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This is the new thread. The old thread can be found here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...24956-DTB-Jund ~Nihil Credo
Chapter 1: What is Jund?
No one playing any format of magic at the end of 2012 needs to be introduced to what is probably the most reviled of any Alara shard: Jund.
Jund is a combination of three colors, black, red and green. Simply put, this deck runs the most effective cards from those colors, combining them into a quasi-midrange "fair" deck.
A fairly popular Jund deck has been Aggro Loam:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...eck-Aggro-Loam
It runs a lot of the cards from the basic Jund list, taking out some of the discard for the Life from the Loam engine, as well as several cards that take advantage of Loam, such as Seismic Assault and the Urza's Saga cycle-lands cycle (!).
Currently, the most well-known Jund deck is the Modern version of Jund, which won several large events, including a few Grand Prix as well as taking 2nd place in PT:Return to Ravnica (damn eggs!).
Ever since its inception in Shards of Alara, a Bloodbraid Elf/Blightning deck has existed, and generally dominated if enough people started playing it. Although Blightning has since falled out of favor, Bloodbraid Elf is a crucial part of the Modern version, and has started popping up in several Legacy lists.
Personally, I do not like BBE as a card, but the power it brings is undeniable in a deck filled with efficient 1-for-1's as well as several powerful card draw engines.
Since a lot of people have played Jund in other formats, it makes sense to give a high-level overview of what is different in the Legacy version of Jund, when compared to Modern:
- Wasteland. No other card in the deck makes as large a difference as Wasteland does. Modern Jund is powerful because it can put forward large threats that require immediate responses or they can take over the game. Wasteland in Legacy allows Jund to not only do that, but put forth another angle of attack, mana denial. One of Legacy's premier decks, RUG delver, sometimes runs only 6 colored mana producing lands. You can run up to four Wastelands, and have the ability to get them back. They are almost-uncounterable, free Stone Rains. I originally considered making this list just one card, and it would not have been wrong.
- Original Dual Lands. Modern Jund (whether 3 or 4-color) does a lot of damage to itself with the mana base. Each land coming into play tapped will slow you down significantly, especially since you run a discard suite that doesn't affect the board. You are forced to take a lot of damage (fetching a Ravnica shock-land to cast Thoughtseize removes a quarter of your starting life) quickly, and thus can fall prey to speedy aggro or burn decks. On the other side of the coin, you are often unable to take advantage of the damage dealt to your opponent. Having access to pain-free dual lands allow you to survive longer and establish a board presence.
- Onslaught Fetch-lands. Bloodstained Mire and Wooded Foothills are absent in Modern, and only Verdant Catacombs is available. Although 4-color Jund runs Marsh Flats effectively, 3-color is forced to run less effective Fetch-lands.
- Sylvan Library. Although only played as a 1-of or 2-of, Sylvan Library is a very powerful card. The ability to have a free Sensei's Divining Top every turn adds up, and against certain decks, you are able to draw up to four cards during the game (such as High Tide). Since you are not really taking any damage from your lands coming into play, this is possible.
- No Urzatron decks. As far as I can tell, there is no single match-up that is as horrible for Jund in Legacy, as Tron and others are for Modern Jund. The presence of Brainstorm keeps those ridiculous lists in checks, and allows you to run very powerful sideboard cards against Brainstorm decks, such as Red Elemental Blast.
Now, that being said, why should you play Jund? What are the major strengths of this deck:
- You run the most efficient cards that are not blue or called Swords to Plowshares. This phrase gets tossed around a lot when describing Jund, and most people have accepted it without thinking, myself included. What this means is that every card you play needs to be answered, or you are ahead significantly. Your discard costs one mana and takes away the most powerful card your opponent has. Your creatures are cheap, and either hit for a lot, or are a source of card advantage. Your removal is cheap and effecively and you run a lot of it. That is basically it.
- The deck is very flexible. Most people miss this point. There are a lot of ways to build Jund, from the aforementionned Aggro Loam, to a discard-heavy deck for combo metas, to a removal-heavy version for aggro-matchups, to an effective anti-control package. Jund is versatile and your opponents will not know which configuration you are running.
- You have no truly bad match-ups, and you have some great match-ups, unlike the Modern version. This point is very contentious, and while admitting that there are difficult match-ups, you are never completely out when facing any opponent. You have a great RUG delver match-up.
- It is not a very popular deck, and it is difficult to hate out. Name one card that completely shuts Jund down. No such card exists, although there are several cards that hurt you.
What are the major weaknesses of Jund:
- Combo. This is less of an issue than most people make it out to be. It is true, once combo-decks get going, you are not favored. Your proactive solutions (aka. discard) are cheaper and quicker, but not as powerful as Counterspells. Top-decking a powerful card like Ad Nauseum, or Show and Tell is still a problem. However, most combo-decks cannot simply win with an empty hand, even with those bombs, and you have a lot of cards that help you get to that point.
- Junk / Deadguy Ale. As a long-time Jund player, I hate this match-up more than any other. Where you run Lightning Bolt, they run Swords to Plowshares. Where you run Abrupt Decay or Maelstrom Pulse, they run Vindicate. They also run cards like Bitterblossom, Elspeth, and Hero of Bladehold that are very difficult to deal with. They also run Stoneforge Mystic and equipment, as well as discard, Dark Confidant, Liliana and Wastelands. This is a match-up where Bloodbraid Elf is your biggest ace, and it still might not be enough. Good luck. This is probably your worst match-up. More on this in the match-up section.
- Burn. You have almost no way to interact with them, other than Inquisition of Kozilek, which has seemingly fallen out of favor, and sideboard, where you do not want narrow solutions against a fringe deck.
This would be a good time to start on the meat of the primer, cards used in the deck. I will go over the most widely used cards and say a few words for each:
Chapter 2: Jund creatures:
Unlike some decks in Legacy, your primary win conditions are actual creatures that go in the red zone. Unlike UW Control, Jund, ostensibly being a part-time control deck, CAN just aggro the opponent very quickly. Burn and some very aggressive creatures can allow you to win before the other deck can set up.
4 Dark Confidant: Dark Confidant will rarely live to see your next upkeep, although the existence of the Deathrite Shaman took some heat off. Since your opponent NEEDS to deal with this card if you survive the next few turns, every turn this lives is a huge bonus. Even combo decks can rarely afford to let this little guy resolve.
People often side him out in matches like Burn or Combo, and that is a mistake. He is just that good. If nothing else, he can block a Goblin Guide, or eat a burn spell meant for your head. Even if he survives, think of it this way: every card you draw is a Time Walk. Even if you take damage, as long as the damage is less than the average damage taken by the cards in your opponents deck (add the total damage dealt by a burn deck and divide it by 60), you are still ahead.
4 Deathrite Shaman: A one-mana planeswalker. Not only that, he has two toughness, which is an inexplicable bonus, and he can be cast with either of your two primary colors. He is good on every possible level.
That having been said, people seem to exalt this guy a bit too much. He is not removal, which is a big thing, unlike Grim Lavamancer. In a format littered with things that you really wanna do 2 damage to, Deathrite Shaman's impact is more subtle. His primary ability is to catapult you a full turn ahead, being able to cast 3cc spells on turn 2, and 4cc spells on turn 3. His life-gain is especially relevant against RUG, a match-up you do not need more help with. His damage dealing is the same as the Grim Lavamancers, but you rarely use him as such early on.
Finally, he is a good maindeck-able hate card against Reanimator, Life from the Loam, Snapcaster, Dredge, and various other insane strategies.
4 Tarmogoyf: People have played less than 4, and some have played zero. I can safely say that they are probably incorrect, or a mad genius.
Tarmogoyf is nothing new, and whatever people said about him, I am sure they said it better than I could. He is huge, for two mana, and more importantly, he can stand up to other people playing their own Tarmogoyfs. I would play 4.
3-4 Bloodbraid Elf: Bloodbraid Elf is a marquee player in Jund decks ever since inception, and people have tried them in legacy before, to average success. In a deck designed to have the best 1-for-1's, a card that does something and leaves behind a 3/2 hasted body has got to be good.
It is, but there are several drawbacks that make BBE a different animal in Legacy than it does in Modern.
First, there are less permanents in a lot of legacy decks. Control and Combo decks often have little to no non-land permanents, and a large part of your deck is removal. Getting an Abrupt Decay or a Ligthning Bolt will never be completely dead, but it is not really something you want in certain match-ups. Flipping a Thoughtseize when you need a creature is similarly weak.
The random aspect of this card can be a problem, given that it costs 4 mana. It doesn't mean that it is bad, but like in Modern, you have to know when to cast it, and this is a reason why most players do not play the full four.
There are two reasons, however, why this card is incredibly powerful. First, it will require two cards to deal with. Jund is really good at attrition, and often your opponent will have nothing in hand. An unanswered 3/2 haste creature by itself is a problem, even on turns 3 or 4, if it flips over a Tarmogoyf that requires more immediate removal.
Secondly, yes, it can flip you into a victory. Cascade still happens, no matter what your opponent does (short of a Stifle), and while they can counter your cascaded-into card instead of the BBE, you still traded 1-for-1 and have a hasty Delver on the ground. Not bad.
0-2 Huntmaster of the Fells: I think it was Brian Kibler that, at one point, lamented Modern Jund as being a amalgamation of cards that do the exact same thing, and posited it as a reason why Jund is unhealthy for the format.
We cannot possibly ignore anything Brian says. We have to try everything that might be good, and this is where I am now.
Huntmaster might not be the best idea, and it might not be as good as BBE. However it does bring certain things to the table.
First and foremost, you can cast into an empty board. With BBE, you do not want to waste the cascade. Cascading into a Lightning Bolt is fine, but getting an Abrupt Decay or a spare Liliana is a waste. Huntmaster is perfect in a top-deck war. It leaves behind a 2/2 Wolf if he gets removed, it gains you life, which could end up mattering, and most importantly, if it flips, acts as removal, and a monster.
Bloodbraid does 6 damage over two turns. Huntmaster could do at least 4, and quite possibly 8, including the spare Wolf. Obviously he is a Lightning Rod for removal, however, Abrupt Decay doesn't hit it, the wolf still lives, and once he flips, he is surprisingly difficult to deal with. Sadly, Abrupt Decay WILL hit the night side, but that's life.
You have to decide which 4-drop you want to use. This isn't modern, where you can use both.
0-2 Scavenging Ooze: This card suffered more than any other by the advent of Deathrite Shaman, but Ooze is still incredibly potent as a creature. I played four of them and I never regretted it. Unanswered, it single-handedly beats RUG Delver and other decks, and it can get you out of a tight jam when you draw it after a prolonged creature battle with the various decks.
The problem is that Deathrite Shaman is just... better, since it's pretty much a one-mana planeswalker. However, I would still try to find space for this guy in the maindeck, maybe only as a 1 or 2-of, because whatever was said for Shaman, this is almost as good, and it can remove a lot of cards very quickly. Remember to always use up your green mana if there are cards your opponent can use in their graveyards, unless you do not have enough to have it survive Lightning Bolt tricks.
Finally, remember that it does require a lot of green mana, so manage your lands carefully.
0-2 Grim Lavamancer: It's a testament to how good Grim Lavamancer was if people still play him when they have Deathrite Shaman.
Grim Lavamancer is removal, simply put. He is slow, but unanswered, he invalidates entire decks. This is a reoccuring theme in Jund. He only has one toughness, which makes him vulnerable to all sorts of commonly (and less commonly played removal), such as Forked Bolt and Darkblast.
He has been marginalized heavily with the release of Return to Ravnica, but still finds a home in slower, more grindy Jund lists.
Chapter 3: Jund removal:
The second aspect of Jund is the heavy removal suite that it plays.
2-4 Abrupt Decay: The new kid on the removal block. Really, I cannot think of the last card that was as good as this thing. An instant "remove everything" is good. Again, people have extolled the virtues of Abrupt Decay for months-on-end, and whatever I can add is not going to make a dent.
However, I do feel the need to add what it cannot kill: Jace, Elspeth, Show and Tell monstrosities, Hero of Bladehold, and man-lands. Luckily, you have other cards that can brutalize Jace, but the others are a real issue for Jund. Thankfully, the ability to kill absolutely EVERYTHING else makes this a mainstay until they print something better.
4 Lightning Bolt: One mana, kill most things. Creatures, planeswalkers, win Tarmogoyf wars, and even end the game a turn quicker, since, you know, everything is a Time Walk. Lightning Bolt has been a staple of control and aggro decks since the beginning of time in 1993, and there will never be another card in Jund colors that is as good as this card.
Sideboarding out Bolts almost never happens, not even against decks where they have no creatures. Even combo can be raced alongside your discard, and there are far more useless cards to take out.
1-2 Maelstrom Pulse: Maelstrom Pulse is a card for the people that want to make sure they are able to kill any one card the opponent can possibly play. It is not wrong to include a number of these in your 75. For a while, I employed two in the sideboard to deal with certain annoyances like Leylines, Helms, Energy Fields, Planeswalkers and the like.
At one point I believed this to be too slow, because I was enamored with Abrupt Decay. I no longer believe this to be the case, and 1 (preferably 2) in the 75 is the correct number. Even 1 in the maindeck is fine. It is really good, and can deal with stuff the rest of your stuff cannot. I once considered Engineered Explosives. This is better.
2-4 Punishing Fire: I once played 4 Lightning Bolts and 4 Punishing Fires, and it was good. This was, however, before Abrupt Decay became a card.
What is good and what is bad about Punishing Fires? First, the good:
- You have a reoccuring source of damage. Punishing Fire, in multiples and with a lot of mana, is incredibly effective as a viable end game.
- More removal for stuff that is annoying, including Dark Confidant, Deathrite Shaman, Stoneforge Mystic, various aggro creatures, and so on
- Good planeswalker solution, especially Liliana. Jace is only slightly more resilient since he can tick up with 2 counters.
- If Lingering Souls becomes ubiquitous, this is a great way to snipe those damned tokens.
And now, what is bad about Punishing Fires
- You need to find space in the deck without weakening an aspect. You can either exchange it for Lightning Bolt or Abrupt Decay, which seems the easiest solution, or you can run it alongside them.
- Two mana for two damage is not exactly something to get excited about.
- Deathrite Shaman and Wasteland are very popular
- Your mana base is weaker. You cannot fetch Grove of the Burnwillows, and thus need to play at least 2 or 3, most likely 3.
I have seen people remove Wastelands to fit in Punishing Fire, and I think that is a mistake. As I mentionned above, in the mana lands section, you have 3 lands that are sort of floaters, and you can certainly put in Groves in that spot.
Both Lightning Bolt and Abrupt Decay, I think, are better, but again, Jund is a deck that functions best if tailored to the pilot. It is not wrong per se to trim or eliminate those cards for Punishing Fires, and if your metagame asks for it, certainly go ahead. I am just saying I would not play less than 4 Lightning Bolt if I could help it.
Nowadays, with Young Pyromancer making the rounds, Punishing Fire is again really good. They also seem to run away from using Wasteland, so the Groves are safer.
3-4 Liliana of the Veil: For long I have advocated one thing: if Jace is the God Emperor of Planeswalkers, then Liliana is the god-damned Empress. No one I know actually disagreed with me, but people keep underestimating how absolutely devastating she can be.
First of all, unlike all other non-Jace Planeswalkers, she has three relevant abilities, not just two and a meaning-less game-ending Ultimate that you only activate when you won the game anyway. Her Ultimate comes into play a lot sooner than most, and given the way she works and Jund is build, you will get there a lot. She only costs three, which is insane. She can come down on turn 2, thanks to Deathrite Shaman, and she single-handedly wins the game. You are rarely required to discard something relevant, and she is your out to many problems, such as incremental advantage cards of control and the broken combo pieces.
Where is Liliana bad? Never. It really is that simple. At worst, against brutal streamlined decks like Show and Tell and Burn, she's a Time Walk. At best, even then, she can take over the game. Show and Tell needs two cards to function, and if you can land her and use your discard to lower their hand size, you are in business.
People mention Lingering Souls. I question why they bring it up. Yes, she is not stellar against it, mostly because both her abilities do very little against it. This is all true, but it is irrelevant. Not very many decks play it (Wijaya's deck in Denver did, and Cox lost to it, but it happens), and you can always side out a couple of Liliana. Lingering Souls is a pretty damn good card against you, but it's not because of Liliana.
Chapter 4: Discard and miscelaneous
There are three cards that are relevantly used in Jund maindecks that fit the pattern of straight discard:
Thoughtseize
Chains of Mephistopheles
This is an entirely new section, cutting from what was below. I strongly believe the correct way is to play a 4/2 split of the above cards in the maindeck.
Obviously Chains is not a card that people have lying around but it is very powerful. People maindeck Pyroblasts now in large quantities (seriously, 3 Pyroblast maindeck), and that's a fine choice.
Chains is an incredibly powerful card, able to shut down 25% of their deck in one fell swoop, and completely changing everything. If they do not have a kill condition and you are not at low life, this card just wins. The knock on Jund is that there is no Brainstorm (true), so you can't filter, and you must draw into the correct half of your deck naturally (true).
Now the same applies to your opponent's blue deck, and your stuff is better than theirs, because your stuff does stuff and their stuff does nothing.
People heralded the introduction of Treasure Cruise as the deathknell of Jund. Chains maindeck makes Jund more powerful than it ever was at any point, I believe. Of course, you still have the issue that you cannot filter, and Chains is really good on turn 2, not turn 21. However, keep in mind you are still a deck that murders everything that is on the field with your (often reoccuring) removal, so at some point, you will draw into the correct solution.
Inquisition of Kozilek
Hymn to Tourach
Cabal Therapy
Depending on your removal and creatures, you can fit anywhere from four to seven discard cards in the maindeck. The question is, which of the three is best? Let us take them one by one.
Inquisition of Kozilek is my personal favorite, although it seems to have fallen out of favor with the printing of, you guessed it, Abrupt Decay. The reasoning (by Drew Levin I believe), is that you already have ways to get rid of stuff with casting cost 0 -> 3. This is true, and it is quite possible Thoughtseize is the correct choice.
The issue becomes your life. Decks in Legacy have the very annoying ability to lower your life significantly out of nowhere, or effectively overwhelm you when at low life. Between burn, Dark Confidant, fetch-lands, and Thoughtseize, your life could disappear in a moment. I am a great fan of Inquisition of Kozilek. Every Thoughtseize means one less spell needed for your Storm opponent to kill you. This is not trivial. Often, Storm players will have an easier time casting one less spell, and more crucially, they will have a much easier time SEEING the play-line. This is not often considered, but it is true. Storm players will lose to themselves more than any other players, and every bonus -2 life you can give them will help them exponentially.
Out of the cards that Inquisition does not hit, well, you can just see above, in the "What doesn't Abrupt Decay hit" section. They are still a very serious concern.
Hymn to Tourach is a card that goes in and out of decklists more than almost any other card, including Force of Wills. One week, people are extolling the virtue of how good this card is, and the next, they are saying it is absolutely horrible.
Think of it this way. It's a 2-for-1, and people are removing Force of Will (the defining card of TWO formats) saying it's a bad card... because you 2-for-1 yourself. I am a great proponent for Hymn to Tourach. You have such a reach against most decks, with the ability to generally remove anything, that Hymn can just WIN the game for you right away.
At the beginning of this rant, I said that there are four to seven discard spots in your deck (not including Liliana), and sometimes this could affect which cards you choose. You also could store discard cards in your sideboard (against certain decks where your board removal is useless), so this further impacts what you can use.
Thoughtseize over Inquisition comes down to how many times you think you will face aggro and burn over blue control or combo. Evaluate, and add accordingly. A 2/3 split (either way) also works, but you will sometimes stumble upon an Inqusition late-game when you really want a Thoughtseize. Generally, discard, especially Inquisition, lose potency over the long game, so that's another thing.
If you have seven spots, use 4 TS/IoK and 3 Hymns. Curving your discard on turns 1 -> 3 (culminating with Liliana) is obscene, and will probably win you the game if you can somehow deal with their turn 1 play, if they sneaked it by. You probably can.
4 or 5 discard probably means no Hymns, unless you want to JUST use Hymn to Tourach. It could work.
1-2 Sylvan Library: Not much to be said other than what I said above. Free Sensei's Divining Top, possibly a free Ancestral Recall, this card can single-handedly win you attrition match-ups.
So why only play 1? The theory is that multiples suck, especially when you draw them. This is true, but remember a few things:
- You can discard it to Liliana.
- If you don't draw it in your opening hand, your first Sylvan will ensure you never draw it.
- Your library CAN be killed or countered, and people do so judiciously.
- You can go look at 5 cards with two Sylvans. Since you need to resolve the triggers separately, you will need to pay 4 life to see one extra card, or 8 to see both.
All in all, if you have the space, it is not a tragedy to play two of this incredible card.
1-2 Sensei's Divining Top
This is exclusive with Sylvan Library. Do not use both. Just don't do it.
Eli Kassis, the brilliant mind, suggested this. I of course did not see the forest because of the trees... in an entirely different forest.
Library and Chains do not work. If you even peek at a certain card, you have to discard one first, and still pay 4 life to keep the one you drew. Bad idea. Of course, you do NOT have to peek at all, since Library is a may, but idiots like me absolutely will forget.
Sensei's will do for you the same thing it does for Miracles. Filter. You still cannot draw a card without discarding, but at least you can peek. You lose the bomb of paying 4 life to straigh-up draw a card, so the decision will come down to that.
0-2 Life from the Loam: When I saw the Dredge mechanic spoiled in the original Ravnica, I was besides myself. It does WHAT?
Wizards R&D claimed they would have to be hit by the bus to print something like Mana Drain again. They sure got hit by lots of busses since, it seems. Dredge, as a mechanic, is broken. Life from the Loam, as a card, in a format with Wasteland, is doubly so.
This is not Aggro Loam. You do not have endless Cycle-lands to build an engine around. Life from the Loam functions strictly as a bomb that will allow you to thin your library with fetchlands, wasteland your opponent down to no non-basic lands, and protect your lands, getting them back if they want to play the land destruction game. Thus, Life sucks in multiples, far worse than Sylvan, but with two instead of one, you have a greater chance to draw it in the matches where it matters most.
Chapter 5: Lands
4 Wasteland: As I ranted about above, Wasteland is such a core card in this format, one could almost say it defines Legacy. Playing less than four is madness.
One adage that people adhere is the importance of your lands is directly proportional to how many Wastelands you are playing. If your lands are less important than your opponents, play more Wastelands. The reverse is also true. I do not agree with this completely, but it can be true. Your effifient removal allows you to attack their mana base while using your life as a buffer. This is especially true against BUG or RUG, decks where you can kill any of their permanent lands.
Bloodstained Mire
Verdant Catacombs
Wooded Foothills
Fetchlands are another core of Legacy, and people debate what to play with them. In Modern, without Wasteland, your Deathrite Shamans are a liability sometimes, thus requiring you to play more. In Legacy, this isn't the case, so you do not need to go overboard.
I believe 9 fetchlands is the correct number. Depending on your build, you could try 3 each of the above if you have all three basic lands. If not, adjust accordingly, but remember, your deck needs black the most, then green, then finally red. Something like 4/3/2 or 4/4/1 of the above is probably correct.
Mountain
Forest
Swamp
Badlands
Bayou
Taiga
With 4 Wastelands and 9 Fetchlands, you have about 11 actual lands that produce mana. You need to split them amongst those two categories.
A default group would be one of each basic land, two of each dual lands, and I do not recommend going below this number for each. You want basic lands to fight off against aggressive decks packing wastelands, because you want your removal and discard to always be live. You need dual lands because of cards like Liliana and either BBE or Huntmaster will put a strain on your mana, especially the double black of Liliana.
The final two lands I recommend to be a swamp, and another Bayou or a Badlands. This will give you enough black to be effective, and not skimp on the other colors. In some match-ups, if you get Life from the Loam, the basic forest becomes critical.
Chapter 6: Experimental Cards
Lingering Souls
Now, this is a card that keeps popping up in various decklists across all non-Vintage formats. It made a huge splash in Modern Jund at GP: Chicago as a way to fight other Jund decks, and address the weaknesses to Infect and Affinity and other random aggro.
It does all of that. The question now becomes, is it good in Legacy, and is it good in Legacy Jund?
It is very good in Legacy. Tom Martell won GP:Indianapolis back in March 2012 with that card. You get, overall, 4 1/1 flying spirits for 5 mana, which is not exactly broken when it comes to power for mana (I mean, Tarmogoyf!), but the fact that there is so many...
But what you did notice is that Lingering Souls is a DEFENSIVE card at heart. It is used to stall things coming your way. Now, which match-ups do you want to stall things?
Goblins and Affinity are two good options. Being able to block and kill Signal Pest and other annoyances is great. Goblins usually wins by chaining Ringleaders and Siege-Gang Commanders, which will quickly overwhelm you without a sweeper, so I am not entirely convinced that it helps.
Finally Elves and Infect either win through a monstrous rush or before Lingering Souls becomes active, although Deathrite Shaman definitely helps the Infect match-up.
There is one more match-up: Deadguy Ale/Rock. They do not run sweepers in general, and they are an annoying match-up. They run Lingering Souls and Bitterblossoms to clog up the board, and you might need the extra punch of Lingering Souls to keep up. It will not make that match-up any less annoying, but it could be something.
Now I will tell you why I don't think you should play this in Jund.
First of all, you need white, and that means at least one extra dual land, which will have to replace a basic land. This isn't a tragedy, but it is definitely something to consider. You are making your mana base significantly worse, and some of the decks where Lingering Souls helps against have Wastelands. This is a bit of a "robbing Peter to pay Paul" type of scenario.
Secondly, you do not have equipment. Yes, you notice that Rock/Deadguy/Tom Martell all have/had equipment to slap on a token and go to town with. You do not. This might sound like a small complaint, but small complaints do add up.
Thirdly, this is not modern. Combo decks are everywhere, and Souls is very slow. You might have enough control elements to not die on turn 3, but you still need to present a clock, and Lingering Souls is not a serious clock. It also takes up a lot of mana which might be better spent elsewhere.
So, all in all, I do not think this is going beyond experimental. I would like to be proven wrong, however.
Ulvenwald Tracker
Homer: [ahem] A lot of you would think I was crazy if I did this. [burns a dollar bill]
Burns: He's crazy!
A lot of you would think I am crazy for suggesting this. Isn't Grim Lavamancer strictly better?
Grim Lavamancer is a fantastic card, burning up things left and right, and going after the opponent when there is nothing that he can kill. However, he suffers from several problems:
- Lavamancer is very graveyard dependant, and you need to not forget about your Tarmogoyf, Deathrite Shaman and your opponent doing unsightly things as well.
- Lavamancer cannot kill some of the larger monsters that you need to take down, including Tombstalker and Hero of Bladehold.
- Lavamancer is bad in multiples, so Ulvenwald Tracker could function as suplemental Lavamancers.
So, what does this guy do well? For once, he can quickly remove an opposing Dark Confidant, Snapcaster Mage, Vendillion Clique by himself. So in a way, he acts as removal. He does this even early, when your graveyard is not as full as you would like.
He has a lot of synergy with Tarmogoyf as well. First, you win Tarmogoyf wars. It is a good trade to clear an opposing Tarmogoyf with this guy. Secondly, it turns a Tarmogoyf into a killing machine of opposing creatures, as he will survive whatever you want to kill. It is not unlikely to be able to snipe down a Tombstalker with a 5/6, which Tarmogoyfs will be usually in the long game.
I do not think this will break the format in half, and it might be less effective than Lavamancer even given the above, but it's worth keeping in mind. I will certainly test one.
Strangleroot Geist
Antonius suggested this little guy and he certainly is interesting. First, let me tell you that the persist and undying mechanic (especially undying) are a favorite of mine... this is legacy.
Path to Exile is a card that is fairly common in Modern, and less so in Legacy. Swords to Plowshares however, is a 4-of in a lot of decks, including Junk.
That being said, Strangleroot Geist might just be good enough to circumvent this, whereas Kitchen Finks and Geralf's Messenger might not, despite those being superior cards.
Each card has their advantages. Finks gain you 2 life, the Messenger drains them 2 life, and the Geist has haste and costs one less, which ultimately is what drew me to it over any other.
A lot of people will look at Finks and GM as a do-nothing on turn 3 against combo, and they would be right. The Geist comes in one turn earlier, and is already in business, leaving your third turn to either keep mana open to deal with the broken-ness or use a discard spell to help slow them down.
Furthermore, the undying mechanic has one more bonus with a card that was recently promoted to maindeck instead of experimental, Cabal Therapy.
I talked (or will talk, as of this writing) about Cabal Therapy a lot, because there is a lot to talk about, but having an undying creature grow bigger from the flashback cost is really nice. Unlike Lingering Souls, the Geist is quick and does similar things on defense, albeit on the ground, and generally shouldn't be defending anyway.
You need to play 3-4 of these guys to get any benefit, 4 most likely, and it does speed your deck up.
Searing Blaze
Another Antonius suggested card, Searing Blaze has long been a staple of some burn decks, and it might have a home in Jund.
First, it passes the "Jund damage test", being able to act as removal. Doing 3 damage to your opponent and sniping something is very good. It still sadly doesn't kill big things, and it is conditional upon Landfall, which generally we can work around if we control the lands we play.
Keep in mind that Searing Blaze has two targets. You need to be able to target both the player and their creature to cast it, which makes it as useful as an air conditioner on the ice planet Hoth when they have a Nimble Mongoose out.
This will not be a 4-of in any Jund deck, but I could see it being a 2-of in a more burn heavy build.
Chainer’s Edict
Diabolic Edict
Matt Pavlic, I think, suggested this card, and people have done well with it. I bunch both of them together because the differences are clearly visible, however, the cards to the precise same thing: They make them sacrifice a creature that you probably could not kill otherwise.
This is a Liliana of the Veil for cheaper. The one black mana does make a lot of difference, especially since you can cast it on turn 2, or even have Daze backup on turn 2 with a Deathrite Shaman. This is a big deal.
So why Chainer’s over Diabolic? Matt suggests that the flashback is relevant, as hitting 7 mana is possible and more important than it being instant. Let’s look at the instances where the card is even necessary:
- Show and Tell / Sneak Attack-> Emrakul (Griselbrand hitting the field is a problem regardless of which card)
- True-Name Nemesis
Against Show and Tell, of course, having Diabolic Edict in response to them Emrakul-ing is pretty good, the card could win the game right there and then. It is *unlikely* that it will always work, but it will give you some percentages.
Against TNN, of course, Chainer’s is probably more relevant. The stupid Merfolk has a way about it to make the game go long, and squeezing every little bit out of your cards could be the winning ticket. So I think that it comes down to that. Decks running TNN don’t have an over abundance of mana, so theoretically, you could overload them anyway, and you would do that by casting something at the end of their turn, so even Diabolic is fine in that situation. Either way, this is a powerful effect and warrants inclusion.