If you've played much Magic in the last ten years or so, odds are good that you've probably heard the term "Jund 'em out!" at some point or another. You may have heard whispers of the might of Bloodbraid Elf and Tarmogoyf tearing up events. All of this and more comes from the classic Modern archetype Jund Midrange (typically shorthanded to simply "Jund").

This deck relied on playing some of the strongest cards of its era to great effect. Typically, your strategy would start with a discard spell such as Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek. Doing this on turn one would usually fill up both your graveyard and your opponent's, allowing you to drop a Tarmogoyf on turn two that would more often than not be a 3/4 or larger. From there you would back it up with things like removal (Lightning Bolt, Terminate), card advantage (Dark Confidant and Bloodbraid Elf), and even a dash of graveyard control (Scavenging Ooze and Deathrite Shaman) to help with certain matchups - particularly the mirror.

This classic iteration of Jund - frequently referred to as Boomer Jund today - sets the blueprint for the Modern Horizons 3 preconstructed Commander deck named Graveyard Overdrive. Make no mistake: while it has "Graveyard" in its title, its main focus is on playing to the beloved Jund Midrange archetype. Even more to the point, it's focusing a little more heavily on the Tarmogoyf - and, by extension, Lhurgoyfs in general - aspect of that archetype. Case in point, the face Commander, Disa the Restless.

Disa is a character who would show up frequently in the flavor text of Ice Age cards. Also in Ice Age was the original Lhurgoyf card that inspired the many future Lhurgoyf iterations over the years, including Tarmogoyf. As such, they're retooling this classic character to better fit that Lhurgoyf-centric angle and have made her the face card of the classic Jund archetype that is the deck's focus.

Today I'd like to talk about some ways you can go about upgrading this precon yourself should you want to pick it up now that Modern Horizons 3 has been released to the world. We're going to talk about all kinds of sweet Jund cards and how best they can fit into a deck like this. But before we can talk about the deck, we have to look at the actual list first!

Graveyard Overdrive Precon | Commander

• Commander (1)
• 1 Disa the Restless

• Creatures (31)
• 1 Accursed Marauder
• 1 Anger
• 1 Archon of Cruelty
• 1 Barrowgoyf
• 1 Bloodbraid Challenger
• 1 Bloodbraid Elf
• 1 Brawn
• 1 Broodmate Tyrant
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Coram, the Undertaker
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Exterminator Magmarch
• 1 Gluttonous Hellkite
• 1 Graveshifter
• 1 Ignoble Hierarch
• 1 Infested Thrinax
• 1 Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
• 1 Junji, the Midnight Sky
• 1 Lhurgoyf
• 1 Mortivore
• 1 Necrogoyf
• 1 Polygoyf
• 1 Pyrogoyf
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Sawhorn Nemesis
• 1 Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1 Siege-Gang Lieutenant
• 1 Stitcher's Supplier
• 1 Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1 Yavimaya Elder
• 1 Ziatora, the Incinerator

• Instants (7)
• 1 Bituminous Blast
• 1 Grapple with the Past
• 1 Grisly Salvage
• 1 Kolaghan's Command
• 1 Riveteers Charm
• 1 Tempt with Mayhem
• 1 Terminate

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Chandra's Ignition
• 1 Faithless Looting
• 1 Final Act
• 1 Find // Finality
• 1 Maelstrom Pulse
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Syphon Mind

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Deadbridge Chant
• 1 Deathreap Ritual
• 1 Tarmogoyf Nest

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Altar of the Goyf
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Maskwood Nexus
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Talisman of Impulse
• 1 Talisman of Indulgence
• 1 Talisman of Resilience
• 1 The Reaver Cleaver

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Garruk, Apex Predator
• 1 Grist, the Hunger Tide
• 1 Liliana, Death's Majesty

• Lands (39)
• 3 Mountain
• 4 Swamp
• 5 Forest
• 1 Canyon Slough
• 1 Cinder Glade
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dakmor Salvage
• 1 Demolition Field
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Forgotten Cave
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Mossfire Valley
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Raging Ravine
• 1 Riveteers Overlook
• 1 Savage Lands
• 1 Shadowblood Ridge
• 1 Sheltered Thicket
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Tainted Peak
• 1 Tainted Wood
• 1 Temple of Abandon
• 1 Temple of Malady
• 1 Temple of Malice
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Tranquil Thicket
• 1 Twisted Landscape
• 1 Viridescent Bog

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The very first thing I notice when looking at this list is the surprising lack of cards that make me think of a traditional Jund list. I can only count five cards that have seen active play (to my knowledge) in these classic Modern builds. Those are Bloodbraid Elf, Maelstrom Pulse, Kolaghan's Command, Terminate, and Raging Ravine. That's not really very much, even if they're all fairly solid in their own right.

A handful of other cards stand out as well for being playable in past Standard builds of Jund or similar (Golgari Midrange, for example). Bituminous Blast stands out as a pretty obvious example, having been used to blow up creatures and cascade into other powerful threats. Find // Finality was also the backbone of Golgari Midrange decks in the Guilds of Ravnica era of Standard as a way to wipe out boards while leaving you with a powerful threat. While not directly the same, Broodmate Tyrant calls out to Broodmate Dragon - offering a comparable version that's a little more appropriate for multiplayer play.

That's ultimately the problem when looking solely at the classic Jund cards: many just don't translate all that well to a multiplayer setting. They're meant for grindy one-on-one games by allowing you to outperform against whatever your opponent is trying to do. As such, cards like Lightning Bolt, Fatal Push, Thoughtseize, and Inquisition of Kozilek are far better geared to those spaces, but are far more difficult to utilize in a meaningful way here. Some cards even get worse simply by the nature of how Commander influences deck construction. You're almost priced into going taller for the bigger, splashier effects which makes running something like Dark Confidant way too risky to consider in something like this.

There are a couple of cards that come to mind pretty easily, though, as being fairly playable. Let's start with the obvious one in Tarmogoyf. This deck is making plenty of them on its own, but it might be pretty awesome to just be able to use the actual thing. It's Commander, after all, so graveyards fill up like nobody's business which makes it a fairly nasty threat even in a multiplayer setting. Next is Scavenging Ooze. The card was actually originally made for Commander with Commander 2011 and gave decks a way to have repeatable targeted graveyard hate, which is still welcome to this day. In a similar vein, running copies of Deathrite Shaman can do similar while also raising your life total, draining your opponents', and possibly even ramping you.

Oh, yeah, and if you're going to ramp up with Deathrite Shaman or just fill your graveyard with some lands in general, getting some fetch lands is also a rock solid option. Normally I'm extremely against recommending fetch lands because of how expensive they have historically been. I still have strong memories of $90 Scalding Tarns, but those days are long gone. Thanks to some pretty big reprints in both Modern Horizons 2 and Modern Horizons 3, the fetch lands - like Bloodstained Mire and Wooded Foothills - are actually quite accessible, so it won't set you back to toss a handful in here the same way you would a set of shock lands. The deeper you go here, the more I'd also consider looking into a copy of Terravore for your deck as well as it's on theme and can get huge fast!

So maybe it's time to not look to the past so much. What about the present? Jund isn't quite the powerhouse it once was, but it still maintains a firm presence in the Modern format. Some pretty easy current day inclusions would be the likes of Wrenn and Six, Orcish Bowmasters, and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. Yes, they're expensive, but when you're working with a premium product that's riffing off of one of the most famously pricey decks in Modern, it doesn't hurt to get some amount of these in your list. Each one is extremely powerful and can be utilized heavily even if you're only playing one of them as opposed to all three.

There's even some great newer cards in the Jund colors that can fit solidly into a deck like this. Consider Wight of the Reliquary as an extremely powerful card to help you fill up your graveyard with a creature or two and then grab a fetch land to further fuel your Goyfs. I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki here, as it's one of the best things you can be doing in many midrange decks these days in both Pioneer and Modern. Similarly, while targeted discard like Thoughtseize and the like isn't great, getting Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger out is an excellent way to tear apart hands and dish out big damage. Since you have so many ways to fill your graveyard anyways, escaping it isn't even that difficult!

So, now that we've got the core competitive style Jund cards out of the way, what about good Jund cards for Commander in general? One thing that immediately caught my attention was just how little ramp there actually was, or how it strayed quite far from the staple fare. For example, it surprised me tremendously when I realized there wasn't a single copy of Cultivate or Kodama's Reach to be found here. There's only a lone Rampant Growth, some mana rocks, and a bunch of creatures you can sacrifice to get lands out of your deck like Sakura-Tribe Elder and Burnished Hart.

That isn't to say those cards are bad, far from it in fact. Heck, Burnished Hart is actually quite awesome in that while it's in your graveyard it counts as both an artifact and a creature for your Tarmogoyfs. However, many of these can be expensive for the early game or else can be blown up in the case of the mana rocks. You're in ramp heavy colors! Play the sweet ramp spells that will further your strategy in multiple ways! Also, while on the topic, including a Birds of Paradise is so easy that you should just shove it in there.

Also, there's the matter of removal. So your targeted removal like Fatal Push and Lightning Bolt aren't as good in Commander (even if I've written at length on Bolt in the format). What do you do then? You look to more Commander-centric options, of course! There's powerful cards like Beast Within, Bitter Triumph, and Putrefy all readily at your disposal. If you want board wipes, there's plenty of those too! Consider cards like Blasphemous Act, Damnation, or even the recently reprinted Toxic Deluge!

There's also a solid number of just generically good options that you can play as well. For example, if you're putting out lots of creatures and are trying for quick hits to trigger Disa, perhaps you should be playing Rhythm of the Wild or the more classic Fires of Yavimaya. Fauna Shaman also helps as a solid way to sift through your deck and find the creatures best suited to your current game plan while simultaneously fueling your graveyard for your Goyfs. As for the creatures you toss into the graveyard with said Fauna Shaman, try the myriad of reanimation spells to bring them back. This is extra potent with something like an Archon of Cruelty or a Grave Titan.

Regardless of how you go about upgrading the deck, though, there are no shortage of powerful ways you can do so. Whether you want to take a more nostalgic approach or go for a more, er, modern selection of cards, you're sure to have a great time at your next Commander night! Just make sure you pick off plenty of yummy cards to fill those graveyards and grow your Tarmogoyfs! They're as hungry as they've ever been, even all these years later.

Paige Smith

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