My name is Jarvis Yu, although you might know me better as Samwise_GeeGee on Magic Online. I’ve been playing Magic off and on since Revised, and I have been playing Magic Online consistently since 2006. I have managed to qualify for two Pro Tours in 2010 (Paris and Nagoya) and am currently qualified for the upcoming Pro Tour: Honolulu. I also championed Splinter Twin for PT: Philadelphia, and I even managed to have a friend of mine (Joshua Hakakian) to have a deck tech done about the deck during the Pro Tour.

Currently, the itch to build decks for the Modern format has struck me pretty hard. I started doing research and came back around to an old favorite of mine from the last Extended PTQ season: Jund.

Why play Jund? Reid Duke managed to take the crown in the culmination of the Magic Online Championship Series with it. The banning of Punishing Fire clearly changes the deck, but it does not significantly weaken it. Another reason to play Jund is that it is very good at switching roles from control to beatdown in the same vein of U/B Faeries. Playing a pure control deck in this format is very difficult since there are so many different angles of attack to cover.

Jund is often misrepresented as a single archetype when, in fact, there are two major builds, and while they share many of the same cards, the two types play out differently. The first approach is to build the deck as a grind-out, attrition deck. The second approach is to build it as an aggressive deck that just happens to have a few two-for-ones in it. There is a reasonable amount of overlap between these two ideas, but the last ten cards or so make a huge difference in how the deck plays out.

"Attrition Jund"

• Creatures (16)
• 4 Bloodbraid Elf
• 4 Dark Confidant
• 4 Kitchen Finks
• 4 Tarmogoyf

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 3 Liliana of the Veil

• Spells (16)
• 2 Terminate
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 2 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 2 Maelstrom Pulse
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 4 Blightning

• Lands (25)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Swamp
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Copperline Gorge
• 1 Fire-Lit Thicket
• 1 Lavaclaw Reaches
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 2 Stomping Ground
• 3 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 4 Treetop Village
• 4 Twilight Mire
• 4 Verdant Catacombs

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Notable Cards

Dark Confidant – It’s the best way to get ahead in a deck like this. You can set up with a discard spell (Thoughtseize or Inquisition) on turn one to make sure the coast is clear for Bob on turn two. An unanswered Bob will win a lot of games.

Kitchen Finks – Reasonable versus control decks as a creature with Persist. Helps you stabilize and grind out aggressive decks. Also helps offset life loss from Dark Confidant and Thoughtseize.

Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek – Besides just discarding a card, both of these have the advantage in Jund of helping you decide if you are the beatdown or control deck in the current game.

Liliana of the Veil – The +1 supplants the Thoughtseize plus Blightning package, whereas the −2 helps stabilize against Zoo. A resolved Liliana is very annoying for combo and control decks, and the planeswalker still has utility versus aggressive decks as a Cruel Edict. I only included three because she is not great in multiples.

Terminate and Maelstrom Pulse – These replace Punishing Fire and are a mix of removal—neither card is strictly better than the other. Doom Blade or Go for the Throat are potential options over these two as well.

Lavaclaw Reaches – The fifth man-land alongside four Treetop Villages to help close games out. Raging Ravine was a consideration, but the cheaper activation cost pushes it slightly over the top.

I did not include a sideboard here. Another advantage of Jund is that it can be tuned to succeed in almost any metagame, and the Modern meta is still too varied to beat just yet. Jund’s sideboard should change event by event, depending on what decks you expect to face. As of right now, the best potential cards are: Ancient Grudge (for Affinity), Relic of Progenitus (for U/R Past in Flames or Unburial Rites decks), two more discard spells or Thorn of Amethyst (for combo decks of sorts), Obstinate Baloth (for Zoo or Burn and the Jund mirror), and Terminate, Doom Blade, or Maelstrom Pulse (for aggressive decks). If you build your own sideboard, you will understand much better what cards are for and what cards you can take out in certain matchups.

"Aggressive Jund"

• Creatures (21)
• 4 Anathemancer
• 4 Bloodbraid Elf
• 4 Kitchen Finks
• 4 Putrid Leech
• 4 Tarmogoyf
• 1 Thrun, the Last Troll

• Spells (13)
• 2 Terminate
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 3 Maelstrom Pulse
• 4 Blightning

• Lands (26)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Mountain
• 2 Swamp
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Fire-Lit Thicket
• 1 Graven Cairns
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 2 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 2 Copperline Gorge
• 2 Stomping Ground
• 4 Treetop Village
• 4 Twilight Mire
• 4 Verdant Catacombs

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Notable Cards and Differences

Putrid Leech – Still really good; just be careful not to pump it into a removal spell if possible.

Anathemancer – Most decks in Modern have extremely good mana because they play as many nonbasic lands as they can. Anathemancer punishes this a great deal—especially against slow, ponderous control decks, against which you can expect to hit 7 mana.

Thrun, the Last Troll – I was looking for another creature in this slot, and Thrun is quite problematic for the mirror match and control decks to deal with.

I also added an additional Maelstrom Pulse, since clearing the way for your guys here is the primary goal. Discard spells aren’t nearly as good here when you aren’t trying to protect a singular creature (Dark Confidant), although they have great utility against combo decks. In the same vein, Liliana of the Veil doesn’t really contribute to the primary plan of this deck.

Potential sideboard cards overlap a lot with the previous suggestions, except that you want to be able to sideboard in point-discard (Thoughtseize or Inquisition) against the majority of combo decks.

It is important to note that having more creatures—Anathemancer—and an extra removal spell along with no discard will let Aggro Jund play an extremely aggressive game since its cascades will always affect the board or put the opponent on his back foot. This differs a great deal from the previous deck list, which is planning to play a much longer game and grind people out with removal supplied by Dark Confidant.

Matchup Analysis for Both Decks

Versus Zoo

Attrition Jund is a slight favorite, although discard spells are not at their best here. Confidant is sort of a double-edged sword, in that if it sticks for a few turns on a stable board (life total not too low), you are probably far ahead, but it is a terrible card to draw if you are way behind. Aggro Jund having a fifth removal spell, more creatures, and no discard and no reliance on Confidant means you are in better shape here. This depends a lot on the exact Zoo list. If the opponent is more burn heavy, Aggro Jund is definitely much better (so you don’t get burned out as often).

Versus Affinity

I think both Attrition and Aggressive Jund have similar matchups here. Bob is quite a liability against Fling-Atog, though, so the edge probably goes to aggressive Jund here . . . but not by much. You really want three to four Ancient Grudges in your board for this matchup.

Versus Assorted Control Decks (Gifts, Tron, Three- to Five-Color Cruel Ultimatum Decks)

Four Bobs is huge here, as is discard. Terminate and Pulse are both bricks for the most part. Finks is passable, but not exciting. Aggro Jund has five dead cards, but Anathemancer is a beating versus most of these control decks. I probably would give the edge to Attrition Jund, although both of them seem slightly favored.

Versus U/R Combo, Ad Nauseum, and Hive Mind

Attrition Jund is much better in Game 1 here, although probably still a slight dog. The Aggro list is probably a heavy dog. Boarding out removal from both of the lists should improve the matchup against this type of deck by a fair amount.

Versus Bant, Naya, MeliraPod, and Green Creature Decks

Both Jund lists are pretty well-positioned against these types of decks. I think I would prefer to have removal over discard here, although Anathemancer is not at its best here either, since the games tend to be grinding rather than trying to burn your opponent out.

All in all, I feel Jund is a great choice for the upcoming season. It is extremely adaptable and able to be tuned to crush any specific deck . . . and there are many different ways to innovate the deck.

I won’t claim to be the last word on the deck, though; other people have done work on the archetype, namely Edel (on Magic Online), who has piloted the deck to many 3–1 finishes. You can get an idea of how he is evolving his list by looking at his deck history.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave any comments you may have on Twitter @jkyu06 or in the comments section of this article.

Bonus

I found this four-color Jund deck floating about (by Bryang on Magic Online):

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

2 Kitchen Finks

4 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Dark Confidant

4 Snapcaster Mage

4 Tarmogoyf

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

2 Terminate

3 Lightning Bolt

1 Thoughtseize

2 Maelstrom Pulse

3 Blightning

3 Inquisition of Kozilek

1 Sword of Light and Shadow

2 Sword of Feast and Famine

[/Spells]

[Lands]

1 Forest

2 Swamp

1 Blood Crypt

1 Breeding Pool

1 Twilight Mire

1 Watery Grave

2 Blackcleave Cliffs

2 Graven Cairns

2 Overgrown Tomb

2 Stomping Ground

2 Treetop Village

4 Misty Rainforest

4 Verdant Catacombs

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

2 Ancient Grudge

1 Damnation

1 Extirpate

1 Inquisition of Kozilek

2 Kitchen Finks

1 Lightning Bolt

3 Spell Pierce

2 Surgical Extraction

1 Terminate

1 Thoughtseize

[/Sideboard][/cardlist]

He chooses to splash Blue for Snapcaster Mage and sideboarded Spell Pierces. Spell Pierce is a bit awkward with Bloodbraid Elf, but besides that, the deck seems pretty interesting. Sword of Feast and Famine is pretty good against a large number of decks. Sword of Light and Shadow is a bit odd, but I could see it being necessary for filling a hole.