Matchup Analysis #2 – Jund vs UWR (Modern)
Hi everyone, and welcome to this week’s Matchup Analysis! Like I explained last week, in this column yours truly and his trusty testing partner Marco Hoonderd will take the top decks of the moment and smash them against each other. With ‘top decks’ we could mean the decks that just made the finals of the latest Grand Prix, Pro Tour or SCG open, or the decks that have been consistently performing up until that point.
For the second edition of this column, Marco and I tested the UWR deck that just won GP Bilbao, (the same deck that just won both recent Modern PTQs online in the hands of Larry Swasey and Brandon Large) versus the biggest deck in Modern: Jund.
Jund finished second in GP Bilbao, and we will use that exact list to test the matchup.
The Decks
[Deck title="Jund by Lukas Jaklovsky"]
[Creatures]
*4 Deathrite Shaman
*4 Dark Confidant
*4 Tarmogoyf
*2 Kitchen Finks
*4 Bloodbraid Elf
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*3 Inquisition of Kozilek
*4 Lightning Bolt
*4 Thoughtseize
*2 Abrupt Decay
*4 Liliana of the Veil
[/Spells]
[Land]
*4 Blackcleave Cliffs
*1 Blood Crypt
*1 Forest
*4 Marsh Flats
*1 Overgrown Tomb
*3 Raging Ravine
*1 Stomping Ground
*2 Swamp
*2 Treetop Village
*2 Twilight Mire
*4 Verdant Catacombs
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*1 Grafdigger’s Cage
*2 Grim Lavamancer
*2 Ancient Grudge
*1 Deglamer
*1 Torpor Orb
*2 Maelstrom Pulse
*2 Olivia Voldaren
*2 Slaughter Games
*2 Batterskull
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
A “traditional” Jund build, the full four Liliana’s, a conservative manabase with five man-lands, and seven discard spells make sure this deck is ready for the new metagame. The maindeck is skewed to deal with an influx in combo and the new Hexproof deck, whereas the sideboard tries to shore up the creature matchups.
This deck will be played by Marco.
[Deck title="UWR by Mitchell Manders"]
[Creatures]
*4 Snapcaster Mage
*2 Aven Mindcensor
*4 Geist of Saint Traft
*3 Vendilion Clique
*1 Thundermaw Hellkite
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Lightning Bolt
*3 Path to Exile
*4 Lightning Helix
*2 Izzet Charm
*2 Mana Leak
*3 Remand
*3 Electrolyze
[/Spells]
[Land]
*4 Arid Mesa
*4 Celestial Colonnade
*1 Eiganjo Castle
*2 Hallowed Fountain
*2 Island
*1 Mountain
*1 Plains
*1 Sacred Foundry
*4 Scalding Tarn
*2 Steam Vents
*1 Sulfur Falls
*2 Tectonic Edge
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*1 Disenchant
*2 Pyroclasm
*1 Spellskite
*2 Counterflux
*2 Rule of Law
*1 Tempest of Light
*2 Threads of Disloyalty
*1 Baneslayer Angel
*1 Batterskull
*2 Engineered Explosives
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
A relative newcomer to the format, UWR resembles the earlier “American/Russian/Dutch/15-more-countries-with-red-white-and-blue Delver” that saw some success early on in the format. Cutting the Delvers for more spells and creatures somewhat higher up the curve, this deck became more of a midrange “Counterburn” deck, carried by the power of [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card] and [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card].
This deck will be played by me, Jay.
The Games
Like last time, we will play ten games: four pre-board and six post-board. We play more post-board, because logically speaking those are more important (2 out of 3 games will be with a sideboard, as long as you go to three games). We will simply alternate play/draw.
Preboard
G1 with UWR on the play.
A combination of a turn three [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card] and some removal spells puts Marco away quickly when he doesn’t draw a Liliana.
1-0 in favor of UWR
G2 with Jund on the play
UWR is stuck on two lands while two early Goyfs kill Jay in short order.
1-1
G3 with UWR on the play
Marco gets stuck on lands this time. A Geist stares at a Goyf for a while, but when Jay finds a [card]Path to Exile[/card] Geist and his Angel buddy dispatch Marco.
2-1 in favor of UWR
G4 with Jund on the play
While the first Liliana gets countered, a second Liliana takes care of the Geist that Jay put on the table. With the easy win eliminated, we end up in a topdeck war. Jay draws more Snapcasters than Marco draws Bloodbraid Elves, and in the end a Colonnade finishes Marco.
3-1 in favor of UWR
Sideboarding
Jund:
In:
+2 [card]Olivia Voldaren[/card]
+2 [card]Batterskull[/card]
+1 [card]Maelstrom Pulse[/card]
Out:
-2 [card]Abrupt Decay[/card]
-1 [card]Lightning Bolt[/card]
-1 [card]Thoughtseize[/card]
-1 [card]Dark Confidant[/card]
When the game doesn’t end quickly because of Geist, it ends up in a topdeck war, just the way Jund likes it. With Olivia’s and [card]Batterskull[/card]s, Jund has even more great topdecks. The [card]Maelstrom Pulse[/card] also comes in, because it is likely UWR brings in their [card]Batterskull[/card] and a [card]Baneslayer Angel[/card]. Like Jaklovsky, we shave the [card]Abrupt Decay[/card]s, a [card]Lightning Bolt[/card], a [card]Thoughtseize[/card] and a Confidant, as Bolt and [card]Thoughtseize[/card] aren’t the greatest topdecks, and the life loss of Confidant actually hurts, especially when boarding in some extra four and five drops. [card]Abrupt Decay[/card] doesn’t kill anything that [card]Lightning Bolt[/card] doesn’t (except for the Angel token).
UWR:
In:
+2 [card]Threads of Disloyalty[/card]
+1 [card]Batterskull[/card]
+1 [card]Baneslayer Angel[/card]
+2 [card]Counterflux[/card]
Out:
-3 [card]Remand[/card]
-1 [card]Electrolyze[/card]
-1 [card]Mana Leak[/card]
-1 [card]Aven Mindcensor[/card]
Whereas the camera lingered over Jaklosky’s sideboard choices, Mitchell’s adds and cut where harder to spot. He definitely added the two [card]Threads of Disloyalty[/card], the Baneslayer and the [card]Batterskull[/card] (improving his topdecks too). I also decided to add the [card]Counterflux[/card]es, as while counterspells aren’t the greatest against Jund, [card]Counterflux[/card] actually counters a [card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card] and the spell they cascade into, and it’s a hard counter against [card]Batterskull[/card]s and other big spells Jund might board in.
I took out 3 [card]Remand[/card]s (we need real answers against Jund, not tempo plays), an [card]Aven Mindcensor[/card], an [card]Electrolyze[/card] and a [card]Mana Leak[/card]. [card]Aven Mindcensor[/card] is a creature that can threaten a surprise assault on Liliana, but that’s about what it does. [card]Electrolyze[/card] can often also kill a Liliana, but draws a card too. It’s not very good at killing relevant creatures, though – you’re often spending more mana than your opponent invested. I like keeping in a single [card]Mana Leak[/card]: it makes your opponent play around it when they see it, and it’s another possible answer to [card]Batterskull[/card].
Postboard
G5 Jund mulls to 5, UWR on the play
Jay keeps a 2 land hand, but misses on his third land drop for 3 turns in a row. Double BBE puts it away for Marco.
0-1 in favor of Jund (3-2 in favor of UWR overall)
G6 with Jund on the play
A turn one discard spell into a third turn Liliana puts us both low on action pretty fast. A BBE that cascades into a [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] gets countered, and the Deathrite is stolen by a [card]Threads of Disloyalty[/card]. Another Liliana kills the Shaman and then attempts to clear us both of whatever is left of our hands. Jay resolves a [card]Aven Mindcensor[/card] in response to the last activation though, to kill the planeswalker on Jay’s turn. From there, we both draw mostly lands, but Jay has a Colonnade and a timely [card]Path to Exile[/card] for Marco’s [card]Raging Ravine[/card].
1-1 (4-2 overall)
G7 with UWR on the play.
Jay gets stuck on two lands again, which lets Marco catch up after a mull to five. A Liliana shreds both player’s hands, after which Marco draws two [card]Batterskull[/card]s, while Jay draws air. Sweet, sweet air – no good at blocking, though.
1-2 in favor of Jund (4-3 overall)
G8 with Jund on the play
Jay keeps four lands, [card]Vendilion Clique[/card] and [card]Mana Leak[/card] on six and ends up a bit threat light. However, it seems hard to go to five in this grindy matchup. In this game, Marco has a Liliana and a lot of action, while Jay keeps drawing [card]Celestial Colonnade[/card]s. Jay can keep trading for a while, but in the end a [card]Batterskull[/card] and a [card]Dark Confidant[/card] take him out.
1-3 in favor of Jund (4-4 overall)
After losing to [card]Batterskull[/card] twice, Jay sideboards in [card]Disenchant[/card] in the place of the last Mindcensor.
G9 with UWR on the play.
Jay mulls to five and is [card]Thoughtseize[/card]d, leaving only a [card]Batterskull[/card] and lands in his hand. Marco plays a turn 3, turn 4 and a turn 5 [card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card]. You can probably guess the rest.
1-4 in favor of Jund (4-5 in favor of Jund overall)
G10 with Jund on the play.
A typical game where we both trade resources, Marco has two Bloodbraid Elves, of which one trades with an overloaded [card]Counterflux[/card], and one trades with a [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] that flashes back a [card]Lightning Helix[/card]. We both end up with an empty hand, Marco with a Liliana on 2, Jay with a [card]Batterskull[/card] (no Germ), with Jay at 5. Jay draws another [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card], which takes out Liliana with a [card]Lightning Helix[/card]. He equips the Snapcaster with the [card]Batterskull[/card] to get himself out of burn range, while Marco (now with a [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] in play) is fervently knocking his deck for a [card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card] or a Pulse. He draws a land, and Jay draws a [card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card]. Marco can’t possibly race a [card]Batterskull[/card] or a Thundermaw, let alone the combination of the two. He concedes after drawing his next card.
2-4 in favor of Jund (5-5 overall)
Overall Impression
Not all of the games we played felt representative of how the games go on average. While Marco mulled to five twice, I lost both those games while keeping a full seven because I didn’t draw a third land for multiple turns. The games where I mulled Marco easily put me away, but this is also a strength of Jund and it’s discard spells: if the opponent is light on action, the discard spells make it really hard to keep up. In the end, we both had five game wins, but felt like UWR was a slight favorite in the matchup overall.
The games we played are ultimately very grindy, where both players trade removal spells for creatures, and discard spells. These are the games that end up with both players in topdeck mode, and Jund is normally favored there, because of their man-lands, [card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card] and [card]Dark Confidant[/card] basically drawing extra cards, and some of the best removal in the format.
However, UWR can keep up quite well in this kind of game. They have [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]s to match the cascading Elf, removal spells that draw you a card, giant man-lands (a 4/4 flyer is near impossible to kill for Jaklovsky’s list) and more efficient removal than even Jund has – and if you ever draw the one Dragon, it probably outmatches anything on the field.
UWR also has a way to prevent the game from getting to topdeck mode: [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card]. Especially in the preboard games, if you can keep a Liliana off the field with your counters, Geist can take over the game all by itself. Often a three turn clock, a quick Geist backed by some disruption easily goes all the way.
Key cards pre-board:
Jund:
[card]Liliana of the Veil[/card]
Discard spells
[card]Tarmogoyf[/card]
[card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card]
Man-landsUWR:
[card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card]
[card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card]
[card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]
[card]Celestial Colonnade[/card]
Preboard, the game first resolves around the Geist – Liliana subgame. This is where some of the more interesting decisions in this matchup are made. Do you just run out Geist on turn three? Do you wait until you have another creature? Until you have counter back up? It depends on what you think your opponent has. For Jund, it has similar issues: Do you expose Liliana to burn spells and flash creatures, or do you wait for a Geist to show up? What if they don’t have Geist? Then a Liliana might run away with the game.
If Jund doesn’t have Liliana, then a large [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] can hold a Geist at bay, and Jund can always use discard spells to get rid of Geist, if you catch it in their hands in the first two turns.
If UWR doesn’t have a Geist, Thundermaw can do a reasonable impression. It’s bigger than anything but a fully powered [card]Tarmogoyf[/card], and flies over anything Jund has.
When you get past those shenanigans, and you get to topdeck mode, then the question becomes who draws more [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]s/Bloodbraid Elves, or who has unanswered manlands. This is the part where you start having less and less decisions, which makes the games feel somewhat luck-based.
Key cards post-board:
Jund:
[card]Liliana of the Veil[/card]
Discard spells
[card]Batterskull[/card]
[card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card]
[card]Olivia Voldaren[/card]
Man-landsUWR:
[card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card]
[card]Baneslayer Angel[/card]
[card]Batterskull[/card]
[card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card]
[card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]
[card]Celestial Colonnade[/card]
Post board, we have to add some haymakers to the equation. [card]Batterskull[/card] is a reusable threat with lifelink, and generally dominates the late game. Being able to return it to your hand or equip it to any drawn creature makes it very good in a game of exhaustion, as it makes creature removal way less useful. Olivia is a way to deal with Baneslayer and Thundermaw, but is slightly vulnerable to [card]Lightning Bolt[/card] and [card]Lightning Helix[/card].
After playing some games, I added a [card]Disenchant[/card] over the second Mindcensor, as I wanted to have an answer to a resolved [card]Batterskull[/card]. Even though it is completely dead otherwise, you can pitch it to an [card]Izzet Charm[/card] or Liliana activation in a pinch, and still have access to it through [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card].
After the sideboarded games, Marco mentioned he would’ve liked the second [card]Maelstrom Pulse[/card] as well, probably over a Bolt, for a similar reason to my reasoning in regards to adding a [card]Disenchant[/card]: he wanted more answers to [card]Batterskull[/card]/Baneslayer/Thundermaw.
Conclusion
Like I mentioned earlier, Marco and I both felt that UWR is the favorite in this matchup, mostly because of [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card]. While Jund has answers to Geist, UWR has ways to play around those answers, and Jund does not have a trump of the same power level. However, because a lot of games end up in topdeck wars, the matchup sometimes feels like a coinflip.
If you like this installment, or have suggestions for which decks to test, what you’d like to see more or less of, etc., feel free to leave a comment, or tweet at me here.
Thanks for reading, and we hope to see you next week!
Jay Lansdaal
iLansdaal on Twitter and MTGO
G/W Aura’s really isn’t a new deck at all. It’s been popular on Modo for a long, it’s just received more attention since it evolved into a modern deck and is very competitive and cheap to build. or was cheap to build.
sithholocron Are you seriously trying to split hairs, based on your definition of ‘new’? By your logic, uwr isn’t new to Modern either.
I understand that some games are just mana screw, or an unanswered Geist, and I like the concept of analyzing a match up but you really don’t do much in depth analysis on the specifics and nuances of the decks and card choices for the match up and it is really not interesting to read when you don’t really say much other than, Geist is good against Jund.
JRich I’m sorry to hear that’s the only thing you got out of this article. Where do you suggest I go into more depth? How the games play out? Do you want “deck techs” in the article?
@Jay Lansdaal JRich I think that he means insight(s) on how to improve the deck or something to that effect. A lot of people just look for tech with articles, which is reasonable, but still pretty myopic.
@Jay Lansdaal JRich I think playing more than 10 games would help. To me instead of an analysis of the actual matchup it seems like you just wrote the results of the games you played, most of which didn’t seem to be real games (which I understand happens sometimes).
I want a little more in depth on what cards are important and what (if any) tricks or crazy sideboard strategies I can do to improve the matchup from each standpoint which you touched on a little but I felt like should be the main focus.
How the small amount of games played out doesn’t interest me that much (espcially when most of them seemed to be mana screw or an unanswered Geist, which again I know that happens) when there is a much bigger picture to look at in the grand scheme of things.
Jund has trouble vs Geist yes, but it also has a lot of answers to it with 4 Liliana and 7 Discard spells, so mulliganing aggresively for discard to combat Geist helps a lot especially because thats how Jund was losing most games and outside of a small comment near the end that felt like just a small aside you barely talked about it when that would change the matchup drastically. And on the flip side how does UWR play out if it does not have an early or unanswered Geist, how does it deal with all the powerful cards from Jund, what resources should you try and manage (life total, board presence, card advantage etc).
Granted I may not be the target audience and am looking for more from these articles than most players , but I feel that the content provided does not do matchup analysis justice when there is so much more that can be explored.
JRich At the point magic is at, if you can’t look at cards and figure out what they do in a match, you may want to focus on Standard or limited formats. I understand that you are replying to someone, but it is being done in a publicly. Please don’t take my suggestion as an insult- I am only replying based on your qualms with the article.
AbonCamus JRich Thanks for the feedback guys. I’ll see if I can do better next week
About the ‘most games were manascrew/unanswered Geist’-comment: the reason this is prominently featured during the games, is that those were the main two reasons the game did NOT end up in a topdeck war. All the other games end up that way. We did play more than 10 games, but at some point we felt like we had a pretty good grasp on what was happening in the matches, namely:
A) someone gets screwed
B) Geist gets there with the help of removal spells, extra creatures to sack to Liliana, etc
C) if A and B do not apply: topdeck war
I’m not sure how much more detailed I should get – I’m sure we could get deeper, but the amount of games you would need to play before you have near-perfect information is waaaaay more than I have time for. It also doesn’t help that we’re trying to test ‘the newcomer’.
I hope this explains some things, and I hope you’ll give us another shot when the next article comes out!
AbonCamus JRich I think you misunderstood most of my comments, I was not directly talking about wanting to know more personally, I was trying to improve the quality of the analysis so that the average reader can get more information and actually learn about the matchup rather than just, what I felt were, obvious statements about the decks.
Your comment is also one of the dumbest things I have read. Yes if you play competitive magic it is easy to look at most cards and see what they do in a match. But if you think like that why bother writing any article or anything about magic strategy? And what would playing Standard or Limited help me with when dealing with Modern Matchups?
@Jay Lansdaal AbonCamus JRich Ya like I said, I am not the target audience and have high standards in what I look for in matchup analysis so I was just giving suggestions to improve the article series, reading the short summary of each game felt pointless would like to see summarize the matchup as a whole, try different strategies like trying to discard and bait out removal with Jund and then play a slow rolled Goyf or Olivia or whatever, to me saying it goes to topdecks wars means you didn’t really try to outplay them, you just jammed your cards against each other and thats what happened, and I feel players use that as a cop out when there is actually a lot they could have done to get an advantage (like sandbagging creatures until you discard their hand with jund, you don’t need to run out all your guys right away which I feel leads to these topdeck wars)
It really felt like you didn’t talk enough about the cards and just talked about the small sample size of games which did not really show the best games and felt like it hurt the article so I would cut out that portion.
I also felt like the more important parts of the analysis were merely mentioned like an off-hand comment when they should have been the focal point of the article (like discard vs geist was mentioned briefly near the end when that is the most important thing in the matchup I think and mulliganing aggresively to that helps a lot) and I felt like this didn’t bring much analysis other than just the obvious Jund has trouble vs Geist but you didn’t really go in depth on how to improve Jund against that.
Again this is just me looking for more than the average reader and I will continue reading in the hopes that it gets better.
JRich So, just to make sure that I understand the gist of your strangely defensive comments- you are looking for excessive information that is no use to you because that is what a matchup analysis article should be in your mind…I was trying to be respectful before, but it would seem that you’re an unrepentant idiot, so my efforts to not cause your internet pride to take injury weren’t warranted.
JRich the relevance of those two formats(Standard+Limited) is that they are more boob-friendly.
AbonCamus JRich No I want information that is useful that goes beyond what most players can gather on their own which this article does not do.
AbonCamus JRich And if there isn’t useful information then most players aren’t going to read the articles because they can figure it out on their own
@Jay Lansdaal AbonCamus JRichI think what Jrich is getting at is that he isnt looking for just the answer of who has the advantage but maybe more specifically how each deck should play the matchup? You do some of this with the Geist-Liliana subgame.
I think another important aspect of this matchup is Tarmogoyf. Tarmogoyf is the one creature UWR has trouble burning out and the matchup often feels decided on if Jund draws Tarmogoyf early or not. perhaps saving paths specifically for tarmogoyf can tilt the odds even more in UWR’s favor.
Either way, I loved the article and look forward to more.
@CC AbonCamus JRich ya, like If I am playing Jund I already know that Geist is hard to deal with I don’t need to read an article to tell me this but would like to know what type of cards would help or would turn the matchup in my favor, or ways of playing it to get around Geist (like mulliganing to discard that I already mentioned helps a lot)
JRich AbonCamus Simply playing the matches does it all. Get the cards and connect with fellow players. This is an article for reading; not scholarly revue. Get over it and stop looking to articles for an edge that can only be obtained by your own fucking experience playing, regardless of what you read. Jesus H. Christ, son!
AbonCamus JRich I agree with JRich wholeheartedly. AbonCamus, you might be a savant, but for everyone else in the world, including players on the pro tour, it is not always immediately obvious whether you are trying to force a damage race or not in a given matchup without having tested it exhaustively. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg that JRich is alluding to. Suggesting that something so complex is obvious is insulting to everyone reading your comments and incredibly inaccurate.
AbonCamus JRich Then what is the point of writing the article if you are not giving any information that I would not ready have simply by being a jund player?
My criticisms aren’t me trying to get an edge, it’s me trying to improve the quality of the article for those who simply do not have the time to play games with the decks or are not at the level where thy can gain information trough small amounts of games because those are the people who you want to read the article
JRich AbonCamus I appreciate all the comments guys, and like I said, we’ll try to do better. It remains a hard problem to figure out how deep we have to go. I’m not sure I’ll every be able to satisfy the hard-core PTQ grinders: giving them info they missed takes more time than I have between a deck showing up and publishing. Where do we set the bar?
I’ll definitely set it a little higher for the next installment. This one might have been a bit too much ‘the basics’: useful for people who never played with the decks before, but not so much for people experienced with the deck.
Thanks for all the feedback!
UWR is probably not going to remain a tenured deck in its current midrange state unless innovations are made that give it a real late game. As far as most visible uwx deck of Modern [last I checked anyway] goes, it suffers from the exact same problems that the horrendous AngelSplicer pile did, except uwr is even more susceptible to mana concerns. Computerized randomization is definitely a friend to anything with no dig/ramp spells, twenty-five lands- eight of which are fetches. As someone who plays paper only, uwr has been a shitty deck. Too many things need to go right for it, but it is still better than uw angelsplice, which requires even more stuff to go right.