by Justin Richardson
Grayson Moore finished in 5th place at Canadian Nationals and his well-written report can be found over at TCGPlayer. The deck he chose to run for the Standard portion of the tournament was a version of Jund primarily designed by Montreal Jund expert, Justin Richardson. Here at Mana Deprived, we have the designer himself giving his insights on the deck that gave Grayson a 5-1 record in the Swiss part of the tourney.
Justin Richardson here with another article, this time on my experiences with the Jund deck this past Standard season. I played Jund on and off this season from when Zendikar released until PT San Diego. I gave up on it for a while after that and played UW Chapin Control and UW Tapout ( I’m a control player at heart). Unsuccessful with UW, I played Allies to a little success until scrubbing out of a PTQ. After an unsuccessful Regionals with Mythic Conscription, I decided to go back to Jund when my friend Francisco beat me at Regionals with it and made top 8.
Then GP Washington saw three Jund decks in the top 8 and made me confident in my choice for the remaining PTQs for Amsterdam. The first PTQ stop for me was Toronto. I had been switching between different versions and decided to play the Hell's Thunder Jund list from the GP because it had the most explosive draws. This is the list I was going to play until the Thursday before the PTQ.
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Hell's Thunder
4 Putrid Leech
4 Sprouting Thrinax
4 Vengevine
4 Sarkhan the Mad
4 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Terminate
2 Dragonskull Summit
3 Forest
3 Mountain
4 Raging Ravine
2 Rootbound Crag
4 Savage Lands
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
Sideboard
4 Blightning
3 Consuming Vapors
4 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Doom Blade
2 Forked Bolt
I played this at the Thursday Face a Face tournament and wasn't impressed with some of the cards in the deck particularly Hell's Thunder and Sarkhan the Mad. I decided I wanted more removal in the Main Deck. Also how can you play Jund and not have Blightning main? On the long car ride to Toronto when I wasn’t busy sleeping I was brewing up my own Jund list based off of things I liked in my previous experiences with the deck. This is my list from the PTQ.
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Putrid Leech
4 Sprouting Thrinax
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Broodmate Dragon
1 Sarkhan the Mad
4 Blightning
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Raging Ravine
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Savage Lands
1 Dragonskull Summit
2 Rootbound Crag
Sideboard
2 Malakir Bloodwitch
2 Vengevine
3 Consuming Vapors
1 Sarkhan the Mad
3 Goblin Ruinblaster
4 Cunning Sparkmage
I finished tweaking the list late that night, didn’t get much sleep and was feeling sick for most of the day. Despite this, after a grueling 8 rounds I still managed to put up a top 4 finish. Here's an explanation of some of my card choices.
Lotus Cobra: This is what I liked most in the previous list, getting a turn or two ahead is just so broken as Jund is already unfair when it's playing on even footing, Turn 3 Siege-Gang was just too broken. I could not play without Cobras.
4 Siege-Gang: Naya and NLB were getting popular and UW had just won the GP and Siege-Gang is nuts against all of those decks so I wanted to max out on them.
Vengevine sideboard: I wanted something for the mirror and UW and Vengevine keeps coming back. Vengevine was pretty bad, although it won my top 8 match.
Consuming Vapors/Cunning Sparkmage: My plan vs Noble Hierarch decks was to Sparkmage their mana guys, then use Consuming Vapors on their Knight of the Reliquary or Baneslayer once they couldn’t throw mana guys under the bus. Consuming Vapors wasn’t very good but Sparkmage was excellent and won three matches by itself.
A quick summary of my matches.
Round 1 GerryT Naya Win 2-1
Round 2 Uwg Control Win 2-0
Round 3 Homebrew Jund LD Win 2-1
Round 4 Aggro Spread-em Lose 0-2
Round 5 Next Level Bant Win 2-1
Round 6 Jund Win 2-0
Round 7 Grixis Win 2-0
Round 8 Boros w/ Equipment Win 2-0
Top 8 Uw Control Win 2-1
Top 4 GerryT Naya Lose 0-2
I played against 9 different decks in 10 rounds. This is one of the reasons I think trying to metagame a deck is wrong as you can’t predict something like that.
I was really happy with the deck, even though my sideboard wasn't great, my maindeck was excellent the whole tournament. There was a PTQ a week later in London, Ontario but I wasn’t in the mood to go. There was a PTQ in Montreal the week after anyway so I decided to play Legacy that weekend instead (check out my other article for that report).
I knew I was going to play Jund in Montreal but the format had changed a bit due to NLB and Mythic Conscription winning GPs. I decided to play a more stock Jund list with Master of the Wild Hunt and Bituminous Blast. I went 3-2 beating UW Sovereigns, Naya and Mono Red and losing to UW Control and Jund mirror. In this tournament I found myself not liking some of my card choices. Bituminous Blast was mediocre, Master of the Wild Hunt was too slow and Duress and Pithing Needle didn't pull their weight against UW. This was the last big t2 event for a while but I continued to work on Jund as I knew I wanted to play it in Grinders.
Then Obsinate Baloth was spoiled. All everyone could talk about was how Baloth killed Jund and that Blightning was terrible. I thought this talk was premature as the ramp decks weren’t popular yet and the Fauna Shaman decks were the only decks where Baloth fit. Blightning was already bad against them due to Vengevine.
I thought Baloth was going to be really good in Jund and started testing with Team Face a Face. Baloth was performing but I still didn't like Bituminous Blast and the lack of Siege-Gangs in the list I was testing.
Then the first M11 PTQ lists hit. Primeval Titan was everywhere and Jund was not. I got a little scared and questioned my deck choice but decided that I knew Jund better than any other deck and that would give me more of an advantage than having the right metagamed deck. Here is the final list I played for Grinders.
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Putrid Leech
1 Sylvan Ranger
4 Sprouting Thrinax
2 Obstinate Baloth
4 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Sarkhan the Mad
3 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Terminate
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Blightning
4 Raging Ravine
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Savage Lands
2 Rootbound Crag
2 Dragonskull Summit
3 Forest
3 Swamp
3 Mountain
Sideboard
3 Overgrown Battlement
2 Malakir Bloodwitch
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Doom Blade
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
1 Sarkhan the Mad
2 Obstinate Baloth
I recommend this list for anyone who still wants to play Jund as the t2 season ends. I was extremely happy with it. I lost in top 4 and in the finals of 2 Grinders; my friend Dmac ground in with the deck and his friend Grayson Moore top 8ed Nationals with the same list.
Congrats to everyone who did well at Nationals this year and I hope everyone enjoyed this t2 season as much as I did. See everyone for GP Toronto and Extended PTQs. I leave you all with a quick sideboarding guide.
Jund Mirror: -4 Blightning -4 Lightning Bolt -2 Maelstom Pulse +2 Obstinate Baloth +1 Sarkhan the Mad +3 Overgrown Battlement +4 Goblin Ruinblaster
UW/Planeswalkers: -3 Terminate -4 Sprouting Thrinax -4 Lightning Bolt +1 Sarkhan the Mad +2 Malakir Bloodwitch +2 Doom Blade +4 Goblin Ruinblaster +1 Maelstrom Pulse + 1 Obstinate Baloth
Naya Shaman: -4 Putrid Leech +2 Doom Blade +1 Maelstrom Pulse +1 Sarkhan the Mad
Bant Shaman/Mythic: -1 Sarkhan the Mad -2 Obstinate Baloth -2 Blightning -1 Putrid Leech +2 Goblin Ruinblaster +2 Doom Blade +2 Malakir Bloodwitch
Valakut: -4 Lightning Bolt -4 Blightning +2 Doom Blade +1 Maelstrom Pulse +1 Sarkhan the Mad +4 Goblin Ruinblaster
UGR Ramp: -4 Blightning – 4 Lightning Bolt -2 Obstinate Baloth +1 Sarkhan the Mad +4 Goblin Ruinblaster +3 Overgrown Battlement +1 Maelstrom Pulse +1 Doom Blade
Justin Richardson
Kar Yung Tom (KYT) is the Digital Content Manager for Face to Face Games. He oversees the F2FTour.com and Magic F2F websites. He is also the lead host of the First Strike podcast.