MTG Salvation

Quote from yriel »

Hello here !
Sorry for my bad english, i am french player and i test for GP Barcelona next week. I am really interested on Tempest753's decklist because i try to brew somethig close. I played a lot Jund during 1 year (1 GP with day 2, 10 side events, 4 locals tournaments (30~50 players) and some pptqs) without any shaman or BBE with 4 bob and 4 liliana of the veil but i think the both are not really impressive right now like before. My idea is too play a Blood Moon Jund deck with tracker and no liliana or bob :

FlyingDelver's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Creatures (13) : 4 tarmogoyf 2 scavenging ooze 4 tireless tracker 3 huntmaster of the fells Spells (23) : 3 blood moon 3 inquisition of kozilek 3 thoughtseize 4 lightning bolt 3 terminate 4 kolaghan's command 3 collective brutality	Lands (24) : 3 blackcleave cliffs 3 raging ravine 1 blood crypt 1 overgrown tomb 1 stomping ground 2 swamp 2 forest 1 mountain 4 verdant catacombs 3 wooded foothills 3 bloodstained mire	Side Board : 3 hazoret the fervent 1 collective brutality 1 gaze of granite 2 engineered explosives 1 scavenging ooze 1 fatal push 2 nature's claim 1 thoughtseize 1 blood moon 2 empty slots

I discussed with a friend who says me blood moon is good right now but ponza is bad against affinity, burn, hollow one and humans so the plan is too play blood moon in a deck which can easily fight aggro decks and who have a better plan than mardu against tron and valakut. I test others decks too (eldrazi, hatebears, bant company) but i have always the feeling for a diversified and based-creatures metagame Jund have a nice powerlevel. If i don't play mardu or any other decks already build it's because i want (i try) to choose a deck which i know play it for a GP (i have 2 byes, maybe it's change something to choose a deck or a list ?), my assumption (i hope it's true) is i am a good jund player and i know modern in general, if it's not true this deck is a bad idea. So let's try to discuss on some details :
-i am not a fan of BBE but probably she very nice in a blood moon shell with a lot of burn spells.
-brutality is good against a lot of decks and can use the dead cards (discard+moon), maybe 3 is too much.
-i am a fan of kolaghan's command, it's the best card of deck but i never see anyone play 4... i don't understand. It helps a lot against control and tron and it's one of the best grindy cards against midrange.
-i think the hazoret plan is just stupid but it's an easy way to kill very faster tron and valakut and steal post board games against control and midrange. If i play BBE i will cut 1 for a huntmaster-like cards (maybe finks or baloth).
-Maybe i can play 1 or 2 other denial cards to help the moon post board but i don't know if it's a good idea.

Thanks for you help. Be critic please, i always try to be realistic in MTG and i brew a lot of different lists so i have no problem to guess this decklist is maybe a totally bad idea. I say again the idea is based on my feelings about metagame and not on logical justifications, it's why i need critics.

Hey yriel, welcome to the forums first of all!

New builds are always interesting to see, I am not against them, but like all new brews we must really squeeze the pros and cons out of those brews compared to the original version. So here are my thoughts about your build:

The first question I am always asking when talking about alteration of an exisiting deck is: Why do we change the deck? Is the current status of the deck not the best one? If the answer to this question is yes, then the obvious follow up question is: What are the problems the original build currently has to make it necessary to change it? Now, here opinions tend to really differ, especially in Jund right now. I think we can largely divide opinions on Jund in two different groups, one of them saying "Jund needs to stop playing the control role and go for an more proactive aggressive role" and the other half saying: "Jund does need card selection and most often looses to itself due to clunky deckbuilding, the high demand of needing the right answers in a short period of time and so on".

Now, I am not saying that only one group is right, it might be a good mix of both to be the actual truth. I personally think though, consistancy is the part which all good modern decks have in common. Whether Jund belongs to those decks at this point is a question which can answer everyone for him/herself. However, that brings me to your version. You essentially want to make Blood Moon functioning in Jund. I am not sure Blood Moon would help Jund in the first place. Lets say we don't warp the deck completely around BM, but just jam in a bunch of BM into an exisiting Jund deck. Which matchups get better? Tron, Valakut? Yeah maybe, but really question yourself, are those 2 decks the number one problem Jund has atm? I for myself would answers that question with a clear no. Especially with Alpine Moon being printed soon.

I basically see what your thought process is behind this: You say BM is a good card right now, so play it in a deck which is good against aggro, and has a better Tron/Valakut matchup than Mardu. I think you are trying to much here. You are essentially trying to reconcile every matchup with this version. I personally think this would be a "Mardu wannabe" in a certain sense. Looting from Mardu makes BM so much more consistant and supported. And I think Jund's Tron and Valakut matchup is clearly not miles better compared to Mardu's. That alone doesn't justify going into Jund colours.

So the main problem here is consistancy, and the fact that your colour intensive spells can be quite hard to be cast under a BM. Jund is not a good BM deck, it never really was, it was more viable in the past, which is true, but I think ultimately it is more cute than a solid strategy.

I think this Jund version has the same problems like the normal version: It needs the right answers at the right time (Humans, Affinity, Tron), other decks can easily grind you out (GWx Company, Hollow One, Mardu or Control) and after all it also has a lower chance in perfoming the GBx best openers of turn 1 discard into turn 2 Goyf/Bob into turn 3 LoTV.

Quote from FreeTempo »

What do you guys think of Isareth? Good stats, and a good grinding ability, especially with Grim Flayers or LotV

I think the card is a bit too much dependant on synergy, it has little individual power.

Man if the new Sarkhan PW could use the mana on any spell, it might be an interesting card I think.

@yriel

-I think at that point, it’s probably better to just play mardu. The deck is arguably better than jund right now anyways.

-I think of those decks listed, jund is the best. Hatebears is kinda bad (no offense), and Eldrazi decks feel poorly positioned right now.

-I think your analysis is about right, but I have been vocally arguing against maindeck bobs for this meta. I think my list from a couple pages back is well positioned vs aggro, at least relative to the average jund deck.

Mardu is way more consistant and a better BM deck as its most cards are in red, Looting either means you get to cast BM more often or ditch it if its bad and all that combined with a huge CA engine of KCommand and Reveler is impossible to beat concerning CA from our deck. Often I see literally half of my deck before the match ends, Jund rarely sees a third of the deck at the moment. Naturally, this has to mean specific answer cards get drawn more often in mardu than in Jund.
Mardu is also way less clunky, it can easily operate on 2-3 lands only, wheras Jund really struggles here. So the big 2 things are consistancy and less clunkyness while still higher ability to grind. So quite honestly, do I believe Jund has any meaningful matchup which is better for Jund compared to Mardu? Honestly not. Jund might be a bit better against Tron, but that literally doesn't matter, if a meta is infested with Tron, I am definitely not looking at Jund as my go to deck either.

I honestly think Ponza is not a real deck. Its just a gimmick that sometimes get you, but it looses more often to itself than Jund. Its nowhere near consistant.

I would play a low curve Jund deck at the moment, including Bobs and LoTV, but maybe trimming them down to 3 copies each. Tracker is definitely great in control matchups, but I think Bob is too important to cut. I would play both therefore. For aggro, I like CB, 12-13 one drops, and some decent number of sweepers in the sideboard.

To be honest, I play jund over mardu because I don’t enjoy the games mardu often plays. I like my big green beaters backed with disruption. More specifically, what I dislike about mardu is that it has exactly 8 meaningful threats and 4 of them die to bolt. Unlike jund which is hard to hate with sideboarding, I consider both cheap sweepers and graveyard hate to be quite powerful vs mardu. I also anticipate a blood moon ban shortly, and when that happens I think mardu will lose a lot of power. In general, I think mardu is great vs aggro, good against midrange, and kinda weak to non-creature combo, whereas jund is about even or favored against every deck in the format except tron and valakut (and even tron is winnable with a good sideboard).

Though Delver says otherwise, I think I personally have superior ability to grind than mardu because my build favors tracker over bob (I’ve crushed value town twice in the past couple weeks, a deck built for infinite value and durdling). And to your question, I think my build of jund is a lot like value town but with far more and far better disruption, so I’d personally rather play jund. Bant company is not a horrible choice, though I do think the deck is a little lacking in power and resiliency.

I’ve been wondering myself if Blood Moon is in the crosshairs right now. Blood Sun, Damping Sphere, and Alpine Moon all make me feel like WotC is trying to provide us with enough coverage so that they can safely rid the format of BM. It’s way too hateful and barely slipped through into Modern the same way the other odd hate of old did, i.e., 8th Edition. I just hope they don’t take my Choke.

Also, Jundine just wrote another great article on SCG premium about the Tron MU. I’ll summarize later. You know, I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t keep that subscription if not for her phenomenal articles and championing of Jund. She’s truly a great boon for the archetype. I hope SCG realizes what they have in her.

Quote from Raagh17 »

Jund is better than Mardu post sideboard. There is not a single card that completely shuts down Jund, whereas GY hate really makes mardu's life vey hard. A Leyline of the Void can be a disaster as well as relic, spellbomb or rest in peace. Half of the deck's value gets shut down really hard and it does not have answers in the form of Decay or Pulse

Thats what one would think in theory, but the reality is quite different. Mardu does no get shut down completely through a RIP or Leyline, it can well fight through that and operate well enough.

@Matsoni

That’s super great to hear! Thanks for trying out the tracker build, I’ve been so much happier with my deck after making the switch. I think it’s quite possible that the optimal build of jund would play dark confidant and tracker, though I think I’d play no more than 2 of the former and no less than 3 of the latter. For the moment, I’d like to try fitting 2 dark confidants into my sideboard for primarily combo as well as midrange matchups. It’s nice to be able to dig for discard spells against combo decks that can’t remove bob or pressure your life.

@Ayiluss

Call it wishful thinking, but I think the card should be banned as it really serves no useful purpose in modern. It punishes people for not playing red decks and not finding early fetchlands or basics. The meme of punishing greedy manabases is just really not true when you consider that even two color decks often play a whole lot of non basic lands. Simply put, it has become a free win machine that generates bad gameplay. I’m hoping that the recent printing of cards like field of ruin, blood sun, damping sphere, and alpine moon is a sign that wizards feels the same way and is trying to replace it.

@yriel
I think that’s fair. Still, when I think of value town, most of its value comes from tireless tracker. Put tracker in jund and you get a similar feeling deck, just far more focused on disrupting than flooding the board with big creatures.

If the card serves no purpose, then they literally have no need to ban it.

Well that’s not really what I said chaos, that’s an extreme oversimplification. Blood moon at this point in modern is just a free win machine that generates horrible gameplay and punishes people for things that shouldn’t be punished (like having the audacity to play a 2-3 color deck that isn’t base red). If the goal of a card like blood moon is to turn off utility lands, cards like blood sun and alpine moon accomplish the same thing. If the goal is to punish people for getting greedy on their mana (though I think shocklands do that well enough) there are plenty of cards like tec edge, field of ruin, etc to do that with. I think I speak for most of the modern player base when I say that if blood moon was banned nothing of value would be lost and everyone but the ponza and mardu players would be happier for it.

Also, nice job EPICA. The jeskai matchup is excellent for the tracker build. I’m in double digit match wins with only 1 loss against it. When every tracker cycles it’s very hard for them to grind you out. The 4th tracker really puts this matchup over the top in my experience. How did you feel about your number of trackers and BBEs as well as total lack of bobs (not necessarily just in jeskai matchups)?

There’s a lot of different philosophies on how bannings should be handled and what attributes warrant a card being banned. How heavy handed should WotC be? Should the health of the format be the ultimate focus, and at any cost? Should WotC PATRIOT Act the format? Or should they adopt a laissez-faire approach and let the expansive and diverse format handle its own problems? I don’t know. The answer, like with most things, is probably somewhere in the middle.

I don’t think Blood Moon creates good gameplay. I don’t think it fosters fun, interactive games of magic. More than anything I don’t think it matches the game design that WotC envisioned when they developed Modern. It is hate that heralds back to a different time, and a different game design. It snuck into the format via 8th Edition with other cards like Choke, Hibernation, Worship, etc. I’m not saying these cards are oppressive or should be banned, I’m simply pointing out that they exist and are a different kind of card than what has been printed since. I actually really like both Choke and Worship. And I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Hibernation played in Modern. Blood Moon is different though. It’s pretty damn powerful. We used to need it to keep some decks honest. I don’t think we do anymore. I don’t think it is good for healthy gameplay within the format, and I don’t think it matches the design of the rest of the format. Do I think it should be banned because of this? Not necessarily. Do I think it’s possible that WotC is gearing up to ban it by printing so many different cards that all cover similar angles? Yes, I think it’s possible. Do I think it’s likely? Man, I really haven’t the slightest idea. Do I think banning Blood Moon has ever crossed their minds? You bet your ass I do.

I can tell you that I've been running 2 LotV and I've been fine. Haven't really missed her (much to my surprise) either. I'm beginning to wonder if that's where we should be making the cuts. I know it soinds horribly wrong, but nothing else makes sense.

I do feel much the same for sure regarding the way the curve works. Sometimes having the proactive plays at the top of the curve is less ideal. Against aggro I enjoy the play style of playing mostly reactively until it’s time to turn the corner, with goyf being an exception. Against combo or midrange though it is nice to be able to get on the board early. I’ve been contemplating putting two additional two mana threats, either bob in the board or grim flayers main. Of note, the one tournament result for tracker builds so far played 2 flayers. I just have a hard time finding cuts that I like.

Quote from chaos021 »

I can tell you that I've been running 2 LotV and I've been fine. Haven't really missed her (much to my surprise) either. I'm beginning to wonder if that's where we should be making the cuts. I know it soinds horribly wrong, but nothing else makes sense.

I've been running the 3/1 split of LotV and LtLH and I've enjoyed it a lot, not missing the 4th LotV at all. I've been wanting a MB Tracker (or two!) for months now but haven't been able to find a spot for her. There's no way I'd get rid of any of my cheap removal for Tracker in this (still) aggressive meta for fear of being too slow to react and also messing up my curve. What I have considered is trading a Lili for a Tracker, but then quickly dismissed the idea as heterodoxy. But I wonder the same thing as you. Is this actually ok? Is it not as bad as it sounds? I'm a huge advocate for threat density right now, and Tracker covers the Control/Grind MUs (where we normally like Lili) as well as gives us a clock against Big Mana. I think reiteration and diversification are both important. She gives us another threat, another (and different) form of CA, and she's immune to graveyard hate which doesn't come up all that often but can be huge when it does.

I'm going to play in a tournament at my LGS tonight. I'll try running a 2/1 split of Lilianas, and try out a MB Tracker. In the meantime I'm going to try to figure out a way to add the 2nd MB Tracker to try. It is going to be exceedingly difficult to free up that slot though. I haven't the slightest idea what I would cut. Still, the idea of a 3/2 split of Bob and Tracker, respectively, sounds extremely appealing.

Huh, interesting ideas regarding Liliana. I’ve been on 3 with my tracker build and it’s felt about right. I’m a touch nervous to go to only 2 cause she’s a nice alternate attack angle vs control decks, but I can see the logic and it’d give me the space to play more cheap threats.

What about this? Too much threat density and not enough answers?

I'm hoping to try to fit a main deck Collective Brutality and an extra Tireless Tracker (for #2 in the main) and see how that pans out. I may have to go back to 24 lands unfortunately.

Also @Piney_tinecones, I'm not a fan of Choke. I never really have been, but I am curious how good it has been for you. I figure maybe I might be missing out on something.

Quote from chaos021 »

I'm hoping to try to fit a main deck Collective Brutality and an extra Tireless Tracker (for #2 in the main) and see how that pans out. I may have to go back to 24 lands unfortunately.

Also @Piney_tinecones, I'm not a fan of Choke. I never really have been, but I am curious how good it has been for you. I figure maybe I might be missing out on something.

Man, I go back and forth with it. It’s phenomenal against UW/UWR Control when paired up with Fulminator Mage. With that said, those are really the only two MUs right now where it’s applicable. It’s narrow, but also extremely effective hate. The thing is, I really want to crush the Control MU. Not only do I seem to have a personal thing against them, but I also think that objectively it is a very important MU for us to win. Control is a relatively large chunk of the meta right now and I think that if we can take that 50/50 MU and make it substantially better after game one, we’re doing well. I’m cool with devoting one sideboard card to that cause. Choke gives me an answer for basics that I can't get from Fulminator, and Fulminator gives me an answer to non-Island U sources. I think controlling Control's mana is crucial and I firmly believe that it's one of our best strategies against them. They have some pretty demanding mana requirements, and if I can keep them off their payoff cards then they turn into one of the durdliest durdle decks around. Neither UW or UWR have a good way of dealing with it either, and if they're able to Cryptic it away, then I've obviously cast it at the wrong time. UUU should be very hard to produce under a Choke. I think it's worth a try if you expect a lot of Control. I don't know what it is, but I've always wanted to make sure I crush that MU. I thought about running a 4th Fulminator, but the more I thought about the more I decided it would be just as narrow but less powerful. Very few of the MU's where you want some amount of Fulminators do you want all 4x Fulminators.

Alpine Moon seems good against Tron, Scapeshift, Value Town, Infect, Affinity and several other decks too.

Quote from Ayiluss »

Glad to see that Choke has been working well for you because personally I didn't have that kind of experiences with it. I tested Choke quite a bit in the past (it has been long time since then though) and they always have enough non-island blue mana producing lands to play around it.

Yeah, I hear that. Sometimes their manabase is just too diverse for Choke to be relevant. Right now I think it’s in a good spot though. Take THIS list for example. It only has 4x non-island U sources, and three of them are Colonnades, which you’d probably already be gunning for with your Fulminators regardless.

And if we look at that same list for ways to deal with Choke, there’s not many we’ll find. Teferi can, but hopefully we’ll keep them off of 5-mana. Cryptic can, but surely they won’t be able to cast that under a Choke. That’s it for the MB. In the SB there’s EE and Detention Sphere which I believe both come in against us (I could very well be wrong though, considering that I’m just basing that off of what Jeskai players have used against me at me LGS). There’s also Wear//Tear, but I don’t see any reason they should bring that in against Jund.

The UW lists look about the same. 4x Colonnades (that you’d already be targeting with your Fulminators) and maybe a Glacial Fortress or Mystic Gate. The rest is a bunch of Islands in one form or another. The rub in that MU is you might end up choking your own, newly acquired Islands thanks to Spreading Seas, but I think it’s worth it.

Slamming a Choke down after they tap out to play one of their payoff cards like Jace or whatever else feels great. And even if it only acts as Fulminator #4 and only shuts down one land I think it’s worth it. Fighting their Mana successfully makes those decks super durdly.

That’s my experience. At various times I’ll try it when Control comes around, and sometimes I decide it just doesn’t do enough. I like it right now though.