It was about two weeks before the Pastimes Midwest Masters first qualifier. I was in my typical cycle of building bad decks, playing some matches, and tearing them apart to build more decks. I stumbled on some interesting brews - some modifications to Boros Bushwhacker, a Crypt of Agadeem style deck without the Crypts, a White control deck splashing Red for Ajani... they all felt like really good decks but they all had one major problem. They couldn't beat Blightning. Oh Blightning. I love that card. I really do. It's my Finkel Card. Jon Finkel once remarked, regarding Traumatic Visions, that it did everything he wanted a card to ever do - counter spells, draw cards, and fix mana. Blightning's my Finkel Card. It burns faces, denies resources, and most importantly, seems to put opponents on tilt.

In much the same way that a loyal wife can harbor a furious understanding of her husband's mistress, so too did I have a demented respect for the Jund deck. I've always prided myself on orthogonal deckbuilding, and relish the challenge of building something from nothing and piloting it to success. At this point in my Magic-playing life, I was sick of being hamstrung by sub-par decks and thus, sub-par finishes. After many a late night forcing my playtest partners to endure my idiotic brews, I was struck with a moment of clarity. I'd been testing the deck I wanted to run for weeks and hadn't noticed it. Jund. There it was, ready and waiting in my hands. Beckoning me to feel its supple sideboard, its metagame-warping power between my fingers. It begged me to lay it out on the table and punish my opponents. Why should I be the guy crying in his tournament report that he did "his best" but lost to Jund anyway?

To quote Sean Connery's character John Patrick Mason in The Rock, "Losers always whine about 'their best'." I'll leave it to the movie fans to figure out what he suggests winners do, as the answer is far from appropriate for publication. Nevertheless, I channeled my inner John Patrick Mason, abandoned my prejudice of playing the best deck, and sleeved up Jund. I performed very well on the day, but to call it "my best" would be a lie. The Prom Queen would not have been impressed.

My decision to play Jund was not the end of my troubles. I had a multitude of options for builds, mana bases, sideboard options, and the rest of the sort of pre-preparation one must do before a 5K. The Midwest Masters Qualifiers offers $4K in prizes, but also eight GenCon 4-day badges as well, so I considered it for all intents and purposes a $5K. I reached out to a few of my contacts in the community, and MTGO Academy's Chris Kuehl responded with a nice list that a few local luminaries had brewed up. The list he shipped me was as follows:

[cardlist]4 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Blightning

4 Sprouting Thrinax

4 Putrid Leech

3 Terminate

1 Maelstrom Pulse

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Master of the Wild Hunt

3 Eldrazi Monument

3 Siege-Gang Commander

1 Akoum Refuge

1 Kazandu Refuge

4 Verdant Catacombs

4 Dragonskull Summit

4 Rootbound Crag

4 Savage Lands

4 Forest

2 Mountain

2 Swamp

Sideboard

3 Malakir Bloodwitch

2 Mind Rot

4 Great Sable Stag

4 Deathmark

2 Jund Charm[/cardlist]

Now, the maindeck was given to me as a finished list, and the sideboard was presented as an option in progress. I rarely use netdecked sideboards, since I feel I am above average at building them and using them. The sideboard also didn't account for the metagame as I had perceived it going into the event. Setting aside the 15 for a moment, I sleeved up the main deck and played a bunch of Game 1s to get a feel for what the deck was trying to do.

My god, it was fun! Not only did I have the awesome power of Jund in my hands, having the token engine and Eldrazi Monument as an out-of-the blue game winner was amazing. I didn't tell my partners I was playing with the card, so I got some really good feedback when I played it. It was generally the surprise factor that killed them more than the raw power, but there were games when locking out combat with Master of the Wild Hunt and Eldrazi Monument were enough to win the game. Stacking triggers accordingly, you could use your brand-new Wolf token to take down an opposing fattie and then sacrifice it to the Monument. This interaction rarely came up, but having indestructible creatures was always game-winning.

After running a great number of pre-board games, three things became clear. First, I hated the Refuges. I followed the logic of their inclusion, but they simply didn't play well. I wanted them gone. Second, I didn't care for the 26 lands the deck was running. Again, I understood that the designers added that many land because they didn't want to lose to their own deck, but I think they went about it the wrong way. Third, I despised the maindeck Maelstrom Pulse singleton more than words. See, I have a particular hatred for singletons in non-Blue decks unless they are a 5th copy of a card. The 1 Pulse in the main deck felt lazy and unnecessary. I made the decision to move it, and 2 more Pulses, to the sideboard. Many decks do not present good targets before sideboarding anyway, and I couldn't afford to have a card getting me less than full value in my starting lineup.

With those three criteria in mind and a general understanding of the archetype, I set about tuning it. My original changes were as follows:

-1 Akoum Refuge

-1 Maelstrom Pulse

+2 Borderland Ranger

I found Borderland Ranger to be so incredible that I eventually cut the Kazandu Refuge for a third copy. A word on this card: he is probably one of the best cards Jund decks aren't playing. Jund decks have three main issues with their draws. Mana flood, mana screw, and a lack of threat density. Cascade is only effective at increasing threat density, and only does so some of the time. The main issue Jund has is when it depletes the opponent's hand and then hasn't got a threat on the board with which to capitalize. Borderland Ranger fixed all of this so elegantly that I briefly considered a fourth copy. He adds threat density, which makes the attrition war harder to win. He adds mana fixing, which makes sure you hit the critical fourth land drop. Testing showed that most games I lost, I lost because I didn't hit that 4th land. Hence, he was perfect on turn 3! Best of all, his inclusion meant that I could cut down to 24 land and still be sure I always hit my 4th land drop. I hardly had any mana issues in the 8 rounds I played. Finally, he gives you a way to combat opposing Blightnings. Having an extra land to pitch to Blightning really takes the sting out of the card.

With my minor changes, I played a few games and decided that no more changes to the main deck were necessary. It was curb-stomping its good matchups as normal and putting up a fight in the worse ones. Unfortunately, when we ran my Jund list against Louis Scott-Vargas' 5K-Winning control deck, the wheels fell off. It was heartbreaking. In 20+ pre-board games, I managed to take a single win. Since my other matchups were so good, I made the decision to punt game 1 against control and sideboard heavily against them.

My sideboard was submitted thus:

4 Malakir Bloodwitch

4 Mind Rot

4 Duress

3 Maelstrom Pulse

I was back in love with my deck. The sideboard was in all honesty a transformational one, a strategy I had always wanted to try but never managed to execute. The cards were each selected carefully to fit a certain role. First, none of the cards selected to combat blue-based control decks were red or green. Why? Flashfreeze. I squeezed out a ton of margin against them by just removing a lot of targets for their hyperefficient counterspell. Bloodwitch proved an absolute beating against their decks, as it removed the trump card play of Baneslayer Angel and shut down all of their removal. My goal was to cripple opposing control decks with the discard package and win on the back of mediocre creatures like Borderland Ranger and Bloodbraid Elf - things Celestial Purge cannot kill. Since they would then be forced to waste Path to Exile on my worthless beaters, I would easily hit Malakir Bloodwitch mana and blow them out. This plan worked as stated in almost every game I played. Maelstrom Pulse was selected due to the universal utility of the card. I like to have a few SB slots dedicated to fight unknown threats, and Maelstrom Pulse got the nod due to its utility. It's hard to be wrong when you can kill anything.

Before a brief report of the event, I want to address cards that are common inclusions in Jund which you may find missing in the list above.

Bituminous Blast - While the card is undeniably powerful, the deck would much prefer to cast Siege-Gang Commander and Eldrazi Monument for 5 mana. Many decks have consciously moved away from creatures that give Bit Blast a valuable target, and thus, it was deemed to be too slow and not consistent enough.

Broodmate Dragon - 6 mana feels greedy right now, and Broodmate Dragon is just horrible in the format. Sad as it may sound, 6 mana for a pair of 4/4 fliers is not what this deck wants. The fact that Baneslayer Angel and Wall of Denial are seeing a lot of play makes our draconian friends fall short of the mark.

Garruk Wildspeaker - He was largely in the deck to accelerate out Broodmates, and with that play gone, he only really exists to churn out creatures, something Master of the Wild Hunt does significantly better. Master's ability to utterly dominate a board was far more relevant than Garruk's Overrun ability ever could be. One might think that Garruk is an auto-include in a token deck, but Eldrazi Monument filled that role by being more of a surprise and being more devastating in general.

Maelstrom Pulse (maindeck) - As stated before, Maelstrom Pulse doesn't have a lot of great targets in the pre-board metagame. It's versatile enough to make it to the sideboard, but I never really wanted to see it in game 1.

Great Sable Stag (sideboard) - I'm not worried about having my creatures countered or killed by black spells. I don't care about the Vampires matchup. I don't want to pay 3 mana for a glorified Gnarled Mass, with apologies to Michael J Flores. I DO want 4 sideboard slots for Mind Rots and Malakir Bloodwitches.

With my 75 cards secured, I made the trek from West Lafayette to Indianapolis with fellow playtesting buddies Alex Williams and Frank "Day 2 With His Own Brew" Emmert. Frank is from Wisconsin, and thus, has an exceptional ability to withstand the cold. I, on the other hand, have almost no such tolerance. Despite many layers of thermally strategic clothing, I could feel frostbite setting in as we walked 3 glacial blocks to the convention center. Despite my outwardly blue hue, my fire to make the top 8 burnt extremely hot inside. As cliched as that may sound, I felt like I had the best deck in the room and the practice to play it to the top. I did not make good notes during the tournament, but I will briefly summarize my matchups.

Round 1 - A mono-white deck with enchantment-based removal and Sigil of the Empty Throne. We both got stuck on land for an eternity, but I eventually had more threats than he did removal. Borderland Ranger was key. I was glad I had decided to sideboard Maelstrom Pulse, and brought in my entire 15, removing cards like Sprouting Thrinax, Lightning Bolt, and Terminate which were effectively useless. A note here - Sprouting Thrinax is so damned good, but against White decks, he's yet another Gnarled Mass. I boarded him out often to avoid giving good value on their Exile-style removal and this was almost always correct. I took game 2 by murdering his hand. He never had the mana to cast Sigil, nor did he have enough removal to deal with Bloodbraid Elf into any threat.

1-0 (2-0 games)

Round 2 - White Weenie - ACK! I didn't test for this one! I made a colossally bad attack early, neglecting to consider Honor of the Pure, which turned a chump into a trade. The extra threats were missed when I topdecked Eldrazi Monument on the following turn and I lost the game. Game 2 was even worse, as I didn't see a Bloodwitch or sufficient discard to keep him off his game plan. He probably had the first game without my misplay, but it still stood out as a lesson in practicing more.

1-1 (2-2 games)

Round 3 - UWR Control - He mulls to 4 game one and still, to coin Frank Emmert's term "monkey stomped me". He Spread multiple Seas, drew into lands, and I scooped it up when he resolved Ajani Vengeant's ultimate. I was not going down like a punk in round 3. I threw him off when I explained that I basically didn't even want to play G1 and was pretty sure he had no outs to my sideboard. I think he thought I was bluffing. I boarded in everything but the Maelstrom Pulse and absolutely demolished him in the rest of the match. Most decks cannot handle a start of Duress, Blightning, Mind Rot. Point for Ranger here, who got me out of a Spreading Seas induced jam in the second game! Leading with 2 Forests was key.

2-1 (4-3 games)

Round 4 - I am paired against local player George Fisher, who's one of the friendliest and nicest guys I know. We talked a lot of friendly smack, but we both knew that his Eldrazi Green deck was a dog to my build of Jund. I managed to kill every Ant Queen that resolved, but he did take a game, if I recall, on the back of a bad Jund start and a very well-played early game by Green. I took the match by crippling his hand in game 3, and he never recovered.

3-1 (6-4 games)

I played next to another local player, Phil Schaust, who is actually far better player than I ever gave him credit for. He was playing a slightly tweaked version of LSV Control and managed to finish at 6-1-1, missing top 8 on tiebreakers. He's a hell of a player and one of the calmest and nicest guys in the game.

That's why I want to personally reprimand his 4th round opponent, who was a loud, brash, rude and unpleasant fellow. He called a judge to check Phil's sleeves, prefacing it with "I don't want to be an [expletive deleted]", the surest sign that someone is about to be precisely the expletive that they are claiming not to be. The judge found a slight inconsistency in the sleeves, and while he did not even issue a warning, he suggested that Phil replace them due to minor cutting issues. It was clearly a gambit to steal a game win with no provocation - the sleeves were really quite fine, but Phil maintained his calm and beat the everloving crap out of the rude, brash and loud opponent in games that were not particularly close. Phil's opponent threw a Mana Screw Temper Tantrum when he didn't hit his 2nd black source for Malakir Bloodwitch in the final game of the match, and Phil performed the most diplomatic and soft-spoken "Still Had These!" I have ever witnessed. Good for you Philip Schaust, and shame on your opponent for acting like a man-child. As a side note, Borderland Ranger would have been insane in his deck, fetching the 2nd black for Malakir Bloodwitch. Point for Ranger.

Round 5 - Mirror Match! I played Brandt, who had been playing with the group that developed my initial list. When he cascaded past an Eldrazi Monument, I looked at him oddly. When I did the same next turn, we had a good laugh about it. Knowing his 75 almost to the card, I knew that my sideboard plan was superior. I took game 1 despite eating 2 Blightnings thanks to his mulligan to 6 on the play. My 2 Blightnings hit more relevant cards and my second Siege-Gang took him out. Game 2 played out much the same way. We had some interesting postgame discussion about why my deck was beating his, and it really came down to the fact that he mulliganed on the play, which effectively Mind Rotted him before the game had even started. I am exploring the correctness of drawing first in the Jund mirror match in Standard.

4-1 (8-4 games)

Round 6 - Red Vampires - I was seated diagonally from Adrian Sullivan, a writer for whom I have the utmost respect. This is relevant because he and I discussed the match afterwords, and he made it clear that my opponent made a number of play mistakes that I could not have seen. Game 1 was not especially close - he had more Vampire Nighthawks than I had removal. I chanted my mantra repeatedly as I boarded - "Win the Match, Win the Match, Win the Match", and reminded myself that I had no chance to make a mistake in the next 2 games. I don't think I did. Game 2 was a masterclass in resource denial, in which Blightning and Mind Rot took out his entire hand and kept him off of Hell's Thunder unearth mana. Unfortunately, my only threat was a Borderland Ranger while we were both playing off the top. I drew nothing but removal, which was used to stymie his assault of Lightning-based monsters, and Borderland Ranger did 14 or 16 damage in total. I think that counts as a 3-pointer for the Ranger. He was clearly on tilt for game 3 and totally dejected, and made multiple mistakes (according to Adrian) that gave me extra value on all of my discard. I miraculously took the match after 2 close games, and was suddenly in contention for Top 8!

5-1 (10-5 games)

Round 7 - White Weenie Returns - Ugh. Not the deck I wanted to face. I tried to remain calm despite the large crowd and my general lack of knowledge in the matchup. I was never nervous, but made multiple bad plays. My mind was occupied trying to figure out a long-game plan and decide my role, but I never really had a chance to focus on my short-term tactics. I used removal wrong, attacked wrong, and probably blocked wrong as well. I'm not sure how I could have won the games (other than drawing my Malakir Bloodwitches in Game 2, as well as a single copy of discard), but I am going to blame my lack of playtesting and proper sideboard construction for my second match loss against the same deck. My opponent was a skilled player with a tight deck and admitted it was tuned to beat my deck. I did not mind the loss, but I was very upset that I didn't give it proper testing. Thus, I did not earn a berth in Top 8, nor did I deserve one.

5-2 (10-7 games)

Round 8 - 4 Color Zoo - I do enjoy the atmosphere of the x-2 bracket at the end of a long day. Everyone's slightly more relaxed and humble now that they're out of contention, but there's still a hint of fire since we were ostensibly playing for Top 16, who would be awarded a box of M10 or Zendikar. His deck was a dog to mine from the first draw, and we had a very pleasant and relaxing conversation as Jund did what Jund does. He made it close with Emeria Angel a few times, but my deck mostly played itself. I made a few questionable plays that were more conservative than normal to avoid being blown out by a Brave the Elements, but I felt that protecting my lead was more important than getting an extra 2 points of damage through. It turned out to be immaterial, as he didn't have it and I took the match easily.

6-2 (12-7 games)

At this point, our group was feeling great. Philip had just won his 8th round to finish 6-1-1 and I had probably locked up Top 16 at 6-2. Unfortunately, the fates were against us on the day. You see, there were 209 participants, which is dangerously close to the 9-round cutoff point. Since we only played 8 rounds, Philip's 6-1-1 record saw him missing Top 8 on tiebreakers, putting him at 10th. This also meant that despite a respectable finish of 6-2, my 2nd round loss to White Weenie sent my own breakers to the garbage and my official finish would be recorded as 25th. A box would have been nice, but I was in it to win it. I feel like I was 2-3 hours of playtesting the WW matchup away from solving it, and had I done so, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have earned a Top 8 spot or better. As it was, I must compliment the play of all of my opponents on the day, many of whom were polite and gracious in both victory and defeat.

Now that the event has come and gone, it is time to make changes to the deck. The primary take aways from the event related to Mind Rot and Eldrazi Monument. Eldrazi Monument is a hell of a card, but it is so situational that I am finding it more and more difficult to justify. Siege-Gang Commander and Master of the Wild Hunt are often good enough to win games without a Glorious Anthem, Levitate, and Indestructibility. I sided it out almost every game, and pitched it to Blightning often. As good as it was, the surprise value is gone and sadly, its tenure in the deck has come to an end. Mind Rot, however, was nothing short of spectacular. Modern decks have almost no way to recover from being hit with that much discard, and Blightning-Without-The-Lightning was instrumental in almost every game and match I won. Thus, I am suggesting a straight up swap:

+3 Mind Rot

-3 Eldrazi Monument

Keen observers will note the 3 slots now vacant in my sideboard - while I will leave the 4th Mind Rot there to ensure that I have access to it in all the matchups it wins, I will be devoting the 3 slots to the card I deem best for White Weenie decks. Maelstrom Pulse has been good against them, but I have a feeling that Volcanic Fallout or Jund Charm is the card here. I'm also contemplating Earthquake - despite the antisynergy with Bloodbraid Elf, the math supports it. Earthquake handles Conqueror's Pledge and the plethora of 2/2 First Strike knights that cause much consternation on the ground, and it also ensures that I have a way to go to the dome when the game runs long. Since Bloodbraid Elf can cascade into 19 of the maindeck cards in Jund, removing some of the later-game cards like Siege-Gang for 3 Earthquakes means that a Bloodbraid Elf has a little better than 1/8 chance of hitting an Earthquake after sideboarding. Those are odds I'm willing to play. Adrian Sullivan also suggested Lavalanche, which may end up making the cut after testing. 6 mana to Bolt the opponent and wipe their board is quite alright by me, and the fact that it preserves your board presence often turns 6 damage into 8 or 10.

Whatever the sideboard slots may go to, the most important thing is to test against every deck you can. Understanding Jund's role in each matchup is paramount to its success. Practice many hours with your sideboard, as that is the only way I can claim to have won 6 entire matches on Saturday. Zack Wolff, one of the best players I've ever played with, advised me that playing with a sideboard from the very beginning is one of the most important things a player can do to improve his game. To be frank, 6-2 is not where I wanted to be on Saturday night but it is a better finish than I'd posted in a long time. Despite my usual focus on finances, trading, operating Quiet Speculation and attempting to open a retail store, it felt great to get out there and sling cardboard with good friends.

Thanks to everyone who stopped to chat with me! I hope that my strategic deviation this week was insightful and valuable. I know that most players read my work for financial advice and hot new tips, but a broad spectrum understanding of the game is essential to success as a trader. I made some good deals on the day and had some fun conversations with dealers, but on the whole, Magic is best experienced by sitting down across from someone you've never met and pitting your deck, skills, practice and patience against theirs. I'll be back to normal financial topics next week!

Until next time, Magic players this is Kelly Reid (with sincere apologies to Evan Erwin), tapping Borderland Ranger... so you don't have to!