Fatal push keeps aggro under control. Also kills Colonnade in the control decks.
Lightning Bolt compliments Push, but can help polish off Planeswalkers, or if you're really lucky kill an opponent.
Terminate kills a lot of scary things no questions asked. In some matchups it's basically a two mana Fatal push, but that's OK.
Abrupt Decay doesn't seem to do much here outside of creature removal. Hits Blood Moon, and maybe the rare Expedition Map.
Maelstrom Pulse is valuable because it kills Planeswalkers in Tron, Batterskull in Control, and multiple pesky tokens.
Kolaghan's Command helps grind against control decks, and is just almost always good 2 for 1 value.
1. Raging Ravine+Double Scooze is far too clunky to keep against Affinity. Bob is liability, and Lili is meh. Would not keep.
2. It's unfortunate to have no turn two play, but the potential to take their turn one play is pretty good. The lack of red mana is annoying, but this hand makes me feel like I'm not in a hurry to find it. Would keep.
3. Having double Inquisition is ok, but not great. Lack of turn two threat is also sub-optimal, however potential turn three Lili can be what swings the game to a possible win. I would keep this.
4. My only problem with this hand is it only has two lands. Other then that it's an easy keep.
5. The weakest part of this hand is it's inability to deal with a resolved delve creature. Still double Inquisition to take opposing answers, and Kcommand to bring Scooze back is not too bad. I would try it.
It depends on the context. Against an unknown opponent if you have a starting hand with threats and removal, but no discard I would keep. Mulling runs the risk of drawing a worse hand with no guarantee of starting with discard. However if you know what your opponents on, and if it's a combo, synergistic aggro, or a big mana deck it's may be worth mulling to find discard. Unless you already have a piece of hate in hand. Furthermore in some situations I would rather keep hands containing multiple threats with no answers then vice versa. A turn two Goyf or Bob that goes unanswered can end the game quickly. But if you start with no threats you can run out of answers, or worse constantly drawing the wrong answers. Believe me nothing feels worse then drawing Abrupt Decay when you so desperately want it to be Push or Terminate.
In game one I have a curve of Inquisition>Goyf>Lili I take a Goryo's and doesn't recover from multiple Lili activations.
In game two he keeps a one land hand, and Inquisitions my Surgical Extraction out of my hand. On my turn one I Thoughtseize away a
Faithless Looting to prevent him from digging for more lands. Over the course of three turns he fails to draw into land and gets crushed by
multiple threats.
Match record (1-0)
Round 2: Merfolk
In game one we trade resources for a few turns. At one point I swing all out, but fail to do the math and he kills me on the crackback.
feels bad, but lesson learned.
For game two I draw multiple Dark Confidants and fail to answer all his threats.
Match record (1-1)
Round 3: Junk
We trade answers and threats over the course of several turns. Eventually I stick a Raging Ravine, and end the game.
In the second game he casts Lingering Souls with flashback keeping another copy in his hand. I force him to discard it with Kcommand and then exile
it with Scooze. Afterwards he floods out and I close the game with a flipped Huntmaster.
Match record (2-1)
Round 4: Abzan Counters
In the first game I get overwhelmed by Finks+Gavony.
The second game almost ended the same way but I draw a timely Maelstrom Pulse to kill a pair of pumped up Noble Hierarchs and swing for lethal.
My opponent gets mana screwed and dies to pressure in the third game.
Match record (3-1)
Round 5: Abzan Counters
My opponent mulls to 5, and we have a nongame.
In the second game I kill a few things , but he combos off and kills me with Walking Balista.
I manage to stick a turn two Bob and the card advantage he provided me allowed me to take the match.
Match record (4-1)
Round 6: Merfolk
Kira, Great Glass Spinner, and Master of Waves sucks.
Match record (4-2)
Round 7: Scapeshift
I only win game one due to an error my opponent made. He has a Courser in play revealing a mountain on top. I pass the turn and he draws the mountain,
then proceeds to draw a second card that I did not see. After a judge call he reveals his hand and I got to pick a card from his hand to shuffle back
into his deck. He reveals the mountain he drew, Primeval Titan, and Chandra Torch of Defiance. I took the Prime Time, and then finished him off.
I lose the second game to multiple Valakut triggers.
After a mull I keep a hand of 3x lands, 2x Thoughtseize, and Inquisition. I see Stomping Grounds on top and bottom it. After striping his hand, killing
multiple Chameleon Colossus' and even using Fulminator Mage+Surgical Extraction on Valakut I lose to a resolved Primeval Titan.
Final match record: (4-3)
This was my first PPTQ and my first tournament report so apologies if it's a little vague. I should have wrote down notes between matchs. Will do next
time.
Diluting your overall strategy, and weakening your ability to topdeck for Blood Moon is just not worth it. If you want to have a better matchup against ETron and Valakut play a different deck.
Jund and Abzan generally run fewer copies of Abrupt Decay since Splinter Twin fell under the ban-hammer. That's the only main-deck answer they have to Cranial Plating. Without Plating, it'd be tough to outrace either Jund or Junk with Etched Champion. Personally, I don't run Champ main-deck; he's just too slow for my tastes.
How do y'all feel about manlands? I was running 2 treetop villages, but bumped it up to 3 and have been really loving it.
Also at 20 lands is raging ravine viable?
6. I defer to other players. There are a lot of amazing plays one can make with SnapCasters and Kolaghan's Command. One of my favorite mechanics with the Titi is if it is on its last ice counter, you can thoughtseize them -> the flip and bounce creatures resolves before thoughtseize ... you can then thoughtseize one of those creatures.
I think my favorite thing to be doing with Thing is to cast an instant before damage and have it act as a mini fog.
4 Fatal Push
1 Lightning Bolt
4 Terminate
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Kolaghan's Command
Explanation:
Fatal push keeps aggro under control. Also kills Colonnade in the control decks.
Lightning Bolt compliments Push, but can help polish off Planeswalkers, or if you're really lucky kill an opponent.
Terminate kills a lot of scary things no questions asked. In some matchups it's basically a two mana Fatal push, but that's OK.
Abrupt Decay doesn't seem to do much here outside of creature removal. Hits Blood Moon, and maybe the rare Expedition Map.
Maelstrom Pulse is valuable because it kills Planeswalkers in Tron, Batterskull in Control, and multiple pesky tokens.
Kolaghan's Command helps grind against control decks, and is just almost always good 2 for 1 value.
Just my observations.
2. It's unfortunate to have no turn two play, but the potential to take their turn one play is pretty good. The lack of red mana is annoying, but this hand makes me feel like I'm not in a hurry to find it. Would keep.
3. Having double Inquisition is ok, but not great. Lack of turn two threat is also sub-optimal, however potential turn three Lili can be what swings the game to a possible win. I would keep this.
4. My only problem with this hand is it only has two lands. Other then that it's an easy keep.
5. The weakest part of this hand is it's inability to deal with a resolved delve creature. Still double Inquisition to take opposing answers, and Kcommand to bring Scooze back is not too bad. I would try it.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/04-08-16-modern-jund/
Round 1: BR Goryo's
In game one I have a curve of Inquisition>Goyf>Lili I take a Goryo's and doesn't recover from multiple Lili activations.
In game two he keeps a one land hand, and Inquisitions my Surgical Extraction out of my hand. On my turn one I Thoughtseize away a
Faithless Looting to prevent him from digging for more lands. Over the course of three turns he fails to draw into land and gets crushed by
multiple threats.
Match record (1-0)
Round 2: Merfolk
In game one we trade resources for a few turns. At one point I swing all out, but fail to do the math and he kills me on the crackback.
feels bad, but lesson learned.
For game two I draw multiple Dark Confidants and fail to answer all his threats.
Match record (1-1)
Round 3: Junk
We trade answers and threats over the course of several turns. Eventually I stick a Raging Ravine, and end the game.
In the second game he casts Lingering Souls with flashback keeping another copy in his hand. I force him to discard it with Kcommand and then exile
it with Scooze. Afterwards he floods out and I close the game with a flipped Huntmaster.
Match record (2-1)
Round 4: Abzan Counters
In the first game I get overwhelmed by Finks+Gavony.
The second game almost ended the same way but I draw a timely Maelstrom Pulse to kill a pair of pumped up Noble Hierarchs and swing for lethal.
My opponent gets mana screwed and dies to pressure in the third game.
Match record (3-1)
Round 5: Abzan Counters
My opponent mulls to 5, and we have a nongame.
In the second game I kill a few things , but he combos off and kills me with Walking Balista.
I manage to stick a turn two Bob and the card advantage he provided me allowed me to take the match.
Match record (4-1)
Round 6: Merfolk
Kira, Great Glass Spinner, and Master of Waves sucks.
Match record (4-2)
Round 7: Scapeshift
I only win game one due to an error my opponent made. He has a Courser in play revealing a mountain on top. I pass the turn and he draws the mountain,
then proceeds to draw a second card that I did not see. After a judge call he reveals his hand and I got to pick a card from his hand to shuffle back
into his deck. He reveals the mountain he drew, Primeval Titan, and Chandra Torch of Defiance. I took the Prime Time, and then finished him off.
I lose the second game to multiple Valakut triggers.
After a mull I keep a hand of 3x lands, 2x Thoughtseize, and Inquisition. I see Stomping Grounds on top and bottom it. After striping his hand, killing
multiple Chameleon Colossus' and even using Fulminator Mage+Surgical Extraction on Valakut I lose to a resolved Primeval Titan.
Final match record: (4-3)
This was my first PPTQ and my first tournament report so apologies if it's a little vague. I should have wrote down notes between matchs. Will do next
time.
Also what do think about Driven//Despair? May try it as a one of.
It would be so much better if it were 2RG but even then I don't think we have the creature count to make it worth it.
Don't forget Maelstrom Pulse.
Also at 20 lands is raging ravine viable?
I think my favorite thing to be doing with Thing is to cast an instant before damage and have it act as a mini fog.
I was think something like:
4 Snaps
3 Thing
3 Dark Confidant
2 Kalitas
And then maybe moving cryptic to the sideboard for 2 mana removal.
thoughts??