It looked great aside from the lack of basic mountain to fetch. (This is, of course, only relevant for Olivia's ability and the want for RR or even RRR when you have her on board)
He's running the Blackcleaves, which after Khans comes out, I'm inclined to keep, as well. They're great vs. Burn and help with the intense mana costs of the cards Jund likes to cast. I'm willing to bet they'll stay included in the stock list, but only time will tell.
Blackcleave Cliffs is such a powerfull Land and i don't get why all you people cut it down so easily without giving an explanation. :_(
The reason why we all want to cut it is because casting your spells on time is really good. Cliffs enables turn 1-3 plays well, but once you have 3 lands in play, it is one of our absolute worst topdecks. Sometimes you need to cast two removal spells in a turn but you can't because you have what is basically an Urborg Volcano in your hand. Sometimes you really need the turn 4 Shatterstorm on turn 4 and not on turn 5. Sometimes you need another green source, but are stuck with a Cliffs instead of a fetchland. Hopefully, you get the idea. Fetches are a little more painful at first glance, but it's not even clear that it would be any more painful if you fetch carefully sequence your lands properly. And even if it is more painful, the increased flexibility is probably worth it.
Aside from Courser, your early drops aren't very green intensive (I sort of count Scooze as a later game card), i think it's rare than you want more than 1 or 2 green mana symbols on your side of the field (And the inclusion of 1x Twilight Mire, 4x Verdant Catacombs, 4x Bloodstained Mire, 3-4x Treetop, 1-2x Raging Ravine and the number of basics and shocks seem to be plenty, without adding in 2-4x Wooded Foothills.)
Wooded Foothills fetching a T1 black source seems really awful when half the time that T1 blacksource is going to be Thoughtseizing. I'd much prefer dropping a tapped Blackcleave Cliffs late in the game if it means taking 4 less damage over the course of the game.
Not fetching twice versus Scapeshift is important, too. Blackcleave Cliffs vs. Foothills + Basics could be worth an entire turn.
Raging Ravine offers red mana and more options for JUND.
1st turn Raging Ravine, 2nd Turn Swamp offers option of lightning bolt and terminate. Also offers 2nd turn, IOK or thoughtseize and holding back a lightning bolt for a tight 2 land hand too.
1st turn Treetop village, 2nd turn land does not offer much flexibility.
manland(Raging Ravine), land, land, offers a third turn Anger of the Gods with need of just 1 shockland.
For JUND vs BURN,
I refer to it as a 1st game AUTO LOSS, possible 2nd, 3rd game wins with gain life cards.
This is as game 1, JUND is down 7 cards vs BURN. (3 Thoughtseize, 4 Dark Confidant)
I’m not suggesting Blackcleave Cliffs won’t get played once the fetches saturate Modern, I was just experimenting with lists that use the fetchlands only. It’s VERY likely that people still play Cliffs after rotation, and that they are indeed necessary to minimize the damage we take from our lands. But keep in mind that in every matchup where you prefer Cliffs (Burn, Scapeshift), there are just as many matchups where having Fetchlands + Shocks/Basics could be better. And remember that each fetchland represents all 3 colors of mana, as well as the option to get an earlier basic. So while Cliffs does fix your mana reasonably well, I don’t think having more fetchlands is going to prevent you from casting your Lilianas, Coursers, and Angers on time. If anything, I think it means you might take more damage in the games where you need to hit multiple colors on turn 3, but you can generally take less damage when you have a mellower hand (i.e. something like Discard, Goyf, Lily, Pulse with maybe a Bolt for R req’s).
Basically, don’t take my suggestions as me thinking I’m 100% correct. But DO realize that I’m basing my ideas off of Legacy decks and other historic mana bases in Modern. Look at this example; does UWR midrange play any Seachrome Coasts, aside from maybe the fastest Delver/Geist Versions? Generally no, and they are a very similar Midrange deck to us. So there is a good chance that we end up with a similar manabase now that we have all the fetches we could ask for. And remember too, that fetchlands get a LOT better with Course in your deck, so it’s pretty easy to regain lost life if you can land him on turn 3. More often than not, a Courser sticking around for 2-3 turns will likely gain you more life than you have lost on early fetch/shock sequencing.
I have no idea if Jund pilots will continue playing Blackcleave Cliffs post rotation, and I do still think that land is extremely helpful for early starts for us. But I am tired of drawing it on turn 4 or later and not being able to curve out. I’m also tired of losing to Blood Moon even when I can see it coming. Cliffs is a great land, but I’m not sure we will need it once we gain Foothills and Mire. Only time will tell. I was just posting a manabase for reference more than anything, take it or leave it.
RE: Burn.
Once again, nothing is a Game 1 autoloss, unless you convince yourself it is. Do you Thoughtseize Burn if they are holding more than 1-2 cards and you have nothing better going on? Absolutely! As long as you tag something worth 3+ damage you are still technically gaining life in the exchange. Bob is probably pretty useless, unless they have enough creatures, in which case you can sometimes chump block or trade for a Goblin or something. Goyf is a house, and we run Scavenging Ooze too, which gives us 7 credible threats against them. Courser also does serious work if you run them main, and you should at least have a Batterskull in there somewhere. It’s a bad time against them, but never call game 1 an autoloss; that’s how you lose the whole match.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MODERN RGB Jund BGR WGB Junk/Abzan Company WGB
LEGACY RUGB Delver GURB
EDH UW Geist of Saint Traft Aggro-Control WU RUG Riku of Two Reflections Combo GUR BBB Skithiryx Control BB
Having 2 Blackcleave Cliffs + random fetch / land does help with Liliana, Anger of the Gods.
Assuming starting hand of 3 lands:
If the 4th land laid down is Blackcleave Cliffs, assuming 3 lands in starting hand, that would be like getting 1 land card in 4 turns and top decking it at 4th turn, thus putting it in play tapped.
That would affect only casting of Chandra, Olivia.
UWR midrange can play more fetches (abt 8), basic lands (abt 6), shocklands (6-9) as they play draw go style thus would not need the seachrome. They play fetch, go then choose to fetch a shockland (tapped) or basic land.
JUND ideally would like to play land -> IOK, 2nd Land Goyf, 3rd Land Liliana, 4th Land Chandra etc or in worst case scenarios of 4th land topped deck being a blackcleave cliff would play the land tapped into play then pass the turn with instants in hand such as lightning bolt, abrupt decay.
For Blackcleave cliff to come in tapped, that would require having 3 lands in hand, drawing 3 non land cards on the play with the third being Blackcleave Cliff, drawing 4 non land cards on the draw with the 4th being a Blackcleave cliff.
On the 5th turn onwards for JUND, generally all spells can be cast and lands come in tapped: blackcleave cliff, raging ravine, shocklands (to conserve life).
Midgame, JUND would be beatdown with the Raging Ravine being 4/4 onwards, or getting a large scavenging ooze with the green mana available. The tapped blackcleave cliff does not matter at that point as forest are laid before it or shocks (green) for the green mana for scavenging ooze.
Having 2 Blackcleave Cliffs + random fetch / land does help with Liliana, Anger of the Gods.
Assuming starting hand of 3 lands:
If the 4th land laid down is Blackcleave Cliffs, assuming 3 lands in starting hand, that would be like getting 1 land card in 4 turns and top decking it at 4th turn, thus putting it in play tapped.
That would affect only casting of Chandra, Olivia.
UWR midrange can play more fetches (abt 8), basic lands (abt 6), shocklands (6-9) as they play draw go style thus would not need the seachrome. They play fetch, go then choose to fetch a shockland (tapped) or basic land.
JUND ideally would like to play land -> IOK, 2nd Land Goyf, 3rd Land Liliana, 4th Land Chandra etc or in worst case scenarios of 4th land topped deck being a blackcleave cliff would play the land tapped into play then pass the turn with instants in hand such as lightning bolt, abrupt decay.
For Blackcleave cliff to come in tapped, that would require having 3 lands in hand, drawing 3 non land cards on the play with the third being Blackcleave Cliff, drawing 4 non land cards on the draw with the 4th being a Blackcleave cliff.
On the 5th turn onwards for JUND, generally all spells can be cast and lands come in tapped: blackcleave cliff, raging ravine, shocklands (to conserve life).
Midgame, JUND would be beatdown with the Raging Ravine being 4/4 onwards, or getting a large scavenging ooze with the green mana available. The tapped blackcleave cliff does not matter at that point as forest are laid before it or shocks (green) for the green mana for scavenging ooze.
You are arguing that Blackcleave Cliffs is only bad if you draw it after you have played 3 lands. Of course that is true - no one is arguing that. We are arguing about the *late game* impact of Cliffs.
The argument I am trying to make is that you can get untapped lands just as well in the first 3 turns of the game using only fetches and no Blackcleave Cliffs. The advantages are the following:
1) You get to play untapped lands in the midgame and lategame. This is important even if all our spells cost four or less because sometimes you want to play TWO spells in one turn. Or maybe you want to activate Raging Ravine and then play another spell. You are all assuming that Jund has nothing to do with its extra mana after turn 4, and it just isn't true!
2) Since fetches can fix all of your colors, it also allows you to do things like play some colorless lands like Tectonic Edge because more of your lands fetch all of your colors.
3) It allows you to play around Blood Moon much more easily.
The argument you guys are making is that this new manabase will be more painful. It is a valid argument, and it is not clear without testing whether or not it is true. But imagine the following manabase (the third I've suggested so far in this thread):
That has 16 black sources, 17 green sources, and 16 red sources, and you even get to play a Tectonic Edge, which is crucial against UWR, Scapeshift, and Tron. It has 5 basic lands, which surely makes playing around Blood Moon very easy and enables you to fetch basics confidently.
In the early game, this mana base gives you 11 lands that let you play an untapped turn 1 black source without taking more than 1 damage and 6 lands that let you play an untapped turn 1 red source without taking more than 1 damage. Compare against the manabase that Kamma posted. His manabase has 12 such black sources and only 4 such red sources. In the late game, the only lands that come into play tapped are the manlands, enabling you to do two things in one turn much more easily.
Yes, you will ping yourself with fetchlands more, but you will very rarely need to shock yourself. Why are so many of you so certain that this manabase is too painful to consider?
Here is a good outside opinion discussing fetches and their role in the future of Modern. Anthony also suggests TecEdge as a possibility in Jund, which I am skeptical of.
I personally rarely have trouble curving out in Jund the first few turns. But I often find myself short on mana in the long game against the other midrange/control strategies, and I very much want all my lands to be untapped. Between Ooze, Ravine, Chandra, Olivia, Batterskull, and holding up removal, Jund's lategame is very mana-hungry. Blackcleave Cliffs can definitely slow you down just when you need to keep the pressure on the most. I still tend to think the fetches are just so good at fixing, let alone the positive interactions with stuff like Goyf, Courser, Urborg, and Grim Lavamancer, that it will be hard to justify not playing them as the manabase cornerstones. And once you commit to the fetches, it's harder to fit stuff like Scars lands, since you need the targets.
But the point is, we now have multiple options for how to build our mana, which is a good thing. Long live fetchlands!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MODERN RGB Jund BGR WGB Junk/Abzan Company WGB
LEGACY RUGB Delver GURB
EDH UW Geist of Saint Traft Aggro-Control WU RUG Riku of Two Reflections Combo GUR BBB Skithiryx Control BB
Lands 24
1 Forest
2 Swamp
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
3 Treetop Village
1 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
It looked great aside from the lack of basic mountain to fetch. (This is, of course, only relevant for Olivia's ability and the want for RR or even RRR when you have her on board)
He's running the Blackcleaves, which after Khans comes out, I'm inclined to keep, as well. They're great vs. Burn and help with the intense mana costs of the cards Jund likes to cast. I'm willing to bet they'll stay included in the stock list, but only time will tell.
Aside from Courser, your early drops aren't very green intensive (I sort of count Scooze as a later game card), i think it's rare than you want more than 1 or 2 green mana symbols on your side of the field (And the inclusion of 1x Twilight Mire, 4x Verdant Catacombs, 4x Bloodstained Mire, 3-4x Treetop, 1-2x Raging Ravine and the number of basics and shocks seem to be plenty, without adding in 2-4x Wooded Foothills.)
Wooded Foothills fetching a T1 black source seems really awful when half the time that T1 blacksource is going to be Thoughtseizing. I'd much prefer dropping a tapped Blackcleave Cliffs late in the game if it means taking 4 less damage over the course of the game.
Not fetching twice versus Scapeshift is important, too. Blackcleave Cliffs vs. Foothills + Basics could be worth an entire turn.
Sig courtesy of DOLZero
1st turn Raging Ravine, 2nd Turn Swamp offers option of lightning bolt and terminate. Also offers 2nd turn, IOK or thoughtseize and holding back a lightning bolt for a tight 2 land hand too.
1st turn Treetop village, 2nd turn land does not offer much flexibility.
manland(Raging Ravine), land, land, offers a third turn Anger of the Gods with need of just 1 shockland.
For JUND vs BURN,
I refer to it as a 1st game AUTO LOSS, possible 2nd, 3rd game wins with gain life cards.
This is as game 1, JUND is down 7 cards vs BURN. (3 Thoughtseize, 4 Dark Confidant)
I’m not suggesting Blackcleave Cliffs won’t get played once the fetches saturate Modern, I was just experimenting with lists that use the fetchlands only. It’s VERY likely that people still play Cliffs after rotation, and that they are indeed necessary to minimize the damage we take from our lands. But keep in mind that in every matchup where you prefer Cliffs (Burn, Scapeshift), there are just as many matchups where having Fetchlands + Shocks/Basics could be better. And remember that each fetchland represents all 3 colors of mana, as well as the option to get an earlier basic. So while Cliffs does fix your mana reasonably well, I don’t think having more fetchlands is going to prevent you from casting your Lilianas, Coursers, and Angers on time. If anything, I think it means you might take more damage in the games where you need to hit multiple colors on turn 3, but you can generally take less damage when you have a mellower hand (i.e. something like Discard, Goyf, Lily, Pulse with maybe a Bolt for R req’s).
Basically, don’t take my suggestions as me thinking I’m 100% correct. But DO realize that I’m basing my ideas off of Legacy decks and other historic mana bases in Modern. Look at this example; does UWR midrange play any Seachrome Coasts, aside from maybe the fastest Delver/Geist Versions? Generally no, and they are a very similar Midrange deck to us. So there is a good chance that we end up with a similar manabase now that we have all the fetches we could ask for. And remember too, that fetchlands get a LOT better with Course in your deck, so it’s pretty easy to regain lost life if you can land him on turn 3. More often than not, a Courser sticking around for 2-3 turns will likely gain you more life than you have lost on early fetch/shock sequencing.
I have no idea if Jund pilots will continue playing Blackcleave Cliffs post rotation, and I do still think that land is extremely helpful for early starts for us. But I am tired of drawing it on turn 4 or later and not being able to curve out. I’m also tired of losing to Blood Moon even when I can see it coming. Cliffs is a great land, but I’m not sure we will need it once we gain Foothills and Mire. Only time will tell. I was just posting a manabase for reference more than anything, take it or leave it.
RE: Burn.
Once again, nothing is a Game 1 autoloss, unless you convince yourself it is. Do you Thoughtseize Burn if they are holding more than 1-2 cards and you have nothing better going on? Absolutely! As long as you tag something worth 3+ damage you are still technically gaining life in the exchange. Bob is probably pretty useless, unless they have enough creatures, in which case you can sometimes chump block or trade for a Goblin or something. Goyf is a house, and we run Scavenging Ooze too, which gives us 7 credible threats against them. Courser also does serious work if you run them main, and you should at least have a Batterskull in there somewhere. It’s a bad time against them, but never call game 1 an autoloss; that’s how you lose the whole match.
RGB Jund BGR
WGB Junk/Abzan Company WGB
LEGACY
RUGB Delver GURB
EDH
UW Geist of Saint Traft Aggro-Control WU
RUG Riku of Two Reflections Combo GUR
BBB Skithiryx Control BB
Assuming starting hand of 3 lands:
If the 4th land laid down is Blackcleave Cliffs, assuming 3 lands in starting hand, that would be like getting 1 land card in 4 turns and top decking it at 4th turn, thus putting it in play tapped.
That would affect only casting of Chandra, Olivia.
UWR midrange can play more fetches (abt 8), basic lands (abt 6), shocklands (6-9) as they play draw go style thus would not need the seachrome. They play fetch, go then choose to fetch a shockland (tapped) or basic land.
JUND ideally would like to play land -> IOK, 2nd Land Goyf, 3rd Land Liliana, 4th Land Chandra etc or in worst case scenarios of 4th land topped deck being a blackcleave cliff would play the land tapped into play then pass the turn with instants in hand such as lightning bolt, abrupt decay.
For Blackcleave cliff to come in tapped, that would require having 3 lands in hand, drawing 3 non land cards on the play with the third being Blackcleave Cliff, drawing 4 non land cards on the draw with the 4th being a Blackcleave cliff.
On the 5th turn onwards for JUND, generally all spells can be cast and lands come in tapped: blackcleave cliff, raging ravine, shocklands (to conserve life).
Midgame, JUND would be beatdown with the Raging Ravine being 4/4 onwards, or getting a large scavenging ooze with the green mana available. The tapped blackcleave cliff does not matter at that point as forest are laid before it or shocks (green) for the green mana for scavenging ooze.
The argument I am trying to make is that you can get untapped lands just as well in the first 3 turns of the game using only fetches and no Blackcleave Cliffs. The advantages are the following:
1) You get to play untapped lands in the midgame and lategame. This is important even if all our spells cost four or less because sometimes you want to play TWO spells in one turn. Or maybe you want to activate Raging Ravine and then play another spell. You are all assuming that Jund has nothing to do with its extra mana after turn 4, and it just isn't true!
2) Since fetches can fix all of your colors, it also allows you to do things like play some colorless lands like Tectonic Edge because more of your lands fetch all of your colors.
3) It allows you to play around Blood Moon much more easily.
The argument you guys are making is that this new manabase will be more painful. It is a valid argument, and it is not clear without testing whether or not it is true. But imagine the following manabase (the third I've suggested so far in this thread):
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
2 Blood Crypt
3 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
3 Raging Ravine
1 Treetop Village
1 Twilight Mire
1 Tectonic Edge
That has 16 black sources, 17 green sources, and 16 red sources, and you even get to play a Tectonic Edge, which is crucial against UWR, Scapeshift, and Tron. It has 5 basic lands, which surely makes playing around Blood Moon very easy and enables you to fetch basics confidently.
In the early game, this mana base gives you 11 lands that let you play an untapped turn 1 black source without taking more than 1 damage and 6 lands that let you play an untapped turn 1 red source without taking more than 1 damage. Compare against the manabase that Kamma posted. His manabase has 12 such black sources and only 4 such red sources. In the late game, the only lands that come into play tapped are the manlands, enabling you to do two things in one turn much more easily.
Yes, you will ping yourself with fetchlands more, but you will very rarely need to shock yourself. Why are so many of you so certain that this manabase is too painful to consider?
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29290_Building-A-Better-Fetchland.html
I personally rarely have trouble curving out in Jund the first few turns. But I often find myself short on mana in the long game against the other midrange/control strategies, and I very much want all my lands to be untapped. Between Ooze, Ravine, Chandra, Olivia, Batterskull, and holding up removal, Jund's lategame is very mana-hungry. Blackcleave Cliffs can definitely slow you down just when you need to keep the pressure on the most. I still tend to think the fetches are just so good at fixing, let alone the positive interactions with stuff like Goyf, Courser, Urborg, and Grim Lavamancer, that it will be hard to justify not playing them as the manabase cornerstones. And once you commit to the fetches, it's harder to fit stuff like Scars lands, since you need the targets.
But the point is, we now have multiple options for how to build our mana, which is a good thing. Long live fetchlands!
RGB Jund BGR
WGB Junk/Abzan Company WGB
LEGACY
RUGB Delver GURB
EDH
UW Geist of Saint Traft Aggro-Control WU
RUG Riku of Two Reflections Combo GUR
BBB Skithiryx Control BB
Please continue the discussion in the new primer here (now with 100% less BBE and DRS in the opening post!). Thanks to LEH for putting so much work into this:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/proven-modern/571523-jund-work-in-progress