Doesn't this deck just suck without Grove/PunFire?
It gives us an edge against D&T, Elves, Shardless, mirror, Blade, some Delver decks.
Anyway, I played a small (15 guys) tourney today. Invitational QF of my LGS. Stakes were high because I hadn't yet earned my ticket, and the Invitational has juicy prize supp. I ran a highly unorthodox list, which should come to no surprise to those who read my previous posts here. I cut Bloodbraids because they are just not very good in Legacy (slow, random bonus effect), and replaced them with Zeniths. I also ran a white splash for Teeg and Canonist (lots of combo here in NL!), and because this messes up the mana base big time, and I missed my basics last tourney, I decided to be drastic and cut Wastelands. Against which decks do I really need them? Lands? Infect? I don't know, and I decided I wanted a better colour base so they had to go.
ZENITH JUND by Asthereal
1 Dryad Arbor (to Zenith for)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant /13
2 Sensei's Divining Top (fits my mana curve better than Sylvan Library)
3 Green Sun's Zenith (curves T1 Arbor, T2 Deathrite or CMC3 Goyf - fetches sideboard Teeg and Sage)
4 Thoughtseize
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Punishing Fire
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Terminate (test slot)
3 Liliana of the Veil /26
3 Badlands
3 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Grove of the Burnwillows /21
Sideboard:
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Duress
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Golgari Charm
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Nihil Spellbomb /15
Round 1 - Ur OmniTell
Game 1: He wins the roll. He plays Island-Ponder. I play Catacombs-go. He plays land, Petal, Show and Tell. I drop Goyf, he drops Omniscience. He casts Griselbrand and Emrakul, takes the extra turn and attacks. He doesn't yet know what I play (could be BUG Delver too) so he can't properly board yet.
(Board: -4 Decay, -4 PunFire, -2 Bolt, -1 Terminate, -1 Top (maybe a Goyf instead), -1 Grove, +the whole board except for Spellbombs.)
Game 2: This game I have 2x REB. He does manage to S&T and FoW my REB on it, but this makes him pitch the Cunning Wish he needed for the instant win. My second REB destroys the Omniscience he dropped. My guys kill him.
Game 3: He mulls. I discard some stuff and Liliana keeps his hand empty. Turns out he didn't play Enter the Infinite, so boarding in Teeg was wrong, but oh well, it's only one creature, and it does stop Force of Will on REB.
2-1 / 1-0-0
Round 2 - Infect
Game 1: I lose the roll again. I kill a few Infect guys, but at some point he does attack and goes Invigorate-Berserk. I have my silver bullet Terminate though, which makes a three for one! Pretty good.
(Board: -3 Hymn, -2 Top, +2 Duress, +2 Charm, +1 Deluge.)
Game 2: I have an awkward hand and I am much too slow against his row of Glisteners. I misplayed here, allowing him to Waste one of my lands, but I don't think I really had a chance here anyway. I play extra one-drops because I am convinced the mana curve of regular Jund is terrible, but somehow I fail to draw them and end up with clunky draws anyway. Stupid variance.
Game 3: We both have a somewhat slow start, but I get double Grove-PunFire going and the extra Bolt I draw also helps. He doesn't find protection spells, so the burn wins me the game when he has to go for it.
2-1 / 2-0-0
Round 3 - BUG Creature Control (Tasigurs, new Commander guy, Strix, Clique - cool deck)
Game 1: I lose the roll again, but his deck sort of scoops to Grove/PunFire combo. That and Liliana on an empty board means easy win.
(Board: -3 Hymn, +1 Deluge (in case he goes nuts), +2 REB to protect Liliana or kill Jace/Strix.)
Game 2: He gets a bit more going this time, but he is a land short to cast the Commander dude (GB2 is pretty steap). PunFire and Dark Confidant get me ahead and a Deathrite and an extra Bolt finish it. Cool deck, but afterwards he explained this was his worst matchup by far. I believe him and we discuss options. Turns out he had no Liliana's, so he'll be adding those later if he gets the chance. I advised him to add Surgical Extractions to the board to try not to get wrecked by PunFire.
2-0 / 3-0-0
Round 4 - Mono-R Sneak Attack
We ID, because the we are both sure of our top 4 spot, and also we are both sure to be nrs. 1 and 2, so we get to be on the play in the semi-finals.
Semi-final - ANT
Game 1: I am on the play against Tom with ANT. I always lose against him, so that's a bad sign, but I have a LOT of hate against combo, so who knows. We both mull, I keep my six, he goes to five. I don't have much, but his five are not great. He has many discard spells and no business. He removes my Top and Zenith (he knows my tech and fears I may have a Teeg main deck, for which he has no answer), but I get to stick a Liliana. She keeps his hand empty while my small dudes eat him.
(Board: -4 Decay, -4 PunFire, -2 Bolt, -1 Terminate, -1 Top (wrong-should be Grove or Forest), -1 Goyf, -1 Confidant (should be another Goyf perhaps), +the whole board except for Sage.)
Game 2: I keep a hand with awkward mana (just one B), Spellbomb, REB and Deathrite. I counter a few cantrips but he sticks a Top and that's soo good against me. I find no Lily or hate bear and he just kills me. His Ad Nauseam doesn't draw the immidiate win, but four Petals and many cantrips find him the LED he needs.
Game 3: I keep Duress, Seize, Zenith, and 3x land. The first discard spell sees Top, Brainstorm, Chain of Vapor, Infernal and lands. I probably should have taken Top here, but I took Infernal instead. He goes land-Top. I play Seize next turn and it turns out he drew a new Infernal. I have to take that now, because Brainstorm and Top can find him two accelleration spells really fast and if that happens I am definitely dead. I was tempted to take his Chain but it turned out he was sandbagging a Decay with Top so good thing I didn't do that. His Top and Brainstorm do soon find him mana and an Ad Nauseam. Chain and Decay keep Teeg off the board and he goes for Ad Nauseam, but draws weird stuff and he has to go for 10 goblins and a hand full of stuff. I can't kill him though because I found Deathrite one turn too late, and I have to pass with Confidant, 2x Goyf and Deathrite on the table opposing his 10 goblin tokens (one of which I signed - Tom appointed that particular token as squad leader!). He cantrips three times (all drawn with AdN last turn), and manages to find the LED and extra accell he still needed to actually murder me. He plays it out correctly and shows me Tendrils instead of extreme showboating with Past in Flames. Tom is an awesome guy, but I am getting sick of losing against him.
1-2 / 3-1-1
My score gets me into third place, but no Invitational ticket for me.This third place does net me a small amount of store credit, which I use to acquire a few useful cards for Modern. I'll be playing that format a bit more often next year (monthly tourneys at the LGS no longer collide with Legacy, which is seriously sweet!).
Props:
- I like all my changes to the regular Jund list. Didn't miss Wasteland, loved Zenith, desperately needed the imporved mana curve (actually wasn't good enough still), silver bullet Terminate wins me a game!
- Used all my sideboard cards.
- Nice opponents, nice relaxed atmosphere.
Slops:
- Variance. (I know. I should play chess. In fact, I do play chess. Just not all the time.)
- Always losing against Tom.
I know my list is very different from most here. If any of you have questions or suggestions, be sure to let me know. I am editing in how I boarded at the moment.
Thanks for sharing your results. Improving the manabase by dropping Wasteland instead of Grove is pretty interesting. It's just hard for me to imagine playing a midrangey fair deck without Wasteland. I don't think I've ever registered a deck with fewer than 3 Wastelands.
I know. The thing is, it's really hard to evaluate the card, because it's difficult to determine when wasting a certain land helps us so much that we win a game instead of losing it, versus the hands we draw with awkward mana because Wasteland taps for colourless only. For me, dropping Bloodbraid for Zenith and Sylvan for Top were more or less obvious things to try, but cutting Wastelands still feels weird.Originally Posted by Seraphix
But hey, outside the confort zone is where the Magic happens.
Ran Jund at a tournament today. Went 4-0-1 to make T8 as #1 seed, but then lost in the quarterfinals to Infect in 3 games. Deck felt strong all day, just got some less than stellar draws against Infect I felt (never saw PF).
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Thoughtseize
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Punishing Fire
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Sylvan Library
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Wasteland
3 Badlands
2 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
-Sideboard-
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Duress
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Golgari Charm
1 Choke
1 Slaughter Games
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Krosan Grip
1 Pithing Needle
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Trinisphere
I played against Elves (2-1), Miracles (2-1), Goblins (2-1), Death and Taxes (2-0), Loam Pox (0-0-3), Infect (1-2)
Last edited by Anarky87; 01-03-2016 at 10:53 PM.
Been playing Jund for a while and trying new things based on the discussions here. tried out a list with zenith and Painful truths (no bobs or BBE). Haven't done extensive testing with this list but I do have alot of matches under my belt with the traditional jund list.
23 land (1 arbor, 4 wasteland (not taxed on double black as much in this list))
4 DRS
4 Goyf
1 Scooze
4 fires
3 bolt
4 decay
3 Lili
4 thoughtseize
3 Inquisition (to lower curve to fit with Truths better)
1 Library
3 Zenith
3 Painful Truths
Some thoughts on Zenith and Truths below.
I think Zenith is a very useful card for Jund. It smooths out draws, provides acceleration, can be a very good clock (Being extra goyfs) and provides some sideboard utility with Gaddog Teeg etc. I have been very impressed with it so far and would like to find the optimal list that includes 3 of these.
I was not as impressed with painful truths. Brief comparison with BBE (although to be fair the comparison should be with Bob but I think the cards are close, but truths and Zenith push you away from playing BBE);
Pros of truths;
- Costs 3 mana
- Up two cards
- Helps make land drops
Cons of Truths compared to BBE
- No effect on board (this I think is the biggest factor). It is very awkward to play if you are behind on the board even slightly as often it takes your whole turn and speeds up the opponents clock. Not having free spells (FOW, daze) really hampers the effectiveness of this card. BBE provides a much better clock and is great against planeswalkers and more importantly can get you ahead immediately if the board is even or if you are slightly behind.
- 3 life is not irrelevant
- Does not work well with Wasteland (colourless mana)
- Worse against counterspells
There are many times where I have been frustrated at not being able to cast BBE because you don't reach 4 mana. But the raw power level of BBE I think is needed. So I will be trying something a bit different over the coming weeks. Playing Zenith and BBE together. It's obviously not great when you hit zenith with BBE but Zenith does allow you to cast BBE more consistently and quicker.
23 land (1 arbor, 3 wasteland)
4 DRS
4 Goyf
1 Scooze
4 fires
2 bolt
3 decay
3 Lili
4 thoughtseize
3 Hymn
3 Zenith
3 Bob
3 BBE
This version loses some raw card advantage compared to the regular lists (fewer bobs, libraries etc) but adds some consistency with Zenith and some flexibility in the board. What are peoples thoughts? I will report back in a few weeks after some testing.
1. Please go read Green Sun's Zenith
2. Then read Cascade
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you figure out why this does not increase the consistency of finding BBE, at least.. not in the way you want.
Well I did say it lets you cast BBE more consistently and quicker because it gets you Arbor/DRS for consistent mana/ramp. One of the big issues with the traditional Jund list is BBE can get stuck in your hand as one wasteland or removal on DRS means you can't cast it for a while. So I don't think you have understood what I wrote.
Indeed it was about consistently casting Bloodbraid. Your argument was clear. To me, at least.
But he's not wrong about the other thing. Zenith for Bloodbraid doesn't allow cascade, and Bloodbraid cascading into Zenith also sucks. These two, plus the fact that Bloodbraid nets us random advantage most of the time, which I am kind of allergic to since I tend to be unlucky when randomness occurs, made me drop them when I added Zeniths. If you still want high value CMC4 cards, there's a number of options to consider as replacement for Bloodbraid. I think the most interesting ones are:
1. Huntmaster of the Fells
2. Garruk Relentless
3. Xenagos, the Reveler
4. Thrun, the Last Troll
At first glance 1x Huntmaster and 2x Garruk looks like the way to go.
Those options are ok but not very impactful. The walkers are great against miracles but sub-par for 4 mana against most other decks. Thrun is usually smaller than most goyfs. I think Huntmaster is the best of the lot since you can find him with Zenith but from experience he is usually not very impactful. I would probably run a couple more scavenging ooze before I consider those cards. Also think one Courser should be added before those cards.
But despite the randomness of BBE and the fact it doesn't work well with zenith, something I'm well aware of, I think the raw power level of BBE is enough to warrant some testing. None of these cards are remotely close to the power level of BBE if it hits any relevant spell, even if its just a punishing fire to the face. And a 3/2 haste with no upside is on par or better in many situations than most of these cards as well.
I didn't have any problems casting it this past Saturday (save a few times my mana was under attack). The handful of times I did cast I hit only gas: either it flipped a Goyf or Bob, or a Hymn to take out the last cards in my opponents hand, etc. But I could see where it might be a dud sometimes. Overall though I enjoyed the list I ran and will probably stick with it for the time being.
This is false. Garruk is a beating vs. Shardless Internet BUG. Shardless made up +15% in the last two ~40 person legacies I've entered. He can get you back to parity with some of the card advantage a deck like shardless can accrue.
Garruk also helps against Shardless, the mirror and most StoneBlade variants, and it's just good in any game that becomes a bit grindy. There's only one matchup where I'd prefer BBE over Garruk every singe time, and that's the matchup where I board many of them out anyway: combo.
You already max out on Goyfs. We're talking about a BBE replacement. Thrun is bigger than BBE, and it doesn't die to everything. Thrun is also usually bigger than Scavenging Ooze and again Thrun doesn't die to every removal spell.
I'd like to see your test results with Huntmaster. Not very impactful? Even if he gets killed instantly, he still nets you +2 life and a 2/2 wolf.
Courser is a great card, but it's very passive. I haven't tried it yet but it's an option.
No it isn't.
Huntmaster is fine, his ceiling is lower than BBE (which is attacking unblocked, cascading into the best possible spell for the gamestate), but his floor is way higher. You know what you are getting and can GSZ for him. He's fantastic against Shardless, Burn, and even control decks where you don't want to overextend. You can also construct your deck with better cards by eschewing BBE and Bob, cards like Tombstalker, Painful Truths and GSZ. I top 2 split a SCG IQ with Jund and didn't play Bob, BBE or Punishing Fire.
The matchups Garruk helps in are the matchups we are favoured in, the ones where punishing fire shines. It's often very difficult to make up for the lost CA against shardless without punishing fires, Garruk helps but it is likely more of a nuisance than something that turns things around. There is I find usually more things to sideout before we can get rid of all BBE's against combo, but it varies depending on the combo deck. Also I can't see playing more than 1 of him and he can't be zenithed which I think reduces his effectiveness significantly.
My point about Thrun is at 4 mana it gets outclassed by other 2 mana creatures. Sure it will never die but it is not likely to get you anywhere either. And scavenging ooze that hasn't died will most likely be bigger than Thrun, as the matchups involving these cards will involve creatures dying.
Compare the two sides of BBE and Huntmaster. 3/2 haste vs 2/2 with possibility of flip. Call that even, although the haste with 3 power is super relevant against combo. If he flips immediately than huntmaster is better. 2/2 wolf and 2 life vs a random card from your deck, I would take the random card anyday.
Courser is quite passive and I haven't played much with him previously, but it seems like a decent CA option as a one-off flex spot. I think it fills a similar role to huntmaster but at a better spot on curve. Will need to test to see if it works well or not.
I still think the floor on BBE is much higher than its given credit. It helps kill combo much faster than any of the other options, is CA almost always against the fair decks. It's ceiling is obviously very high but I think its floor is almost comparable to the floor of many of the other options listed.
Played a monthly tourney at the LGS yesterday.
I went a disappointing 3-2.
Wins: Death&taxes, Burn, Infect.
Losses: Mentor Miracles, Shardless BUG.
Against Shardless I drew 8 lands game 1. Game 2 I had to mull, and my Hymn hit two irrelevant cards, after which his hit my two most relevant cards. Hard luck, I guess. Also I never found the PunFire combo, which I probably need to win this matchup.
Against Miracles (best player at my LGS) I got outplayed, but he also always seemed to have exactly what he needed. I was sad he didn't play Delver, because that's what he successfully played last year, and my list was more tuned for that matchup than for Miracles.
I am somewhat on the fence about Zenith. I found I never want to Zenith for the Dryad Arbor. I added Zenith to have a large number of turn one plays, but if I never Zenith for Arbor even when that's the only turn one play I can make with that particular hand, there's not much sense in playing Zenith anyway. It's just a more expensive Goyf half the time. The upside of it fetching me Teeg against combo is huge, but not big enough I feel.
Thoughts?
List I played List I'll be testing -guys: -guys: 1 Dryad Arbor 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Tarmogoyf 4 Tarmogoyf 4 Dark Confidant 4 Dark Confidant 1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang -spells: -spells: 3 Sensei's Divining Top 3 Sensei's Divining Top 4 Thoughtseize 4 Thoughtseize 3 Hymn to Tourach 3 Hymn to Tourach 2 Lightning Bolt 2 Lightning Bolt 4 Punishing Fire 4 Punishing Fire 4 Abrupt Dcay 4 Abrupt Dcay 3 Liliana of the Veil 3 Liliana of the Veil 3 Green Sun's Zenith 2 Garruk Relentless -lands: 1 Duress 3 Badlands -lands: 3 Bayou 3 Badlands 1 Scrubland 3 Bayou 1 Swamp 1 Swamp 1 Forest 1 Forest 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Bloodstained Mire 3 Bloodstained Mire 4 Grove of the Burnwillows 2 Wooded Foothills -sideboard: 4 Grove of the Burnwillows 1 Gaddock Teeg -sideboard: 4 Duress 3 Duress 3 Pyroblast 3 Pyroblast 1 Hymn to Tourach 3 Scab-Clan Berserker 1 Reclamation Sage 3 Golgari Charm 2 Golgari Charm 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Toxic Deluge 1 Nihil Spellbomb 2 Surgical Extraction
Not in my experience when you play with Sylvan Library, K-Command, Huntmaster, Garruk and Painful Truths. It's more of a play draw situation to see who gets Hymn'ed first. Being on the draw vs. Shardless your number one priority is to bolt their DRS.
Last edited by nedleeds; 01-11-2016 at 01:27 PM.
I've been playing a Jund list without Punishing Fire for a few months to take advantage of the better Grove-less manabase. I've had pretty good results, but haven't seen anyone else playing a similar list until recently. First, here's the list I've been running.
The Kolaghan's Commands have been extremely good. I'm not sure why they don't see more play, especially in Bloodbraid Elf versions of the deck. The Painful Truths have also been excellent, but their dis-synergy with Bloodbraid really limits which Jund decks can play them.
I've had mixed results with the Grim Lavamancers-they are excellent against all of the fair decks, and they sacrifice to Cabal Therapy against the unfair decks, but they are worse against Miracles than Punishing Fire, and they can be a bit slow on the draw against an aggressive Delver or Stoneforge start. In the above list I'm light on Lilianas to make room for the Lavamancers-more on this in a bit.
I recently noticed a Grove-less Jund deck that did well in one of the SCG events. Sean O'Brien (this is not me) placed 2nd at the SCG IQ on 12/27/15 with this list :
I am a bit surprised that this list doesn't have a single Thrun somewhere in the 75, but I guess Garruk Relentless fills a similar role for grindy matchups. The Granger Guildmage is clearly a GSZ-able Grim Lavamancer, and I'd be curious to see if it pulled its weight during the tournament.
The three-drop slot is a bit crowded, with Liliana, Kolaghan's Command, and Painful Truths all crowding for spots. Both of the lists in this post have that problem. In my list I skimped on Lilianas in favor of Grim Lavamancers for their synergy with Cabal Therapy, which is at it's best in the matchups where Lavamancer is worst. I really like the look of O'Brian's list and might switch from Therapy to Thoughtseize, which lets a cascade of changes occur: -1 Explorer, -3 Lavamancers, -1 Dryad Arbor, -some GSZ, -some basics, +4 Wastelands, +2 Liliana, etc.
The biggest question about this style of deck is whether the improved manabase is worth the loss of Punishing Fire. Has anyone else played around with this style of Jund deck? Is the Groves manabase worth access to Punishing Fire? Why isn't anyone else running Kolaghan's Command?
InfoNinjas
You can ask him yourself, Sean just posted directly above yours.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
I was hoping the owner of the deck was here on the Source, but I searched back four or five pages and didn't see anything like his Grove-less list. So, specific questions:
Was Granger Guildmage good enough to run again? At one point I had a split of 2 Lavamancers and 1 Guildmage, because it does kill most unflipped Delvers, Dark Confidant, Young Pyromancer, Thalias, Mother of Runes (sometimes), Phyrexian Revoker, and prevents Goyfs from bouncing off of each other in combat. Did you ever use the first strike ability (DRS activation for W)?
How did you feel about the mix of Sylvan Libraries and Painful Truths? I can never decide if I want to play 2/2, 3/1, or 3/2.
Have you found Kolaghan's Command to be awesome? It's actually the biggest reason for me to run red over white in my NicFit/Jund monstrosity. Swords > Bolt, Teeg is a great GSZ target, and Rhinos are better than Huntmasters, but Kolaghan's Command has no real equal in Junk colors.
Is Thrun unnecessary?
Last edited by AngryTroll; 01-11-2016 at 02:27 PM.
InfoNinjas
Thrun really isn't comparable with value cards like BBE, Huntmaster, and Garruk Relentless.
What he's good at is not being countered and dodging some removal...but that's about it.
He's too slow against Delver, and even in play is a poor defense against Tarmogoyf, Delver, Pyro, or Gurmag. In midrange mirrors uncounterability isn't very relevant, not to mention stuff like Liliana and Deluge that can answer him could be in the mix, and he's still smaller than a Tarmogoyf.
Miracles is the only matchup where I really would want him, and even there he isn't invulnerable and still gets dealt with by Terminus and Judgment. He's even less good than before now that they can gum up the ground with Monks.
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