"The real Jund deck was the friends we made along the way." ~ Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund
Are you bored to tears with the current standard Jund decks? Are you looking for a very unique take on Jund? I present to you Jund Journey, a Jund midrange deck centered around enchantments (specifically sagas), and recurring them for more value and triggers. It's a work in progress, so feel free to suggest cards or tweaks.
I have playtested this deck against some peers in the meta, such as Gruul modified. It works decently well, so this deck has potential to shake up your local meta a bit if that's your concern.
Gameplay Synopsis
So the main goal of this deck is to play sort of defensively in the early half while building up some life and land/card advantage. Your ideal start should see 3 lands, a saga (preferably Azusa's Many Journeys
) Generous Visitor, and some other cards. A good set of auxiliary cards are Bloodline Culling + Shigeki, Jukai Visionary
if your opponent is aggressive, or Atsushi, the Blazing Sky + Gala Greeters
if you've got some wiggle room. Going for the most likely first option, play the Visitor turn one and then Shigeki turn two. This will give you a 2/2 and a 1/3 for early defense or potential offense if your opponent's board is inferior. On turn three, things will get a bit muddy. If you see some bs engine starting to grow such as Quirion Beastcaller, you should absolutely remove it now. You'll be able to dominate later plays with this deck using flying creatures and sheer land advantage + recursion, so removing an early value engine that can threaten that is crucial. If there's no present threat and you don't suspect any coming next turn, go ahead and play your saga. This will give you an extra +1/+1 counter to throw out, plus start your setup. If you got Azusa, that's awesome. With it, you'll e able to toss out an extra land and get some life. If you got the other saga, The Dragon-Kami Reborn
, you'll go ahead and ensure that your board presence has some insurance. The best cards to grab with it are Atsushi and Gloomshrieker, though any creature will do if those aren't available. Either way, you're gonna gain life and build.
Surviving Late Game
Now that you've built a formidable board with decent flexibility, it's time to close the game out. The easiest and most straightforward way to do this is by punching them in the face with Atsushi. Flying and trample is a deadly combination, and her ability to give you either card advantage or insane mana upon death is quite a good deterrent. Though, there will be times where it's not quite that simple. Here's how you do it: Spring-Leaf Avenger. This card is nuts. A 6/5 with a Ninjutsu cost of only 3G is insane, especially considering that on hit, it'll bring you any permanent from the grave back to your hand. Need Atsushi back? Avenger. Need more life from your sagas? Avenger. Want Shigeki back so you can get removal back? Avenger. There's so much this card does, and even a raw cast and swing is threatening enough to get through a lot of boards. But, the ninjutsu method is the best way of using it's recursion. Gloomshrieker's menace and Atsushi's flying should be good enough to sneak it in, or if you're really cheeky, you can swing with the egg made by the dragon kami saga to threaten them with a freecast if they block it. If they don't, ninjutsu and get your saga back, plus whatever you rip out of the grave. Since the saga states you can cast anything with hatchling counters on it, you won't lose the previous cards too.
Shigeki Soap Box
Shigeki is one of the best blockers in standard right now, because of his ability. He can just block, and then peace out while grabbing a land with his ability. Truly nuts. He will ramp you tons of mana and put some targets for Gloomshrieker and Avenger in your grave, so he gets an MVP award. Plus, he's an enchantment, so he provides that much more value.
