So of course, in the mean time I've been rolling on MTG Arena. The whole 'stream the entirety of my Free-To-Play campaign' didn't work out because of computer issues, but I couldn't just not play. It's too fun. And obviously, once I got my Golgari deck built, I started Junding.
You'll note I don't have the sideboard listed here, because sideboarding isn't really a thing on Arena. That's certainly something that makes this deck worse. I also don't have to play best of ones, but it's the only way to rank up in the ladder. Plus, it helps out free-to-play players because you don't have to craft any sideboard cards. I can focus solely on getting the maindeck the way I want it, then start doing some 'competitive' (aka Best of Three) leagues.
The mana in this deck is not good. I rarely have color problems, which is good in a deck with 2BB, 2RR, and 3GG. I've managed to hold myself back from playing Jadelight Ranger, which is a personal achievement that I'm quite proud of. District Guide is amazing. That being said, the biggest problem with the deck is that a lot of the lands enter the battlefield tapped. I get so many hands that are one each of Woodland Cemetery, Dragonskull Summit, and Rootbound Crag, or something like that. I'm playing my Seekers' Squires really late and getting run over by my opponents when I don't draw Overgrown Tomb or the right basic lands.
That being said, when this deck does draw Overgrown Tomb, it's fantastic. Super smooth, lots of fixing, only Timber Gorge sticking out like a sore thumb making me look pretty bad. I can't even district guide for it. The curve is full of some extremely powerful cards, so when you're running on all cylinders, it's worth the trouble. That makes me excited for Stomping Ground and Blood Crypt (more on that in a bit).
Seekers' Squire and Merfolk Branchwalker are awesome, and honestly makes me wonder if I should have been playing them more often in previous formats. Maybe they'd have been good with Winding Constrictor? I also have been liking a Thorn Lieutenant or two in my Green/Black decks. It's great early and solid enough late, but they're still a little slow and not great in multiples. I don't love having the whole deck be weak to Deafening Clarion and Ritual of Soot. Legion Warboss also eats it to sweepers, but it gets to play both the role of quick, cheap threat and good sweeper follow-up. It's definitely a must answer threat, which we want to have a lot of (duh).
I've decided on the 3 Chupacabra/2 Vraska's Contempt split for a couple reasons. One is that the control decks often have things like Niv Mizzet or Crackling Drake, so only hitting creatures isn't the hugest of deals in lots of scenarios. Vraska's Contempt is clearly better against Teferi, but between Contempt and Assassin's Trophy, we have a lot of answers to Planeswalkers. Chupacabra also fits really well with the creature-density theme of the deck. We are low on removal and high on utility creatures because of how well they work with Find/Finality and Vivien Reid, which are kinda sorta the two best cards in the deck.
Rekindling Phoenix is as awesome as I had hoped. Lava Coil and Vraska's Contempt are problems, but it's not like you are without other targets for them, and they aren't super common. Carnage Boi is awesome as well, obviously. I might go up to a third copy.
Of course, today marks the first day of spoiler season for Ravnica Allegiance (I think that's what it's called, I just want to call it Rivals of Ravnica). And the biggest two cards for Jund were, technically, spoiled:
However, that's about it. We also saw Bedevil, which should probably take the place of Assassin's Trophy in Jund, and might even see Modern play. But instead of new cool stuff, we just saw a bunch of blue cards today, letdown city. Oh well, we'll see what's up tomorrow.
I have hope for Domri. I know I shouldn't, but a straight reprint of Domri Rade would actually be pretty sick in this deck, since it's so creature-heavy and could use a removal spell/card advantage split card. However, you never know what they'll do and maybe it'll be nothing like the original Domri.
Bedevil was the good Rakdos removal spell I was hoping for, although it might do weird things to the mana. Gruul Spellbreaker honestly looks pretty good too, just a big fella or someone who can attack a Teferi and can't get removed on that turn. Maybe it'll take the Legion Warboss slot.
Alternatively, this deck could go through a pretty big transformation with its whole mana base and District Guide setup. It's impossible to maximize District Guide while playing four copies each of the three Shocklands and three Buddy Lands. We could just mix and match some stuff, trim a basic or two, cut the Timber Gorges, but that still leaves us playing basic Forest which isn't great with Bedevil, and basic Swamps and Mountains that aren't great with adding Jadelight Ranger potentially. Not to mention, one thing that I'd really like in this deck is to add Memorial to Folly somewhere. Right now, that's way out of reach, but a 25 land deck that's all Memorials and dual lands could work for us. The fixing would be worse, kinda, but we'd have pretty good late game. I'm going to try to build a District Guide version and a no- or few-basic version and see which is better.
That's about it for now. Next time, I'll go through whatever spoilers we've gotten, and talk about Modern in anticipation for SCG Worcester, my first actual magic tournament since, uh SCG Worcester!
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