[Deck] Jund

[Esper3k]

Yeah really depends on what type of combo you're trying to beat.

General cards that are good against combo are hand disruption like Duress.

REB/Pyroblast is fine against blue based combo (Show & Tell, High Tide, etc.)

Graveyard hate against the yard decks.

Mindbreak Trap is fine against the Storm decks.

Really, it depends on what you want to beat.

[aluisiocsantos]

I was thinking about using a bit of Thorn of Amethyst tech to try stopping matches such as Omnitell and Storm, I wonder how effectively it could be used in other matches as well.

How do you guys feel about the use of Ensnaring Bridge?

[w4rlock]

Sideboarding question:

I'm having trouble figuring out not what to bring in, but rather what to take out of the maindeck for sideboard cards. I play the stock punishing fire list of BBD, but would appreciate input on what to take out in certain key matchups such as BUG, SnT, Esper Stoneblade and ANT/TES/Belcher

As I mentioned earlier, my current sideboard is as follows:

3 pyroblast
2 Engineered plague
3 Duress
2 Pithing Needle
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Maelstrom Pulse

[Esper3k]

For combo, I'd take out:

Abrupt Decay
Punishing Fire
Lightning Bolt

in that order.

Liliana isn't as good vs Esper, imo since they run Lingering Souls and generally aren't running big creatures so her -2 isn't as effective. Pyroblast and Ancient Grudge are good here to stop Jace and Equipment.

Against BUG, it probably matters what type of BUG they're playing. Against something like Team America with Tombstalkers and Goyfs, your Pfires isn't going to be as effective since you can't really kill anything other than Delver.

[razvan]

Fire Kills Delver and Bob, it can kill Tombstalker with Lightning Bolt, and can win Goyf wars. I wouldn't take it out.

[Raggedjoe]

I was thinking about using a bit of Thorn of Amethyst tech to try stopping matches such as Omnitell and Storm, I wonder how effectively it could be used in other matches as well.

How do you guys feel about the use of Ensnaring Bridge?

ORing is much better. Bridge only stops Emmy, it doesn't really stop Gristel. Even if Gristel can't attack, he can still draw cards and still block. Obviously Bridge is useless against Omni

Razvan, goyf wars aren't a huge deal against Team America IMO because you need to keep thier graveyard as small as possible due to Tombstalker. I actually ditch 2 IoK and 2 Hymn for 1 Pulse and 3 Pyroblast. I don't play PF and opt for a few Ooze (great in my meta and decent overall IMO) plus Garruk instead. If I did, I'd cut PF instead though.

Esper3k, I agree completely. Plus it's hard to keep PFire going against Wasteland and DRS.

Has anyone else had success running Garruk? I think he's the best spell we have against miracles.

[Barbed Blightning]

Surgical is also powerful vs team America.

[Amazingxkcd]

Surgical is also powerful vs team America.

If you are playing surgical, you might as well play extirpate since we already have easy access to black sources.

[Barbed Blightning]

If you are playing surgical, you might as well play extirpate since we already have easy access to black sources.

...why is that obvious? Surgical is free. It can be casted after a hymn on turn two reliably. Split second is by no means that great an upgrade

[sdematt]

...why is that obvious? Surgical is free. It can be casted after a hymn on turn two reliably. Split second is by no means that great an upgrade

Surgical and Extirpate are two entirely different cards. One is not a strict upgrade of the other.

-Matt

[razvan]

I think Surgical is better. It is very rare that the split-second is relevant. Don't get me wrong, it is relevant, but the zero CC is more often so. Even when Dredge goes first and goes crazy with LED/Faithless, it's nice to be able to do something.

[FTW]

The primer says that there are no truly bad matchups, that the advantage of this deck is that no single card really shuts it down.

I don't know if this has been addressed somewhere in between (at the very least the primer needs updating), or maybe it was missed because the offending decks see very little play right now. But with Jund now a DTB, let's not forget about this card: Blood Moon.

With an 8 Blood Moons.dec opponent (Dragon Stompy, Imperial Painter, etc.) dropping Blood Moon turn 1 on the play, Jund basically scoops. You have 3 basics, high colour requirements for your spells, and a very low probability of drawing the right basics naturally if you don't have a fetch to crack in response. Lightning Bolt and Grim Lavamancer alone are not gonna get you there, although they do at least kill Magus of the Moon if opponent has not already dropped Chalice of the Void@1.

If you're on the play, you can drop DRS first or hope to rip their Moons or acceleration with turn 1 discard. But if they have 2 moon effects, topdeck one later, or blow up DRS, then you're still in trouble. Once Blood Moon is in play, your ways to kill it involve both black AND green mana (Abrupt Decay, Maelstrom Pulse, EE @ 3). This means that DRS alone does not give you enough colored mana to blow it up. You would need BOTH singleton basics or DRS and a basic swamp/forest. You could try to use DRS just to generate colored mana to cast other spells, but you will eventually run out of land fodder (no lands will be hitting the GY with Moon out) and your deck is majorly slowed down by that restriction. So killing the Moon is a must. If you're on the play, you can go Turn 1 fetch basic swamp and cast DRS, safely having Abrupt Decay mana up as long as you don't see removal or graveyard hate. But the bottom line is that even if you get to go first and be proactive, that card is still a headache.

BUG, RUG, Bant and other 3-color lists with flimsy manabases all run Force of Will, so they can better interact with turn 1 Blood Moon. This may be why Blood Moon is not considered a legitimate threat to those decks. But a deck with only hand disruption has a much harder time holding it off.

I'm not saying this is a reason not to play Jund; I'm just saying I think Blood Moon deserves a nod in the primer.

[aluisiocsantos]

I think that you gotta have to behave as playing against a combo deck, behavior-wise. Get lucky to be on the play and discard it from their hands, or pray that they don't top deck it right away. Luckily any discard can do the trick. That or play having in mind leaving two manas untapped.

I also play with a self brewed RW Sneak Attack deck but on a Stompy route, and at one time versus a BUG I played Blood Moon. In response they simply tapped BG and played Abrupt Decay afterwards.

[Barbed Blightning]

Blood Moon.deck crumples to miracles and Esper, since both have a high basic count anyway (and are both DTB). Sure blood man CAN kill jund, but its going to have a hard time vs blue decks.Lets not forget bolt and pfire, too; they can kill magus easily.

Yes it deserves a nod, but it is by no means a matchup that leaves jund totally out in the cold.

[bruizar]

The primer says that there are no truly bad matchups, that the advantage of this deck is that no single card really shuts it down.

I don't know if this has been addressed somewhere in between (at the very least the primer needs updating), or maybe it was missed because the offending decks see very little play right now. But with Jund now a DTB, let's not forget about this card: Blood Moon.

With an 8 Blood Moons.dec opponent (Dragon Stompy, Imperial Painter, etc.) dropping Blood Moon turn 1 on the play, Jund basically scoops. You have 3 basics, high colour requirements for your spells, and a very low probability of drawing the right basics naturally if you don't have a fetch to crack in response. Lightning Bolt and Grim Lavamancer alone are not gonna get you there, although they do at least kill Magus of the Moon if opponent has not already dropped Chalice of the Void@1.

If you're on the play, you can drop DRS first or hope to rip their Moons or acceleration with turn 1 discard. But if they have 2 moon effects, topdeck one later, or blow up DRS, then you're still in trouble. Once Blood Moon is in play, your ways to kill it involve both black AND green mana (Abrupt Decay, Maelstrom Pulse, EE @ 3). This means that DRS alone does not give you enough colored mana to blow it up. You would need BOTH singleton basics or DRS and a basic swamp/forest. You could try to use DRS just to generate colored mana to cast other spells, but you will eventually run out of land fodder (no lands will be hitting the GY with Moon out) and your deck is majorly slowed down by that restriction. So killing the Moon is a must. If you're on the play, you can go Turn 1 fetch basic swamp and cast DRS, safely having Abrupt Decay mana up as long as you don't see removal or graveyard hate. But the bottom line is that even if you get to go first and be proactive, that card is still a headache.

BUG, RUG, Bant and other 3-color lists with flimsy manabases all run Force of Will, so they can better interact with turn 1 Blood Moon. This may be why Blood Moon is not considered a legitimate threat to those decks. But a deck with only hand disruption has a much harder time holding it off.

I'm not saying this is a reason not to play Jund; I'm just saying I think Blood Moon deserves a nod in the primer.

So true, Jund is one of the reasons why I'm playing a Blood Moon deck. Also, the idea that blood moon decks die horribly to blue is greatly overstated. Blood Moons can be sided out for Red Elemental Blasts (jace/permission) or Sulfur Elemental (lingering souls).

[razvan]

Burn is a really bad match-up too. I didn't emphasize it as much in the primer, but it is truly atrocious.

But it has the same issue as a Blood Moon deck that's specialized to beat Jund: that is ALL it can do. Yes, I know Burn once won a SCG open, but generally, decks that are "metagamed" to beat Jund are only an issue by pure luck in the first rounds of a tournament.

Furthermore, if I anticipate a Blood Moon (nothing I can do about it turn 1), then I can fetch basics, or hold up Abrupt Decay mana, which I would anyway against painter. Magus of the Moon dies to Bolt and Punishing Fire, so he is less of a problem, and none of those cards go out against Painter.

As for burn packing Blood Moon against Jund, that's just too much (I know you didn't mention it, but others have). Their deck is so good against us, diluting it with an useless card (I fetch Forest and Swamp anyway to hedge against Price, and the Shaman is the only card that might get us out).

Dragon Stompy could be annoying, but I have yet to see anyone play it this 201x years :)

[aluisiocsantos]

In other hand one of the reasons I play Blood Moon on my sneak deck is becaus eit fucks up many decks imo, that aren't called Jund, such as canadian threshold, BUG, Esper and so on. I wouldn't be surprised if all Burn decks started packing this in, same for Goblins. They might lose wastelands and Rishadas but in other hand they autowin the match if it lands.

On other hand, having Deathrite Shaman might really save one's ass in this situation, and to be fair, Blood Moon has be played really soon to be able to affect Jund, or else it wouldn't be too much of a hassle to deal with.

[defector]

Ive started running 3 lilli/1 garruk relengless as my pw package and am really enjoying it so far. I've cut the p fire engine because i think it worked and depopulted the meta of tribal decks. I run Extirpate over SE currently because i keep running into High Tide. If dredge gets me in two tutns i pretty much just lose. Im experimenting with two Mirri's Guile main and am liking them. I dont know if they'll last, but the really work well with fetch lands and Bob.

Also congrats to Michael Bryant for top 8 SCG KC with Pun Jund!! We were in a lil drought there:)

[Raggedjoe]

Ive started running 3 lilli/1 garruk relengless as my pw package and am really enjoying it so far. I've cut the p fire engine because i think it worked and depopulted the meta of tribal decks. I run Extirpate over SE currently because i keep running into High Tide. If dredge gets me in two tutns i pretty much just lose. Im experimenting with two Mirri's Guile main and am liking them. I dont know if they'll last, but the really work well with fetch lands and Bob.

Also congrats to Michael Bryant for top 8 SCG KC with Pun Jund!! We were in a lil drought there:)

I've been considering switching to Extirpate, not for the Tide matchup but for S&T. People running 4 Leylines makes beating that deck quite hard. We need every little nudge we can get IMO.

[Shawon]

I've been considering switching to Extirpate, not for the Tide matchup but for S&T. People running 4 Leylines makes beating that deck quite hard. We need every little nudge we can get IMO.

Try Hypnotic Specter post-board, with Dark Ritual. Hypnotic Specter not only increases your threat density and threat of discard, but it also circumvents your opponent's Leyline. Dark Ritual is worth running alongside Hypnotic Specter against combo because no combo player wants to see a turn 1 Hyppie, or a turn 1 Liliana, or a turn 1 Thoughtseize followed by a Hymn to Tourach, or... you get what I'm saying.