MTG Salvation

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Hey dudes, I went 4-5 at SCG Louisville running the decklist I posted last week, with 3 fulminators instead of damping sphere. I made many mistakes and need more practice, but Jund felt like a good choice for the weekend. Matches are below. One of my friends took Jund traverse and got a feature match against Dylan Donegan. His list featured 0 bobs and 4 traverse, 4 bauble, and 4 flayers. We were discussing the merits of Jund traverse vs traditional Jund and I was wondering what advantages traditional Jund were vs. a traverse list? His arguments were that bob is too slow, and while he provides a never ending stream of card advantage, it's card selection via flayer that we want instead. Not to mention that flayer provides a clock. Traverse is just gravy and it feels like you are never lacking a threat.

Obviously there were 2 traditional Jund decks in the top 8, so results suggest traditional Jund is the place to be, but I was wondering what everyone's thoughts were on this topic. Thanks, now here is my quick writeup of the tournament.

G Tron: 2-0
-Thoughtseize into tarmogoyf still gets the job done if your opponent stumbles for a turn or two, which is what happened here.
-Game two I thoughtseized my opponent and saw two nature's claim, my opponent was clearly ready for damping sphere... I promptly fulminator'd his tron lands.

GB Elves: 0-2
-This is a matchup that looks good on paper, but I lost to a steady stream of cards from lead the stampede, he 5 for 1'd me both games.
-Game two I felt close, but misplayed and missed a lethal alpha strike because I did the math wrong. No excuses, I just need to get better.

Scapeshift: 0-2
-This is already a poor matchup, but it felt winnable with the two mainboard grim flayer providing a clock and laughing in the face of Sakura Tribe Elder
-Game two I thoughtseized my opponent and saw a hand of FOUR OBSTINATE BALOTH... I scooped it up and watched my friend play his feature match

Humans: 2-1
-Game one vs humans is tough, but Jund can get the job done. Taking out the fliers is key and then gumming up the ground with goyfs feels like the way to go.
-Game two I lost as I was too greedy with my engineered explosives, I convinced myself that by waiting one more turn I could 4 for 1 my opponent and there would be no way he could win. I promptly lost to a mantis rider off the top. Lesson learned.
-Game three anger of the gods was the MVP, I was dead on board with a Xathrid Necromancer protecting my opponent from bolts. Anger wiped the board, and my tarmogoyf grew from a 2/3 to a 3/4 (no sorcery in yard) and swung in for lethal.

Affinity: 2-0
-Affinity felt great, not much to say here, bolts, push, Kolaghan's command, and tarmogoyf gets it done.
-Ancient grudge is a good magic card.

GB Elves: 0-2
-I was surprised at the amount of elves present at the event, this match went similar to match 2. I was buried under card advantage from lead the stampede and lost.
-I remember siding out some hand disruption, I can't remember what the primer says but I think it's worth leaving in if you're playing against GB elves. You can fight through their individual creatures, you cannot fight through coco and lead.

Storm: 2-0
-This matchup felt great, though I suppose disruption + clock has always been the ticket to beating combo.
-Tarmogoyf and thoughtseize get it done. Special shoutout to bringing in EE and nailing 30 goblin tokens.

Naya Midrange: 1-2
-An interesting Naya list featuring voice, finks, coco, and BBE. Matchup felt winnable, but it was engineered specifically to beat midrange decks, two for ones were overwhelming and I drowned in card advantage.
-I'm very upfront regarding my misplays, I believe if I was a better pilot I could have won this.

Burn: 1-2
-Not much to say, opponent had a great hand and I was dead on turn 5
-Kalitas was just too slow and while I was able to play her turn 4, I died from a bolt off the top before I could stabilize.

I’m going to GP DC next weekend and planning to play in a side event or two. I’ve been putting some work into ironing out the creature base for my deck and I’m curious what you all think about the following creature breakdown:

• 3 dark confidant
  
• 2 grim flayer
  
• 2 scavenging ooze
  
• 4 tarmogoyf
  
• 2 tireless tracker
  
• 2 bloodbraid elf

The motivation here is that I’ve been pretty impressed by both flayer and tracker in their respective roles (flayer to be more proactive and tracker as a great grindy card). I know it looks confused, but I’m kinda feeling it. Thoughts?

Thats kind of how ive felt about both of those creatures as well. It just seems weird that logical cut should be Bloodbraid Elf?

I do prefer to only have 1 Tireless Tracker in the main though. Others I would put in sideboard.

Yeah, I felt the same way, but since I feel like 3 bob, 2 scooze, and 4 goyf is the bare minimum there wasn’t much room left for cuts.

1 tireless tracker 3 BBE also seems decent, but I feel like the repeatable value from tracker gives it an edge that BBE doesn’t have. The way I see it, BBE and tracker fill a similar niche, but BBE is more aggressive and mana efficient while tracker is better suited for the long grind.

I like the ideas, but personally I am really keen on Kalitas atm. I would cut one Tracker and play Kalitas over it.

Also noteworthy, in MKM Hamburg a Jund list made it to second place:

http://series.magiccardmarket.eu/coverage-mkm-series-hamburg-2018-modern/



I agree Delver, Kalitas has been quite amazing as of late. I'm even at the point of considering a 2nd copy in the sideboard. He wins the matches where he's boarded in once he's resolved and you get to untap with him more or less.

Seems good, but I would also play a third Ooze in the meantime I guess.

I second the Engineered Explosives recommendation, it's extremely versatile, solves problems you might struggle with otherwise, and helps grow Goyf.

Just got back from Modern night and went 4-1 with a very similar list to the one I posted earlier, beating Ponza, BW Tokens, Madcap Moon, Grixis Shadow (lost to Jeskai). I'm 12-2-1 in events over the past couple weeks and I'm really digging where the deck is at right now. I wasn't impressed with Grim Flayer tonight so I'm going to try to replace them with a Tireless Tracker, fourth Lightning Bolt, and swapping the Spellbomb out for LtLH to see how that goes. Also swapped a Bloodstained Mire for a second Foothills because I found myself wanting to fetch the basic Forests more often, but there is usually a lot of Blood Moon in the areas I play. One thing I can't decide on: 4-2 split of Bob-Scooze, or 3-3? Is anyone really sold on one over the other?

I think it’s contextual based on what the rest of your deck looks like. Assuming you have a reasonably average build, I’d go with 3-3 myself. You have tracker for more CA and I haven’t been a fan of Bob #4 for really as long as I’ve been playing this deck. 3 bob has been plenty for me and I think 4 bobs with only 2 scoozes to offset the life loss is dangerous.

Been running a new take on Jund. I just kinda said 'to hell with conventions' and started running the deck to my own preferences as a player despite what other people play. I'm sorry Reid.



I felt like when testing different builds of this deck on cockatrice I was boarding out scooze and some number of LotV out in a loooooot of matchups. I think I want to play about these 75 cards, but I'm just shuffling the cards around the maindeck and sideboard. For me, I felt like scooze and 4x LotV accentuated wrong half problems of this deck severely and contributed to clunky draws more than any other card. I know LotV is one of the best planeswalkers in modern, but I feel like she doesn't line up super well against a lot of decks in the format. I want 4 for sure in my 75, but I'm not sure she's as universally useful as she once was. I donlt really want to draw one or more in every game all the time.

As for scooze, he's basically just a grizzly bear in a looooooot of matchups and I think in game 1 it's more important to be proactive and close games out since you may not have many answers pre-board to your opponents strategy (ie like tron). Flayer puts way more pressure on non-creature decks than scooze and helps get out of wrong half problems by fixing draws. Because of the lack of maindeck lifegain in the absence of scooze, I moved brutality into the maindeck.

All in all, this deck looks different for the sake of being different, but I promise there's a logic behind every card. Thoughts? I don't expect to convert anyone, but curious what you guys think.

Jundine posted a pretty great article on SCG yesterday. Here’s the link.

I’ve been playing a lot of Hollow One lately and having a blast with it. Still, I keep Jund on tap. People at my LGS never know what I’m gonna hit ‘em with, and I like it that way.

It’s a premium article. I wish everyone here had access to it because it’s really solid and very eloquently explains our position now in the format. Definitely worth a read.

Oh, has everyone else still been rocking Grim Flayer? I’m interested to know how he’s performing for everyone.

Quote from Tempest753 »

All in all, this deck looks different for the sake of being different, but I promise there's a logic behind every card. Thoughts? I don't expect to convert anyone, but curious what you guys think.

I wholeheartedly agree with the ooze being a grizzly bear or a very heavy mana investment in some MUs. I run a split of 2/2 between Ooze and Kitchen Finks as I feel the lifegain is needed and finks has a higher floor (altough a lower ceiling).

I have really missed the 4th Liliana, I feel that's not my way to go but it is totally personal. I don't see her as particularly well suited in this meta, either.

As for Grim Flayers, I don't like 'em. It is not the 4/4 body that makes it great, it's the trigger; and you can only pull it in favorable matches. Take humans or hollow one for example, when will you be able to use the trigger? Those are 2 of the better decks in the format... He is a reasonable choice, however. It's just a matter of preference.

Piney_Tinecones, would you mind sharing some of Jadine's thoughts or maybe her decklist (if something has changed at all) for those of us that don't have premium access?

Sure thing. The decklist was that from Louisville. She said she wanted 4x BBE and therefore 25 lands, but said she understood the thought of going down to 3x BBE and 24 lands as well. She said the real flex slots for her right now would be the third Collective Brutality, the Thoughtseize, and Damnation in the side. The rest she’s stickin’ with for now.

The article was less about specifics and more about meta/deck theory and philosophy. She says that Disruptive Aggro strategies are king right now, and that’s exactly what Jund is, if you play it right. She says we can’t take a control stance anymore. We can’t Jund our opponents out and grind them into the dirt anymore and kill them at our leisure like we used to. Decks can rebuild too easily nowadays, and of course discard gets worse as the game goes on. She says Modern is about killing your opponent before they kill you now. If you can slow down their strategy of killing you quickly just long enough for you to kill them quickly first, you’re in business. She’s saying we have to take chances now, be aggressive, swing into Affinity instead of sitting back to play control.

We have to “BE AGGRESSIVE! B - E - AGGRESSIVE!” (Sorry, couldn’t help myself)

That’s the gist of it. She was super gracious and offered freely to answer any questions about specifics or anything, but I don’t have a Facebook account, so I can’t utilize the comments section of the article.

She has almost a 75% win rate in recent large events with a deck that most people aren’t doing great with right now. Besides being a great pilot and having a knowledge of the format, she must be on to something.

[reply to tempest's post]


I like the deck list, and the idea of changing things up. The only thing that I see that I might change, is to possibly go up to 25 lands, which is something I don't overly like the idea of normally, just to make sure that you can utilize the Trackers more effectively. I think it is easy enough to cut a land for match-ups that you don't want to run trackers/that many lands and would probably be what I would do. I would probably cut the second brutality to the board and go down to 2 Damping spheres. (Mostly personal preference for my meta.) I would add a 9th fetch land most likely, or a filter land.

Quote from Piney_Tinecones »

Sure thing. The decklist was that from Louisville. She said she wanted 4x BBE and therefore 25 lands, but said she understood the thought of going down to 3x BBE and 24 lands as well. She said the real flex slots for her right now would be the third Collective Brutality, the Thoughtseize, and Damnation in the side. The rest she’s stickin’ with for now.

The article was less about specifics and more about meta/deck theory and philosophy. She says that Disruptive Aggro strategies are king right now, and that’s exactly what Jund is, if you play it right. She says we can’t take a control stance anymore. We can’t Jund our opponents out and grind them into the dirt anymore and kill them at our leisure like we used to. Decks can rebuild too easily nowadays, and of course discard gets worse as the game goes on. She says Modern is about killing your opponent before they kill you now. If you can slow down their strategy of killing you quickly just long enough for you to kill them quickly first, you’re in business. She’s saying we have to take chances now, be aggressive, swing into Affinity instead of sitting back to play control.

We have to “BE AGGRESSIVE! B - E - AGGRESSIVE!” (Sorry, couldn’t help myself)

That’s the gist of it. She was super gracious and offered freely to answer any questions about specifics or anything, but I don’t have a Facebook account, so I can’t utilize the comments section of the article.

She has almost a 75% win rate in recent large events with a deck that most people aren’t doing great with right now. Besides being a great pilot and having a knowledge of the format, she must be on to something.

Thank you so much for the info!

I had deduced the B - E - AGGRESIVE! part from the comments, but wanted to make sure the list was the same.

I'll take a look at the decklist again, I'm pretty sure she's dead-on.

Regards!

Quote from Piney_Tinecones »

Sure thing. The decklist was that from Louisville. She said she wanted 4x BBE and therefore 25 lands, but said she understood the thought of going down to 3x BBE and 24 lands as well. She said the real flex slots for her right now would be the third Collective Brutality, the Thoughtseize, and Damnation in the side. The rest she’s stickin’ with for now.

The article was less about specifics and more about meta/deck theory and philosophy. She says that Disruptive Aggro strategies are king right now, and that’s exactly what Jund is, if you play it right. She says we can’t take a control stance anymore. We can’t Jund our opponents out and grind them into the dirt anymore and kill them at our leisure like we used to. Decks can rebuild too easily nowadays, and of course discard gets worse as the game goes on. She says Modern is about killing your opponent before they kill you now. If you can slow down their strategy of killing you quickly just long enough for you to kill them quickly first, you’re in business. She’s saying we have to take chances now, be aggressive, swing into Affinity instead of sitting back to play control.

We have to “BE AGGRESSIVE! B - E - AGGRESSIVE!” (Sorry, couldn’t help myself)

That’s the gist of it. She was super gracious and offered freely to answer any questions about specifics or anything, but I don’t have a Facebook account, so I can’t utilize the comments section of the article.

She has almost a 75% win rate in recent large events with a deck that most people aren’t doing great with right now. Besides being a great pilot and having a knowledge of the format, she must be on to something.

She definitely is. Its weird that she always looses on camera though.

I am questioning that perspective a little bit I have to say. If we look at the basic way of beating another deck (according to Patrick Chapins theory) you either have to go bigger than your opponent, or kill them faster. I think, killing Hollow One, Humans, Affinity faster is just not going to work. We are way behind on that race. And consequently it makes no sense to play the aggro role against those matchups, its a classic misinterpretation of Who is the Beatdown. However, I think Jadine also didn't mean that exactly. Going bigger against opponents is something which doesn't work either in my honest opinion. Against affinity it may work, but against Humans and Hollow One we can easily be overwhelmed by their creatures. I strongly believe the longer the game goes against Hollow One, the more likely it is that we get grinded out. We can't beat every delve threat or Hollow One, or recurring Ghasts or Phoenixes (and at some point hardcast Street Wraiths!). Lingering Souls also comes into the equation. Hollow One can therefore easily get ontop of us unless we run something like Kalitas which is certainly a bomb in that matchup. But I think BBEs and slow Oozes which likely get boltet right away won't do it. In that sense I understand exactly that Jund needs to lean more towards a go under them strategy, especially with BBE. However, we need to disrupt them enough to make that happen. And that means we need specific answers for their gameplan in a short period of time (since we want to go under them quickly) and thats exactly where we fall apart atm. In a short period of time we often don't draw the disruptive elements we need and suddently we are on the backfoot. Try to be the aggressor in that case then. To conclude, I don't think Jadine is wrong, in fact I think its spot on, but I think the deck does not provide the consistancy for that type of approach. We just loose to ourself.

Quote from LEH »

I would imagine she means we have end games as fast as we can; we have no wiggle room in matchups - mind you, I can't think of a time we ever did. I certainly feel that we're in a spot, more than ever, where we need to find the right half of our deck or we lose. Also, I don't feel comfortable without 3 sweepers (or 2 sweepers and a Lavaman) in our 75. I'm still not a fan of the keep in discard plan in the mirror and I've not lost a single mirror match where my opponent keeps in any so far - so take that as what you will.

And thats exactly what I meant, we need to find the right half. And thats just not going to happen, we aren't consistant enough for that.

Quote from FlyingDelver »

And thats exactly what I meant, we need to find the right half. And thats just not going to happen, we aren't consistant enough for that.

Not to be rude, but I feel like you’re getting way too pessimistic about Jund in the absence of card selection, Delver. Wrong half problems happen from time to time and it sucks when it does, but that’s why matchups are bo3. In games 2+3 you should ideally have 60 cards that are all live. If you don’t, then mulligan until you find a hand of cards that can win.

In game 1 you occasionally get wrong half problems because you don’t know what your opponent is playing. But that’s not super common anyways. Most decks play permanents and all decks play spells. That makes the majority of our cards live. Not every deck in modern is as consistent as humans or tron, but jund is far far more consistent than the average modern deck and I think there’s still room for improvement.

Also, thanks Tundra and Burgos for your suggestions. 9 fetches would synergise much better with tracker but I’m a little concerned with not taking too much pain because of how aggro-centric modern is of late. I kinda want a treetop village or ravine for a 25th land, but it’s just hard to make cuts as I like every card in my 75 right now. I’ve been grinding games on cockatrice to streamline the maindeck as much as possible.

Quote from Tempest753 »

Quote from FlyingDelver »

And thats exactly what I meant, we need to find the right half. And thats just not going to happen, we aren't consistant enough for that.

Not to be rude, but I feel like you’re getting way too pessimistic about Jund in the absence of card selection, Delver. Wrong half problems happen from time to time and it sucks when it does, but that’s why matchups are bo3. In games 2+3 you should ideally have 60 cards that are all live. If you don’t, then mulligan until you find a hand of cards that can win.

In game 1 you occasionally get wrong half problems because you don’t know what your opponent is playing. But that’s not super common anyways. Most decks play permanents and all decks play spells. That makes the majority of our cards live. Not every deck in modern is as consistent as humans or tron, but jund is far far more consistent than the average modern deck and I think there’s still room for improvement.

Also, thanks Tundra and Burgos for your suggestions. 9 fetches would synergise much better with tracker but I’m a little concerned with not taking too much pain because of how aggro-centric modern is of late. I kinda want a treetop village or ravine for a 25th land, but it’s just hard to make cuts as I like every card in my 75 right now. I’ve been grinding games on cockatrice to streamline the maindeck as much as possible.

Maybe I am too pessimistic. But I disagree with the way you see it. I had enough games showing that this is actually not the case atm. A lot of the times in games 2 and 3 our 60 cards are not live, due to specific situations popping up requiring specific answers. Its just my experience and I think its worthwile to express those, since it could help raising awareness of our biggest problem at the moment. Its all a matter of how one wants to see this, and depending on that, the topic can be taken severely or not.

What my main point here is, that I really don't think one should take this too loosely and think "its actually not that bad" and completely ignore this.