Good to see some other people are still thinking about pirates, even if its a small thread lol. This is the list ive been running on MTGO and locally, and its doing very well at the moment. I skip the curious obsession route for focusing a little more on tempo, sorta like a classic delver or spirits deck.
Running a 2/2 split of cast down and walk the plank for different situations, where cast down may not be able to hit something. Between Thought Erasure and Kitesail Freebooter, there's plenty of hand disruption to pair with all the different forms of removal until you can slowly work your way into a lead, then drop a hostage taker or thief of sanity to seal the deal. Ruin raider works as a conditional bob and chart a course keeps the options flowing. The only other thing ive been toying around with is Doom Whisperer on the top end. Not a pirate, but a very pushed creature that can lock down the game pretty early on. Plus the surveil on thought erasure and doom whisperer helps to make painless draws off ruin raider
Has anyone here tried phyrexian arena? Though obviously not as good as Bob, most decks don't run main board enchantment removal, and the one life per turn is a lot easier to stomach than taking a 4 life hit from a bloodbraid elf. (something that killed me in a game I had locked down on mtgo this weekend when I was at 4 life) I'm not convinced that it would work, but I was curious if anyone's used it to any success.
Manamorphose seems like a decent deck thinning choice, which could be worth some testing. Every other deck ive tried it in has been solid, and it's in our colors.
DRS would absolutely warp the format. I think generally if something is too powerful for legacy, there is a good chance it'll be too powerful in modern too
Edit : though to be fair id love to be able to jam it in jund and go wild for a bit lol
So basically, Jund should just become a worse version of another graveyard-based deck?
I don't think that's the right direction for the deck, which maybe I may have seemed to be misunderstood as saying when i talked about faithless looting. I think for looting to work, the entire deck has to be restructured, and to me i don't think it would help it to be any better than the other looting decks at all.
Thanks for welcoming me! I appreciate the reply to the points i was making, and i can absolutely see how grim flayer's success or failure is entirely dependent on each persons individual track record with it. I can say that there were times where i wasn't thrilled to see the card, but i can say the same about scavenging ooze, and even bob from time to time. I think it would be foolish to run it as a full playset, but the 2 of has been working out pretty well for me as another creature that hits the board early in the game and gets itself out of bolt range after activating delirium, while complimenting other cards in our deck well. Obviously your mileage may vary, but i think its a solid card to run a few of.
I agree with Huntmaster not doing anything to stop fliers, but i feel overall its a bigger threat than bloodbraid elf, and can really help in grindy matchups, where you can abuse flipping it back and forth to your advantage. I've also played with Olivia and hazoret in the 4 drop slot and all have performed very well, so its difficult nailing down exactly which 4 drops are going to be the better going forward. Kalitas is definitely the best of the options we have here though.
I may need to test a bit more with Pia and Kiran Nalaar, but i haven't been terribly impressed with the card in other decks i've tried it in. Perhaps this may be a better shell for it after all.
Been reading this thread for ages it seems, playing jund for about 2 years now, but this is my first time posting. I think that the biggest problem is that we're all still treating bloodbraid elf as an auto include in our lists because she's unbanned now and she used to be so powerful. The problem to me is that our deck lacks consistency, and BBE does nothing to solve this problem. She's a decent body with a random chance to get you a free LotV and that's about the best you can expect from her. Half of the time by turn 4 her p/t is no longer relevant and it feels real bad to cascade into a thoughtseize when you're low on life or the opponent has an empty hand or a fatal push on an open board. The random nature of cascade plays directly against the consistency were looking for and so BBE seems like a deck building trap. I've cut all 4 of them for a combination of huntmaster of the fells and kalitas, and I couldn't be happier with the changes. Each of these 4 drops do much more to advance our board state and pose an actual threat to the opponent once we've slowly built an advantage in the earlier turns.
As a side note, a couple grim flayer work extremely well with Bob, and I don't think should be overlooked with how easy it is to turn on delirium, or swing on an open board to manipulate our topdecks, grow the tarmogoyf, or make a Bob trigger painless.
In regards to faithless looting, I've tested out 2-3 copies in my 60 and it seems like what flyingdelver has been saying about the deck needs to be entirely redesigned around maximizing the potential of looting with delve creatures, which would come at the expense of tarmogoyf. It competes in the one drop slot with all our discard and removal, and generally felt like the wrong decision to play looting until later in the game when you can play it the same turn as a threat or removal spell.
All in all, I'm feeling that my current build of jund is a lot more potent and consistent when compared with the seemingly "stock" bloodbraid list I was running previously. I'd love some feedback on this from anyone else who has tried it however, I can't take my mtgo and local game store wins as absolute proof of concept after all. I'm very interested in seeing what else I can learn
7 Island
5 Swamp
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Watery Grave
2 Field of Ruin
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Dire Fleet Poisoner
4 Kitesail Freebooter
4 Hostage Taker
3 Warkite Marauder
3 Thief of Sanity
2 Ruin Raider
4 Lookout's Dispersal
3 Thought Erasure
3 Chart a Course
2 Walk the Plank
2 Cast Down
Running a 2/2 split of cast down and walk the plank for different situations, where cast down may not be able to hit something. Between Thought Erasure and Kitesail Freebooter, there's plenty of hand disruption to pair with all the different forms of removal until you can slowly work your way into a lead, then drop a hostage taker or thief of sanity to seal the deal. Ruin raider works as a conditional bob and chart a course keeps the options flowing. The only other thing ive been toying around with is Doom Whisperer on the top end. Not a pirate, but a very pushed creature that can lock down the game pretty early on. Plus the surveil on thought erasure and doom whisperer helps to make painless draws off ruin raider
Has anyone here tried phyrexian arena? Though obviously not as good as Bob, most decks don't run main board enchantment removal, and the one life per turn is a lot easier to stomach than taking a 4 life hit from a bloodbraid elf. (something that killed me in a game I had locked down on mtgo this weekend when I was at 4 life) I'm not convinced that it would work, but I was curious if anyone's used it to any success.
Manamorphose seems like a decent deck thinning choice, which could be worth some testing. Every other deck ive tried it in has been solid, and it's in our colors.
Edit : misinformation
Edit : though to be fair id love to be able to jam it in jund and go wild for a bit lol
I don't think that's the right direction for the deck, which maybe I may have seemed to be misunderstood as saying when i talked about faithless looting. I think for looting to work, the entire deck has to be restructured, and to me i don't think it would help it to be any better than the other looting decks at all.
Thanks for welcoming me! I appreciate the reply to the points i was making, and i can absolutely see how grim flayer's success or failure is entirely dependent on each persons individual track record with it. I can say that there were times where i wasn't thrilled to see the card, but i can say the same about scavenging ooze, and even bob from time to time. I think it would be foolish to run it as a full playset, but the 2 of has been working out pretty well for me as another creature that hits the board early in the game and gets itself out of bolt range after activating delirium, while complimenting other cards in our deck well. Obviously your mileage may vary, but i think its a solid card to run a few of.
I agree with Huntmaster not doing anything to stop fliers, but i feel overall its a bigger threat than bloodbraid elf, and can really help in grindy matchups, where you can abuse flipping it back and forth to your advantage. I've also played with Olivia and hazoret in the 4 drop slot and all have performed very well, so its difficult nailing down exactly which 4 drops are going to be the better going forward. Kalitas is definitely the best of the options we have here though.
I may need to test a bit more with Pia and Kiran Nalaar, but i haven't been terribly impressed with the card in other decks i've tried it in. Perhaps this may be a better shell for it after all.
My 60 for reference :
2 Swamp
2 Forest
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Raging Ravine
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Blood Crypt
1 Treetop Village
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Dark Confidant
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Grim Flayer
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Planeswalkers:
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Assassin's Trophy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Fatal Push
1 Seal of Fire
As a side note, a couple grim flayer work extremely well with Bob, and I don't think should be overlooked with how easy it is to turn on delirium, or swing on an open board to manipulate our topdecks, grow the tarmogoyf, or make a Bob trigger painless.
In regards to faithless looting, I've tested out 2-3 copies in my 60 and it seems like what flyingdelver has been saying about the deck needs to be entirely redesigned around maximizing the potential of looting with delve creatures, which would come at the expense of tarmogoyf. It competes in the one drop slot with all our discard and removal, and generally felt like the wrong decision to play looting until later in the game when you can play it the same turn as a threat or removal spell.
All in all, I'm feeling that my current build of jund is a lot more potent and consistent when compared with the seemingly "stock" bloodbraid list I was running previously. I'd love some feedback on this from anyone else who has tried it however, I can't take my mtgo and local game store wins as absolute proof of concept after all. I'm very interested in seeing what else I can learn