The expeditions are poorly made, some of them have started having issues with the facing in my deck, they'll all double sleeved and I'm not rough with them. I think whatever foiling process is poorly done
It may be too late for me though, I don't know
I'm in the process of selling my Affinity Deck, Infect and fetchlands.
If Splinter Twin ever gets unbanned, I'll play that and foil it up, too, otherwise, I'm just playing GBx decks and a burn deck
I noticed a number of them come out of the package already damaged around the edges. That combined with their fugly card border had me chasing the original foils instead of expeditions. I actually don't think expeditions are going to keep going up in value.
I generally agree that you can run 2 terminates, however, I would be very careful about it. If my meta would allow it, then sometimes Push just is a cheaper Terminate. But triggering revolt is absolutely no guarantee and if there are delve creatures or creatures with CMC higher than 4 in a given meta, I would advice against running only 2 Terminate. I absolutely think we should have at least 3 terminate like effects in our deck, and if Fatal Push effectively acts as a Terminate (due to the prevalent meta) then its fine to cut one terminate for Push (same kinda goes for cutting one terminate for Slaughter Pact).
I disagree with this assessment on one minor point. The decks that are going to play delve creatures against aren't chock full of threats you have to answer. It's usually three or four delve creatures and maybe a few others of 3-CMC or less, and largely they have to recur the few threats they have to win against GB/x decks. That said, even with three Terminate in the main deck, some number of their creatures are more than likely going to die to combat tricks because we don't have access to Snapcaster Mage, and some number of their threats are eaten by Scavenging Ooze. This generally leads me to cut at least one Terminate when going to sideboard because the second one I get usually just sits in my hand. I would hate seeing a third one.
In my experience my Terminates were overperforming and not just sitting in my hand against those decks. If you are up against a deck like Grixis Control I would be very happy with having an additional terminate up for a recurring Tasigur. Idk maybe the ooze strategy worked better for you for the most part, because if I would hope to just exile Tasigur with my ooze, it often just won't work. My ooze often just gets countered or killed before I get to exile tasigur. I personally don't think that justifies that I can cut terminate. That being said I get your point but I think differently here. I would not cut any Terminates when I know I am up against any delve creatures (mostly Delver and Grixis Control is what I am talking about, because those are the big decks running delve creatures). Its not like you guarantee to draw 2 copies if you have 3 copies in. And Terminate also does a fine jop ob killing snapcaster mage if needed.
I generally agree that you can run 2 terminates, however, I would be very careful about it. If my meta would allow it, then sometimes Push just is a cheaper Terminate. But triggering revolt is absolutely no guarantee and if there are delve creatures or creatures with CMC higher than 4 in a given meta, I would advice against running only 2 Terminate. I absolutely think we should have at least 3 terminate like effects in our deck, and if Fatal Push effectively acts as a Terminate (due to the prevalent meta) then its fine to cut one terminate for Push (same kinda goes for cutting one terminate for Slaughter Pact).
I disagree with this assessment on one minor point. The decks that are going to play delve creatures against aren't chock full of threats you have to answer. It's usually three or four delve creatures and maybe a few others of 3-CMC or less, and largely they have to recur the few threats they have to win against GB/x decks. That said, even with three Terminate in the main deck, some number of their creatures are more than likely going to die to combat tricks because we don't have access to Snapcaster Mage, and some number of their threats are eaten by Scavenging Ooze. This generally leads me to cut at least one Terminate when going to sideboard because the second one I get usually just sits in my hand. I would hate seeing a third one.
In my experience my Terminates were overperforming and not just sitting in my hand against those decks. If you are up against a deck like Grixis Control I would be very happy with having an additional terminate up for a recurring Tasigur. Idk maybe the ooze strategy worked better for you for the most part, because if I would hope to just exile Tasigur with my ooze, it often just won't work. My ooze often just gets countered or killed before I get to exile tasigur. I personally don't think that justifies that I can cut terminate. That being said I get your point but I think differently here. I would not cut any Terminates when I know I am up against any delve creatures (mostly Delver and Grixis Control is what I am talking about, because those are the big decks running delve creatures). Its not like you guarantee to draw 2 copies if you have 3 copies in. And Terminate also does a fine jop ob killing snapcaster mage if needed.
I see your point. I guess this comes down to how each of us sideboard for them and your strategy for dealing with those decks. All that said, having a base of two Terminate is not detrimental for the field, including delve decks, which was my point in saying two Terminate in the main was fine.
The expeditions are poorly made, some of them have started having issues with the facing in my deck, they'll all double sleeved and I'm not rough with them. I think whatever foiling process is poorly done
It may be too late for me though, I don't know
I'm in the process of selling my Affinity Deck, Infect and fetchlands.
If Splinter Twin ever gets unbanned, I'll play that and foil it up, too, otherwise, I'm just playing GBx decks and a burn deck
I noticed a number of them come out of the package already damaged around the edges. That combined with their fugly card border had me chasing the original foils instead of expeditions. I actually don't think expeditions are going to keep going up in value.
Borders, damaged edges, bad foiling process, yeah... but jesus even the artwork is just terrible.
The expeditions are poorly made, some of them have started having issues with the facing in my deck, they'll all double sleeved and I'm not rough with them. I think whatever foiling process is poorly done
It may be too late for me though, I don't know
I'm in the process of selling my Affinity Deck, Infect and fetchlands.
If Splinter Twin ever gets unbanned, I'll play that and foil it up, too, otherwise, I'm just playing GBx decks and a burn deck
I noticed a number of them come out of the package already damaged around the edges. That combined with their fugly card border had me chasing the original foils instead of expeditions. I actually don't think expeditions are going to keep going up in value.
Borders, damaged edges, bad foiling process, yeah... but jesus even the artwork is just terrible.
This is a crypt? Somehow?
Yea. They were disappointing. There were a few that had art I would consider, but then I would somehow have to un-see the horrible border template. It just doesn't fit.
I'm on the fence about finishing up Jund for MTGO. I am starting to feel burned out from playing linear decks like Ad Nauseam and I haven't touched Burn in about a year. I don't like Eldrazi Tron even though I am a fan of the spaghetti monsters but for various reasons it's not my cup of tea. I think the lack of consistency is one thing I don't like about it.
I have been goldfishing and playtesting Jund lately and it seems like something I'd like to play since it's completely different from playing with a non-interactive deck which is what I've done in various formats for the past two years.
I would like to play something I can tweak to the meta that has a competitive chance. Jund seems like a good fit because it doesn't seem like a deck that would get boring, there's room for flex slots and it's probably going to be competitive as long as Modern is a format. I already own Goyfs and 3 Liliana's so the rest of the deck won't be too much of an issue. Had anyone else switched from a linear deck to midrange here? What was it like? I can hang on to Ad Nauseam and run Jund within my budget. I may also build into Abzan, Death's Shadow Jund and or 8-Rack to have other options.
Its always great news when new people are thinking to join us Junders. I certainly can only encourage you to do so. Like you said, Jund completely works differently than linear strategies. If you play Jund, every game is unique and fun, but also challanging at the same time. One thing to note is definitely that Jund is a deck that rewards you for actually knowing what other decks are trying to do. For every game there are certain things you can learn which allow you to improve in playing Jund. That being said, this deck is surely not a deck you can just pick up and slam tournaments with it, its not going to happen. Alacrity, persistance and having a focused mind is what you need to play the deck. If you love that, then Jund is certainly a deck for you.
Nah I'm just busting balls here, Jund is fun as hell. It's the one deck I've always wanted to build and I'm selling all my other Modern staples for Legacy duals because I know they're just gonna be gathering dust now that it's finished.
That said - not EVERY match is fun. Big mana decks just make you feel so weak and helpless it's hard to enjoy them... or when your opponent plays Chandra, you have Pulse on hand to kill it, then he plays big Elspeth next turn. Yes this happened yesterday and yes I should have won that match otherwise.
Its true Tron is not fun at all, but its also not true that, if you want to play Jund, to expect that games will be always like this. But I guess there is always a bad and not fun matchup that applies to every other deck out there. If you compare Jund to a linear strategy though (from which the person asked comes from) then games certainly do feel more unique and varied, which, in my opinion, makes games much more fun than if you would play your same strategy over and over again with another deck.
I played against Grixis control last night and they just had no answer to a Thrun. They left up Cryptic mana so I just dropped him and watched their face fall. Even their Keranos couldn't save them. I had 4 mana that entire game I dropped him T4 after TS'ing T3, they played a land off the top for Cryptic so I knew they only had 1 draw that could be removal and I had a K-Command in hand. They have a singleton Damnation but you can probably fight through to resolve a K-Command.
I also played against Titan Breach and T3 Blood Moon T4 Crumble sealed that game. I'm still running imperfect fetches and I had 0 problems finishing that game after resolving the moon. Tron's a different thing altogether but the Valakut matchups feel so much better with BM.
Well sometimes they have an nearly endless stream of tasigur recursion with Snapcaster + KCommand + Tasigur, that your Thrun just looks bad, because it gets blocked by tasigur all day long. If they recur it so many times you eventually lack the removal to kill Tasigur at some point. Grixis Control is though nonetheless I think. Sometimes stuff like Thrun work, but if the game goes long enough, the Grixis player usually has the way better endgame.
Blood Moon is pretty good vs Valakut, thats true, and its probably devastating if they don't have a basic forest out when BM comes down. If, however, they happen to have a basic forest out there, than BM can potentially just shut down Valakuts, since they can Pact for a Sakura tribe elder and sac it to get the second basic forest, which allows them to still play their big threat of Titan or Baloth. That being said, its far off being an autowin if you land BM on Valakut decks.
I realise that the game could have gone pretty badly if they'd flipped a terminate off that draw or got the snap train going but they only finished the game on 6 mana. They resolved 1 AV and did have Snaps and K-Command in hand, they just never got a chance to cast them as by the time they got the lands they had to be tapping or blocking Thrun.
They had Mountain, Mountain, Valakut when I resolved the BM so I felt pretty safe. They did manage to breach a Titan and get their forests which could have been really bad for me but I had enough burn in hand combined with the threats I'd played to kill them before they untapped.
Playing against Tron isn't fun, but outside of Tron, I never truly feel helpless in a game
I've played almost every major tier 1 deck, and there's some decks that can completely crap on you, I feel like Jund does this less than the other major decks in modern
Also, I'm in the process of selling all my major modern pieces and decks, trying to sell this Affinity deck for 600 dollars.
The sad reality hit me, that if I wanted to foil out the rest of my land base for my Jund and Junk deck, it'd be like 1300 dollars, which is close to what I'd make if selling. Boo.
I'm interested in the Death's Shadow Jund deck. Although, I'm not so sure about Mishra's Bauble, and all the deck adjustments that forces. Jund already uses it's life total pretty liberally, why not just leverage that into Shadows for extra mana efficient threats and abandon the Delirium stuff?
Baubles makes the deck 52 cafds and gives you card information on both your opponent and yourself on whether cracking a fetch lands is worth it
The deck works well and grinding don't change it into jund
It's not really 52 cards, it's (for a turn 4 game) drawing 13.5 cards vs 12.5 cards. Assuming of course that you actually drew one which is about a 64% chance. So really on average you're talking about drawing 13 cards vs 12.5 cards, or once you throw Street Wraith into the mix too, 13.5 vs 12.5. It's an entirely different set of ratios, 8% more resources vs 15% more consistency. But I don't want to get too nitpicky, and rather focus on the concept. Lets look at the main changes
Tarfire - Downgrade from Bolt. How relevant is 3 toughness right now? How relevant is 1 more on a Goyf? I suspect Tarfire is more damage overall because Goyf can hit for +1 several times, but it's going to depend on how good Bolt is. If you're killing x/2's and x/1's it's great. If we need to kill x/3's it's bad or if lots of x/4's are around it's good again.
Traverse - Rather than run Traverse to supplement the low land count, why not just run more lands? That generates more mana faster. You lose the creature tutoring later in the game, but I'm not sure that matters. Traverse is stronger when you're using it in combination with things like Eternal Witness and Snapcaster Mage. As a 1 shot I don't think it does enough.
I think trying to "delverize" the deck skeleton is going to lead to more losses than wins, because that's simply not a good skeleton unless the cantrips are better. There's a reason something like RUG Delver isn't T1 despite the fact it has pretty much all of the best cards in the format.
Baubles makes the deck 52 cafds and gives you card information on both your opponent and yourself on whether cracking a fetch lands is worth it
The deck works well and grinding don't change it into jund
It's not really 52 cards, it's (for a turn 4 game) drawing 13.5 cards vs 12.5 cards. Assuming of course that you actually drew one which is about a 64% chance. So really on average you're talking about drawing 13 cards vs 12.5 cards, or once you throw Street Wraith into the mix too, 13.5 vs 12.5. It's an entirely different set of ratios, 8% more resources vs 15% more consistency. But I don't want to get too nitpicky, and rather focus on the concept. Lets look at the main changes
Tarfire - Downgrade from Bolt. How relevant is 3 toughness right now? How relevant is 1 more on a Goyf? I suspect Tarfire is more damage overall because Goyf can hit for +1 several times, but it's going to depend on how good Bolt is. If you're killing x/2's and x/1's it's great. If we need to kill x/3's it's bad or if lots of x/4's are around it's good again.
Traverse - Rather than run Traverse to supplement the low land count, why not just run more lands? That generates more mana faster. You lose the creature tutoring later in the game, but I'm not sure that matters. Traverse is stronger when you're using it in combination with things like Eternal Witness and Snapcaster Mage. As a 1 shot I don't think it does enough.
I think trying to "delverize" the deck skeleton is going to lead to more losses than wins, because that's simply not a good skeleton unless the cantrips are better. There's a reason something like RUG Delver isn't T1 despite the fact it has pretty much all of the best cards in the format.
You impressed me with the numbers and then there was so much disappoint.
Tarfire, and baubles make Goyf, huge, dude. Goyf becomes 6/7 easily, if you can't see why that numbers matter, then I don't know what to tell you.
Delirum is EASILY achievable by turn 2. It also tutors out Kataki and Eidolon in the SB, and Ranger of Eos, effectively tutoring 3 huge creatures for 1 mana
Traverse is Goyfs 9, 10, 11 and 12.
You're basically running 12 huge ass Goyfs in a deck, or 12 Shadows if you're at 3 life and comfortably protected from bolt/flyers/haste
Go watch some of Ghash77's streams on twitch, because just everything in the post's you've written has been crazy wrong
Tarfire, and baubles make Goyf, huge, dude. Goyf becomes 6/7 easily, if you can't see why that numbers matter, then I don't know what to tell you.
I didn't say that they don't. But what's the optimal Goyf size? 8/9 is the biggest, but enabling that takes away from the rest of your deck. What battlefield advantage does a 6/7 provide that a 5/6 doesn't? Not much is coming to mind. Which is why I'm asking the question, is there something significant I'm missing here?
Delirum is EASILY achievable by turn 2. It also tutors out Kataki and Eidolon in the SB, and Ranger of Eos, effectively tutoring 3 huge creatures for 1 mana
I was looking at 3 color not 4 color decks though, hence calling it Jund. Maybe I wasn't clear on that part. That said, Traverse into Kataki is probably much too slow to have an impact. I'm also concerned with a Delirium reliant plan getting wrecked by splash hate for Dredge.
Go watch some of Ghash77's streams on twitch, because just everything in the post's you've written has been crazy wrong
I went ahead and took the plunge with finishing Jund and Abzan. I picked two lists that were relatively normal that I can also make tweaks to once I get used to it. As for playing them it's definitely not something I'm used to. The closest to interaction that I've come to is playing U/B Teachings in Pauper or dropping a Thought-Knot Seer on someone in Modern. Actually using discard, card advantage and slowing my play down to figure out what the right lines of play are feels strange instead of figuring out the quickest way to go off with Ad Nauseam or count to 20 with Burn. Here's the lists that I am running. I'm still trying to get a hang of the formatting on the forum so hopefully I didn't butcher the lists.
I noticed a number of them come out of the package already damaged around the edges. That combined with their fugly card border had me chasing the original foils instead of expeditions. I actually don't think expeditions are going to keep going up in value.
In my experience my Terminates were overperforming and not just sitting in my hand against those decks. If you are up against a deck like Grixis Control I would be very happy with having an additional terminate up for a recurring Tasigur. Idk maybe the ooze strategy worked better for you for the most part, because if I would hope to just exile Tasigur with my ooze, it often just won't work. My ooze often just gets countered or killed before I get to exile tasigur. I personally don't think that justifies that I can cut terminate. That being said I get your point but I think differently here. I would not cut any Terminates when I know I am up against any delve creatures (mostly Delver and Grixis Control is what I am talking about, because those are the big decks running delve creatures). Its not like you guarantee to draw 2 copies if you have 3 copies in. And Terminate also does a fine jop ob killing snapcaster mage if needed.
I see your point. I guess this comes down to how each of us sideboard for them and your strategy for dealing with those decks. All that said, having a base of two Terminate is not detrimental for the field, including delve decks, which was my point in saying two Terminate in the main was fine.
Borders, damaged edges, bad foiling process, yeah... but jesus even the artwork is just terrible.
This is a crypt? Somehow?
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Yea. They were disappointing. There were a few that had art I would consider, but then I would somehow have to un-see the horrible border template. It just doesn't fit.
Its always great news when new people are thinking to join us Junders. I certainly can only encourage you to do so. Like you said, Jund completely works differently than linear strategies. If you play Jund, every game is unique and fun, but also challanging at the same time. One thing to note is definitely that Jund is a deck that rewards you for actually knowing what other decks are trying to do. For every game there are certain things you can learn which allow you to improve in playing Jund. That being said, this deck is surely not a deck you can just pick up and slam tournaments with it, its not going to happen. Alacrity, persistance and having a focused mind is what you need to play the deck. If you love that, then Jund is certainly a deck for you.
Oh yeah man love seeing that Karn come down turn 3 with 2 Terminates and a Decay in hand.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
That said - not EVERY match is fun. Big mana decks just make you feel so weak and helpless it's hard to enjoy them... or when your opponent plays Chandra, you have Pulse on hand to kill it, then he plays big Elspeth next turn. Yes this happened yesterday and yes I should have won that match otherwise.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
I also played against Titan Breach and T3 Blood Moon T4 Crumble sealed that game. I'm still running imperfect fetches and I had 0 problems finishing that game after resolving the moon. Tron's a different thing altogether but the Valakut matchups feel so much better with BM.
Blood Moon is pretty good vs Valakut, thats true, and its probably devastating if they don't have a basic forest out when BM comes down. If, however, they happen to have a basic forest out there, than BM can potentially just shut down Valakuts, since they can Pact for a Sakura tribe elder and sac it to get the second basic forest, which allows them to still play their big threat of Titan or Baloth. That being said, its far off being an autowin if you land BM on Valakut decks.
They had Mountain, Mountain, Valakut when I resolved the BM so I felt pretty safe. They did manage to breach a Titan and get their forests which could have been really bad for me but I had enough burn in hand combined with the threats I'd played to kill them before they untapped.
I've played almost every major tier 1 deck, and there's some decks that can completely crap on you, I feel like Jund does this less than the other major decks in modern
Also, I'm in the process of selling all my major modern pieces and decks, trying to sell this Affinity deck for 600 dollars.
The sad reality hit me, that if I wanted to foil out the rest of my land base for my Jund and Junk deck, it'd be like 1300 dollars, which is close to what I'd make if selling. Boo.
The deck works well and grinding don't change it into jund
It's not really 52 cards, it's (for a turn 4 game) drawing 13.5 cards vs 12.5 cards. Assuming of course that you actually drew one which is about a 64% chance. So really on average you're talking about drawing 13 cards vs 12.5 cards, or once you throw Street Wraith into the mix too, 13.5 vs 12.5. It's an entirely different set of ratios, 8% more resources vs 15% more consistency. But I don't want to get too nitpicky, and rather focus on the concept. Lets look at the main changes
Tarfire - Downgrade from Bolt. How relevant is 3 toughness right now? How relevant is 1 more on a Goyf? I suspect Tarfire is more damage overall because Goyf can hit for +1 several times, but it's going to depend on how good Bolt is. If you're killing x/2's and x/1's it's great. If we need to kill x/3's it's bad or if lots of x/4's are around it's good again.
Traverse - Rather than run Traverse to supplement the low land count, why not just run more lands? That generates more mana faster. You lose the creature tutoring later in the game, but I'm not sure that matters. Traverse is stronger when you're using it in combination with things like Eternal Witness and Snapcaster Mage. As a 1 shot I don't think it does enough.
I think trying to "delverize" the deck skeleton is going to lead to more losses than wins, because that's simply not a good skeleton unless the cantrips are better. There's a reason something like RUG Delver isn't T1 despite the fact it has pretty much all of the best cards in the format.
You impressed me with the numbers and then there was so much disappoint.
Tarfire, and baubles make Goyf, huge, dude. Goyf becomes 6/7 easily, if you can't see why that numbers matter, then I don't know what to tell you.
Delirum is EASILY achievable by turn 2. It also tutors out Kataki and Eidolon in the SB, and Ranger of Eos, effectively tutoring 3 huge creatures for 1 mana
Traverse is Goyfs 9, 10, 11 and 12.
You're basically running 12 huge ass Goyfs in a deck, or 12 Shadows if you're at 3 life and comfortably protected from bolt/flyers/haste
Go watch some of Ghash77's streams on twitch, because just everything in the post's you've written has been crazy wrong
I didn't say that they don't. But what's the optimal Goyf size? 8/9 is the biggest, but enabling that takes away from the rest of your deck. What battlefield advantage does a 6/7 provide that a 5/6 doesn't? Not much is coming to mind. Which is why I'm asking the question, is there something significant I'm missing here?
I was looking at 3 color not 4 color decks though, hence calling it Jund. Maybe I wasn't clear on that part. That said, Traverse into Kataki is probably much too slow to have an impact. I'm also concerned with a Delirium reliant plan getting wrecked by splash hate for Dredge.
If I get some time I'll watch them
Jund:
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Dark Confidant
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Spells + Instants
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Fatal Push
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
3 Terminate
3 Thoughtseize
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
1 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
3 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
1 Pithing Needle
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Collective Brutality
1 Damnation
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Olivia Voldaren
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Thoughtseize
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
Abzan:
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Siege Rhino
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3 Grim Flayer
Spells + Instants
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Collective Brutality
3 Fatal Push
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Lingering Souls
4 Path to Exile
2 Shambling Vent
1 Stirring Wildwood
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Blooming Marsh
1 Forest
2 Gavony Township
1 Godless Shrine
1 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
1 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Swamp
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Collective Brutality
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Lost Legacy
2 Damnation
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Yahenni's Expertise
URGifts StormUR
URBlue MoonUR
URKiln FiendUR
BURStormBUR