My name is Brad Carpenter and I Have been playing Magic for 4 years but hadn't quite made a good showing yet. This past weekend I changed that. I managed to breakthrough into the top 8 of the largest North American Grand Prix to date earning me $1000 dollars, 5 Pro Points, and another chance at a Pro Tour. Here is the list I used:

[cardlist]4 Bloodbraid Elf

1 Borderland Ranger

4 Hell's Thunder

4 Lotus Cobra

4 Putrid Leech

3 Sarkhan the Mad

2 Siege-Gang Commander

4 Sprouting Thrinax

4 Vengevine

4 Maelstrom Pulse

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

4 Consuming Vapors

3 Cunning Sparkmage

2 Forked Bolt

2 Terminate[/cardlist]

A few weekends ago, at the Nationals Qualifier in Orlando, FL my friend Logan decided to play his own take on "The Geopede" version of Jund which looked like this:

[cardlist]4 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Putrid Leech

4 Siege-Gang Commander

4 Lotus Cobra

4 Sprouting Thrinax

4 Vengevine

2 Sarkhan the Mad

4 Maelstrom pulse

4 Blightning

4 Evolving Wilds

4 Verdant Catacombs

4 Savage Lands

4 Raging Ravine

1 Scalding Tarn

3 Forest

3 Mountain

3 Swamp[/cardlist]

Logan thought that the deck was awesome at the core but disliked the idea of cascading into Plated Geopede, and that if you were only playing 2 Lightning Bolt why play any. He opted to cut the Plated Geopede, the Bituminous Blast and Lightning Bolt along with 2 Borderland Ranger for 4 Vengevine and 4 Lotus Cobra to allow for just awesome starts and 2 Sarkhan The Mad because of his power in the mirror. Lotus Cobra was awesome, if they killed it you were just a Jund deck and if they didn't you were able to empty your hand.

Logan ended up going 5-3, losing to Naya early on and then losing the round before the last to Geopede Jund playing for top 8. He showed me the deck and I really thought there was a lot of potential in the list. A couple things he said were Siege-Gang Commander was too much as a 4 of and we ended up cutting them initially, also we thought putting Sedraxis Specter main would be good as it seemed like we were boarding it in against Jund and Planeswalkers which we thought would be the two most popular decks we'd face.

So from Logan's list we cut 4 Siege-Gang Commander and 1 Mountain to add 4 Sedraxis Specter and 1 Island. We then came to the conclusion that adding Hell's thunder and Goblin Ruinblaster would help out a lot in the mirror and both were very good against Planeswalkers while strengthening our creature count for Vengevine. We decided to cut the Sedraxis Specter and Island along with Blightning to help Vengevine and make our manabase more stable.

Finally we left for the Grand Prix in DC. When we arrived we started testing some against friends and realized Goblin Ruinblaster wasn't making the cut so in the end we took them out and replaced with 1 Borderland Ranger, 1 Sarkhan the Mad, and 2 Siege-Gang Commander and also cut the 4 Evolving Wild for 2 Dragonskull Summit and 2 Rootbound Crag as those lands did the same thing in our list as the Wilds in terms of helping Lotus Cobra but were strictly better in terms of fixing our mana.

We made the Sideboard mostly for Mythic and Naya as we thought our matchups against Jund and Planeswalkers were good already and didn't need much help. I went to bed that Friday night pretty happy with what we came up with. Little did I know...

I don't really remember how my games went but here is a round by round breakdown for what I faced, how I faired, and who played it.

Top 8 - Kyle Boggemes playing UW

Overall I got fairly lucky to have gone from 0-2 (after my byes) to 12-0 into Top 8. The deck worked very well but there were a few games where I had to "get there" and top deck. You need some of those to do well in any given event, and with 17 rounds, there were plenty of options in this tournament.

Now let's look at the deck's match-ups:

Mythic

This is a close match up and likely the worst. Game one is almost impossible unless they mulligan to 4. I'm pretty sure that even if they mulligan to 5 they will beat you. Game two however you have the plan of using Cunning Sparkmage and Forked Bolt to slow them down and clear the small guys to allow your Consuming Vapors to get maximum value. Post-board is a good matchup I think. As long as you keep a way to slow them down in the form of Cunning Sparkmage or Forked Bolt as I mentioned and some sort of removal to kill a bigger guy you should be fine.

Naya

This matchup is similar to Mythic in how you beat them. Game one for this matchup is in their favor but if you get an active Sarkhan the Mad your win percentage sky rockets. Game two is the same plan as Mythic: kill their small guys to get maximum value out of Consuming Vapors.

Jund

This is a very good matchup and is the main reason why I chose this deck. Game one you have the advantage since when they cast Blightning it is almost always awesome for you due to Vengevine and Hell's Thunder not caring about being discarded. Game two gets even better since you have an advantage by being able to win the Blightning war since they will likely board theirs out against you.

UWR Planeswalkers

While I think this deck is now dead and that UW control is just superior in the metagame, you'll still face it and this is still a very good match up. This match up was the other main reason I played my particular list. Game one Hell's Thunder is amazing as it almost always allows you to kill a Planeswalker the turn after they play it. Also all of your cascades either return Vengevine or kill a Planeswalker outright in the form of Maelstrom Pulse. Game two is the same thing except instead of Thrinaxes you have Blightning.

UW Control

This is a bad match up if they have Baneslayer Angel, which most now do. My list is not equipped to deal with that card as I only have the option of making it into a dragon then making another dragon and blocking it, or using one of the four Maelstrom Pulse. Game two is much of the same thing except they have to play a little more cautiously. In top 8 it was very bad that Kyle knew my list. He realized I had an extremely hard time killing Baneslayer so game one he was able to run it out uncontested. Game two, much of the same occurred as I had to use a Pulse on two Spreading Seas. Kyle then proceeded to run Baneslayer out and my answer was too late.

Overall if you expect a field of Naya, Jund, and Planeswalkers I definitely suggest this deck, but I believe UW will take over the metagame which is bad and makes the deck, in its current form, unplayable. It needs something that kills Baneslayer but doesn't mess with the cascade. This leads me to believe some number of Consuming Vapors should be maindecked. Also Hell's Thunder was awesome for me but I think it needs to move to the sideboard or be cut altogether due to its awkwardness against Naya and Mythic. It's also not the greatest against UW when staring down a Baneslayer.

That wraps it up, thanks for reading!

-- Brad