I'm excited for Modern to finally become a real format. I love eternal formats, and I actually rather enjoyed the most recent Extended format before they neutered it into awfulness. Modern seems to be wide open and awesome, so what do I do to start testing? Obviously, I get lazy and decide quickly on gaming with Jund.
Early articles and tweets, especially from @Gavinverhey, who ran a series of Overextended events and is a leading authority in Modern as a result, tend towards Doran, Junk, and Bant decks as the leaders of the midrange pack. Jund, they argue, is just a pile of cards with no synergy and in this format the sum of the parts isn't good enough.
Actually, I agree. Viewed in the context of its Standard and limited Extended existence, Jund is underpowered. Sprouting Thrinax simply wont get the job done in Modern, nor will Bituminous Blast. Loading up on three drops and removal only gets you so far, so in some respects I agree Jund is fairly mediocre. However, the deck has a very powerful core and plenty of slots to adapt to the demands of Modern. After all, a deck that starts with
4 Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3-4 Blightning
Cant be all that bad, right? That's an awful lot of value, and also an awful lot of room left to customize. Of course other things like some number of Maelstrom Pulses and Lightning Bolts are likely to make just about every list, but beyond that there's plenty of space for things better than Thrinax.
One option is to include the greatly hyped Punishing Fire / Grove of the Burnwillows combo, likely with Kavu Predator. Jund could also incorporate the Melira/persist combo without too much problem, while having a solid beatdown/card advantage backup plan.
At this juncture I'm not sure which direction will be best for Jund, and I'll be testing several configurations in the coming weeks to figure out just that. Don't discount Jund just yet. With the ability to play many of the defining midrange combos in Modern and having the excellent backup plan of just cascading into Blightning, Jund may still have what it takes to compete in the newest format.
Band of the day: American Armada. Fast, loud, and fun straight forward punk rock. Great energy and super fun to listen to whenever you need a boost.
Early articles and tweets, especially from @Gavinverhey, who ran a series of Overextended events and is a leading authority in Modern as a result, tend towards Doran, Junk, and Bant decks as the leaders of the midrange pack. Jund, they argue, is just a pile of cards with no synergy and in this format the sum of the parts isn't good enough.
Actually, I agree. Viewed in the context of its Standard and limited Extended existence, Jund is underpowered. Sprouting Thrinax simply wont get the job done in Modern, nor will Bituminous Blast. Loading up on three drops and removal only gets you so far, so in some respects I agree Jund is fairly mediocre. However, the deck has a very powerful core and plenty of slots to adapt to the demands of Modern. After all, a deck that starts with
4 Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3-4 Blightning
Cant be all that bad, right? That's an awful lot of value, and also an awful lot of room left to customize. Of course other things like some number of Maelstrom Pulses and Lightning Bolts are likely to make just about every list, but beyond that there's plenty of space for things better than Thrinax.
One option is to include the greatly hyped Punishing Fire / Grove of the Burnwillows combo, likely with Kavu Predator. Jund could also incorporate the Melira/persist combo without too much problem, while having a solid beatdown/card advantage backup plan.
At this juncture I'm not sure which direction will be best for Jund, and I'll be testing several configurations in the coming weeks to figure out just that. Don't discount Jund just yet. With the ability to play many of the defining midrange combos in Modern and having the excellent backup plan of just cascading into Blightning, Jund may still have what it takes to compete in the newest format.
Band of the day: American Armada. Fast, loud, and fun straight forward punk rock. Great energy and super fun to listen to whenever you need a boost.
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