It Don't Take Much To Get Me On The Ground

 

Link

Happy with this list.

Not a ton of updates to anything as of late, except that I'm interested in Maelstrom Pulse quite a bit right now. Murderous Rider is a perfectly fine card, but it doesn't shine in any of the biggest matchups at the moment. Pulse can hit Felidar Retreat, Shark Typhoon, and gives you some free wins if your opponent draws multiples of stuff. Murderous Rider's 2/3 Lifelink body isn't really doing much right now, and in the matchups where that would be good, they have sacrifice abilities to counter the spell and not let you adventure anyways.

Omnath has certainly reared its ugly, uh, head I guess. And in Historic, not only is there Uro still around, but there's Oracle of Mul Daya and Explore and Growth Spiral if you're so inclined. It's a strong deck, but Historic has a lot more tools. We've definitely moved to a place where Historic isn't just Standard plus some other stuff, it's its own beast. Omnath is certainly good, perhaps even the best thing going on, but it's beatable and amongst a crowd of other very good stuff.

I'm going to go in-depth a little bit on each of the major matchups.

Goblins

-1 Klothys, -1 Radha, -1 Mammoth, -3 Gifted Aetherborn, -2 Liliana

+3 Shivan Fire, +2 Abrade, +3 Cage

I'm not certain that this is actually the best sideboard plan, but it's what I've been going with. Mostly, I'm on the fence about Thoughtseize, because the game will turn into a topdeck war at some point. In the first game, it's the only really good way to deal with Muxus, but when there are Cages in the deck, you're a little safer. This matchup is one of the reasons I like Abrade over Eliminate, because we can take out a Krenko, which is their only realistic way of beating a Cage that sticks. Shivan Fire, in a pinch, is also good against Krenko, while Disfigure is not for that slot. Chevill is incredible in this matchup, Ooze is okay.

Sultai/Bant/Nonsense

-3 Bonecrusher Giant, -1 Mammoth, -1 Gifted Aetherborn, -1 Bloodchief's Thirst

+2 Duress, +2 Davriel, +2 Phyrexian Arena

I very much dislike bringing in Grafdigger's Cage in these matchups. Uro is their biggest problem for you, but letting it hang out in their graveyard and waiting for them to find an answer to Cage isn't a good plan. Lately I haven't run into a lot of Ugin, so that makes Klothys a big problem for them. Try to empty out both hands and win with Castle Locthwain.

Jund Sacrifice

-1 Radha, -2 Liliana, -2 Mammoth, -1 Gifted Aetherborn

+3 Cage, +2 Abrade, +1 Shivan Fire

I like leaving in the Thoughtseizes against this matchup because Collected Company and Korvold are so deadly and it's important to know if they have Claim the Firstborn. Chevill and Ooze are great again here, of course, but don't get attached to them because they can get hit by Claim the Firstborn pretty easily. This is one of the matchups where Inscription of Ruin shines, because it deals with their best creatures but also is able to get back Ooze.

Red

-1 Radha, -4 Thoughtseize, -2 Mammoth

+1 Sporeweb Weaver, +3 Shivan Fire, +2 Abrade, +1 Cage

If you see Hazoret, then definitely don't bring in Cage. If you see Experimental Frenzy, bring in a couple, or if you don't want to, then bring in Duress. Drawing one Cage usually isn't going to make or break anything, plus it's not a terrible hedge if they have Earthshaker Khenra. I've been seeing a lot more Frenzy than Hazoret lately, so be prepared for that reality. The games themselves go about how you would expect. Protect your life total above all else. They can certainly kill you if you stabilize the board at 7 life, but 15 or something is not going to happen.

Rakdos Arcanist

-2 Liliana, -4 Thoughtseize, -1 Mammoth

+3 Cage, +2 Abrade, +2 Shivan Fire

First of all, they can't really beat a Klothys, so that's good to know. Ooze is your best card here of course, but again, don't get too attached. I like cutting Thoughtseize because it doesn't seem like it really does anything of substance. If you take their creature, they Claim/Fame it. If you take their Claim/Fame, they flash it back on Arcanist. I like just playing to the board better. I spent a long time thinking that I should use Thoughtseize to protect Cage in post-board games, but it never really works out that way. I like just having more knock-out cards than they can deal with through their Bedevil effects, and we have that in Chevill, Ooze, Inscription to rebuy them, Klothys, and Cage. Let them Thoughtseize your hand apart, sure, but if you can keep the board somewhat stable, you'll eventually draw something they can't really deal with. 

Also, why am I always boarding out Mammoth? Can't really think of anything else to take out, but also you've gotta imagine that your deck is a little more streamlined post-board that flexibility isn't quite as necessary. You can kind of adjust your land count in your 60 by trimming Mammoths.

Gruul

-4 Thoughtseize, -1 Radha

+3 Shivan Fire, +2 Abrade

If you can keep pace early, you're usually good to go. Chevill is awesome here, but don't be afraid to just throw it out there early and cross your fingers. If they have Domri's Ambush it kind of stinks, but lots of them play Primal Might instead, and even if they have it, it often means they have to take a turn off from curving out. Don't be afraid to just nail their last two cards with Inscription of Ruin to try and play around Embercleave.

Mono Blue

- 2 Mammoth, -1 Klothys, -1 Radha, -2 Inscription of Ruin

+3 Shivan Fire, +2 Abrade, +1 Sporeweb Weaver

Inscription is just a little slow for what's going on here. The idea is that you want to just have as much instant speed and cheap interaction as possible. Unlike most of the other aggro decks in the format, I don't usually like to just jam Chevill on turn 2 if I can help it. If you run into this a lot, try putting Murderous Rider back in the deck over Pulse, it's really good here.

Omnath

-3 Gifted Aetherborn, -4 Mammoth

+2 Duress, +2 Davriel, +2 Phyrexian Arena, +1 Shivan Fire

My best results against Omnath have come from turning into a control deck that seeks to win with discard and just amass more cards. That seems a little crazy, I know, but the games really don't come down to Elvish Warrior and Trained Armodon. A much better plan is to play a low-land count and answer everything you can, snag their key pieces, and keep up on cards from Chevill and Phyrexian Arena. Try to save Maelstrom Pulse for Felidar Retreat if possible, which is strangely their best card against us. Please, if given the chance to kill a Lotus Cobra, take it.

~

Magic is a weird game. Omnath is clearly the most powerful deck out there, but in a format like this, you can't really ever be too far ahead of everyone else. Historic is in a pretty nice spot right now where the power level is low enough for interesting games but the card pool is large enough to provide you with lots of answers for the stuff you might see. I like where we're at with this list, but I would imagine the Omnath lists get streamlined some and we might have to adapt. It's a tough deck to attack, but when you've got Thoughtseize and Chevill on your side, anything is possible.

Bebop Baby How Can This Be

 

Omnath seems to have destroyed Standard. Somehow, I haven't run into it in Historic. Why is that? Someone please kill me with this thing. I can't try to figure out how to beat it if no one plays it. And if the answer to all of this is "It's not as good in Historic because there's more discard and removal for Cobras" that's just serious balogna. Look at this thing! That deck plays like a Vintage deck, it's obscene. 

In the meantime, the format hasn't shaken up a huge amount in Historic. After a little less than a week of Zendikar Rising, this is where I'm at now.

I've cut all the five drops from the deck. I'm not sure that they're too slow for the format, but between Glorybringer, Thragtusk, Elder Gargaroth, or Angrath, you really want to have the right one for the right moment, and that's not super easy to pull off. If that's the case, then I'd rather have stuff that's less powerful but hits the board earlier. This was my initial thought with Nighthawk Scavenger, a card that's cheaper but has the ability be strong in the late game and close the game. Scavenger has been fine, but I cut them because I wanted another Mammoth and I wanted to add Radha and Klothys back into the deck. Don't sleep on Scavenger, depending on what you're looking for, it could definitely be right to include. With rate like it's got, you can't really mess up too bad by playing it.

Mammoth has been great. Five damage a turn is nothing to sneeze at. Mostly with Mammoth originally I was worried that the added flexibility and draw-smoothing wouldn't be worth it because neither the land side or the creature side would really be worthwhile, and I can officially say that that's not the case. By lowering the curve of the deck, a couple lands that enter tapped aren't the end of the world, so the land fits in fine. And also since we're lowering the curve of the deck, an aggressive blunt object 3-drop has a much more synergistic role in the strategy. We're moving away from the Thragtusk/Huntmaster/Bloobraid Jund strategy where you win through two-for-one threats and more of the Thoughtseize-Tarmogoyf strategy where you use your opponent's dwindling life total as leverage.

Inscription has also impressed me. What's funny is that Mind Rot is a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing on turn three in quite a few matchups, but just not enough matchups where you'd actually want the card Mind Rot in your deck. However, sometimes even in matchups where you wouldn't necessarily expect it, the Mind Rot mode turns out to be useful. If you have a board that's stable and suspect your opponent's last two cards are Hazoret or Collected Company, nail em. The other thing that makes Inscription so good is that having a Scavenging Ooze that survives is critical in a lot of matchups, and so having the ability to rebuy an Ooze in the late game is enormous, something I overlooked. Even against a board of opposing creatures that are more expensive, Ooze still is the king of a board stall.

My belief, at least for now, is that Bloodchief's Thirst is just too good of a card to not play four of. Unlike Fatal Push, drawing two of these against something like Blue White Control is not a death sentence, but similarly to Fatal Push, drawing one significantly hampers your opponent's ability to tempo you out of the early game. Just an unreasonably good card. 

In my last post, I said that I would stream an MTGMelee tournament last weekend, but some stuff came up, but this weekend I've definitely got the weekend cleared. My plan is to play in the MTGA Zone tournament that they usually hold on Saturdays at 1pm Eastern, and I'll stream it.

List

 First draft of what I think the list looks like on Thursday, when Zendikar Rising comes out on Arena. 

Link

A couple posts ago I said that I'd be annoyed if they only printed six of the Pathways, and only the red/green one for us, and guess what, they did and I am. Not a huge deal though, I'm not really certain that I would play them anyways. I think the mana is pretty reasonable here, and we'll try out the Kazandu Mammoth and see how it goes. I could honestly see any number 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 being right on those and also having no clue how to decide if they're good or not.

I'm lowering my count of 2-drop creatures to just 9 and I honestly don't love it. I think it's really important to have the ability to just establish something on the board early so we don't waste mana if our opponent doesn't have anything that needs answering. The most important things that I would say we are missing are the last two Gifted Aetherborns and a 1-of Klothys, which I've liked a lot.

I also am back on my Angrath bullshit, as you can see. It's such a house against Uro, which is just about the most popular card in the format. Beyond that, it's a great threat against control decks, and at worst steals and kills our opponents' best creature, since most decks aren't playing anything more than three mana. At the moment, I feel like Angrath is the best 5 drop for how the format looks right now, but I'm also interested in lowering the curve in total, so who knows. Thragtusk is on the chopping block.

We also have gotten to a place where Maelstrom Pulse isn't in the deck anymore, and that could certainly be wrong. We cannot destroy an artifact or enchantment in the main deck, and while that's kinda scary, sometimes you gotta just let Thoughtseize be enough security against that kind of thing. I'm excited to try out these other removal spells in its place, like Inscription and Bloodchief's Thirst, but if those don't line up well with what's being played in the format, well, Pulse always lines up.

Also, a whole separate issue: at some point it might be right to *gasp* cut red? Between Eliminate and Bloodchief's Thirst, and Disfigure out of the board, we kind of have enough cheap removal in Black to make up for what Red's really good at in the deck. That's an issue for later, but Bonecrusher Giant's utility sure has gone down now that all the best decks with small creatures play Village Rites, Phyrexian Tower, and Woe Strider, and it doesn't kill the two of the most important creatures, Mayhem Devil and Dreadhorde Arcanist. That said, no other removal spell can just yolo as a three mana 4/3 when you wanna clock em. It's an incredible card.

This boy is so exciting to me and it makes me pretty sad that I just can't see it being right to play it. I love Sprouting Thrinax, but Historic in general does not seem to be about this kind of thing right now. This card is phenomenal at the things that it actually does, like getting into combat on the ground, one-for-one removal, giving yourself wrath protection. I keep talking about how Claim the Firstborn is going to wreck this thing, but I mean, if those decks were to drop in popularity, Grakmaw isn't especially good against Uro or Ugin, either, whereas something like Nighthawk Scavenger is pretty solid against everything in the format right now. I think there's a world where printings, bannings, and just trends transform the format into something where Grakmaw can shine, but we certainly aren't there right now. Keep this one on the back burner.

I'll know more about it by the weekend, but Thursday afternoon should be some fun. I'm hoping to fire up the stream when the new set's out but may have to wait until Sunday to actually get a good session in.

A Few More Zendikar Hits

 

I think that this card is exceptional, but I also think that you can't really play it in the Claim the Firstborn format. It's really too bad, because this thing does everything we want. It's a low-ish mana investment, it has reasonable stats, and it loves getting into combat with opposing creatures. It's like a toned-down Thragtusk, and that's a pretty great place to be, unless, like I said, the two top decks in the format all play Claim the Firstborn and sacrifice outlets.

Here's the first, and I think only, double faced card that I'm really interested in, and it's a real nice one. The rate on this is solid enough, and attacking for potentially 5 is a really nice spot against things like Teferi. It certainly does close the game quickly if you have the lands, which is fine because if you're casting it as a creature then you probably will have the lands. Double green is not our favorite, but you know what? If you don't have the double green for it, you'll have it for the next one you draw. I'm guessing that at least a few of these have a spot in the deck.

I don't think that this is a Historic card, at least not for us, but how about Jund in Modern? I've talked about the graveyard trap before, where a lot of Jund's cards are good because of how they utilize the graveyard, but the more you lean on that the better our opponent's graveyard hate becomes. Channeler seems like it's still totally fine against a Rest in Peace, and even if you don't warp the list to maximize on instants and sorceries, Channeler helps fuel itself, first by discarding unused spells, and second by digging for more. I would even go so far as to say that this is a card that's tailor-made for Modern in general, since decks are often so focused and sideboard cards are so good. You can discard your blanks and help dig into your hate cards. I'm talking myself into it while sitting here writing, but it still just might be too slow to work in Modern for Jund. We'll have to see, but the potential is there. 

Thank You For A Real Good Time

Last week I participated in the MTG Arena Zone Historic Open on MTGMelee. I had a great time, played some Chrono Cross in between rounds, and even got featured a couple times on stream. You can check out the stream vod on my Twitch page and also the official stream here. I was on the official stream twice, once from my stream, once from my opponent's, and they tried to do one more but my opponent had technical difficulties.

I ended up 5-2, not too terrible. I guess I must have caught the eye of Reid Duke, who did a quick write-up about the deck on ChannelFireball. It's pretty cool, since Reid is kinda the whole reason I play Jund in the first place. In '09 and '10, I would chat with Reid and Ian at PTQs in New England. They're obviously really great dudes and fun to chat with, and then of course I noticed that they were really really good. I decided at some point along that I would just play whatever the Duke brothers were playing at tournaments, which wasn't hard since every week at least one of them top 8'd a PTQ. Naturally, I was hooked on Modern Jund as soon as I saw Reid playing it in the Magic Online Championships and never went back. So it's cool to see Reid himself do a write-up of my Jund list.

So I guess if that's all happening, we better keep up with the deck tuning, eh? I'm going to be playing in the same event here in a few hours with an updated list. I've moved away from Merfolk Branchwalker and to Gifted Aetherborn, among some other small things. I think this should help out against all the aggressive decks I run up against, but I do like Branchie. I'll miss ya, buddy.

Here's what I'm playing this afternoon:

I can't really convince myself to board in Grafdigger's Cage in Uro matchups, but Uro is, of course, a problem. So that's why Klothys is included. It's in an interesting spot in the metagame right now where gaining 2 life a turn, dealing 2 damage a turn, or exiling a card every turn are all effects that come up.

Chandra is an experiment but I have high hopes for her. Lots of the most important creatures to kill have one toughness, like Young Pyromancer, Skirk Prospector, and all the mono-blue stuff.

I'm not 100% confident in any of these updates since the CFB article, but we'll never know unless we try. I'm most skeptical about my decision to grow out my beard. If you watch my stream, don't be scared that the ghost of Brent Mydland is playing Jund now, although I bet he'd be a Jund player if he were still around. The deck's been pretty solid as of late, so hopefully I can top 8 this time. We'll see.

Zendikar Rising Spoilers

Yeah let's get into the real stuff baby.

I have yet to wrap my head around these things. How good would Taiga be if it didn't have basic types? Would you play them? At first glance they seem great, but if you're anticipating having a shockland or Canyon Slough in play, then Rootbound Crag is a strict upgrade. I think it's easy to disregard how good it is to be able to add one color one turn and then another the next.

However, it's also really easy to disregard how bad it is to not have a shockland in play and draw Rootbound Crag, or how bad it is to draw all shocklands against Skewer the Critics. But the synergy between the two is so good, any new dual land would have to be exceptionally strong to be better than that combo, since it's not like I'm going to add these in place of spells in order to play them and not throw off my land type count. If I want to play all Pathways, and cut Rootbound Crag et al altogether, then what are we replacing the shocklands with? Because we do need to have some number of lands that can be activated for multiple colors, not just make sure we're hitting red, black and green.

Also, why have they only spoiled six of these? We're missing B/G and R/B, and two others for the bad colors. Are they just going to leave some out for no reason? I might not end up playing these but that would still piss me off.

First of all, I want to say that Party is the coolest mechanic. Second, is this good? It's probably not worth warping the deck around but if you had some warriors and wizards lying around, this gets a little bit better. I think I might try making a Party deck for funsies, but this card is a little soft.

I think some of these haven't been spoiled yet, including a black mythic and a green mythic, I think. This is, so far, the only one spoiled that I could see myself playing. The problem with these cards is that, while they give you a lot of options and reduce your variance, neither side is really worth playing. Sure, your spell could be used as a land instead of a spell so you don't have to mulligan, but you also lose a lot of games because your lands enter the battlefield tapped, and you lose a lot of games because your three mana sorcery didn't affect the board. Don't get me wrong, I love the flexibility, but I think this card is worse than Tranquil Thicket and I'm pretty sure 0 is the right number of those, for now.

I get why this is good, but I think I'll just play Murderous Rider instead.

Okay, so do we have room for a three-drop creature that's just rate? Well it depends on the rate, mostly. It trades early, it's great against the mono blue decks, and it attacks and races for a million later on. I think it depends on how the format shakes out, but yeah, this card seems like a solid inclusion. It's an all-star against a large portion of the field, an early-ish drop that has tons of staying power, and can simply win the game by itself. It's also important to remember that decks with Thoughtseize have a little more agency in making sure their creatures avoid removal.

A note on Modern: are these cards worth playing? It's a tough call, they don't really do anything against Valakut decks, so they are targeted Tron hate that might not even be as good as Stone Rain. They sure would be good if Field of the Dead was still legal though.

Love it. Just an exceptional card. It scales up in power as the power of the format scales up, it's great early and late, it's easy to cast. Mwah! Probably going to play some of these in Modern as well as Historic, possibly even Legacy.

This is kind of like if Uro was a black card. Just a huge mass of value. Unlike the Bala Ged Recovery card and similar stuff, this thing has the ability to directly affect the board when you're in the control role, so your seven mana monster value card isn't a blank against anything.

The Blue/White control matchup, be it in Standard, Modern, Legacy, or even friggin Sealed Deck, comes down to the fact that they have to get ahead of you in cards and on the board. They absolutely have the tools to do that, but they have to do both, and we also get to Thoughtseize them to make one of those propositions tougher. A couple quick creatures are going to beat down enough to beat a hand of all Search for Azcantas and Chemister's Insights. Similarly, Castle Lochtwain and Planeswalkers will beat a hand of all Wraths and Seal Aways. What's fascinating about Inscription of Ruin is that it can play either of these roles, either getting back a creature from your graveyard, or making them discard cards. Add to that the ability to go way big and do it all, and that all the control decks will have creatures to target with the removal ability thanks to Shark Typhoon, and we have an excellent card in a number of matchups. It's not super flashy, but it's flexible and powerful, and what more can you ask for?

Cowboy Neal Behind the Wheel

Just as we get to a place where I feel like I know what's happening in Historic, another massive change is around the corner. Amonkhet was an interesting block with some really busted stuff like Hazoret and The Scarab God, and also solid midrange stuff I liked quite a bit. There's also apparently some other goodies in the remaster set for some reason, so let's take a look.

Yeah, this gets to be in Historic for some reason. This would have been useful before Nexus of Fate and Wilderness Reclamation were banned. It's certainly a 4-of in the list, but the life loss is pretty crucial, since we can't play Blackcleave Cliffs or Blooming Marsh, and we also aren't fetching Swamp on turn one. Starting the game at 16 isn't ideal, but will be necessary sometimes. Thoughtseize certainly makes me want to lower the mana curve of the deck, for two reasons. One is that we're going to be doing additional damage to ourselves, so there will be an increased need to play shocklands tapped. The other is that we need to keep pace with the more aggressive decks, or at least aggressive hands, since we're starting the game at 18 instead of 20. That, and having cheap cards is just good to do.

What else does Thoughtseize do for the deck? To be fair, I'm already playing Agonizing Remorse in the deck and it's been okay but not great, so it's an effect that I'm looking for. Thoughtseize speeds us up considerably though. The fact that you're spending one mana instead of two is crucial, because no matter what card you take, your opponent has spent 0 mana on it. You're only losing half the tempo you otherwise would from Thought Erasure or Agonizing Remorse.

I think that Thragtusk still stays in the deck, because it's so good to counteract the shocklands, Thoughtseizes, and Castle Locthwains that we're running. I think it'll be necessary since it enables all those cards, but also is a straight up two for one against removal and attackers and blockers. Moreso than in decks in the past, this deck actually utilizes lifegain even when the opponent isn't pressuring you, since you have Locthwain, and life total management is going to be key going forward.

The Triomes were appealing to me a while back and Canyon Slough is just a strict upgrade from Savai Triome. I dislike Barren Moor, but I also dislike how much mana it costs to cycle a Triome. I'll start by trying three of these.

I was really high on this card back when it was in Standard. It's cheap removal but not extremely flexible, and it has some upside in the late game that actually does come up pretty often. In matchups where you want a cheap creature removal spell, changing the math of the race can be a big deal, since they can't attack you if you're going to crack back, put them to seven or whatever, and then Ribbons them out. So in that instance, it's just the threat of the card that gains you advantage and you can continue to play normally but it'll change your opponent's decisions. It hits all the goblins, all the Gruul creatures, and all the mono-blue creatures. I like it better than Abrade, but that depends on whether there's artifacts in the format or not.

This is also in here for some reason. I like the idea that you can pick off small creatures and then get some value, but there really isn't a ton in the way of 1 toughness creatures that are still sticking around by turn four. It's certainly worth a shot, but Liliana and Vraska are already sort of on their way out in my mind.

Does Glory Banger have a slot here? I'm not sure but I think it's a very, very good card. It hits everything in the format, nails planeswalkers, and races very well. It might be necessary just in order to fight against opposing Glorybringers that the Gruul decks will likely start running. What really sells this card for me is how good it is with Chevill, whether we're exerting and nuking a creature or hitting a planeswalker with the haste and evasion. It's almost got to have a place in the deck, if it weren't for the Thragtusks that are already there. I think we'll just have to see if we want one or the other, or some kind of split. How many five drops can we reasonably have in the deck? I guess we'll find out.

4 Thragtusk

I have not decided on what my post-jumpstart list is going to look like, and it's just a few days away. Jumpstart is such an interesting phenomenon. There are like 600 cards to look at, but almost none of them are that important. The funniest part is that they could print almost anything and none of it is as good as Teferi, Uro and Ugin, so a lot of new cards are in the format but I'm assuming it'll mostly look the same.

First, I want to talk about the takeaways from M21. Out of the new cards I've played, Liliana and Elder Gargaroth have been standouts, Scavenging Ooze might be the best card in the format, and Radha and Eliminate have been okay. Necromentia also has been good but has gotten weaker from opponents playing more Bant Nexus that Simic Nexus lately. I'm not sure that M21 changed much of the function of this deck, but it certainly upped the power level.

Ooze has been absolutely incredible, and putting four into the Jund deck has shored up a lot of the problems you have. One is Uro, of course, but another is Klothys, which is notoriously hard to beat. I love an early game play that has value late, and Ooze does that very well. Like Reid Duke said a long time ago, don't remember the quote exactly, but in midrange-ish creature battles, Scavenging Ooze is king. The size and lifegain make racing nearly impossible, which is great because it gets better as the game goes on. Ooze also gives you this take-out-the-trash-ability when concerning graveyard decks, like Cat Oven and Kroxa and whatnot.

I was skeptical about Elder Gargaroth, but sorta kinda convinced myself on it, then played with it and hot damn is it good. The thing is, we added a bunch of discard spells to this deck to help facilitate it with Liliana and throwing Agonizing Remorse in the deck. Remorse isn't my favorite card ever, but if you can knock out a removal spell and get the Gargaroth going, almost nothing can stop it. I've been beating aggro deck draws that I just have no business beating. Gargaroth stops them in their tracks and completely takes over. If it's a liability, which it is sometimes but not as often as I predicted it would be, I just board it out. It feels pretty fun to play a card that's just this high on power level.

Liliana's inclusion is more of a function of the format and the rest of the list than it being extremely powerful. The discard spells get better when you have Gargaroth and Ooze, sure, but also the Growth Spiral decks are just so good right now, we need something that fights on that axis a little bit. Agonizing Remorse here is kinda fighting the same battle. Add that to her ability to pick off creatures similarly to Vraska Golgari Queen and it's a recipe for a solid enough card that fits very well.

Radha has been pretty good, but I kind of wish it was better. She's a card that gets sideboarded out quite a bit. I'd say against almost 40% of the format my sideboarding plan is -2 Radha, -3 Agonizing Remorse, +4 Shivan Fire, +1 Chainer's Edict. If you think you're going to have time for her, she's great, but so much of the format is too fast for her. Crucially, this was never a problem with Courser of Kruphix because Courser was designed to be solid defensively while still netting you card advantage. Radha's downfall is that all of her abilities are designed for the long game, but doesn't help get herself there. The problem is, is there a better three mana play in the format? Do we even want one? I think in the future I'll try Radha just as a one-of. You'll rarely have her in your opener but might draw her later when she's at her best, and you'll never draw multiples. In cutting her, I won't miss the Trained Armodon mode she starts the game in but would certainly miss the Future Sight + Phage the Untouchable version in the late game.

Eliminate is super good. Really not a ton to say about it, except that its saving grace was that it can hit Teferi and Narset while still being Smother in creature matchups, but you just board it out in control matchups anyways. It's almost too effective to not play and just versatile enough to not screw us up too bad.

Jump Around

Like I said, there doesn't seem to be a ton of changes to the format as a consequence of JumpStart, except maybe that the ramp decks will play their own Thragtusks. It's funny, Thragtusk is a great Jund card, but it's also really good against us, to the point where I'd almost rather just have it not in the format and keep bashing with Gargaroths instead.

One thing to note about Jumpstart is that there's some Tribal stuff going on. Some good Elves like Elvish Archdruid and Craterhoof Behemoth, there's Goblin Chieftain, there's Rattlechains and Kira, Great Glass Spinner. In addition to that, there's Isamaru Hound of Konda. It makes me think I'm going to need some sweepers in the sideboard instead of just spot removal from now on, which is okay because Languish is also in the set. Languish also hits everything in the Gruul deck except for gigantic Oozes, so it's very welcome there as well. Oracle of Mul Daya and possibly Overgrown Battlement are a couple of cards that could power up the ramp decks even more, but it's hard to get better than Growth Spiral and Uro. I'm assuming we'll still need a ton of discard spells to help fight ramp strategies.

I'll definitely be starting with 4 Thragtusk, that's for sure, and it'll probably come at the cost of Gargaroth, although maybe we just play 5 or 6 five drop creatures. That's not unheard of, and it makes me wonder if we need some ramp of our own in order to get there. Let's try something like this:

4 Thragtusk
2 Elder Gargaroth
4 Scavenging Ooze
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Wolfwillow Haven
2 Casualties of War
1 Radha, Heart of Keld
2 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
3 Bonecrusher Giant
2 Murderous Rider
3 Eliminate
3 Liliana, Waker of the Dead
1 Angrath, the Flame Chained

25 Lands

Sideboard: Shivan Fires, Languishes, Davriels, Eldest Reborns, possibly large Planeswalkers.

This is what I call High Gear Jund. We're ramping, we're out-powering opponents, we're not as worried about gaining small value and instead we're gaining big value with big spells. This is closer to the RTR/INN Standard Jund deck that utilized Farseek to get just enough mana to have an advantage on opponents and make bigger plays, not necessarily to ramp up to impossibly expensive stuff.

Thragtusk excels here because as strong as Thragtusk is by itself, it's at its best when played ahead of schedule. When all of your creatures are huge and gain you life, it's really hard to win by attacking.

The downside is how weak a deck like this is to ramp strategies. You have no tempo threat, you have little hand disruption, and you're ramping into your big finish 2 or 3 for ones when your opponent's whole deck is like 5 or 6 for ones. Add to that the vulnerability to things like Nexus and Field of the Dead and this becomes a deck that looks amazing in the right metagame and toast in the wrong one.

4 Thragtusk
4 Scavenging Ooze
4 Merfolk Branchwalker
3 Chevill, Bane of Monsters
1 Radha, Heart of Keld
3 Bonecrusher Giant
2 Murderous Rider
4 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Liliana, Waker of the Dead
1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
2 Eliminate
2 Agonizing Remorse
2 Carnival/Carnage

25 Lands

Sideboard: Same as before but with Duress

This is Low Gear Jund. While this is clearly less powerful at the top of the curve, we gain two important points: one is the Chevill package, which rewards you for playing small ball. The second is that we'll never have a hand of all top end and no ramp that we would have been planning on to get there, we'll also never draw a hand of ramp and all small stuff so there's nothing to do with it. In a head to head matchup, the High Gear version would definitely have an advantage, but in the format at large my bet is on this version being the one to go with. I would certainly welcome being wrong and I'd love to play the big spell version of the deck, I'm just not optimistic.

These are the two lists I'll start with and we'll see how it goes. Thanks for reading.