[Deck] Jund

I have been having really good results lately with non-punishing jund.

I switched back after losing quite a few matches to UR pyromancer, and I have to say that being lower to the ground seems really good right now.

I have dropped games to Stoneblade and Miracles since making the switch, but pretty much everything else seems better.

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Dark Confidant
1 Scavenging Ooze

4 Lightning Bolt
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Maelstrom Pulse

1 Sylvan Library

4 Thoughtseize
3 Hymn to Tourach

4 Liliana of the Veil

1 Taiga
2 Bayou
3 Badlands
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills

SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Choke
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Life from the Loam
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge

Very Similar to Jellydonut's list if I am not mistaken.

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Originally Posted by ironclad8690

Very Similar to Jellydonut's list if I am not mistaken.

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I mean, once you cut Punishing Fire, there's a few pretty straight forward options. I picked another Sylvan Library and a Golgari Charm mainboard over the Rude Ooze and one of the Hymn to Tourachs, but otherwise it's pretty damn close to what I'm running.

One thing I have to ask is about the "dropped" games to Stoneblade and Miracles. Punishing Fire is obviously great against Stoneblade, but I have to ask, did you for a fact drop the games because you chose not to have Punishing Fire or did you drop the games and happen to not be running Punishing Fire?

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Originally Posted by iamajellydonut

I mean, once you cut Punishing Fire, there's a few pretty straight forward options. I picked another Sylvan Library and a Golgari Charm mainboard over the Rude Ooze and one of the Hymn to Tourachs, but otherwise it's pretty damn close to what I'm running.

One thing I have to ask is about the "dropped" games to Stoneblade and Miracles. Punishing Fire is obviously great against Stoneblade, but I have to ask, did you for a fact drop the games because you chose not to have Punishing Fire or did you drop the games and happen to not be running Punishing Fire?

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Get those Hymns out of there. Card's not what is used to be. You fill their yard with cards for Cruise!


4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Thoughtseize
3 Punishing Fire
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Sylvan Library
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Koth of the Hammer

3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Bayou
1 Taiga
3 Badlands
3 Wasteland
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Forest
1 Swamp


SB: 2 Slaughter Games
SB: 2 Chains of Mephistopheles
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 3 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Nihil Spellbomb

Creature quite is maxed out on the good stuff. You could argue about squeezing an Ooze in there, but that's up to you. My old 3 Thoughtseize/3 Hymn standby is going to be switched to 4 Thoughtseize and 2 Inquisition. Inquisition doesn't grab Cruise nor Jace, but sometimes you just need to hit those TNN's, SFM's, and such. I'm running triple Fires, Decay, and Bolt split, which I've liked. Sometimes you want the 4th decay, and sometimes you want more Bolts. I've loaded up Sylvans since you need to keep up with the Cruise card advantage. REB replaced Diabolic Edict because Edict doesn't hit Cruise, and a surprise maindeck REB will likely do some work. I have yet to play extensively with it, but UR has been trying it in some cases and has had success. It also kills Delver, Jace, TNN on the stack, CB on the stack, etc. Koth is another addition over Liliana since there's much fewer TNN's than there were 8 months ago, it's a house against Control since they have no way to remove it, and it's a threat that's easy to cast under Blood Moon, which will see more popularity against 3-colour Delver cruise decks.

-Matt

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Originally Posted by iamajellydonut

One thing I have to ask is about the "dropped" games to Stoneblade and Miracles. Punishing Fire is obviously great against Stoneblade, but I have to ask, did you for a fact drop the games because you chose not to have Punishing Fire or did you drop the games and happen to not be running Punishing Fire?

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I have been dying to Jace way more than I am used to. With Punishing, I almost never lost to Jace ultimate, but since I have switched to non Punishing, I have lost several times. I do pack pyroblast in my board, but I feel like they have all been fatesealed away with all of my bloodbraids.

The nice thing is that against the Jace decks Choke can preemptively stop them for long enough to completely overwhelm them.

If you guys have any tips about the Jace matchups, I am all ears. Back in my Zoo days it was get lucky with burn timing, pyroblast, or bust.

Can somebody explain where the consistency in Jund comes from at this point?

There are no cantrips to fix the opening hand. The first real card advantage/selection comes on line turn 3 with Dark Confidant and Sylvan Library. The best early game bomb, Hymn to Tourach, has been weakened by the inclusion of blue delve cards. The mid game engine with Grove of the Burnwillows and Punishing Fire is now DoA in front of UR Delver. It just seems like whatever this list was at it's highpoint is no longer viable in a long tournament.

Is there a place to go with this list that will increase the consistency or has it just reached it's Rock-like endgame?

I'm not sure how many of you play Modern Jund but I wanted to tell my sad story here. I played in a local 4 round tournament this Monday and had my UWR opponent at 1 life while I was at 3. He was hellbent and I had lethal on the board. He drew his card and it was Dig through Time. I lost.

In Game 2 he was at 2 life and I had a 6/6 ooze on the board. He was hellbent and he drew... wait for it... Dig through Time which allowed him to find a Path for my ooze and we ended up going to time which made me lose because I lost G1 :(

Now that I got that out of my system, I like the question that the previous poster had written. I have some legitimate concerns with Jund going forward in both Modern and Legacy. I agree that Punishing Fire may be too slow now for the URx decks. Also, I am curious on your thoughts on how this impacts Goyf with so much Delve being playable now. I fear that with them delving, or us being proactive against their graveyard, Goyf may not be as reliable as he once was to be so big.

What are your thoughts on the impact of Dig and Treasure?

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Originally Posted by afedelejr

I'm not sure how many of you play Modern Jund but I wanted to tell my sad story here. I played in a local 4 round tournament this Monday and had my UWR opponent at 1 life while I was at 3. He was hellbent and I had lethal on the board. He drew his card and it was Dig through Time. I lost.

In Game 2 he was at 2 life and I had a 6/6 ooze on the board. He was hellbent and he drew... wait for it... Dig through Time which allowed him to find a Path for my ooze and we ended up going to time which made me lose because I lost G1 :(

Now that I got that out of my system, I like the question that the previous poster had written. I have some legitimate concerns with Jund going forward in both Modern and Legacy. I agree that Punishing Fire may be too slow now for the URx decks. Also, I am curious on your thoughts on how this impacts Goyf with so much Delve being playable now. I fear that with them delving, or us being proactive against their graveyard, Goyf may not be as reliable as he once was to be so big.

What are your thoughts on the impact of Dig and Treasure?

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I know we addressed it on the podcast episode that should be out later today. Edit: It's out. http://www.eternalcentral.com/everyd...us-misgivings/

Even though they're drawing more cards, the cards we're playing are consistent and powerful. Ancestral Recalling is definitely fantastic, and so is Digging Through Time, but Punishing Fire is still a good card nonetheless. Counterspells are not super effective against uncounterable spells or spells that just keep coming back. Sure, they can Delve and shrink Goyf, but that's just something we're going to have to deal with.

We have Chains and REB to deal with Cruise. Is it as good as running Cruise itself? No, but I think Jund does have the tools to still compete. You're still a dog to burn, so UR isn't likely to be favourable, but against, say, Patriot Delver or Esperblade, we should still be okay. Once my midterm is over, I'll start grinding the testing.

-Matt

What podcast?

Everyday Eternal.

I edited my previous post.

-Matt

I tried a Goyf Eidolon build a few weeks ago to a miserable finish (2-2.. but one was a terrible player and the other was a bye); but I fought Miracles and Nic Fit, so maybe my saltiness is not the decks fault.

I ran a list that looked something like:

4 DRS
4 Confidant
3 Lavamancer
3 Eidolon
4 Goyf

4 Bolt
4 Chain
4 Decay
3 Lily
5-7 Discard (don't remember)
2 Sylvan Library


The idea was that I could have too much removal for delver and a lot of pressure on combo via burn + goyf. Again, it didn't get sufficient testing, but I think Jund's way forward is probably with Eidolon and cheap burn. Lavamancer is unnecessary I think and I could easily see some kind of anti-miracles tech, like Xenagos, Garruk, or maybe still BBE.

I was trying Eidolon since it's good against a lot of decks, but really shores up Storm and other combo by simply pushing the clock. I didn't run wastes because I was running PoP out of the side to hose fair decks that could go over the top; but I didn't run into any; though I almost nutted nic-fit with PoP (he was a land short of me stealing the game.)

Anyway, after my terrible finish I went back to Junk and crushed the next tournament so I won't be back on this train for a little bit, but those are my thoughts. Eidolon, lots of Burn to keep the curve low and Mom/Delver decks honest. Goyf as you'd expect. Maybe swapping discard + lavaman for a bunch of action would do the trick? Library was a beast. One of my Nic Fit games was a mull to 4 for lands (REALLY?!) and Library allowed me to *almost* get in the game. Grave Titan ended that though. What a dumb bunch of dumb.

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Originally Posted by FoolofaTook

Can somebody explain where the consistency in Jund comes from at this point?

There are no cantrips to fix the opening hand. The first real card advantage/selection comes on line turn 3 with Dark Confidant and Sylvan Library. The best early game bomb, Hymn to Tourach, has been weakened by the inclusion of blue delve cards. The mid game engine with Grove of the Burnwillows and Punishing Fire is now DoA in front of UR Delver. It just seems like whatever this list was at it's highpoint is no longer viable in a long tournament.

Is there a place to go with this list that will increase the consistency or has it just reached it's Rock-like endgame?

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I have upped my consistency by removing grove/punishing and adding more bolts, wasteland #4, & more basics. You trade grinding power for speed & consistency. It may not have results yet, but I am convinced this is the way to go in a treasure cruise world.

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Originally Posted by ironclad8690

I have upped my consistency by removing grove/punishing and adding more bolts, wasteland #4, & more basics. You trade grinding power for speed & consistency. It may not have results yet, but I am convinced this is the way to go in a treasure cruise world.

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Are you very consistent in fixing mediocre draw lines?

What makes cards 8 through 15 winners for you? It just seems as though the consistency level required for top tier finishes has gone through the roof and I'm not sure what a list like Jund can do to keep up with that. Play 4 Sylvan Library to guarantee getting one in play a lot of the time? Find a way to play Sensei's Divining Tops to fix draw lines alongside the fetches?

Ponder, Brainstorm, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time. What does Jund have that will let it keep up with the draw lines that those 4 spells create?

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Originally Posted by FoolofaTook

Are you very consistent in fixing mediocre draw lines?

What makes cards 8 through 15 winners for you? It just seems as though the consistency level required for top tier finishes has gone through the roof and I'm not sure what a list like Jund can do to keep up with that. Play 4 Sylvan Library to guarantee getting one in play a lot of the time? Find a way to play Sensei's Divining Tops to fix draw lines alongside the fetches?

Ponder, Brainstorm, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time. What does Jund have that will let it keep up with the draw lines that those 4 spells create?

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I play 1 Mirri's Guile in my (non-punishing) Jund since it gets online faster than Sylvan Library (I play 1 Sylvan Library as well). If you are desperate you could splash a blue mana or 2 and Cruise with that and DRS mana. We could also play something like Skeletal Scrying as a black TC, but it's a bad cascade.

I still don't think Hymn deserves to be cut, as it can still be backbreaking to a lot of decks. Running 2 Scooze main deck can help eat away at their graveyard so they can't delve very well. If you have Chains, they are a great answer to TC, etc. Plus most of us still play Pyro/RE blasts in the board which counter TC.

Could Read The Bones ever be good enough for legacy? Or is 3 mana just too much

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Originally Posted by FoolofaTook

Ponder, Brainstorm, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time. What does Jund have that will let it keep up with the draw lines that those 4 spells create?

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I do not think we need to "keep up" per se. We need to play to our strengths and possibly change a couple of cards:

RUG Delver: If these guys start playing Treasure Cruise, it means that they will be playing less goyfs (even if only 1 less), cut Nimble Mongeese, and add Young Pyromancer. Liliana is less enticing here, as young pyro does good work at invalidating her. The weakness of RUG delver previously was that they didn't have good ways of beating big creatures once they have resolved, and a low threat count. Young pyro makes their big creature weakness a little better now that they can chump for days, but the creature base becomes less resilient to pinpoint removal and, also slower. It may be necessary to run maindeck sweepers to be able to clear the way of young pyro & his elemental friends. If you run a consistent mana base with enough basics to cast all of the spells in your deck, their mana denial strategy becomes weaker. I have been testing online and fetching basics on turns 1-4 makes their wastelands look stupid, especially when you start casting your Bloodbraids. Postboard submerge is still a beating, but we get more sweepers, Jitte (which is much more back breaking against new Crusie delver lists as it is a gajillion for 1 if it resolves and you connect with it), and also Pyroblast. I think this matchup is still in our favor.

BUG Delver: This matchup is tougher for sure, but we are the better midrange deck. We run more answers than they have threats, and they are cutting Liliana for Cruise. This means to me that they will have more ways of finding Abrupt Decay, but less ways to deal with creatures in general preboard. Can they let a Deathrite Live? Bob? Goyf? We just need to make sure that we overload their removal and are able to answer an early Delver. I think we definitely want to be running 4 Abrupt Decay because the only way that tempo stops our removal is by countering or making us discard, and I think in the early turns they want to commit to the Board rather than making us discard cards.

UWR Delver: If we do cut lilianas in the face of young pyromancer, we certainly want to have something that answers True-Name in her stead. The issue with running early sweepers is that it can be super awkward with our own bobs and deathrites on the board. I think as long as we keep our Young Pyro answers versatile, True-Name will not be a problem. We have removal for Delver rush, discard and ancient grudge for equipments, and efficient creatures that are either mini-planeswalking (DRS), card advantage (Bob), just really big (Tarmogoyf), or a 2 for 1 (Bbe). We may not always draw the right piece at the right time, and that can certainly hurt, but by not overexposing ourselves to wasteland we will at least be able to cast our spells on time and draw the game out until our card advantage engines come online.

UR Delver: Just try to kill everything they play as soon as possible and accept any trade with young Pyro or Swiftspear. Postboard we gets more sweepers, Jitte, and Pyroblast. Fetch basics because they will always bring in blood moon. This is a great example of why I have switched to non-punishing list: 4 basics early in the game ensures that you will be able to play the spells in your hand on curve, and blood moon doesn't necessarily blow you out. With punishing, sometimes you are off curve in the early turns and against this deck that is too back breaking to recover from. Wasteland hurts this deck more than you would think, if they fetch carelessly we can put them way behind on tempo from a single wasteland. Each land they lose is 1 less cantrip, despite being 1 more card in the yard for delving.

Esper Deathblade: I do not think this deck gives us any trouble even with Treasure Cruise and dig through time. The angles that we attack from are too many for them to overcome. Esper is scarier as they do not have as many targets for our removal which becomes more dead, but the same cards that are good vs Young Pyro are good vs Lingering souls and True-Name Nemesis. This matchup, Death and Taxes, and Painter are why I will always run some artifact hate in my board, whether it be ancient grudge, krosan grip, or seal of primordium (which pumps goyf awesomely and can't be removed by opposing deathrite/delve).

Combo: This is where Treasure Cruise and Dig will really hurt us. Depleting their hand is the best thing we can do, and postboard countering their blue spells. I think we will need to start running more permanent based hate in our sideboards/maindeck to accommodate for their increased consistency. Cards like Thorn of Amythist, Pithing/Revoker, Choke, Chains of Mephistopheles, Grafdigger's Cage, and so forth become better. Most combo does not prepare for hateful permanents when facing jund, just blanking our discard with the likes of Leyline of Sanctity.

I hope this gives perspective on how we can adjust to a Treasure Cruise and Dig through time metagame.

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Originally Posted by hovercraft

I play 1 Mirri's Guile in my (non-punishing) Jund since it gets online faster than Sylvan Library (I play 1 Sylvan Library as well). If you are desperate you could splash a blue mana or 2 and Cruise with that and DRS mana. We could also play something like Skeletal Scrying as a black TC, but it's a bad cascade.

I still don't think Hymn deserves to be cut, as it can still be backbreaking to a lot of decks. Running 2 Scooze main deck can help eat away at their graveyard so they can't delve very well. If you have Chains, they are a great answer to TC, etc. Plus most of us still play Pyro/RE blasts in the board which counter TC.

Could Read The Bones ever be good enough for legacy? Or is 3 mana just too much

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I hate stifling creativity in Legacy, but I think read the bones is not only too slow but also too ineffectual. I have to say props on mirri's guile, because I have played with that card in the past and t1 guile into t2 Bob is awesome as you can stack the triggers.

I still stand by Sylvan Library as my library manipulation of choice because against Miracles and Stoneblade the chance to draw two extra cards at the cost of 8 life is just too good to pass up. Also we can float cards on top in case of sweepers and set up our cascades to be relevant, and I think cascading into relevant cards is a necessity in the new meta. I like running two of this card right now, but it is definitely something that changes count in my mainboard often.

Edit: Sorry to post a novel. I just really think that popular players/writers are overhyping TC effects on the metagame and saying things like "Shardless BUG is dead" etc etc. They have said it about numerous archetypes in the past, but in Legacy I believe that mastering an archetype is more important than trying to "be current".

Ironclad - What is your decklist looking like with these sweepers now?

Hello Jund players, I just finished my metagame analysis for September and Jund was quite the performer, coming in at with the 4th most top 8 placings for the month. Not sure what the future holds now that blue decks have two pretty strong cards, but it seems like Jund has found a good place in the meta again.

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Originally Posted by afedelejr

Ironclad - What is your decklist looking like with these sweepers now?

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I am still trying to find the right balance, but for the time being I have 1 maindeck toxic deluge and 1 maindeck golgari charm. It is possible that this is just wrong. From the list I posted above, I have cut scavenging ooze and diabolic edict. In my testing so far (6 games) I have lost to Reanimator and Bant but beaten Oops all Spells somehow. Hoping to test more against delver and blade variants.

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Originally Posted by HSCK

Hello Jund players, I just finished my metagame analysis for September and Jund was quite the performer, coming in at with the 4th most top 8 placings for the month. Not sure what the future holds now that blue decks have two pretty strong cards, but it seems like Jund has found a good place in the meta again.

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Good news! We will see what happens with the new metagame.

The store's legacy league is starting up a new season so the burn players are gonna come out in full force again, so I'm putting Jund on the sidelines. Towards the end the Top 8 players show up and that's where I think Jund is gonna be the pinch hitter. The Top 8 players play:

Death and Taxes
RUG Delver
BUG Delver
Esper Deathblade
TES
Elves
Esper Stoneblade
Shardless BUG

A friend of mine and me are trying to disrupt the balance of power in the shop since it's just the same guys over and over again winning. My bud is taking UR Delver and then for the early run I'm gonna run U/B Reanimator and Painter only to switch to Jund if I can get to the overall Top 8. Other players tried the same thing I did but the mistake they made was Jund was their only deck so the burn players literally decimate them. I'm still not sure if it's worth modifying the deck against burn players.

I've used this list for a SCG Open type meta so I might have to find tune to deal with this meta. I really hate Death and Taxes so I might add in Massacre and/or Engineered Plagues to deal with it.

Main Deck (60)
Creatures (15)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Bloodbraid Elf
Spells (22)
1 Lightning Bolt
4 Thoughtseize
2 Sylvan Library
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Punishing Fire
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Liliana of the Veil
Lands (23)
1 Forest
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Bayou
2 Swamp
3 Badlands
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Wasteland
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Verdant Catacombs
Sideboard (15)
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroblast
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Life from the Loam
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Golgari Charm
2 Pernicious Deed


In terms of library consistency when I first started out I actually used SDT but that ended up being a huge Mana sink. Mirri's guile to me was a bit of a do nothing card at least the top can draw me a card. Library was the best of both, it helped improve draws but didn't do anything on the turn it came down beside make miracles players groan if they didn't have a counterspell.

Cut the Hymns. I'm glad people are finally getting on board the Library train.

-Matt

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Originally Posted by sdematt

Cut the Hymns. I'm glad people are finally getting on board the Library train.

-Matt

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I feel like we would need more permanent based combo hate to do this. It could be right though.

I will test inquisitions as well. Oh boy! Even less of my deck will need to be switched around for modern each week!