In the mean time, let's start talking about Modern.
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Grim Flayer
3 Bitterblossom
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Fatal Push
1 Terminate
3 Kolaghan's Command
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Raging Ravine
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Blood Crypt
Sideboard:
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Eternal Witness
2 Blightning
3 Blood Moon
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Shadow Guildmage
1 Duress
A while ago I got really into Joe Lossett's streams. I love his methods in deckbuilding and deck selection and I've tried to recreate that in Modern here. Joe doesn't often change decks, instead he chooses a strategy or list that he likes and works on it and works on it. Most of his streams are "Hey, I put Nahiri back in the Miracles deck, let's play some leagues," or "I added a Snapcaster for a Swords to Plowshares, let's play some leagues." It's a fantastic way to play eternal formats. You never lose the testing that you did, you can only improve your deck. You try something out, if it works, you go with it, if it doesn't you cut it.
Now despite this being a completely different strategy than Miracles, the same rules can apply. You tinker a little bit here and there, and if it turns out better, then great! You've made an improvement, now keep going.
This isn't a normal Jund list. By the end of Joe's run with Miracles due to the Sensei's Divining Top Banning, his list looked completely unlike other people's lists, except for those who bought in to his advice. Similarly, I've been working on this list for a while now, and I'm pretty happy with where it's at. Let's talk about the deviations from the norm I've taken here:
A few years ago, Splinter Twin was the dominant deck in the format. The Twin matchup, next to the mirror match, was the most important thing to build your Jund list around. After becoming frustrated with my results against that deck, I decided that I would board out Dark Confidants for the Obstinate Baloths I had in the sideboard. See, I was pretty much never losing to the combo, I was losing to random Bolt-Snap-Bolts and Pestermite attacks, and not only did Dark Confidant hurt your life total, Bob just always died. Baloth, however, stuck around, swung the race with lifegain, and put on a clock. Maybe, I thought, Dark Confidant wasn't as untouchable as I had thought.
Fast forward to Splinter Twin's banning, all of a sudden Affinity and Infect are the two decks to beat. Dark Confidant is not good in those matchups. Bitterblossom is. I gave it a shot and haven't looked back since. It completely swings the Affinity and Infect matchups, is fantastic in the mirror, and is better than Bob against control decks because it dodges removal spells.
The time may come when I bring Bob back, since the trick is to always be tinkering. But for now, I like what Bitterblossom does for us.
Grim Flayer's card selection is a little worse than Dark Confidant's draw step ability, sure. However, what I like about it is its presence on the battlefield, creating a quick clock. See, we definitely miss Dark Confidant's digging, but in the matchups where we miss him the most, Grim Flayer is great and possibly even better. Against combo decks like Ad Nauseam or Valakut, we are trying as hard as we can to clock the opponent and find specific disruption cards. We won't miss the Fatal Push that Bob flips over en route to the Thoughtseize we need, and sometimes that piece is three cards down and Grim Flayer gets you to it ahead of schedule. Additionally, it just attacks for more damage and ends the game faster, and avoids Anger of the Gods and Pyroclasms when turned on. We don't have to board it out against Burn, on the contrary, it's one of our best cards. This is a card that I tried out kind of on a whim, but it's turned out to be fantastic.
Jund usually has a few top-end threats that are capable of taking over the board. Often they include Olivia Voldaren, Kalitas, or Pia and Kiran Nalaar. Instead of those, I like Huntmaster the best. I like that the token you get is instant value in the face of removal, which only Pia and Kiran can also say. Huntmaster also gains life, which is great and welcome in this Scavenging Ooze-less list. On top of that, it doesn't cost any more mana investment to get your value out of it. You just get to flip it back and forth by playing Magic and casting your spells like normal. Mana sinks are great, but being mana efficient is great as well, and since we're constantly worried about being slow to get on the board, I like having the fastest of the four-drops. The same holds true for Tasigur, who I like because he isn't usually a four-drop. Having Grim Flayer and not having Scavenging Ooze opens us up to Tasigur quite a bit. Tasigur's activated ability doesn't come up much in this deck, since usually they are on no cards and you have a Thoughtseize in your graveyard, but it's kind of a nice option.
No love for the Ooze? Yeah, that's right. I just don't like this card that much. It costs a lot of mana, it is only good ins certain matchups, and is easily answerable for very cheap compared to the amount paid for it. If Dredge and Abzan Company start to become more popular, then go ahead and add some of these again, but I'm not sure it's exactly necessary at the moment.
The quad laser. I want the deck to be lean. Affinity isn't gonna wait around until you have Terminate mana up.
This is a trend that I'm going to keep doing, the lowering of the mana curve. The thing is, Modern is an eternal format. As more and more sets get added, over time, the format will get faster and faster until it's similar to Legacy. Eventually, you will have to make changes when you get tempo'd out of the format. Don't wait. Make them catch up to you.
When I saw this card first spoiled, I literally shrieked like I had just won Hanson tickets. It is sooooooooo gooooood. It does everything you want, it's great in every matchup, and it only costs three mana. I love it. When it was first printed they said, "You might even play a copy or two in Modern Jund!" but now it's like the best card in the deck. They are a little clunky in multiples, so I don't play four, but I am in love with this card, and you will be too if you play it a bunch.
The Sideboard
Before I talk about Blood Moon, I want to talk about the mirror match and Burn. Those are the two most important matchups in the format, to me, because I think they are both very good and they have a dedicated player base. Jund people and Burn people just usually always play Jund and Burn. The same is true for some other decks, too, but you know a Burn person and you need to beat them.
I took Reid's advice years and years ago and have always taken out my point-discard spells in the mirror. That means I need to bring in six cards in the mirror, since we've usually got six Thoughtseizes or Inquisitions. If you go up in numbers in those, you need to go up in number of playable mirror sideboard cards. Right now, I'm playing 3 Kitchen Finks, 1 Eternal Witness, and 2 Blightning. Try and find cards that are card advantage and/or have a lot of board presence to bring in against the mirror.
Similarly, you've gotta take out anything that costs you life against Burn. And any Maelstrom Pulses you play, that card sucks. Kitchen Finks and Obstinate Baloth are the best for this matchup, but I also like discard spells since they essentially gain you life when they hit burn spells. Right now, I bring in one Duress, one Blightning, and three Kitchen Finks. Engineered Explosives is a little slow.
So those are the rules that I set for myself when building Jund sideboards. Where do we go from there?
Jund in Modern is at its worst when opponents have higher card quality due to gaining advantage from their lands. Bant Eldrazi is a tough matchup. Tron is really hard. Valakut is not good. Why play fair? They don't.
To be honest, I put Blood Moon in the deck to fight Amulet. What I found, other than that you win on the spot every time, is that Blood Moon stops a lot of bad or tough matchups that I didn't expect. Black/White Tokens, Infect, Bogles, these are all decks that hate a Blood Moon and don't really have the ability to play answers for it. Blood Moon has been really good, but you do have to warp the mana and some of your card choices for it. You have to play a lot of fetchlands, so less Twilight Mires, Treetop Villages, and stuff like that. As long as people still are playing Valakuts and other garbage, I will keep Blood Moons in my sideboard.
Shadow Guildmage beats _the_ _shit_ out of Infect, Affinity, or anyone playing Birds of Paradise or Noble Hierarch. Pew pew pew pew pew pew. Better than Lavamancer by miles in the matchups where it matters. You don't have time to fool around filling your graveyard, it leads to bad play patterns.
Blightning earns a few "Whaaatt????"s from opponents. Here's the thing - I wanted something that would be good in the mirror, good against control, and good against combo decks. It's been great. I know I said no Thoughtseizes and Inquisitions against the mirror, but Blightning hits two cards, it's a completely different animal. And the three damage usually will kill a Liliana or something. It's fantastic.
Outside of those, we've got two Engineered Explosives to clean things up and a Duress and an Ancient Grudge for whatever. Note that having at least one copy of Ancient Grudge in your 75 makes the Lantern matchup much better.
That's the list and some of my explanations. Maybe next time I'll talk about Standard some more, or some more Modern stuff, as there is a lot there to go into. Thanks for reading!
