Hello everyone! My name is Griffin Lussier, and I've been playing Magic for, like, ever. I'm from Vermont, which is the best state, and that's useful information to have as we go along.
I play a lot of Jund. I like Jund, or Jund-like things, in pretty much all formats.
I could devote this whole first post to the reasons that Jund is great, but it's definitely more than a one-post explanation. We'll chip away at that and other big-picture Magic theory stuff as we go.
I'm writing this just after the release of Amonkhet. Felidar Guardian was just banned and Mardu Vehicles is back on top of the heap. We should really call it Mardu Midrange, since it's just Gideon and a bunch of good-rate cards. There's really very little synergy going on. Here's Andrew Jessup's SCG Open winning list:
1 Cut
2 Walking Ballista
4 Heart of Kiran
4 Fatal Push
4 Toolcraft Exemplar
4 Unlicensed Disintegration
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 Archangel Avacyn
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Aether Hub
2 Shambling Vent
1 Mountain
4 Plains
2 Swamp
2 Canyon Slough
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Inspiring Vantage
4 Spire of Industry
Sideboard
1 Cut
2 Release the Gremlins
1 Fumigate
2 Oath of Liliana
2 Nahiri, the Harbinger
2 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Painful Truths
2 Transgress the Mind
1 Magma Spray
So this deck has some things going on that are interesting. To me, it's reminiscent of "Best Decks" of the past in its ability to play multiple roles. Caw Blade could play a control role, or more of an aggressive or tempo role with Birds and Swords. Faeries could cast Vendilion Cliques and Mistbind Cliques and just get ya, or the could counter and kill all your stuff and reload with Ancestral Vision. Jund could curve low-cost animal into low-cost animal into Bloodbraid revealing low-cost animal, or they could just Terminate and Pulse away all your stuff and kill you with Dragons. This deck reminds of Bloodbraid Jund a lot in this way. Its late game is really good and its early game is really good. There aren't a lot of windows of time in which you can get an advantage against this thing.
Second, similar to those other "Best Decks", there's a little bit of synergy going on but the game plan doesn't fall apart if the pieces don't line up just right. Heart of Kiran needs 3-power creatures or Planeswalkers, Spire of Industry and Toolcraft Exemplar need artifacts, but those are easy requirements to fulfill. You don't need to play any sub-par enablers to get these things going.
Third thing that's going on with this deck is that Gideon is just a house. That card. Its run in Standard, up until now, has had Siege Rhinos and Collected Companys that were on par with it and Felidar Guardians and Emrakuls that were playing on a different axis. Now that we're back to playing nuts and bolts Magic in Standard, Gideon is a monster.
It's early in the format, but this deck certainly looks the part of a format-definer. It's aggressive, it's got late game power, it has pretty good mana, its cards are good on their own, and its cards are even better when the pieces fit together the right way.
What I really want to talk about is not this list, but instead a card that's interestingly not included in this list.
When I first saw this card, what popped into my head was that, back in the days of Thragtusk/Huntmaster Jund, you had to choose between Thragtusk or Thundermaw Hellkite (or you could play a million 5 drops, which seemed bad). What made Thragtusk the (clear) choice was that it was better value, even if it didn't clock the opponent as fast. The difference that Glorybringer has over Thundermaw Hellkite and Stormbreath Dragon is that you get that value out of it despite being the big hasty flying closer card. Even shooting a 2/2 or something then getting hit with a removal spell the next turn is a two-for-one, and when Glorybringer one-two punches a creature and a Planeswalker in one hit, then still demands a removal spell? That's what the Jund Life is all about.
So this thing was supposed to be a big deal, right? Yet we only saw two copies of it in the Top 8: two copies in one of the five Mardu decks to make the playoff rounds. I was surprised. This card seems perfect in the format. I'm not selling my Glorybringer stock yet.
While it fights for slots against Archangel Avacyn, it also SMOKES Gideon, which is public enemy number one. I think that this thing will either see more play in Mardu, or another good list with it will pop up (foreshadowing) and Mardu will have to adapt. If there are five Mardu decks in the top 8 of the Open the week before, you can bet I'm gonna roll with the G-Bringer one way or another.
This card was very impressive in the games I watched it in. It played a huge role each time it was cast, which wasn't even that often considering the low numbers it was played this weekend. The removal is pretty good, about as good as we can ask for for the mana. But while you might just get a even-mana one for one on the front side, having Ribbons in your graveyard completely changes the play patterns of each player. You never even have to cast Ribbons to make its effect felt because your opponent has to worry about their life total the whole game. It makes late game land topdecks much better since you just keep creeping and creeping towards their life total.
We run into a problem here with Cut to Ribbons and Glorybringer, though. How many creatures do we need to hit with four damage at sorcery speed? In Mardu, there's Toolcraft Exemplar, maybe a couple Thalias, Avacyns that have stuck around, bad trades with Gideon tokens, Scrapheap Scrounger, and Thraben Inspectors, maybe a Heart of Kiran that already blocked and killed something of yours? Grasp of Darkness seems like the much better removal spell if we're calling the Ribbons half "just gravy", since it isn't just gravy if we could be playing something better on the front side. But it isn't just gravy, it's actually huge, and its cost, while existent, is small. I don't think it's at its best in the mirror, and maybe that will be it's downfall, but Cut to Ribbons is great against all forms of Winding Constrictors and other creatures that I think it'll be a mainstay in decks like this. When your deck is aggressive enough to take advantage of Ribbons, Cut looks a lot more attractive.
So what does this mean for Jund? Well, I've got two answers:
Beat 'em
4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
4 Glorybringer
2 Longtusk Cub
4 Tireless Tracker
4 Walking Ballista
4 Winding Constrictor
3 Fatal Push
2 Grasp of Darkness
3 Never to Return
3 Cut to Ribbons
2 Painful Truths
4 Attune with Aether
4 Aether Hub
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Canyon Slough
1 Cinder Glade
1 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
3 Sheltered Thicket
Sideboard: A smattering of discard, planeswalkers, and sweepers.
B/G Constrictor was pretty much the third deck in a two-deck format for the last few months. With one of those decks banned, I thought it might be a good time to bring it back, but this time with some Amonkhet upgrades and a little color shifting. However, are they really upgrades?
We've cut Rishkar and Nissa, Voice of Zendikar for extra Tireless Trackers and more removal. What do Cut to Ribbons and Tireless Tracker have in common that Rishkar and Nissa don't?
*Point to Bill James protege* "They're good on their own?"
Right, and we've cut Verdurous Gearhulk for Glorybringer. Why have Glorybringer in a Winding Constrictor deck?
"It's good on its own."
So it keeps its nut draw Constrictor + Whatever draws, but doesn't run as much of the stuff that's only good with Constrictor out. The mana is pretty solid, since we will likely have a bunch of energy to use in our Aether Hubs, much like Spire of Industry happens to be great with Mardu's artifacts. Why is this important? Because we are only able to run four Constrictors, and because our opponents are allowed to play removal spells. However, that begs the question, should we even run Constrictor and lean on the synergies it creates, because we could be playing a completely different creature/mana suite. That may be the case, but Gifted Aetherborn and Sylvan Advocate aren't exactly tearing it up right now. There are a lot of different threats that we could be playing, but in the end I think that Aether Hub and Attune are the best way to build a 3 color mana base anyways, so Glint-Sleeve and Longtusk Cubs look a little bit better. I could be wrong.
The list is very rough, I wouldn't advise wandering into a league with it and expecting good results right off, but I think it has potential. They're all good cards, Brent, and you do have some draws that are just really powerful and demand an answer or they get out of hand. But in the end, if it's just a Gideon-less version of Mardu, we might be better off looking elsewhere.
Join 'em
If you want to know about the Jund deck that I ran during the Khans of Tarkir standard, you're not going to find it, because I was Rhino-ing people like the rest of y'all. In this blog, we aren't going to strictly stick to Red Black and Green, because to me, Jund is more a strategy than a color identity. See, tying yourself to colors isn't really going to be a good idea. Power levels of colors ebb and flow, but strategies withing the rules of the game are usually pretty consistent. We want the ability to switch roles, present powerful threats, create long-term advantage, stop the opponent, and prevent the opponent from stopping us. These are not color-specific traits, they are just good, solid ways to win games of Magic.
We aren't building decks, we're building wins.
I don't know if that phrase actually applies, but it felt so good to write. Anyways, if Gideon-braid Elf is able to play offense and defense, be a powerful threat, create long-term advantage, stop our opponent (by attacking their planeswalkers and pressuring their life total) and is hard to kill, it might be the most Jund thing to do, and we should get on board. Chapin (I think) said that you never want to be a worse something else, but Chapin also probably already owned Gideons on Modo.
I'm going to try and make a post every Sunday night, hopefully with some Magic Online testing, or video coverage, or tournament experience to talk about each time, be it Modern or Standard or Legacy. And each time, we'll keep digging in to discover a deeper meaning of Jund and of Magic as a whole. Maybe that's a stretch, but we'll see.
Thanks for reading! You can hit me up at @griffinzoth on twitter.