Showdown #5: Jund Will Be Jund
Showdown
Spootyone
17 October 2013
1883 views
17 October 2013
1883 views
Showdown #5: Jund Will Be Jund.
Hello all and welcome back to another edition of my showdown series where I pit my current selesnya build against various other standard decks to help judge the standard environment. This installment will feature a deck by Schuesseled:
deck-large: revel-in-the-power-of-a-jund-blitzkrieg
As the name states, this is a Jund aggro/ramp deck focusing on hasty creatures, removal, and everyone's favorite: Hydras. Let's see if I can stabilize enough to fend off this blitzkrieg!
Disclaimer: Both decks are piloted by me, Spootyone. I don't claim to be a perfect player so if I make a mistake, misplay, or incorrect judgment call forgive me. This is as much a learning process for me as it is for the viewer.
Game 1:
Schuesseled (O) wins the flip and is on the play. He is forced to mulligan a one-land hand. The kept hand contains 2x Stomping Ground, Elvish Mystic, Dreg Mangler, forest and swamp. The hand is a little land-heavy but we at least have a good first two plays here.
Spooty (S) keeps a hand of 2x Temple Garden, Selesnya Guildgate, forest, Unflinching Courage, Voice of Resurgence and Trostani, Selesnya's Voice. This hand isn't very bad at all. I hope I draw into more creatures, though.
O1: forest, elvish mystic. pass.
S1: draws plains. guildgate tapped. pass.
O2: draws elvish mystic. weird. swamp, taps land and mystic to play dreg mangler, attacks for 3 (s 17/20 o). pass.
S2: draws Fiendslayer Paladin. nice. plains, voice of resurgence, pass.
O3: draws Savageborn Hydra. I can only assume I should be getting this guy out now to make sure I continue getting board presence. Swings with mangler, voice blocks, elemental token enters battlefield. plays stomping ground untapped (s 17/18 o). taps all land to make a 1/1 hydra. taps elvish mystic to play second elvish mystic. pass.
S3: draws Unflinching Courage. seems good to me. forest, plays Fiendslayer Paladin. pass.
O4: draws Overgrown Tomb. The opponent could have Selesnya Charm so I want to play around that, but the paladin is bad news for this deck. Plays stomping ground untapped. taps all elves and all lands to add three 1/1 counters to the hydra. swings with hydra and mangler. hydra is blocked by elemental token (s 14/16 o) pass.
S4: draws plains. I would say putting all efforts into this paladin is the only way to overcome this, but we need bigger walls to put up now. plains, plays trostani, selesnya's voice. passes.
O5: draws stomping ground. Lot's O' land. Opponent is tapped out so no selesnya charm right now. I know it's risky, but we can't give the opponent time to stabilize. I say we go for it, honestly. taps everything to add three counters to the hydra. swings with mangler and hydra. trostani blocks the hydra. Tomb tapped. pass. (s 11/16 o)
S5: draws forest. Yeah, I don't think we can do anything here. No selesnya charm means no getting rid of that hydra, and no getting rid of that hydra means losing, no matter what. Plays forest. places unflinching courage on the paladin. passes.
O6: draws overgrown tomb. Seriously, that's a lot of land. Well there's likely no charm coming. We should just alpha here. Swings with everything. Paladin blocks the Hydra and dies. pass. (s 10/16 o)
S6: draws Advent of the Wurm Not a charm. concedes.
Schuesseled wins game 1!!
Sideboard tech with Spooty: That was brutal. We need to bring in our fourth copy of Selesnya Charm for sure. Our Druid's Deliverance can come in handy too, as well as Pithing Needle if I wanted to turn off the ability of the hydra. Our Mistcutter Hydra are fairly useless. Trostani also isn't very good against this matchup.
Changes: -3x Mistcutter Hydra, -3x Trostani, Selesnya's Voice, +2x Druid's Deliverance, +2x Pithing Needle, +1x Selesnya Charm, +1x Unflinching Courage
Sideboard tech with Schuesseled: Things went very smoothly. But I'll admit that the opponent not having a charm was what sealed the deal. To avoid that one problem, I actually think Kalonian Hydra should be removed and replaced by Slaughter Games, the latter of which could potentially rid ourselves of Fiendslayer Paladin, should he show up again. We can always fix later if we need to.
Game 2:
Spooty is on the play and keeps a hand of 2x plains, Selesnya Guildgate, Voice of Resurgence, Advent of the Wurm, Unflinching Courage, and Selesnya Charm. Seems good. I like having the charm available.
Schuesseled mulls a hand with no green mana and all green spells. The kept hand contains 2x Stomping Ground, Overgrown Tomb, 2x Dreg Mangler and Zhur-Taa Druid. Not bad.
S1: guildgate tapped. pass.
O1: draws Savageborn Hydra. Looks familiar. Stomping ground tapped. pass.
S2: draws plains. plays plains. plays voice of resurgence. pass.
O2: draws forest. plays overgrown tomb (to make sure we can play manglers next turn). plays the druid and passes. (s 20/18 o)
S3: draws Unflinching Courage. Alright so here's the deal. I want to play something this turn. Courage on a voice is just begging to be a 2-for-1, I know. But seeing as it's our only way of presenting a threat, I have to do it. Maybe it'll pave the way for another bigger threat in the future. plays plains, gives the voice courage and swings for four. No blocks. pass. (s 24/14 o)
O3: draws Burning-Tree Emissary. TREEES. Taps ground and druid to play BTE (s 23/14 o) and then uses floating mana and the tomb to play the mangler. Attacks with mangler. Plays stomping ground tapped. pass. (s 20/14 o)
S4: draws forest. Hallelujah! The opponent clearly has no removal in hand and we just drew into the second green sources we needed. Swings with voice. No blocks. plays forest. passes. (s 24/ 10 o)
O4: draws Savageborn Hydra. that's awkward. The opponent most likely has advent mana up, so attacking into that is a bad idea. plays forest, taps all and the druid to make a 3/3 hydra. passes.
(s 23/10 o). EoT Spooty plays advent and makes a 5/5 token.
S5: draws Archangel of Thune. Nice. The opposing Hydra is scary, but I have a charm to kill it if it gets too big. that being said, I need to end this soon while I still have the chance. Seeing as he has no removal ready, I'm going to make do with what I have on the field, and then play the angel to finish things out (hopefully). Places courage on the wurm and swings with it and the voice. O double-blocks the voice with the mangler and BTE. In reponse, S casts Selesnya Charm on the voice and destroys both of the blocking creatures. pass. (s 2/36 o)
O5: draws Scavenging Ooze. There is no way to overcome the next attack and there is no way to deal 36 damage. Concedes.
Spooty wins game 2!!
Sideboard tech with Spooty: All seems good. Let's hope for the best!
Sideboard tech with Schuesseled: Okay, I may have been wrong to not bring in the additional removal. Slaughter Games is back out along with a Ghor-Clan Rampager to bring in 3x Dreadbore.
Game 3:
Schuesseled is on the play and keeps a hand of Stomping Ground, mountain, Putrefy, Savageborn Hydra, Zhur-Taa Druid, Scavenging Ooze and Domri Rade. No black mana, but things to keep the beatings on early game. Domri can possibly get us enough draw to get more lands in any case.
Spooty keeps a hand of plains, forest, 2x Fleecemane Lion, Fiendslayer Paladin, Voice of Resurgence and Druid's Deliverance. Early game threats, but we need lands.
O1: stomping ground tapped. pass.
S1: draws plains. beautiful. plays plains. pass.
O2: draws Dreg Mangler. plays mountain. plays zhur-taa druid. pass.
S2: draws Fiendslayer Paladin. plays forest. plays voice of resurgence. passes.
O3: draws Savageborn Hydra. No dice on that swamp we wanted...or any land for that matter. We can play domri though. taps lands and zhur-taa to play domri (s 19/20 o). Domri +1s and reveals another druid, which goes to the hand. pass.
S3: draws Fiendslayer Paladin. wow. I swear I'm not making this one up, honest. Plays plains. Voice attacks and deals the damage to domri who goes to 2 loyalty. casts paladin #1. pass.
O4: draws Dreadbore. Fairly useless right now. We need land and fast, otherwise this will get messy. We can either play a druid here or a 1/1 hydra. I think the former is more useful. We do that, plus the Domri and see an Overgrown Tomb on the top (yes!) and then pass.
S4: draws Archangel of Thune. swings with both creatures at domri. I think it's better to just let him die here. (s 21/20 o). plays Paladin #2. pass. EoT druid is tapped to deal damage. (s 20/20 o)
O5: draws Overgrown Tomb. Out removal in hand doesn't do much for the board, so it's probably best to rely on big hydras again. plays overgrown tomb (s 20/18) and taps everything to make a 3/3 hydra. pass. (s 18/18 o)
S5: draws selesnya guildgate. plays guildgate tapped. I honestly think moar paladins here. taps out for paladin #3. Unfortunatley, attacks are not a good idea. pass.
O6: draws Dreg Mangler. since we can't go around the paladins, we must go through them. Taps both druids to make the hydra a 4/4 (s 16/18 o). swing with hydra. voice blocks the hydra (s 16/18 o). elemental token enters the field. Dreadbore is cast on the token. pass.
S6: draws Unflinching Courage. Phenominal! plays unflinching courage on a paladin and swings with everything. no blocks (s 24/10 o). pass.
O7: draws Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch. Alright so things are...bad. We need to put up defenses against all the paladins. Taps everything to make a 3/3 hydra and passes (s 22/10 o)
S7: draws Sylvan Caryatid. That works I suppose. I want to play the archangel, but I fear removal. taps to play the caryatid and a Fleecemane Lion. pass.
O8: draws Putrefy. more removal is alright. The opposing lion poses a serious threat of becoming a blocker we cannot get through, so it's best to take care of it now, I feel. casts putrefy on the lion. Taps both druids to play Scavenging Ooze. pass. (s 20/10 o)
S8: draws plains. plays plains. we can afford to play another lion to draw out removal. plays another lion. pass.
O9: draws Burning-Tree Emissary. meh. Well, we have to kill the lion again. we can't risk it. casts putrefy on the lion. pass.
S9: draws forest. also meh. plays forest. Okay we have to play the archangel now and just hope the opponent doesn't kill her. casts Archangel of Thune pass. EoT Opponent taps both druids to exile both lions to the ooze. (s 18/12 o)
O10: draws mountain. plays mountain. That angel is a SERIOUS problem as we are out of removal for the moment and we have no way to block it. Nothing in our hand really helps the board at all but we will play blockers for the ground just in case. Plays BTE and Exava leased, and passes.
S10: draws Sylvan Caryatid. Nothing to do but to keep attacking with the angel. Swings with angel, no blocks. (s 21/9 o) Everyone gets a counter. plays sylvan caryatid and passes. EoT Schuesseled taps both druids and exiles the voice to the ooze (s 19/10 o)
O11: draws Dreg Mangler. Not removal. The problem now is that with all the first strike and likelink along with the angel, one alpha makes everything go out of control with counters, and we have no good way to stop that from happening. plays dreg mangler. taps the druids to add a 4th counter to the second hydra. passes. (s 18/10 o)
S11: draws Advent of the Wurm. With a Druid's Deliverance in hand, I think we've got this. Swings with all three paladins and the angel. Mangler and BTE block the biggest paladin, and both hydras eat up the other two paladins. That's all first-strike damage so everything then gets 3 1/1 counters. Afqwqwqwterwards, the angel hits for 7. (s 37/3 o) everyone gets another counter. pass.
O12: draws Domri Rade. We're dead on board. Concedes.
Spooty wins the match!!
Afterthoughts
That was a crazy match. If I'm being honest, I think I got lucky in the last game drawing into all three paladins. Those were really my only means of survival since everything else I had was open to removal. They allowed me to stabilize the board and claim victory with my angel, but only after cycling through all the opponent's removal. Playing as the Jund deck, perhaps it would've been better to not use the removal on the lions, but I feel justified as a 4/4 indestructible hexproof creature is nothing to sneeze at when your own creatures don't have trample.
I think that is more testing was done, the Jund deck would likely win out more often than myself. This is a matchup that my deck has a hard time with, but mostly because of the Savageborn Hydra. As far as I know, most Jund decks in the current competitive meta don't run this card. I would assume that is because it's so easily removed by many other decks. That being said, it's possible it should see some more play as it wrecks face when it sticks.
I encourage people to do their own playtests against this deck to see how it reacts to other archetypes, especially the mirror. Many thanks to Schuesseled for the submission! Please feel free to check out his and my own decks for feedback and upvotes if you feel they deserve it. And if you'd like to be in the next Showdown, leave a comment below! Thanks for reading :)
deck-large:archangel-of-thune-tempo-breaker
deck-large:revel-in-the-power-of-a-jund-blitzkrieg
Previous showdowns not listed as articles: showdown #1, Showdown #2, Showdown #3, Showdown #4
Will you please play against my Slivers??????
deck-large:slivers-slivers-slivers-19-09-13-1
October 17, 2013 5:23 p.m.
I'd like to see an EDH variant. I have an amazing (in my opinion) Jund EDH.... (nope not gonna link it.. but its on my wall!)
October 17, 2013 5:27 p.m.
Who doesn't love a control matchup?
Death By EXILE!
October 17, 2013 5:55 p.m.
Steam Izz it
October 17, 2013 5:57 p.m.
Schuesseled says... #7
Well i have a few criticisms with the way you played my deck, for starters you sided out Kalonian Hydra which is a huge mistake, he puts out a lot of hurt, and more removal would have been a better choice for the sideboard, as you note later. (I would have probably removed a few Zhur-Taa Druid s to make room, or heck just add the 3 cards in for a total of 63 cards. )
Additionally, seeing as how monstrosity uses the stack, there's no reason to Putrefy the lions during my own turn, i can afford to wait, and jump in with instant speed.
Anyways, cool playtests, i look forward to letting you know how i get on against your deck in a playtest of my own. When i have some free time.
Thanks spooty.
October 17, 2013 6:10 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #8
I've had this issue with some people playtesting my stuff before Schuesseled. It's frustrating.
October 17, 2013 6:17 p.m.
I failed to mention my reasoning for removing the hydras, my apologies. My feeling was that Selesnya Charm was going to be the ONLY real threat your deck faced. That being said, a single attack from the Kalonian Hydra would've put it as well as exava and savageborn in the way of that removal. That being said, it was probably not so good of a call in the end so I do apologize if it skewed the results.
The Putrefy thing, yes, that was definitely a misplay. It was pretty late by that point so I wasn't thinking correctly. Granted, I would have attempted to monstrous and then putrefied in response, which would've still paved the way for Archangel of Thune , so in that particular case, I think the results would've been the same.
You're very welcome :) Again, I do have that disclaimer there to make sure people understand I'm learning as I go and don't pretend I'm some Magic master. Thanks for pointing out changes you would've made so I can work on that in my future playtests.
October 17, 2013 6:36 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #10
Spootyone the issue with the Fleecemane Lion monstrous thing is this. If he had waited till you attempted to monstrous it you would have already had to pay the 5 mana towards it. This would have effectively Time Walk ed you especially if he did it mid combat. This would have put your Archangel of Thune a turn later. Conversely if you had decided to forgo the monstrous and play the Archangel of Thune she would have eaten the Putrefy instead leaving you with an un-monstrous Fleecemane Lion and no Archangel of Thune . I believe that that made the difference.
Then again tunnel vision is a thing so I guess I can understand a single minded "KILL IT WITH FIRE" in a tight game.
Kalonian Hydra should never be taken out in fear of Selesnya Charm . He enters as a 4/4 and by the time that they can Selesnya Charm it away it has already doubled everything else's counters forcing an opponent to dig for more answers. If he came out as a 5/5 I might have understood the fear there but at a 4/4 it's not a valid target until it's damage has been done, so to speak.
I have my own Jund deck like Schuesseled that is similar in a lot of respects so I can say with certainty that you have to play into removal, play more threats than an opponent can handle, don't take threats out because that just makes their removal all the more powerful ESPECIALLY in the midrange match.
October 17, 2013 6:53 p.m.
Schuesseled says... #11
Yeah, what he said.
But I understand, you're tired, you have removal, they have a threat, KILL KILL KILL. Made that mistake myself.
When reading your playtest, i was sitting there, getting all worked up that you were using Savageborn Hydra wrong, using his ability before blockers are declared, then i re-read the card, doy.
Easy to make mistakes, if i'd done that in a match, i would have paid for it.:D
October 17, 2013 7:09 p.m.
Yeah, I totally see where I went wrong there. If I could go back and redo that match I would -- at least to see how it played out. As I mentioned, I think in most circumstances this deck would overcome my own fairly easily. I attribute my match win to mostly the misplays and luck. I also have yet to delve deep into playing the various archetypes, so that explains why my knowledge can be a little faltering from time to time. A lot of what you've said, Ohthenoises, makes a ton of sense to me. In the future I wouldn't make the same mistake.
Lol, yeah, I almost did the same thing myself but luckily caught it. I hope the mistakes didn't prevent you from enjoying the write-up despite the outcome.
October 17, 2013 7:27 p.m.
Schuesseled says... #13
Nope, I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks for including my deck and I in your article.
Anyone else who wishes to challenge my deck, please follow the link above or below, and let me know how you get on.
October 17, 2013 7:30 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #14
Glad I could be of help with the reasoning. You always, ALWAYS, want to try to save your instant speed removal until it will be the most effective. The BEST feeling in the world is when you can get someone to dump mana into something and then kill it.
October 17, 2013 8:06 p.m.
Oh and to those who wish to be in the next installment, I will be doing these roughly once a week (unless there is enough demand otherwise). Don't get discouraged if you're not chosen! Just comment again on the next week and eventually you'll be chosen :)
October 17, 2013 8:11 p.m.
chandlerwrx06 says... #17
@Spootyone and @Schuesseled loved the match up!
As for my tribute?
October 18, 2013 4:36 a.m.
Schuesseled says... #18
I made a couple of changes to my deck, I wonder what people think of them.
Revel In The Power Of A Jund Blitzkrieg
I've found Savageborn Hydra , Zhur-Taa Druid , and Xenagos, The Reveler all are a little fiddly, and don't work as expected all the time.
Ohthenoises says... #1
Might I suggest a match against Junk with When in Doubt, Whip it Out.?
October 17, 2013 5:16 p.m.