For the time being I'm done with Arena. I don't expect that to be totally permanent, but I'm dipping my toes back into Modern and putting Historic on the shelf for now.
Jund in Modern can come in a few flavors. There's the extra low-to-the-ground, almost Delver-like Sagavan, which features Ragavan, Urza's Saga, and Lurrus. There's also a non-Lurrus build that has Liliana and Bloodbraids to go along with Urza's Saga.
Again, I'm just getting myself started in this format, basically, since the last time I earnestly played was pre-Modern Horizons 1. Pretty much a different format. So I'm kind of starting from scratch, taking old-school Jund and moving some stuff around until I find something I like, somewhat disregarding the Urza's Saga packages for now.
This is a list that I like so far, but by no means can I put any stamp of approval on it. It's just doing things that I think have potential.
Wrenn and Six has been awesome. There are a lot of one-toughness creatures running around, between Esper Sentinel, Ragavan, and DRC, plus stuff like Teferi Time Raveler that often winds up at 1 loyalty. It's so cheap, it usually can net you some value before any graveyard hate comes down if they even have any, and it still has value for you even if they have Rest in Peace or whatever. So I wanted to sort of maximize Wrenn and Six.
To do that, I'm playing a fairly low land count that's high on fetchlands. That's a little counterintuitive, because this is a medium speed deck and you can run out of fetchables. But there are some uses to excess lands. First, you can just pitch them to Liliana, which is what you're doing a lot of the time anyways and part of why Wrenn goes so well in a non-Lurrus deck. Second, you can just store them in your hand, threatening to unload a bunch of Bolts at the opponent if you ever ultimate the Wrenn and Six. The low land count of the deck is afforded because the Wrenn and Six will usually ensure you're hitting land drops all game. I've got one cheeky Barren Moor in the deck just for funsies, and that's clearly great with the Wrenn and Six, but if that was another fetchland, that would be fine too.
To maximize Wrenn and Six more, I'm trying to load up the deck with the types of cards that help protect it and are benefitted by it. Going down this path led me to want to try lots of planeswalkers. Wrenn and Six has some synergy with the planeswalkers in the deck, sure, but more than that, planeswalkers just kind of have synergy with themselves. There's a lot of reasons behind that, but when you untap with a planeswalker it's very good, when you untap with two it's overwhelming. Wrenn and Six makes this possibility a reality by costing two, so it can come down before your three and four mana walkers, and can protect them with its ping ability. Plus, it helps you hit the land drops required to cast your more expensive stuff. So far I've only got one Vraska, Golgari Queen as 4+ drops, but you could start going further down that road if you wanted to.
So since we're doing all of these planeswalkers, how we going to build the rest of the deck around them? Firstly, I want lots of cheap removal. Planeswalkers are expensive, so you need the rest of your stuff to be cheap in order to make them come down on a stable board. We've got 8 one-mana removal spells in the list right now, and the two copies of Ragavan are basically removal spells because they absolutely must be dealt with by the opponent. Ragavan doesn't really need an explanation. That helps protect the planeswalkers and make our opponents not able to get traction, plus we've got seven one mana discard spells. That's a little more than usual for the higher-up-the-curve midrange builds of Jund, but I want to be able to ensure that our planeswalkers can resolve and we can untap with them, and Thoughtseize effects are a cheap and easy way to do that. Plus, without Bloodbraids or Seasoned Pyromancers, our ability to clock the opponent is pretty poor, so I like having extra disruption for combo and control opponents.
To round out the deck, I've got a couple Dark Confidants and a couple of Crime/Punishment. I liked Crime/Punishment in the sideboard, but so many decks are going to either have Urza's Saga or cheap creatures that I thought it would work out, and it has. It's very versatile, and you can even cast Crime sometimes if you get some treasure tokens. Note that it doesn't hit planeswalkers, making it extra useful in this deck. Dark Confidant is sort of a planeswalker by itself and works well with a lot of the same support cards, the cheap removal to keep your life total high and the Thoughtseize effects to protect it. As I'm writing this paragraph I'm realizing that Crime/Punishment makes you take seven off the Dark Confidant, so maybe I'll change that, but the theory is sound. And oh yeah, four Tarmogoyf.
I also want to mention that Raging Ravine, while definitely is no Urza's Saga, has been performing very nicely. This deck doesn't need a quick clock, but it does need to close the game out with something once we've established the planeswalker hard-lock, and Ravine is able to do that. It's nice that some of the attacking power of the deck that's necessary doesn't take up the slots that we'd rather be using for threats and support spells.
Not a lot of the sideboard is set in stone, but there's a few things that I like. Leyline of the Void has been great. Graveyard hate is useful and all, but some of the midrange and aggro decks of the format lean into graveyard shenanigans more than they might have in the past, so a turn one Leyline is going to be worth it in a lot of matchups. Murktide Regent, Red/Black Midrange with Kroxa, and of course the Dredge nonsense, all gets shut down nicely. I also am really into playing one copy of Gaea's Blessing. The trick is that, against the Mill deck, you don't even have to draw it. There are a some times in metagames, few and far between, where you can swing a matchup by playing a card that doesn't even require you draw it. I like to take advantage of that when I can. Plus, I mean, Shadow Guildmage rules.
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That's where I'm at for the moment. I played in a Modern Challenge on stream on Sunday and I'm planning to do that every chance I get from here on out, but it's not the greatest time to be doing that kind of thing, with the holidays coming up. Still, I'm hoping to spend a lot of the next stretch of time here streaming and working on this deck. Thanks for reading.
