After seeing Reid's success in the SCG open and debating over some card choices versus the meta, I've decided to streamline my build a bit. Going to try rolling with this this week:
I was searching for a solution to Lingering Souls and Eldrazi Tron and Olivia seems to fit really well. The downswing of Lightning Bolt only makes her sweeter.
I'm really interested in hardcore testing the 2/2 Bolt split. Even though it's still weaker in the current meta, it's still potentially the best card in the deck when it's good. Also let's me play more aggressively, which is always my style.
I was searching for a solution to Lingering Souls and Eldrazi Tron and Olivia seems to fit really well. The downswing of Lightning Bolt only makes her sweeter.
Thats the exact reason why I think she is better than ever before. She helps us fighting through Lingering Souls and also can outclass most Eldrazi creatures. Bolt is basically gone and therfore she is harder to remove (or people need to use more hard removal for her)
I had the same thoughts about Voldaren recently. Her biggest problem was Bolt and now everbody plays Push which only kills her with Revolt. I really like her and she is very good against problematic cards like Souls. It's nice to see somebody perform well with traditional Jund.
What it's the general thoughts on the two Blooming Marsh on Reid's list?
It seems too risk for me, i mean, the odds of hitting a tapped land on turns 4 and on increases and i don't like it that much.
Also his list seems greatly positioned against the new company combo, DS shadows, and even graveyard based strategies such as Dredge, Living End and even storm.
What's our general game plan against storm? Just bring in discard and graveyard hate while taking out kill spells? I feel like unless we have early discard we're a bit helpless. Then again I haven't played the matchup that many time
What it's the general thoughts on the two Blooming Marsh on Reid's list?
It seems too risk for me, i mean, the odds of hitting a tapped land on turns 4 and on increases and i don't like it that much.
Also his list seems greatly positioned against the new company combo, DS shadows, and even graveyard based strategies such as Dredge, Living End and even storm.
Going to take it for a spin this week.
I'm already running 1 Blooming Marsh since I'm running the full set of Fatal Push and one Lightning Bolt. Most of the time, I'm not worried about trying to hit my 4-CMC stuff on turn 4. I can see not being able to play two spells on turn 4 being an issue though. On the flip side, I do like having the painless dual land. I think it has increased my effectiveness against Burn and Infect (I still have local Infect pilots I have to deal) a lot.
What's our general game plan against storm? Just bring in discard and graveyard hate while taking out kill spells? I feel like unless we have early discard we're a bit helpless. Then again I haven't played the matchup that many time
Like most combo decks, Storm is weak to discard and Liliana. All graveyard hate cards are relevant against storm.
Unlike other combo decks, you want to keep Bolts/Push. Baral and Electromancer MUST be removed ASAP. Collected Brutality is great if it's in your board. I also advocate keeping in a Maelstrom Pulse to hedge against a T2/T3 Empty the Warrens.
Your best hands are disruption into goyf. Storm can be tricky since it can easily rebuild a hand to kill you in a few turns. Your Storm opponent may also get lucky with their variance (an unbeatable nut draw) or unlucky (never draw a payoff or gifts). I recommend playtesting against a good storm pilot if you can find one; it's a hard deck to play and you don't want to think the matchup is "easy" after beating up a less-proficient player.
Reid just beat Vizier company to go up 11-0. That was a very close game where Reid really leveraged on his skill to wipe the company's board with Olivia Voldaren and swing for the win with some timely push and seize. It was truly a joy to watch. I hope he wins the whole thing.
His sideboard is the same as posted but his main has one Lavamancer and Olivia Voldaren.
I always wanted to try Olivia MB and advocated for it in the past, but most seemed to be against it, so it never happened for me to actually test her, sadly enough.
Playing her mainboard sounds great to me, though Olivia is a personal favorite and almost always in my sideboard.
Reid describes his attitude towards Lavamancer in similar fashion here: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/the-pantheon-deck-tech-jund/. Regardless, his decision on 2 Lavamancers sounds like a fantastic idea given all the damage that Death's Shadow variants deal themselves.
I'm not sure I really get all the love for Glorybringer here. I haven't run him in Jund yet, but he *seems* like he doesn't outperform any other hasty 5-mana RR dragon available to us. The deck is already really removal-heavy and he doesn't shoot down anything super relevant aside from maybe TKS? Am I just missing something here?
On Olivia - I ran her main for a while. My biggest issue was the mana investment required to really make her scary. Giving her counters is easy, sure, but she feels slower than other premium 4-drop options, or at least less useful in general than say Huntmaster. Threatening to steal your opponent's dudes is great in certain matchups, but again, it's pretty slow. Machine-gunning souls is neat, though.
With bolt on the downturn I'll try her out some more to see if my feelings have changed. I just almost always wished she was something else when I'd see her previously. I still run one in my board because she can really dominate a fair-deck creature matchup all by herself.
What it's the general thoughts on the two Blooming Marsh on Reid's list?
It seems too risk for me, i mean, the odds of hitting a tapped land on turns 4 and on increases and i don't like it that much.
Also his list seems greatly positioned against the new company combo, DS shadows, and even graveyard based strategies such as Dredge, Living End and even storm.
Going to take it for a spin this week.
I think its not too risky, but I personally also like having 6 fastlands in the deck. I settled for a 3/2 split in favour of Blackcleave Cliffs for now due to this.
I will give Chandra another try, since it has been played a lot lately, so we'll see. I would like to add a second Decay in here, maybe will in place of the fourth push as the card can sometimes be a dead card agaisnt certain decks. Decay just is more flexible.
What's our general game plan against storm? Just bring in discard and graveyard hate while taking out kill spells? I feel like unless we have early discard we're a bit helpless. Then again I haven't played the matchup that many time
Storm is not an autowin, but in my experience a very favourable matchup. Disruption in form of IOK/TS and LotV is huge against them. Cheap removal for Baral etc. also. As a general note, if you don't know what to take with your discard, then take a Ritual, its usually the correct choice. (Unless in specific situations) In the primer there is an up to date sideboard plan for the matchup.
@Flying Delver,
is it possible for you to make a sideboard guide for Living End? It starts appearing at my local store and I am interested what gravehate to include/change in my sideboard, which cards to board out/in.
I currently play 2x Spellbomb and 2x Cage (mainly for Vizier Company, Elves, Dredge and Storm), but I am still unsure whether this is the ideal configuration, especially because Cage is useless against Living End. Was always considering to include Leyline instead of the other gravehate, but before buying them I would like to hear some suggestions.
@Flying Delver,
is it possible for you to make a sideboard guide for Living End? It starts appearing at my local store and I am interested what gravehate to include/change in my sideboard, which cards to board out/in.
I currently play 2x Spellbomb and 2x Cage (mainly for Vizier Company, Elves, Dredge and Storm), but I am still unsure whether this is the ideal configuration, especially because Cage is useless against Living End. Was always considering to include Leyline instead of the other gravehate, but before buying them I would like to hear some suggestions.
Of course! I will work on it asap. Wanted to give the whole primer an update anyway, including new matchups.
As far as i can tell, living end can be very hard. Spellbomb and leyline are both great against them and I really like ooze and surgical against them. In Addition to this, discard is great to snap their cascaders.
What it's the general thoughts on the two Blooming Marsh on Reid's list?
It seems too risk for me, i mean, the odds of hitting a tapped land on turns 4 and on increases and i don't like it that much.
Also his list seems greatly positioned against the new company combo, DS shadows, and even graveyard based strategies such as Dredge, Living End and even storm.
Going to take it for a spin this week.
I think its not too risky, but I personally also like having 6 fastlands in the deck. I settled for a 3/2 split in favour of Blackcleave Cliffs for now due to this.
I will give Chandra another try, since it has been played a lot lately, so we'll see. I would like to add a second Decay in here, maybe will in place of the fourth push as the card can sometimes be a dead card agaisnt certain decks. Decay just is more flexible.
What's our general game plan against storm? Just bring in discard and graveyard hate while taking out kill spells? I feel like unless we have early discard we're a bit helpless. Then again I haven't played the matchup that many time
Storm is not an autowin, but in my experience a very favourable matchup. Disruption in form of IOK/TS and LotV is huge against them. Cheap removal for Baral etc. also. As a general note, if you don't know what to take with your discard, then take a Ritual, its usually the correct choice. (Unless in specific situations) In the primer there is an up to date sideboard plan for the matchup.
Tks mate!
I understood the reasoning for it, since it will more often preserve my life total than anything else. And I've just ordered them..
NEVER sell anything that u could possible need and/or use...lesson learned by the hard way!
With just 2 fulminators in the side it is a soft list against big mana decks, but they are next to unwinnable anyways so...
After watching Reid Duke playing against the Amulet Titan list, I think I am going to replace fulminators with blood moons again in the side. I feel that Blood Moon can stall the big mana decks so much more.
4-0 in a 16 people fnm tonight with duke list; I dont have time for long explication about each round but I'll write something quick.
Sb change:
-1 shatterstorm
-2 leyline
-2 collective brutality (dont have them paper, they are rare in my city)
+1 night's of soul betrayal
+2 baloth
+1 lili last hope
+1 engineer explosive
Match 1:
Win 2-0
Affinity
Was easy, Lavamencer, kcommand and 4push MD did the job.
Olivia won game 1 by herself btw;
You have Etched champ on board? FINE. My Olivia hit harder (=
Match 2:
Win 2-1
Ponza (land destroyer)
Pretty hard matchup, but I was on play. I think the matchup can be win on play; very though on draw.
I got good draws. The only ''good play'' I did was:
On turn 3, there is 1 noble in his graveyard and relic on play. So I shock myself on turn 3 to get 2 green manaopoen.
At the end of my turn he used his relic to exile the noble. In respond I eat noble. In respond he sac his relic to exile
all grave. Then in respond I eat again the noble. Shocking myself on this turn was huge because I had to to eat the bird and it alowed me to play arround anger of the gods/Bonfire. On his turn 3 like a miracle he dopdecked Bonfire. If I dont do the
play, my ooze would have died and I would have lost the game (Ooze did pressure all game long).
Match 3:
Win 2-1
Bant company
Voice is anoying, Coco is anoying (thank you cage)
I conceded game 2 because I felt I was losing and we had just 15min left on timer. It wasnt unwinable,
but I was pretty sure my chance of winning game 3 were pretty high. One thing was sure. ''Draw'' wasnt a possibility.
Game 3 was pretty close. I finished at 2 Hp. Found a way to stablize the board with Olivia on board.
Match 4:
Win 2-1
Smallpox
I loved so bad my baloth in game 2. I've been so patient with it; I had tarmo on board with 4 land (1 raging ravine).
I was playing arround lili keeping mana open to active raging ravine in answer to lili. So.. if he makes me discard. I drop baloth.
If he drop lili or smallpox to kill tarmo, I active raging. He makes me discard baloth + kcommand. Then I drew a land so I attacked with baloth, tarmo and baloth. I was sad about his wrench mind.. I wanted to live my dream.
My dream is: I drop baloth, he kills baloth, he makes me discard, Kcommand bring back baloth in hand in respond.. DREAMMMM
Funny fact, exept my first win, the 3 others player I played against finished 3-1 (so I've been their only lost)
So I finished first and I've beat the 2nd, the 3rd and the 4th.
I like the list overall gg
Jund can still win and is still playable.
7-1 to my 8 last matchs at a FNM.
Congrats on your results! I think I might try out Reid's list aswell.
Anyway, Jund is not tier 3 because it is a bad deck, it is tier 3 because it is not played a lot nowadays. There are the bad matchups (but Tron is also on the decline), but also some good matchups: Counters Company, Gifts Storm, the Shadow decks and Affinity are all tier 1 and far from unwinnable.
The times are not as grim as the tier lists want us to believe it.
The format is just so wide open too to add on to Hype_rion's comment. People are largely playing what they want to play. It's a lot like Legacy, which unfortunately does make me feel that there will be a new "Modern" format coming in the next few years.
The format is just so wide open too to add on to Hype_rion's comment. People are largely playing what they want to play. It's a lot like Legacy, which unfortunately does make me feel that there will be a new "Modern" format coming in the next few years.
1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
1 Olivia Voldaren
Pumps
4 Fatal Push
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Terminate
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Kolaghan's Command
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blooming Marsh
3 Raging Ravine
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Slumps
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Kitchen Finks
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Collective Brutality
I was searching for a solution to Lingering Souls and Eldrazi Tron and Olivia seems to fit really well. The downswing of Lightning Bolt only makes her sweeter.
I'm really interested in hardcore testing the 2/2 Bolt split. Even though it's still weaker in the current meta, it's still potentially the best card in the deck when it's good. Also let's me play more aggressively, which is always my style.
Thats the exact reason why I think she is better than ever before. She helps us fighting through Lingering Souls and also can outclass most Eldrazi creatures. Bolt is basically gone and therfore she is harder to remove (or people need to use more hard removal for her)
Legacy: UWR Miracles [https://deckstats.net/decks/44442/1092831-uwr-miracles-2]
It seems too risk for me, i mean, the odds of hitting a tapped land on turns 4 and on increases and i don't like it that much.
Also his list seems greatly positioned against the new company combo, DS shadows, and even graveyard based strategies such as Dredge, Living End and even storm.
Going to take it for a spin this week.
UR Twin - RIP
I'm already running 1 Blooming Marsh since I'm running the full set of Fatal Push and one Lightning Bolt. Most of the time, I'm not worried about trying to hit my 4-CMC stuff on turn 4. I can see not being able to play two spells on turn 4 being an issue though. On the flip side, I do like having the painless dual land. I think it has increased my effectiveness against Burn and Infect (I still have local Infect pilots I have to deal) a lot.
Like most combo decks, Storm is weak to discard and Liliana. All graveyard hate cards are relevant against storm.
Unlike other combo decks, you want to keep Bolts/Push. Baral and Electromancer MUST be removed ASAP. Collected Brutality is great if it's in your board. I also advocate keeping in a Maelstrom Pulse to hedge against a T2/T3 Empty the Warrens.
Your best hands are disruption into goyf. Storm can be tricky since it can easily rebuild a hand to kill you in a few turns. Your Storm opponent may also get lucky with their variance (an unbeatable nut draw) or unlucky (never draw a payoff or gifts). I recommend playtesting against a good storm pilot if you can find one; it's a hard deck to play and you don't want to think the matchup is "easy" after beating up a less-proficient player.
Playing her mainboard sounds great to me, though Olivia is a personal favorite and almost always in my sideboard.
Reid describes his attitude towards Lavamancer in similar fashion here: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/the-pantheon-deck-tech-jund/. Regardless, his decision on 2 Lavamancers sounds like a fantastic idea given all the damage that Death's Shadow variants deal themselves.
On Olivia - I ran her main for a while. My biggest issue was the mana investment required to really make her scary. Giving her counters is easy, sure, but she feels slower than other premium 4-drop options, or at least less useful in general than say Huntmaster. Threatening to steal your opponent's dudes is great in certain matchups, but again, it's pretty slow. Machine-gunning souls is neat, though.
With bolt on the downturn I'll try her out some more to see if my feelings have changed. I just almost always wished she was something else when I'd see her previously. I still run one in my board because she can really dominate a fair-deck creature matchup all by herself.
I think its not too risky, but I personally also like having 6 fastlands in the deck. I settled for a 3/2 split in favour of Blackcleave Cliffs for now due to this.
And here is my current version of the deck:
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blooming Marsh
3 Raging Ravine
2 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
1 Olivia Voldaren
1 Grim Lavamancer
Noncreature Spells [23]
4 Fatal Push
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Terminate
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Abrupt Decay
I will give Chandra another try, since it has been played a lot lately, so we'll see. I would like to add a second Decay in here, maybe will in place of the fourth push as the card can sometimes be a dead card agaisnt certain decks. Decay just is more flexible.
Storm is not an autowin, but in my experience a very favourable matchup. Disruption in form of IOK/TS and LotV is huge against them. Cheap removal for Baral etc. also. As a general note, if you don't know what to take with your discard, then take a Ritual, its usually the correct choice. (Unless in specific situations) In the primer there is an up to date sideboard plan for the matchup.
is it possible for you to make a sideboard guide for Living End? It starts appearing at my local store and I am interested what gravehate to include/change in my sideboard, which cards to board out/in.
I currently play 2x Spellbomb and 2x Cage (mainly for Vizier Company, Elves, Dredge and Storm), but I am still unsure whether this is the ideal configuration, especially because Cage is useless against Living End. Was always considering to include Leyline instead of the other gravehate, but before buying them I would like to hear some suggestions.
Of course! I will work on it asap. Wanted to give the whole primer an update anyway, including new matchups.
As far as i can tell, living end can be very hard. Spellbomb and leyline are both great against them and I really like ooze and surgical against them. In Addition to this, discard is great to snap their cascaders.
Tks mate!
I understood the reasoning for it, since it will more often preserve my life total than anything else. And I've just ordered them..
NEVER sell anything that u could possible need and/or use...lesson learned by the hard way!
UR Twin - RIP
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
With just 2 fulminators in the side it is a soft list against big mana decks, but they are next to unwinnable anyways so...
After watching Reid Duke playing against the Amulet Titan list, I think I am going to replace fulminators with blood moons again in the side. I feel that Blood Moon can stall the big mana decks so much more.
Direct damage on a stick. It really is that simple.
Frenzy-Affinity-Ghost Quarter-Rock-Tokens- RGWPhyrexian Zoo- WVial KnightsStandard:
BW Knights(Rotated)Pioneer: RW Knights - BW Rally Zombies - UW Heroes
Commander:WUG
Jenara, Asura of War- WGSigarda, Host of HeronsCasualties of economicsLegacy: Good-night, sweet prince. Mono-R Burn
Sb change:
-1 shatterstorm
-2 leyline
-2 collective brutality (dont have them paper, they are rare in my city)
+1 night's of soul betrayal
+2 baloth
+1 lili last hope
+1 engineer explosive
Match 1:
Win 2-0
Affinity
Was easy, Lavamencer, kcommand and 4push MD did the job.
Olivia won game 1 by herself btw;
You have Etched champ on board? FINE. My Olivia hit harder (=
Match 2:
Win 2-1
Ponza (land destroyer)
Pretty hard matchup, but I was on play. I think the matchup can be win on play; very though on draw.
I got good draws. The only ''good play'' I did was:
On turn 3, there is 1 noble in his graveyard and relic on play. So I shock myself on turn 3 to get 2 green manaopoen.
At the end of my turn he used his relic to exile the noble. In respond I eat noble. In respond he sac his relic to exile
all grave. Then in respond I eat again the noble. Shocking myself on this turn was huge because I had to to eat the bird and it alowed me to play arround anger of the gods/Bonfire. On his turn 3 like a miracle he dopdecked Bonfire. If I dont do the
play, my ooze would have died and I would have lost the game (Ooze did pressure all game long).
Match 3:
Win 2-1
Bant company
Voice is anoying, Coco is anoying (thank you cage)
I conceded game 2 because I felt I was losing and we had just 15min left on timer. It wasnt unwinable,
but I was pretty sure my chance of winning game 3 were pretty high. One thing was sure. ''Draw'' wasnt a possibility.
Game 3 was pretty close. I finished at 2 Hp. Found a way to stablize the board with Olivia on board.
Match 4:
Win 2-1
Smallpox
I loved so bad my baloth in game 2. I've been so patient with it; I had tarmo on board with 4 land (1 raging ravine).
I was playing arround lili keeping mana open to active raging ravine in answer to lili. So.. if he makes me discard. I drop baloth.
If he drop lili or smallpox to kill tarmo, I active raging. He makes me discard baloth + kcommand. Then I drew a land so I attacked with baloth, tarmo and baloth. I was sad about his wrench mind.. I wanted to live my dream.
My dream is: I drop baloth, he kills baloth, he makes me discard, Kcommand bring back baloth in hand in respond.. DREAMMMM
Funny fact, exept my first win, the 3 others player I played against finished 3-1 (so I've been their only lost)
So I finished first and I've beat the 2nd, the 3rd and the 4th.
I like the list overall gg
Jund can still win and is still playable.
7-1 to my 8 last matchs at a FNM.
But tier 3 now? Best Tier 3 on earth then.. Zzz
https://www.mainphasemtg.net/modern-tier-list/2017/5/29/modern-tiered-list-weekly-update-and-analysis-for-52917
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
Congrats on your results! I think I might try out Reid's list aswell.
Anyway, Jund is not tier 3 because it is a bad deck, it is tier 3 because it is not played a lot nowadays. There are the bad matchups (but Tron is also on the decline), but also some good matchups: Counters Company, Gifts Storm, the Shadow decks and Affinity are all tier 1 and far from unwinnable.
The times are not as grim as the tier lists want us to believe it.
why? that's not why modern was created.
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