When cards first started being spoiled for Return to Ravnica, I kept talking to my friends about how good I thought Jund was. It was a big deal at the Pro Tour for Block Constructed and it only seemed to get better with cards like Abrupt Decay, Thragtusk, and of course the Shock Lands. I didn’t sit down and brew different decks over and over to try different things, I just kept brewing the same deck in my head and kept wondering how to make it better. Here was my thought process and my decklist that I decided on.
The very first Alpha list, which I referred to as the “Secret Sauce”, was all over the place. In my head it had everything I wanted and I was excited. I was actually playing 5 Color Jund splashing white for Restoration Angels main, blue for Snapcasters main, and Ray of Revelation in the side. My mana base was actually quite good since I was able to use Farseek‘s to my advantage and tutor up any land to meet my heavy color requirements. I wanted Snapcaster Mage to replay Dreadbore, Searing Spear, and Pillar of Flame. I also was looking to the Standard warping Restoration Angel for her almost infinite card advantage with Thragtusk, Huntmaster of the Fells, and Snapcaster Mage. After playing about two dozen games against various decks, I re-evaluated my Secret Sauce as it was hard to digest. I first cut out blue and tested some more. Still wasn’t right. My fellow Joes I was testing with at the time (Shawn Ellis & Bryan Elliot) convinced me that I should just stick to playing True Jund so I caved and stripped the white as well. After I cut the fat from the deck it seemed as I had what I initially wanted: A Lean Mean Jund Machine.
This now Beta list was getting closer to the final product but since I cut some cards that I considered real players in the Alpha list, they needed to be replaced. I needed to find a Restoration Angel replacement. Besides having a flashy creature that did cool things, I really loved her because she was a flier. I was, at the time, packing just one Kessig Wolf Run in my deck and with those two in the same room, I was able to close out games in a hurry. I knew Pillar of Flames was going to be a big player since Todd Anderson showed off how good a set of those are in a deck. My initial thoughts were to try and be aggressive with Jund and possibly use Strangleroot Geist or Dreg Mangler. I didnt like Strangleroot as then I would have my 2 drop slot clogged with Ramp or being aggressive and it can just be removed by Pillar. I liked Dreg Mangler more but I didnt feel like it was enough board presence against other aggro decks. I looked through some decklists and stumbled upon Vampire Nighthawk. HE WAS PERFECT! It allowed me to have a creature in the three drop spot and make a sudden impact on the board. After testing with it against a number of decks, it did pretty much everything. I could trade with an Angel of Serenity, block 2 power aggressive decks all day while gaining life, fly over and kill Planeswalkers, or just Kessig someone for 8 and almost never lose, all while not dying to Pillar of Flame. I instantly shoved 4 in my deck.
Since I was playing Green, I wanted a powerful Planeswalker on my side to help me fight. I thought of little Garruk first (Garruk Relentless) since he could fight a small creature or, once flipped, could tutor me up any creature and put deathtouch tokens into play. On the flip side, I didnt like that he wasnt what I was trying to do. I tested with the big Garruk, Primal Hunter and the 3/3 Beast tokens he pumps out was what my deck needed. I tested with 1, then 2, and finally settled on 3 copies. The tokens beat out Pillar of Flame which I knew was going to be a major player for States and they beat or traded with almost every other midrange creature. My favorite play to make with him was to cast him on turn 5, make a guy, next turn play Thragtusk and draw 5. Go.
Now that my deck seems to be taking shape, I moved to my focus to spells. From the start I knew I was going to have 4 Dreadbore in the deck. That card is awesome. With all the Jace’s and the Angel’s floating around, it was a great weapon to have by my side. I tested with and didn’t like Mizzium Mortars. To me it did the same thing as a narrow Dreadbore. Yes sometimes you can Overload and potentially blow out an opponent, but I just liked Bonfire of the Damned instead. It has the ability to blow out an opponents army AND a Planeswalker! Another card I knew I wanted to beat was Entreat the Angels so I put in a single Sever the Bloodline and after about a dozen matches, I added a second. All the games came down to me either miracling a Bonfire or Severing the Angels if they cast them. Everything else was a breeze. Sever was also an All Star in the Zombie matches. The last slot in my deck I needed something to do with my mana since there were a lot of games where I had a lot of mana but nothing to do if I didn’t draw a Kessig Wolf Run. My choices were Rakdos’s Return, Devil’s Play, or one more Bonfire of the Damned. I settled on Devil’s Play because of the flash back, it gave me a lot more reach and I can kill a pesky little creature early.
This is the list I registered with my sideboard choices:
Adam Arndt - States 2012 - True Jund
Slaughter Games was mainly for things like Entreat the Angels and decks that had 3 or 4 Angel of Serenity. Grafdigger’s Cage was for Zombies and Grites. Vraska the Unseen was a house against Control and the Grites deck. Mutilate and Golgari Charm were for Zombies. Abrupt Decay was for Control or small creature decks where I could take out some or all of my Dreadbores for them. Wolfir Silverheart was for the mirror or other midrange decks that had similar creatures with similar P/T.
I ended up going 5-3-1 and I was pretty disappointed 2 of my losses were to B/G Zombies and the other was against a G/W Trostani Big Dude Gain Life deck (which I had 5 turns to draw almost any card besides a land and I bricked 5 turns in a row). My draw was against a Grixis deck that I felt I should have beat if we didnt go to time. Grafdigger’s Cage should have been Deathrite Shaman instead and the last 2 Zombie decks I played against I didn’t even board the Cage. It was the worst card in my entire list by far.
Other than that I was very happy with my list and would probably play the same list again except for the change above. Any questions/comments post below.
Adam Arndt
AdamRA4 – MTGO
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