Believing in Yourself, And Other Jund Mirror Details

So, as you might know by now, I like me a Jund deck. I've been playing it almost exclusively for as long as Modern has existed. It's had its ups and downs. Beginning when it was the best deck in the format (in my humble opinion), to when it was way too good, to some years of mediocrity, even being thought of as unplayable, and now, for the first time in a long time, it's back at the forefront of the format. It's been quite a journey, and it isn't likely to stop any time soon.

I've even played Jund whenever I got the chance in other formats as well, most notably Standard, with good ol' Bloodbraid into Sprouting Thrinax from the old days, and Farseek into Thragtusk in the less old days. I even tried to attack the Pack Rat/Sphinx's Revelation format with discard, cheap removal, and medium size creatures, and it kinda worked. You won't catch me casting a lot of Brainstorms in Legacy, I'm more likely going to be Thoughtseizing and Tarmogoyfing. I don't always play red, black, and green, but it's definitely a strategy I gravitate towards, which I think is a good way to structure your game.

Since Bloodbraid Elf returned to the format, there's been quite a bit of digital ink spilled about how to build and play the deck as of late. As we are wont to do as Magic players, I gobble up pretty much every article written about my favorite deck.

Usually I really take to heart the things I read, and getting new perspectives is always awesome for something you've been working on for so long and are continuing to work on. Getting someone else's opinion makes you re-examine your own, and re-examination of the truths you hold is important, not just in Magic, but in life. Are the reasons you thought A plus B equal C still true? New data might make you rethink certain things, which of course both ask and answer more questions, ad infinitum.

I bring this up because I read an article yesterday by a very successful Magic pro, Joel Larsson, over on ChannelFireball. It was on my favorite subject, the Jund Mirror Match. He's a former Pro Tour champion, has an additional Top 8, multiple Grand Prix Top 8s, and I looked all of this information up on his Wikipedia article, because homey has his own Wikipedia article, which is probably the biggest accomplishment of them all. Plus, he's Swedish Kibler. I don't need to tell you that, as far as success in Magic, he's got a lot more than you or me.

I couldn't help walking away from the article thinking to myself that, for the most part, he was wrong.

What's really cool about Magic, and it's been this way for a long time now, is that lots of the best and most famous players in the world write articles every week describing their though processes and share their expertise with all the rest of us. It's fantastic. Magic is such a deep game that they can give away their secrets without damaging their place in the game's royalty. Joel let everyone in on his findings for one of the most important facets of the Modern format today, which is, when you think about it, really really cool.

What Joel says is that, contrary to what a lot of people have believed for years, taking out your Inquisitions and Thoughtseizes after sideboard is not the best way to win the mirror. His thinking is that the cards in your sideboard, most notably Fulminator Mage (if you play it), don't do enough work in the mirror match to warrant taking out discard spells to help you navigate the early turns. The late game downside of the point-discard isn't enough to warrant their exclusion, since they help you avoid being buried by early game Dark Confidants and Planeswalkers. In fact, Joel says to leave in the Inquisition of Kozileks, since the Thoughtseizes are the worse of the discard spells due to the life loss.

Now, since the beginning of time, it's always been the rule of the Jund mirror match that you board out your discard spells. In fact, when an opponent opens on Inquisition of Kozilek for game two of a Jund mirror, I am ecstatic. When the entirety of the format was Jund on Jund on Jund, taking out the discard was a crucial trick of the mirror that the successful midrange players knew about and took to the top tables. Joel's mirror match plan throw a huge wrench in that plan.

So the question becomes: Do I stick with my gut, or do I accept this new opinion as truth? Well, let's take a look.

Since Bloodbraid Elf was unbanned, do the discard spells get better or worse in the mirror? For one, you can take a Bloodbraid Elf with a Thoughtseize, which is pretty crucial. The average converted mana cost of the deck also has gone up, so it's more likely your opponent has a valid Inquisition or Thoughtseize target, since they won't be able to deploy all their spells as fast as before. As for reasons why it might be worse, you have a new card advantage source in Bloodbraid Elf that can catch you up on cards or act as an additional removal spell for a Dark Confidant before it spirals out of control. Additionally, the deck gets more aggressive with Bloodbraid Elf in the mix, which means your life total is less safe, mitigating the power of Dark Confidant. So, to me that seems like the unanswered Bob scenario is less dangerous than it was in the pre-Bloodbraid days. Additionally, Bloodbraid herself makes having discard spells in the deck post-board even worse, since in those times when you are really hoping for a good cascade, you are more likely to blank on an Inquisition when your opponent is empty-handed. Even when they're not empty handed, you still cascaded into a 1-mana spell, which is as bad of a cascade as you can have.

I want to stress that none of what I'm writing is an indictment of Joel Larsson, his ability, or even of his article or his strategy. Magic is a vast ocean of different opinions, and extremely rarely are there going to be hard and fast rules that you absolutely need to follow. People are always going to have different play styles, different valuations for cards and decks and archetypes, and just different goals in general, and Magic is a big enough game that you can tune the philosophies you follow to yourself and be successful. Also, having an extra opinion in your arsenal of data points should always be welcome, and the reason for that is this: you never have to follow the advice you receive.

If you're a notorious Burn player in all formats and Jon Finkel writes an article about how you should board Monastery Swiftspear out in the mirror match, that might shake up your foundations of the way you thought the matchup works, maybe even how Magic works. Think about it, but don't be convinced too easily. You are an expert, too. You've gotta believe in yourself, since at the end of the day, your experiences and the knowledge you've gained over time are just as worthy as anyone else's. If you feel like the author is wrong, note what they said, but don't follow their advice. If you feel convinced, then change your methods. If you are somewhere in between, then practice what they said and come to your own solid conclusion.

Joel Larsson is a super-duper pro, Pro Tour Champ, and incredibly handsome, so it's a tough sell to make to myself to not follow his advice. But I've just gotta remember, I've had a bunch of experience and Top-whatevers and won money playing and winning Jund mirrors, and they even used to call me Vermont Kibler (no they didn't), so my opinions are also pretty valid when it comes to this subject. I'm sure that you can find a subject in Magic, be it a format or matchup or deck or even a single card, where you can feel the same way.

I think that one thing that helps drive this home is when, once in a while, pro players on Twitter will have an argument about a decklist or a sideboard plan or something. Recently, some of the world's best were having at each other about whether or not to sideboard out Rogue Refiner in the Temur Energy mirror (which seems patently insane to me, but okay). The two sides of the argument were filled by thousands of pro points and tons of credibilty, and they could not convince each other of changing their ways, so they each decided that they were gonna do what they wanted to. Almost no opinion is a hard and fast rule in Magic, even at the very highest level of the game. It's part of what makes it great.

So remember that moving forward, as I'm sure you'll run into the same situation I found myself in after I read Joel's article. It's good to re-think your stances, it's good to get a smattering of differing opinions, but remember that the person shuffling up and casting the spells is going to be you in the end, and that your opinion is always going to be the most important. And board out your damn discard spells.

Thanks for reading!