Current Events

Hey folks, here's a rundown of what decks I've been tinkering on for the last little bit, plus some spoiler season goodies.

Pauper MBC

This deck has been doing well so far. Pauper is a weird place where every card is bad and this deck is just a 2-for-1 machine. It's so hard to get punished for playing things like Chittering Rats and Phyrexian Ragers because it's so much harder to get tempo'd out of the game than in other formats. I don't think Sign in Blood has ever been usable in constructed, but here it's gas, because the life loss and the two mana spent aren't making or breaking the game.

My list differentiates from other lists I've seen online quite a bit. Specifically, the Duresses and the Innocent Bloods, along with all four copies of Chainer's Edicts are a departure from most lists. Y'all youngin's might not remember MBC of the old days, when you'd Cabal Coffers your Nantuko Shade for 18 after you Mind Sludged all your opponent's cards away. These cheap and easy one-for-one trades are really what set up the deck to turn the corner and I've been liking them a lot. Another difference here is that I'm playing 5 more cycling lands and a value Rakdos Carnarium, so the first couple of turns often will involve using a mana or two to cycle lands or playing lands that enter the battlefield tapped, so one-mana spells are especially good for getting out of the early game.

Cuombajj Witches are usually an automatic 4-of  in these lists, but they kind of cut down on the cards you can play with them. I really like Liliana's Specter. It's like a Chittering Rats that's really good against Delver of Secrets, but you can't play it and Cuombajj Witches on the same battlefield. That said, I have a couple of Witches in the board that will come in against decks with one-toughness creatures, and in those instances, the Specters aren't that good anyways. The absence of Witches also makes our Innocent Bloods not as damaging.

I almost wish I could play three more Duresses in the sideboard, but I'm happy here with most of it, just a smattering of discard spells and value stuff along with one of the format's only sweepers. Nihil Spellbomb comes up from time to time, but it's solid enough against the Mnemonic Wall decks to warrant an inclusion.

I'm tempted to splash a color. Red would give us Faithless Looting, Blue would give us Mulldrifter, White would give us Thraben Inspector (don't laugh). However, we would lose out on the value of all the cycling lands, which really is one of the reasons I think this deck is so good honestly. You run out of gas so infrequently that none of the additions to bolster your late game actually would do so.

Modern Jund

Narnam Renegade has been pretty good. It seems like in every matchup you would either like a quick creature to put pressure on with or a one-mana Deathtouch blocker. Death's Shadow, Champion of the Parish, Hollow One, Tarmogoyf, Gurmag Angler, they all die to this thing, and it clocks pretty well if you cast it on turn one. Similar to Wild Nacatl and Kird Ape and every other one mana creature, it gets a lot worse as a late game topdeck, this time especially so because you'd like to have a Revolt trigger that you probably don't have anymore. Theoretically, those matchups are ones where Deathtouch matters a lot, but sometimes against a control deck you'd like something with a bit more oomph as the game goes late. However, I love what it does to the mana curve, just look at that beauty. Decks like this aren't supposed to be this fast. To really maximize it, I think I'm going to try an 11th fetchland. Tireless Tracker likes that idea, too.

Phyrexian Arena has been crushing it in the midrange mirrors. Since your deck is so much faster with extra Fatal Pushes and Renegades, you aren't often on the back foot as far as your life total is concerned. Blightning continues to be great, as does Damping Sphere. Something I wish I had more room for is Ancient Grudge to fight all of the Ironworks and Hardened Scales decks going around right now, but all of the sideboard slots get heavy rotation, so I wouldn't know what to cut for it. Third copies of Nihil Spellbomb and Damping Sphere would help certain matchups, too. If you could play 20 card sideboards instead of 15, Jund would be unbeatable.

Modern Burn

Here's the thing about this deck: there have been times in the past when control decks were just not present in the format. A year ago, Jace had not been unbanned, Teferi had not been printed yet, and people were just running Thalias and Thought Knot Seers into Karns and Death's Shadows and everyone was happy. That was a different time. And it's not to say that Burn is necesssarily a bad deck against the Blue/White control deck that's popular now, actually, I think it's pretty good. This list, however, is not designed to beat that deck and so I'm not comfortable running it right now. The reason I put this deck together in the first place was to attack a format with a lot of combo decks in it and not a lot of creature removal, but when your Wild Nacatls are getting Bolted or Path'd or whatever, we start to have a lot of problems.

That being said, this deck is like a Humans deck that's good against Humans. It plays way under anyone else, it has plenty of creature removal to play a tempo game, and importantly, it has a lot of disruption for unfair decks. Granted, with this list, that comes in the form of Eidolon of the Great Revel, but also the sideboard cards in this set of colors are just knockouts, if that's what you're looking for. Molten Rain, Rest in Peace, Stony Silence, Searing Blaze and Blood, it's all super good if that's what the format is about, and you don't give them any time to find an answer to your busted silver bullets.

Now is not the time for this deck, but ideally, that's kind of the point, for me, anyways. I built this one as a backup for times when Jund didn't seem like a good metagame call, and those are the times when Karn and Stinkweed Imp and Monstrous Carabid are popular. This deck smokes all that stuff, and so I might be unpacking this one again if my opponents could just please stop playing Snapcaster Mage.

Assassin's Trophy

It's been about six days since this one was spoiled, so I've had some time to think it over. The answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Assassin's Trophy is either 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4. Right now, I think the answer is 0. That is, I am going to put 0 into my Jund deck.

Couple things. One, this card is card disadvantage, let's not forget that. Giving an opponent a land is a significant disadvantage when so much of your own deck consists of discard spells. If your opponent has more mana to cast their stuff, you can't catch as much with discard spells, so when you two for one yourself to resolve this, you also might be deading an Inquisition or Thoughtseize or neutralizing a Liliana activation.

Second, outside of Tron, how often does this target something that Dreadbore can't? It being an instant is better of course, but depending on our own deck, that doesn't come into play very often. Abrupt Decay also has a lot of targets and we don't play many, if any, of those these days. Reminder: Dreadbore ramps our opponents by 0 extra mana. While this card is probably (not definitely) better than those options against Azorius control with their Jaces and Search for Azcantas, against Mantis Rider or Tarmogoyf you'd rather just be casting your normal removal spell and not giving them any more mana.

Third, how often is it good against Tron? There are a lot of factors there, including how much Tron will get played in a format with Assassin's Trophy, whether you play Damping Sphere in the sideboard, how often they actually hit Tron through your discard spells instead of just hitting six land drops and casting Wurmcoil Engine. Remember that if they don't already have Tron online, you really don't want to be ramping them into Karn and Ugin. By the way, Assassin's Trophy targeting Ugin will not help you, since they just wiped your board and now have nine mana.

I think that, to start, Assassin's Trophy isn't going to be in my deck. I could be convinced that I'm wrong about that, but for now, I'm not dropping any of my already pretty good two-drop versatile removal spells. Maybe the right mix is 1 Dreadbore, 1 Abrupt Decay, 1 Terminate, 1 Assassin's Trophy, and we all stop talking about it.

Some quick hits spoiled so far:

If this put the land into your hand, I think it would be a four-of in Modern Jund. Alas.

If you play Tasigur and expect tons of Humans and Spirits but no Hollow One, this actually looks pretty good. It has to be really good to be better than Damnation because it hits almost all of your own stuff and misses some of the things you'd want Damnation for in the first place. Wipes up everything out of Affinity unless people start playing Myr Enforcer again, then we're screwed.

:/

That's actually about it for spoilers thus far. Even though there are two of our guilds represented in the next set, Golgari is kind of our best bet for good Jund cards, since graveyard shenanigans and removal spells seem to be the best way to print stuff that's good enough for Eternal formats but don't mess up Standard. That being said, Kolaghan's Command was a pretty nice one in Rakdos colors, so who knows. And you never know when they'll print another artifact hate card like Damping Sphere or Null Rod that looks out of place but is a great sideboard card in Modern. Actually, Null Rod would be amazing.

Ari Lax tweeted recently that Scavenging Ooze wasn't good enough for the format, and for the most part, I agree. It's super good in certain matchups, but the matchups where it's not good, it's very not good, and half of the time that it is a good matchup, it's too slow anyways. Against Dredge, you still might just lose unless you have some good help or they have a slow draw, same for Vengevine garbage, Storm, Hollow One, Living End, etc. The only matchup where it really shines is the mirror, and even then it's got all of Dark Confidant's weaknesses with only a fraction of its upside. They are awful in multiples, and Reflector Mage just annihilates it. Until I think of something better, or they print something better, I'm not satisfied with spoiler season yet. Assassin's Trophy has not quenched my thirst to tinker Jund forever.

I love Jund.

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Success! Kinda... not really.

Junded out in a PPTQ yesterday. There were 33 players, which is the exact cutoff for 6 rounds of Magic.

I made the changes that I had talked about, swapping the Dark Confidant/Bitterblossom counts, cut a Kolaghan's Command for another land, an extra Shadow Guildmage in the board.

In the first round, I faced a Blue/White Aethermage's Touch deck with lots of scrying and Emrakuls. The plan was to Aethermage's Touch on end step into Emrakul, then Restoration Angel or Flickerwisp it on their own turn after attacking to really get em. It did not seem good, but it did seem awesome, and while I would have loved to see this dude Emrakul someone else, I used a bunch of discard to make sure he didn't Emrakul me, specifically.

In round two I squared off against a friend, Adam Perkins, playing Storm. I think I should have won all three games had I played a little differently, but I took unnecessarily risky lines in games two and three and got punished. For what it's worth, I think it's a super good matchup, not intrinsically but with my build the way that I've got it now. I've got lots of graveyard hate, lots of discard, removal for their Electromancers and Barals, good threats, and even Damping Spheres. In the very next round, I was paired against Storm again and this time took it down pretty convincingly.

I played against Grixis Death's Shadow in round 4. My opponent mulliganned a bunch in game one, but I still had to get lucky to rip Liliana to kill a turn 2 Zombie Fish, then take over with said Planeswalker. In game two it was more of the same. I feel like the way the deck is set up now, if I hit my land drops, I'm a pretty significant favorite here, especially post-board. Their stuff is so much cheaper, though, so if you stumble a little bit it could be too late The inevitability is definitely on our side, as long as you keep Zombie Fishes and one mana 6/6s in mind when figuring out your removal suite.

Round 5 was pretty much a win-and-in, and I faced off against a really cool Green/Black aggro Death's Shadow brew. My opponent's deck was full of stuff like Experiment One, Putrid Leech, Narnam Renegade, Greenwheel Liberator, Strangleroot Geist (swoon!), Death's Shadow, and Avatar of the Resolute, to go along with some removal and Street Wraiths. Game one was a long protracted ordeal but I hid behind Goyfs and Bitterblossom until my Liliana could ultimate and kill a bunch of his dudes so that I could turn the corner. In the second, I had a Bitterblossom again and used it, Liliana, removal spells, and Hissing Quagmire to block and kill stuff and eventually win.

I drew into the top 8 and had time to go obliterate a burrito from Bueno y Sano.

In the first round of the Top 8, I faced off against Blue-Red stuff. Like, when people call decks "Abzan Cards" and "Sultai Cards I Own" this was the Blue-Red version of that. Snapcasters, Young Pyromancers, Remands, Cryptics, Bolts, Serum Visions, Opts, Jaces. In the first game we got to a pretty good stalemate with Liliana taking all our cards away until I topdecked a Huntmaster and took over. I lost the second game, in which I kept four lands and two Tarmogoyfs, kept an Inquisition on top, then never drew a spell. In the third, I was kinda sorta on the back foot for a while due to Vendilion Cliques and my own Dark Confidant, but I made sure to have answers to both Jaces that he played and eventually won a close one after some clutch Scavenging Ooze lifegain.

In the semifinals, I played against Burn and got extremely lucky in game one. At 6 life, I had a Huntmaster in hand but would need to take 2 damage from an Overgrown Tomb to cast it on turn four. I got shot down to three, then had to fade any burn spells for three turns, which I did and snuck away with one. In the second, we both mulliganned (which definitely favors the Jund player) and I made him discard a bunch of stuff, then attacked him to death with dorky creatures.

I faced off against Humans in the finals, and it was not to be. I had a good start in the first game with removal into Bob, but I still couldn't really deploy all my stuff in time and died to a Mantis Rider. In the second I made the punt of a lifetime by totally forgetting about Noble Hierarch's exalted when blocking, but I don't think I was going to win that one anyways. I ended the game with three lands in play and two Huntmasters in hand, which would have been great but never worked out. My opponent had fantastic draws in both games, but it's Humans, their plan is so straightforward that it's hard not to have awesome draws.

So you would think that coming in 2nd wouldn't make me feel like I need to re-think the list, but that ain't me. The Death's Shadow dude got me thinking about Narnam Renegade. I think I would have to do a little work on the mana to ensure Revolt when I need it, but I think I could actually play that card and we could see what happens. It's cheap, it's at least a little aggressive, it trades with gigantic Champion of the Parishes and Thalia's Lieutenants and blocks or attacks into pretty much everything else in the Humans deck. I felt like the exact card choices against the Humans deck isn't what does you in, it's the tempo that they gain from Hierarchs, Vial, and Thalia, and so I just want to make the deck faster by adding cards that are quick, but hopefully still have some late game utility. I think it'll be good against Death's Shadow and Hollow One as well.

It's important to note that late game, most of the time, I can still turn revolt on when necessary. Because of Tracker and Fatal Push, I'm already just leaving excess fetchlands around and not cracking them on my opponent's end step very often. I think that's an important thing to keep in mind when tuning a deck, these little play patterns that push you to make one decision or another. Pairing Tireless Tracker with Fatal Push and Narnam Renegade will really solidify the idea that we should be keeping those lands around and not cracking them. Having an extra basic land or two in the deck helps facilitate this, because you are still going to want that mana from time to time but not want to take 2 to cast stuff.

I also want to play an extra Fatal Push. I didn't really play against anything where Fatal Push wasn't good, and it'll make the mana costs cheaper. Also, the Dark Confidant swap I made seemed awesome as well.

I had pipe dreams of adding Liliana the Last Hope to the deck, but after this event I'm not sure. It wouldn't have been good against much that I faced because it's slow, and even against Humans that has a million one-toughness creatures, you can't expect them to still be one-toughness by the time Liliana comes down. I still like my Shadow Guildmages a lot out of the board.

Thanks for reading, and check out the youtube page here where I just finally actually uploaded three videos I made from a while back. Enjoy some cube!