Hi, I've been playing with this deck for about a year now, and I have a bit of input that is different from the trends of the thread, but I think if you test it out, it is just plain and simply better than the builds listed here...
a few changes:
1. No Kabira Crossroads, but yes Halimar Depths
- The fact is, a turn two Howling Mine is our game plan, period. Jace on turn three is very vulnerable, and a Font on turn 4 against Boss Naya / Jund / UW Control doesnt work out... ever. The depths gives us the chance to make sure that the second mana is the next card. It finds Howling Mines for turn 2. The trade-off of late game irrelevence compared to the moderate use of Kabira Crossroads is a fair tradeoff for what the card does in the early game.
2. Run Ponder.
- Again, we need a turn two Mine. Ponder is good for us in every stage of the game. Remember, we are playing a deck that claims invulnerability against some archetypes, but every now and then we stall. Sometimes, there are 25 cards left in our deck, and we get to draw 4, needing any one of 7 cards to win (time warp) or stall for another turn (fog) With Ponder, our odds increase significantly.
3. Cut Safe Passage, run Rest for the Weary.
- I've read this thread roughly each week for a few months, and I still don't understand why every list has 4 safe passage... the card is terrible. Follow me here: sometimes we don't get our turn two Howling Mine, or turn three Jace, which gives us the chance to cast rest for the weary for 8 life. While Safe Passage can prevent 8, or 28 for that matter, it often times is used to prevent a few points just to stay out of burn range, or it forces us to hold the Howling Mine instead of casting it, needing to have mana to cast the safe passage during the opponents turn. An early Rest for the Weary buys the life point buffer to be able to let an attack through, so you can keep mana open for a counterspell against O-Ring or Pulse, etc. We also have to acknowledge that this deck doesn't do well against RDW. Even with the fogs and passages, we are fueling their hand, and even with the perfect hand we are giving them 5 turns and a couple of extra cards to work with. Now that we're on the subject, Running Rest for the Weary opens up our Sideboard a little bit. I've been going with 3 Perimeter Captains and 3 Purge because they side in nicely against Jund and against RDW, but I don't feel that I'm fighting a significantly uphill battle against RDW provided I see Rest for the Weary. Put simply, if I could, I'd run 8 RFTW instead of 4 Angelsong / 4 Safe Passage. Angelsong, however, is just fine in this deck.
4. Win conditions:
- We have the ability to win with Jace, which points directly to mill as a win route. Before M10 the mill player technically didn't have to have a win condition, as the card draw would effect the opponent first, which would inevitably mean they would deck first, but now since we are running Time Warp we will deck first in almost any fiven game. This means that we have to run something to win the game. This makes things tricky... I want to say that running Archive Trap or Quest for Ancient Secrets as a 1 of would do just fine. It would, but there is that chance that it could be the last card in the deck, in which case, we will most likely lose when we draw our cards. On the other hand, you can stack the triggers of your fonts and Howling Mines so that you draw from the artifacts one at a time, after the untap step, which means you can draw the Archive Trap, and with the Howling Mine trigger still on the stack, forcing you to draw a card you don't have, you can cast the Trap for the win. On the other hand, while either card is terrible during the game, the Quest has some marginal uses: it shuffles Ponders, RFTW, and Time Warps back into the deck. The tradeoff however, is that the Quest can be destroyed or Pithing Needled, which I will say just about never happens... the card is irrelevent on board. The downside with Quest is that if we draw it during that final, lethal draw step, we can't use it to win anyway like we can with Archive Trap. Hey get this, we run Ponder now! We had a chance to dig for the Quest, and play it on the prior turn. Even if we don't have the 5 counters on it, we can again stack the draws from the artifacts and cast rest for the weary, counter it, and cast angelsong. Generally this is all that we need to add up counters on Quest considering that it more than likely has a couple of counters after the prior turn's discard step. With all of these factors, I favor the Quest because of its slight uses in game. Plus players tend to not search their deck as readily for fear of Archive Trap. Oh oh! and Quest is better in the Mirror!... statistically.
5. Spell Pierce vs. Negate:
- You got me here. I still don't know. I've tried each as a four of, one at a time, I've tried 4 - 2 splits either way, I've tried several other combinations as well. I feel like Spell Pierce may be better, as we are pretty confident in a win provided we can stick a card draw engine, and cast a time warp. Late game though, Negate clearly is better. Each has its pros and cons.
My list:
Card Draw:
4 Howling mine
3 Jace
3 Font
Fogs:
4 Rest for the Weary
4 Angelsong
Utility:
3 Spell Pierce
2 Negate
4 Ponder
1 Into the Roil
3 Day of Judgement
Win Stuff:
4 Time Warp
1 Quest for Ancient Secrets
SB:
3 Celestial Purge - Jund / Red / Vampires / manabarbs
3 Perimeter Captain - Jund / Red / Naya
2 O-Ring - random problem cards
4 Flashfreeze- for the obvious
3 Hedron Crabs - seriously, it kills the hell out of control!
The SB, I admit, has a good bit of wiggle room according to any given meta, but this is what I've been running. I will say, I like the idea of getting another into the Roil in the board...
1: the combo must be two cards. period. (the only exception is in a format where efficient tutors are available, and if the third combo piece will become inevitably found when the first two pieces are put together... such as dakmor salvage after seismic assault and swans of bryn argol are both down.
2. the combo pieces can't be useless on their own... such as mind funeral in all these crappy mind funeral / bloodchief ascension builds.
3. the combo must be able to goldfish a win on average by turn 3 - 4. Considering that goldfishing involves no disruption of any sort, this should be fine.
4. Finally, the combo cannot be neutered by a commonly played SB card. This means don't base the combo around a red permenant while celestial purge is in the meta without your deck's presence.
...as for Terastodon and Whiplash Trap... scrap it... perhaps if you build G/W, with mana ramp, you can cast the Terastodon, and if it dies you can bring it back with Martial Coup. In fact, you could run slimes and visionaries too. Heck, throw in kor skyfisher, which bounces your CITP dudes, or your kicked twice martials anthem! ....yay
Hi all, first time poster here, in fact I registered just to start this topic...
Type 2 right now would be great, with more competetive tier 2 strategies than I can remember, but so many of them fall short against jund. I want to play a rogue strategy for regionals, but any that do well against the field can't compete with jund. The decks that I've put together that are fine against jund can't compete with the rest of the field.
So we know that RDW has a pretty good matchup against jund, and I would run it if it weren't proactive to the point of having miniscule play decisions, and a straightforward / easy to play against gameplan. No offense to RDW that is...
The old aggro-jund builds seemed to play out like RDW but had answers to problem cards, and had much more longevity in games. The purpose of the post is to get an opinion: does jund aggro beat jund, and still have a good game against the field?
For the record, jund aggro in my mind, means:
-switch thrinax to hell's thunder
-switch b. dragon / siege-gang to hellspark elemental
-add burst lightnings
a few changes:
1. No Kabira Crossroads, but yes Halimar Depths
- The fact is, a turn two Howling Mine is our game plan, period. Jace on turn three is very vulnerable, and a Font on turn 4 against Boss Naya / Jund / UW Control doesnt work out... ever. The depths gives us the chance to make sure that the second mana is the next card. It finds Howling Mines for turn 2. The trade-off of late game irrelevence compared to the moderate use of Kabira Crossroads is a fair tradeoff for what the card does in the early game.
2. Run Ponder.
- Again, we need a turn two Mine. Ponder is good for us in every stage of the game. Remember, we are playing a deck that claims invulnerability against some archetypes, but every now and then we stall. Sometimes, there are 25 cards left in our deck, and we get to draw 4, needing any one of 7 cards to win (time warp) or stall for another turn (fog) With Ponder, our odds increase significantly.
3. Cut Safe Passage, run Rest for the Weary.
- I've read this thread roughly each week for a few months, and I still don't understand why every list has 4 safe passage... the card is terrible. Follow me here: sometimes we don't get our turn two Howling Mine, or turn three Jace, which gives us the chance to cast rest for the weary for 8 life. While Safe Passage can prevent 8, or 28 for that matter, it often times is used to prevent a few points just to stay out of burn range, or it forces us to hold the Howling Mine instead of casting it, needing to have mana to cast the safe passage during the opponents turn. An early Rest for the Weary buys the life point buffer to be able to let an attack through, so you can keep mana open for a counterspell against O-Ring or Pulse, etc. We also have to acknowledge that this deck doesn't do well against RDW. Even with the fogs and passages, we are fueling their hand, and even with the perfect hand we are giving them 5 turns and a couple of extra cards to work with. Now that we're on the subject, Running Rest for the Weary opens up our Sideboard a little bit. I've been going with 3 Perimeter Captains and 3 Purge because they side in nicely against Jund and against RDW, but I don't feel that I'm fighting a significantly uphill battle against RDW provided I see Rest for the Weary. Put simply, if I could, I'd run 8 RFTW instead of 4 Angelsong / 4 Safe Passage. Angelsong, however, is just fine in this deck.
4. Win conditions:
- We have the ability to win with Jace, which points directly to mill as a win route. Before M10 the mill player technically didn't have to have a win condition, as the card draw would effect the opponent first, which would inevitably mean they would deck first, but now since we are running Time Warp we will deck first in almost any fiven game. This means that we have to run something to win the game. This makes things tricky... I want to say that running Archive Trap or Quest for Ancient Secrets as a 1 of would do just fine. It would, but there is that chance that it could be the last card in the deck, in which case, we will most likely lose when we draw our cards. On the other hand, you can stack the triggers of your fonts and Howling Mines so that you draw from the artifacts one at a time, after the untap step, which means you can draw the Archive Trap, and with the Howling Mine trigger still on the stack, forcing you to draw a card you don't have, you can cast the Trap for the win. On the other hand, while either card is terrible during the game, the Quest has some marginal uses: it shuffles Ponders, RFTW, and Time Warps back into the deck. The tradeoff however, is that the Quest can be destroyed or Pithing Needled, which I will say just about never happens... the card is irrelevent on board. The downside with Quest is that if we draw it during that final, lethal draw step, we can't use it to win anyway like we can with Archive Trap. Hey get this, we run Ponder now! We had a chance to dig for the Quest, and play it on the prior turn. Even if we don't have the 5 counters on it, we can again stack the draws from the artifacts and cast rest for the weary, counter it, and cast angelsong. Generally this is all that we need to add up counters on Quest considering that it more than likely has a couple of counters after the prior turn's discard step. With all of these factors, I favor the Quest because of its slight uses in game. Plus players tend to not search their deck as readily for fear of Archive Trap. Oh oh! and Quest is better in the Mirror!... statistically.
5. Spell Pierce vs. Negate:
- You got me here. I still don't know. I've tried each as a four of, one at a time, I've tried 4 - 2 splits either way, I've tried several other combinations as well. I feel like Spell Pierce may be better, as we are pretty confident in a win provided we can stick a card draw engine, and cast a time warp. Late game though, Negate clearly is better. Each has its pros and cons.
My list:
Card Draw:
4 Howling mine
3 Jace
3 Font
Fogs:
4 Rest for the Weary
4 Angelsong
Utility:
3 Spell Pierce
2 Negate
4 Ponder
1 Into the Roil
3 Day of Judgement
Win Stuff:
4 Time Warp
1 Quest for Ancient Secrets
Mana:
4 Halimar Depths
4 Glacial Fortress
1 Sejiri Refuge
3 Arid Mesa
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Island
5 Plains
SB:
3 Celestial Purge - Jund / Red / Vampires / manabarbs
3 Perimeter Captain - Jund / Red / Naya
2 O-Ring - random problem cards
4 Flashfreeze- for the obvious
3 Hedron Crabs - seriously, it kills the hell out of control!
The SB, I admit, has a good bit of wiggle room according to any given meta, but this is what I've been running. I will say, I like the idea of getting another into the Roil in the board...
thoughts? comments?
1: the combo must be two cards. period. (the only exception is in a format where efficient tutors are available, and if the third combo piece will become inevitably found when the first two pieces are put together... such as dakmor salvage after seismic assault and swans of bryn argol are both down.
2. the combo pieces can't be useless on their own... such as mind funeral in all these crappy mind funeral / bloodchief ascension builds.
3. the combo must be able to goldfish a win on average by turn 3 - 4. Considering that goldfishing involves no disruption of any sort, this should be fine.
4. Finally, the combo cannot be neutered by a commonly played SB card. This means don't base the combo around a red permenant while celestial purge is in the meta without your deck's presence.
...as for Terastodon and Whiplash Trap... scrap it... perhaps if you build G/W, with mana ramp, you can cast the Terastodon, and if it dies you can bring it back with Martial Coup. In fact, you could run slimes and visionaries too. Heck, throw in kor skyfisher, which bounces your CITP dudes, or your kicked twice martials anthem! ....yay
Type 2 right now would be great, with more competetive tier 2 strategies than I can remember, but so many of them fall short against jund. I want to play a rogue strategy for regionals, but any that do well against the field can't compete with jund. The decks that I've put together that are fine against jund can't compete with the rest of the field.
So we know that RDW has a pretty good matchup against jund, and I would run it if it weren't proactive to the point of having miniscule play decisions, and a straightforward / easy to play against gameplan. No offense to RDW that is...
The old aggro-jund builds seemed to play out like RDW but had answers to problem cards, and had much more longevity in games. The purpose of the post is to get an opinion: does jund aggro beat jund, and still have a good game against the field?
For the record, jund aggro in my mind, means:
-switch thrinax to hell's thunder
-switch b. dragon / siege-gang to hellspark elemental
-add burst lightnings
thoughts? comments?