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!

Hartford, Modern, Adaptation, Self Reflection, and Doming Motherfuckers

Grand Prix Hartford was this weekend and Modern is a wild, wild place. I did not know what to do. I love Jund, and I love Modern, but I didn't think it would work out. In some ways, I was wrong, but in some ways, I was right.

One thing I've been working on lately is trying to get a Burn deck together for Modern as a backup plan. I love the idea of playing Jund for all the reasons you've read about in this blog, mostly because it's fun, it's interactive, it's never too awful, it has a low fail rate, and you can really leverage your experience. Sometimes, though, it's just not as good as something else, so Burn is my Modern backup deck. The metagame as it stands now, with its Hollow Ones and Bogles, is hostile towards Jund, or anything not being equally proactive. Burn is the epitome of proactive, and sports a fantastic sideboard against the degenerate decks. The list that I've been working on is an extra-aggressive version, with a pretty serious green splash for both Wild Nacatl and Atarka's Command. In the instances where I think Jund isn't good for a weekend, it's because I want to be extra proactive, so this works out pretty well.

For all eight rounds of Day 1 of the Grand Prix, I faced matchups where I was much happier having Burn than Jund. Zoo, Griselbrand, two consecutive Eldrazi Tron decks, Mono Blue Living End, Jund Death's Shadow, Mardu Pyromancer, and Scapeshift. Lots of variation. It's so hard to pin down the Modern metagame, but I was happier with the Burn deck, even if it wasn't the exact metagame I had anticipated.

I finished the day at 5-3, losing a heartbreaker to the Scapeshift deck to miss day 2. Jund was a little absent from the top tables, except for Jadine Klomparens and Reid Duke, who are, like, the best players in the world. It is my opinion, after this weekend, that Jund as we currently know it in the Jace/Bloodbraid era is just not going to work against this level of degeneracy. Bogles, Hollow One, Ironworks, and Primeval Titan were all present in the Top 8, and the rest of the format isn't exactly a cakewalk. Here are my theories:

1. Jace and Bloodbraid have actually had the opposite effect you'd expect in Modern. Instead of promoting interactivity, they promote not interacting at all. The reason is that if the late game of the control and midgame decks are getting better, then you need to be able to win the game either before that or in spite of that (via Hexproof or graveyard strategies, etc). Hollow One and Bogles are the best of both worlds here, since they are hard to interact with and very fast.

2. Bloodbraid Elf constricts the Jund deck in a way that makes it unable to fight against this scenario. The inclusion of Bloodbraid makes the Jund deck play significantly different card choices than it otherwise would. You want to maximize on three mana spells so you get the most value out of Bloodbraid, and you want to make your deck full of cards that are good in all kinds of board positions. Bloodbraid is certainly powerful, but is it worth the inclusion if it warps your deck this way? I think it depends on the makeup of the metagame, and currently I'd say no. Tempo'ing people with Bloodbraid Elf into Tarmogoyfs is just not fast enough or strong enough to compete against these Charbelcher decks. If you want to interact, Bloodbraid doesn't exactly help, and if you want to be aggressive, Jund isn't even in the same league of proactivity as the rest of these goons.

3. Bloodbraidless Jund can be good. This theory is certainly against the grain, and you've got really no reason to believe me, but I'm going to write out my plan here and see how it goes.

Bloodbraid not only constricts your deck by making your spells cost more (by this I mean, to maximize Bloodbraid's effectiveness, you play less cheap cards and more lands and more expensive spells), but it also constricts the kind of cards you can play, namely X spells. In a world where people are playing Bogles, Elves, and the omnipresent Affinity is always around the corner, Engineered Explosives out of the sideboard solves a bajillion problems, and it just can't be done with Bloodbraid in the deck. Another card that I think might be fantastic and want to try out is Gaze of Granite. The third card, specifically sideboard card, that is worse in a Bloodbraid deck is Damping Sphere. When Bloodbraid Elf costs 5, it is a lot less exciting, and I'm really looking forward to the Sphere after watching Ironworks win the Grand Prix.

As far as the main deck is concerned, I was certainly startled by how quickly we've dismissed Fatal Push from our decks. It certainly makes sense, and the format has adapted to Push as well as it realistically can, but 0 copies of what might be the most efficient removal spell ever is just amazing to me. I don't love the quad laser, since it is so lacking against some of the most important decks, but if the mirror is going to be a thing (and we're certainly worse there due to no Bloodbraids), killing an Ooze or Goyf for a single Black will be one of the ways we get ahead.

Another thing: I feel much better about playing Bitterblossom over Dark Confidant right now, and here's why:

If the monster pro Jund-lifers are whittling down on their Bob counts, then maybe I'm just way ahead of the curve? Idk, but she was the only Jund player in the Top 16, so...

This is the next Jund list I want to try out. If my theories are right, it'll be either still too slow for the format, or I'll win the next eight Modern tournaments I play.

4 Tarmogoyf
2 Bitterblossom
2 Grim Flayer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Huntmaster of the Fells

4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Fatal Push
1 Dismember
2 Dreadbore
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Liliana of the Veil
3 Kolaghan's Command

4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
2 Ragine Ravine
1 Hissing Quagmire
2 Blooming Marsh
1 Blackcleave Cliffs

23 Land, 14 Threats, 3 Creaturelands. Sideboard:

3 Obstinate Baloth
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Blightning
3 Damping Sphere
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Murderous Cut
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Gaze of Granite

I feel like this deck might even have more late game power than a normal Jund list, since Grim Flayer, Tireless Tracker, and Huntmaster of the Fells, and of course Bitterblossom shell out tons of value to close the game. I love that Hissing Quagmire can tangle with Gurmag Anglers, Death's Shadows, and Lhurgoyfs, which Raging Ravine cannot, and still threatens Jaces that are noticeably absent but are always looming. I dislike the lack of graveyard hate, but the most prominent graveyard deck, Hollow One, can easily skirt around it, so it might not be that good anyways. The sideboard lacks ways of beating true control decks, but those are few and far between currently.

We'll see what happens. Always Be Tuning.

How Abstract Can I Reasonably Get?

So this is going to be a bit of a stretch, we're gonna talk about basketball. Specifically, the debate about who the best NBA basketball player ever is (or was). I promise I will try to tie it all together with actual important things at the end, I do not promise that you'll understand or that it'll even make that much sense.

One of the things you hear a lot about if you listen to sports radio or read Reddit threads in sports subreddits are arguments about which player is the best player of all time in that sport. In the NBA, which is the sports league I follow the closest, the most widely accepted theory is that Michael Jordan is the best player ever. However it's not set in stone, and people's valuation is changing all the time, not only because new players are performing at a high level, but because we are learning more about the game and what attributes most closely align with success.

Basketball is an interesting game with an interesting history. In its beginning, just like in any game, players and coaches just simply weren't that good. The best players were the ones who had obvious physical traits that stood out above everyone else. Wilt Chamberlain was not only the tallest and biggest player of early basketball, he was also supremely athletic for his size and was completely dominant. He's another player in the argument for best ever. However, he was often beaten out, on the court and in forum posts, by Bill Russell, a player who was not quite as physically gifted but also pretty damn gifted and played his role very well on better teams than Chamberlain.Soon after the Chamberlain/Russell years, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA's next best player ever argument player came into prominence. He was probably the best player of the 1970s, and he holds the record for most lifetime points scored by a player.

However, in the 1980s, the NBA made a huge rule change and allowed for the 3-point shot. This led to a pretty significant change in the way teams played, since outside shooting was valued higher than inside shots close to the basket. It took a long time for teams to relearn their strategies and account for this change, which is still ongoing today and a topic of much debate. The 80s were dominated by two players - Larry Bird and Magic Johnson - who unlike the best players of the 60s and 70s, were not huge players that used size and strength to dominate inside close to the basket. They were players who were known for their savvy passing, acute knowledge of the game and creativity, and their effectiveness at playing multiple roles for the same team. The game had opened up much more, allowing more strategies to be effective than "pass to the biggest dude."

The 1990s were all about Michael Jordan. Jordan was different than Bird or Magic, since he was not as well-rounded of a player, but his scoring abilities were just off the chart. He was the best player on the team that won 6 of the 10 championships of the '90s, despite only being in the league for 8 of them, and was the highest scoring player almost every year.

Since the turn of the century, the NBA has had a resurgence of really awesome players. Kobe Bryant was the best of the 2000s, but since 2010 it's been all LeBron James. Kobe played a game that was extremely similar to Jordan's, not in just having a similar skill set, but similar tendencies (for better or worse). LeBron is more of a combination between Jordan and Magic Johnson's style back from the 80s, what he lacks in shooting ability (not that you would consider him 'bad') he makes up for in passing and being a facilitator for his teammates. LeBron's teams have made it to the NBA Finals each year for the past 8 years, and smart money has them making their 9th this year.

The argument lately has been this: Has LeBron James passed Michael Jordan as the best player of all time? There's so much to unpack here.

One, is that simply, it's impossible to just consider Michael Jordan's skills and say "Would LeBron's team be better or worse if LeBron left the team and Jordan was subbed in." There are so many variables. LeBron plays a different position, he also is expected to do different things within the team, outside of his position, and to make it more difficult, he played 20 years ago against completely different teams employing completely different strategies. The same is true the other way around, would LeBron continue to have success on Michael Jordan's teams of the 90s? Impossible to tell. But, we can guess.

Additionally, how sure are we that Jordan is the best player ever in the first place? We have to run through these same steps for each player. He played in a much different time than Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell, back when Jordan's skills would have been less useful (not bad, still probably very good, buy maybe less useful). Chamberlain's scoring statistics in particular are insanely gaudy, more impressive even than Jordan's from the 90s, and Russell has 11 championship rings, 5 more than Jordan, so they both certainly have arguments.

And, are we sure that LeBron is even the current player whose argument is the most valid here? The obvious answer here is yes, since if you've been a basketball fan the last 14 years, you know he's been completely dominant, but there are some others who are playing currently who have a shot of eclipsing some of the all-time greats. James Harden and Steph Curry are a couple of players who are really bringing us into the next step in evolution of the game, where teams aggressively attempt 3 point shots and try and be as efficient as possible. It's too early to say that either of them are arguably the best player ever, like you can with LeBron, but it's not too far away.

So in the end, we have to make a judgement for ourselves. Of course, there's nothing riding on your decision, and watching basketball is purely for entertainment, so it's just a huge fandom-wide 60-year-long though experiment. It's okay if your opinion is different than someone else's, but we're doing it wrong if we aren't critically thinking.

Magic time: A long time ago, I was discussing a deck with a friend, a Jund midrange deck for Innistrad Block Constructed. We were discussing the merits of removing the red mana from the deck, and I was against it. I mentioned that "you're going to win more with Huntmaster in your deck than with Bloodline Keeper." That comment was met harshly. Magic cards do not exist in a vacuum, and it's impossible to say unequivocally that one card is better than another. They not only have different roles within their decks, but the format they are in is constantly in flux and the opponents and decks they play and cards within those decks are anyone's guess. Huntmaster of the Fells may look like a better card, and might be more popular, but it doesn't mean that Bloodline Keeper isn't good, or potentially even better given the right set of circumstances.

Here's the thing: at the end of the day, it's up to the player to just make their best guess. You playtest, you theorycraft, you think about all the matchups you expect to see and how often, and then you make a decision. You have to think critically, and despite that it's impossible to know what the correct answer is, there is actually a correct answer. This is especially true in midrange decks, where the strength of the deck comes from individually strong cards. Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, and LeBron James might not mesh the best on a basketball court, but in a midrange deck in Magic, they'd be amazing, since any one of them is capable of taking over the game, just like Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, and Scavenging Ooze are all awesome despite Jund not being built with them exactly in mind.

Rudy Gay is a current NBA player who plays a similar style to Michael Jordan. He's way, way worse, but still pretty good. Flinthoof Boar is an awesome Magic card, but we don't play it in Modern Jund when Tarmogoyf is legal, just like you wouldn't want Rudy Gay on your team when you can play Michael Jordan. We have to think critically and make good card choices for our decks.

Anyways, this is why I think this argument is important, and maybe if basketball isn't really your thing, then how about Modern. What's the best card in the format? And why? And what would have to change to make the second best card become the best card? And what cards that are coming out soon have the potential to shake things up on the list of best cards? We have to participate in these thought experiments because we don't have infinite testing time to figure it out for sure, so we take our experience and make our best guess. Trust your intuition, be welcome to being proven wrong, and don't disregard anyone else's ideas until you've truly considered them.

As for my own opinions (as we completely dive into basketball nerdland): I'd say LeBron James is actually the best ever, but it's closer to me than it might be to some LeBron fans. Jordan was such an exceptional shooter that his inability or unwillingness to facilitate for anyone else was mitigated by his isolation game. I think that people also overlook just how fast Jordan was. He got a ton of transition buckets that others wouldn't, and he was able to get open all the time because people couldn't keep up with him. All that being said, LeBron isn't only able to play all five positions on offense and defense, he's usually the best player on the court at those five positions. He has no weaknesses, he just has a couple of attributes that he's not legendary in. LeBron James is truly Tarmogoyf. He's always the smartest player on the court. He's like soccer legend Messi if Messi was built like a rhinocerous. Maybe a Siege Rhino? I would rank the top 10 players ever as follows:

1) LeBron James
2) Michael Jordan
3) Wilt Chamberlain
4) Bill Russell
5) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
6) Larry Bird
7) Kobe Bryant
8) Magic Johnson
9) Tim Duncan
10) Shaquille O'Neal

I think in three years, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant are both on this list, and James Harden has a real shot at it too. Ben Simmons in 15 years? Certainly possible, but that's a long ways away.

Anyways, hopefully there was enough Magic content in this basketball blog post to make it worth your while, and even if you couldn't follow along with all the physical-sports mumbo jumbo, hopefully you could still understand the lesson behind it. Thanks for reading, and keep checking in as I transition from 7 foot tall people back to 3.5 inch tall cardboard.

Believing in Yourself, And Other Jund Mirror Details

So, as you might know by now, I like me a Jund deck. I've been playing it almost exclusively for as long as Modern has existed. It's had its ups and downs. Beginning when it was the best deck in the format (in my humble opinion), to when it was way too good, to some years of mediocrity, even being thought of as unplayable, and now, for the first time in a long time, it's back at the forefront of the format. It's been quite a journey, and it isn't likely to stop any time soon.

I've even played Jund whenever I got the chance in other formats as well, most notably Standard, with good ol' Bloodbraid into Sprouting Thrinax from the old days, and Farseek into Thragtusk in the less old days. I even tried to attack the Pack Rat/Sphinx's Revelation format with discard, cheap removal, and medium size creatures, and it kinda worked. You won't catch me casting a lot of Brainstorms in Legacy, I'm more likely going to be Thoughtseizing and Tarmogoyfing. I don't always play red, black, and green, but it's definitely a strategy I gravitate towards, which I think is a good way to structure your game.

Since Bloodbraid Elf returned to the format, there's been quite a bit of digital ink spilled about how to build and play the deck as of late. As we are wont to do as Magic players, I gobble up pretty much every article written about my favorite deck.

Usually I really take to heart the things I read, and getting new perspectives is always awesome for something you've been working on for so long and are continuing to work on. Getting someone else's opinion makes you re-examine your own, and re-examination of the truths you hold is important, not just in Magic, but in life. Are the reasons you thought A plus B equal C still true? New data might make you rethink certain things, which of course both ask and answer more questions, ad infinitum.

I bring this up because I read an article yesterday by a very successful Magic pro, Joel Larsson, over on ChannelFireball. It was on my favorite subject, the Jund Mirror Match. He's a former Pro Tour champion, has an additional Top 8, multiple Grand Prix Top 8s, and I looked all of this information up on his Wikipedia article, because homey has his own Wikipedia article, which is probably the biggest accomplishment of them all. Plus, he's Swedish Kibler. I don't need to tell you that, as far as success in Magic, he's got a lot more than you or me.

I couldn't help walking away from the article thinking to myself that, for the most part, he was wrong.

What's really cool about Magic, and it's been this way for a long time now, is that lots of the best and most famous players in the world write articles every week describing their though processes and share their expertise with all the rest of us. It's fantastic. Magic is such a deep game that they can give away their secrets without damaging their place in the game's royalty. Joel let everyone in on his findings for one of the most important facets of the Modern format today, which is, when you think about it, really really cool.

What Joel says is that, contrary to what a lot of people have believed for years, taking out your Inquisitions and Thoughtseizes after sideboard is not the best way to win the mirror. His thinking is that the cards in your sideboard, most notably Fulminator Mage (if you play it), don't do enough work in the mirror match to warrant taking out discard spells to help you navigate the early turns. The late game downside of the point-discard isn't enough to warrant their exclusion, since they help you avoid being buried by early game Dark Confidants and Planeswalkers. In fact, Joel says to leave in the Inquisition of Kozileks, since the Thoughtseizes are the worse of the discard spells due to the life loss.

Now, since the beginning of time, it's always been the rule of the Jund mirror match that you board out your discard spells. In fact, when an opponent opens on Inquisition of Kozilek for game two of a Jund mirror, I am ecstatic. When the entirety of the format was Jund on Jund on Jund, taking out the discard was a crucial trick of the mirror that the successful midrange players knew about and took to the top tables. Joel's mirror match plan throw a huge wrench in that plan.

So the question becomes: Do I stick with my gut, or do I accept this new opinion as truth? Well, let's take a look.

Since Bloodbraid Elf was unbanned, do the discard spells get better or worse in the mirror? For one, you can take a Bloodbraid Elf with a Thoughtseize, which is pretty crucial. The average converted mana cost of the deck also has gone up, so it's more likely your opponent has a valid Inquisition or Thoughtseize target, since they won't be able to deploy all their spells as fast as before. As for reasons why it might be worse, you have a new card advantage source in Bloodbraid Elf that can catch you up on cards or act as an additional removal spell for a Dark Confidant before it spirals out of control. Additionally, the deck gets more aggressive with Bloodbraid Elf in the mix, which means your life total is less safe, mitigating the power of Dark Confidant. So, to me that seems like the unanswered Bob scenario is less dangerous than it was in the pre-Bloodbraid days. Additionally, Bloodbraid herself makes having discard spells in the deck post-board even worse, since in those times when you are really hoping for a good cascade, you are more likely to blank on an Inquisition when your opponent is empty-handed. Even when they're not empty handed, you still cascaded into a 1-mana spell, which is as bad of a cascade as you can have.

I want to stress that none of what I'm writing is an indictment of Joel Larsson, his ability, or even of his article or his strategy. Magic is a vast ocean of different opinions, and extremely rarely are there going to be hard and fast rules that you absolutely need to follow. People are always going to have different play styles, different valuations for cards and decks and archetypes, and just different goals in general, and Magic is a big enough game that you can tune the philosophies you follow to yourself and be successful. Also, having an extra opinion in your arsenal of data points should always be welcome, and the reason for that is this: you never have to follow the advice you receive.

If you're a notorious Burn player in all formats and Jon Finkel writes an article about how you should board Monastery Swiftspear out in the mirror match, that might shake up your foundations of the way you thought the matchup works, maybe even how Magic works. Think about it, but don't be convinced too easily. You are an expert, too. You've gotta believe in yourself, since at the end of the day, your experiences and the knowledge you've gained over time are just as worthy as anyone else's. If you feel like the author is wrong, note what they said, but don't follow their advice. If you feel convinced, then change your methods. If you are somewhere in between, then practice what they said and come to your own solid conclusion.

Joel Larsson is a super-duper pro, Pro Tour Champ, and incredibly handsome, so it's a tough sell to make to myself to not follow his advice. But I've just gotta remember, I've had a bunch of experience and Top-whatevers and won money playing and winning Jund mirrors, and they even used to call me Vermont Kibler (no they didn't), so my opinions are also pretty valid when it comes to this subject. I'm sure that you can find a subject in Magic, be it a format or matchup or deck or even a single card, where you can feel the same way.

I think that one thing that helps drive this home is when, once in a while, pro players on Twitter will have an argument about a decklist or a sideboard plan or something. Recently, some of the world's best were having at each other about whether or not to sideboard out Rogue Refiner in the Temur Energy mirror (which seems patently insane to me, but okay). The two sides of the argument were filled by thousands of pro points and tons of credibilty, and they could not convince each other of changing their ways, so they each decided that they were gonna do what they wanted to. Almost no opinion is a hard and fast rule in Magic, even at the very highest level of the game. It's part of what makes it great.

So remember that moving forward, as I'm sure you'll run into the same situation I found myself in after I read Joel's article. It's good to re-think your stances, it's good to get a smattering of differing opinions, but remember that the person shuffling up and casting the spells is going to be you in the end, and that your opinion is always going to be the most important. And board out your damn discard spells.

Thanks for reading!

Damping Sphere Quick Notes

Straight off the presses of the leaked Dominaria documents comes a totally sick new sideboard card that punishes the bullshit in Modern.

This mockup comes from the good folks at MythicSpoiler. Pretty obvious card, but kinda a lot to unpack here.

First: Hoses Tron. Better than Blood Moon against Tron because it comes down a turn earlier and doesn't screw up your own lands. Better than Fulminator because it can come down a turn earlier, beating them on the draw, and they can't just beat it with redundant Tron pieces. It's not strictly better, since it is vulnerable to artifact hate, but Jund runs discard spells so we're at least a little protected there.

I like the design of this card a lot for how it attacks Tron. Similarly to Blood Sun, it beats half of the big mana deck problems, but doesn't do anything to the other half, since Valakut is fine under this. It also hoses Amulet, which is nice.

Second: Hoses Storm. I don't think it's worth bringing this in for anything other than Storm just for the second half of the text box. However, Storm really takes a hit from this, since not only do they kinda sorta have to respect your fair game of creature removal, discard, and good threats, but now there is a lock piece they have to worry about that they just cannot win through. It adds another element to what they have to do to win, find a Wipe Away or Echoing Truth, then bounce this thing and have enough gas to go off the next turn before dying to your Goyfs.

Damping Sphere is pretty surgical in its design to hit just those two decks. I can't imagine that bringing this in to fight Snapcaster Mage or something is worthwhile, similarly to Grafdigger's Cage just to Ambush Viperize their Thiagos. And it's cool that it's just an artifact, which pretty much any deck can deal with if they're ready.

What this does, though, is completely redesign how we are going to build our sideboards. For instance, here's the sideboard of my current Jund deck:

2 Crumble to Dust
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Blightning
2 Shadow Guildmage
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Duress
1 Jund Charm
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Thragtusk
1 Obstinate Baloth

So a little off the beaten path, sure, but it covers a whole swath of Modern decks pretty well. Now, since we have Damping Sphere, we not only get to upgrade Crumble to Dust, we get to use it against Storm, and maybe the Storm cards get reallocated elsewhere, and of course when we do that, we can shake up some more things to improve more matchups overall.

Start by taking out 1 Duress and 2 Crumble to Dust for 3 Damping Sphere. Storm and Tron matchups are starting to look real good, maybe we don't need this Jund Charm or one of these Ancient Grudges anymore, let's cut those and add 2 Back to Nature because Bogles pisses me off. Now all of a sudden, not only did our Tron and Storm matchups get an upgrade, but so did our Bogles matchups.
This is the power of overlapping sideboard cards. If Grafdigger's Cage beats Dredge 80% of the time and Collected Company 60% of the time, it's probably better to play 2 Grafdigger's cage than 1 Leyline of the Void and one, uh, I dunno, Perish or something. You increase the odds of drawing your bomb sideboard cards, and you also increase the number of decks you are packing heat for.

Of course, you also have to worry about what cards are in your maindeck that you want to take out. You might need to board out a lot of cards in matchups that make your removal dead, like Control decks, Bogles, or Tron. These broad range cards help make up for that, too, which is why I like something like Blightning. It looks pretty out of place, but its versatility lends itself to a lot of matchups, even if it isn't a knockout blow like some of the other cards here. But, I bet if I really take a hard look at my 60 and the format as a whole, I can come up with something even better.

Anyways, thanks for reading, just wanted to get the ol' Damping Sphere on everyone's radar. I might write a whole post at some point explaining my Jund sideboard theories. Keep an eye out for that, in the meantime, here's what I would have for a sideboard starting as soon as Dominaria is released:

3 Damping Sphere
2 Fracturing Gust
1 Shadow Guildmage
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Blightning
1 Thoughtseize
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning