The shard of Alara called “Jund” has come to have its own meaning in Constructed Magic formats: an archetype characterized by efficient creatures and removal spells, disruption in the form of discard, and a deck full of ways to gain incremental card advantage. The original Standard Jund deck had [card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card] and Blightning; Modern Jund has [card]Dark Confidant[/card] and Liliana of the Veil; and now Jund is back in Type II, with [card]Thragtusk[/card] the star of the current Standard format.

While Jund certainly isn’t the only deck in Standard that plays four of the best creature in the format, [card]Thragtusk[/card] is just one of the many potential two-for-ones that the deck can overwhelm its opponents with. Jund has also found a trump to opposing [card]Thragtusk[/card]s: [card]Olivia Voldaren[/card].

Jund has had an especially large presence on Magic Online in the first month of the new Standard season, as shown in Nick Vigabool’s excellent analysis of the metagame. Most of the current decks look similar to this recent Daily Event list run by MTGO grinder _Batutinha_, who has been battling with Jund since Week 1.

[deck title=Jund Midrange by _Batutinha_]
[Creatures]
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
3 Olivia Voldaren
4 Thragtusk
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
3 Garruk, Primal Hunter
[/Planeswalkers]
[Artifacts]
2 Rakdos Keyrune
[/Artifacts]
[Spells]
4 Pillar of Flame
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Dreadbore
4 Farseek
3 Sever the Bloodline
1 Rakdos’s Return
3 Bonfire of the Damned
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Blood Crypt
4 Woodland Cemetery
4 Rootbound Crag
5 Forest
1 Mountain
2 Kessig Wolf Run
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Duress
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Underworld Connections
1 Sever the Bloodline
3 Slaughter Games
1 Rakdos’s Return
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

This deck is basically “The Rock,” a traditionally black-green-based aggro-control deck with low variance in matchup percentages. There isn’t a whole lot of synergy present; it just has a bunch of good cards and tries to play a slugfest, crawling ahead in resources until it’s the one left standing.

With this deck being so popular, it’s no wonder that Zombies has been hated out of the format. How can [card]Gravecrawler[/card] and [card]Geralf’s Messenger[/card] hope to win against a pile of [card]Pillar of Flame[/card]s and accelerated Huntmasters and [card]Thragtusk[/card]s?

But, as Standard continues to change, I’m not nearly as interested in playing Jund as other people seem to be-at least, not any Jund that looks like that.

There are a few things I don’t like about the typical Jund lists. Mainly, they’re slow. While several other decks in the format excel at curving out on turns one through four, the Jund deck might spend its first few turns just setting up its mana. Huntmaster and [card]Thragtusk[/card] can help stabilize, but stumble once, and you’re dead to an aggressive deck. It’s also difficult to use your mana efficiently every turn when your threats all cost four or five.

Let’s be hasty and get to the decklist:

[deck title=Fervor Jund by Alex Bianchi]
[Creatures]
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Dreg Mangler
3 Falkenrath Aristocrat
1 Olivia Voldaren
4 Thragtusk
2 Thundermaw Hellkite
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
2 Garruk Relentless
[/Planeswalkers]
[Artifacts]
3 Rakdos Keyrune
[/Artifacts]
[Spells]
4 Pillar of Flame
2 Dreadbore
4 Farseek
3 Bonfire of the Damned
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Blood Crypt
4 Woodland Cemetery
4 Rootbound Crag
6 Forest
2 Kessig Wolf Run
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Deathrite Shaman
3 Duress
1 Golgari Charm
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
2 Zealous Conscripts
2 Rakdos’s Return
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Credit goes to Evan Nelson, finalist at Washington States, with the aptly-named “Fervor Jund.” His deck, and deck name, captures what I’m looking for; it’s a refreshing, new take on the stale Jund archetype. Really, it’s closer to a GR Aggro deck that splashes black than a Rock deck that splashes red.

4 [card]Strangleroot Geist[/card]
4 [card]Dreg Mangler[/card]
3 [card]Falkenrath Aristocrat[/card]
2 [card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card]

These creatures form the fervorous aspect of the deck. Hasty creatures are especially good right now against the sorcery-speed removal that people are playing. They’re excellent against the Planeswalker tag-team of [card]Jace, Architect of Thought[/card], and [card]Tamiyo, the Moon Sage[/card]. And they remain deadly draws in the late-game with a [card]Kessig Wolf Run[/card] in play.

Early, more aggressive versions of Jund utilized [card]Strangleroot Geist[/card] and [card]Wolfir Avenger[/card] at the start of their curve, but [card]Dreg Mangler[/card] is more appealing to me than a glorified [card]Trained Armodon[/card]. [card]Strangleroot Geist[/card] suffers some splash damage from the [card]Pillar of Flame[/card]s meant for Zombies, though both Zombies and [card]Pillar of Flame[/card] are on the decline.

[card]Strangleroot Geist[/card] and [card]Dreg Mangler[/card] offer a lot to this deck. They allow us to put actual pressure on slower decks and diversify our curve to give us more efficient use of mana. And sometimes, we just need early blockers.

[card]Falkenrath Aristocrat[/card] and [card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card] make up the top-end of our hasty assault and, importantly, fly right over the top of [card]Thragtusk[/card]. Aristocrat can also be used as a sacrifice outlet to prevent our [card]Strangleroot Geist[/card]s and [card]Dreg Mangler[/card]s from being exiled, or our [card]Thragtusk[/card]s from being locked down by [card]Crippling Blight[/card] or [card]Dungeon Geists[/card].

3 [card]Rakdos Keyrune[/card]
2 [card]Garruk Relentless[/card]
1 [card]Olivia Voldaren[/card]
4 [card]Thragtusk[/card]

This is the more attrition-based aspect of the deck. These cards give us some flexibility to hang back and play a more defensive game instead of just turning guys sideways.

[card]Olivia Voldaren[/card] has proven to be a dominant creature, with some Jund lists even playing four copies. You just have to pray that you get to untap with her, as she’ll soon take over the game. We don’t intend for games to go particularly long, so we’re cutting down to just one copy, but it’s too powerful of a card to cut altogether.

The other threats here are resistant to most removal spells and sweepers, like [card]Terminus[/card] and [card]Supreme Verdict[/card], and serve as our back-up win conditions when needed. The cheaper [card]Garruk Relentless[/card] is favored over [card]Garruk, Primal Hunter[/card], in most matchups and fits better in the curve. He functions much like a [card]Huntmaster of the Fells[/card] when you need him to be a speed bump and a [card]Bitterblossom[/card] when you want an endless source of wolves.

4 [card]Pillar of Flame[/card]
2 [card]Dreadbore[/card]
3 [card]Bonfire of the Damned[/card]

This is our removal package, most of which can go to the opponent’s face, in accordance with our beatdown plan. [card]Garruk Relentless[/card], [card]Olivia Voldaren[/card], and [card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card] can also serve as removal or do their part to help finish off bigger targets than [card]Pillar of Flame[/card] would normally be able to kill. [card]Dreadbore[/card] is a catch-all answer and one of the only cheap, non-restrictive removal spells in the format.

3 [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card]
3 [card]Duress[/card]
1 [card]Golgari Charm[/card]
3 [card]Huntmaster of the Fells[/card]
1 [card]Garruk, Primal Hunter[/card]
2 [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card]
2 [card]Rakdos’s Return[/card]

[card]Duress[/card] and [card]Rakdos’s Return[/card] are for the slower control decks, against which you’ll often side out some number of [card]Pillar of Flame[/card]s and Bonfires. [card]Duress[/card] is able to smoke out any [card]Essence Scatter[/card]s or [card]Syncopate[/card]s before you land a giant bomb. [card]Garruk, Primal Hunter[/card] is another card for these matchups, when you want to draw a bunch of cards in order to keep up in a prolonged game.

[card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] has been an influential card for the Jund deck in Modern. It’s not quite as good in Standard but serves as graveyard hate against Reanimator decks. And, unlike narrower hate cards like [card]Tormod’s Crypt[/card] or [card]Rakdos Charm[/card], it feels fine to have [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] against [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] decks or Zombie decks. Even when not removing reanimation targets or flashback cards, it’s still able to do something.

[card]Huntmaster of the Fells[/card] can sub-in for matchups where you don’t want [card]Falkenrath Aristocrat[/card] and would rather have the lifegain and blockers. In his sideboard, Evan had [card]Vampire Nighthawk[/card]s instead, but most of the time, you won’t even get the chance to block with those.

The first time I saw somebody use [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card] against a [card]Thragtusk[/card], attack for a ton, and sac the [card]Thragtusk[/card] to [card]Falkenrath Aristocrat[/card] (getting a Beast token in the process), I knew I wanted those two cards together in Jund. While that might be best-case thinking, [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card] is still the card we’re looking for against Control and Reanimator to get [card]Thragtusk[/card]s and [card]Angel of Serenity[/card]s out of the way.

[card]Zealous Conscripts[/card] and [card]Rakdos’s Return[/card] also seem suited for the Jund mirror, where we can firmly plant ourselves as the aggressor against the slower versions.

[card]Golgari Charm[/card] has two modes that you want against UW decks that run [card]Supreme Verdict[/card] and [card]Detention Sphere[/card]. This is strictly a reactive card, so you really only want one or two copies at most.

I think that Black has access to the best sideboard cards in Standard right now, and there are plenty of excellent options to choose from, depending on what you want help against. If you’re worried about [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card], you can easily arm yourself with some [card]Liliana of the Veil[/card]s or [card]Tribute to Hunger[/card]s. I like [card]Slaughter Games[/card] against [card]Entreat the Angels[/card], though Miracles seems to have gone by the wayside. [card]Appetite for Brains[/card] is another great discard spell and is close to being maindeck-able.

If you liked GR Aggro from the last Standard season, give Fervor Jund a try. I really hope that the deck picks up speed, or at least incites some changes in the typical Jund lists that we’re seeing now.

Alex Bianchi
Gemmanite on Twitter and MTGO