Personally, I don't like the Punishing Fire combo....
I've never played it, so i may not be the right person to discuss this combo, but in my local meta, you rarely see it, simply because of faster decks and a lot of Surgicals :D
I'm thinking that this deck wants to "rape" the board, with creatures, specially Bloodbraid Elf, which can cascade into everything in the deck, making a board presence, like no other... But then again.... Maybe I'm thinking in Jund in many other ways, than you guys :D
Although I can imagine, that our local danish meta, isn't that different from your local meta's, I intend to keep you posted on our meta, hopefully to contribute a little to your chances of winning :)
Jund is "better" because you get a haste 3/2 2-for-1. While this is good sometimes, it's not good other times, which is why Junk and Jund jockey for position.
In all honesty, I think you want to be the control deck, not a Sligh deck. Just run good things and out-value other people with your BBE's and Hymns.
Chains is VERY good, but gets better when people start to shift back to the Visions builds of UW for the long game. Then you just slide a Chains under a ticking Visions and watch the opponent cry.
-Matt
Just make sure if you have Chains down, you don't activate your Sylvan Library (unless you want to have a painful Careful Study).
-Matt
Chains is awesome against Blue decks, but a nonbo with Dark Confidant...? Maybe worth it anyway.
Whack lists currently playing:
Rector Nic Fit
Bizarro Stormy
Rest In Pieces
Awesome primer!
I disagree though regarding Miracles - no way this is a difficult matchup, especially if you're running Punishing Fire. I'd say Jund is even favored post-board, once you take out all your discard and replace them with something usable for a long game. Jund as a deck is well suited to a grindfest. The only thing you fear out of Miracles is an Entreat. Heck, probably the best game plan Miracles have against you is to rush an Entreat. All the other cards they have you have answers.
Now if you try to be faster... you are roadkill.
Any matchup can be difficult, drawing bad, making bad plays etc, etc ;)
From my point of view, I would say RUG Delver, but I'm not entirely sure..
Anyways, this is my current decklist, comments are welcome:
1x Wooded Foothills
3x Bloodstained Mire
4x Wasteland
1x Forest
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3x Bayou
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Mountain
1x Taiga
2x Badlands
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Swamp
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Thoughtseize
4x Hymn to Tourach
2x Chains of Mephistopheles
3x Abrupt Decay
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Liliana of the Veil
4x Dark Confidant
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Bloodbraid Elf
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Sylvan Library
Maindeck that is - ;) - and so far, I'm looking forward to playing it. I feel that the discard suite of spells suits the deck really well, not taking to much damage from Thoughtseizes, and you gotta love Hymn - in my oppinion the best discard spell in the game.. I know that my deck is way off, from some other decklists I've seen so far, but I think that Chains, should be a part of the deck. The ability to make the opponents brainstorms and the like, a discard spell..... Wow :D
The decks strengths are the blue based midrange decks, and postboard is excellent against UW imho. Being able to play cards with better value and draw more cards is what wins the games. 4 Bob, 2 Sylvan, 4 BBE, 1-2 Jitte, 2-3 Liliana help you control the midgame much better than other decks (although Jace is an all-star in the mid game). Add on top of that 2 for 1 disruption like Hymn and Pulse. These make it hard for decks to keep up.
The weaknesses are against straight aggro and blue based tempo decks. Being able to delver/mongoose/shaman, stifle, waste you is a great way to beat a mid-range non-brainstorm deck. I really love the deck but opt not to play in a meta where at least 30% of the field is RUG/BUG/URDelver. Their ponders/brianstorms -> daze are better than your libraries and confidants, and their wastes can cut you off of BB/RG fairly easily. Jund is much more dependent on a turn 1 Shaman than most other decks.
As for Jitte, I think it's too good to not play at least 1 of, and maybe even a second copy is worth it. I think it's better in the format currently than copies 3/4 of Liliana. It's more proactive, and dominates the board much easier, and can also be more difficult to answer.
Here's the problem I have with Chains is that it helps a matchup that doesn't need help. It's best as a board card against Jace decks (and not as good as Sulfuric Vortex), and is a dud against many other decks. I'm not impressed by it, and imho is the definition of "win-more" in the deck. Also, I'm not a fan of IoK if you're not already running 4 thoughtseize. Sure they hit many of the same cards, but Thoughteize hits Jace, Tombstalker, BBE, Force, Ringleaders, and pretty much any other non-goyf win conditions that decks run. The 2 life is worth it.
Surgical extraction would affect any of your other removal much the same way, so I don't see how that is applicable to Punishing Fires. Actually, I think Punishing Fires would be advantageous against Surgical Extraction, because if they try to extract it, you can pay R and you fizzle their extraction, effectively netting you one card and 1 life (you give them one from Grove) and a wasted sideboard for RR. What a deal.
This is assuming you have 3 untapped lands, 1 of which is a grove. This is also assuming they wont surgical in response to your attempt to retrieve it. I'm not a huge fan of PFires in Jund as well. Paying 5 mana to kill a Nacatl, Ape etc is stupid imho. Sure it kills delvers, but so does every removal spell in the format.
Three mana untapped is never an issue as Deathrite Shaman and a mana source is always untapped for me until the end of my opponent's turn. If they time the extraction, great, I lost 2 other cards that I might have drawn. If they did that to you, you'd have lost more Chain Lightnings.
Also, maybe I play in a different metagame than you, but Kird Apes and Wild Nacatls died with Zoo. I haven't seen them in like 6 months. If that's really a problem for you, then you may need to play Chain Lightnings. I also run Lightning Bolt and Abrupt Decay for if those creatures do in fact become a problem. The fact of the matter is Punishing Fires is recurring, making it must more scary for decks like Delver because they run limited amount of beaters that could all die to one card. That's card advantage they cannot deal with.
If they extract me in response with a second extraction, I'd be quite happy with that. Again, a 2 for 1.
I think it depends on the timing firing a surgical against P. fire, activation of a grove (for R) giving opponent 1 free life the P. fire triggers and opponent can response to that throwing a surgical extraction targeting the P. fire assuming you have 1 grove (w/c is already tap for R) the P. fire will be extracted, but if you have multiple groves on the field extracting P.fire will be difficult to your opponent. Btw if i'm free this coming saturday i will test grove/P.fire combo in a jund deck cuz my reasons are:
1) it can win against mirror matches
2) unlimited ammunition w/c is good against midrange decks (w/c is our local meta)
3) it can grind your opponent life points
4) it can grind planeswalker loyalty counters w/c i assume most of the jund MD cards doesnt interact against PW (decay only kills liliana as a 3cc PW).
On the build i'm still brainstorming about the whole composition.
Thanks!
Ok, I get it. So Surgical Extraction may be an issue, but it won't impact the game any differently than if they were to use Surgical Extraction Chain Lightnings, so I am still an advocate of Punishing Fires. You can also remove your Punishing Fires with Deathrite Shaman to save your future Punishing Fires from getting nuked, if you so choose to do it that way.
Be careful because ancestral vision targets a player, so chains are not that effective. It's biggest merit is to invalidate brainstorm and jace though.
I imagine that they would still target themselves, rather than the opponent. Discarding three off chains sucks, but if I resolved a Visions, I'd still rather discard three and draw three than target my opponent. Even though you don't get any card advantage, you can fix your hand by keeping your good cards and discarding your bad ones.
I see more than others do because I know where to look.
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