- Before the unbanning of BBE, when you look at the PT where Reid Duke Top 8ted with Junk, Humans and Hollow One started to really strike hard in the meta. If one would be smart there, one could identify here the best decks in the meta already. This was however completely overshadowed by the unban of BBE, the meta was hit with a massive hype for Jace and BBE. People tried Jace to a massive extent, as well as BBE. And since BBE specifically is great against Jace, BBE became the superior card and Jund was quite successful.
- After that though, people started to look at decks like Hollow One and Humans again. The hype became less and people realized that Jace was not the greates in modern. At this exact point, we would have needed to realize that we are facing a problem of consistancy, where we cannot beat the more consistant and linear aggro decks. 25 land builds and builds with 4 BBE where just not the best way to build Jund then. I think jaberwocki made a really good approach to make a good jund list at that time. The spicey Jund list was proibably close to the best list at that period. Also Mardu became the best midrange deck to fight those linear strategies.
- As a next step, Control started to rise again. This is the period we are right now, but could be gone soon also. Jund is decent here, since BBE is great vs Control. This is the reason Jund is popping up more here and there.
- This is the next step which we don't know yet. The modern meta shifts from week to week, and Bridgevine could be the next big impactful factor. It might be that we need to change our strategy again and try to be a more spicey jund style again like jaberwocki played. It might also be that control remains and BBE is still the best way to play Jund.
So the key takeaway for me is, we don't need to focus on one particular build and call it the best list and call it a day. I think we need to be more flexible and build our deck new from week to week, which could include drastic changes like Looting builds and non looting builds. In a meta this diverse and changing like we have nowadays, I think it is just necessary.
And everyone on its own may think otherwise about this. This could be due to specific metas in the own hometown (at LGS). So in my mind, self awareness of ones meta is nowadays close to the most important skill a good Jund player needs to have. Simply because of the reasons stated.
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