As for Velvs question about grim lavamanacer----that card is a god damn bomb. It looks really innocent, but that card is an absolute nightmare against small creature decks. I can't tell you how many times that card alone has decimated decks. It's often better than an Anger of the Gods. I think 1x Grim should always be in a Jund's 75, it's easily one of the best cards Jund has access to. If Abzan had access to an identical card in its color, it would be such a game changer.
I will also backup grim lavamancer. It's the one card I always think about cutting when I'm looking for a SB slot. But he's just so versatile and deceptively powerful, that I never leave home without him. Obviously hes good against small creature decks. But he also comes in against random ***** like lantern. Dredge. Death's Shadow decks. Ponza. Mirror matches. Lingering souls decks. Burn. He doesn't exactly excel in those matchups, but he's always solid.
I feel like it's going to be hard to fit in Jace, Retreat, CoCo, AND path all in the maindeck. That's why I suggested the CoCo-less deck. But maybe we just drop retreat and play 2x jace in place of the 2x retreat. And I really like Clique 1-2 in the main. One little Clique trick is to cast it in response to a fetchland after an opponent brainstormed with Jace. That causes you to take the best card from their hand, and their draw is the unwanted card on top that they were trying to shuffle away.
Yeah, just remember that you can only sac Forests or Plains. That's a reason you don't often see the basic Island in the deck (not saying it's wrong though). If you are inexperienced with KotR, sometimes you forget because it lets you fetch any land but can only sac G/W. I've been playing this deck for awhile now, and I almost never need the Kessig to do the full 20 damage. Usually you have already pecked in a few damage with Quellers or Coursers, or the opponent did 2-4 damage to themselves and only really need 14-17 damage from the Knight. That being said, you really need it if you want to combo against Tron (which is probably the matchup where you want to combo the most)
Somebody help me out with this. Because of the unbanning I'm switching from the 4 color version to run Kesing and Statacaster to pure Bant, cutting a bird and adding a Jace main to see how it goes. For those of you running the pure Bant, is it possible for KOTR to do a full 20 pts. of damage on turn 3 given this manna-base while still holding up a land incase you need to protect him with Sejuri Steppe? I've tried again and again and haven't been able to do it, even Ghost Quartering the Island early.
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
1 Flooded Strand
3 Forest (Uptick in Blood moon decks)
2 Plains
1 Island
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Sejiri Steppe (Better than Kessig in this meta probably)
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Horizon Canopy
Based on your list of lands, assuming all of your opening lands in your hand are fetchlands, you will have 2 forest/plains cards in play and two fetches in the yard after your Knight. You untap with Knight, he's a 4/4, and start comboing off. Each of your saccable lands in your deck = land+1 due to getting a fetch first. But you want to leave 1 forest/plains up to get steppe at instant speed. So you can get 7 forest/plains into the GY, and 7 fetches. and either a GQ or horizon canopy left in play. Let's say you also played a utility land this turn so you have something to GQ. so you GQ that land, still have your last forest/plains in play for steppe, and you will have 16 lands in your GY (7 forest/plains, 7 fetches, GQ, and the utility land that you GQ'd). That's an 18/18 Knight. BUT you still have that last Forest/Plains in play which you can sac to get horizon canopy to make knight a 20/20. But that's best situation, and turns off your steppe ability. This is also assuming you entered attack phase before you started comboing, or else your knight is tapped without a fetchland up. But If one of your lands you drew was a basic or shock, you lose the +1 from getting an extra fetch land.
It's very complicated. But I would say you will not reliably do 20 damage with one swing while keeping up Steppe. But there's also exalted.
Good work on the Jace lists, everyone. I will be testing some this weekend.
To everyone else dismissing Jace in this deck: The best midrange card ever printed was just unbanned, and is in the colors of our midrange deck. It would be very ignorant to just dismiss him without proper testing. And testing doesn't just include testing vs U/x jace control decks and BBE Jund, there are still other decks out there.
Finally, I think Vendilion Clique should see an uptick in play. It has good play patterns with and against Jace, and if you are including Jace in your lists, I assume you are slightly tweaking your manabase to make double blue easier, thus making Vendilion Clique easier to cast. I know one of the reasons I cut it before was because it's relatively hard to cast without manadorks.
I know it sounds crazy, but what if we just drop CoCo altogether for Jace? HEAR ME OUT!
What's good against Jace? 3 cmc flash creatures like Spell Queller and Vendilion Clique.
What's good with 4 mana planeswalkers? 3 CMC creatures like Spell Queller, Vendilion Clique, and Reflector mage.
So if we just cut the CoCos for some 4 cmc walkers, we could have one of the best Jace decks in the format because out setup is so great (mana dorks and 3cmc flash creatues). Here's a potential list:
4 Noble
3 Birds
2 Scooze
3 VoR
4 Knight
4 Spell Queller
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Courser of Kruphix
3 JtMS
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
4 Path
2 retreat
2 Remand
1 D-Sphere
23 Lands
Having Jace in the deck makes our combo potential must better IMO. It searches deeper for a retreat, and shuffles them away when we don't need them. Also, we can probably run like 10 fetches along with Knight activations to optimize jace brainstorms. And we still have courser for maximum Jace value. There are a few flex spots like the remands and D-sphere. Remands fit the curve well when you don't have a mana dork, and D-sphere is a catch-all. I also think fitting more flash threats int here like Aven mindcensor or Resto Angel could be good.
I know cutting Coco is heresy, but let's be real: Coco DOES have a failrate, and an active Jace will generate more value in two turns then your best possible coco hits. So I think Jace's floor is higher than coco, and his ceiling.
Thundermaw Hellkite is a good option against jace as well, although 5 cmc is pretty high. Helps against Lingering Souls as well. Also hedging with changing a Terminate into a dreadbore will help. And playing 4 bolts again should be good too. Maybe playing with a single Treetop Village over a ravine.
All that being said, Jace is gonna be rough against us. Still happy with BBE though.
The deck looks good. I wouldn't play reflector mage main but I know some people do, and when he's good, he's great. The deck is very weak to GY stuff like you said, so I don't mind the bojuka bog in the board. I could also see playing 1 more scooze main to help against GY decks. Scooze is rarely great in this deck, but it's usually serviceable.
I played a 1-of stirring wildwood in my manabase last friday, and it was pretty solid. Sometimes you get in a situation with Knight where you don't want your colorless utility lands because you don't have many colored sources, and you don't want to sac a shockland since you only run 1 of each, so you're not really sure what to get. Stirring Wildwood was great in that situation, which comes up often. I replaced the botanical sanctum since you don't need much blue in the deck. Having it as your only colored source on t1 sucks though. I haven't hit that situation yet.
My last two FNMs with this deck has been 4-0 and 4-0. This deck is great, and so much fun.
Hey guys, I just played Jund DS (Splashing white in the board) for the first time a few nights ago. I loved it and I will be continuing to play it.
How do you guys feel about a 1-of Ghor-Clan Rampager in the main? I was initially planning on running 1, but noticed no other lists were running any so I didn't. But there were multiple times when I wanted to traverse for it and couldn't because it wasn't in my deck.
What do you guys think about it? Also, how do you feel about Golgari Charm? I ran 1 in my board and I boarded it in for almost all my matches.
Matches:
Free win red (2-1)
GR Ponza (2-0)
Eldrazi Tron (0-2)
Esper Tokens (1-1-1)
Some quick suggestions after looking over your decklist:
1. I think the proper land/dork configuration is 8 dorks/22 Lands or 7 dorks/23 Lands. You're on 7/22. I would bump that up to 7/23, especially with 2x tireless tracker drawing extra lands is totally fine for you. An active Knight also helps thin your deck once you get to 3 or 4 lands.
2. I just noticed there's no Horizon Canopy. Make that your 23rd land. It's cheap now. No excuse not to have it. It's important with Knight, and always comes into play untapped.
3. 3 Scooze is a lot. It's not as good in this deck as it is in decks like jund. I would just play 1. or 0.
4. I would trim a qasali pridemage down to 1. I don't really like the card, but some people swear by it. It's a personal preference I guess. I would go up to 3 VoR though.
5. I would cut Vendilion Clique completely. It's semi-hard to cast and not always great, so I eventually moved mine to the sideboard. And then once it was there, I realized it's not very impactful so I didn't think it was worth a SB slot either.
That's about it. SB looks fine. I would personally try and add another Unified Will or 2x Negate, but it's personal preference. Good Luck!
There is no world where Grim Flayer is a better card than Dark Confidant; I highly advise against doing so.
I know magic players are prone to hyperbole, but it's hard to take comments like this seriously.
And there absolutely are worlds where I would exchange card advantage for card selection + a clock. I'm just trying to figure out if that's the world we are in now.
Grim Flayer continued to perform, especially with 7 discard spells main, and 1 more post-board. It let's you go T-1 Discard, T-2 Threat even more often, which is what we want to be doing. I want to fit a 3rd Grim Flayer into the deck somehow for testing it more, but I'm not sure what to cut. I'm actually considering cutting one of our sacred cows, Dark Confidant. That way it would be 3x Grim Flayer 3x Confidant.
I went 3-1 with the deck last night.it felt pretty good. The Tron matchup felt basically unwinnable though, even with a total of 2 Blood Moons and 3 Molten Rains in the 75. I'm sure Swiftspear helps a bit in this matchup. I cut them from the list. Overall, it felt a bit like Jund but with more value, and less of a clock. My matchups were:
I will also backup grim lavamancer. It's the one card I always think about cutting when I'm looking for a SB slot. But he's just so versatile and deceptively powerful, that I never leave home without him. Obviously hes good against small creature decks. But he also comes in against random ***** like lantern. Dredge. Death's Shadow decks. Ponza. Mirror matches. Lingering souls decks. Burn. He doesn't exactly excel in those matchups, but he's always solid.
Based on your list of lands, assuming all of your opening lands in your hand are fetchlands, you will have 2 forest/plains cards in play and two fetches in the yard after your Knight. You untap with Knight, he's a 4/4, and start comboing off. Each of your saccable lands in your deck = land+1 due to getting a fetch first. But you want to leave 1 forest/plains up to get steppe at instant speed. So you can get 7 forest/plains into the GY, and 7 fetches. and either a GQ or horizon canopy left in play. Let's say you also played a utility land this turn so you have something to GQ. so you GQ that land, still have your last forest/plains in play for steppe, and you will have 16 lands in your GY (7 forest/plains, 7 fetches, GQ, and the utility land that you GQ'd). That's an 18/18 Knight. BUT you still have that last Forest/Plains in play which you can sac to get horizon canopy to make knight a 20/20. But that's best situation, and turns off your steppe ability. This is also assuming you entered attack phase before you started comboing, or else your knight is tapped without a fetchland up. But If one of your lands you drew was a basic or shock, you lose the +1 from getting an extra fetch land.
It's very complicated. But I would say you will not reliably do 20 damage with one swing while keeping up Steppe. But there's also exalted.
To everyone else dismissing Jace in this deck: The best midrange card ever printed was just unbanned, and is in the colors of our midrange deck. It would be very ignorant to just dismiss him without proper testing. And testing doesn't just include testing vs U/x jace control decks and BBE Jund, there are still other decks out there.
Finally, I think Vendilion Clique should see an uptick in play. It has good play patterns with and against Jace, and if you are including Jace in your lists, I assume you are slightly tweaking your manabase to make double blue easier, thus making Vendilion Clique easier to cast. I know one of the reasons I cut it before was because it's relatively hard to cast without manadorks.
What's good against Jace? 3 cmc flash creatures like Spell Queller and Vendilion Clique.
What's good with 4 mana planeswalkers? 3 CMC creatures like Spell Queller, Vendilion Clique, and Reflector mage.
So if we just cut the CoCos for some 4 cmc walkers, we could have one of the best Jace decks in the format because out setup is so great (mana dorks and 3cmc flash creatues). Here's a potential list:
4 Noble
3 Birds
2 Scooze
3 VoR
4 Knight
4 Spell Queller
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Courser of Kruphix
3 JtMS
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
4 Path
2 retreat
2 Remand
1 D-Sphere
23 Lands
Having Jace in the deck makes our combo potential must better IMO. It searches deeper for a retreat, and shuffles them away when we don't need them. Also, we can probably run like 10 fetches along with Knight activations to optimize jace brainstorms. And we still have courser for maximum Jace value. There are a few flex spots like the remands and D-sphere. Remands fit the curve well when you don't have a mana dork, and D-sphere is a catch-all. I also think fitting more flash threats int here like Aven mindcensor or Resto Angel could be good.
I know cutting Coco is heresy, but let's be real: Coco DOES have a failrate, and an active Jace will generate more value in two turns then your best possible coco hits. So I think Jace's floor is higher than coco, and his ceiling.
All that being said, Jace is gonna be rough against us. Still happy with BBE though.
I played a 1-of stirring wildwood in my manabase last friday, and it was pretty solid. Sometimes you get in a situation with Knight where you don't want your colorless utility lands because you don't have many colored sources, and you don't want to sac a shockland since you only run 1 of each, so you're not really sure what to get. Stirring Wildwood was great in that situation, which comes up often. I replaced the botanical sanctum since you don't need much blue in the deck. Having it as your only colored source on t1 sucks though. I haven't hit that situation yet.
My last two FNMs with this deck has been 4-0 and 4-0. This deck is great, and so much fun.
How do you guys feel about a 1-of Ghor-Clan Rampager in the main? I was initially planning on running 1, but noticed no other lists were running any so I didn't. But there were multiple times when I wanted to traverse for it and couldn't because it wasn't in my deck.
What do you guys think about it? Also, how do you feel about Golgari Charm? I ran 1 in my board and I boarded it in for almost all my matches.
Matches:
Free win red (2-1)
GR Ponza (2-0)
Eldrazi Tron (0-2)
Esper Tokens (1-1-1)
Some quick suggestions after looking over your decklist:
1. I think the proper land/dork configuration is 8 dorks/22 Lands or 7 dorks/23 Lands. You're on 7/22. I would bump that up to 7/23, especially with 2x tireless tracker drawing extra lands is totally fine for you. An active Knight also helps thin your deck once you get to 3 or 4 lands.
2. I just noticed there's no Horizon Canopy. Make that your 23rd land. It's cheap now. No excuse not to have it. It's important with Knight, and always comes into play untapped.
3. 3 Scooze is a lot. It's not as good in this deck as it is in decks like jund. I would just play 1. or 0.
4. I would trim a qasali pridemage down to 1. I don't really like the card, but some people swear by it. It's a personal preference I guess. I would go up to 3 VoR though.
5. I would cut Vendilion Clique completely. It's semi-hard to cast and not always great, so I eventually moved mine to the sideboard. And then once it was there, I realized it's not very impactful so I didn't think it was worth a SB slot either.
That's about it. SB looks fine. I would personally try and add another Unified Will or 2x Negate, but it's personal preference. Good Luck!
I know magic players are prone to hyperbole, but it's hard to take comments like this seriously.
And there absolutely are worlds where I would exchange card advantage for card selection + a clock. I'm just trying to figure out if that's the world we are in now.
R1: Dredge 2-1
R2: Burn 2-0
R3: Infect 2-1
R4: ID
Here's the list I was running:
4x Dark Confidant
4x Goyf
2x Scooze
2x Grim Flayer
4x Lotv
4x Iok
3x Thoughtseize
4x Bolt
2x Fatal Push
2x Terminate
1x Dreadbore
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Abrupt Decay
2x Kolaghan's Command
1x Mishra's bauble
23 Lands
SB:
1x THoughtseize
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Lilly Last Hope
1x Grim Lavamancer
1x Surgical Extraction
2x Nihil Spellbomb
3x Fulminator Mage
2x Kitchen Finks
2x Collective Brutality
1x Grafdigger's Cage
Grim Flayer continued to perform, especially with 7 discard spells main, and 1 more post-board. It let's you go T-1 Discard, T-2 Threat even more often, which is what we want to be doing. I want to fit a 3rd Grim Flayer into the deck somehow for testing it more, but I'm not sure what to cut. I'm actually considering cutting one of our sacred cows, Dark Confidant. That way it would be 3x Grim Flayer 3x Confidant.
Abzan: 2-0
BR Goryo's Reanimator: 2-1
GxTron: 0-2
Grixis DS: 2-1