On a nice little run with this list, let's talk about it.
A question I get on stream from time to time is what card from Jund in older formats would I like to see put into Historic. There's no real perfect answer to that question because the format is changing at a rapid pace and the tools that you would want change quickly. Lots of cards would be good in certain situations, others wouldn't really be as useful because of the decks you're likely to run up against. One card I always kind of wish we had though was Sprouting Thrinax.
Having said that, there were a couple of big reasons to not play Grakmaw up until now. One is the amount of Claim the Firstborn in the format. Between Rakdos Arcanist and Jund Sacrifice, which were at times two of the top three most popular decks in the format, getting this hit by Claim was such a high risk that it didn't seem worth it. It's honestly still a little sketchy. However, the amount of Claim the Firstborn in the format has fallen off drastically.
The second reason to not play Grakmaw was that if the first 3/3 didn't kill an Uro, the second 3/3 wasn't going to either. Before Strixhaven, Historic was a format of haymakers. Even beyond Uro, there was Nissa, Emergent Ultimatum, etc. As the format as a whole gets more lower-to-the-ground and decks are more interested in using one for one removal, Grakmaw starts to create some real problems. It's great against decks trying to remove it with Lightning Helix and it's great against decks trying to attack into it with Gruul Spellbreaker.
This, like all cards but more than usual, is subject to change if certain metagame shifts happen. Specifically, if Claim the Firstborn starts to creep into the equation more than it is, then Grakmaw will have to hit the sideline again. But I like how it's playing for now.
I'm still a huge fan of this card, but there's a few reasons why I'm playing Chariot over it for now. One, I wanted to go down to two four drops and when you do that, the cost that Professor has on your sideboard becomes a lot tougher. All of a sudden you're drastically debilitating yourself in post-board games for a much smaller payoff, since you're only 2/3 as likely to draw a Professor.
Secondly, I'm finding that either the card you get off it doesn't need to be cast to win the game, or you lose with it in hand. Like I mentioned before, the format is getting much lower to the ground and while two for ones are great, drawing a card that you don't have time to cast isn't really a two for one.
Third, I moved back to Maelstrom Pulse from Murderous Rider, so the utility of getting a Naturalize effect wasn't as necessary. A little thing, but worth noting that it's nice to not be cold to Experimental Frenzy and hardcast Shark Typhoons if you don't have to be.
For what it's worth, I tried out Rekindling Phoenix in this slot, looking for a good threat that was hard to deal with one for one but could close a game quickly if it wasn't dealt with. That was nice, but it took about one time not being able to cast it for lack of red mana to change my tune. So Chariot's back.
Play 4. It's too good.
In our new low-to-the-ground format, things like Mono-Red and Gruul are great decks. They are consistent, low-to-the-ground themselves, and punish people who are messing around with Brainstorms and Abundant Harvests. Since that's the case, Thragtusk looks awesome if you can get it to resolve in those matchups. Fewer decks are trying to get fancy with Righteous Valkyrie and stuff, but instead they are going straight for your face. Add to that how great Thragtusk is against Teferi decks and mirror matches, and we've got a really solid card for the format right now. If their plan is to either attack into it or remove it, then Thragtusk is a slam dunk.
Since we always have to make this comparison, I like Thragtusk a lot more than Gargaroth at the moment. Thragtusk is almost always lights out against red decks and Gruul decks. Gargaroth is as well, but Tusk is better against the grindy matchups than Gargaroth by quite a bit.
Another thing is that as of right now, we're Jegantha ready. A month ago I'd have insisted on Jegantha being in the board, but the world has changed quite a bit since then. There are two reasons for this. One, the graveyard decks are a lot better than they used to be because of Faithless Looting, which stretches your sideboard in an extra direction and requires lots of slots. Go Blank of course has been awesome there, but you still need as much action as you can get. In addition, other decks like Rogues and combo decks are really sleek and strong, and you need to tune your 60 with cheap interaction after sideboard to have a shot. What I'm getting at is that sideboard real estate is at a premium right now, so if there was ever a time that Jegantha wouldn't be worth the sideboard slot, it's now.
Second, you're just not very likely to need to fetch it and cast it. Trying to spend eight mana on Jegs in a 22 land deck is just a completely different world than in a 27 land deck. It isn't that the deck wouldn't like to have it, it's more that we simply cannot access it very often. Games are over or essentially over quicker, and you'll be operating on less than five lands quite often.
Having said all of this, I'm still not sold that it shouldn't be included. We've already made all of the deck construction costs, so the only thing we have to do is make one sideboard cut in order to have it. If Jegantha wins one game out of every 30, is that more or less useful than one extra sideboard card? It's tough to run the numbers, but if the Companion mechanic has taught us anything, it's that it's more worth it than you'd think.
To touch on this quickly, I tried a Dreadhorde Arcanist build of this deck for a little while but ended up moving away from it. First, you're running into the graveyard trap. Grafdigger's Cage is usually a blank and Rest in Peace is pretty limited against us, but with the Arcanist build you're running headlong into it, at a time when graveyard hate is a huge necessity in everyone's sideboards. Second, the deck had trouble closing games. I'd have times where I literally cast five free spells off an Arcanist and lost because I didn't have enough ways to actually kill the opponent. Arcanist decks usually do this with Kroxa, but unless you want to go in on Stitcher's Supplier and Faithless Looting, then it's harder. Third, you really do have to warp your deck around Arcanist to make it consistent. I was going way up on discard spells and even main deck Cling to Dust in order to have enough Arcanist food and it still often wasn't enough. Don't get me wrong, I usually love cutting mana costs, but this was a little too much. Hence why I didn't have space in the deck for cards to close the game with.
I think that this list looks very good, but it's a little different from what I want to be doing. Note that if the graveyard decks are going to have easier access to cards to get rid of opposing graveyard hate, you need to really max out on that effect, and that Go Blank specifically is great because it can't get Assassin's Trophy'd or Abraded.
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I played in and streamed JafferMTG's big tournament championship thing this weekend and had a great time. I had no idea what I was doing in Standard, but if I was to do it again, I think I would play this deck by a player named Mertcan. I got beaten badly by it and it looked well tuned. I'm hoping to have a little time this week to fire up the stream again and run some Historic Jund on the ladder. Thanks for reading.
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