Locking It In

Star City Regionals isn't the hugest tournament in the world, but it's pretty big, it's local, and it's Modern, so it's what I've had my sights on for a little while now. I also was pretty happy with my results in the two instances of this tournament last year, finishing in 4th and 9th with almost identical Bitterblossom Jund lists. A lot has changed since November of last year in Modern, but running it back seems to be a pretty good bet. I'm excited.

This is the 75 that I'm going to play at Regionals.

4 Tarmogoyf

3 Scavenging Ooze

2 Courser of Kruphix

2 Huntmaster of the Fells

3 Bitterblossom

1 Grim Lavamancer

4 Inquisition of Kozilek

3 Thoughtseize

2 Fatal Push

3 Lightning Bolt

2 Dreadbore

1 Terminate

4 Liliana of the Veil

3 Kolaghan's Command

4 Verdant Catacombs

4 Bloodstained Mire

1 Wooded Foothills

1 Blood Crypt

2 Overgrown Tomb

1 Stomping Ground

1 Blackcleave Cliffs

2 Blooming Marsh

2 Raging Ravine

1 Hissing Quagmire

2 Swamp

1 Forest

1 Mountain

Sideboard:

2 Duress

2 Blightning

2 Obstinate Baloth

1 Murderous Cut

1 Kitchen Finks

1 Jund Charm

1 Pyroclasm

1 Engineered Explosives

2 Nihil Spellbomb

2 Damping Sphere

You can follow my progression with this deck over at my Youtube channel.

We've been over why we have Bitterblossom, and why we have no Bloodbraid Elf, I'll focus on some of the more interesting card choices. Also, check out this list from this weekend's Star City Open. 15 creatures, none of which are Bloodbraid Elf or Dark Confidant. Maybe we are actually on to something here.

Pyroclasm and Jund Charm are some interesting ones. Between these two, Radiant Flames, Anger of the Gods, you have a lot of cards that do similar things and are pretty interchangeable, so it's nice to have some diversity to play around Meddling Mage. The idea is that you pick off small creatures with the sweepers and use the rest of your removal to hit the big ones like Mantis Riders, overgrown Champions of the Parish, etc. Pyroclasm costing 2 mana is a huge selling point, since most of the decks it's good against have creatures that grow over time. Killing a 2-toughness creature before it gets to 3-toughness is equally as good as killing a 3-toughness creature. Jund Charm is another one that I'm excited about, it being an instant turns it into a Plague Wind that also counters Collected Company (in my fantasy dreamworld). The fact that Jund Charm is the stone cold against Storm is also nice, since it counters Past in Flames and wipes up Empty the Warrens tokens.

I have been in love with Damping Sphere lately. It is a somewhat narrow card, but it just so happens that the decks it is good against are the ones where you need lots of help, and also that it punishes those decks hard. Some decks like Storm or Amulet are just stopped in their tracks.

I've been a proponent of a three-of Kolaghan's Command for a while, ever since I saw Joe Bernal top 8 an Invitational with four in his Jund deck. I found four to be a little clunky, but Kolaghan's Command is the closest thing to Liliana of the Veil five-through-seven as we're going to get. It's disruptive, it's card advantage, and can even be tempo advantage when you two-for-one two cards on the board against something like Affinity or Hollow One. I have extra copies where other lists I've seen have Maelstrom Pulse or Liliana the Last Hope. These are fine cards, and noteworthy for their versatility, but I've found them to be even less versatile than Kolaghan's Command. Some cards are consistent and "never your best card but always okay," where Kolaghan's Command is "Often your best card and still always okay."

Ooze is not my favorite threat to back up Tarmogoyf, but I've seen a steady increase in decks that use the graveyard. Not just Dredge, but Hollow One, Griselbrand, Storm, and others have made me put away my Grim Flayers and run the Oozes. Also, Ooze plays pretty good cleanup duty against Humans, which is enemy number one right now. It's a card that I'm willing to variate from stock lists with, but I think right now is a good time for Ooze.

I recently had three Obstinate Baloths in the sideboard, but switched one out for a Kitchen Finks. Finks is good in a lot of matchups, most notably it's somewhere between okay and good against the new Jeskai Control deck. Since we have Courser of Kruphix in the deck, the 1GG mana cost isn't as much of a negative as it otherwise would have been, since you're still fetching with getting double-green in mind. I still really just want to live the Obstinate Baloth dream, though, and get that thing into play via Burning Inquiry. I've found that the matchup there is pretty favorable, so I'm willing to shave a Baloth for some help elsewhere, especially when Finks serves a lot of the same purposes. 

I'm on a 2-1 Dreadbore/Terminate split at the moment. Dreadbore is a little bit clunky, so I don't think I want too many of them, and the effect is good enough to warrant the Terminate. However, I'm a little scared of Teferi, and there are other targets where Dreadbore is quite a lot better as well, including Karn, Ugin, Lilianas, Gideons, etc. Terminate is clearly better in the face of Mantis Rider and creature-lands, but Terminate is a near dead card in lots of matchups where Dreadbore has a lot of utility, and it's not true the other way around.

Hissing Quagmire and Blooming Marsh are a couple of lands that are new and are usually overshadowed, but they've been pretty solid for me. Without any double-red cards in the deck, a single fetchland should let you cast everything in the deck.

Always play one Mountain.

One of the reasons I like the Bloodbraid-less list is that it makes your discard spells much better, or rather, you can play more discard spells without worrying about powering down your Bloodbraids. After the unbanning, lists often had just three or four discard spells, but I really don't like that. The hand disruption is one of the best things about playing a deck like this in the first place. It's also a pretty sweet spot where you have enough cards to bring in to replace them in the mirror, and also not so many Thoughtseizes that you can't replace those when your life total matters. You'll note the Duresses in the sideboard that are there when I want even more of this effect, and I've been pleased.

When Fatal Push was printed, I was a 4-Bolt 4-Push guy and loved it. The metagame has adjusted quite a bit, and good Fatal Push targets are few and far between. The only matchup these days where Bolt is worse than Push is the mirror match, but having a few of each is good for Meddling Mage concerns. Replacing one of the cheap removal slots for Grim Lavamancer has been pretty solid as well, as it gives the deck another proactive one-mana play on turn one.

So that's where I'm at. Thanks for reading, wish me luck, and stay tuned. After this weekend, I'll write about my experiences at Regionals. I might be setting myself up for disappointment, but I feel pretty good.

The Sideboard Toolbox

One of the reasons why I love Modern so much is the diversity of the metagame. There are always going to be the usual suspects of top decks for a given weekend, but there's never a guarantee that you'll see the decks you expect the most of, since so many things are viable. Even if there's a set few top decks currently, people will play anything and can be successful with them, so there are a million things to prepare for. That's where having a good sideboard comes in handy, and why Jund is awesome.

Today I'm going to run down all the different Jund cards that I like to use in sideboards. This isn't a list of what my sideboard is right now, it'll be more of a list of cards that I like to have access to, and by that I mean own, that I have practice with and can register for an event when I feel like it. It's not only important to have these cards (and potentially other cards that you might like) but to have used them in the past so you know how to play with them, and how to build your sideboard correctly in order to utilize them. Also, certain cards are going to fit in better with your maindeck plan depending on your exact list at a given time, so it's good to have lots of tricks up your sleeve.

Grim Lavamancer, Shadow Guildmage

Lavadude is one of the go-to anti-creature cards in Jund. It cleans up opposing Birds and Hierarchs, Affinity creatures, Humans, Glistener Elves, lots of stuff like that. Shadow Guildmage is another card that fills the same role, but has fewer applicable targets and can't turn onto your opponent's face as well as Lavamancer. However, Guildmage doesn't depend on your graveyard and is repeatable as often as you want, which is useful not only because you are free to use it more indiscriminately, but post-board opponents are more likely to have graveyard hate for you. Shadow Guildmage is more of a surgical strike when you know Affinity and Noble Hierarch decks will be popular, Grim Lavamancer is worse in those matchups but better across the board and has more applications. And while Lavamancer is reasonable but not great against Burn, Guildmage is a complete blank. Also, (and this is a theme with this deck to watch out for) be careful of utilizing the graveyard too much, since Lavamancer can run out of food quickly if played in the same deck as Tasigurs, Murderous Cuts, or other graveyard-matters cards.

Anger of the Gods, Pyroclasm, Jund Charm, Kozilek's Return

As opposed to the machine-gun-your-squad approach from Lavamancer and Guildmage, these cards look to Plague Wind your opponent's board. That comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages, but most notably they are better on the draw and against Bogles. They are definitely worse when you have your own Dark Confidants or Faerie Rogue tokens hanging out, but you can plan accordingly when you know they are coming. Of these, Anger of the Gods is the most powerful, since it hits Dredge and Kitchen Finks pretty effectively. Pyroclasm is fantastic at catching you up since you can cast it on turn two, and it will usually kill Champion of the Parish before it gets out of control. Jund Charm and Kozilek's Return being an instant are pretty cool, though the only upgrade I can see for Return over Charm is to kill an Etched Champion. Jund Charm is genius against Storm because it hits their Past in Flames and their Empty the Warrens tokens.

Fulminator Mage, Blood Moon, Ghost Quarter, Damping Sphere

Big mana decks are the enemy, so having some land hate is key. Fulminator Mage is solid, but never a knockout blow against anything, just an annoyance. The same is true for Ghost Quarter, but it misses out on any of Fulminator's advantages with Kolaghan's Command and Liliana the Last Hope. Blood Moon is quite good against Tron and lights-out against Valakut and Amulet Titan. It's also solid in some other matchups when opponents don't expect it, including Bogles and Abzan. The problem is that it hurts you significantly, and if you are running the Blood Moon plan, you'll have to set your whole 75 up accordingly. Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes not. Damping Sphere has been a godsend, since it nukes Tron, Amulet, and some other problems like Storm and Griselbrand. It doesn't do anything against Valakut, however, so you'll need a different plan against them (or just try and win without the hate, which of the big mana decks, is the most susceptible to normal disruption + a clock Magic).

Ancient Grudge, Nature's Claim, Seal of Primordium, Deglamer

These kinds of cards are useful, but not always super important. I used to like having Nature's Claim and Seal of Primordium to fight Splinter Twin, but that's certainly not a problem anymore. However, Leyline of Sanctity is still a problem for you in lots of matchups, and these are always useful against Affinity and Lantern. Deglamer can handle Wurmcoil Engine, so that's cool, but Wurmcoil isn't even that numerous in Tron these days. They all can also tag a Blood Moon in a pinch. Ancient Grudge, while being unable to hit enchantments, is of course extremely powerful. In fact, just having a copy in your 75 makes your Lantern matchup much, much better, since you don't even need to draw it for it to be good.

Duress, Extra Thoughtseizes, Collective Brutality

There are matchups where your spot discard is awful, and there are matchups where your spot discard is the only thing keeping you in the game. One or two more discard spells can help a lot, I like to be able to go up to 8 or 9 against Combo and Control decks. Since those are the decks you want the discard for the most, it makes sense that you can slot in Duress, but Snapcaster Mage is the most important card to hit in the Control matchups, and it noticeably misses there. However, your other 6 or 7 discard spells will snag the Snapcaster, and extra Thoughtseizes are awful against Burn, where you discard is actually pretty solid. As for Collective Brutality, I'm certainly in the minority, but I've just never liked it. I hate missing with the discard effect, the life drain is just small enough to be inconsequential lots of times, and a sorcery speed two-mana disfigure hits a lot fewer creatures than you would think when those creatures already have a Kolaghan's Command waiting for them.

Engineered Explosives, Damnation, Gaze of Granite

These two cards could go in the Anger of the Gods section, but they are kind of a different animal. They are more expensive and generally more powerful effects, but kinda unwieldy. Explosives has always been great for me, since it is useful against a huge amount of matchups, including the dangerous Bogles deck. It's a great answer to Etched Champion and other stuff that is specifically hard to interact with. Damnation has few applications where it's better than a Pyroclasm effect, since if you aren't getting swarmed, you are most likely winning on the board with the biggest creatures. If you're getting your Reality Smashed a lot, then this looks a little better. Gaze of Granite is kinda the best of both worlds, hitting only the creatures and permanents you want, but all of them. However, it's way too expensive for a lot of the quicker decks in the format, so in matchups where you'd most need it, lots of times you are getting run out of the gym or not drawing your lands on time for it to work.

Blightning, Liliana the Last Hope, Painful Truths, Planeswalkers

Depending on the shape of the metagame, there might be times where you're looking for a little more value to power through some matchups. Of these, what I like about Blightning is that it counts as a disruption spell against Combo decks while still giving you a two- or three-for-one. It clocks the opponent in a combo matchup, or it can nuke a Planeswalker from a midrange mirror, all while taking out pieces of cardboard from your opponent's hand. Yes, they get to choose the two cards, but you are either attacking their resources in the midst of an attrition battle, or you're attacking their hand with your other discard spells, reducing their options and lots of times just making them get rid of the last two cards they have. Painful Truths is of course a nombo with Bloodbraid Elf and a huge tempo loss, but Planeswalkers are solid and extremely versatile. Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Garruk Relentless, Chandra Pyromaster, and even Garruk Wildspeaker can do work in the right matchup.

Obstinate Baloth, Kitchen Finks, Huntmaster of the Fells

These are my go-to value animals to bring in against Control decks, Burn decks, and the mirror match or other attrition matchups. Each of them are solid for their own reasons, but basically I try and figure out what decks I expect the most and figure out which of these to play. Finks is the best against Burn, Baloth is the best against the mirror, and Huntmaster is best against Control. Huntmaster is also a fine maindeck card, whereas the other two here are sideboard only. If you don't expect any Blue and White control decks, then Baloth is the best, and is even good against Hollow One and The Rack. But it doesn't do anything about Celestial Colonnade decks, while Huntmaster and Finks are fantastic there.

My plan over the years has been to play at least three or four of these creatures, since the matchups where you want them are the kinds of matchups where you have large swaths of cards to take out. You want to take out all the discard in the mirror, you want no removal against control, and you want no life-loss inducing cards against Burn, so if you can set your deck up to replace all of those cards post-board you'll be doing great.

Grafdigger's Cage, Nihil Spellbomb, Leyline of the Void, extra Scavenging Oozes

Jund runs just enough of its own graveyard utilization to make Relic of Progenitus and Rest in Peace (if you are bold enough for a white splash) pretty poor. However, these other cards are fantastic against graveyard decks.

Grafdigger's Cage is pretty much lights out against Dredge, and helps a lot against Storm and Griselfbrand, but for some weird reason with the rules, it doesn't interact at all with the card Living End, so it's useless there. However, it does turn off Collected Company and Chord of Calling, so if those decks are popping up, Grafdigger's Cage might be your go-to graveyard hate.

Nihil Spellbomb actually removes the whole yard, which is awesome against stuff like Gurmag Angler and Kolaghan's Command rebuys, but worse since it is a one-time effect, then the opponent can reload their yard. Drawing a card makes this card a lot more palatable in various midrange matchups, where it's useful but doesn't cost you anything to play it. I like it against stuff like Grixis Death's Shadow where they utilize their graveyard but not enough so that I want really want to spend resources attacking it.

Leyline of the Void runs the same problem as any other Leyline card, where it's fantastic in your opener but sucks if you draw it later. It does, however, totally KO most graveyard decks on turn 0 of the game, which is nice. I like it less than Spellbomb most of the time because it has fewer applications and is a worse topdeck.

Throwing an extra Scavenging Ooze in your sideboard isn't the worst idea, especially if you're looking for another one of the Kitchen Finks/Obstinate Baloth effects. It's much slower and therefore less reliable against graveyard strategies, but when backed up by a discard spell or two, you will usually have time to make use of it.

Extra Maelstrom Pulse, Abrupt Decay, Fatal Push, Murderous Cut, etc

I don't usually like loading up the sideboard with versatility, since that's what the maindeck is for, but these can be okay to round out the numbers post-board. I always just feel like I can do better with my sideboard slots, but it's not the worse plan to have trusty old Maelstrom Pulse around to have your back. Currently, enemies number 1 and 1A in Modern are Humans and Hollow One, so to round out the deck a little I've been slotting in a single Murderous Cut. It's never amazing but always solid in the matchups where I want it, and versatile enough to come in and do work against a bunch of stuff. It's not typically the role of your sideboard cards, but you just kinda should do what feels good.

And I guess that's the whole idea behind Jund, really, is get in your reps, experiment a lot, and figure out what works for you. You're going to want to be able to be flexible and switch up your sideboard and whole 75 when a new deck comes along or gains popularity. Metagames shift, card selections evolve, the strategy is timeless, not just in-game, but as a concept for Magic as a whole. Identify threats, utilize research, clock and disruption, win tournaments, Jund for life, let's go.

If you'd like to see some Jund in action, check out my YouTube channel or follow me on Twitter. Sometimes, you can even catch me streaming on Twitch. Thanks for reading!

Youtube Channel and Burninating the Countryside

I started a Youtube Channel!

VIDEOS!!!!

You'll note that one of the videos that's up already is me playing Burn. Plus, I played Burn at the Grand Prix a while back. What gives, Jund dude? Let me explain.

Modern is an eternal format, which means it doesn't rotate. New cards enter the format all the time, but unless something gets banned, they don't leave. Decks that exist now have existed forever, and unless something gets banned, you can just play your deck at every Modern tournament from now until they stop running Modern tournaments.

In eternal formats, a great strategy is to master a single deck. Hopefully, you choose something that's versatile and consistent, and not subject to potential bannings. That way, you will always have the option to play a deck that you are comfortable with, and even if a scenario arises where you think to yourself "I should play Deck X because it's really good right now, even if I'm not familiar with it," that's fine, but having the option to play a deck you're a master of is really rewarding.

Modern is a skill testing format in a variety of different ways. First, the games are quick and mistakes are punished brutally, so normal gameplay ability is important. Secondly, it's a vast format with a pretty significantly long history at this point, so your opponent could be showing up with one of a huge variety of viable decks, and it's important to know not only how their deck works, but how your deck and their deck match up against each other. Third, is that since Modern is a format that is constantly being stirred up, a backlog of cards that you have tried out for various metagame scenarios is invaluable. When Humans gets a sweet land printed and now the format's number one deck is a 40-creature aggro deck, I've played Grim Lavamancer and Engineered Explosives in the past, so I know it's the right time to put those back in my list. These little decklist changes for a given event can be crucial and are often the difference between a good and a great tournament.

I've been playing Jund almost exclusively since Modern was created (with a short hiatus to cast Treasure Cruise). It's a great deck for Modern, not necessarily because it is versatile, has few unwinnable matchups, and rewards tight play and format knowledge. Also, I can just about guarantee that I've played more matchups with Jund than my opponents have with their deck if their deck was created in the last few months and they're just playing it as a metagame choice.

So why Burn? Well, the answer is that, for all of these same reasons, I like to have one specific backup deck. Even a deck as bad-matchup-proof as Jund just isn't worth it. These days, that could be because the format is based around Tron and Dredge, stuff that is perfectly beatable with my main, but tough (I'm told "main" is a term that means the character you are most familiar with in fighting video games, and it's a pretty good word to use here). If I am expecting those kinds of shenanigans, then I can press on, but it's an uphill battle, so changing gears for a weekend is a totally reasonable thing to do, so long as I am experienced with the deck and all of the above deck-selection process criteria are still true.

The reason I like Burn specifically, is that it has a lot of the same advantages as Jund but different specific favorable and unfavorable matchups. You still get to sport a robust sideboard, your deck is consistent and straightforward, and there are a huge swath of cards in the Modern format that you can use to your advantage that fit the deck and you can use to attack a given weekend. Matchups like Tron and Jund are way better with Burn that with Jund, but stuff like control decks and the mirror I like a lot better with Jund. If I expect to see Jund and Burn in the format since everyone in the world read this blog post, I'd roll with Jund. I talked about how I've been playing Jund forever, but even before Modern was a thing, I played Kird Ape at every single Extended tournament that it was legal. So basically, I've been only playing two decks for 16 years. Why change if it's still working out?

Hope you check out the Youtube page, and I hope you like it! I'll keep adding to it, and try to get back onto the streaming train too. Thanks for reading, see ya later!