhere in this primer. This is pretty much a build-around-me card that requires a special build of deck to utilize this spell.
Dismember - A staple in this format. No surprise considering its versatility; it kills just about anything relevant in the format and is essentially colorless. Fortunately, we can actually pay the black mana for it which helps us save on life. This spell is kind of a necessary evil, as it kills almost everything that path to exile will without given them extra mana which is important against some decks in certain situations. Costing essentially one mana is also a huge upside as the life cost is almost never relevant in the early stages of the game. I recommend at least 1 or 2 of these in just about any 75.
Abzan Charm - The charm exclusive to our colors. It's no slouch: all modes will do relevant things in just about any game, but you may find that sometimes this doesn't answer your problems. One of its most overlooked attributes is giving you the ability to play the stack: there are many situations where you need to have lightning bolt insurance for one of your creatures, or you need a way to take advantage of your opponent not doing anything by drawing 2 cards. The majority of the time, it will just exile something problematic, but its other abilities make up for the tough mana cost. You should consider playing at least 1, maybe even 2, somewhere in your 75 for traditional builds. Aggro builds and grindy builds probably want something else more suited for those particular strategies.
Putrefy - A little bit slow and clunky compared to our other removal spells, but its versatility is pretty helpful in some situations. For the most part, its a maelstrom pulse at instant speed, granted the right meta. Meta is definitely something to consider with this spell, though. It's speed and cost may not be worth using it for its situational usefulness. That said, I'd recommend it as a 1-of in traditional builds or in grindy builds.
The only spells here are really solid removal spells and collected company. Any 4 drop that isn't removal or a board wipe probably doesn't belong in this deck.
Damnation/Wrath of God - Our deck generally favaors damnation, but wrath isn't out of the question either. Typically, our other removal spells can keep up with the amount of aggro our opponents may drop on us, but if not we do have access to these spells. There are a few other alternatives too such as day of judgment, but you really want either one of these in case you run into something like thrun, the last troll.
Languish - There was a lot of discussion over this card when it was first released saying it would be really beneficial for this deck since it doesn't kill your own tarmogoyfs, siege rhinos, or tasigurs. While that is true, our deck doesn't make much use of 4 mana board wipes to begin with. Honesetly, I'd say this is about the same as damnation and wrath of god, with situational advantages/disadvantages. Personally, I think having a reset button for midrange mirrors makes damnation/wrath a slightly better choice, but if you expect a big aggro presence in your meta, Languish is a pretty good option over the former ones.
Collected Company - This card, in combination with lots of great creatures (especially those that are 3cmc), can be an amazing strategy. There is a specific deck, also in our colors, that makes the most out of this strategy that is covered in a different primer. For us, we generally won't be playing enough creatures to make the critical mass required to make this card good. I just wanted to mention it in case anyone may want to try this, especially for an aggro variant of this deck.
Murderous Cut - This should be the only 5 mana spell considered for this deck...and of course its not really a 5 mana spell. Most lists nowadays run one or two of these since we're not employing Bob much at the moment, but it comes out if Bob comes back into the deck. Just remember as a 5 mana spell with delve, you can't really run more than 1 or 2 in our deck.
Additional card choices
For traditional builds
There are tons of other cards that can be played that I have yet to mention, and may not necessarily even mention in this primer (or may not even get mentioned in this thread), but as long as we can cast them (reasonably) they are fair game for our deck. Below are some additional cards that are definitely still options. Some of them may not necessarily be ideal, but they're all worth some consideration.
Planeswalkers
There are a few planeswalkers besides Liliana of the Veil that we can use in our deck. If you are looking to play an additional planeswalker, I would highly advise one or two of these somewhere in your 75.
Garruk Relentless - Of all the BG/x lists running additional planeswalkers (meaning, planeswalkers other than LotV), Garruk Relentless is the most common. In modern, planeswalkers at 4 mana must be well worth the cost by meeting certain criteria. Garruk meets those criteria with only the two abilities he has: he protects himself and he can deal with a fair amount of enemy threats (albeit, only once if they have 3 toughness). If you manage to flip him (Garruk, the Veil-Cursed), he's got even more awesome abilities: making more tokens, and tutoring for creatures. For 3 and a Green, he's easy on our mana, and is easily castable if you are running 23 or 24 land. He also goes great with lingering souls because souls give you expendable bodies to use his abilities with on both sides of the card. The downside? He doesn't answer everything indefinitely by himself. But even if it's Garruk vs. a tarmogoyf, you can put a 2/2 wolf in front of goyf to protect him until you draw an answer. All in all, if you want a 4-drop, this would be my most recommended option.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant - If you need a great top deck to immediately win a game when things my be sort of tied up, look no further. Her mighty leap ability can end a game very quickly in a lot of match ups. Furthermore, she can protect herself with her other +1 ability that puts a dude into play, and unlike Garruk, will actually go up in loyalty leading her to a surprisingly relevant ultimate ability. If you can manage to ult her, you will likely be on the road to victory as long as you aren't playing against combo. Another benefit over Garruk is that she does not die to lightning bolt...at all, where as most of our other walkers will. The downside here is that she is double white, which is usually the hardest color for our mana to achieve if you are also playing liliana of the veil. However, if you're doing a more aggressive build, she probably fits your mana a lot better. I won't say she's your best choice of 4-drops, but she's up there for sure.
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad - Surprisingly really good, but only if you're playing with lingering souls. The anthem effects he creates are pretty sweet, even if you don't have souls tokens on board. Again, like our other walkers, he protects himself by putting bodies into play. Like LotV, he is somewhat susceptible to bolt if you have to use the anthem effect ability. The lifelink dudes also help with our decks natural "ability" to kill itself. His casting cost is not much more difficult to achieve than Garruk's, and definitely better than elspeth's. The downside? You really have to play lingering souls with this guy, otherwise the anthem effects just don't do enough to make it worthwhile.
Sorin, Solemn Visitor - See above. Both sorin's work pretty similarly in this deck actually. Personally, I like the abyss ability on this variant in the midrange match ups a lot more than I like the other sorin. But against aggro this variant is a little weaker, but really neither are that great against aggro, depending on the deck.
Swords are good in builds that are running lots of dudes to carry said swords, so builds that utilize tokens more would best benefit from a sword. I don't STRONGLY recommend you don't play more than one since they are somewhat of a "win more" card, but some people play more than 1 in the 75. I've listed them in order of most relevant to least relevant in the current meta. This includes both the protection of color it gives and the ability it has when it connects. The first 3 are all pretty close, IMO. The other 2 are usually pretty irrelevant unfortunately.
The Essential Lands
Fetchlands - For starters, you will need some Marsh Flats, Verdant Catacombs, and Windswept Heath's. The fetchlands help our deck out in a large variety of ways. It helps buff goyf and KotR, and of course, helps fix our mana tremendously: it allows us to play around blood moon, or be greedy to make the turn 2 Auriok Champion into turn 3 LotV possible. These are well worth the cost of paying a life to get a land. You can use off color fetches too in a pinch, such as misty rainforest, Bloodstained Mire, etc., but eventually you'll want them to be in your colors because sometimes fetching basics is very important. Most decks run 8 or 9, but more/less is fine.
Shocklands - The shocklands will compliment the fetchlands we also run as our primary source of mana. Overgrown Tomb, Godless Shrine, and Temple Garden are obviously our shocklands of choice here, the tricky part is deciding how many of each to use. Most decks run 5 or 6, but 4 and 7 are not unheard of. Any more than that, you make yourself to suicidal and open to land hate. Any less than that, you are probably not getting the mana fixing you need to cast your spells. The number of each depends on your build. Whichever color is heaviest, you will want to run more of the appropriate lands. In most builds of this deck, black is the most important color because of our turn 1 hand disruption spells, plus LotV which is BB. Because of this most people run at least two Godless Shrines and two Overgrown tombs. If you find yourself heavier in green, then you'd want at least two overgrown tombs and two temple gardens, so on and so forth. This is really the most I can say: knowing what number of shock lands to use in your deck will take some time and practice to figure out for yourself.
Basics - If you've been playing modern for a while I shouldn't have to tell you that you should probably use some basics...like Forest, Swamp and Plains. A lot of commonly played cards give us good reason to have basic lands in our deck: Path to Exile, Tectonic Edge and Ghost Quarter, Blood Moon, plus being able to not have to shock ourselves while playing against aggro decks makes a big difference. The more basics you can have, the better, but as a 3 color deck, we do need our fixing. That said, most people run between 3 and 5 basics. Again, you will use a higher number of the more demanding colors, which is usually black in our case.
Fast lands - Razorverge Thicket isn't a bad card, but most junk builds need more black mana, and the SOM fast lands only give us access to G/W. Razorverge thicket is really good in more aggro builds of Junk, though, that need green mana more often on turn 1 than black.
Filter lands - Twilight Mire, Fetid Heath, and Wooded Bastion can also be utilized in our deck a little bit. These lands are super versatile, allowing us to go back and forth between casting things like liliana, mirran crusader, kitchen finks...etc. Much like the check lands, you will only want 1 or 2, if any, and usually only Twilight Mire, over the other two.
Utility Lands
Man Lands - Almost all builds of BG/x run a good amount of manlands. This gives our deck the ability to continue the beat down if we get flooded out, plus manlands play around control elements and removal pretty well since they are not permanently creatures. Therefore, they are almost invulnerable to sorcery speed removal such as Supreme Verdict and Liliana's edict effect. Our deck has 3 options: Treetop Village, shambling vent, hissing quagmire and Stirring Wildwood. There are others in our colors, but they are somewhat unplayable. Treetop village costs less to activate and has trample, while stirring wildwood is more mana intensive, but has reach. Treetop is better for putting on a faster clock, while stirring wildwood is better on the defensive side, especially since it has 4 toughness making it out of reach of lightning bolt. Which ones you decide to run and how many of each is a matter of preference, but I will say treetop is more common than stirring wildwood and most decks usually run 3 or 4 manlands. Shambling vent is good in grindy matchups where life totals can be relevant. Hissing quagmire is actually best as a blocker since it has deathtouch. However, I don't really think shambling vent and hissing quagmire are really great as manlands, rather, they just produce more relevant colors usually.
Non-basic hate - By non-basic hate, I mean Tectonic Edge and Ghost quarter. There a few similar cards, but they are strictly worse than these two in most cases. Tec Edge and Ghost quarter are not always found in BG/x decks, but for some reason, Junk seems to employ them more often. KotR helps a lot, too, if you are playing them. Tec Edge is really important against decks that will try to get 4 or more lands in play. Pro tip: that's a lot of decks in modern. Against control decks, we want to keep them off casting spells such as Cryptic Command and through the breach. Against scapeshift, we just want to keep them off lands, period; as one less land is one less Valakut trigger. Tec Edges also stop big problem man-lands, namely Raging Ravine and Celestial Colonnade. Ghost quarter, while it doesn't set back your opponent on lands, is good against decks that have problematic lands such as Inkmoth Nexus or Tron lands, yet will still hit those lands even if they don't have 4 lands in play. This is a big plus against those decks since these lands can be problematic in the first couple of turns before we can use tec edge. Usually, a second ghost quarter is the equivalent of a strip mine in matchups where you want ghost quarter. There is no recommended number of these lands since lists vary too greatly on these lands, but I would recommend a couple if possible. Currently the meta says to play tectonic edge to help us fight control decks and decks utilizing big mana strategies such as valakut.
Other Stuff Gavony Township/Vault of the Archangel - Both lands are great targets for KotR's ability, but can be played without KotR as well. Both lands make lingering souls a lot better, and I highly recommend at least one of these if you are playing lingering souls. Their effects are costly, though. This means that they are basically just colorless lands in games where you could lose by turn 5. I will say I'm more of a fan of Vault of the Archangel since it helps us gain back life which helps us last in a game against aggro, but gavony township can often times be more relevant in some situations. Gavony also synergizes really well with Kitchen Finks because of it's persist ability (For the record, I don't agree with that ruling. It's extremely annoying in pod decks and they utilize it a lot. But hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.). As I said, I recommend at least 1 of these if you can fit it in your deck
Horizon Canopy - The cantrip land. Best used only in conjunction with KotR, otherwise it just doesn't help out as much, but it has been played in successful lists without KoTR. Cantrips are not super powerful in our deck because of redundancy, so an additional benefit you have to playing this card is having more lands in the graveyard for KoTR. It's also hard to justify putting ourselves down a land in a lot of situations. But hey, there's always the chance it draws you that extra card you need to win the game
Bojuka Bog - ONLY TO BE USED WITH KOTR! You want to avoid running this main board if you can, sometimes it's essentially just a swamp that comes into play tapped that can be destroyed by tec edge or become a mountain by blood moon. But this card is good against a lot decks, especially living end. If you have room in your 75 for it, definitely worth a shot. Also, don't be afraid to sideboard it. It's better than other graveyard hate as long as you're playing 4-of KotR since it's ability is uncounterable, and finding another land to sideboard out isn't too hard.
Sejiri Steppe - ONLY TO BE USED WITH KOTR! Unlike Bojuka bog, you could probably run this main board since creature removal is a lot more common than graveyard strategies, but it's still sometimes just a plains with a bunch of downsides. I don't really recommend this unless you're going for more of an aggro build of junk. Otherwise it's not worth all of it's downsides. It's pretty self-explanatory though: you can fetch it up with KotR in response to a removal spell to nullify said removal spell; this can make for some pretty big blow outs. You can sideboard it, too, but you might as well main board this one if you're going to play it since removal is pretty common. Again, I don't recommend it, but it's an option as long as you're playing KotR.
Sideboard Cards
This section is pretty straight-forward: what to include in your sideboard and what you want to bring in against certain decks and match ups. A lot of the sideboard cards have actually already been discussed in the primer, so I'm only going to write about the cards that haven't already been discussed in the primer already. Remember that all recommended numbers may be different depending on what your meta is like.
hallowed moonlight - Hoses tokens, plus a few other niche decks, but it is still a little narrow for a sideboard card. Make your own conclusions.
Aven Mindcensor - Shuts down any deck that searches its library frequently. Usually, this means any 3 color deck, but it also beats up on decks like tron and scapeshift very well. Plus its got flash. Depending on your build, your opponent may not necessarily see this coming which could easily cause some blow outs if you play it right. The only downside is that it dies to pretty much any removal spell in the format...which is fair, because if it didn't it would just be nearly unstoppable against those decks.
Stony Silence - The go-to hate for affinity and tron. You'll probably want at least 2 in your sideboard.
Torpor Orb - Probably the strongest card against twin and pod reincarnation variants. It's pretty narrow, but surprisingly good in the meta. Also shuts down a few other things such as snapcaster mage, restoration angel, and vendilion clique.
Engineered Explosives - Considering we're a 3 color deck, Engineered Explosives (or EE, for short) is actually a pretty solid card against decks that play lots of permanents such as aggro decks or decks like Mono-Green devotion, etc. It's really kind of difficult to decide when to play something like this, but it is definitely something to consider. If deathrite shaman ever comes back, we can cast it for 4 (and maybe even 5!).
Drown in Sorrow - It's no Anger of the Gods, but it's the closest thing we got. Formerly, this was infest, but drown in sorrow is strictly better. It's good against a lot of aggro decks...but is pretty situational against merfolk and zoo which is its biggest downside. However, it is really great against coco decks and affinity which are still really popular.
Surgical Extraction/Extirpate - You don't typically see these much in BG/x sideboards anymore since they're only good against particular combo decks (such as storm), if anything. However, if combo decks like eggs make a comeback, these are something you'll want. So, not much need for these in the current meta, but it has always been an option. Also great against decks utilizing gifts ungiven.
Nihil Spellbomb - It's an extra graveyard bomb that doesn't hate out our own tarmogoyfs or KotR's. It's surprisingly relevant in this format, helping with a lot of popular decks: storm, any combo involving viscera seer/kitchen finks/murderous redcap, living end, and pretty much any deck running snapcaster mage. It hates on a lot of fringe decks too such as dredgevine, 4cc gifts, glass-cannon griselbrand, and other graveyard shenanigans. Plus the option to draw a card off it makes it a great 2-for-1 if we can use its ability.
Mirran Crusader - I've tried this guy out, and although he doesn't necessarily fit our game plan as well as most of our other cards, he's really great in a meta that suits his anti-colors: green and black. That said, he's great against BG/x midrange and coco. Coco has very few creatures that can block him allowing you to push through for the last points of damage. Against BG/x, the only way have to deal with him is a well-placed LotV -2, or a lightning bolt. He's even better with a sword on him. I highly recommend this guy in metas with lots of his anti-colors: Black and Green
Batterskull - This is a fairly common card you see in the sideboard of a lot of midrange/control decks. IMO, it's somewhat overrated, but it is still a formidable card that most decks have very few answers for. It is glacially slow, however, so you really only need it in the grindy match ups, alongside things like thrun. 1 is plenty. Any more is really going to be a deal breaker in a format where you have to do things before turn 5.
Phyrexian Crusader - Call me crazy, but if you've ever played this card against UWR, you'll know that this guy pretty much just wins the game against UWR if he resolves. That said, UWR is back on the come-up now that ancestral visions is off the banned list.
Phyrexian Arena - It's bob 5-8...except you won't want 4 copies. Really, it's just another bob that won't get removed by spot removal. Just one more thing you can bring in for grindy matches, especially UWR. Don't play more than 1 in your 75.
Timely Reinforcements - If you ever have a problem with certain aggro decks, look no further. This card makes aggro players break down and cry. It makes blockers and gains you life...all in one card, and for a reasonable cost. However, a lot of the aggro decks have ways of getting around this such as Skullcrack, tramplers such as Ghor-clan rampager which makes our blockers nearly useless, or have evasion dudes, such as affinity which likes to fly in the air...or kill us with poison counters. Still, if burn or other aggro decks are a problem, this is still a really solid card for those matches.
Rest for the Weary - Really narrow sideboard card against burn. If you hate losing to burn, play this.
Feed the clan - Again, really narrow sideboard card against burn. If you hate losing to burn, play this.
Kor Firewalker - Another card against burn, but this one is a lot better against any deck that just happens to be playing red such as twin, delver, or UWR. Not as funny as rest for the weary, but you get the point. Double white is really tough sometimes, though.
Obstinate Baloth - Ideal against decks that play liliana or lots of hand disruption such as 8-rack or other BG/x decks. Pretty self-explanatory: if you discard it, it goes into play instead and gains you 4 life which is pretty nice. It may not win you the goyf-war, but it's still a solid choice.
Zealous Persecution - This card is surprisingly not very popular right now, yet it's pretty amazing. It's arguably the best combat trick in the game in a deck that can cast it: the worst case scenario is you'll be able to use it to get a trade with a larger creature. The average scenario is though, it just makes combat very bad for your opponent. Best case scenario: you destroy 5 creatures with 1 toughness and swing for lethal. As you can see, little down side, lots of upside. It's a lot better if you're playing lingering souls and/or bitterblossom plus other token generators, but it's still playable even if you aren't. Again: it can be used to make combat way better for you, and against some decks, may clean up the board for you.
Deathmark - Strong hate against G/W. There's not a ton of G/W running around, but it does kill a lot of stuff coincidentally. The only downside is that it's sorcery speed. Still, the need for efficient removal in this deck is really important, so if you have a good opportunity to play this, I'd highly recommend it.
Darkblast - In a meta full of X/1's and X/2's, this card is great in the sideboard. It's recurring removal, and can kill up to X/2's. Basically, to kill something like a flipped delver of secrets, you can cast it on your upkeep. Then on your draw step, dredge it back and cast it again to kill the delver. Of course, this sets us back a draw, but the ability to continually kill small stuff is huge in match ups like delver and affinity. Even better, it helps add fuel to the graveyard such as lingering souls, lands for KotR, targets for Ooze, or just more stuff to buff goyf.
Disfigure - Similar to the above card, except it doesn't have the recursion. Again: it's good in meta with a lot of X/2's and X/1's since it's just as efficient as path to exile, but it doesn't give them extra land. Like the above cards (darkblast and deathmark), I'd highly recommend it if your meta allows it.
Devour Flesh/Geth's Verdict - Edict effects can be extremely helpful. For that reason, I'd suggest looking into playing either one of these two cards. Obvioiusly, Geth's Verdict is a little better, but it's harder on our mana. Devour flesh, although can gain our opponent some life, is easier on the mana, and in a pinch, we can actually use it on ourselves to gain some life back if we need to. Edict effects are mainly good against bogle decks, but are somewhat useful against others such as: 4cc gifts, infect, UWR (especially with GoST or the variant that wants to put an emrakul, the aeons torn into play), and tron.
Ethersworn Canonist - Storm hate. Also coincidentally good against living end since you can't really cascade as long as canonist is out.
Rule of Law - Also storm hate, doesn't die to lightning bolt or grapeshot. Costs more mana, though. If you need storm hate, either of these two is fine.
Runed Halo - Not a typical sideboard card, but it is somewhat useful sometimes. Just another thing to consider.
Duress - If spells start to take off (over creatures), duress is just as good as IoK/Thoughtseize, and is better on the budget, too. Currently, it's not that viable, but who knows.
Leyline of Sanctity - Okay, so there's a huge misconception that this card just wins you the game against some decks. If you've been playing modern or legacy for a reasonable amount of time you know why that leyline of sanctity doesn't just stop some decks that you think it would. I just want to make it clear that smart players come prepared for cards like this and will play around them if they can. On top of that, its a card that in no way helps you actually win the game, it is purely defensive and therefore is terrible and multiples and can often be situational. That said, its still really good against burn considering they normally can't interact with it and they just have to rely on their creatures which usually isn't our biggest concern. This about the only reason I'd recommend this card in the board. It has been discussed as an option against 8-rack and storm, but considering how situational it is I would really avoid having in your board for those match ups unless you happen to have it for burn which is more justified.
Golgari Charm - This is just a really sweet versatile card that is nice to have in the board. It's great to have a -1/-1 effect for the possibility of blowing out tokens/affinity. Blood moon is always out there too, and who knows, having a card to save your creatures might just help you win a game at some point.
Creeping Corrosion - Affinity (or other random artifact jank deck) hate. You probably only want one of these if any just because its a 4-drop.
Night of Souls' Betrayal - This is a real beating for a lot of aggro decks. You'll know when to side it in; all those pesky decks playing countless numbers of X/1's. Its kind of volatile in the mirror if you and you're opponent are both playing lingering souls, and you definitely don't want to drop lingering souls in the mirror, so I'd avoid it in that case. UR delver, affinity, elves, martyr-proc, tokens, melira combo decks, and it even shuts down the twin combo. Its a 4-drop though, so you really shouldn't play more than 1 or 2, if any.
Seal of Primordium - I really love this card, actually. It buffs goyf, plus you can put it into play turn 2 and leave it there until you actually need to use it, which makes some games run a bit more smoothly.
Sideboard plans and match ups
All this deck does is play the best individually good cards in order to overcome your opponent. Against some decks, some of these cards are just really bad, like bob. Bob is almost actively terrible against an aggro deck that wants our life total as close to zero as possible. So the goal of this section is to give some sideboard strategies against the more popular decks. I will include all of what's currently in the 'proven' section, and try to include as much as I can in established. Otherwise, you'll just have to use your head and think for yourself!
BurnUnfavorable - Those who know me or have read my posts here know my thoughts on burn: the deck is a plague on the format and preys on decks like ours. The match up is unfavorable no matter how you slice it: we're a 3 color deck that often requires paying anywhere between 3 to 5 life on average a game to use our mana and cards like thoughtseize and dark confidant. Even with mainboard life gain spells like seige rhino and scavenging ooze, they are often just not enough to hedge the brute force of this deck. For the most part, you are at the mercy of their deck and/or play skill. We do have some good sideboard options: feed the clan, rest for the weary, kitchen finks, kor firewalker, etc, but almost all of the good sideboard cards against burn will be terrible in all of your other match ups. Keep that in mind as you build your sideboard. In the current meta, I think 4 cards dedicated to burn is mandatory. The more you have in your sideboard against the deck, the chances of losing to it go down drastically, but it also takes away from the potential cards you could have for other match ups. Please remember to play around skullcrack when applicable, and be prepared to see bad burn spells like browbeat and vexing devil; burn players often use them regardless of their viability.
BG/x MidrangeEven to Slightly Favorable - This match up is dreadful...not because its bad, but because it can boil down to who top decks better. Don't take that mindset into the match, though. There are many ways to turn bad draws into wins in this match up and you should be able to find them if you plan on being any good at playing this deck. You can build your deck to make this match up favorable, but for most builds, it will always be about dead even. Lingering Souls is the best card in this match up. Outside a maelstrom pulse or something like golgari charm, an opposing BG/x midrange deck cannot deal with lingering souls at all. For sideboarding, you will generally want to take out your hand disruption and often maelstrom pulses you have (unless they're playing lingering souls) for as many creatures/threats/things that affect the board as you can bring in from your sideboard. Mirran Crusader would be ideal, but most sideboards don't include any of them. Anything that generates a 2-for-1 in anyway is good in this matchup: thrun, batterskull, fulminator mage, kitchen finks, etc.
Coco variants (formerly Pod variants)Slightly unfavorable to even - This deck plays quite nicely around ours regardless of your build. Its got all the tools it needs to deal with whatever you've put into play and clogs up the board with at least 24 main deck creatures. What it boils down to is how well did you manage to keep the board clear of nuisance blockers to push damage through, and unless you drew the perfect balance of creatures and removal, you may not succeed in that regard. The problem is that some of our removal is great against their stuff while its bad against others. Path to Exile is great against every single creature they play...except for mana dorks. I recommend taking out lilianas for damnation or another board wipe like drown in sorrow. Also, if you're playing vault of the archangel, you will want to try and use as soon as possible, as this match up usually ends up being a midrange contest, and vault plus your sizeable creatures will win you that contest. Avoid playing cards that narrowly stop coco such as hallowed moonlight, as they still have many other ways of killing you. Grafdigger's cage is really great against coco, only costs 1 mana, and keeps cards such as kitchen finks from recurring and stopping the combo. You want to keep as many creatures around as possible because they will often abandon the combo to try and grind you out instead. Scavenging Ooze is a house in this match up. It outgrows all of their stuff, plus it shuts down any sort of graveyard shenanigans like kitchen finks or eternal witness.
AffinityUnfavorable to Slightly Unfavorable - A good affinity pilot will likely give you a very hard time, however, affinity is harder than most people think so you may be more successful against affinity depending on the pilot. Affinity is ultimately a bad match up, though. Arcbound ravager makes for some very problematic scenarios regardless of your removal, and our deck, as suicidal as it is, is already in the hole against this deck. You may also want to take out liliana for drown in sorrow if you have it, as liliana is too slow and drown in sorrow will still deal with etched champion in most cases. I don't, however, recommend damnation or other big sweepers because ravager and manlands may blank it. Watch out for blood moon out of the board. Not all affinity decks run blood moon, but all of them are perfectly capable of doing so. You will assuredly want Stony Silence for this match up. Period.
ScapeshiftSlightly unfavorable to slightly favorable - This depends on your build. Builds with tectonic edge and knight of the reliquary will often have good success against this deck, as well as builds using smallpox. Traditional builds will be close to even, depending on your sideboard and theirs. Aggro builds will be slightly unfavorable. Obviously, the goal here is to stop them from having lots of lands. I wouldn't concern yourself too much with scapeshift as a card as long as they don't have 7 lands in play. Aven Mindcensor and Fulminator Mage are the strongest cards from the board here. Aven Mindcensor blanks all their ramp spells, and fulminator mage keeps the number of lands they have in play in check. Liliana and the usual hand disruption package is often good here as well. Watch out for sideboard fatties: wurmcoil engine, primeval titan, inferno titan, and obstinate baloth...as like many other combo decks, they may abandon the combo and just try to punch you to do death.
UWR ControlSlightly favorable - Your hand disruption and lilianas will serve you well in this match up by taking away key spells and keeping them under constant pressure. This deck will often try to kill you with lightning bolts if their desperate so try not to eat up too much of your own life total. Keep in mind that UWR control variants can differ greatly in terms of what they will try to use to kill you. Biggest threats here are currently Ajani Vengeant and Nahiri, the Harbinger and out of the board (or sometimes even mainboard) batterskull and Keranos, god of storms. You may want to side in graveyard hate for snapcaster mages, as they rely on those a lot of the time. Although Keranos is a very strong card, its not often worth a sideboard slot for deglamer or celestial purge. You want to be in a situation where even if they slam keranos, its way too late for it to be any good. That said, you may still want some sort of naturalize effect for a potential batterskull. You may want to take out your bobs if you're on the draw as they will likely get electrolyzed on curve. Thrun, the last troll, fulminator mage, and additional hand disruption will be the best cards to bring in. Many UWR varaints these days are playing nahiri or other things that don't die to abrupt decay, but do die to maelstrom pulse or anguished unmaking, so play those if you can. Keep in mind, however, that they will likely bring in an answer to thrun such as wrath of god--or even celestial flare (they can be pretty desperate sometimes).
InfectEven to slightly favorable - I am still surprised that it took this long to see infect rise to tier 1 like it has today. It had always been a strong deck worth consideration when building a sideboard or making main deck card choices. Obviously, our removal and hand disruption is just as critical here as it is for any other combo match up. Really, I don't think this match up comes down to sideboard choices as much as it does match up knowledge and experience. Remember that abrupt decay is not just an end-all against this deck: vines of vastwood and apostle's blessing are readily employed by skilled infect players. For that reason, edict effects like liliana, devour flesh, geth's verdict, etc. are strong here as well as sweepers such as drown in sorrow. Fulminator mage and other land destruction effects are also really strong in this match up thanks to inkmoth nexus. You will succeed a lot more in the match up by saving your appropriate removal for inkmoth nexus.
TronUnfavorable - You're at the mercy of their deck game 1 in most cases. Liliana and thoughtseize are really the only cards in g1 that pressure them in anyway unless you happening to be playing KotR; even our most aggro starts is typically not fast enough to kill them before they have a karn or a wurmcoil engine in the way. After board, we have access to fulminator mage and stony silence which helps substantially. You really need your sideboard cards here if you want any shot of winning the match. This deck is the almost the sole reason you want to have 3 fulminator mages and at least 2 stony silence in your board. Side out abrupt decays, they do hit things in their deck, but all of those things are stopped by stony silence. If tron and/or amulet bloom is very present in your meta consider ghost quarter. KotR builds w/ ghost quarter have a significantly better match up.
I am sad to see this pushed out of the Proven section. When I have a little more time I will post my Doran list that Ive been running and editing over the last year. Glad to see someone picked up Junk in here. I hope it will be as active as the other thread was.
Lantern told me that it might get moved to Proven when Ken finalizes the new organization of the forum. In fairness, the deck hasn't put up any real results but with the success of Jund and our better matchups and cardpool, I don't see why we can't be successful with it. The core of the deck is tried and true and the white splash is for some of the best cards in the format. My hope is that this primer will spur interest in the deck; we need more people playing it for it to show better results.
I'd appreciate seeing the list you've had success with. I'm not a fan of Doran but I know there are many people that are. He's a strong card and perhaps there is a variant of Junk where he is king.
Lantern told me that it might get moved to Proven when Ken finalizes the new organization of the forum. In fairness, the deck hasn't put up any real results but with the success of Jund and our better matchups and cardpool, I don't see why we can't be successful with it. The core of the deck is tried and true and the white splash is for some of the best cards in the format. My hope is that this primer will spur interest in the deck; we need more people playing it for it to show better results.
I'd appreciate seeing the list you've had success with. I'm not a fan of Doran but I know there are many people that are. He's a strong card and perhaps there is a variant of Junk where he is king.
-Mark
He can at least be good against Affinity, if nothing else.
Side note, what's the best sideboard against affinity? I was thinking Kataki, whereas my friend was saying Stoney Silence is better.
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Collecting Maw of the Mire! Feel free to send me any you have, so long as they're in reasonable condition.
He can at least be good against Affinity, if nothing else.
Side note, what's the best sideboard against affinity? I was thinking Kataki, whereas my friend was saying Stoney Silence is better.
I would probably play Creeping Corrosion, or Fracturing Gust. Honestly Fracturing Gust gets my vote as the like "one of affinity killer" because it also is super good against Hexproof. Apart from that my other hate would be Nature's Claim, again because it is also good against Hexproof. You want you SB cards to be good in as many matchups as possible, not just one. Granted Stoney Silence is better against Tron. Kataki isnt really that good :/ thats why a lot of people arent playing him.
That look pretty solid! I like Gaddock Teeg a little more than Wheel of Sun and Moon though.
I like this list overall and I am glad to see that Glittering Wish is getting some love.
He can at least be good against Affinity, if nothing else.
Side note, what's the best sideboard against affinity? I was thinking Kataki, whereas my friend was saying Stoney Silence is better.
Kataki is too easy for Affinity and Tron to play around; both of them can produce a lot of mana by the time Kataki comes down and both have efficient ways of dealing with him (Pyroclasm, Galvanic Blast, Whipflare, Dispatch). I think 3+ Lingering Souls in the main is very useful in this matchup, as well as Abrupt Decay. Knight of the Reliquary is great because it can fetch Vault of the Archangel, which they can't deal with. Affinity is a race and lifegain is very difficult for them to beat, assuming you can keep them off an early Cranial Plating or Steel Overseer.
I would probably play Creeping Corrosion, or Fracturing Gust. Honestly Fracturing Gust gets my vote as the like "one of affinity killer" because it also is super good against Hexproof. Apart from that my other hate would be Nature's Claim, again because it is also good against Hexproof. You want you SB cards to be good in as many matchups as possible, not just one. Granted Stoney Silence is better against Tron. Kataki isnt really that good :/ thats why a lot of people arent playing him.
I imagine it's an blowout if you get a Fracturing Gust or Creeping Corrosion off. Nature's Claim looks good, as does Seal of Primordium.
Me and a buddy are working on a wish version of this... Any suggestions in the grbw colors?
I'm actually going to add a Glittering Wish section to the primer. It's a bit slow and makes our sideboard funky but can be good. Off the top of my head (with some Google-fu to aid me), here are some good targets:
Shadow of Doubt, Firespot and Kitchen Finks are not Multicolored, are they? I think the card has to be "gold" in order to be a legal target for Glittering Wish.
Those mentioned cards are "hybrid-cards". Or do they count as multicolored too?
Wouldn't it make more sense to run 2 extra shocklands that could be used by knight?
Aggro is a significant portion of the meta (Melira Pod, RDW, Affinity, Zoo, Living End to an extent) and it's often less than ideal to use our resources for lifegain. For example, it's Shaman's weakest ability and Ooze often has more pressing targets. We don't win by gaining life but rather by stabilizing against faster decks so we can overwhelm them with our card advantage and value. This is significantly more difficult to achieve the more we shoot ourselves in the foot.
As it is, I try to only fetch for a shock untapped in the early game when I need to establish BB-G-W as soon as possible. This can often mean spending 5 life on colour-fixing alone. Occasionally drawing a Mire means that I only need one shock to establish all my colours. Of course, it's not always perfect (for example, wanting to cast Knight off of a colourless land + Godless Shrine + Twilight Mire) but the life we save it very important. What's even more important, however, it consistently having access to BB and GG for Liliana and Ooze, respectively. A green splash does not do much to make Ooze a good card mainboard and the more painless ways we have of simultaneously having access to our two most important colours, the better. I would run more Mires if they didn't tap for colourless on their own, but that's the cost of its power.
Another thing worth pointing out is that, due to the speed of the format, we can't block + tutor with Knight every turn; I consider myself fortunate if I can tutor twice because the opportunity to attack with an activated Vault for that huge lifeswing is narrow; many decks run removal and land hate so we have to capitalize on the offense as soon as possible. To me, Knight is just a big beatstick once I have a Vault out, which is not an insult; the deck needs heavy hitters. The ones that provide additional utility are best.
I see what you are saying, but I feel like the number of times I feel like shocking myself lost the game will be less than the number of times Twilight Mire makes me either mulligan a hand or mana screws me...
I would really like some help here...I'm going to have 2 modern decks...
One is America Geist...the other is going to have BG in it...
I'm trying to decide between Jund, Junk, and the Rock...
The way I look at it, they all have Bob, Goyf, DRS, Liliana, Thoughtseize/Inquisition, Abrupt Decay.
Differences:
Jund: Huntmaster of the Fells Lightning Bolt Raging Ravine
Junk: Knight of the Reliquary Lingering Souls Path to Exile
The Rock: Scavenging Ooze Tectonic Edge Treetop Village
The Rock seems more consistent, but the other 2 I'm not sure which way to go...
I would really like some help here...I'm going to have 2 modern decks...
One is America Geist...the other is going to have BG in it...
I'm trying to decide between Jund, Junk, and the Rock...
The way I look at it, they all have Bob, Goyf, DRS, Liliana, Thoughtseize/Inquisition, Abrupt Decay.
Differences:
Jund: Huntmaster of the Fells Lightning Bolt Raging Ravine
Junk: Knight of the Reliquary Lingering Souls Path to Exile
The Rock: Scavenging Ooze Tectonic Edge Treetop Village
The Rock seems more consistent, but the other 2 I'm not sure which way to go...
Advice?
Lightning Bolt, Olivia Voldaren, and sideboard options are the reasons to play Jund. GB worlds was a deck specifically crafted for a meta composed of American, with the knowledge that there wouldn't be any Tron, Affinity, Pod, or aggro in the meta. It's a very fragile deck that rolls over to all of them preboard and only improves against aggro postboard. The reality is that there's no real benefit in not splashing another colour because it's a matter of 2 shocks and 1 basic; the GB deck is even more susceptible to Blood Moon and getting screwed by the Path "drawback."
Lingering Souls, Path to Exile, and Lightning Bolt are 3 of the pillars of Modern. Not including them in a deck is to your detriment; which ones you choose is up to you. As a general guideline, Jund tends to be more aggressive and do better in topdeck mode because of Ravine and it's finishers, whereas Junk is more about grinding out utility and value through Souls and Knight. In a versus scenario, Junk usually wins due to have Souls mainboard, Path to deal with Ravine, and Knights + utility lands. Jund does have some good answers, however (Thundermaw, Olivia, Bolt). Feel free to test both on cockatrice and see which you prefer. Jund has Blackcleave Cliffs, which is pretty good and worth noting.
Introduction
Throughout Magic's history, several decks stand out for having clever or humorous names. "Raisin Bran", for example, was given the name because it caused most opponents to immediately concede both games resulting in "two scoops"; which was part of the slogan in the popular breakfast cereal, Raisin Bran. While "Junk" isn't nearly as clever as Raisin Bran (or any of the other 'breakfast' decks), the name Junk has become fairly popular in recent years in reference to this particular style of deck. In recent magic history, the name 'Junk' was then replaced with 'Abzan' after Wizards revealed a more defining name to the wedge color in Khans of Tarkir, similar to shard colors from the Alara block. Since then, the deck has taken the name Abzan, but is still often referred to as Junk.
Decks with the name "Junk" didn't follow a very close trend as some other decks may have over the years, but it was the most popular name of the Green/Black/White GWB wedge up until its recent renaming. A deck like Junk doesn't really have a solid strategy or plan, it's just a pile of good cards usually. Thus the name Junk was really the best way to describe it. It is arguable that Junk does seem to kind of fit the color description as well, but its perfectly okay to call it by its other names.
Junk/Abzan has had many different iterations in the past and continues to be a fairly popular color combination even in recent standard seasons. Past iterations have included Abzan control from KTK/THS standard, Junk reanimator from RTR/INN standard season, Treefolk builds, to Tooth and Nail builds, all the way back to stax builds. The modern variant is mainly independent of other past abzan decks (excluding its legacy variants which can be very similar), but glimpses of it's standard iterations do appear in it. Modern Junk's greatest element is control, while also having a fair amount of aggro element to it and little to no combo elements. Most builds of the deck have little synergy and do not have a linear game plan. What makes our deck strong is the raw power of each individual card and how those cards affect games against any deck. That said, it is important to understand which cards are good in which situations and how, while also understanding which role you are in a match: are you trying to control the game and lock down the board? Or are you playing the beatdown and trying to end the game? As a player, your job is to know when to switch between the two roles, or in more difficult situations, how to sit on the fence and do both.
Here are some points to help you decide if this deck is for you or not:
Pros - what you will like about this deck if you decide to play it
Cons - what you won't like about this deck if you decide to play it
In order to organize the primer in a way that best covers the many different possibilities of modern abzan/junk in a constantly changing meta, yet keep everything cohesive and consistent, I have divided this primer into the following sections. 'Competitively Speaking' is a section that discusses what is most commonly found to do well in the current meta game and geared more towards those building the deck for its competitive viability and may not be familiar with a deck in this archetype. 'Building a deck' is a section that goes over different approaches to the deck, including those outside the midrange game plan. While some of the strategies from this section are not typically represented in the current meta game, they do have the potential to win actual matches in modern, and in some rare cases have had exceptional results in notable events. 'Card Choices' is a reference to ALL feasible cards that decks in these colors can utilize excluding the majority of what would be considered sideboard cards. This section is mainly for seasoned players of the deck who may be looking for something specific in a particular meta or for a particular build. The remaining sections are self-explanatory. Although this primer does briefly go over abzan aggro, and collected company abzan, this is not the main primer for those respective decks. Please see the respective primers for those decks if you are looking for more information on those specific variants. Lastly:
Just like Jund and other BG/x midrange decks in the format, Junk includes the usual cards included in any BG/x deck. All of the cards discussed below are must-haves for this deck, with little exception.
Dark Confidant - This card is kind of a strategy in and of itself. Dark Confidant, or 'Bob' for short, draws us extra cards to help us gain card advantage. If left unchecked, Bob can often make a very clear difference in the outcome of a match by simply drawing us 2 cards per a turn and overwhelming our opponent with our extra cards. His ability is certainly better than his body, but that doesn't mean a 2/1 for 2 mana is bad either; he can be a beater if he needs to be...or a blocker if worse comes to worse. If his life loss becomes too much of a problem, you can offset the life loss with some of our deck's life gain abilities (vault of the archangel, scavenging ooze) or just remove him with our own abundant removal. The higher your life total, the more likely you should cast this card, even against most aggro strategies. Our deck has no way of filtering or card selection and therefore only raw card advantage from Dark Confidant can help us power through opposing strategies.
Tarmogoyf - The epitome of efficiency in a creature in this format. Tarmogoyf is not as good as his price tag may make him out to be, but he certainly is the best at what he does: be a big dude for cheap. He dies to removal, and contrary to popular belief, gets outsized every so often by bigger dudes, but his big butt is really important to our deck. He will usually be 3/4 for 2 mana at the minimum which makes him good as a blocker and as an attacker. Tarmogoyf being able to play both defense and offense is why he is an important part of this deck. No other creature in the format can play this role as well as Tarmogoyf. Unlike Bob, tarmogoyfs are not as expendable to us. You really want to avoid running your tarmogoyf into situations where he can get killed, as games without a tarmogoyf will go a lot longer and possibly give our opponent more chances to kill us instead. And you certainly don't want to waste a tarmogoyf to one of your opponent's lightning bolts, so often times in modern you will want to hold off on casting tarmogoyf until you know he'll at least be a 3/4.
Liliana of the Veil - Many of the format's decks would just overrun us with their strategies if we did not have a way of disrupting them and putting pressure on them in some way. Liliana of the Veil (LotV, or Lili) fits this strategy very well along with our other disruption. There are some decks that really don't care about a 4/5 Tarmogoyf hitting the table on turn 2, or having us draw extra cards off of Bob. Those decks do care about LotV hitting the table and making them continuously discard cards all while threatening their entire board state with her ultimate. If you still don't follow, all you need to know is that she is really good against control and combo strategies that like to have lots of cards in hand or resources on the board. Without her, storm would be a big problem against us, even with the discard we already employ. To top it all off, she has an edict ability that can be critical in some cases. Etched Champion, for example, can usually only be dealt with by using LotV's -2 ability while Etched Champion is their only creature in play (which is rare, but does happen). For these reasons, LotV is another must-have card for this deck, and is considered by some to be the best card in the deck over the other fantastic cards we already have.
Thoughtseize/Inquisition of Kozilek - Lastly, our deck must include some number of hand disruption spells to really solidify the disruptive part of our strategy. Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek (IoK) make up the last few cards that this deck must include. Unlike the previously mentioned cards, these don't necessarily have to be 4-of's. Instead, most BG/x lists run some combination of both. The recommended minimum is 4-6 mainboard in some combination of both. Many people lean more towards thoughtseize as the primary one, but this is the one part of the BG/x shell that is flexible. Currently, I use a 3/3 split of IoK and Thoughtseize, however, many more successful lists have done otherwise. Understanding how to use hand disruption is a big part of playing this kind of deck and cannot be thoroughly explained in this primer. You, as the player, must ultimately decide how you would like to employ these two spells. It is understood, however, that thoughtseize is generally better against the overall meta and IoK is better in metas where aggro is very prevalent. Even if aggro isn't very prevalent, a single matchup against a deck like burn or gruul aggro with 3 or 4 thoughtseizes main board will basically be an automatic loss in game 1. IoK may whiff a bit more often than thoughtseize in this format, but at least a whiff with IoK won't put you out 2 life and, potentially, a game. Use this knowledge, as well as your experience, to decide how best to use these spells in your list. Keep in mind that it may not always be the best play to cast a hand disruption spell as soon as possible, but rather hold onto it for the right moment to catch your opponent off guard.
The BG/x shell is like the foundation for our deck, but that leaves us with about 16 more cards to add to the deck besides the lands. This is where BG/x midrange and it's many variants in modern branch out. Jund, for example, adds red to the mix for a whole branch of options, lightning bolt being the big one. Below are the most popular cards you will see filling the remaining spots in our deck.
Abrupt Decay - Abrupt Decay isn't necessarily an integral part of the BG/x shell, but 9 times out of 10, you will see 2 or 3 of these in any BG/x deck. As much as I love abrupt decay, it does not answer everything. Manlands like raging ravine or celestial colonnade blank abrupt decay pretty hard, as well as anything that costs over 3 mana that is difficult to interact with such as ajani vengeant or other 4 cmc planeswalkers. Even still, abrupt decay answers plenty of the format's problems, enough to still leave some main board spots for it.
Maelstrom Pulse/Anguished Unmaking - As a fan of good removal, these are both cards I like a lot. Honestly, in this format, you really don't need more than 1 or 2 main board, if any. But, in this format, there's always things that need to be removed and both of these will make that task simple...unless its a man-land giving you a problem. Obviously, these two are interchangeable and have pretty clear pros and cons. Maelstrom pulse, while sorcery speed, has the inherent ability to 2-for-1 your opponent. This doesn't happen too often, but usually when it does it will save you the game. Anguished Unmaking obviously will (usually) only deal with 1 problem, but its instant speed which makes it a little more versatile for us. The 3 life is still something to consider too, as our deck is usually already pretty suicidal. I find Anguished Unmaking a little better in a heavy tron and control meta as it deals with wurmcoil engine and planeswalkers a lot better, where as maelstrom pulse is generally a little better against aggro metas with things like merfolk, tokens/soulsisters/martyrproc, or elves.
Grim Flayer - Since the deck lacks selection (and frankly, the majority of the format lacks good selection), this card actually works out nicely in the deck, especially with Dark Confidant. Plus, of course, it serves as a decent aggro threat in the mid or late game if the 2/2 body wasn't doing enough work. Not necessarily of 4-of, usually more in 2 or 3 if any.
Scavenging Ooze - A big contender against the almighty tarmogoyf. It costs the same as tarmogoyf, but it can grow bigger than tarmogoyf while also gaining you life and fighting graveyard-based strategies. The downside? The mana investment. Although his casting cost is just as friendly as goyf's, his ability can only be activated with green mana, which is not in abundance in our 3-color deck. He can still be used, but it will take effect on what kind of lands you play or fetch for in your games. Some people will swear that scavenging ooze is better than tarmogoyf. Scooze is best not played as a 4-of because while two or more are in play, one flourishes while the other remain as grizzly bears. Therefore, most lists play 3.
Fatal Push - Excellent removal spell to compliment path to exile. Much better at getting rid of things like birds of paradise or noble hierarch that we want to kill but don't want to have them get an extra land from it. Of course, doesn't kill everything relevant though, and sometimes requires some setup, but its essentially the closest thing to lightning bolt for our color combination.
Lingering Souls - The first and most popular addition to the BG/x shell with white is lingering souls. Lingering Souls gives our deck both better offense and defense, but unlike tarmogoyf, lingering souls tokens have flying and, in multiples, can cause bigger problems for our opponent than tarmogoyf can at the cost of being a lot smaller. The flashback ability gives our deck some much needed ability to play around decks with lots of removal and sweepers as well. Against aggro lingering souls puts out blockers to help buy us time, and against control, it helps continuously put pressure on the board. But against combo, it may not put enough pressure on the board and we don't need any blockers against most forms of combo. Lingering souls can also get blown out by some cards, too, like electrolyze or maelstrom pulse. That said, lingering souls is really great in combination of lord effects such as the effect from Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Wilt-leaf liege, or Gavony Township. 4 of these may put us up a bit too high on the curve, so 3 is usually a better number, but 4 won't necessarily be a bad thing. The most common play with lingering souls is to discard it with our liliana +1 which essentially is a +1 in card advantage for us most of the time.
Path to Exile - The second most popular addition with white: path to exile. Path is the most efficient and versatile creature removal spell in the format, and second in the whole entire game, swords to plowshares being the best. Sometimes, your opponent gets a Mirran Crusader, or a Phyrexian Obliterator, or even a Blightsteel Colossus...path to exile will be there to save the day. Basically, path to exile is our last resort to creatures that aren't answered by our other spells. Giving your opponent a land is still not necessarily a good thing, though, so you will want to avoid using path to exile in cases where your opponent could make some back-breaking plays with an extra land. That said, the extra land is rarely relevant, especially late game. It's also this deck's best answer to manlands such as Celestial Colonnade and Raging Ravine since those lands are not hit by Abrupt Decay or our other removal. Even more so, it's the only way for us to efficiently deal with Wurmcoil Engine, which sees a ton of play and is very problematic for BG/x midrange decks. For this reason alone, you really want to have at least 3, if not 4, in your 75.
All of these cards combined can almost make up a complete list on it's own, with a couple of flex spots open:
4 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Siege Rhino
4 Path to Exile
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 lingering souls
1 Maelstrom Pulse
The above is what you will normally find in most builds of abzan, but things change vastly from list to list as the meta is constantly changing. Variations on these colors are fleshed out below. This primer will cover the most viable options for the deck, but the deck is pretty open to do whatever you'd like with it since the rest of it's cards are so powerful by themselves.
This section will discuss how to put the deck together. Below, I will discuss the different approaches on which to take on Junk, as unlike other modern decks, there are several different directions you can go.
Traditional Abzan/Junk is very much a midrange deck similar to its cousins Jund and BG. It focuses mainly on control and aggro elements, and has almost no combo element outside a few synergies with cards such as lingering souls and liliana of the veil. Traditional Junk builds focus on the cards listed above.
4 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Path to Exile
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Maelstrom Pulse
The meta changes all the time, however, so we cannot guarantee what the rest of the deck may look like. Currently, abzan players are split on playing dark confidant with high cmc spells such as murderous cut and/or tasigur, the golden fang. The format changes often and sometimes even drastically, though, so I will try to keep up with current trends as best as I can.
List updated 2/14/17, from SCG MODERN IQ, 1st place
3 Noble Hierarch
3 Dark Confidant
3 Grim Flayer
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Renegade Rallier
Spells (22)
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Fatal Push
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Path to Exile
3 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Collective Brutality
4 Lingering Souls
3 Blooming Marsh
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
3 Marsh Flats
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
3 Shambling Vent
1 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Collective Brutality
3 Stony Silence
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Lost Legacy
1 Damnation
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
In Magic's more recent history, Junk decks tended to be a lot more aggressive with only a little bit of disruption and removal to fight through decks like Faeries back in Lorwyn/Alara standard. It is definitely still possible to take this approach in modern. Unlike traditional Junk, this has only a few disruption and removal spells and ultimately focuses on being the beatdown. Although the deck is technically a variation of this deck in these colors, we do have a dedicated thread for it here. My former discussion on the deck is below.
In order to achieve greater beatdown potential, the deck employs mana dorks to start the game with some acceleration into some larger larger threats. These mana dorks are usually Noble Hierarch or Birds of Paradise. From here, the deck wants to utilize somewhat larger threats than normal builds such as Wilt-leaf leige, Loxodon Smiter, or Knight of the Reliquary. On top of these, you can include other common junk creatures such as tarmogoyf, bob, and scooze. Keep in mind that having a way to make your mana dorks turn into relevant threats is extremely important; the deck should likely include Gavony Township, lord effects (such as the one from Wilt-leaf Leige), and/or swords/equipment to make everything very threatening.
As an aggro build, you will have a lot more creatures than you will spells. But like I said, you need to have some spells to keep opposing combo, control, and aggro decks at bay. Hand disruption is absolutely essential to keep combo from getting guaranteed kills on you before you can kill them and for taking away key spells from control decks. Therefore, Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize are usually auto-includes, whilst leaving out Liliana of the Veil. Removal is important to take away key permanents as well to ensure the beatdown can commence. In this aggro style of junk, you will want to resort to only the most efficient removal spells: Path to Exile, and Abrupt Decay.
Additional cards to consider for aggro builds of junk are listed in the 'Card Choices' section below.
Since this deck isn't largely popular, there is no 'core' or common list of cards that people typically play in this kind of deck. You just gotta get your hands dirty and figure out what you like. Below is a sample list, but keep in mind that you will enjoy the deck more if you make your own decisions on building this kind of deck. Note that black is mainly just used for removal and hand disruption here, as opposed to using liliana and bob.
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Loxodon Smiter
4 Knight of The Reliquary
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Wilt-Leaf Leige
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Path to Exile
Lands (24)
1 Gavony Township
1 treetop village
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Kitchen Finks
As part of both sacrificing lands and discarding cards, Life from the Loam already makes up for 2 of the downsides to smallpox. You can recur LtfL to get your lands back, as well as put more stuff in our graveyard. To best play with the stuff in our graveyard, we can still employ scooze, lingering souls, KotR, plus a few others that are a little atypical like Darkblast or Bloodghast. In order to have something to keep us from sacrificing creatures, we can play bitterblossom in addition to lingering souls so that we don't have to worry about sacrificing creatures or lands as much. Lastly, we definitely want to have hand disruption: LotV, thoughtseize, IoK, and Raven's Crime. Raven's Crime also plays well from the graveyard or with smallpox.
Alright, so there's a ton of different ways you could build this. If you're running life from the loam and smallpox, you really don't want path to exile because it kind of defeats the purpose of pox/lftl. So really, the only thing you want in white for this deck is lingering souls, and maybe Tidehollow Sculler. Below is a sample list. It's in no way refined, but it's a good place to start.
4 Dark Confidant
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Bitterblossom
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Slaughter Pact
4 Liliana of the Veil
3 Life from the Loam
4 Lingering Souls
4 Raven's Crime
2 Thoughtseize
4 Smallpox
1 Ghost quarter
1 tectonic edge
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Treetop village
1 Stirring wildwood
As we've seen so far, junk has tons of different options, yet little to none of them show up very often in the meta. Here is Treefolk Tribal, another aggressive build of junk that used to show up in the very early days of modern, mainly as a reincarnation of it's standard heyday. Despite being a little sub-par in today's current modern meta, it's still a viable deck given it's strong synergy. Similar to other tribal decks, such as merfolk, this deck focuses on playing creatures all of the same type. In this case, treefolk shamans, most of which are from the lorwyn block. I highly recommend this deck for those looking to build on a budget. It's surprisingly fun, and super stylish in a retro, hipster, kind of way. Again, this is not the thread for discussing this deck, I've merely included it here as it is in these colors and those looking for the deck may be able to find it here. Please take discussion on this particular variant to its appropriate thread.
Doran, the Siege Tower - Obviously, this is the most important card in this deck, which is named after this guy. Sadly, as a legendary creature, you may not necessarily want to run the full 4, but you'll see shortly that it's not as bad as seems with only 3. All the creatures you play in this deck should benefit from Doran's effect.
Treefolk Harbinger - So, in case you were wondering, the obvious target for this guy in your deck will be Doran. Sadly, it isn't actual card advantage since it puts it on top of your library, but obviously, this guy is just a 1 drop tutor for doran...or a forest. The cool part is, these guys are sweet at blocking in the early game, then they become wild nacatl's once doran is in play.
Bosk Banneret - Just overall good synergy for the deck. Unfortunately, the two cards above don't benefit from his ability, but other creatures in this deck will. Again, good on defense, and can be offensive once Doran is in play.
Dauntless Dourbark - The ultimate beater in this deck. He's usually at least a 5/5, assuming you still have a couple of treefolk in play. Great synergy with Bosk Banneret, here. Also, he's good without Doran in play since he will still have a good amount of power.
Dungrove Elder - The only treefolk outside lorwyn that fits in this deck. Hexproof is extremely relevant with all the spot removal going around, so he's a pretty awesome dude in our deck. He's also pretty easy on our mana since he's only 1 green.
Leaf-crowned Elder - Great card advantage for this deck, especially with treefolk harbinger. He's kinda costly, but bosk banneret can help out with that. 5 toughness and CMC of 4 makes this guy pretty tough to destroy.
Wickerbough Elder - You'll probably want a single-ton one of these as a way of tutoring up an answer for an artifact or an enchantment.
Murmuring Bosk - The ultimate land for this deck. Fixes our mana, plus it counts as a forest...and surprisingly, it's not even legendary.
Similarly to the aggressive build of junk mentioned earlier in this primer, you're going to be using less spells and more creatures than your typical build of junk. That said, we'll be cutting liliana's, lingering souls, and some of the creatures for our necessary treefolk. Our typical Junk creatures such as bob, goyf, scooze, KotR, may still be played in this deck, however, the goal here is to play treefolk, so they may not necessarily make the cut. Goyf, however, is actually really good in this deck still, despite not being a treefolk. Again, as with almost all the junk builds, you will need your typical hand disruption and removal package alongside the creatures. The non-creature spells are absolutely essential to making sure you don't just auto-lose combo match ups, and have some way of making sure the beat down actually gets through. Here is a rough list of what a treefolk deck would look like.
4 Bosk Banneret
3 Doran, the Siege Tower
2 Leaf-Crowned Elder
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Wickerbough Elder
2 Dauntless Dourbark
4 Path to Exile
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Treetop Village
This section will list all possible cards for this deck that are useable in the main board. For those of you who are looking to do something a little off the beaten path; this section is for you. I have listed all the cards I could think of that could viably go in a junk deck. Some of the cards listed are more applicable in certain builds over others; those builds are listed in the following section. Many of the cards below are also good choices for the sideboard, and will therefore be left out of the list of viable sideboard cards. They are listed by CMC in order of most viable to least viable, generally speaking. Not all of these cards are always viable in competitive builds, they are just listed as options for those seeking specific card choices for whatever reason.
MTGS user zebotc has created this "library" of cards here: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/modern-abzan-junk-card-library-primer-below/. DISCLAIMER: LARGE WEB PAGE, MAY CAUSE SLOW LOADING TIMES AND OTHER ISSUES FOR MOBILE USERS. It's basically a large list of cards that you could potentially play in junk. The majority of them are discussed below or in the sideboard section, but there are some that I haven't included (or have yet to include). Its also a little easier if you're just trying to find something without having to look through all the text I have below.
Noble Hierarch - Probably the only mana dark that isn't just actively bad if we ever top deck it. The big problem is that she doesn't tap for black, which is often one of our primary colors. Otherwise, the exalted ability is really fantastic. Ideally, you would want noble hierarch in decks that are lighter on black and have a more aggressive game plan.
Birds of Paradise - Unlike noble hierarch, it taps for all of our colors reliably, but is actively the worst thing you could ask for in a late game situation unless you have some sort of effect to buff it. So similarly to hierarch, you'd also want BoP in a more aggressive deck, but they can be played in more traditional junk builds to help power out turn 2 plays like liliana or KotR.
Loam Lion - Definitely a consideration for the aggro junk decks. He's a great turn 1 play that can only be killed efficiently with a lightning bolt.
Warden of the First Tree - Pretty much the figure of destiny in our colors. Of course figure of destiny is an aggro threat, and warden of the first tree is no different. Aggro versions of Abzan may want this guy, but definitely not traditional or pox variants.
Ulvenwald Tracker - Fight bear! In grindy games, he's great alongside goyf or KotR to kill off just about anything you want. He's great utility, but if you want to play him, you don't really want more than one, and you certainly want to make sure you're running plenty of creatures to fight with.
Doomed Traveler - A former staple in token decks. He fits the 2-for-1 nature of the deck pretty well, but he's only really ideal if you're heavily into the token game plan.
Dryad Militant - 2/1 for 1, the ideal aggressive 1 drop for us. The body is the main reason you'd want him, however, the ability to keep instants and sorceries out of the graveyard is extremely helpful against decks like storm, UWR, twin, plus a few others. Its a nonbo with lingering souls, though, so you won't want to play the two together. Its probably just sideboard material, though.
Elves of deep shadow - While we're on mana dorks, here's another option. Taps for black to help power out turn 2 lilianas, but otherwise, its just a 1/1 for 1...which is better than noble hierarch or bop, but still not really ideal in the meta.
Avacyn's Pilgrim - This guy used to be a staple in junk while it was in standard...now he's pretty unplayable unless you're really heavy on white. Again, he can beat for 1 in a pinch, but that's not likely to ever happen.
Voice of Resurgence - Voice is an all-around good card in its colors, which makes it a perfect candidate for our deck. He has yet to make a huge appearance in modern, outside coco decks (pod decks, formerly), but he is surprisingly good in a format where lightning bolt and other popular instant speed removal is hugely prevalent. The biggest problem I've seen with this guy is that the elemental he leaves behind is only a 1/1 or 2/2. Although that is still a body that you get for free, you really need to make sure you're playing a high number of creatures to make this guy optimal. That said, builds with lingering souls and other token generators will benefit the most from voice of resurgence.
Tidehollow Sculler - This dude fits our game plan pretty well. He disrupts our opponent and can swing for some beats. Even better, he helps buff goyf if he hits the yard as an artifact spell. He does have some downsides though. In my testing, he is the best example of a speed bump, meaning he'll take a card from your opponent's hand, but eventually, they'll just kill it and get it back and continue to beat on you (or whatever it is that they're doing), but he is definitely still a strong play on turn 2.
Qasali Pridemage - Qasali pridemage is one of the most outstanding commons of its class. It's a relevant aggro threat while also serving as preemptive removal for big time problem cards in this format. Almost everything we'd want to hit with an abrupt decay is also hit with this card. Although artifacts and enchantments are not always necessarily in every deck, there are a lot of decks in this format that have a relevant target for him, which means he is actually playable in your main 60. At the worst, he's a grisly bear with exalted. I recommend him for more aggressive builds, but he's a solid choice for just about any version of junk.
Pack Rat - Pack rat also fits the nature of our deck pretty well, allowing us to single-handedly win wars of attrition by turning any top deck we have into another body that continues to grow the other rats and fairly quickly close out a game, or help grind it out. Unlike in standard, however, the mana investment is much more demanding, as is the card investment. Due to the presence of combo, he's not always ideal either. Overall, he can definitely be a finisher, but it will be slow; too slow for combo or most aggro decks. That said, I don't necessarily recommend this guy except as a one or two of in a traditional or grindy build of junk.
Bloodghast - Bloodghast fits a very specific role that benefits decks focusing primarily on smallpox/discard/liliana/life from the loam. If your build is up that alley, bloodghast is a solid candidate. Obviously, a path to exile will make this card less good, but still a worthwhile option. Did I mention it gets haste if your opponent has less than 10 life? The biggest down side to this guy is he doesn't block, which doesn't help us against one of our soft spots: aggro.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - Thalia can actually be applicable in more traditional builds of junk, too, but since there aren't lots of decks that play a lot of non-creature spells, traditional builds don't really employ her since their own spells are often important to cast. But in more aggressive builds of junk which usually employ less non-creature spells, there's no reason not to run her. She fits the disruption part of the deck very well, causing a lot of decks to have to wait an additional turn to cast important spells or focus on removing thalia before something else. This gives us more time to get on with the beat down plan. Thalia is a great card against storm, too, for obvious reasons.
Gaddock Teeg - Honestly, he's not usually that relevant in modern right now besides against a few decks like tron, but I'm still putting him here just to remind everyone that he does still exist and that it is possible he could become relevant again. Currently, he's probably best left as a sideboard card against tron, if anything.
Knight of the Reliquary - (abbreviated as KotR) is a pretty atypical card in modern these days and continues to dwindle in popularity for the time being. Formerly, DRS played a big role in the lack of popularity of KotR, but since DRS is no longer legal KotR has gained some of its power back. Despite this, KotR is a very powerful creature for it's cost, much more so than our main beater: tarmogoyf. The downside is that KotR is much more of an investment into a gameplan or strategy, where as tarmogoyf is a quick and easy massive dude.
The most common mistake I see people make with KotR is not using her ability and attacking with her too soon. KotR is not an offensive card...at first. I believe this is another big reason people don't like to play KotR, but you should at least give it a try and make your own conclusions. Playing KotR gives you the much-needed ability to play the stack. The best example that you see often is: your opponent swings in with his tarmogoyf which is a 4/5 because he sees that your KotR is currently only a 3/3. You block, and in response, you activate KotR saccing a land, getting a fetchland, and cracking the fetch. Your KotR is now a 5/5 and tarmogoyf dies after damage is dealt. Of course, seasoned players know this simple trick, but it only makes your opponent think harder and increases their chances of making mistakes with math. Outside making math more difficult for your opponent, KotR has the ability to out-grow larger creatures that tarmogoyf can't always stop (as you can see from the previous example). Furthermore, KotR gives us access to toolbox lands (see the corresponding section below for details) such as Tectonic Edge. This ability makes certain match ups a lot stronger, Tron especially, but many others as well. In the end, I can sing KotR's praise all day, but the fact is most people still don't prefer her for a number of reasons. All I can say is that a lot of people really underestimate her, but until she shows us some good results, I'm obligated to say that she probably isn't optimal (until proven otherwise).
Brimaz, King of Oreskos - A really great finisher for this deck; it puts extra bodies on the field and doesn't die to lightning bolt ever, or get hosed by graveyard hate which is extremely relevant since most decks will often board in some kind of hate to stop tarmogoyf/scooze/kotr/lingering souls. Downsides: it still dies to abrupt decay or most other spot removal, but the bodies it leaves behind can help against things such as liliana's edict. Other downsides include being double white which is often difficult to achieve in some situations. It also gets walled by opposing tarmogoyfs, but against most aggro decks, it will be the larger creature. I would recommend this for decks that are heavier on white and are more aggressive than most builds.
Loxodon Smiter - Smiter is another card you see every so often. He's kind of like a back up tarmogoyf, with some additional features: he's uncounterable and you can cheaty-face him into play off of discard. FYI: if your opponent casts IoK targeting you, and the only card they can choose is Loxodon smiter, they have to choose it, and it will be put into play. Of course, you can always choose to put it into play if your opponent uses liliana's +1, too (NOTE: you can't do this using your own liliana). The problem with loxodon smiter is that he's just a vanilla creature after he comes into play. He's not as efficient as tarmogoyf, yet still dies to the same removal (outside a well-timed lightning bolt). That said, he's only really a good option if BG/x decks are popular in your meta, as this is one card that punishes those decks. The uncounterable clause is actually extremely relevant in a meta filled with Remand. I highly recommend this card if you need to put a clock into play on turn 3 against any blue deck. Unfortunately, smiter can still be dealt with in a number of ways, but a lot of decks don't really have a good way of dealing with a creature that has more than 3 toughness.
Doran, the Siege Tower - Another card that is fading out of people's memory. Doran synergizes with a few cards in our deck such as tarmogoyf, but more often his ability helps us out with opposing strategies, namely by blanking Cranial Plating which is surprisingly relevant. His biggest downside, besides being a bit mana intensive, is his legendary status, otherwise he'd often be a 4-of in most builds employing Doran. Since he is legendary, you will not want to run more than 3 in aggressive junk builds.
Kitchen Finks - For some reason, Kitchen Finks has also dwindled in popularity lately despite it's former use in modern jund. Lingering Souls seems to have somewhat replaced finks, although they both serve the same role, and both have their strengths and weaknesses. Regardless of how good Lingering Souls might seem, kitchen finks and lingering souls are very close in power and capability. Kitchen Finks is a great blocker: he's got plenty of power to trade with some creatures, and if he does, you typically benefit from the trade since he comes back and gains you more life. On top of that, he's a really great beater, too. 3 toughness, while not necessarily urgent, is definitely still a threat. To add to that, the only way to efficiently deal with kitchen finks is with Path to Exile or graveyard hate in response to the persist trigger. The trade off between finks and lingering souls is that lingering souls puts multiple bodies on the field for blocking and they have flying, while kitchen finks is only on the ground, but is much harder to swing into since kitchen finks can trade with creatures that have 3 toughness. The current demand for lingering souls over kitchen finks always changes, so make your choice accordingly. More importantly, finks makes for a fantastic sideboard card against just about any aggro deck, and I will say Finks is actually a little better than lingering souls against UWR because it keeps your life total up when they opt to point burn spells at your head.
Eternal Witness - This card does not get the respect it deserves. Regrowth is absolutely broken in legacy and vintage, and to put it on a creature for an extra mana seems more than worthy of modern play. In this deck, it's just another way of recurring things we may need that we can't get back with Life from the Loam. Choosing E wit with grisly salvage feels great. The worst part of this card is the casting cost; double green is not always ideal for us--but is definitely doable.
Courser of Kruphix - At first, I was a little unsure if I wanted to something like this in our deck. He's double green, and doesn't beat for a whole lot. However, his life gaining ability is really nice in our deck, and sometimes serves as psuedo card advantage by getting more lands out of our deck and into play. Additionally, the 4 toughness is a pretty big deal considering the popularity of lightning bolt and creatures with 3 power. To put things into perspective, he's really good in the long, grindy match ups, and helpful against aggro, but lousy against combo since he's much more defensive than he is offensive...unless you are playing Doran, the Seige Tower.
Anafenza, the Foremost - Similar to loxodon smiter in a lot of ways. She's not particularly amazing in modern, but has some niche applications. Of course, a 4/4 for 3 is still solid, too. I have yet to see a list that could really abuse anafenza's ability, but I'm convinced that it could be done. Her graveyard hate ability is surprisingly relevant in some metas. Its not what you want against something like living end, but against decks that slowly feed the graveyard for things like snapcaster mage, tasigur, lingering souls, etc.
Renegade Rallier - Honestly, I don't think its that great, but it does kinda fit into our gameplan, and our colors of course. Personally, I think eternal witness is usually more applicable which usually doesn't make the mainboard in this deck any way, but it has shown up in successful lists from time to time.
Thrun, the Last Troll - You usually don't see this guy main board, but he's good enough to be in almost every BG/x sideboard and therefore I'm putting him first on the list of 4-drops. Some BG/x decks even play one main board--he's a really good 4-drop. He's your go to card against control and other decks that will give you long, grindy games such as other BG/x decks. Pretty straight-forward: any deck that wants to make sure you don't have creatures in play, this comes in. Watch out for Wrath of God and edict effects though (such as Liliana of the Veil). Thrun resolving usually means you've won the game in the right match up.
Hero of Bladehold - Probably the best 4-drop finisher this deck could ask for outside of siege rhino. Dodges the majority of common removal, puts tons of dudes onto the board, and will ultimately overrun your opponent unless they are already crushing you somehow. If things are locked up, this will almost assuredly break up an even board state. Double white is a little rough, but at 4 CMC, its usually doable. Best for more aggressive builds, but will work in most builds as long as you can realistically do double white...she is not splash-able.
Restoration Angel - For a four drop, this chick is awesome. Being a four drop is about the only downside. Well, it's not great against combo, but it's good against pretty much everything else. Even if you don't have any creatures in play, it's a 3/4 flyer with flash which goes a long ways in grindy games where 3 damage a turn can be a big problem. And when you do have creatures in play, she's the best way to counter a removal spell on one of our dudes. Furthermore, she doesn't die to lightning bolt, and flies over a lot of the format's most obnoxious creatures. If you're looking for a 4-drop in your deck and you need another creature, I'd highly recommend this card.
Wilt-leaf Liege - Wilt-Leaf Liege is a card that should not have been forgotten, but in modern, has definitely been forgotten. As long as hand disruption and liliana are popular, Wilt-Leaf Liege has the potential to make some huge blow outs. Keep in mind that her lord effects are two separate abilities, meaning Loxodon Smiter, Knight of the Reliquary, kitchen finks, etc. will all actually get +2/+2 from her effects if both are in play. Wilt-Leaf Liege should top off the curve for more aggressive builds, and should be accompanied by mana dorks to both make her easier to cost, and to turn into relevant aggro threats after she hits the board.
Phyrexian Obliterator - Not ideal in a 3 dolor deck, but I have seen some people trying it decks closer to mono black splashing Green and white. Seriously, don't play this guy unless you're very heavy black. If you are, play this guy. Nothing funnier than beating your opponent to a pulp with an eldrazi-esque 4-drop that has very few answers to it.
There's not a lot of 5 cmc guys that are realistically viable for most builds of Junk, but some builds do top off their curve with one or two 5 drops. Ideally, a 5-drop should just flat out win you the game. Keep that in mind when choosing to play a 5-drop main board.
Batterskull - Okay, not technically a creature...but lets face it, its a creature. In any grindy match up that goes long, batterskull will probably win you said match up. Its nearly impossible to kill whatever its attached to, let alone destroying batterskull itself. Even if they do manage to have a spell to destroy batterskull, you can pay 3 to return it to your hand in response and continue to ride the batterskull gravy train. Its pretty straight forward.
Thragtusk - Due to standard seasons past, I hate to have to put this card on this list, but it really is a solid card. Its great in the grindy match ups making it an inevitable 2-for-1 almost always netting us value. Due to its CMC, it is pretty terrible outside the fair match ups, though, and therefore I would avoid having it main board unless the meta really calls for it.
Sigarda, Host of Herons - The best 5 drop in the mirror by far. It will almost assuredly win you the game when it comes out...but again, it doesn't really help against aggro or combo decks. Just one more 5-drop to consider if you really need one. Its pretty great in the board, too.
Blood Baron of Vizkopa - This is a batterskull-esque creature with a little more hate towards its anti colors making it difficult to remove for most decks. Tarmogoyf will wall him pretty hard unfortunately, but he gets past most everything else in the format. Realistically, you will never get up to 30 life to benefit from its second ability without it already taking over the game anyway, but it should take over the game when you get to that point. He's best in the mirror or other grindy match ups and is therefore usually sideboard fodder, but I've seen players use him in the main board in the past to some success.
You really shouldn't be playing six drops in this deck unless they're tasigur, the golden fang (because its not really a 6 drop in consideration), but just in case the format ever becomes slow enough to the point where you would want an actual six drop (or somehow veteran explorer and cabal therapy enter the format), I will go ahead and list the ones you would want to play.
Tasigur, the Golden Fang - Again, not really a 6 drop for us, but he does actually cost 6 and therefore you must consider this when choosing to play him with or without dark confidant. Sometimes lists play a singleton tasigur with 3 or 4 bobs, some lists play multiple tasigurs and 0 bobs, some lists play no tasigurs and a full grip of bobs, some play neither...come to your own conclusions on this one. Currently, he's mostly a matter of preference, but the meta may say otherwise.
Grave Titan/Sun Titan/Primeval Titan/wurmcoil engine - These are the titans. If they hit the table and they don't win you the game, you were probably going to lose anyway. If you ever have to consider playing a 6 drop, it will likely be one of these.
Slaughter Pact - There's only one removal spell that we can utilize that costs 0: slaughter pact. Sometimes people main board this, but it's often in sideboards, too. Really, this is the "gotcha" card against twin, pod, and infect, as you can surprisingly interrupt them even though you've given them the green light by being tapped out when they try to fire off a combo. Ultimately, the mana you have to spend on your upkeep is usually well worth 2-for-1'ing them. Only downside, of course, is having to pay the 3 later which slows us down. The only reason you would not be able to pay the 3 when you needed to is if you missed a land drop.
Disfigure - Its kind of narrow, but your meta could easily make this a main board card. It would be preferred to use over path to exile where applicable. That is, its really great at killing mana dorks.
Darkblast - Similar to Disfigure, but can be used repeatedly. It does kill X/2's: use it at the end of your opponents turn or on your upkeep, then dredge it back and use it again on the same creature to kill X/2's. Of course, this is card disadvantage, but against decks that employ lots of X/1's and X/2's, its a house. Plus, it helps put some of our cards into the graveyard such as lingering souls, lands for KotR, creatures for scooze, or just anything for tarmogoyf.
Vendetta - Similar to the above cards, its really awesome against X/1's and X/2's. Even better, it can kill practically anything non-black in a pinch. The downside is the life loss, obviously. Our deck is already very suicidal, so using this in most builds is somewhat dangerous. However, in a combo-driven meta where creatures are part of the combo, this card is very good, and I have found is somewhat underrated and not expected.
Raven's Crime - This is the only other discard spell at 1 cmc that's still viable in our deck. Its mainly used in grindy builds often alongside smallpox and other cards, but is fairly flexible in terms of being built with. The only thing it requires is a fair amount of lands. Really good against any blue deck, but only moderately good against most other decks.
Collected Brutality - Just another versatile spell that contributes to our game plan. Works well against a lot of decks, and has quite a bit of synergy with lingering souls.
Dromoka's Command - This card, at a glance, doesn't really do anything too special. However, it has shown up in successful lists as a 1-of or 2-of. Again, nothing on it is inherently powerful for us, but its versatility is huge, and gives us a lot more options to play the stack which is generally one the deck's weak points. It's surprisingly efficient, too. I recommend trying it out and coming to your own conclusions.
Go for the throat - The best removal spell at 2 outside abrupt decay, IMO. Unfortunately, the list of artifact creatures that sees play in this format is fairly long. However, its shortcomings actually become a plus in the pod and twin match ups when spellskite comes in. You cannot redirect go for the throat to a spellskite. Its definitely a card that is viable for the main board if you need an additional kill spell.
[Victim of Night - Some successful lists have played one or two of these. With affinity being a force in the meta, it can be better than go for the throat, but many times it will essentially be the same, except its double black, which can be hard on our mana sometimes. I'm not going to list the number of relevant vampire/werewolf/zombie creatures in the meta...just know that they exist and you could run into them and make this card dead in your hand.
Bitterblossom - This card fits the nature of our deck fairly well: it continuously puts dudes into play making the game more and more difficult as the game goes on until you ultimately have the ability to win. The downside is that the dudes don't always do enough, or you end up killing yourself on its own ability. Ideally, you want this more for builds that really want the game to go long.
Life from the Loam - I don't need to sing this cards praises, many people enjoy playing with this card. This card is unique in that the card itself is really what your whole entire deck would want to focus on if you choose to use it. If you're playing life from the loam (LftL, for short), you need to have a good idea of what lands you intend to use, and have a good amount of recursion through the graveyard. Understand that this is a control card that usually warrants a control strategy through its lands and spells, and is therefore glacially slow compared to other kinds of control strategies. Keep in mind that this card is hosed hard by grave hate such as Rest in Peace.
Smallpox - Similar to LftL, this card is also an entire strategy in itself. In fact, LftL and smallpox often go hand in hand. This card is practically only good in grindy builds, but is a possibility for traditional builds, too in some very narrow cases. When building with this card, focus on how to benefit as much as possible by casting smallpox. If smallpox resolves and you sacrifice the same resources as your opponent, you're just durdling around waiting for your opponent to eventually get the resources they need to kill you. But if smallpox resolves, you sacrifice one of your bitterblossom tokens, sacrifice a ghost quarter, and discard life from the loam, you look a lot more like you're going to win that game. Again, focus on using incremental advantage cards: lingering souls, bitterblossom, LftL, liliana, bob, etc.
Grisly Salvage - I think its dumb in modern that the best card selection comes from colors outside blue. That said, grisly salvage can give us decent card selection while dumping things in the graveyard. Its ideal for grindy builds that are also utilizing eternal witness and life from the Loam.
Zealous Persecution - This is hands down the best combat trick in our colors, and is definitely one of the better tricks in the whole entire game. Not only will this give you even or favorable trades, but it may even sweep up a few of your opponents' smaller creatures in the process. Unfortunately, a combat trick is not always important in a format where you could just be dead to 6 valakut triggers or 30 copies of grapeshot, but it does a lot of things against a lot of different decks. It even nullifies the splinter twin combo for at least a turn. I recommend this for aggressive builds or token builds, but it is applicable in any junk deck, really.
Glittering Wish - Glittering wish is a very unique card that few players are familiar with. Even those who played magic during judgment vaguely remember the wish cycle introduced during that set. Leave it to the time spiral block to bring back an extremely oddball mechanic that few people understand. Anyways, this card is surprisingly good as a tutor spell in this format...the only downside is that it takes up your sideboard slots instead of being in your main deck, and you will have to use multi colored cards to utilize them with glittering wish. To play this card in your deck is to have a sideboard full of silver bullets. I'm not going to go too in depth on the cards you should choose to play with glittering wish; the majority of them are listed elsewhere in this primer. This is pretty much a build-around-me card that requires a special build of deck to utilize this spell.
Dismember - A staple in this format. No surprise considering its versatility; it kills just about anything relevant in the format and is essentially colorless. Fortunately, we can actually pay the black mana for it which helps us save on life. This spell is kind of a necessary evil, as it kills almost everything that path to exile will without given them extra mana which is important against some decks in certain situations. Costing essentially one mana is also a huge upside as the life cost is almost never relevant in the early stages of the game. I recommend at least 1 or 2 of these in just about any 75.
Abzan Charm - The charm exclusive to our colors. It's no slouch: all modes will do relevant things in just about any game, but you may find that sometimes this doesn't answer your problems. One of its most overlooked attributes is giving you the ability to play the stack: there are many situations where you need to have lightning bolt insurance for one of your creatures, or you need a way to take advantage of your opponent not doing anything by drawing 2 cards. The majority of the time, it will just exile something problematic, but its other abilities make up for the tough mana cost. You should consider playing at least 1, maybe even 2, somewhere in your 75 for traditional builds. Aggro builds and grindy builds probably want something else more suited for those particular strategies.
Putrefy - A little bit slow and clunky compared to our other removal spells, but its versatility is pretty helpful in some situations. For the most part, its a maelstrom pulse at instant speed, granted the right meta. Meta is definitely something to consider with this spell, though. It's speed and cost may not be worth using it for its situational usefulness. That said, I'd recommend it as a 1-of in traditional builds or in grindy builds.
The only spells here are really solid removal spells and collected company. Any 4 drop that isn't removal or a board wipe probably doesn't belong in this deck.
Damnation/Wrath of God - Our deck generally favaors damnation, but wrath isn't out of the question either. Typically, our other removal spells can keep up with the amount of aggro our opponents may drop on us, but if not we do have access to these spells. There are a few other alternatives too such as day of judgment, but you really want either one of these in case you run into something like thrun, the last troll.
Languish - There was a lot of discussion over this card when it was first released saying it would be really beneficial for this deck since it doesn't kill your own tarmogoyfs, siege rhinos, or tasigurs. While that is true, our deck doesn't make much use of 4 mana board wipes to begin with. Honesetly, I'd say this is about the same as damnation and wrath of god, with situational advantages/disadvantages. Personally, I think having a reset button for midrange mirrors makes damnation/wrath a slightly better choice, but if you expect a big aggro presence in your meta, Languish is a pretty good option over the former ones.
Collected Company - This card, in combination with lots of great creatures (especially those that are 3cmc), can be an amazing strategy. There is a specific deck, also in our colors, that makes the most out of this strategy that is covered in a different primer. For us, we generally won't be playing enough creatures to make the critical mass required to make this card good. I just wanted to mention it in case anyone may want to try this, especially for an aggro variant of this deck.
Murderous Cut - This should be the only 5 mana spell considered for this deck...and of course its not really a 5 mana spell. Most lists nowadays run one or two of these since we're not employing Bob much at the moment, but it comes out if Bob comes back into the deck. Just remember as a 5 mana spell with delve, you can't really run more than 1 or 2 in our deck.
There are tons of other cards that can be played that I have yet to mention, and may not necessarily even mention in this primer (or may not even get mentioned in this thread), but as long as we can cast them (reasonably) they are fair game for our deck. Below are some additional cards that are definitely still options. Some of them may not necessarily be ideal, but they're all worth some consideration.
Planeswalkers
There are a few planeswalkers besides Liliana of the Veil that we can use in our deck. If you are looking to play an additional planeswalker, I would highly advise one or two of these somewhere in your 75.
Garruk Relentless - Of all the BG/x lists running additional planeswalkers (meaning, planeswalkers other than LotV), Garruk Relentless is the most common. In modern, planeswalkers at 4 mana must be well worth the cost by meeting certain criteria. Garruk meets those criteria with only the two abilities he has: he protects himself and he can deal with a fair amount of enemy threats (albeit, only once if they have 3 toughness). If you manage to flip him (Garruk, the Veil-Cursed), he's got even more awesome abilities: making more tokens, and tutoring for creatures. For 3 and a Green, he's easy on our mana, and is easily castable if you are running 23 or 24 land. He also goes great with lingering souls because souls give you expendable bodies to use his abilities with on both sides of the card. The downside? He doesn't answer everything indefinitely by himself. But even if it's Garruk vs. a tarmogoyf, you can put a 2/2 wolf in front of goyf to protect him until you draw an answer. All in all, if you want a 4-drop, this would be my most recommended option.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant - If you need a great top deck to immediately win a game when things my be sort of tied up, look no further. Her mighty leap ability can end a game very quickly in a lot of match ups. Furthermore, she can protect herself with her other +1 ability that puts a dude into play, and unlike Garruk, will actually go up in loyalty leading her to a surprisingly relevant ultimate ability. If you can manage to ult her, you will likely be on the road to victory as long as you aren't playing against combo. Another benefit over Garruk is that she does not die to lightning bolt...at all, where as most of our other walkers will. The downside here is that she is double white, which is usually the hardest color for our mana to achieve if you are also playing liliana of the veil. However, if you're doing a more aggressive build, she probably fits your mana a lot better. I won't say she's your best choice of 4-drops, but she's up there for sure.
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad - Surprisingly really good, but only if you're playing with lingering souls. The anthem effects he creates are pretty sweet, even if you don't have souls tokens on board. Again, like our other walkers, he protects himself by putting bodies into play. Like LotV, he is somewhat susceptible to bolt if you have to use the anthem effect ability. The lifelink dudes also help with our decks natural "ability" to kill itself. His casting cost is not much more difficult to achieve than Garruk's, and definitely better than elspeth's. The downside? You really have to play lingering souls with this guy, otherwise the anthem effects just don't do enough to make it worthwhile.
Sorin, Solemn Visitor - See above. Both sorin's work pretty similarly in this deck actually. Personally, I like the abyss ability on this variant in the midrange match ups a lot more than I like the other sorin. But against aggro this variant is a little weaker, but really neither are that great against aggro, depending on the deck.
Equipment
Listed in order of most to least relevant (given the current meta):
Sword of War and Peace
Sword of Feast and Famine
Sword of Fire and Ice
Sword of Light and Shadow
Sword of Body and Mind
Swords are good in builds that are running lots of dudes to carry said swords, so builds that utilize tokens more would best benefit from a sword. I don't STRONGLY recommend you don't play more than one since they are somewhat of a "win more" card, but some people play more than 1 in the 75. I've listed them in order of most relevant to least relevant in the current meta. This includes both the protection of color it gives and the ability it has when it connects. The first 3 are all pretty close, IMO. The other 2 are usually pretty irrelevant unfortunately.
Fetchlands - For starters, you will need some Marsh Flats, Verdant Catacombs, and Windswept Heath's. The fetchlands help our deck out in a large variety of ways. It helps buff goyf and KotR, and of course, helps fix our mana tremendously: it allows us to play around blood moon, or be greedy to make the turn 2 Auriok Champion into turn 3 LotV possible. These are well worth the cost of paying a life to get a land. You can use off color fetches too in a pinch, such as misty rainforest, Bloodstained Mire, etc., but eventually you'll want them to be in your colors because sometimes fetching basics is very important. Most decks run 8 or 9, but more/less is fine.
Shocklands - The shocklands will compliment the fetchlands we also run as our primary source of mana. Overgrown Tomb, Godless Shrine, and Temple Garden are obviously our shocklands of choice here, the tricky part is deciding how many of each to use. Most decks run 5 or 6, but 4 and 7 are not unheard of. Any more than that, you make yourself to suicidal and open to land hate. Any less than that, you are probably not getting the mana fixing you need to cast your spells. The number of each depends on your build. Whichever color is heaviest, you will want to run more of the appropriate lands. In most builds of this deck, black is the most important color because of our turn 1 hand disruption spells, plus LotV which is BB. Because of this most people run at least two Godless Shrines and two Overgrown tombs. If you find yourself heavier in green, then you'd want at least two overgrown tombs and two temple gardens, so on and so forth. This is really the most I can say: knowing what number of shock lands to use in your deck will take some time and practice to figure out for yourself.
Basics - If you've been playing modern for a while I shouldn't have to tell you that you should probably use some basics...like Forest, Swamp and Plains. A lot of commonly played cards give us good reason to have basic lands in our deck: Path to Exile, Tectonic Edge and Ghost Quarter, Blood Moon, plus being able to not have to shock ourselves while playing against aggro decks makes a big difference. The more basics you can have, the better, but as a 3 color deck, we do need our fixing. That said, most people run between 3 and 5 basics. Again, you will use a higher number of the more demanding colors, which is usually black in our case.
Check lands - Woodland Cemetery, Isolated Chapel, and Sunpetal Grove all work in our deck. Not all builds run these. If they do, it's usually only 1 or 2 to fill the extra spots.
Fast lands - Razorverge Thicket isn't a bad card, but most junk builds need more black mana, and the SOM fast lands only give us access to G/W. Razorverge thicket is really good in more aggro builds of Junk, though, that need green mana more often on turn 1 than black.
Filter lands - Twilight Mire, Fetid Heath, and Wooded Bastion can also be utilized in our deck a little bit. These lands are super versatile, allowing us to go back and forth between casting things like liliana, mirran crusader, kitchen finks...etc. Much like the check lands, you will only want 1 or 2, if any, and usually only Twilight Mire, over the other two.
Man Lands - Almost all builds of BG/x run a good amount of manlands. This gives our deck the ability to continue the beat down if we get flooded out, plus manlands play around control elements and removal pretty well since they are not permanently creatures. Therefore, they are almost invulnerable to sorcery speed removal such as Supreme Verdict and Liliana's edict effect. Our deck has 3 options: Treetop Village, shambling vent, hissing quagmire and Stirring Wildwood. There are others in our colors, but they are somewhat unplayable. Treetop village costs less to activate and has trample, while stirring wildwood is more mana intensive, but has reach. Treetop is better for putting on a faster clock, while stirring wildwood is better on the defensive side, especially since it has 4 toughness making it out of reach of lightning bolt. Which ones you decide to run and how many of each is a matter of preference, but I will say treetop is more common than stirring wildwood and most decks usually run 3 or 4 manlands. Shambling vent is good in grindy matchups where life totals can be relevant. Hissing quagmire is actually best as a blocker since it has deathtouch. However, I don't really think shambling vent and hissing quagmire are really great as manlands, rather, they just produce more relevant colors usually.
Non-basic hate - By non-basic hate, I mean Tectonic Edge and Ghost quarter. There a few similar cards, but they are strictly worse than these two in most cases. Tec Edge and Ghost quarter are not always found in BG/x decks, but for some reason, Junk seems to employ them more often. KotR helps a lot, too, if you are playing them. Tec Edge is really important against decks that will try to get 4 or more lands in play. Pro tip: that's a lot of decks in modern. Against control decks, we want to keep them off casting spells such as Cryptic Command and through the breach. Against scapeshift, we just want to keep them off lands, period; as one less land is one less Valakut trigger. Tec Edges also stop big problem man-lands, namely Raging Ravine and Celestial Colonnade. Ghost quarter, while it doesn't set back your opponent on lands, is good against decks that have problematic lands such as Inkmoth Nexus or Tron lands, yet will still hit those lands even if they don't have 4 lands in play. This is a big plus against those decks since these lands can be problematic in the first couple of turns before we can use tec edge. Usually, a second ghost quarter is the equivalent of a strip mine in matchups where you want ghost quarter. There is no recommended number of these lands since lists vary too greatly on these lands, but I would recommend a couple if possible. Currently the meta says to play tectonic edge to help us fight control decks and decks utilizing big mana strategies such as valakut.
Other Stuff
Gavony Township/Vault of the Archangel - Both lands are great targets for KotR's ability, but can be played without KotR as well. Both lands make lingering souls a lot better, and I highly recommend at least one of these if you are playing lingering souls. Their effects are costly, though. This means that they are basically just colorless lands in games where you could lose by turn 5. I will say I'm more of a fan of Vault of the Archangel since it helps us gain back life which helps us last in a game against aggro, but gavony township can often times be more relevant in some situations. Gavony also synergizes really well with Kitchen Finks because of it's persist ability (For the record, I don't agree with that ruling. It's extremely annoying in pod decks and they utilize it a lot. But hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.). As I said, I recommend at least 1 of these if you can fit it in your deck
Horizon Canopy - The cantrip land. Best used only in conjunction with KotR, otherwise it just doesn't help out as much, but it has been played in successful lists without KoTR. Cantrips are not super powerful in our deck because of redundancy, so an additional benefit you have to playing this card is having more lands in the graveyard for KoTR. It's also hard to justify putting ourselves down a land in a lot of situations. But hey, there's always the chance it draws you that extra card you need to win the game
Bojuka Bog - ONLY TO BE USED WITH KOTR! You want to avoid running this main board if you can, sometimes it's essentially just a swamp that comes into play tapped that can be destroyed by tec edge or become a mountain by blood moon. But this card is good against a lot decks, especially living end. If you have room in your 75 for it, definitely worth a shot. Also, don't be afraid to sideboard it. It's better than other graveyard hate as long as you're playing 4-of KotR since it's ability is uncounterable, and finding another land to sideboard out isn't too hard.
Sejiri Steppe - ONLY TO BE USED WITH KOTR! Unlike Bojuka bog, you could probably run this main board since creature removal is a lot more common than graveyard strategies, but it's still sometimes just a plains with a bunch of downsides. I don't really recommend this unless you're going for more of an aggro build of junk. Otherwise it's not worth all of it's downsides. It's pretty self-explanatory though: you can fetch it up with KotR in response to a removal spell to nullify said removal spell; this can make for some pretty big blow outs. You can sideboard it, too, but you might as well main board this one if you're going to play it since removal is pretty common. Again, I don't recommend it, but it's an option as long as you're playing KotR.
This section is pretty straight-forward: what to include in your sideboard and what you want to bring in against certain decks and match ups. A lot of the sideboard cards have actually already been discussed in the primer, so I'm only going to write about the cards that haven't already been discussed in the primer already. Remember that all recommended numbers may be different depending on what your meta is like.
hallowed moonlight - Hoses tokens, plus a few other niche decks, but it is still a little narrow for a sideboard card. Make your own conclusions.
Celestial Purge - Pretty straight forward, it's nice to have against a deck that has a fair amount of black or red permanents. Targets include, but are not limited to: Keranos, god of storms, liliana of the veil, dark confidant, splinter twin, plus much more. Honestly, Abrupt Decay usually solves the same problems, but it's here if you need it.
Aven Mindcensor - Shuts down any deck that searches its library frequently. Usually, this means any 3 color deck, but it also beats up on decks like tron and scapeshift very well. Plus its got flash. Depending on your build, your opponent may not necessarily see this coming which could easily cause some blow outs if you play it right. The only downside is that it dies to pretty much any removal spell in the format...which is fair, because if it didn't it would just be nearly unstoppable against those decks.
Hushwing Gryff - Very relevant against a lot of modern's most important creatures including snapcaster mage, vendilion clique, kitchen finks, murderous redcap, deceiver exarch, pestermite, soul's attendant and soul warden, plus more. It's a bit clunky, and it also dies to most removal, but hey, torpor orb on a 2/1 body with flying is pretty good against a lot of decks.
Stony Silence - The go-to hate for affinity and tron. You'll probably want at least 2 in your sideboard.
Torpor Orb - Probably the strongest card against twin and pod reincarnation variants. It's pretty narrow, but surprisingly good in the meta. Also shuts down a few other things such as snapcaster mage, restoration angel, and vendilion clique.
Engineered Explosives - Considering we're a 3 color deck, Engineered Explosives (or EE, for short) is actually a pretty solid card against decks that play lots of permanents such as aggro decks or decks like Mono-Green devotion, etc. It's really kind of difficult to decide when to play something like this, but it is definitely something to consider. If deathrite shaman ever comes back, we can cast it for 4 (and maybe even 5!).
Drown in Sorrow - It's no Anger of the Gods, but it's the closest thing we got. Formerly, this was infest, but drown in sorrow is strictly better. It's good against a lot of aggro decks...but is pretty situational against merfolk and zoo which is its biggest downside. However, it is really great against coco decks and affinity which are still really popular.
Surgical Extraction/Extirpate - You don't typically see these much in BG/x sideboards anymore since they're only good against particular combo decks (such as storm), if anything. However, if combo decks like eggs make a comeback, these are something you'll want. So, not much need for these in the current meta, but it has always been an option. Also great against decks utilizing gifts ungiven.
Nihil Spellbomb - It's an extra graveyard bomb that doesn't hate out our own tarmogoyfs or KotR's. It's surprisingly relevant in this format, helping with a lot of popular decks: storm, any combo involving viscera seer/kitchen finks/murderous redcap, living end, and pretty much any deck running snapcaster mage. It hates on a lot of fringe decks too such as dredgevine, 4cc gifts, glass-cannon griselbrand, and other graveyard shenanigans. Plus the option to draw a card off it makes it a great 2-for-1 if we can use its ability.
Mirran Crusader - I've tried this guy out, and although he doesn't necessarily fit our game plan as well as most of our other cards, he's really great in a meta that suits his anti-colors: green and black. That said, he's great against BG/x midrange and coco. Coco has very few creatures that can block him allowing you to push through for the last points of damage. Against BG/x, the only way have to deal with him is a well-placed LotV -2, or a lightning bolt. He's even better with a sword on him. I highly recommend this guy in metas with lots of his anti-colors: Black and Green
Batterskull - This is a fairly common card you see in the sideboard of a lot of midrange/control decks. IMO, it's somewhat overrated, but it is still a formidable card that most decks have very few answers for. It is glacially slow, however, so you really only need it in the grindy match ups, alongside things like thrun. 1 is plenty. Any more is really going to be a deal breaker in a format where you have to do things before turn 5.
Phyrexian Crusader - Call me crazy, but if you've ever played this card against UWR, you'll know that this guy pretty much just wins the game against UWR if he resolves. That said, UWR is back on the come-up now that ancestral visions is off the banned list.
Phyrexian Arena - It's bob 5-8...except you won't want 4 copies. Really, it's just another bob that won't get removed by spot removal. Just one more thing you can bring in for grindy matches, especially UWR. Don't play more than 1 in your 75.
Timely Reinforcements - If you ever have a problem with certain aggro decks, look no further. This card makes aggro players break down and cry. It makes blockers and gains you life...all in one card, and for a reasonable cost. However, a lot of the aggro decks have ways of getting around this such as Skullcrack, tramplers such as Ghor-clan rampager which makes our blockers nearly useless, or have evasion dudes, such as affinity which likes to fly in the air...or kill us with poison counters. Still, if burn or other aggro decks are a problem, this is still a really solid card for those matches.
Rest for the Weary - Really narrow sideboard card against burn. If you hate losing to burn, play this.
Feed the clan - Again, really narrow sideboard card against burn. If you hate losing to burn, play this.
Kor Firewalker - Another card against burn, but this one is a lot better against any deck that just happens to be playing red such as twin, delver, or UWR. Not as funny as rest for the weary, but you get the point. Double white is really tough sometimes, though.
Obstinate Baloth - Ideal against decks that play liliana or lots of hand disruption such as 8-rack or other BG/x decks. Pretty self-explanatory: if you discard it, it goes into play instead and gains you 4 life which is pretty nice. It may not win you the goyf-war, but it's still a solid choice.
Zealous Persecution - This card is surprisingly not very popular right now, yet it's pretty amazing. It's arguably the best combat trick in the game in a deck that can cast it: the worst case scenario is you'll be able to use it to get a trade with a larger creature. The average scenario is though, it just makes combat very bad for your opponent. Best case scenario: you destroy 5 creatures with 1 toughness and swing for lethal. As you can see, little down side, lots of upside. It's a lot better if you're playing lingering souls and/or bitterblossom plus other token generators, but it's still playable even if you aren't. Again: it can be used to make combat way better for you, and against some decks, may clean up the board for you.
Deathmark - Strong hate against G/W. There's not a ton of G/W running around, but it does kill a lot of stuff coincidentally. The only downside is that it's sorcery speed. Still, the need for efficient removal in this deck is really important, so if you have a good opportunity to play this, I'd highly recommend it.
Darkblast - In a meta full of X/1's and X/2's, this card is great in the sideboard. It's recurring removal, and can kill up to X/2's. Basically, to kill something like a flipped delver of secrets, you can cast it on your upkeep. Then on your draw step, dredge it back and cast it again to kill the delver. Of course, this sets us back a draw, but the ability to continually kill small stuff is huge in match ups like delver and affinity. Even better, it helps add fuel to the graveyard such as lingering souls, lands for KotR, targets for Ooze, or just more stuff to buff goyf.
Disfigure - Similar to the above card, except it doesn't have the recursion. Again: it's good in meta with a lot of X/2's and X/1's since it's just as efficient as path to exile, but it doesn't give them extra land. Like the above cards (darkblast and deathmark), I'd highly recommend it if your meta allows it.
Devour Flesh/Geth's Verdict - Edict effects can be extremely helpful. For that reason, I'd suggest looking into playing either one of these two cards. Obvioiusly, Geth's Verdict is a little better, but it's harder on our mana. Devour flesh, although can gain our opponent some life, is easier on the mana, and in a pinch, we can actually use it on ourselves to gain some life back if we need to. Edict effects are mainly good against bogle decks, but are somewhat useful against others such as: 4cc gifts, infect, UWR (especially with GoST or the variant that wants to put an emrakul, the aeons torn into play), and tron.
Ethersworn Canonist - Storm hate. Also coincidentally good against living end since you can't really cascade as long as canonist is out.
Rule of Law - Also storm hate, doesn't die to lightning bolt or grapeshot. Costs more mana, though. If you need storm hate, either of these two is fine.
Runed Halo - Not a typical sideboard card, but it is somewhat useful sometimes. Just another thing to consider.
Duress - If spells start to take off (over creatures), duress is just as good as IoK/Thoughtseize, and is better on the budget, too. Currently, it's not that viable, but who knows.
Choke - MUH ISLANDS
Leyline of Sanctity - Okay, so there's a huge misconception that this card just wins you the game against some decks. If you've been playing modern or legacy for a reasonable amount of time you know why that leyline of sanctity doesn't just stop some decks that you think it would. I just want to make it clear that smart players come prepared for cards like this and will play around them if they can. On top of that, its a card that in no way helps you actually win the game, it is purely defensive and therefore is terrible and multiples and can often be situational. That said, its still really good against burn considering they normally can't interact with it and they just have to rely on their creatures which usually isn't our biggest concern. This about the only reason I'd recommend this card in the board. It has been discussed as an option against 8-rack and storm, but considering how situational it is I would really avoid having in your board for those match ups unless you happen to have it for burn which is more justified.
Golgari Charm - This is just a really sweet versatile card that is nice to have in the board. It's great to have a -1/-1 effect for the possibility of blowing out tokens/affinity. Blood moon is always out there too, and who knows, having a card to save your creatures might just help you win a game at some point.
Creeping Corrosion - Affinity (or other random artifact jank deck) hate. You probably only want one of these if any just because its a 4-drop.
Night of Souls' Betrayal - This is a real beating for a lot of aggro decks. You'll know when to side it in; all those pesky decks playing countless numbers of X/1's. Its kind of volatile in the mirror if you and you're opponent are both playing lingering souls, and you definitely don't want to drop lingering souls in the mirror, so I'd avoid it in that case. UR delver, affinity, elves, martyr-proc, tokens, melira combo decks, and it even shuts down the twin combo. Its a 4-drop though, so you really shouldn't play more than 1 or 2, if any.
Seal of Primordium - I really love this card, actually. It buffs goyf, plus you can put it into play turn 2 and leave it there until you actually need to use it, which makes some games run a bit more smoothly.
All this deck does is play the best individually good cards in order to overcome your opponent. Against some decks, some of these cards are just really bad, like bob. Bob is almost actively terrible against an aggro deck that wants our life total as close to zero as possible. So the goal of this section is to give some sideboard strategies against the more popular decks. I will include all of what's currently in the 'proven' section, and try to include as much as I can in established. Otherwise, you'll just have to use your head and think for yourself!
Burn Unfavorable - Those who know me or have read my posts here know my thoughts on burn: the deck is a plague on the format and preys on decks like ours. The match up is unfavorable no matter how you slice it: we're a 3 color deck that often requires paying anywhere between 3 to 5 life on average a game to use our mana and cards like thoughtseize and dark confidant. Even with mainboard life gain spells like seige rhino and scavenging ooze, they are often just not enough to hedge the brute force of this deck. For the most part, you are at the mercy of their deck and/or play skill. We do have some good sideboard options: feed the clan, rest for the weary, kitchen finks, kor firewalker, etc, but almost all of the good sideboard cards against burn will be terrible in all of your other match ups. Keep that in mind as you build your sideboard. In the current meta, I think 4 cards dedicated to burn is mandatory. The more you have in your sideboard against the deck, the chances of losing to it go down drastically, but it also takes away from the potential cards you could have for other match ups. Please remember to play around skullcrack when applicable, and be prepared to see bad burn spells like browbeat and vexing devil; burn players often use them regardless of their viability.
BG/x Midrange Even to Slightly Favorable - This match up is dreadful...not because its bad, but because it can boil down to who top decks better. Don't take that mindset into the match, though. There are many ways to turn bad draws into wins in this match up and you should be able to find them if you plan on being any good at playing this deck. You can build your deck to make this match up favorable, but for most builds, it will always be about dead even. Lingering Souls is the best card in this match up. Outside a maelstrom pulse or something like golgari charm, an opposing BG/x midrange deck cannot deal with lingering souls at all. For sideboarding, you will generally want to take out your hand disruption and often maelstrom pulses you have (unless they're playing lingering souls) for as many creatures/threats/things that affect the board as you can bring in from your sideboard. Mirran Crusader would be ideal, but most sideboards don't include any of them. Anything that generates a 2-for-1 in anyway is good in this matchup: thrun, batterskull, fulminator mage, kitchen finks, etc.
Coco variants (formerly Pod variants) Slightly unfavorable to even - This deck plays quite nicely around ours regardless of your build. Its got all the tools it needs to deal with whatever you've put into play and clogs up the board with at least 24 main deck creatures. What it boils down to is how well did you manage to keep the board clear of nuisance blockers to push damage through, and unless you drew the perfect balance of creatures and removal, you may not succeed in that regard. The problem is that some of our removal is great against their stuff while its bad against others. Path to Exile is great against every single creature they play...except for mana dorks. I recommend taking out lilianas for damnation or another board wipe like drown in sorrow. Also, if you're playing vault of the archangel, you will want to try and use as soon as possible, as this match up usually ends up being a midrange contest, and vault plus your sizeable creatures will win you that contest. Avoid playing cards that narrowly stop coco such as hallowed moonlight, as they still have many other ways of killing you. Grafdigger's cage is really great against coco, only costs 1 mana, and keeps cards such as kitchen finks from recurring and stopping the combo. You want to keep as many creatures around as possible because they will often abandon the combo to try and grind you out instead. Scavenging Ooze is a house in this match up. It outgrows all of their stuff, plus it shuts down any sort of graveyard shenanigans like kitchen finks or eternal witness.
Affinity Unfavorable to Slightly Unfavorable - A good affinity pilot will likely give you a very hard time, however, affinity is harder than most people think so you may be more successful against affinity depending on the pilot. Affinity is ultimately a bad match up, though. Arcbound ravager makes for some very problematic scenarios regardless of your removal, and our deck, as suicidal as it is, is already in the hole against this deck. You may also want to take out liliana for drown in sorrow if you have it, as liliana is too slow and drown in sorrow will still deal with etched champion in most cases. I don't, however, recommend damnation or other big sweepers because ravager and manlands may blank it. Watch out for blood moon out of the board. Not all affinity decks run blood moon, but all of them are perfectly capable of doing so. You will assuredly want Stony Silence for this match up. Period.
Scapeshift Slightly unfavorable to slightly favorable - This depends on your build. Builds with tectonic edge and knight of the reliquary will often have good success against this deck, as well as builds using smallpox. Traditional builds will be close to even, depending on your sideboard and theirs. Aggro builds will be slightly unfavorable. Obviously, the goal here is to stop them from having lots of lands. I wouldn't concern yourself too much with scapeshift as a card as long as they don't have 7 lands in play. Aven Mindcensor and Fulminator Mage are the strongest cards from the board here. Aven Mindcensor blanks all their ramp spells, and fulminator mage keeps the number of lands they have in play in check. Liliana and the usual hand disruption package is often good here as well. Watch out for sideboard fatties: wurmcoil engine, primeval titan, inferno titan, and obstinate baloth...as like many other combo decks, they may abandon the combo and just try to punch you to do death.
UWR Control Slightly favorable - Your hand disruption and lilianas will serve you well in this match up by taking away key spells and keeping them under constant pressure. This deck will often try to kill you with lightning bolts if their desperate so try not to eat up too much of your own life total. Keep in mind that UWR control variants can differ greatly in terms of what they will try to use to kill you. Biggest threats here are currently Ajani Vengeant and Nahiri, the Harbinger and out of the board (or sometimes even mainboard) batterskull and Keranos, god of storms. You may want to side in graveyard hate for snapcaster mages, as they rely on those a lot of the time. Although Keranos is a very strong card, its not often worth a sideboard slot for deglamer or celestial purge. You want to be in a situation where even if they slam keranos, its way too late for it to be any good. That said, you may still want some sort of naturalize effect for a potential batterskull. You may want to take out your bobs if you're on the draw as they will likely get electrolyzed on curve. Thrun, the last troll, fulminator mage, and additional hand disruption will be the best cards to bring in. Many UWR varaints these days are playing nahiri or other things that don't die to abrupt decay, but do die to maelstrom pulse or anguished unmaking, so play those if you can. Keep in mind, however, that they will likely bring in an answer to thrun such as wrath of god--or even celestial flare (they can be pretty desperate sometimes).
Infect Even to slightly favorable - I am still surprised that it took this long to see infect rise to tier 1 like it has today. It had always been a strong deck worth consideration when building a sideboard or making main deck card choices. Obviously, our removal and hand disruption is just as critical here as it is for any other combo match up. Really, I don't think this match up comes down to sideboard choices as much as it does match up knowledge and experience. Remember that abrupt decay is not just an end-all against this deck: vines of vastwood and apostle's blessing are readily employed by skilled infect players. For that reason, edict effects like liliana, devour flesh, geth's verdict, etc. are strong here as well as sweepers such as drown in sorrow. Fulminator mage and other land destruction effects are also really strong in this match up thanks to inkmoth nexus. You will succeed a lot more in the match up by saving your appropriate removal for inkmoth nexus.
Tron Unfavorable - You're at the mercy of their deck game 1 in most cases. Liliana and thoughtseize are really the only cards in g1 that pressure them in anyway unless you happening to be playing KotR; even our most aggro starts is typically not fast enough to kill them before they have a karn or a wurmcoil engine in the way. After board, we have access to fulminator mage and stony silence which helps substantially. You really need your sideboard cards here if you want any shot of winning the match. This deck is the almost the sole reason you want to have 3 fulminator mages and at least 2 stony silence in your board. Side out abrupt decays, they do hit things in their deck, but all of those things are stopped by stony silence. If tron and/or amulet bloom is very present in your meta consider ghost quarter. KotR builds w/ ghost quarter have a significantly better match up.
Modern Junk Primer
Legacy ANT Primer
L1 Judge
Lantern told me that it might get moved to Proven when Ken finalizes the new organization of the forum. In fairness, the deck hasn't put up any real results but with the success of Jund and our better matchups and cardpool, I don't see why we can't be successful with it. The core of the deck is tried and true and the white splash is for some of the best cards in the format. My hope is that this primer will spur interest in the deck; we need more people playing it for it to show better results.
I'd appreciate seeing the list you've had success with. I'm not a fan of Doran but I know there are many people that are. He's a strong card and perhaps there is a variant of Junk where he is king.
-Mark
He can at least be good against Affinity, if nothing else.
Side note, what's the best sideboard against affinity? I was thinking Kataki, whereas my friend was saying Stoney Silence is better.
I would probably play Creeping Corrosion, or Fracturing Gust. Honestly Fracturing Gust gets my vote as the like "one of affinity killer" because it also is super good against Hexproof. Apart from that my other hate would be Nature's Claim, again because it is also good against Hexproof. You want you SB cards to be good in as many matchups as possible, not just one. Granted Stoney Silence is better against Tron. Kataki isnt really that good :/ thats why a lot of people arent playing him.
Probably just one Gust, and 2 Natures Claim would be my suggestion.
For the SB?
I guess those could be some considerations.
EDIT:
If you running Red as well maybe Slaughter Games, and Olivia, Huntmaster of the Fells. There are so many things you could be playing. Terminate ect.
1 Forest
2 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Sejiri Steppe
2 Stirring Wildwood
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Dismember
2 Path to Exile
4 Glittering Wish
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
3 Liliana of the Veil
That look pretty solid! I like Gaddock Teeg a little more than Wheel of Sun and Moon though.
I like this list overall and I am glad to see that Glittering Wish is getting some love.
Kataki is too easy for Affinity and Tron to play around; both of them can produce a lot of mana by the time Kataki comes down and both have efficient ways of dealing with him (Pyroclasm, Galvanic Blast, Whipflare, Dispatch). I think 3+ Lingering Souls in the main is very useful in this matchup, as well as Abrupt Decay. Knight of the Reliquary is great because it can fetch Vault of the Archangel, which they can't deal with. Affinity is a race and lifegain is very difficult for them to beat, assuming you can keep them off an early Cranial Plating or Steel Overseer.
I imagine it's an blowout if you get a Fracturing Gust or Creeping Corrosion off. Nature's Claim looks good, as does Seal of Primordium.
I'm actually going to add a Glittering Wish section to the primer. It's a bit slow and makes our sideboard funky but can be good. Off the top of my head (with some Google-fu to aid me), here are some good targets:
Doran, the Siege Tower (can actually be great in specific matchups)
Fracturing Gust (credit to TakeYourShoesOff)
Culling Sun
Terminate
Qasali Pridemage
Jund Charm
Slaughter Games
Lightning Helix
Kitchen Finks
Ajani Vengeant
Fulminator Mage
Maelstrom Pulse
Putrefy
Rain of Gore
Firespout
Reborn Hope (for some shenanigans)
They are definitely multicolored.
My current 3 color Glittering Junk List
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Path to Exile
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Swamp
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Birds of Paradise
1 Eternal Witness
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Gavony Township
1 Treetop Village
1 Forest
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Tectonic Edge
4 Glittering Wish
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Godless Shrine
1 Phyrexian Arena
4 Dark Confidant
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Temple Garden
1 Plains
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Gaze of Granite
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Sin Collector
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Golgari Charm
1 Treasured Find
1 Putrefy
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget
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Hermit Druid Combo:
Why run 2x Twilight Mire, especially when you have Scavenging Ooze and Vault of the Archangel and even Deathrite Shaman to offset some of the life lost...
Wouldn't it make more sense to run 2 extra shocklands that could be used by knight?
Aggro is a significant portion of the meta (Melira Pod, RDW, Affinity, Zoo, Living End to an extent) and it's often less than ideal to use our resources for lifegain. For example, it's Shaman's weakest ability and Ooze often has more pressing targets. We don't win by gaining life but rather by stabilizing against faster decks so we can overwhelm them with our card advantage and value. This is significantly more difficult to achieve the more we shoot ourselves in the foot.
As it is, I try to only fetch for a shock untapped in the early game when I need to establish BB-G-W as soon as possible. This can often mean spending 5 life on colour-fixing alone. Occasionally drawing a Mire means that I only need one shock to establish all my colours. Of course, it's not always perfect (for example, wanting to cast Knight off of a colourless land + Godless Shrine + Twilight Mire) but the life we save it very important. What's even more important, however, it consistently having access to BB and GG for Liliana and Ooze, respectively. A green splash does not do much to make Ooze a good card mainboard and the more painless ways we have of simultaneously having access to our two most important colours, the better. I would run more Mires if they didn't tap for colourless on their own, but that's the cost of its power.
Another thing worth pointing out is that, due to the speed of the format, we can't block + tutor with Knight every turn; I consider myself fortunate if I can tutor twice because the opportunity to attack with an activated Vault for that huge lifeswing is narrow; many decks run removal and land hate so we have to capitalize on the offense as soon as possible. To me, Knight is just a big beatstick once I have a Vault out, which is not an insult; the deck needs heavy hitters. The ones that provide additional utility are best.
-Mark
One is America Geist...the other is going to have BG in it...
I'm trying to decide between Jund, Junk, and the Rock...
The way I look at it, they all have Bob, Goyf, DRS, Liliana, Thoughtseize/Inquisition, Abrupt Decay.
Differences:
Jund: Huntmaster of the Fells Lightning Bolt Raging Ravine
Junk: Knight of the Reliquary Lingering Souls Path to Exile
The Rock: Scavenging Ooze Tectonic Edge Treetop Village
The Rock seems more consistent, but the other 2 I'm not sure which way to go...
Advice?
Lightning Bolt, Olivia Voldaren, and sideboard options are the reasons to play Jund. GB worlds was a deck specifically crafted for a meta composed of American, with the knowledge that there wouldn't be any Tron, Affinity, Pod, or aggro in the meta. It's a very fragile deck that rolls over to all of them preboard and only improves against aggro postboard. The reality is that there's no real benefit in not splashing another colour because it's a matter of 2 shocks and 1 basic; the GB deck is even more susceptible to Blood Moon and getting screwed by the Path "drawback."
Lingering Souls, Path to Exile, and Lightning Bolt are 3 of the pillars of Modern. Not including them in a deck is to your detriment; which ones you choose is up to you. As a general guideline, Jund tends to be more aggressive and do better in topdeck mode because of Ravine and it's finishers, whereas Junk is more about grinding out utility and value through Souls and Knight. In a versus scenario, Junk usually wins due to have Souls mainboard, Path to deal with Ravine, and Knights + utility lands. Jund does have some good answers, however (Thundermaw, Olivia, Bolt). Feel free to test both on cockatrice and see which you prefer. Jund has Blackcleave Cliffs, which is pretty good and worth noting.
Modern Junk Primer
Legacy ANT Primer
L1 Judge