@Exatraz:
I've also been playing a lot of Abzan Traverse for the past few weeks and I like it a lot but it suffers from the same issues Abzan always does which you mentioned, too : it always feels so.darn.slow. I played a lot of Grim Flayer jund builds since he was printed and the Traverse builds highlighted my frustrations w him too - when you have delirium he's great but when you don't and you can't connect w your 2/2 man, is he dissapointing.
Anyway,I've been kicking around a similar thought on taking the 19 land traverse shell and porting it to Jund. I like where you are starting from; here's some feedback / thoughts:
* Many, many times I look @ the yard and see 3 types - typically these were from a fetchland, a discard spell/traverse, and an artifact (bauble). I don't know how - aside from the obvious like Street Wraith or Tarfire or pitching more things to Collective Brutality to get Delirium online faster or to recover it after some GY hate. In a nutshell - delirium is a frustrating mechanic at times. Are you finding that with only 2 Nihil Spellbomb you get things online quick enough?
* I would hesitate on Ishkanah only because adding another card w delirium on it would bug me, but she's quite good. I could also see just putting Pia and Kiran Nalaar in there since its a bit less on the mana, also gets you multiple (flying) bodies, and throwing thopters are peoples heads is always a fun time.
* If you are set on running a 5 drop in the board, I would lean toward whatever haste dragon you prefer. This build wants to close a game out quickly; as fun as casting GDD and using it to recast traverse / claim//fame etc seems, I think the haste would matter more to me here. Hard to say without playing this list, really.
* I would just run a single Raging Ravine and something like a Ghost Quarter or 2 Raging Ravine over the Treetop Village. I always find the 3/3 to be a little anemic when it could just be a ravine and if my land comes in tapped I prefer having more than a single color mana.
* A friend of mine has been high on Anathemancer forever; your reasoning is in-line with some of the arguments he has, too. I do know that I hate Fulminator Mage with a passion and have been trying to find a different angle against Tron for years. Maybe I'll finally bite the bullet and give it a shot. Again, since a build like this wants to end the game faster perhaps being able to just do that extra 3-6 dmg to the head (or snipe Ugin) is better than other options.
True, LtLH can't do that, but honestly, you think Chandra is more worth it since you can make chump blockers not blocking your creatures to win on the spot? I really think, if you let the opponent just chump block, you are far ahead already. I think when it comes down to chump blockers, this would not make a big difference. And if those chump blockers are small creatures in form of X/1s then LtLH does exactly the same of course. The thing I would be interested in way more is is invalidating bigger creatures which would otherwise not allow us to attack. And I belief LtLH, in its ability of shrinking creatures, will most of the time turn bigger creatures at least into creatures which have to be traded against ours or even into chump blockers for a turn. And to note LtLH shrinks not until end of turn, its also throughout the next opponents turn, which I think is huge. The only creature I can think of where this would not work most likely is Death Shadow, and the old Chandra is not what I would want specifically for DS decks. And therefore I still like LTLH more in that regard, even if I can see your point.
Just to be clear I'm not advocating either Chandra over Lili the Last Hope; rereading how I phrased it this morning I can see how that was implied. If I were playing a Chandra I would probably go with Pyromaster in Jund, but as we're fond of saying "its a meta call". I was simply answering the question the poster had about why she was / wasn't played. That "not able to block" clause is what sets Pyromaster above Torch of Defiance in my opinion, is all.
I like Liliana Last Hope the most because of color requirements / cmc and being able to feed the gy and recur things over gambling w the top of my library. Once she was spoiled I basically put my Chandras away for good.
All that said, I still love the Pyromaster. Not only does her +1 kill x/1's but it also can force a Tarmogoyf through a blocker, too. One of the biggest issues in playing Jund is that, while powerful, Tarmogoyf, Raging Ravine, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Thrun, the Last Troll , Scavenging Ooze and more) can all be chump blocked with ease. Being able to close out games quickly by invalidating blockers has won me a lot of games with Chandra, Pyromaster.
Liliana, the Last Hope can do that too and only costing 3 mana.
Guess I missed the text on Liliana, the Last Hope where it says "That creature can't block this turn."
For people who consider ultimates, the ultimate on Pyromaster is pretty underwhelming to a typical Jund deck whereas the ultimates on the other two are (mostly) game ending emblems.
All that said, I still love the Pyromaster. Not only does her +1 kill x/1's but it also can force a Tarmogoyf through a blocker, too. One of the biggest issues in playing Jund is that, while powerful, Tarmogoyf, Raging Ravine, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Thrun, the Last Troll , Scavenging Ooze and more) can all be chump blocked with ease. Being able to close out games quickly by invalidating blockers has won me a lot of games with Chandra, Pyromaster.
So...Kalitas, Huntmaster, Olivia win the game after the our next turn.
None told about Hazoret, The Fervent. I think that it can be a good cc4, in addition to the new entry Fatal Push. But it can be played now, with the current meta?
I haven't tried it yet.
Did a small amount of testing with Hazoret, the Fervent and the results were mixed. Like others have said, sometimes its great other times the combat restrictions and / or inability for it to kill small creatures made it fairly bad. It was the best against grixis / jund shadow and midrange builds because of the flow of the games leading toward hellbent status and the almost impossibility for them to remove it from the board. I was running 2 of them to ensure I was able to see them often enough to cast, but would probably just run a single in reality.
I think we have enough things vs dredge in form of scooze, NoSB, Anger...but then again, I'm not completely sure about wether graffdigger's or spellbomb is better. They both have good sides, spellbomb mainly in drawing a card and putting an artifact into grave.
Against snap matchups, scavenging ooze does enough most of the time and they usually want to remove goyfs or 4drops.
Also, I have a general question, I've been lurking for a long time on all the salvation jund threads and I just don't know, why almost nobody is running 2 basic forests? I find this very helpful, when I try to conserve my life total. It feels good dropping down a finks or ooze vs burn without fetching for a shock at all.
I tend to run 2 Swamp, 1 Forest, 1 Mountain. Not having to always shock to cast red cards is handy.
I've also been playing a lot of Abzan Traverse for the past few weeks and I like it a lot but it suffers from the same issues Abzan always does which you mentioned, too : it always feels so.darn.slow. I played a lot of Grim Flayer jund builds since he was printed and the Traverse builds highlighted my frustrations w him too - when you have delirium he's great but when you don't and you can't connect w your 2/2 man, is he dissapointing.
Anyway,I've been kicking around a similar thought on taking the 19 land traverse shell and porting it to Jund. I like where you are starting from; here's some feedback / thoughts:
* Many, many times I look @ the yard and see 3 types - typically these were from a fetchland, a discard spell/traverse, and an artifact (bauble). I don't know how - aside from the obvious like Street Wraith or Tarfire or pitching more things to Collective Brutality to get Delirium online faster or to recover it after some GY hate. In a nutshell - delirium is a frustrating mechanic at times. Are you finding that with only 2 Nihil Spellbomb you get things online quick enough?
* I would hesitate on Ishkanah only because adding another card w delirium on it would bug me, but she's quite good. I could also see just putting Pia and Kiran Nalaar in there since its a bit less on the mana, also gets you multiple (flying) bodies, and throwing thopters are peoples heads is always a fun time.
* If you are set on running a 5 drop in the board, I would lean toward whatever haste dragon you prefer. This build wants to close a game out quickly; as fun as casting GDD and using it to recast traverse / claim//fame etc seems, I think the haste would matter more to me here. Hard to say without playing this list, really.
* I would just run a single Raging Ravine and something like a Ghost Quarter or 2 Raging Ravine over the Treetop Village. I always find the 3/3 to be a little anemic when it could just be a ravine and if my land comes in tapped I prefer having more than a single color mana.
* A friend of mine has been high on Anathemancer forever; your reasoning is in-line with some of the arguments he has, too. I do know that I hate Fulminator Mage with a passion and have been trying to find a different angle against Tron for years. Maybe I'll finally bite the bullet and give it a shot. Again, since a build like this wants to end the game faster perhaps being able to just do that extra 3-6 dmg to the head (or snipe Ugin) is better than other options.
Just to be clear I'm not advocating either Chandra over Lili the Last Hope; rereading how I phrased it this morning I can see how that was implied. If I were playing a Chandra I would probably go with Pyromaster in Jund, but as we're fond of saying "its a meta call". I was simply answering the question the poster had about why she was / wasn't played. That "not able to block" clause is what sets Pyromaster above Torch of Defiance in my opinion, is all.
I like Liliana Last Hope the most because of color requirements / cmc and being able to feed the gy and recur things over gambling w the top of my library. Once she was spoiled I basically put my Chandras away for good.
Guess I missed the text on Liliana, the Last Hope where it says "That creature can't block this turn."
I think a couple of factors in choosing Liliana, the Last Hope or Chandra, Torch of Defiance:
All that said, I still love the Pyromaster. Not only does her +1 kill x/1's but it also can force a Tarmogoyf through a blocker, too. One of the biggest issues in playing Jund is that, while powerful, Tarmogoyf, Raging Ravine, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Thrun, the Last Troll , Scavenging Ooze and more) can all be chump blocked with ease. Being able to close out games quickly by invalidating blockers has won me a lot of games with Chandra, Pyromaster.
Did a small amount of testing with Hazoret, the Fervent and the results were mixed. Like others have said, sometimes its great other times the combat restrictions and / or inability for it to kill small creatures made it fairly bad. It was the best against grixis / jund shadow and midrange builds because of the flow of the games leading toward hellbent status and the almost impossibility for them to remove it from the board. I was running 2 of them to ensure I was able to see them often enough to cast, but would probably just run a single in reality.
To call it a nonbo is fairly disingenuous. You choose what to exile from the gy and its not like we have trouble getting cards there.
I tend to run 2 Swamp, 1 Forest, 1 Mountain. Not having to always shock to cast red cards is handy.
Interesting card for sure, but what would you bring this in for that you can't solve with some combination of Scavenging Ooze, Nihil Spellbomb, Surgical Extraction, Leyline of the Void, Grafdigger's Cage, etc?